In his first public comments after he became the first prime minister in Canadian history to lose a bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had this to say:
Our engagement internationally is based on the principles that this country holds dear; it is not based on popularity. We take our positions based on the promotion of our values, freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, justice, development, human…humanitarian assistance for those who need it. Those are the things were pursuing. That does not change, regardless of what the outcome of secret votes is.
Canada, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, had commitments, in writing or verbally, from 150 of the 192 countries at the United Nations that they would vote for Canada. Close to 40 broke their word as Canada never got more than 114 ballots in two rounds of secret balloting. And its the secrecy of those votes — ambassadors, presumably, could ignore directions from their own governments and vote however they pleased — that the Conservatives have seized on after losing the vote.
Bob Rae, the Liberal MP and his party's foreign affairs critic, has now seized on the secrecy:
I know very well that the kind of ballot that Mr. Harper would prefer would be somebody whispering their choice in his ear. But that isn’t going to happen. We have secret ballots. We’ve had secret ballots at the UN since 1945. Mr. St. Laurent managed to win it. Mr. Diefenbaker managed to win it. Mr. Trudeau managed to win it. Mr. Mulroney managed to win it. Mr. Chrétien managed to win it. And Mr. Harper didn’t. And he can’t – all of his defences in the world can’t get around it.
Then the final defence is what I call the Groucho Marx defence. The Groucho Marx defence is “If that clubs wants me as a member – it doesn’t want me as a member, I wouldn’t want to be a member of it anyway.” So it’s just – we’re getting to a ludicrous point. Let’s just deal with the facts. We lost the vote because Canada’s voice was not heard in the right ways at the right time, because Canada’s presence was not felt in the right way at the right time. That’s why we lost the vote and Canadians I don’t think are happy about that but there’s no point in underestimating the importance of what happened
Rae might be right on the others, but I can't find the info on the net.
For example, in 2009 all candidates ran unopposed. Is there any way to tell if Canada every ran opposed in a UN seat election before?
I'd be surprised if there was a contested vote back when it was a commonwealth seat, where we had it in 48 and 58.
But I don't know how to find the info.
“And its the secrecy of those votes … that the Conservatives have seized on after losing the vote.”
How is mentioning the fact the vote is a secret one “seizing” on that angle?
If the bid for the seat had been successful, the Liberals would have taken credit for it, saying it was due to THEIR past record.
It appears that Canada lost out on a previous contest — back in 1946, even though it had recently helped to draft the UN Charter. That's according to John Ibbitson, who said so on the Mark Sutcliffe show on CPAC last Sunday.
Like commenter Tesseract, I too wonder whether there have been uncontested races for the seat when Canada was chosen.
When I happened upon this Der Spiegel article, I assumed Canada had also been in uncontested races:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,717489,00.html
09/16/2010
Dream of Influence
Germany Renews Campaign for UN Security Council Seat By Ralf Neukirch
“… Next month Germany will attempt, once again, to secure a non-permanent seat for two years on the UN Security Council. For the first time, the German government will be up against two competitors, Canada and Portugal. Eight years ago, only two countries were vying for the two seats allocated to the so-called Western group, and the same situation applied eight years before that. …”
Other information was subsequently pointed out to me, e.g.:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1998/19981008.ga9474.html
“Number of ballot papers: 176
Number of invalid ballots: 0
Number of valid ballots: 176
Abstentions: 1
Number of Members voting: 175
Required majority: 117
Number of Votes Obtained:
Canada: 131
Greece: 87
Netherlands: 122”
Those votes add up to 340 votes cast — with only one round of voting needed !?!
When I questioned what appeared to be a discrepancy, it was then explained by commenter Brian Busby this way:
“Here we have 175 delegates, each of whom is given two votes per round – meaning that there can be no more than 350 votes cast.
… each delegate may vote for one or two countries (or hand in a blank ballot). I add that delegates cannot give both votes to the same country. As a total of 340 votes were cast, it is clear that a few delegates chose to vote for only one country or decided not to vote at all. …”
Still sounds like a pretty arcane method of voting.
Canada, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, had commitments, in writing or verbally, from 150 of the 192 countries at the United Nations that they would vote for Canada. Close to 40 broke their word as Canada never got more than 114 ballots in two rounds of secret balloting.
any chance that Cannon was pulling the wool over our eyes with his accounting. I am somewhat surprised that this just treatment as truth straightaway.