I am honoured to be here
today on behalf of the Government of Canada to once
again reaffirm my country’s commitment to a strong
and effective United Nations.
(spoke in French)
For Canada, the United Nations remains
indispensable for addressing the many global
challenges that confront us today, be it the search for
peace and security, the promotion of human rights,
democracy and international development, combating
terrorism or the protection of the environment.
(spoke in English)
Those challenges require collective and
cooperative strategies. They cannot be tackled by any
one country acting alone. That is why we must
redouble our efforts to make the United Nations more
effective and efficient so that it can deliver real results.
Today, I would like to speak to the Assembly
about Canada’s priority global engagements, and how
they are helping to achieve the fundamental objectives
of this Organization.
From the very founding of the United Nations,
Canada has contributed ideas, action and resources to
help to fulfil its mandate. We helped to develop the
concept of peacekeeping. We helped it to meet the
changing nature of security, when more robust action
was required to end conflict, to protect civilians caught
in the crossfire or to build peace in its aftermath. We
have served in successive peacekeeping and
peacemaking operations and today we are serving on
the Peacebuilding Commission.
Today, Canada is contributing to peace and
security and making sacrifices in places as diverse as
Afghanistan, Haiti and the Sudan. Each of those
Canadian engagements flows from a United Nations
mandate.
Canada’s largest and most important overseas
engagement is in Afghanistan, where we have more
than 2,500 Canadians on the ground in support of the
Security Council-mandated International Security
Assistance Force. Canada continues to call for safe and
unhindered humanitarian access to all those in need in
Afghanistan. We condemn in the strongest possible
terms the attack of 14 September against members of a
United Nations convoy in Kandahar province who
were carrying out a polio vaccination campaign for
Afghan children.
Sadly, the Government of Afghanistan and the
international community are all too familiar with such
brutal and cowardly tactics. We will not be swayed
from our efforts to improve the lives of ordinary
Afghans. To that end, at the International Conference
in Support of Afghanistan in Paris, Canada announced
that it would make an additional contribution of $600
million for Afghanistan, bringing its overall total to
$1.9 billion over the period from 2001 to 2011.
Continued leadership by the United Nations is
essential in Afghanistan. Canada stands behind the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. We
call on Member States to work with the United Nations
to enhance the capacity of the Mission and to give it
the tools required to do its job. We remain ever mindful
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of the challenges that Afghanistan continues to
confront — security, access to basic services and
impending food shortages. Collectively, we — the
States assembled here — must deliver on the promises
made to the Afghan people.
(spoke in French)
Canada also remains committed to the promotion
of security, governance and development in Haiti,
efforts that are important for building a more
democratic, prosperous and secure hemisphere. We
consider the partnership with the United Nations in
Haiti to be an integral part of those efforts. That is why
we are providing the United Nations Stabilization
Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) with civilian police
officers, military staff officers and corrections experts.
Canada takes a comprehensive approach to
reconstruction and development in Haiti. We are the
second largest bilateral donor in Haiti, with a
$555 million commitment over five years through 2011
in support of the country’s long-term reconstruction
and development. MINUSTAH is in Haiti at the
request of the Haitian Government, the most important
partner of all in a commitment we share with Member
States within the hemisphere and beyond. Sustained
efforts, political stability and lasting progress on
reforms will combine to build a better future for all
Haitians.
Canada has also been a long-standing partner of
the United Nations efforts in Africa. When the
Secretary-General took office, he said that one of his
top priorities would be the Sudan’s Darfur region. The
United Nations presence in the Sudan is based on the
very principles underlying the United Nations Charter.
The engagement of the international community in the
Sudan remains vital.
(spoke in English)
With contributions of over $477 million since
2006, Canada remains deeply committed to building
sustainable peace in the Sudan and alleviating the
suffering of those affected by the conflict. Canada’s
support for peacekeeping operations in Sudan includes
the deployment of personnel, a loan of armoured
vehicles and a large voluntary financial contribution.
Canada underscores the importance of full
implementation of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement, and calls on Sudanese authorities and the
rebel movements to end the violence in Darfur,
facilitate the deployment of the African Union-United
Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID),
cooperate with the International Criminal Court and
respect human rights.
We are acutely aware that UNAMID is a difficult
and often dangerous mission. In that regard, allow me
to express the sincere condolences of the Canadian
Government for the deaths resulting from the
helicopter crash in the Sudan earlier today — a tragedy
that underscores the very real threats United Nations
personnel continue to confront in the field.
The current crisis in Georgia also calls for a
unified international response. Canada supports the
democratic and legitimate Government of Georgia and
Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Canada
calls on Russia to fulfil its international obligations,
reconsider its actions and cooperate fully with the
international community to resolve the crisis in
Georgia in a peaceful manner.
Canada has consistently sought to make the
United Nations instruments for promoting peace and
security more effective. At the centre of those is, of
course, the Security Council. Canada has long
supported proposals for greater accountability and
transparency of the Security Council to enable it better
to shoulder the global peace and security
responsibilities entrusted to it by the 192 Member
States. Canada is committed to working with all
Member States to promote a more unified and effective
Security Council that can move past stalemate and take
decisive action against threats to security wherever
they may arise.
