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Hillel Neuer in Canadian Parliament: Exposing Canada’s Iran Nomination at the UN

 

On April 27, 2026, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer addressed the Canadian Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights, setting the record straight on Ottawa’s nomination of Iran to a key UN body, UNRWA’s ties to terrorism, and on the most urgent reforms needed at the United Nations.

Testimony Highlights

MP Anita Vandenbeld: I do want to reassure members of the Committee and those watching that Canada does not support Iran for positions of influence in the United Nations.

Hillel Neuer: We heard from an honorable member that Canada does not support Iran in leadership positions. But actually Canada did support. Canada did join consensus on April 8th to nominate Iran. Canada could have spoken out.

There the Chair asked “Does anyone want to speak out?” The United States took the floor. The United States took the floor and said ”This is a shameful thing to do.” And Canada chose silence. As a Canadian, this is something that caused me a great shame.

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MP Shuvaloy Majumdar: Hillel, as you know, the Canadian government had joined consensus to nominate the Iranian regime to a UN body that shapes policy on issues like women’s rights, human rights, counter-terrorism. May I ask you for your perspectives on that particular issue?

Hillel Neuer:  On April 8th, at a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Canada — as well as other democracies, including France, Germany, the UK, Finland, Australia, Norway, Austria, and the Netherlands — joined consensus to nominate the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN Committee for Program and Coordination, which is meeting soon: One day on women’s rights, one day on human rights, one day on peacekeeping, one day on terrorism prevention.

The notion that the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has just massacred some 40,000 protesters in two days, would be nominated to a committee that decides priorities for the United Nations on these critical issues is an insult to the memory of the tens of thousands of individuals who were killed that day, and it is an act of contempt for the people of Iran.

MP Shuvaloy Majumdar: Hillel, the Government has said that UNRWA supports values of human rights and peace. Meanwhile, the United States, Sweden, and the Netherlands have all cut or ended their funding to UNRWA for complicity with terrorism. UN Watch has been documenting problems with this organization for well over a decade, with numerous reports. What have you found in recent times?

Hillel Neuer: For a decade, we have been sounding the alarm that there are hundreds of UNRWA teachers, based in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere, who are funded by Canada and who are actively promoting terrorism — celebrating the killing of Jews, glorifying Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, and praising Hamas attacks.

And, honorable members, it is actually much worse than that. In the past year or two, we revealed that the heads of UNRWA’s education system — the very system that the Canadian government says it is funding to educate Palestinians in the values of peace and human rights — are not just supporters of Hamas, but Hamas terror chiefs.

These are the heads of the system. It is not a few bad apples — it is rotten to the core. An agency that should be helping Palestinians is instead poisoning them, with leaders of Hamas terrorism heading their education system. Canada cannot pretend it does not know. It does. UN Watch has documented a network of more than 400 UNRWA teachers and employees connected to Hamas — either supporting it, leading it, or praising terrorism. If we truly want to help Palestinians, we should not be poisoning the minds of another generation by funding terrorism.

MP Shuvaloy Majumdar: Hillel, if you were the Secretary-General of the United Nations, what would you do to fix this institutional and operational set of problems plaguing the organization?

Hillel Neuer: If I were UN Secretary-General, the main priority would be to restore moral clarity and credibility. If the United Nations cannot tell the difference between victims and their oppressors, it loses the very reason it exists. The UN’s greatest asset is its legitimacy — and it is eroding. We need to end the culture of false equivalence.

To say that the world’s largest dictatorship is the same as a liberal democracy is wrong. And when mass atrocities occur, the United Nations has to stop being silent. Too many countries get a free pass because they are powerful or have powerful alliances.

Second, we have to stop empowering abusers inside the system. If the UN allows China, Cuba, and Qatar to sit on the UN Human Rights Council, it is wrong. Authoritarian regimes should not be chairing human rights bodies or shaping global norms.

