Supporting the Canadian Family at the UN

A Talk by C. Gwendolyn Landolt
National Vice President
REAL Women of Canada

Summary by Lorraine McNamara
Durham Region Chapter
REAL Women of Canada

Gwen Landolt expressed deep concern that the United Nations is having a tremendous impact on Canadian society, yet under the Canadian system of government, our elected officials (MPs) do not even know what our Canadian delegates at the United Nations are doing!

The policies promoted by the Canadian delegates are drawn mostly from the bureaucrats in the federal Foreign Affairs and Status of Women ministries, and from special interest groups, almost all of whom promote a radical feminist agenda.

Gwen explained that since Canada is a "middle power" and non-threatening, other countries listen to us. As a result, the United States and other western countries use Canada as their mouthpiece to promote such policies as abortion on demand and homosexual "rights." For example, at the recent Beijing + 5 Conference in New York, the Canadian delegation proposed that abortion should be a "human right," which would mean that every country that does not provide abortion on demand would be in breach of a UN mandate. The Canadian delegation also insists that homosexual partnerships should be treated just the same as the traditional family.

"The Canadian delegation is absolutely the worst delegation of the 187 countries at the United Nations, and this is because they are answerable to no one!"

Another way of promoting population control is through the adolescent children (the World Health Organization has defined adolescents as anyone between 10 years and 19 years of age). The western nations at the UN want these adolescents to have the right to contraception and abortion, without parental authority, and further, to be taught that homosexuality is acceptable. If these policies are adopted, it is anticipated that this will lead to a disintegration of the family unit in the developing world. The family's greatest strength lies in its ability to pass from generation to generation, the values of culture and religion, values which are the cause of the resistance to UN policies determined by western nations.

The United Nations, which was formed in 1945, was a glorious idea. It was intended that all nations of the world would work together, respecting the dignity and worth of each other. At this time, the preservation of the family was one of its major concerns. The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights included an endorsement of the human family. However, in recent years the UN has turned its back on the fundamental principles of preserving the traditional family, and instead is attempting to break the power of the family world-wide.

The reason behind this turn-around is that the Western nations (US, Canada, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, as well as Japan) are uneasy about the growing population in the developing countries. This raises other concerns about increased pressure for migration to the west, civil unrest and loss of access to national resources in the developing world. The west, therefore, is using the UN as a tool to promote abortion, contraception and sterilization programs, (often not voluntary) in order to curb population growth in the developing world. The latter is a threat to the rapidly declining population in the west, which is weakening the west's dominance. Hence, the development of policies in the UN to curb population growth in the developing world.

In order for these population policies to gain a toe-hold and to bypass the wall of resistance caused by religion and culture, the west is attempting to export to the developing world the failed feminist revolution of the West. Thus, under the guise of raising the status of women in the third world, it is anticipated that once women are educated and economically independent they will be freed from the "slavery" of home and family, which will lead to the acceptance of reproductive rights, homosexuality and reduced number of children. The UN is carrying out this agenda by means of three strategies: (1) The World Bank, (2) Non-government Organizations, and, (3) Reinterpretation of Treaties.

World Bank
The World Bank is the largest single source of funding for the third world countries. It provides reduced interest rates if borrowing countries agree to implement population control policies. The World Bank also uses the influence of the powerful feminist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the UN. Nearly half of all new projects undertaken in the past five years by the World Bank include input from these feminist NGOs. The World Bank also works with other UN agencies to push population control, including the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the UN Human Rights Commission, all of which agencies, have had in the past few years, radical feminists appointed at their heads.

"The World Bank is like a huge ship on the seas of strife, using our money to follow the feminist agenda."

Most people believe that funds from agencies such as the World Bank are used to feed starving children, but this is not true. The money generally ends up in the pockets of the administrators, not the people, and the debt grows. The problem is that the World Bank loans do not create economic wealth. The World Bank's own studies indicate that in every country receiving loans from the World Bank, has either had no economic impact or has had a harmful impact on that nation's economy.

"Government of Canada, my eye!"

Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)

Non-government organizations have enormous power at the UN. More and more NGOs, heavily subsidized by western governments, have been accredited to it. REAL Women is one of the few pro-family organizations accredited. This entitles REAL Women to send delegates to all the conferences and to briefly address the general assembly.