We therefore welcome the recent decision of the
General Assembly to launch negotiations on Security
Council reform at this session. It is important that we
make progress in those negotiations. For our part,
Canada stands ready to support reform that ensures that
new realities are reflected in the Council while
preserving accountability through the discipline of
regular elections for Security Council membership.
Canada is proud to be the seventh largest
contributor to the regular budget of the United Nations.
We are also a member of a wide range of United
Nations specialized agencies and a major contributor to
United Nations funds and programmes.
Humanitarianism and compassion are hallmarks of the
Canadian identity. The United Nations is a key partner
for the delivery of Canadian humanitarian action, with
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Canadian commitments this year totalling over
$315 million. Our humanitarian assistance is aimed at
helping the world’s most vulnerable people, including
children, refugees and victims of conflict and natural
disasters, and supports key United Nations programmes
in those areas.
Canada is on track to meet its international
assistance commitments, and we are ensuring that our
aid is focused, effective and accountable. Canada will
deliver on its promise to double international
assistance to $5 billion by 2010-2011.
Canada is also serious about its commitment,
undertaken in the Group of Eight, to double aid to
Africa, and I am pleased to say that we are on target to
meet that goal in 2009. Canada is also committed to
working in partnership with other stakeholders to
accelerate development efforts to help achieve the
Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
In response to the global food crisis, Canada
provided an extra $50 million for food aid, bringing
our total contribution this year to $230 million — one
of the largest in the world. Canada was also pleased to
answer an emergency request from the World Food
Programme (WFP) earlier this month to provide
security for its food aid shipments to Somalia. A
Canadian Navy frigate, HMCS Ville de Québec, is
currently escorting WFP ships carrying life-saving
supplies to Somalia. Canada recently extended the
frigate’s WFP escort mission until 23 October 2008.
Canada is taking further concrete measures to
enhance the effectiveness of our aid. We recently
untied 100 per cent of our food aid to make sure it can
be provided in the most efficient and effective way
possible to the people who need it most. Canada is also
fully untying all of its development assistance
programmes by 2012-2013, in fulfilment of our
commitment to ensuring greater effectiveness of our
international assistance.
The challenges of environmental protection and
sustainable development are rightly at the top of the
global agenda. The most pressing challenge is that of
climate change, and the United Nations must play a
central role. Canada is committed to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
and the need to reach consensus on a post-Bali
framework.
The response to all global challenges begins at
home. However, the sum of national actions must drive
a collective effort at the international level. One of the
most important components of the Bali Road Map is
that it recognizes that no country can effectively
address climate change on its own and that all
countries in a position to act must do so. As such,
Canada is fully aware of the importance of having all
major global emitters take on meaningful and binding
emissions reduction commitments in any future
international agreement.
Canada is also acutely aware of the risks faced by
countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate
change, particularly small island States and the least
developed countries. Canada is pleased to be a sponsor
of a draft resolution on climate change and security put
forward by the Pacific Island States. Canada has also
supported global efforts to promote climate change
adaptation and has contributed both expertise and
finances to various United Nations and other
international initiatives.
Sixty years ago, this body adopted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Canada is proud to
recall the contribution of Canadian John Peters
Humphrey in penning the initial draft of that landmark
instrument. Sixty years on, we have not yet met that
“common standard of achievement for all peoples and
all nations” (resolution 217 (III)). We have much work
left to do.
As a member of the Human Rights Council,
Canada is working hard to make that new institution
live up to the reform objectives that led to its creation
two years ago. We have seen some progress and some
setbacks in ensuring that the Council’s agenda and
focus are balanced and objective.
We must continually challenge ourselves to
improve our own records. The creation this year of the
Universal Periodic Review, which Canada strongly
supported as an innovative improvement to the United
Nations human rights machinery, is an important tool
to help States identify and address their continuing
challenges.
As a community, we must stand up for the rule of
law and for those whose rights are violated or
undermined by the very institutions that should ensure
their protection. That is why Canada will continue to
take strong stands against Governments that commit
systemic abuses against their populations. As
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Governments, we must remain committed to working
together to hold each other to account on our human
rights records and to support countries that are making
sincere efforts to advance the human rights of their
people. We must continue to strive for fundamental
freedoms and human rights in order to fulfil the ideals
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
(spoke in French)
Canada supports an effective, soundly managed
and results-driven United Nations. That is why it
supports broad reform. In that regard, we call for
extensive reform in terms of management, especially in
the areas of oversight, accountability and human
resource management. Those reforms are needed to
bring the management of the United Nations in step
with the best practices of the twenty-first century and
to equip it with the tools needed to deliver on the
important mandates that we as Member States ask of it.
(spoke in English)
The values and ideals on which the United
Nations was founded — the promotion of peace and
security, of human rights and of greater prosperity for
all through development cooperation — are also
Canada’s and we stand ready to work within the United
Nations to address new challenges, such as climate
change and combating terrorism. I wish to repeat
Canada’s willingness to work in partnership with all
United Nations Member States towards the common
purposes for which this Organization was created.