International
Can We Finally Talk About United Nations Funding?
David Clinton 
Billions of dollars disappear into the black hole. Not much value comes out the other end
No area touched by government policy should be off-limits for open discussion. It’s our money, after all, and we have the right to wonder how it’s being spent. Nevertheless, there’s no shortage of topics that, well, aren’t appreciated in more polite company. Until quite recently, I somehow assumed that Canada’s commitments to the United Nations and its many humanitarian programs were among those restricted topics. I had my own deep reservations, but I generally kept my thoughts to myself.
Then the Free Press published a debate over US funding for the UN. I know that many subscribers of The Audit also read the Free Press, so this probably isn’t news to most of you. If questioning UN funding was ever off limits, it’s officially open season now.
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The only defense of the organization to emerge from the debate was that America’s spooks need the surveillance access made possible by the UN headquarter’s New York address, and the city needs the billions of dollars gained from hosting the big party. No one, in other words, could come up with a single friendly word of actual support.
For context, Canada doesn’t bill for parking spots around Turtle Bay in Manhattan. And our spies are not up to the task of bugging hospitality suites anywhere nearby.
How much money do Canadian taxpayers spend on the United Nations? According to data from Canada’s Open Government resource, UN-targeted grants cost us at least $3.7 billion between 2019 and 2022. That number could actually be a lot higher since it’s not always easy to identify spending items as specifically UN-related.
Of that $3.7 billion, more than $265 million went to administrative and headquarters operations. Those administrative grants included $209 million directed to the “United Nations Organization” and officially described as “Canada’s assessed contribution to the United Nations Regular Budget”. Membership dues, in other words.
So what do we get for those dues? Arguably, nothing at all. Because the actual work of the UN happens through their specific programs – which were covered by the other $3.5 billion we contributed.
Unfortunately, those contributions are often misspent. Take as an example the eight million or so dollars Canada sends each year to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Since 1978, UNIFIL’s 10,000-strong contingent’s only job has been to:
“confirm Hezbollah demilitarization, support Lebanese army operations against insurgents and weapon smuggling, and confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, in order to ensure that the government of Lebanon would restore its effective authority in the area”.
It’s no secret how splendidly that worked out. Hezbollah cheerfully spent the best part of the past two decades building some of the most robust military infrastructure on earth. And all under the direct supervision of UNIFIL.
Then there’s the disturbing relationship between United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and both Hamas and Hezbollah. As I’ve already written, by their own admission, Global Affairs Canada completely missed (or chose to ignore) that one. UNRWA cost Canadians $55 million between 2019 and 2022.
It’s true that some UN peacekeeping missions from decades back saw success, like operations in Namibia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, East Timor, and El Salvador. But the failures were, to say the least, noticeable. Those included Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, and Darfur. And all that’s besides the accusations of widespread, systemic sexual abuse committed by peacekeepers just about anywhere they go. The peacekeeping model’s value proposition is far from proven, but the financial costs are right out there in the open.
Besides their regular happens-to-the-best-of-us failures, the UN has carefully cultivated their own unique brand of corruption. In 2005, Paul Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), for example, reported on widespread corruption and abuse associated with the UN’s Oil-for-Food program for Iraqi citizens.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has long been associated with corruption, cronyism, and a general lack of financial control. But to be fair, those claims are very much in line with accusations regularly leveled against the UN as a whole.
Most Canadians are agreeable to sharing their collective wealth and expertise with those around the world who are less fortunate. But we’d be far more effective at it by creating our own programs and bypassing the rotting corpse of the United Nations altogether. That is, after all, what Global Affairs Canada is supposed to be doing.
While I’ve still got your attention, there’s one other United Nations-y thing that I’d like to discuss. While researching this post, I accessed official data representing all UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions since 2000. Fascinating stuff, I assure you. But it didn’t turn out the way I’d expected.
You see, for years I’ve been hearing about how UN resolutions are overwhelmingly focused on condemnations of Israel – to the point where Israel takes up the majority of the organization’s time.
In fact, there were far too many spurious and gratuitously hostile anti-Israel resolutions. And I defer to no one in my contempt for each one’s dishonesty and hypocrisy. But unless there’s something very wrong with the official UN data on resolutions, condemnations of Israel take up no more than a small minority of their time.
Specifically, of the 1,594 General Assembly resolutions from the past quarter century, just 60 or so targeted Israel. And the Security Council faced a total of 1,466 resolutions over that time, of which only somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 concerned everyone’s favorite colonial-settler, apartheid, space laser-firing, and weather-controlling oppressor.
The cesspool that is the modern UN is bad enough on its own merits. There’s no need to manufacture fake accusations.
Quick Hit:
Village officials in Dolton, Illinois, have purchased the boyhood home of Pope Leo XIV, calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to bring pride, attention, and tourism to the community. The historic acquisition comes just weeks after Robert Prevost was elected pope.
Key Details:
- The three-bedroom, 1,050-square-foot home was purchased by the Pope’s parents in 1949 and remained in the family for nearly 50 years.
- Initially listed for $245,957, the home was removed from the market after Prevost’s election and later sold directly to the Dolton Village Board at a “significantly lower” price.
- Dolton Mayor Jason House called the deal a major win for the community, with board members and residents already seeing increased interest and tour bus traffic.
