Climate change, refugees and peacekeeping are among the topics up for discussion as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets in Ottawa today with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
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After their meeting, Justin Trudeau and Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the actions allegedly posed by peacekeepers in Central African Republic and the Secretary General assured that he meant to implement the recommendations in the report.
But looking towards a seat on the security council will be a symbolic move away from the previous Conservative government’s prickly relationship with the United Nations after Canada lost out to Portugal in its bid for a security council place.
During former prime minister Stephen Harper’s nine years in power, Canada suffered a loss of status at the United Nations as the government focussed on its domestic agenda, diplomats said.
Trudeau, speaking to the French-language La Presse newspaper, also confirmed the budget deficit in the 2016/17 fiscal year would be larger than the $10 billion his new Liberal government initially committed to.
“The weather here is quite cold, but the relationship between the UNited Nations and Canada is very, very warm”, Ban said.
Ban credited Trudeau’s leadership with helping secure the “breakthrough” global agreement on climate change reached at the Paris summit in December.
Ban also “highly” applauded Canada’s ongoing efforts to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees.
Trudeau promised Ban that Canada plans recommit to peacekeeping operations.
Trudeau announced Monday the withdrawal of Canadian fighter jets conducting airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as part of the US-led coalition pushing back the Islamic State group, while pledging to triple the number of special forces training Kurdish militia in northern Iraq to about 210.
Part of that re-engagement process is an eventual bid for a rotating, non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Mr. Trudeau said, repeating a promise he made during the election campaign.
“I am very much excited by such a strong commitment [from] prime minister Trudeau”, said Ban in an exclusive interview with CBC Radio’s The Current this week.
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Canada’s contributions to peacekeeping missions have fallen to a few dozen troops in recent years from a high of several thousand in the mid-1990s.
