Justin Trudeau lobbying hard for a Canadian seat on the UN Security Council

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Trudeau to make pitch for Canada’s seat on the UN Security Council
MICHELLE ZILIO New York - The Globe and Mail | Sep. 20, 2017

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in campaign mode Wednesday as he promotes Canada’s bid for a United Nations Security Council seat on the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York City.

Mr. Trudeau will hold a series of bilateral meetings with the leaders of seven nations: Indonesia, Uganda, Netherlands, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica and Tajikistan. He will “work to advance” Canada’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council during his discussions, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa Tuesday morning, Mr. Trudeau said Canada is full steam ahead with its bid for a 2021-22 seat on the UN’s most powerful branch.

“Canada knows that we have an important role to play on the world stage, and being part of the UN Security Council in 2021 will ensure that an important voice gets heard and resonates around the world,” Mr. Trudeau said before departing for New York.

As a part of his claim that “Canada is back,” last year Mr. Trudeau announced Canada’s intention to seek one of the 10 rotating, non-permanent seats, on the UN Security Council in 2021-22. Canada hasn’t held a seat on the body since 2000. The previous Conservative government withdrew Canada’s candidacy for a seat in 2010 when it became clear it would lose to Portugal.

The Prime Minister’s Office said Mr. Trudeau will discuss specific bilateral issues with each leader and continue to advance Canada’s position as a constructive multilateral partner.

Mr. Trudeau will use his meeting with Indonesia to raise the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have been forced to flee violence in Myanmar over recent weeks, the PMO said. He will also discuss “diplomatic paths forward” on the democratic crisis in Venezuela with Latin American partners.

Mr. Trudeau also attended a conference hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he admitted that his government is struggling to retain the young women the Liberal Party recruited to run in the 2015 federal election.

“We went out and recruited a lot of great young women to run for politics and they did and were successful. And now we’re having a bit of a challenge … around retention. As people are realizing that, ‘Wow, this is a really nasty place to work … Parliaments are built for elderly white grandpas, right?’” Mr. Trudeau said in a discussion with Ms. Gates.

Mr. Trudeau’s comments come after Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould announced she is pregnant. He said his government is working to find ways to enable her to continue to fill her cabinet role while also being a “great mom.”

He will end his trip by addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

The Prime Minister is joined by his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, and six cabinet ministers in New York.


Trudeau confronts Canada's failure of indigenous people in U.N. speech

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday admitted Canada had failed its indigenous people and told the United Nations his government would do better to improve the lives of aboriginals and achieve reconciliation.

Trudeau used his speech to the U.N. General Assembly to frankly acknowledge the dark history of Canada’s colonization as one of “humiliation, neglect and abuse” and promised to do more to help the nation’s 1.4 million indigenous people.

“We have been working hard ... to correct past injustices and bring about a better quality of life for indigenous peoples in Canada,” he said.

“Though this path is uncharted, I am confident that we will reach a place of reconciliation,” Trudeau later added.

While Trudeau used his U.N. speech last year to highlight Canada’s strengths, a discourse the New York Times summed up as “We’re Canadian and we’re here to help,” the prime minister took office in 2015 pledging to fix its relationship with aboriginals.

Two years in, many say he is not doing enough to help indigenous Canadians, who make up about 4 percent of the population and face higher levels of poverty and violence and shorter life expectancies.

Canada’s national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women has been hit by resignations and complaints it is progressing too slowly.

Pamela Palmater, a Mi‘kmaq lawyer and professor, said she would rather see action than a speech.

“Some of his words were exceptionally powerful (and) would give a lot of hope to a lot of people in Canada, but he falls down every time when it comes to substantive action,” Palmater said.

Many aboriginal communities do not have access to safe drinking water, and suicides have plagued several isolated communities.

Acknowledging Canada’s attempt to force assimilation through residential schooling and other repressive policies, Trudeau called the living conditions aboriginals face “the legacy of colonialism in Canada.”

Trudeau promised to move forward with a review of federal laws and policy, and to support indigenous self-determination.

Asked by reporters why he used an international stage to discuss a domestic issue, Trudeau said he wanted to highlight what can be done without telling other leaders how to tackle their own mistakes.

“This is something that is universal and important,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau recently reshuffled his Cabinet to put more emphasis on helping aboriginal people, splitting the federal indigenous and northern affairs ministry in two.

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Why confessing Canada's failures could be part of Trudeau's plan for UN success
Canada is lobbying hard for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2021

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now given two speeches to mark the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York, two speeches in which he sought to burnish his government's progressive, internationalist credentials at a time when so many other world leaders are focused inward.

A year ago, the prime minister spoke of how Canada welcomed 31,000 Syrian refugees fleeing civil war in their home country. At a time of significant upheaval, he spoke of the importance of global leaders working together to allay rather than exploit people's fears.

On Thursday, he chose this same international stage to lay out a very different vision, focused this time on what he sees as Canada's national shame, and how his government is working to right the historic wrongs perpetrated against Indigenous people.

"Canada is not a wonderland," he said in French early in his remarks at the UN, "or a country where difficulties don't exist."

To any Canadian this might seem more than a little self-evident. But what may seem far less self-evident is the purpose of a political leader using time at the UN to publicly highlight his country's failings. But make no mistake, there is a purpose.

'We need to take responsibility'

Trudeau has gone to great lengths promoting his government's re-engagement with the UN, and to similar lengths promoting reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Weaving these themes together was a unique chance to play both to voters at home and to world leaders in New York, where Canada is lobbying hard for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2021.

"In conversations over the years, when I've suggested that certain countries need to do better on their own human rights, their own internal challenges, the response has been, 'Well, tell me about the plight of Indigenous people,'" he told reporters after the speech.

