Mr. Speaker, the appointment of Robert Mugabe as a WHO goodwill ambassador was the extreme height of stupidity. “Goodwill” and Robert Mugabe do not belong in the same sentence. His government brutalizes its own people and has done severe damage to the country's economic and social infrastructure.
Mercifully, this appointment has now been rescinded, but questions remain about how anyone could have thought this was a good idea in the first place. This event provides an opportunity to highlight human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and we must also take this occasion to demand greater accountability from international institutions, accountability to suffering around the world and to the lofty principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Current members of the UN Human Rights Council include Pakistan, Qatar, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and China. The UN-Women Executive Board includes many of the same countries, with the notable addition of Iran.
Canada must demand accountability and reform from international organizations and an end to the absurd spectacle of obviously unfit leadership in key areas. As long as autocrats and abusers run UN human rights bodies, and as long as Robert Mugabe continues to terrorize his own people, the work is far from done.