Diving Deeper:
The childhood home of Pope Leo XIV has officially been purchased by the village of Dolton, Illinois, after a unanimous vote by the Village Board on Monday night. Local officials are celebrating the move as a historic acquisition that could serve as a source of civic pride and new economic opportunity.
As reported by the New York Post, the modest 1,050-square-foot home—located just south of Chicago—was originally purchased by the Pope’s parents in 1949 for a $49 monthly mortgage. It stayed in the Prevost family for nearly half a century.
After Robert Prevost was elected pope, the home—initially listed on May 5 for $245,957—was pulled from the market and briefly entered into an auction process. That plan was ultimately scrapped in favor of a direct sale to the village. While the final purchase price hasn’t been disclosed, attorney Burt Odelson, who handled the deal, said it was “significantly lower than what they thought they would get.”
Mayor Jason House praised the acquisition as a unique chance to put Dolton on the map. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” House said. “We can either seize this moment and move it forward, or we can let that moment go to an investor. I would like our community to get the benefits of this opportunity.”
Tourism has already begun. Within hours of Pope Leo XIV’s election, visitors started arriving at the home. Officials say that momentum has only grown. Trustee Edward Steave said the traffic in the area speaks for itself: “If you ever see the traffic over there, the constant busloads in and out of our town, this is a great opportunity for us. This is a historical thing.”
Peter Doocy asked directly, “What happened to the Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had on her desk?” Here’s how Leavitt tried to explain it.
The Epstein client list was supposed to be SITTING on Pam Bondi’s desk for review.
But months later, the DOJ says no such list even exists.
Karoline Leavitt was just asked why there was such a reversal in so little time.
Her responses today are raising eyebrows.
On February 21st, Pam Bondi told the world the Epstein client list was “sitting on [her] desk right now to review,” explaining it was part of a directive ordered by President Trump.
Shortly afterward, she and Kash Patel pledged to end the Epstein cover-up, promising to fully disclose the Epstein files to the public, hold accountable any government officials who withheld key evidence, and investigate why critical documents had been hidden in the first place.
But ever since late February, it seems the cover-up wasn’t exposed but buried even deeper by those who promised transparency.
First, they handed out the so-called “Epstein files” to influencers like golden Willy Wanka tickets, only for everyone to discover that almost all of the contents inside were already public and contained no new revelations.
Fast-forward to May, and suddenly Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are declaring firmly that Epstein killed himself.
“I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself,” Bongino stated bluntly to Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo.
Today, the Trump-appointed DOJ and FBI released a new report that’s turning heads and raising plenty of questions.
They concluded that Epstein had no clients, didn’t blackmail anyone, and definitely killed himself.
FBI Concludes Epstein Had No Clients, Didn’t Blackmail Anyone, and Definitely Killed Himself
This article originally appeared on Infowars and was republished with permission.
They also released surveillance footage and claimed it showed no one entered Epstein’s cell area, supporting the suicide ruling.
But people aren’t convinced. Some allege the video cuts off, with a minute of footage missing between 11:59 PM and midnight.
Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to questions about the Epstein client list in light of these new DOJ and FBI statements.
A reporter asked, “Karoline, the DOJ and FBI have now concluded there was no Jeffrey Epstein client list. What do you tell MAGA supporters who say they want anyone involved in Epstein’s alleged crimes held accountable?”
Leavitt replied, “This administration wants anyone who has ever committed a crime to be accountable, and I would argue this administration has done more to lock up bad guys than certainly the previous administration.”
She continued, “The Trump administration is committed to truth and transparency. That’s why the Attorney General and the FBI Director pledged, at the president’s direction, to do an exhaustive review of all the files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and his death. They put out a memo in conclusion of that review.”
“There was material they did not release because frankly it was incredibly graphic and contained child pornography, which is not something that is appropriate for public consumption,” she added.
“But they committed to an exhaustive investigation. That’s what they did and they provided the results of that.”
“That’s transparency,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt was also pressed about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments in February when she claimed she had the Epstein list “on [her] desk.”
Peter Doocy asked, “Okay, so the FBI looks at the circumstances surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein. According to the report, this systematic review revealed no incriminating client list. So what happened to the Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had on her desk?”
Leavitt responded, “I think if you go back and look at what the Attorney General said in that interview, which was on your network, on Fox News—”
Doocy pushed back, “I have the quote. John Roberts said: ‘DOJ may release the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, will that really happen?’ And she said, ‘It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.’”
Leavitt explained, “Yes. She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, that’s what the Attorney General was referring to. And I will let her speak for that.”
“But when it comes to the FBI and the Department of Justice, they are more than committed to ensuring that bad people are put behind bars.”
So, after months of patiently waiting, the American people get a nothing burger that simply repeats the same old claims we heard under Bill Barr.
Even worse, it’s purported that this is what “transparency” and “accountability” look like.
The story went from saying the Epstein client list was “on my desk” to “actually, there is no client list.”
And the newly released video footage raises questions and, in the age of AI, proves nothing.
If there’s really nothing to hide, why does it still feel like they’re hiding everything?
And most importantly—who’s still being protected?
Thanks for reading to the end. I hope you found this timeline of events and recap helpful.
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