August 5, 2002
Canadian activists like Maude Barlow contend that corporate influence over political parties and the media threaten democracy worldwide, and now a new United Nation Report suggests the same thing.
"Canadians should be concerned," said Ed Broadbent, former NDP leader and past head of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development.
"Clearly corporate reform is necessary if democracy is to be strengthened--this democratic deficit must be dealt with."
The UN’s Human Development Report for 2002, addressed by Broadbent, also ranked countries according to their desirability as places to live, ranking Canada third on a list of 173.
The role of corporations in the political process worldwide was emphasized in the report.
"Where money plays a decisive role in politics, it turns unequal economic power into unequal political advantage and undermines the principle of `one person, one vote’," said Broadbent.
Corporate and union donations to political parties should be banned, he said.
Corporate media ownership also threatens to undermine freedom of speech around the world, according to the UN report.
"To be free and independent and to produce factual, unbiased information, the media must be free not just from state control--but also from corporate and political pressures," the report states
"But commercial and political pressure still skew the market for ideas."
Fred McMahon of the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank, dismissed the report’s criticism of corporate donations, and said no limits should be set.
"Violations of that sort of freedom are simply a mistake," he said. "I think all sectors of society need to be able to tell their stories and participate in the political process."
McMahon also challenged the concerns about corporate media ownership.
"That argument only makes sense if Canadians do not have alternate avenues of access to information," he said.
"Canadians and people around the world have never had access to more information from more different sources than at the current time."
One would expect the oh-so-politically-correct United Nations to be against anything but motherhood.
Using the smokescreen known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the UN has been urging nations worldwide to, among other things, discourage full-time motherhood and scrap observances of Mother’s Day.
Guess the pencil pushers at the vast spaceship known as the UN don’t want any competition for Wican’s Day.
Supporters make CEDAW sound harmless enough. It does contain many noble goals, including the equal treatment of girls and women before the law. It advocates their participation in politics and the workplace and seeks to expand their access to health care and education.
Fair enough. But liberal UN members--and their partners in the "non-governmental organizations" that support their efforts--are using this recent treaty to advance a troubling agenda, Consider how one CEDAW committee report scolded Belarus: "The Committee is concerned by the continuing prevalence of sex-role stereotypes and by the reintroduction of such symbols as a Mother’s Day and a Mother’s Award, which it sees as encouraging women’s traditional roles. It is also concerned whether the introduction of human rights and gender education aimed at countering such stereotyping is being effectively implemented."
Incredibly, while the committee deems motherhood a harmful "stereotype," it considers prostitution a respectable profession to be encouraged. A CEDAW committee report to China expresses "concern that prostitution…is illegal" and "recommends the decriminalization of prostitution in China." In Germany, where the practice is legal, the committee says the real problem is equity: "Although they are legally obliged to pay taxes, prostitutes still do not enjoy the protection of labour and social law."
Others from the committee’s quaint- ideas- in- action category include instructions to Libya to reinterpret the Koran" to conform with the treaty and criticism of Slovenia because "less than 30 per cent of children under three years of age were in formal day care."
If the UN’s CEDAW gets its way; Mother’s Day will be replaced by Irma La Duce day.
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