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  AN AIRMAN`S CASE FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

 As a boy growing up in Toronto in the 1930s I had my first flight and dreamed of a career in aviation. At school I learned that the sun never set on the British Empire and I became a proud Canadian and British citizen. I knew how many planes the leading Canadian aces had shot down in the Great War of 1914-1918. Still a teenager I joined Trans-Canada Air Lines in 1940 and learned over the years how the airliner was shrinking the world community.

 In my last year in school in 1939 the Second World War had broken out. Three boys on my short street went into the air force, never to return. Perhaps lucky for me, I had failed the medical.

The fatalities in these two world wars between mainly Christian nations exceeded sixty million, nearly twice the present population of Canada. To ensure there would be no repetition, first the League of Nations and then the United Nations were formed. While the US did not join the League, it joined France to sponsor the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928 making war illegal. But it was ignored during the global depression of the hungry 1930s.

 Clifford Harmon, an American business executive and pilot, renowned as the sponsor of the Harmon Trophy, had advocated in 1928 a peace air force for the League of Nations which was never adopted. It was favoured for the United Nations by my boyhood hero, Canada’s first transatlantic pilot, Erroll Boyd. If it had existed today, it could have aided more quickly victims of the recent tsunami, earthquakes and hurricanes.

While Canada has been a much stronger supporter of the UN than the USA, I was alarmed by a recent headline: “Canada all but dropped UN peacekeeping role”. A new study showed that Canada is now on par with Peru and Guatemala in the number of troops it contributes to the world body.

Recently Canada did vote against direct involvement in the US expansion of militarism into space. My own MP, probably among many, had advised the PM that she would vote against our direct involvement.in this multibillion dollar program.

The old British Empire is dead. A majority of world citizens do not want to become part of the new American empire. But we see how the League and the UN failed us in the past. Two of the world powers, still holding an undemocratic veto, keep their nuclear warheads on instant alert. The US is not making any meaningful reduction in its nuclear arsenal with overkill capability. Is all this necessary? Free trade in small arms is flourishing.

As an accidental nuclear war could kill most of humanity, the world community should begin now reforming the UN into a global democratic government. Without an effective government, no community can enjoy peace, law, order and justice.

 The major aim of Canadian foreign policy should be to work for an effective global democracy and removal of the undemocratic veto in the Security Council. War is an ineffective and obsolete way of settling any dispute in the 21st century. Will you consider helping us to achieve this goal by supporting or joining our movement?

Sincerely, Ross Smyth,
Past President, Canada World Federalist Movement (1968-71, 1975-77)