Canada’s United Nations Myth

Commentary Canada was a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco on June 26, 1945. It was “the dawn of a new era in the history of the world,” said Prime Minister Mackenzie King. No longer would governments rely on power, war, and armed diplomacy to secure their interests. If mankind wanted peace badly enough, he could “beat swords into plowshares” and universal brotherhood would be just around the corner. Canada had been a respected auxiliary power in the war, first within the British Empire and then in the wider Anglo-American alliance led by the United States. The Axis powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy) were defeated but the war left the British Empire weaker while dramatically strengthening the United States and the Soviet Union. It was those two Great Powers that called the shots from 1943 to 1945, even though the five-member U.N. Security Council in 1945 also included Great Britain, France, and China....