What was Canada's role in founding the United Nations?

Canada was a founding member of the United Nations, signing the UN Charter at San Francisco on June 26, 1945. The UN Charter took effect on October 24, 1945 (now celebrated as United Nations Day). Canadian delegates contributed to the Charter's drafting and to the subsequent Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948. Canada's commitment to the UN and to multilateral diplomacy became a defining feature of Canadian foreign policy throughout the post-war era.

The UN was created out of the Allied wartime coalition. The 1941 Atlantic Charter (signed by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill), the 1942 Declaration by United Nations (signed by 26 Allied governments including Canada), and the 1943 Moscow Declaration of the Big Four (United States, Britain, Soviet Union, China) established the foundations. The Dumbarton Oaks Conference of August to October 1944 drafted the first version of the Charter. The Yalta Conference of February 1945 set the date for the founding conference at San Francisco. The San Francisco Conference (April 25 to June 26, 1945) produced the final UN Charter.

Canada was represented at San Francisco by Prime Minister Mackenzie King (briefly), External Affairs Minister Louis St. Laurent, Conservative MP Gordon Graydon, CCF MP M.J. Coldwell, and a substantial delegation of officials including Lester B. Pearson, John Holmes, and Hume Wrong. Canadian contributions to the Charter included the Canadian-Australian-New Zealand 'middle powers' campaign for greater Security Council accountability and for improved provisions on social and economic matters in the Economic and Social Council.

Canada's most lasting contribution to the UN's early human-rights framework came through John Peters Humphrey (1905 to 1995), a McGill University legal scholar who became the first Director of the UN Division of Human Rights (1946 to 1966). Humphrey wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was then revised by the drafting committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 (now celebrated as Human Rights Day). Canada has remained an active UN member since 1945, holding the elected non-permanent UN Security Council seat six times (1948 to 1949, 1958 to 1959, 1967 to 1968, 1977 to 1978, 1989 to 1990, 1999 to 2000). Lester B. Pearson, who became Canada's External Affairs Minister in 1948 and later Prime Minister in 1963, made his diplomatic career largely through UN diplomacy. Canadian Adrienne Clarkson called Canada 'the original global citizens'.