 Good afternoon everybody. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the Director of Research here at the IIA. I'm delighted to welcome you all to this exciting event on Standard Bearers for Multilateralism Canada, Ireland and the UN. We're absolutely thrilled to be finally collaborating with our friends and colleagues at the Canadian Embassy. I'd like to especially thank David Kiffin and his team for David Kiffin and his team. We're just discussing her best pronouncing it. It's a Welsh name that travels to Canada so forgive me David. But it's a real pleasure sincerely to working with David and Jackie and colleagues from the Embassy. So Ambassador Ray is going to regalus in a few moments chair by the Great Mary Whelan. But before that it's my real and sincere pleasure to offer the floor to Ambassador Nancy Smyth to give some opening remarks. Thank you Ambassador. Thanks very much. Welcome Ambassador Ray. I feel like saying almost welcome home or to another home. Welcome to Arlene, to all the honorable guests that are here in person and also online. You're very welcome. I promise Mary and I will be very brief. She said I've heard that one before but I know our time is limited. I mean I think I'll just start by saying there really are few countries that are more like-minded and that share a stronger heritage, a common values and really a web of connections that are both historic and that are very current than Canada and Ireland. In early June I learned that Ambassador Ray was going to be in Ireland with Arlene on a private visit and perhaps rather unfairly but given the distinguished and long career that Ambassador Ray has in political life and in public service. I could not help myself but to say could be still you for an hour or two. And it's not only because Ambassador Ray brings such a unique perspective on multilateralism and on the global challenges so many of which he's worked on over his career but also because his personal connections Ireland that he understands better than many what that friendship looks like. I'll just give one example we were just speaking about which Ireland knows very well. This past June on June 23rd we had the 38th anniversary of the Air India bombing. It was Ambassador Ray who wrote government reports on the Air India bombing and who continues to speak about this atrocity and this unthinkable act of terrorism including where he sits now at the UN to the members of the General Assembly. He has continued to champion this. He's championed issues around Indigenous reconciliation in Canada. He's championed Ukraine, Haiti and the Rohingya Mayanmar context where I had the distinct pleasure of having a conversation with you. I think it was one of our more recent conversations when you were doing work in the context of the humanitarian and refugee issues work as Canada's special envoy and we had a discussion around the importance of refugee education. So I just want to say thank you again for being here. I want to say a real thanks to the IAE as Barry has suggested. We've had a few more than a few conversations about how we how we make sure that Canada becomes a part of the conversations here. Important work that you are doing. You are an organization that the embassy truly values. We're very proud to be a member of. We appreciate the work that the staff does. Not only the visible public work that you do through your through your events such as this but also the important research that you do in the working groups that you lead around some of the issues of our time. So I do hope that we will do more and I know that we will do more with your terrific staff here. So thanks to to to Leanne thanks to you Barry and thanks Mary to the MC who's agreed to chair this event and I know that you'll enjoyed these comments to come. Ambassador Ray is really a public servant and a diplomat of the first order. He was given the companionship of the order of Canada. You'll see the distinctive pin that is on his lapel and he's really I think going to be fascinating to listen to and let me just say that I'm honored and humbled to call him a colleague. So thank you. Thank you very much for those introductory remarks and a few housekeeping issues. First of all the event will last about an hour. We'll have an introductory statement by Ambassador Ray that will be about 10 15 minutes and then it's over to you the audience both here in person and those of you who are joining us on zoom and the zoom people are also very welcome. We would hope that we'll have a very lively discussion. Please send in your questions if you are watching on zoom and we'll come to them in the course of the discussion phase. Please identify your name and any organization to which you are affiliated. Both the presentation and the Q&A or comments are on the record. Feel free to follow us using the handle at iiea if you're a Twitter person and a special welcome from those joining us on YouTube. Just a very, very brief introduction. Bob Ray is a very distinguished Canadian, not just a diplomat but also because of your role in national politics and also in provincial politics. You are I understand the premier of Ontario and you came to diplomacy long before you came to the UN. You were a special envoy of Canada for me and Mar in 2017 and also a special envoy of Canada for humanitarian and refugee affairs. So you have you're in the cockpit as it were in in New York and we very much look forward to listening to you about your current post and your current expectation of how Ireland and Canada can collaborate even more closely at the United Nations. Thank you very much Mary. It's great to be with all of you. I know some of you can't see me right. This is what I look like. So I'll say hello to the Zoom world. It's great to be to be here. I actually started in diplomacy as a child because my father was a diplomat and he was posted in Geneva as the permanent representative and also in New York as the as the ambassador. So I was eagerly following global of issues as a young person and have really in a sense come home in by coming to New York. It's really brought me full circle back to where I've been affected sort of I feel like I started. So it I think what has been said about Canada and Ireland is is very very true. My dad used to say that there was one individual in his life in the 50s and 60s who when he spoke really spoke for for him for the world. That was Conor Cruz O'Brien who he felt very very strongly was was such a powerful international representative not only for Ireland but also for a vision of what the United Nations was was was supposed to be all about and the challenges that it's faced. I mean there are differences between Canada and Ireland. I mean obviously I know these are sensitive topics. I mean Canada was a founding member of NATO. Canada has been Canada's course to its political independence was slow and thoroughly negotiated over over many many centuries and decades after the original fighting between the English and the French and so that that sense of our connection with the Commonwealth and our connection