Canada, 2014

It is both

an honour and a pleasure for me to once again address

the Assembly.

(spoke in English)

For more than 70 years, Canada has supported the

United Nations and its institutions in the pursuit of

world peace. On many occasions Canadians have put

their lives on the line to deter active conflict between

peoples. It is a duty we accept and it is a record of which

we are proud.

Today, there are many embattled parts of the world

where the suffering of the local populations and the

threats to global security deserve our urgent attention,

and I could easily use my entire time here on any one

of them. There are, however, other areas of service to

humankind. It is to some of those that I wish to speak

tonight, for there is more to peace than the absence of

war. Where human misery abounds, where grinding

poverty is the rule, where justice is systematically

denied, there is no real peace — only the seeds of

future conflict.

(spoke in French)

Of course, misery and injustice are not the only

roots of war. We need only look at the world today to

appreciate that.

(spoke in English)

Then we understand how the worst of human

nature — perverse ideologies, religious extremism and

the lust for power and plunder — can rob people in so

many places of property, hope and life itself. That is

why Canada has always been ready and willing to join

with other civilized peoples and to challenge affronts to

the international order, affronts to human dignity itself,

such as those that are today present in Eastern Europe,

particularly Ukraine, in the Middle East — Iraq, Syria

and elsewhere — and of course many parts of Africa.

Canada’s positions on those issues are well known,

and we will continue to contribute to the extent to

which we are able in assisting our friends and allies

in the international community to deal with those

grave challenges. But while those extreme situations

are being confronted, other problems — pandemics,

climate change and, of course, the problems of

underdevelopment — remain.

(spoke in French)

And we feel strongly that no effort is ever in vain

if it offers peoples an alternative to conflict and the

possibility of a better life for them and their families.

(spoke in English)

Canadians therefore seek a world where freedom,

democracy, human rights and the rule of law are

respected. We hold those things to be intrinsically right

and good. We also believe that they are the necessary

foundation for a better world for more people and are

necessary for prosperity. With prosperity comes hope,

and with hope, the greater inclination of free peoples

everywhere to find peaceful solutions to the things

that divide them. Indeed, we believe that freedom,

prosperity and peace form a virtuous circle.

For that reason, the growth of trade among nations

and the delivery of effective development assistance to

ordinary people — simple, practical aid — are the things

that have become the signatures of our Government’s

outreach in the world. Trade means jobs, growth and

opportunities. It has made great nations out of small

ones. The story of my own country, Canada, is a case in

point. Historically, trade has built our country, just as

today it is reshaping our world. Trade means ordinary

people can support their families and even dare to

dream of something much more.

(spoke in French)

Our Government has worked hard to establish a

vast network of modern trade agreements.

(spoke in English)

The trade agreements we have concluded tear down

the barriers of tariff and excise and enlarge markets and

opportunities for buyers and sellers alike. Canada has

now established such links with countries that today

possess more than a quarter of the world’s people and

nearly half the world’s business. And our free-trade

network will grow larger yet. It is not, by the way, an

exclusive club for wealthy nations.

(spoke in French)

Canada has already liberalized its trade with

countries better known for their determination to

succeed than for the size of their economies, thereby

opening the way for them to access Canadian and other

markets. We have no reason to stop now. As indicated

by my colleague from Senegal, President Macky Sall,

“Aid is needed for development, but what is needed

even more is investment”. He is quite right.

(spoke in English)

Yet no matter how freely we trade, millions of

people will need a helping hand for some time to come.

Easily the most important example, and the one closest

to my heart, is the worldwide struggle upon which

so many of you have been engaged, in the maternal,

newborn and child health initiative. Saving the lives

of the world’s most vulnerable mothers, infants and

children must remain a top global priority. That is, the

world must honour the commitments made in this very

Hall to mothers and children in the year 2000. And

there has been remarkable progress.

(spoke in French)

Thanks to inexpensive vaccines and the combined

efforts of multiple partners, more children are

being vaccinated today than ever before. And as the

importance of nutrition becomes better understood,

more and more children are surviving. Thanks to

simple, low-cost, easily accessible techniques, literally

millions of mothers and children who a mere 14 years

ago might have died not only survive today, but thrive.