"If there are things we are not doing right, I think we need to take responsibility for that."

This speech was clearly more mea culpa than lecture. More about how Canada can take what it's learned about its own failures to bring positive solutions to global issues.

Trudeau linked his focus on a domestic issue with the UN's own sustainable development goals as he listed the needs of Indigenous people in Canada: clean drinking water and proper sanitation (Goal 6), quality education (4), gender equality (5) and sustainable communities (11).

He also spoke about his government's decision to support the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to abandon the previous Conservative government's opposition to the declaration on the rights of Indigenous people.

The domestic theme continued in other areas, too.

Trudeau confirmed his government will soon introduce legislation to guarantee equal pay for work of equal value.

He repeated Canada's support for the Paris accord on climate change, and admonished other leaders that they cannot walk away from the responsibility to act.

Both statements received polite applause in the hall.

'He's trying to save face'

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Pam Palmater, chair of Indigenous governance at Ryerson University, says the Trudeau government hasn't done enough to help Indigenous communities.

But Trudeau's speech didn't win any applause from Pam Palmater, the chair of Indigenous governance at Ryerson University in Toronto.

She said Trudeau talked only of past sins, glossing over the continued shortcomings of his and other governments in meeting the challenges faced by Indigenous people.

"What is the No. 1 reason that there isn't clean drinking water on many First Nations?" she said. "It's because of a refusal to provide adequate funding by even the current government."

More than 150 of those communities still have drinking water advisories.

"He's trying to save face," she said. "He's trying to make sure he gets on the Security Council."

Bid for a seat

The bid for one of the rotating seats on the UN's governing body might not be the only reason for Trudeau's focus, but it clearly matters.

Stephen Harper's government withdrew a bid in 2010 when it became apparent Canada would lose — a failure critics blamed on Harper's unfailing support for Israel, and his outspoken distaste for the UN's bureaucratic intransigence.

"Canadians benefit when we have a time on the Security Council," Trudeau told reporters. "But I don't think it's overly presumptuous of us to say perhaps the world benefits when Canada has a voice on the Security Council."

Not surprisingly, Trudeau said nothing about Canada's still unfulfilled promise to contribute troops and police officers to UN peacekeeping operations, a few weeks before Canada hosts an international summit intended to secure new pledges for those missions.

That's one delayed decision that isn't helping the cause.

"The prime minister is paying lip service to his commitment to peacekeeping at the UN," said New Democrat MP Hélène Laverdière.

She said the "hypocrisy is astounding."

But the strangest portion of Trudeau's speech came near the end when he raised his government's controversial plan to force incorporated small businesses to pay higher taxes.

It must have been puzzling to those listening at the UN.

But, when it comes to burnishing Canada's progressive credentials at the world body, why not treat tax fairness like it's an international development goal instead of the hot-button domestic political issue it really is.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/politics/united-nations-trudeau-1.4301414
 
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Yes Justin, this is what's really important...





How fucking out of touch is this guy?
 
But what does this guy know about anything, really. He's a millennial with mom's credit card and it had a big limit.
 
Yes Justin, this is what's really important...





How fucking out of touch is this guy?


It was one of his campaign promises, and while 4% of the population is a small number, those are Canadian citizens and they deserve to be looked after.


So ya, it actually is important.
 
Virtue signalling, virtual signalling everywhere
 
It was one of his campaign promises, and while 4% of the population is a small number, those are Canadian citizens and they deserve to be looked after.


So ya, it actually is important.
Im ignorant on this topic but what else needs to be done to help these people?
 
Im ignorant on this topic but what else needs to be done to help these people?

Throw some money at them maybe, but I don't think it can be solved that way because there are a lot of reserves that are in remote areas and they will never be economically viable to the point of a comparable standard of living to the connected parts of Canada. They will always be dependent.

But moving away from the reserve system is viewed by many natives as tantamount to genocide (since they would then be integrated into mainstream Canada). Some native groups do ok, some others not so much. The ones people hear about without proper drinking water tend to be remote, wheras some closer to civilization often do better.

There is a reason why it has persisted as a problem, because it is very complex.
 
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Im ignorant on this topic but what else needs to be done to help these people?
If the situation is anything like America's, nothing can really be done. Assuming they're living on the fringes of society in reserves with shitty land and no industry, what the fuck can they do? Tell them hey move to the city where the jobs are and assimilate into mainstream Canadian culture even though that's the opposite of what you've been trying to do... Best solution would be to shut the fuck up about the problem, because there are no easy solutions and speaking on it will create backlash from either the PC police or the rest of the population who understands gibsmedats isn't going to solve the problem.
 
Is this all he does? I don't pay attention to him :) Just sherdog
 
15 000W virtue signal sent!!

While an important issue, why in the flying eff is this being brought up in a setting focused on global matters?
 
Expecting the living standards of Native American's to go up without telling them to leave their areas and move to where the schooling is good and the jobs are plenty is on par with promising Rust Belt people that they're going to get their 1950s jobs with high pay, low skills, and retirement... Not going to happen
 
I swear this guy walks through life checking in ever corner for another place to signal some virtue...

Honestly, I kind of want to see he and Trump spend more time together. I feel you really get them talking and comedy would ensue.
 
I swear this guy walks through life checking in ever corner for another place to signal some virtue...

Honestly, I kind of want to see he and Trump spend more time together. I feel you really get them talking and comedy would ensue.

I think Justin is looking for a father figure like Trump tbh. I think it'd do him wonders to be around Donald T for awhile. I bet DT would take him under his wing and make him a proper man. It'd be great.
 
It was one of his campaign promises, and while 4% of the population is a small number, those are Canadian citizens and they deserve to be looked after.


So ya, it actually is important.


Important to the UN?

Do they need a strongly written letter to condemn Canada's actions?
 
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