In what has been described as a "broadside" and a "blistering attack," Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird criticized the United Nations in his speech to the General Assembly earlier this week.
After listing some of the UN's many accomplishments, Baird implied that the UN was an organization with good intentions that went nowhere, stating "You measure results by measuring the results. Not by weighing best efforts. Not by counting good intentions. Not by calculating inputs." He concluded that "the United Nations must spend less time looking at itself, and more time focused on the problems that demand its attention." He then briefly commented on Canada's commitment to prosperity through free markets before spending fully half his speech arguing for a greater focus on security and interventions in Syria and Iran specifically.
Whether these views are simply borrowed from conservative thinkers to the south, or whether they are motivated by animus at perceived snubs -- Canada's failure to win a Security Council seat in 2010 and the recent censure by the Committee Against Torture in respect of our obligations to Omar Khadr -- is known only to the Minister, but they were sufficiently offensive that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offered rare public censure of the Conservative government.
According to the Globe and Mail, Mulroney called the United Nations "'a vital instrument" of the Canadian commitment to multilateralism. "We don't have the strength to impose our will or get our way at all times.... We need the instruments of international harmony," he said.
After more than 60 years, what have been the results of the UN's good intentions? Consider these five:
It is not enough for the Minister to imply that the UN is a failure, and demand rhetorically that we judge by results. He owes it to Canadians and the UN to answer his own demand, to actually look at those results, and to replace his rhetorical implication with a reasoned judgment: Spreading peace and democracy. Reducing hunger, poverty, and disease. Providing the forum in which present and future problems can be resolved freely and diplomatically. These are not mere good intentions, but the real successes of the United Nations that all Canadians can support, and these are some of the benefits against which the expense of the UN must be weighed before making spurious attacks about its efficiency or bureaucracy.
Mulroney is right that "we need the instruments of international harmony," perhaps now more than ever in history. While the Minister's focus on security and armed intervention is lamentable as a matter of foreign policy, his comments about the effectiveness of the United Nations were simply wrong and seemed much better suited to a Wild Rose rally than the General Assembly.
If our government perceives that it is being snubbed by the United Nations, perhaps it should look at foreign and diplomatic policies instead of going to New York to pick up its proverbial marbles and return home.
I would say that depends on how it is. It's not that all news goes down badly at the UN, but certainly news that your federal agents were directly complicit in extracting and using evidence by torture does not go well at the UN's Committee Against Torture, which was set up under a Convention Canada signed and properly ratified in our democratic legislature including a duty to make periodice reports that we accepted voluntarily.
The UN is probably the world's most successful organization in terms of reducing poverty, disease, deaths from hunger, and in terms of spreading democracy, educating children and women, and safely managing potential global disputes over coeans, sea bed, arctic, antarctic, moon and space, and in dozens of other ways an organization that does not deserve contempt.
The UN's good works are almost countless, its sins mostly of omission (and veto).
Polio most emphatically has NOT been eradicated.
You have the World Program Program, being the architect of the 1.2B squandered in Afganistan (50% of the food was stolen with the local shipping contracts costing 3 times market rates)), the $500M fiasco in Somolia and the $200 million sent to North Korea that wound up in Kim Jong Ill's pockets, held out as the savior the world. People need to be saved from the UN.
The UN is a joke. A veritible petting zoo of tinpot dictators and kleptocrats. Amazing we continue to fund this nonsense. Hope Baird keeps their feet to the fire.
There are some worthy mentions here regarding the purpose and merits of the UN, but it's almost an irrelevant institution when it comes to preventing and stopping war.
Look at Syria; look at Rwanda in the 90s; look at Iran-Iraq in the 80s; look at Vietnam in the 70s, the Middle East in the 60s-70s. The shameful list goes on and on.
No, no, we're talking about the UN here.
And something is not a "democracy" just because there are votes taken. By that standard, China is also a democracy.
The Harper Cons are ideologically and blindly bound against world government, and so refuse to recognize the UN's obvious benefits. The Cons appear to prefer Anglo alliances and blind loyalty to Israel, no matter. No more of the honest broker or peacekeeping missions for us.
The only world government the Cons actually promote, "free" trade agreements, actually usurps the ability of governments to prevent corporations from causing them harm. Money can be moved around, no problem. Worker and environmental protections usually side deals. Government prohibited from nurturing its businesses. Business beefs settled in secret.
Mr. Baird and the Cons embarrass us all.
Both times it was acting as a puppet of US foreign policy.
International law is a joke.
You should ask the people of Syria what they think of UN arms control. It is intended to protect the status quo, no matter how murderous and tyrannical...................the people are to be left both hopeless and helpless.
The WHO may be a spawn of the UN, but to pretend we need the entire corrupt, moronic, disgusting institution is ridiculous.
I am proud of Baird, and of the Conservative gov't of Canada.
Those that support it are supporting the ideal it represents and not the reality of what it has become.
Reduce poverty and starvation-like the did when they spearheaded a drive for relif in Haiti after the earthquake-collected millions and 3 years after people are still in extreme poverty and living in tents.
And spreading democracy- would that include Syrian and Lybian style democracy?
Canada's breaches of our legal obligations in the case of Omar Khadr got us censured, and our government basically said they should mind their own business. This shows disrespect for Canadian and international law. The UN is not an instrument of colonialism, and western countries cannot escape scrutiny juts by pointing at bigger problems in Africa.
Second, Baird spent most of his speech stumping for more military engagement, and direct interventions in Syria and Iran. The UN's main function is to prevent wars, not wage them, and this hawkish stance is not constructive.
The second implies a third and a fourth. Since Canada's foreign policy has largely been copied from American foreign policy since Harper took power, our perspective is not valuable to the Security Council because the US already has a permanent seat and veto.
And, of all the issues that we have adopted from the US, blind unilateral support for Israel, even when she breaks the law, and equally blind opposition to the Palestinian interests, even when they hold free and fair democratic elections, is the most obvious, the most extreme, and the most unhelpful both in terms of our own interests and in terms of world diplomacy.