This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Cosmos Voutsinos

Don’t let Ottawa sign away our sovereignty to the WHO, placing power in the hands of unelected global officials

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent call for Canada to become the 51st state rightly triggered national outrage. Yet while many were offended by his
provocative remarks, a more real and insidious assault on our sovereignty is unfolding in Geneva, where the World Health Organization (WHO)
Pandemic Treaty threatens to shift power from democratic nations to unelected global bureaucrats.

The Treaty, under negotiation, is aimed at strengthening global health responses to future pandemics. While proponents argue it will improve global preparedness, critics warn it will undermine national sovereignty, giving the WHO the power to impose sweeping health measures—lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and travel restrictions—without consultation or approval from elected governments. The treaty empowers the WHO director-general to declare a global health emergency, effectively bypassing national decision-making and subjecting countries to externally imposed mandates.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), established by the WHO to draft a new international pandemic agreement, concluded its 13th meeting on April 16. The final proposed treaty will be presented for consideration and adoption at the 78th World Health Assembly, scheduled to begin on May 19.

While global cooperation on public health is essential, Canada’s health decisions should remain in Canadian hands. The treaty gives the WHO significant authority to mandate health responses, potentially overriding local decisions made by Canadian experts and governments. This could mean that Canada’s ability to make pandemic decisions based on local context and need could be compromised by a centralized, unelected body, which Canadians never voted to give power to.

This is not just a health care issue—it is a fundamental challenge to democratic governance. The treaty lays the groundwork for digital health passes and surveillance systems that could weaponize personal health data, as we saw during the trucker protests in Ottawa. Do Canadians want a future where personal freedoms are tied to health status and tracked globally?

There are also serious financial implications. The treaty introduces a “Pathogen Access and Benet Sharing System” with undefined costs, potentially saddling Canada with an ongoing financial burden to fund global health initiatives. Earlier drafts proposed that countries contribute five per cent of their health budgets, a clause that has been removed but replaced with new, opaque financial obligations that could lead to billions in taxpayer dollars being diverted to the UN.

The United States has already initiated its withdrawal from the WHO, raising important questions about how Canada will coordinate cross-border policies and maintain its trading relationship with our largest neighbour during future health crises.

The WHO is not accountable to Canadian voters. It has no direct responsibility to our Parliament or provincial health authorities. It has a poor track record, failing to declare COVID-19 a pandemic in time, hesitating to challenge China’s handling of the virus, and offering shifting guidance that undermined public trust. Why should Canadians accept its authority without direct oversight?

Worse, Parliament will not be sitting during the critical window when the treaty will be presented and potentially signed. According to the House of Commons Sitting Calendar, Canadian Parliament is not scheduled to sit until May 26, 2025,  which is after the World Health Assembly concludes. This means decisions could be made behind closed doors with little public debate or political consequence.

The treaty’s implications go far beyond health and set a dangerous precedent that in the next crisis, Canadians may not have a say in how their government responds.

International cooperation should not come at the expense of our freedom and sovereignty. The WHO can offer advice, coordination, and resources but it should not dictate our national response. Canada’s government must reject this treaty, ensuring that any related commitments are brought before Parliament for full debate and approval.

Anything less would betray the trust Canadians place in their leaders. This is not just about public health—it’s about protecting our democratic rights, our sovereignty, and our freedom.

Cosmos Voutsinos is a retired engineer who has published multiple scientific papers that have garnered a total of 96 citations. He earned his Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) at the University of Waterloo and his Master of Engineering (M.Eng) degree from McMaster University.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jack McPherrin and H. Sterling Burnett

In recent years, corporate coalitions have increasingly taken center stage in environmental policymaking, often through public-private partnerships aligned with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals that promise systemic change.

One of the most prominent examples is the U.S. Plastics Pact (USPP). At first glance, the USPP may appear to some as a promising solution for reducing plastic pollution. But in practice, it has encouraged companies to make changes that are more cosmetic than environmental—and in some cases, actively counterproductive—while increasing their control over the market.

