The Rush to Join a Dysfunctional, Corrupt World Organization

"We will phone member states to ensure they got out to vote, a lot like a usual election. We'll want to make sure that the voters that we've identified as supporting Canada go out and express their vote."

"Haiti had a peacekeeping mission from 2004 to 2020 and it was focused on security and on human rights, but very little focus on development."

"In Sub-Saharan Africa, you have 70 percent of the population that is below 30 years old. Half of that population is without an occupation even before the pandemic. This is a big security issue."

"If that multilateral world doesn't exist, then you're in a situation where only the strongest will prevail. And we know where it leads, because we're only a middle power."

"When you're around that table, you are more influential, if you're more influential, you've more relevant and if you're more relevant, that will represent opportunities for Canada."

Marc-Andre Blanchard, Canada's permanent representative at the United Nations

The United Nations Security Council meets to discuss the situation in Venezuela in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., in January 2019. Canada is vying with Ireland and Norway for two open seats at the council, which will be allocated in a vote on June 17. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Next Wednesday UN ambassadors will begin voting at the General Assembly in groups, to avoid crowding, in respect of the need for social distancing in the time of COVID-19. They will be voting to bring into the two-year temporary revolving Security Council one candidate from the competing countries in this vote; Ireland, Norway or Canada to sit on the 15-member council that complements the permanent Security Council, comprised of the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain and China.

"We know that engaging around the world is important both for Canadians' health and well-being, but also for the good of our economy."

"Even as some of our allies, including the United States, seem to withdraw from the world, Canada is engaging."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Them [sic] looking at the UN Security Council seat without looking at Canada's foreign policy, and understanding where we are in the world, and what our relationship with our allies and our adversaries alike should be, means that they didn't know what they were going after."

"Justin Trudeau has made some really damaging actions to our relationship and eroded our reputation on the world stage. We don't know what they're willing to trade away to get the seat."

Leona Alleslev, Opposition Conservative Member of Parliament

This would be Justin Trudeau's crowning achievement, his legacy project, his on begging, borrowing or buying votes to bring Canada to a seat on the UN Security Council. This is not a project supported by most Canadians, to whom the very project itself is simply a yawn, acknowledging yet another vanity project by a politician who revels in attention-getting and absurd declarations such as Canada, under his guardianship has 'returned'. What it has returned to is the usual Liberal brand of hoodwinking the electorate, with a special Trudeau touch of cynical sanctimony.

But this project to attain a two-year seat is dear to this man's idea of elevating himself in the esteem of the movers and shakers in the world body, to attain a level of influence and the aura of power that Justin Trudeau feels should be accorded him. He has himself personally taken the time and trouble to speak with as many world leaders in the past weeks as he could possibly tuck into a schedule that includes having his government tackle critical issues such as the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on Canada, both in medical terms and economic.

There are ongoing protests headed by Black Lives Matter resulting from the murder of George Floyd in the United States, and the allied issues of the desecration of national monuments, history's heroes now revealed by Indigenous and Black groups to be racists. The icons of Canadian history, according to the protest groups, preyed on native populations, were bigots and racists and their statuary must come down, public institutions such as schools, libraries, municipal buildings, street names, must be dismantled, their memories erased.

Canada's ongoing problems with the United States in trade issues, with Saudi Arabia, in arousing the Kingdom's ire over perceived interference in its human rights record, its problems with China whose human rights record is rarely raised, but when an issue such as a request through an American court of justice for the extradition under an agreement between Canada and the U.S. saw China's tech giant Huawei's CFO arrested on a U.S.warrant, spurring China to kidnap two Canadians doing business in China.

None of these issues, apparently, occupy too much time and energy for the prime minister, that he is unable to muster gaps of opportunistic time to engage in cajoling, jollying, and pleading and bribing sometimes unsavoury governments to cast a vote for Canada's bid in the U.S. Both Ireland and Norway, the other two candidates for the vacant seat, have somewhat greater sway in the corridors of the UN. Both give a higher percentage of their GDP to global equity support, and are more involved in UN peacekeeping.

The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, placed Trudeau's eagerness not to be too morally or ethically particular about where his votes come from in context, when Nikki Haley in outrage over an executive order from Justin Trudeau to Canada's UN representative to have it on record that Canada supported an anti-Israel motion at the United Nations last year, that he prepared himself to dance with the devil to achieve his end.

Israel, after all, swings one vote, whereas the Organization of Islamic Cooperation can be counted on for at the very least the votes of 53 countries, not to discount the influence the OIC has with the Non-Aligned group of countries within the UN which curries favour with the Arab League and the OIC. But no cost to Canada's moral dignity is too dear to pay for Junior Trudeau's vanity project to sit with the Big Boys of Global authority. For he believes that the world needs more Trudeau, which he deliberately conflates with Canada.

Ms. Alleslev points out the embarrassment on the world stage that Canada suffered with Trudeau's visits to India, or how petty and childish his behaviour was seen during the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks as he stalled negotiations and insisted on his version of worker equality, female entitlements and LGBTQ-2 and union issues be considered. According to Canada's Blanchard, Canada's focus is on economic security issues, to rectify the UN's focus on short-term security needs, ignoring long-term economic needs that play into violence and chaos.

Haiti, he points out, still sees ten percent of its population malnourished, with 40 percent dependent on humanitarian assistance. Canada, on the other hand, the sterling representation of a wealthy nation where equality of opportunity is paramount, guaranteeing everyone the chance to live a full and happy and healthy life, has hundreds of food banks to give aid and assistance to the homeless, to the unemployed, to welfare recipients and people living under the poverty line.

This is the first prime minister who has managed to suspend democracy in Canada. He has effectively dismissed the House of Commons. Parliament no longer sits for the purpose for which it was designed, allowing this government and this prime minister to simply proceed with initiatives they feel will benefit them, over the needs of Canadians. He has stilled his critics from the House of Commons by disallowing them the opportunity to question his government's decision-making while he ransacks the nation's economy.

This is tyranny, not democracy. And he would, in fact, fit right in with many of the other members of the Security Council, both temporary and permanent. 

Senegal's President Macky Sall, left, walks alongside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after arriving at the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020. Trudeau received Senegal's support for a seat on the UN Security Council. (Cheikh A.T/The Associated Press)