(spoke in English)

I think especially of the 2010 meeting of world

leaders at Muskoka, which raised about $7.5 billion

dollars, $2 billion of it from private donors. Based on

that, the United Nations launched what the Secretary-

General called the “Every woman, every child” initiative,

with the goal of saving 16 million lives by 2016. An

important aspect of that work has been monitoring

both the receipt of monies pledged and how they are

used. The assurance of full accountability has allowed

recipients to plan with greater certainty and donors to

give with confidence. With His Excellency President

Kikwete of Tanzania, whom we have just heard, it was

my honour to co-chair the World Health Organization’s

Information and Accountability Commission linked to

that initiative.

On this, we have a clear vision, and that vision is

achievable. We know how to help a great many of those

vulnerable people. We have seen what can be done. We

want simply to rally the passion and the will to make it

happen. We are preventing deaths, and we can prevent

more — deaths of thousands of children every day from

easily preventable causes. We can stop the thousands

of mothers dying in childbirth who would survive

with relatively little intervention. We also know who

we need to be working with — new partnerships that

bring together Governments and agencies of the United

Nations, including the World Health Organization, the

World Food Programme and UNICEF, with the private

sector, partnerships that are producing real results and

taking us to new heights of excellence.

Here I am thinking of the Maternal, Newborn

and Child Health Network in Canada, a group that

represents a broad base of Canadian civil society and

is a key implementing partner on the ground. As many

representatives know, in May in Toronto, Canada hosted

the world’s leading actors on that subject. We heard

the success stories — for example, the Micronutrient

Initiative through which 180 million children received

vitamin A, pills that cost pennies but drop child

mortality by 25 per cent. We heard about the Global

Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and how

during the three-year period between

2010 and 2013,

immunizations saved the lives of 2 million children.

We have partnerships to deliver better nutrition and

partnerships to deliver better measurement, because

vital statistics are critical. One cannot manage what

one cannot measure. And in that mission, we measure

progress in precious lives saved. So every child needs

a birth certificate.

(spoke in French)

We also heard that in the world today is a greater

obligation with regard to accountability, not only with

regard to the vast sums of money pledged, but also the

way in which that money is spent.

(spoke in English)

So our consensus was clear. We have seen success,

and we have momentum. Saving the lives of children

and mothers is a fight we can win. To get it done, two

things are needed now: political focus and renewed

financial commitment. I therefore urge the Assembly, in

the strongest terms, to ensure that, maternal, newborn

and child health remains a clear and top priority in the

evolving post-2015 development agenda — and one

of a limited number of priorities. That is the political

focus we need. Then there is the financial commitment.

I know we all have many competing priorities. But we

have come so far that to stop now would be a tragedy.

I must say I was very encouraged this afternoon

at the Secretary-General’s “Every woman, every child”

event, when President Kim of the World Bank and other

leaders announced new financing for the Bank’s Global

Financing Facility for Every Woman Every Child.

That Facility will help developing countries access the

financing required to improve their health systems. I

was pleased to announce that Canada would financially

support the World Bank’s Global Financing Facility for

Every Woman Every Child.

(spoke in French)

We urge other countries to do likewise because

to provide viable solutions to prevent the tragic death

of women and children, we need to increase budget

allocations on the part of both donors and the developing

countries.

(spoke in English)

In closing, let me just say this. There are many

individual countries and many specific causes that will

rightly occupy our deliberations here this week. Let us

also not forget to look beyond those crises at the long-

term opportunities and efforts that can truly transform

the world. We have it in our power to create a better

kind of world for our children’s children than the one

we have today.

And we should, for it was never the intention of the

founders of the United Nations — Canada being one

of them — that ours would be a world where terrorists

could get the resources necessary to sow death and

destruction but where workers and families could

not get jobs and opportunities, or where mothers and

children could not obtain the necessities required to

live and thrive.

The world that Canada strives for is the world that

the founders of the United Nations wanted from the

beginning, as boldly articulated in their Declaration

of 1 January 1942 — a world where “life, liberty,

independence and religious freedom” are defended,

where “human rights and justice” are preserved, and

where all join “in a common struggle against savage and

brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world”. In such

a world, there can be prosperity for the impoverished,

justice for the weak and, for the desperate, that most

precious of all things, hope.

It is easy to look at the many problems of the world

today and become despondent. Yet for all our failings,

there has been, for most of humankind, tremendous

progress in my lifetime. Therefore, I am enough of an

optimist to think that because we can create a more

prosperous, fairer and hopeful world, not only should

we, but indeed, I believe we will find the will to do so.