Ban’s visit signals Ottawa’s desire for UN ties
OTTAWA — United Nations Secretary General Ban Kimoon arrives for talks in Ottawa today as part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s efforts to reinvigorate Canada’s relationship with the world body.
Ban’s visit will also take him to Montreal, but his meetings with the prime minister will underline a key foreign policy priority for the new Liberal government, closer ties with the UN.
“He represents a very important institution,” said Trudeau spokesman Cameron Ahmad.
Trudeau wants Canada to play a larger role in the world’s multilateral institu- tions of which the UN is the largest and, at times, the most controversial.
The prime minister has criticized the Harper government for diminishing Canada’s role at the UN and he has stressed the need to work more closely with the world body.
Harper and his ministers engaged the UN on some files, including the maternal, newborn child health initiative, which the Liberals have pledged to carry on. But the Tories were not shy about criticizing the UN for being ineffective, especially when it came to the Syrian civil war.
Ban and Trudeau are expected to discuss climate change, the Syrian refugee crisis and the potential for Canada to contribute more to UN peacekeeping.
The prime minister wants to increase Canada’s contributions to peacekeeping mis- sions, which have fallen to a few dozen troops in recent years from a high of several thousand in the mid-1990s.
But that topic is now imbued with controversy because of a scandal that erupted last year over what has been described as rampant sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.
Despite Trudeau’s desire for Canadians to do more peacekeeping, a recent report by the Rideau Institute and the Centre for Policy Alternatives said the Canadian Forces no longer have the skills for such missions after spending the better part of the last decade focusing on counter-insurgency in Afghanistan.