When Gwen and REAL Women Past President, Cecilia Forsyth, attended the UN Conference on Population Development in Cairo in 1994, they were not at first aware of the powerful feminist agenda prevalent at the UN. However, on the first day they attended a huge women's caucus meeting in the amphitheatre, with thousands of women from around the world and heard the late Bela Abzug proudly proclaim, "We are the women of the world…This Cairo document is our document, we wrote it". Gwen wondered, "How does this New Yorker dare to suggest she represents all women around the world and how is it she claims to have written a UN document which would have implications world wide? A few days later, Gwen was told by a woman from a developing country, "I was sent there by the US government (USAID) to develop a women's group, and it is my women who will represent the country at this conference." That is, the fact that these women were being paid by the US Foreign Aid program to lobby on behalf of their country was an eye opener.

In Beijing, in 1995, at the UN's Fourth World Conference, the Canadian delegation brought forward a motion that every country should have a Status of Women bureaucracy and a gender specialist in every government department. In consequence, without the knowledge of Canadians or even of our Members of Parliament, Canada now has a whole new bureaucracy in Ottawa, i.e., a "gender specialist" installed in each of the federal departments so that the feminist agenda can continue to be promulgated.

Also in Beijing, Member of Parliament Sharon Hayes, the only government-sponsored pro-life delegate, was so embarrassed by the Canadian delegation she called a press conference to be scheduled at 1:30 in the afternoon in the press room of the conference building. The Canadian Embassy in Beijing, however, unknown to Mrs. Hayes (MP) sent a fax at 10:30 a.m. to every press representative attending the conference announcing that her press conference was cancelled! The Canadian Embassy did exactly the same thing to REAL Women when it organized a press conference in Beijing. Clearly, the Canadian government's policy is to shut out any views other than its own, anti-family ones.

In Rome in July 1998, at the meetings on the proposed International Criminal Court, every time there was a controversy over an issue such as abortion or homosexuality, the conference chairman would assign the Canadian delegation to re-word the controversial paragraphs, and the Canadian delegation inevitably came back with an even stronger pro-abortion, anti-family wording. Third World delegates would be accused of holding up the proceedings if they didn't go along with Canada's recommended wording.

Gwen challenged the head of the Canadian delegation at this Rome meeting: "How dare you come up with these proposals, which are a disgrace to Canadians!" She was told, in response, "This is the policy of the Government of Canada," Gwen replied, "Government of Canada, my eye!" When she asked a Canadian delegate, "How many Canadians really know what you are doing," he responded, rather smugly, "No one."

"United Nations Treaties are being reinterpreted to undermine traditional values."

Many of the UN treaties on political and civil rights were drafted years ago and specifically support traditional values and the family. However, every country, every five years, must put in a report to the UN on its treaty observance and a committee is selected to monitor these reports. (It just "happens" that every one of the 10 people on these committees are radical feminists.) When a committee considers a report, representatives of the government submitting the report are invited to appear and answer questions. However, since treaties do not include such matters as abortion or sexual orientation, the committees are "reinterpreting" the treaties to include such provisions. Using these "new" treaty obligations, the UN committee then releases its criticisms of these countries for not adhering to these newly found treaty rights. The UN officials then contact feminist NGO's in this country to use the criticisms to further undermine traditional values, by pressuring their governments to conform to the UN's treaty obligations.

"Exposure is a powerful weapon!"

How do we address these problems at the UN? We must bear in mind that the UN does serve a noble purpose in dealing with famine relief, health care, peacekeeping and national disasters. Rather than abandoning the UN, we must try to return it to its original purposes, which include respecting the religion and cultures of each individual state. (The World Bank, however, should be disbanded.)

Exposure can serve as a powerful weapon to bring about change. Most Canadians are not aware of what is going on, and REAL Women is trying to let people know what is happening.

We write up articles in the Reality. We write op ed pieces for newspapers. We do our best to publicize what is going on at the UN, but this is not enough. More pro-life, pro-family organizations must be accredited to the UN (this just requires a lot of paper work.) We must insist that pro-family persons be a part of the Canadian delegations. Canadian delegations now include a so-called "gender specialist." Why don't our delegations also include a pro-life/family experts as well?

REAL Women is glad that by a mere fluke we have become involved with the UN. meetings. Despite the difficulties we face, it has been a great honour and privilege to serve the cause of the family there. We have the opportunity to let people know what is happening - that Canada is a mouthpiece for the world to bring about an anti-family agenda! Our role is to let Canadians know this and to embarrass our disgraceful anti-family delegation.

After her first UN experience in Cairo, in 1994 Gwen told herself she would never again be involved in another U.N. conference! Thanks to donations and moral support from REAL Women members, however, she has attended around ten conferences and she is still there!

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