with with non-neutrality if you like in the first and second World Wars it's quite different from Ireland historically. We have to appreciate that and recognize it but I think that now today in the world your representatives at the UN and our delegation are the closest to friends and colleagues. Fergal in fact just sent me a good luck message a little while ago just saying hello and connecting with me so it's much appreciated. I think the the world we're in now is a high-risk world and we need to understand some of the stakes that are in play and the challenges that we face. If we only had to deal with security issues and the economic and social issues which were recognized in the UN charter by the formation of economic and social council and evolved substantially over many many many years with decolonization and the arrival in the center of the stage of countries from Africa and Asia that had had been sub you know colonial subjects for many centuries was it was it has been a great transformation of the world but if we only had to deal with those two key issues we would be working flat out full-time we'd have many challenges we'd have many many difficulties but we'd have things that we needed to do but as we know that's only the start of some of the challenges we're facing today in the world. I mentioned three or four only and and stress them as much as I can and the time available I don't want to dominate the proceedings. The first is is climate change and I think we're beginning to understand that all of the talk about 2050 and the targets we need to meet by then have really given the many a sense of false comfort to say oh we've got time sort of like I mean many of you might identify with this you know thinking I've got to get this assignment in by such and such a date and you say oh that's far off I don't I don't I don't have to do this right away the Connor's going to King's College don't take this as an example Connor but the fact is is that you got to start working on it now or because that's the deadline is the deadline but in the case of climate change I think we've underestimated the extent to which climate change is a today issue it's not a tomorrow issue not a future issue and the today issue is felt very strongly by developing countries in two ways the first is they feel that they have not substantially contributed to the cumulative impact of global emissions and therefore are being unfairly singled out as they just enter into the world of industrial productivity and of course industrial pollution which goes with that productivity and the second is that they feel very strongly they are bearing the brunt of the impact that rising sea levels more extreme weather are having a much a very dramatic impact on the developing world in terms of the impact of the crises that we see I mean if you read the and our sense of what's in the news is is a little artificial because we don't fully appreciate the extent to which as we speak today there are massive cyclones taking place in Pakistan following on from the previous years flooding which was like nothing that had ever been seen before and yet we have to understand that this is now these are now baked in if I can use that phrase to to the current reality you have glaciers that are melting you have flows of rivers that are changing you you just have a series of crises that are having a dramatic effect on the security of the world and also on the well-being of the world and there is this growing sense of grievance that there there there is insufficient attention being paid by countries that are better off to the challenges that are being faced by those that are that are poorer and that that is an underlying reality of the UN that's always been there as a as a as a tension but it's it's stronger and it's getting stronger all the time the the second is been the global response to the pandemic and that's another example where both in Geneva and in New York the sense and you get it very directly at the United Nations the sense is that western countries have taken care of themselves and other countries have been left to wait and hope that something would happen and there have been a lot of tensions in the world as a result of this and there are also tensions that have been taken advantage of by those countries that say oh well you know the western powers don't help them there to help you but we will help you so you will have noticed that China and Russia were and and India to an extent we're we're very determined to say we're ready to help and much more publicly than than many western countries although western countries did give net large amounts of money and of vaccines some of them were perceived to have come late they were perceived to have come on a second hand basis and the underlying health challenges facing the poorer countries and in terms of their capacity and ability to deal with the consequences of the pandemic have been perceived to be just their response has been seen as inadequate selfish and this created a lot of ill feeling that is quite apparent and certainly we I was first appointed in the in the early days of covid and arriving in new york you could feel it you could feel just from other delegates saying how are you how are how are you getting back and we all the all the I mean as as international diplomats we were all vaccinated in in new york but as as that happened people began to say well what are you doing for for our country we have many requests from individual countries so did ireland saying could you respond how can you help us and it's been a very very difficult situation it will growingly continue it will continue to grow as attention between us between countries because we haven't necessarily resolved some of the underlying governance and structural issues around dealing with pandemics and dealing with global health crises that are still being negotiated and debated again in Geneva as well as in new york and we're trying to coordinate those discussions with many countries obviously Canada and Ireland working very closely together on those the third one is the most serious conflict we're facing at the moment which is the war in Ukraine and I think we have to recognize that the Russian aggression met with immediate resistance and and response from the western countries initiating you know many resolutions at the United Nations and elsewhere and initially the the response from other countries was yes of course it's an act of aggression but you know we then have the what abouts what about Iraq what about Afghanistan what about other examples what and historically going back in time what about Suez what about you can you can claim that we don't look at them all and saying your standard of applying to this question to these questions is not the same that's the first point this and that was sort of the response at the beginning but the the serious response came when people began to really feel the impacts of the conflict and again how what seemed to be a could be described as a as a regional conflict between Russia and Ukraine