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Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who was elected as the 39th president of the United States and later earned a Nobel Peace Prize, died at his home in Plains, Georgia on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024.
There is no doubt in my mind that world leaders and all elected politicians could learn a lot from the former U.S. president. Even though he was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980, everything at that point in time went on the wrong path as Carter was mentioning when he was president. It was unfortunate Carter was defeated by Reagan.
I was very saddened when I heard the breaking news report on Dec. 29 , 2024 at 4:25 p.m. that Carter had died. He turned 100 years of age on Oct. 1 , 2024.
President Carter campaigned for democracy and human rights, which is something that elected politicians and governments in Ontario and Canada deny people by trying to use the notwithstanding clause in Ontario under the misguided mindset of the premier of Ontario.
In 2002, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Carter the Nobel Peace Prize for "his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."
Carter earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a global champion of human rights as he was certainly a global champion for people. It was said that in accepting the prize, Carter urged leaders to confront "the growing chasm between the richest and the poorest people on earth."
"Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood," the Democratic president said during a 1978 White House event.
Elected politicians should take note of what Jimmy Carter said 47 years ago and try to learn something.
Doug Abernethy
Gravenhurst