The USPP, launched in 2020, consists of more than 850 companies, non-profits, research institutions, government agencies, and other entities working together to create a new “circular economy for plastics.” Dozens of major retailers and consumer goods companies—including Coca-Cola, Danone, Kraft Heinz, Target, and Unilever—have signed on as “Activators,” pledging to eliminate certain plastics, shift to recyclable packaging, and increase the use of recycled plastics.

Yet, rather than curbing plastic production or reducing waste, the USPP has led many companies to simply transition from polystyrene to polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This shift has been encouraged by claims that PET is more widely recyclable, easier to sort, and better aligned with existing U.S. recycling infrastructure.

However, polystyrene is more moldable, is recyclable, and has insulation properties that PET doesn’t. In addition, PET is approximately 30 percent heavier than polystyrene, meaning more material is required for the same functional use. Moreover, PET requires more energy and is more expensive to produce than polystyrene. And PET’s denser packaging increases transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions and raises costs even more—though these higher costs don’t bother USPP participants, as they simply pass them on to consumers.

Only 5 to 6 percent of all plastics in the United States are recycled. Even for PET products, the overall recycling rate remains low. Just one-third of PET bottles are recycled, while the  recycling rate for many other PET products such as thermoforms is less than 10 percent. Most PET products end up in landfills.

This ineffective, costly, and counterproductive shift was not accidental. It reflects the broader incentives baked into ESG scoring systems that reward superficial compliance over substantive outcomes.

ESG frameworks reward companies financially and reputationally for achieving certain narrow targets such as reductions in single-use plastics or increases in the use of packaging that is technically recyclable. However, these metrics often fail to accurately assess total plastic use in a product’s lifecycle, associated emissions, and real-world recovery. A package that uses more plastic and energy—and therefore generates more emissions—may still earn high sustainability marks, so long as the plastic is recyclable in theory. This is a textbook example of greenwashing.

A closer look at the USPP reveals that some of the world’s top plastic users and producers—Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé—are among the Pact’s strongest backers. These corporations, which produce billions of PET containers per year, benefit substantially from signing onto agreements such as the USPP, adopting ESG standards, and pledging support for various green goals—even if they do not deliver any green results. In fact, a 2022 report found that a large majority of retail signatories to the USPP actually increased their consumption of virgin plastic from 2020 to 2021.

Many of these same companies fund the non-profit that organized the USPP: the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This creates a feedback loop in which large companies shape sustainability standards to their own advantage, defining which materials are “acceptable,” reaping the rewards of ESG compliance, and marginalizing smaller firms that lack the resources to adapt.

For example, by promoting PET as the preferred packaging material, the USPP conveniently reinforces the existing supply chains of these multinational bottlers, while sidelining other materials such as polystyrene that may be more cost-efficient and suitable for specific applications. Smaller manufacturers, who can’t easily switch packaging or absorb the added costs, are effectively squeezed out of the marketplace.

The USPP has not built a circular economy. Rather, it has constructed a closed circle of corporate sponsors that gain reputational boosts and higher ESG scores on the backs of consumers, despite increasing energy and plastics use.

The USPP unites ESG financiers, government agencies, nonprofits, and the largest corporate polluters in a mutually beneficial arrangement. This system rewards compliance, deflects scrutiny, manipulates public trust, eliminates free-market competition, stifles innovation, and increases costs to consumers—all while creating more waste.

Policymakers and consumers alike must recognize that ESG-aligned coalitions such as the U.S. Plastics Pact are nothing more than corporate lobbying groups disguised as sustainability initiatives. They do not improve environmental quality, but they do profit immensely from the illusion of doing so.

Jack McPherrin ([email protected]) is a Research Fellow for the Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center and H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., ([email protected]) is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, both at The Heartland Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.