You can read excerpts from Prime Minister Martin’s UN address below:

PM Paul Martin: Mr. President, I want to talk today about UN reform, particularly about the way we should serve and the way we do business if the United Nations is to play the role we want it to, in the 21st century.

The world is organized into independent states, and the primary obligation of the governments is to look after their own people. This presents us with a fundamental dilemma. For unless we also act collectively on the basis of our common humanity, the rich will become richer, the poor will become poorer, and hundreds of millions of people will be at risk. Thus, we need institutions whose primary obligation is to our common humanity.

Herein lies the importance of the United Nations. It comprises member-states, but its mission is indeed to serve the world’s peoples. Its charter makes this very clear: and I quote: “we, the peoples of the United Nations (are) determined to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women… 

No matter how you come at it, the time has come for real reform of the United Nations. We must put aside narrow interests and work to common purpose to strengthen this universal institution, whose activities give force to our common humanity. 
 

Four years ago, at the Millennium Summit, the leaders of the world agreed and I quote that “we have a duty...to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable…”. That duty will not be discharged, unless we, as governments speak to the dignity and freedom of every human being on earth, here at the world’s meeting place of nations.