Canadian Green Party's Positive Vision of United Nations Reform

The next Canadian general election isn't scheduled to take place until October of 2012. although the vagaries of Canadian politics might result in it taking place sometime before then. Whenever the election is held, the Canadian Green Party will be attempting to emulate their compatriots in the United Kingdom and Australia and win their first seat in the Canadian House of Commons.

As a political movement, the Greens leave much to be desired, as many of their policy positions are unrealistic and even utopian, and they often are simply too ideologically rigid. But as the only genuine worldwide political party, they also provide a refreshing presence of a global political perspective, and they have had a powerful and positive impact on global environmental issues. The world is considerably better with them than it would be without them.

Their global perspective also allows the Greens to look at issues which other political parties tend to ignore, such as the urgent need for reform in the United Nations. The Canadian Green Party has presented a detailed package of proposals for reforming the U.N., and we can hope that they make an issue of it in the next Canadian federal election, whenever that may be.

Among the proposals the Canadian Greens have for U.N. reform are:

1. Creating a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, in which representatives are directly elected by the people rather than appointed by the governments.
2. Bringing the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank under the control of the General Assembly.
3. Reforming the membership of the United Nations Security Council.
4. Expand the mandate of the United Nations Environmental Program so that it has a supervisory role regarding global environmental treaties.

These are all positive and interesting proposals, which deserve to be discussed intensively in the political discourse of all democratic nations. Hats off to the Canadian Greens for putting them forward, and let's hope that a full debate on these issues takes place before Canadians next go to the polls.