Political activists have long been aware of how dangerous the United Nations is to the preservation of traditional values throughout the world, but among the general public it is remarkable how entrenched the mythology of the nice, peace-loving, justice-promoting international entity has become.
The recent UN conference on “racism” gave the international organization much greater exposure among the general public than is normal. Experienced UN participants and observers, however, know that the antics that were on display with that conference reflect the same anti-democratic spirit that pervades all the important conferences sponsored by the UN. Many, if not most, UN participants – particularly non-governmental organization (NGO) delegates – despise accountability and literally don’t know what to do when forced to provide thoughtful, coherent arguments for their views. Instead of defending their perspective, they lash out at their critics, often trying to shout them down, and at other times terminating sessions early or changing meeting room locations at the last minute. Frequently their behaviour is downright infantile, and sometimes even borderline dangerous.
Dallas Miller, head of the Home School Legal Defense Association, says that sometimes when he is trying to give people an image of the UN, he tells them to imagine all the bureaucracies from around the world trying to function together.
It is impossible to include the UN in a coherent definition of the term “democratic,” no matter how hard the agency’s advocates insist that it is a democratic institution. A few years ago, the UN promoted an increase in the number of NGOs (a fancy term for lobby group) at their conferences. This gave an impression of opening up the proceedings, rather than keeping them closed to primarily official national delegates. Anti-life, anti-family groups such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, however, were able to take advantage of this policy change to set up affiliated groups or support other like-minded organizations. As a result, the UN became less democratic while appearing to be consulting a greater number of groups that supposedly represented a larger number of people.
Now that pro-family and pro-life groups have figured out how to play the game, and have set up many entities reflecting their views in order to increase their representation at UN conferences, the UN is trying to restrict NGO access to conferences. And so the circus goes on.
Of course, Canada, being the global champion of democratic values, is constantly fighting the UN hierarchy on such issues – not! Canada has become known as a top supporter of the UN, and the leading advocate for anti-family, anti-national sovereignty, anti-religious positions at the agency’s conferences. Furthermore, Canada is known to champion positions for inclusion in international treaty documents that have not been vetted first through Parliament or among the general public. Canada’s behaviour at international conferences under the Tories and the Liberals has become a matter of great concern among pro-family and pro-life advocates. Former Canadian Alliance MP Eric Lowther tried to gain a position on the Canadian delegation to a conference several years ago in order to be able to report back to Canadians what the Liberal government was doing and sanctioning at the UN. The government turned down his request despite the fact that bureaucrats from several departments as well as some like-minded lobbyists were part of the delegation. The Liberals are brazen in their refusal to support accountability when it comes to their input into international treaties.
Several years earlier, Reform Party MP Sharon Hayes traveled to the UN to take part in the Beijing Conference on Women and to report back on the behaviour of the Canadian delegation. She generated quite a stir for a few days when she returned home early expressing disgust at the militant feminist agenda being advanced by those claiming to represent Canada at the conference.
