Can the G20 save globalization’s waning reputation?
As leaders meet in Argentina for the annual G20 summit, the architects of the international forum reflect on “one of the great Canadian inventions.”
On a September afternoon in 1955, Paul Martin, Sr., the head of Canada’s delegation to the United Nations, stood up in the General Assembly Hall before various delegates of the body’s 60 member states, about to make a passionate appeal.
Ten years after the United Nations’ founding, membership had grown by only a handful from the original 51 countries. Some nations were of the opinion that expansion would complicate things — that the club should remain a small one. But Martin felt strongly that the United Nations wouldn’t be able to make a meaningful attempt at solving the world’s major problems unless it was truly representative.
“It is the view of the Government of Canada that the continued exclusion from the United Nations of so many nations of the world is a great handicap,” he told the hall, calling for “as quick and as broad an advance towards universality of membership as we can possibly bring about.”
Less than three months later, thanks largely to Martin’s efforts, 16 new countries were admitted to the United Nations General Assembly. Paul Jr., Martin’s teenage son — and future Canadian prime minister — was sitting with the Canadian delegation as this happened, thrilled to be witnessing country after country thanking his father.
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