with some very specific issues has now become a global conflict of much great much greater proportions we'll see very quickly three things one is we need to we need to understand as well the growth of authoritarian populism around the world and how this has influenced how governments act and react I should add the words nationalistic so you have authoritarian populist and nationalistic governments that are rapidly industrializing and becoming a much bigger force in the world the biggest of which of course is China but there are many others that are becoming increasingly significant as as as present modern presences in the world so the days in which Canada could could confidently say well we're a middle power in the context of all what's going on in the world is affected by and the same with Ireland you know the influence that we're we think we have or we like to think we have or we like to think we used to have we have to understand well that that has to be lived up to every day and facing a very very different world as we as we as we see it and I personally think the issue with China and the and the potential rivalry between China and the western powers particularly the United States is something that is extremely significant and and challenging but it has to be understood in this wider context of how other you know how these other political tendencies are at play about China I think it's very important for us to understand I think an underline that we cannot deal with the problems that I have described the global pandemic climate change how global issues require a global response they would they will not be settled by means of a of a purely national or western response the response has to be global it has to be effective globally we cannot treat with these issues without China being a full partner fully engaged fully fully involved and China understands that and China feels it and China wants to exercise greater influence in the world and we need we need to come to grips with what that means and make sure that that we we analyze it correctly and that we respond to it correctly as it as and how it occurs but we have to understand that in the UN system for example China plays a more important role than it has ever played and it will play next year a more important role than it's played this year because it's it's its power and influence is growing and and that's not something that any international institution can say well you you know you're not welcome to have your public servants involved in our in our business but at the same time we then have to say well that's understandable we know what's happening but we do require that this all of this influence needs to become more transparent and needs to be subjected subject to the same international norms and regulations that we insist be applied to ourselves Canadian public servants who work at the end are not working for Canada they're working for the United Nations I don't talk to them and say can you tell me what's you know what you're doing uh and they say ambassador I don't report to you I may not be able to tell you so that you just have to accept that's that should also apply to China not always sure it does but we need to make sure sure that it does Russia is a much more opportunistic and in in in many ways unpredictable or it's predictable but it's it's some of its behaviors of completely random uh that you just sort of shake your head but we do need to understand that there's something really incongruous in a country that is so uninterested in international law and international standards international regulations continuing to play such a powerful role at the United Nations particularly with respect to its its use of the veto power and there I will come full circle and say when the charter was written there was good news and bad news the good news was the charter was a much more fulsome embrace of the international order and of what that meant in terms of human rights commitment to social progress and and all of the elements that would be involved in that an institution building on a very broad scale that was built into the formation of the united nations building credible effective international institutions that could take away some of the great uncertainties that had led to two world wars and that sort of progress can be noted and and needs to be understood but then there comes the bad news the bad news was five big powers got together and said well we're going to create this international organization but basically we're going to run it and so you say well that's so there's an inborn inbred if you like tension between the five superpowers as they are in the un system and everybody else and there's lots of ways in which that tension plays its plays itself out and it's I must say it's one place where Canada and Ireland work instinctively very closely together I mean we competed yes you competed successfully we competed unsuccessfully for the seat on the security council but it's a seat for two years and it's a seat for a non-permanent status on a council which is whose work is dominated by the five permanent representatives five permanent powers and and we've seen with particularly with the with the Russian aggression in Ukraine how this has become much more problematic in terms of the functionality of the UN and so that's where I'll close and that's by saying that we were together at the creation and and we've fought hard to work to create this powerful institution which we think can play a positive role in global affairs but we still have a lot of work to do to strengthen multilateralism not only as it relates to some of the I've had all kinds of other things I've not discussed yet which I would love to we can talk about them I hope in question time but there are a lot of areas where we have we have much work to do together and we have to do it understanding that nothing stays the same from on a daily basis the world keeps changing keeps evolving who is which powers are are moving more seriously into into seeking that seeking to gain and and extend their influence and and we have to accept that that's part of part of the dynamism of the of the world strength we have I think is our values which I still think are our good ones the strength I think is in the quality of our diplomacy the the commitment of our foreign offices both in Ottawa and in Dublin to working well together and working well with others and you know consistently performing and the the strong commitment to multilateralism which even dare I say it in this part of the world has been tested by brexit um I mean to an outsider brexit is I mean the British phenomenon wanting to seek to leave the European Union is inexplicable and perhaps apply just diplomatic terms but it's nevertheless a something which has taken place and so now we're all trying to figure out well how do we how do we cope with that in a way that will allow us to continue to to to work well effectively together and I think that's something we're still striving to do so I'll leave it there very thank you so much