Trudeau meets world leaders, promotes Canada for Security Council seat
NEW YORK — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau found himself in a whirlwind, 10-meeting day in New York City on Wednesday as he prepared Canada’s campaign for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Trudeau had one-on-one meetings with seven world leaders, bumped into two former U.S. presidents, attended three public events at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum with activist Melinda Gates and joined a youth rally at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s always a busy time at the UN,” Trudeau said, as he sat down with the president of Tajikistan, before meeting the leaders of the Netherlands, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Uganda and Indonesia.
One spokesman said this might be a personal record for the number of bilaterals in a single day. It’s part of Canada’s effort to win a Security Council seat in 2021, a campaign that has not formally been launched but which officials say is a underlying theme of this week’s myriad events before Trudeau speaks to the General Assembly on Thursday.