Candidate Leslyn Lewis participates in the Conservative Party of Canada English leadership debate in Edmonton, on May 11, 2022.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
The Prime Minister’s Office is questioning a high-profile Conservative MP’s support for a petition that seeks Canada’s withdrawal from the United Nations and its subsidiary agencies.
Leslyn Lewis, who ran for the Conservative leadership in the party’s last two leadership contests, sponsored the public petition to bring it before Parliament and is seeking signatories.
Burnaby, B.C., resident Doug Porter initiated the petition last year. To get it into the House of Commons, he needed an MP to back it.
“Over 60,000 Canadians have now signed a petition calling on Canada to protect our national sovereignty by withdrawing from the UN and its subsidiary organizations,” Ms. Lewis wrote on social media platform X.
Mohammad Hussain, a press secretary for the Prime Minister, said Wednesday that Ms. Lewis’s endorsement raises some questions.
“Make no mistake, when someone posts a petition it’s because they agree with it. What is it about the UN that Conservatives don’t like?” Mr. Hussain said in a statement.
“Is it the work they do for children around the world, is it their programs to support women’s rights and human rights?”
Ms. Lewis, the Haldimand-Norfolk MP and opposition critic for infrastructure and communities, has previously been critical of the World Health Organization, a UN agency, raising concerns about its possible influence on Canadian health policy.
The petition suggests that Canada’s participation in the World Health Organization Agenda 2030 program for sustainable development undermines national sovereignty and personal autonomy.
The petition suggests that aspects of the agenda and associated regulations could also violate rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Bill of Rights and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It calls for the House of Commons to “urgently implement Canada’s expeditious withdrawal from the UN and all of its subsidiary organizations including WHO.”
Mr. Hussain said that if Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre does not agree with Ms. Lewis’s X posting on the petition, he should make her delete it.
“But he won’t because this is how they view the world. They promote wild conspiracy theories, attack the UN, attack the World Health Organization, and they even turned their back on Ukraine by voting against the new trade deal and voting against military support,” he wrote.
Rob Oliphant, the parliamentary secretary for the Foreign Affairs Minister, also took note of Ms. Lewis’s posting, writing in a post on X that withdrawing from the UN would be “absurd & dangerous.”
He rhetorically asked if this is the new Conservative foreign policy to “abandon our international obligations on human rights, women’s rights, children and so much more.”
Ms. Lewis did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Nor did Mr. Poilievre’s team, or Michael Chong, the caucus foreign affairs critic.
The petition was posted in October and closes on Feb. 7. As of Wednesday, there were 64,770 signatures.
Ian Bailey