Canada Reverses Course, Opposes Iran on UN Women’s Rights Panel

– UN Watch, the independent Geneva-based non-governmental company that keeps track of the United Nations, today invited Canada’s statement that it voted today versus the Islamic Republic of Iran’s election to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination, the primary UN body forming the world company’s concerns on females’s rights, human rights, disarmament and counterterrorism.

On Wednesday, the UN General Assembly chose Iran to the committee by secret tally, with 144 states enacting favor.

Following the vote, Foreign Minister Anita Anand mentioned: “Canada is steadfastly opposed to offering Iran a seat on the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination – and Canada voted versus Iran’s addition today at the UN. The committee must be consisted of nations turned over with forming the work of the United Nations and should support the concepts of its Charter. The Iranian routine silences dissent in the house and fuels instability throughout the Middle East. We stand with individuals of Iran.”

“I applaud Minister Anand for reversing course and ballot versus the homicidal Iranian program,” stated Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “This is the best position, and it is the one we prompted Canada to take.”

In an op-ed released today in the National PostNeuer got in touch with Minister Anand to ask for a vote at the General Assembly and to rally fellow democracies to vote No.

“I just want Canada had actually taken this precise position in April, when the Iranian routine was chosen by an agreement choice that consisted of the Canadian federal government,” Neuer stated.

Prior Canadian Foreign Ministers Refused to Reveal U.N. Votes in Secret Ballot

The minister’s disclosure is noteworthy. Her predecessors declined to expose how their federal governments enacted U.N. secret-ballot elections.

“Canada and other federal governments practically never ever state how they enacted a U.N. trick tally,” stated Neuer. “That Minister Anand reacted to our appeal and picked to put Canada’s No vote on the general public record is considerable, and it sets a basic other democracies ought to now satisfy.”

From silence in April to a No vote in November

On April 8, 2026, the UN’s 54-nation Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) chosen Iran to the committee by agreement. The United States was the only member to objectstating the routine unsuited. Canada, in addition to Britain, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Australia, stayed quiet.

When UN Watch exposed the silence, Global Affairs Canada declared that Iran had actually been chosen by the Asia-Pacific Group, that Canada “did not back or choose this election,” which the committee was simply “an advisory body without any decision-making function.” The post was quickly remedied by a Community Note on X.

“Today Canada acknowledged that this committee matters, which Iran’s program has no put on it,” stated Neuer. “Now Ottawa should make that policy from the start. Next time Iran is chosen at ECOSOC, where these choices are efficiently made, Canada needs to take the flooring, item, and lead other democracies to do the very same, as it had actually done in 2010.”

Other democracies need to state how they voted

UN Watch contacted the other democracies that signed up with April’s agreement – Britain, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Australia – to state openly whether they chose or versus Iran.

“When you have 144 nations voting to reward a program that massacred 10s of countless its own people for the criminal activity of objecting,” stated Neuer, “every democracy owes its residents a response: were you amongst them?”

Secret files

• Hillel Neuer, National Post op-ed: “Anita Anand can stop Iran from being well-known to UN body forming females’s rights”
• UN Watch: Canada slapped with Community Note for rejecting it chose Iran
• U.S. description of position dissociating from Iran’s election, April 8, 2026
• UN file A/81/386: Election of members of the Committee for Programme and Coordination

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