Trudeau eyeing seat at UN Security Council
Liberals plan to rebuild ties to organization
Canada is looking to win a seat on the UN Security Council as part of a move to renew its relationship with the world body, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.
Trudeau shared a podium with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as he spoke of his plans to rebuild Canadian ties to the organization.
The two men held talks on a number of issues at the start of Ban’s short visit to Ottawa and Montreal.
“On the issue of the UN Security Council, I highlighted to the secretary general that part of Canada wishing to re-engage robustly with the United Nations and in multilateral engagement around the world includes looking towards a bid for the UN Security Council,” Trudeau said.
“We’re looking at a number of windows in the coming years. We are going to evaluate the opportunities for Canada to mount a successful bid.”
A return to the council would mark a comeback for Canada, after the country finished an embarrassing third in 2010 during first-round voting in the General Assembly to fill council vacancies.
The Conservative government was criticized at the time for failing to make a strong bid for the seat.
The 15-member council has five permanent members and 10 members elected by the assembly to two-year terms.
Ban says he welcomes Trudeau’s plan to rebuild a robust relationship with the UN, saying Canada has a long and distinguished partnership with the organization.
The two men’s talks covered issues ranging from climate change to the resettlement of Syrian refugees and Canada’s return to major peacekeeping operations.
Trudeau said he told Ban that Canada wants to be involved as a peacemaker.
Canadian involvement to UN peacekeeping dwindled sharply under the Conserva- tive government as the military was enmeshed in Afghanistan. That will change, Trudeau told Ban.
“I reiterated the commitment of our government to strengthen the UN’s ability to maintain international peace and security, including by increasing support for peace operations and contributing more to mediation, conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction efforts.”
The usually staid Ban appeared almost gleeful at times Thursday as he took Trudeau up on his offer to re-engage with the UN during a packed, daylong visit to Ottawa, including high-level meetings on Parliament Hill and a feelgood assembly at a boisterous local high school auditorium.
“I am here to declare that the United Nations enthusiastically welcomes this commitment,” Ban declared. He praised not only Trudeau’s climate-change advocacy, but his desire to return Canada to its peacekeeping roots — which, he said, Canada helped create under external affairs minister Lester Pearson in the 1950s.
Trudeau has stressed reorienting Canada towards world organizations — the UN in particular — as part of a new multilateral foreign policy that often tries to invoke the so-called Pearsonera golden age of diplomacy.
Neither he nor Ban mentioned that Pearson had another influence on the world: chairing an international commission in the late 1960s that eventually led to the establishment of today’s UN target for aid spending by rich countries: 0.7 per cent of gross national income.
“I know that the prime minister may have all different priorities but I’m sure that Prime Minister Trudeau and his government will pay more focus on this matter. I count on your leadership,” Ban said, noting that only five countries had reached the target.
WE’RE LOOKING AT A NUMBER OF WINDOWS.