Juno News - February 07, 2020


What's the point of an UN security council seat？


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

195.63107

Word Count

806

Sentence Count

29

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent time in Africa trying to court the dozens of nations
00:00:10.440 there that comprise a lot of the voting bloc at the United Nations into supporting Canada's pitch
00:00:16.540 up against two other countries to try and win a temporary UN Security Council seat. Is it worth
00:00:23.020 the time? Is it worth the money? A lot of people are automatically saying no, let's just drop this
00:00:28.960 entire charade. I'm half inclined to agree, but I have a little bit of a caveat. Do we have a problem
00:00:35.920 with these multinational gatherings that we have, the United Nations and other bodies? We absolutely
00:00:40.600 do. And here's the reason why. Because they so often represent the proliferation of the lowest
00:00:46.900 common denominator. And the good guys are not allowed to stand up and assert what they know
00:00:51.920 to be right. And true, case in point, all these sketchy countries that are on the UN Human Rights
00:00:56.820 Council, Saudi Arabia, and other countries that are allowed to get up and hector others about their
00:01:02.920 performance. Meanwhile, they have some of the most poor human rights performances in the world. It's
00:01:07.600 just a joke. It calls into credibility the entire respectability of the United Nations. It's a great
00:01:13.020 argument for dismantling the whole darn thing. But if you can have someone who stands up there and says,
00:01:17.780 you know what, instead of going with the flow, instead of doing a go along to get along, I'm going
00:01:22.180 to get up there and I'm going to do the Herculean feat of trying to grab opinion by the horns and
00:01:27.460 wrench it in my direction. If I'm going to assert that Canadian values, the Western values, liberal
00:01:33.780 democratic values are good values that need to be promulgated, that need to be celebrated. If we can
00:01:40.020 do that, well, good on us. And I'm left wondering, when Justin Trudeau is in these African countries,
00:01:46.280 is he doing a go along to get along with some of the countries that may want to push us in certain
00:01:51.780 directions, to be more and more on climate alarmism, to be more and more in league with what China is
00:01:57.580 doing, the rise of the global superpower. Because this isn't something that's discussed much in
00:02:01.460 Canada, but China has actually done a lot to get its tentacles into Africa and African nations, signing
00:02:07.560 a lot of deals with them, bringing them into the Belt and Road Initiative, a lot of things to bring
00:02:12.140 Africa under the wing of the new sort of world order that China is trying to do, supplanting the United
00:02:18.700 States and these sort of post-World War II Western-led institutions and bringing the world more
00:02:24.740 into their favor. What's going on when Justin Trudeau is there with these African nations? Because
00:02:29.880 Africa, I think, is a continent that will grow in importance. Canada will have more relationships
00:02:34.660 with those nations. We're going to have probably lots more interactions with, say, the good people
00:02:39.500 for instance. And by and large, we should make that a positive thing and find ways to make that
00:02:44.760 happen. But are we going to do it in a way where we are actually out there as envoys and emissaries
00:02:50.220 for broader Canadian values, the things we want to advance at places like the United Nations? What is
00:02:56.500 the point of getting a whole bunch of votes for this UN Security Council seat if we don't tell people
00:03:02.980 this is why we want this seat, this is what we're going to do with this seat, this is the way we're going
00:03:08.520 to vote, this is why this seat matters to us, and these are the values we're bringing to the table.
00:03:14.520 Because you better believe that those permanent members, Russia, China, and so forth, and obviously
00:03:19.400 the UK and the United States, they have a strong sense of themselves and their identity, and that's
00:03:23.520 why they so often come to loggerhead and why we have stalemates with the UN Security Council
00:03:27.780 veto power. Canada needs a strong sense of itself and needs to be proud of it and have swagger with it.
00:03:32.860 If, if we realize, looking at the lay of the land, we just can't possibly get votes because countries
00:03:38.820 don't agree with the way we're doing things, they don't agree with our values. Well, do we keep going?
00:03:46.980 Do we fight the good fight? Or do we compromise and go along to get along? If it's the latter,
00:03:53.280 let's not do it. Because then it's just not worth it. To me, it's not the quantity, it's not the money,
00:03:57.960 it's not the time, it's not the saving face, it's the quality. It's what are we actually standing up
00:04:02.960 for as we fight for this seat? What will we stand up for should we win?