Finally, we have to refocus the UN on victims — not politics. Too often, the system amplifies regimes and sidelines dissidents. We should be systematically prioritizing giving the floor to dissidents — the kind we bring to our Geneva Summit: political prisoners, human rights defenders, victims of oppression, whether from the Islamic Republic of Iran, China, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Pakistan, or Cuba. Give them the floor—not the regimes.

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MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr. Neuer, you know, this committee in which you’re testifying now, was sanctioned by China because in 2020 we conducted a study that demonstrated there was a genocide underway in Xinjiang. There are several people on this committee including myself as Vice-Chair, we are still personally sanctioned as members of Parliament by China.
And yet, there’s a diplomatic thaw taking place between Canada and China. You noticed, three days before his famous Davos speech, [Canadian Prime Minister] Mr. Mark Carney was shaking hands with Xi Jinping in front of photographers. I want to press you on this because it’s extremely important. You spoke of consistency.
There are currently documented and proven violations of international human rights in China, and yet, it seems we remain silent while readily denouncing violations of international law occurring in Russia, for example or in Ukraine by Russia.
How is it that we have these double standards, currently under the pretext that relations with the Americans are difficult? At that point we turn to regimes like these. Is that acceptable in your eyes?
Hillel Neuer: Thank you, Honourable Member. I agree, double standards are completely unacceptable. China is a regime that affects 1.5 billion people. So if we are silent on China, we are silent about one-fifth of all humanity. It’s serious. And certainly also because China’s transnational repression against dissidents, which is extremely significant.
Canada is a member of the UN Economic and Social Council. Our former ambassador Bob Rae was recently president of this body. So, it’s a body that we believe is important.
Canada says, “Go to the United Nations, listen to the United Nations,” and we criticize other countries if they take actions that are not consistent with what the United Nations says.
And then we go and elect the Chinese Communist regime to a UN body that oversees human rights. We elect the Cuban police state, which represses playwrights, that has hundreds of political prisoners. We put in Nicaragua, a dictatorship that expelled 200 political prisoners and dissidents — put them in prison, then expelled them. Sudan, where there’s killings of tens of thousands of people, millions are starving. We elected these regimes. Canada joined consensus to put them on the UN Committee on NGOs.
Canada didn’t take the floor to object. So I think we need explanations. We need Canada to speak out. Let’s remember Wang Bingzhang, the father of the Chinese democracy movement. And I know your committee has heard about him before, but I have to mention him because his daughter Tianna Wang came to speak for us many times at our Geneva Summit, and at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
China sent spies who pretended to be NGO activists, to spy on and intimidate her, when she testified at the United Nations a number of years ago. Her father, Wang Bingzhang, is the heroic founder of the Chinese democracy movement. He’s someone who came to do his PhD at McGill University in Montreal. He saw what democracy was. He saw what freedom was. And he created a Chinese democracy movement. When he was abroad in Vietnam, I believe it was 2002, he was kidnapped. He had gone to meet Chinese labor activists. They kidnapped him, threw him in prison. He’s been languishing in solitary confinement for two decades.
His daughter went to McGill Law School. Canada needs to call for his immediate release, and not to be complicit in rewarding the oppressor. We need to stand with the persecuted much more than we’re doing now.
MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: And how is this perceived internationally? Because recently, I’ve had the opportunity to undertake a few missions including with the Speaker of the House, in Iceland, Norway, and elsewhere. I have contacts through my international work and we keep talking about the Davos speech with which I 100% agreed, but what Mr. Carney said isn’t aligned with the actions being taken by this government. That’s why I say I congratulated him on his speech, but how is it that in terms of action? It hasn’t translated to that point, Mr. Neuer?
Hillel Neuer: He called out the president of the United States, but meanwhile the United States is the only country that took the floor on April 8th at the UN Economic and Social Council to say electing China and Cuba is wrong, and the only country that said that nominating the Islamic Republic of Iran is wrong.

Canada was silent. Canada could have spoken. Canada spoke there in April 2022, when it came to the issue of Russia and Ukraine. This time they chose silence. This is not Canada’s tradition. This is not living up to the Canadian Charter. This is not living up to the vision that Mr. Carney expressed in Davos. We need to see actions matching words.

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