OTTAWA - Speaking to the United Nations Security Council Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion couldn’t help himself.

“Canada is back,” he declared as he closed his brief remarks endorsing the (obvious) idea that civilians need better protection during U.N. peacekeeping operations.

We’ve heard this phrase a lot — too much — from Justin Trudeau’s ministers as they speechify in the House of Commons, across the country and around the world.

For a domestic audience, Dion and other Liberals who use the phrase “Canada is back” intend it to be interpreted as drive-by sneer at the foreign policy of the government of Stephen Harper.

But to an international audience, like the one at the security council Friday that heard Dion use this phrase, “Canada is back” will sound confusing and make Canada’s current government seem petty and provincial.

Canada is back? What can that mean? To the regulars at UN headquarters in New York City, Canada has never left and has been a visible and steady presence all through the Harper decade.

The myth, of course, was that the Harper government hated the U.N., tried to undermine it, and worked to deny its legitimacy on any number of files. It’s a myth Liberals and New Democrats were happy to trumpet. And, truth be told, many Conservatives in Canada did little to dispel that myth, frustrated as they often were at the rank anti-semitism allowed to fester and foul so many United Nations fora from the annual General Assembly to its human rights council.

And when Canada lost its bid in 2010 for a seat on the security council, these same Conservatives held up the loss as a sign of the Harper government’s virtue, that it refused to grovel for the votes it needed from the Israel-haters and human rights abusers that make up such a large voting bloc in the organization.

And yet, Conservatives in Canada may be as surprised at how much work the Harper government actually did to support the U.N. as Liberal “Canada-is-back” ministers are apparently ignorant of that work.

In 2010, for example, the Harper government spearheaded an initiative to raise billions of dollars around the world to improve maternal and child health. It remains a centrepiece to this day of Canada’s foreign aid focus and it is mainly U.N. agencies that receive these funds.

In 2011, Rona Ambrose, then Harper’s minister for the status of women, sponsored a resolution at the U.N. to have every Oct. 11 marked as the International Day of the Girl. This has since become an important global event to raise awareness about gender inequality, access to education for girls, and child marriage.

Canada, all through the Harper years, was consistently one of the world’s top donors to UN refugee agencies. By the time Harper toured the U.N. refugee camp in Zaatari, Jordan in 2014, Canada had given $630-million for Syrian refugees in the region, making it, at the time, the world’s 4th largest donor to that crisis.

Harper, himself, made it a point to be in New York for the fall “leaders’ week” at the U.N. (He missed the 2008 and 2015 leaders’ weeks while fighting general elections.)

He spoke to the general assembly three times which is once more than Pierre Eliott Trudeau ever did and second in frequency only to Jean Chretien’s five speeches to the UNGA.

If he wasn’t speaking to the general assembly, he was engaged in meetings with other leaders on the sidelines to push Canada’s objectives on helping refugees, fighting global poverty or dealing with Afghanistan, Libya or other pressing security issues.

The old hands at the U.N. know this. They know Canada has been a valuable, steady partner for decades.

And they must shake their heads at the silly, petty political points Dion and others vainly try to make whenever they show up to boast that Canada, somehow, is back.

CANADIAN PRIME MINISTERS SPEECHES TO THE U.N.

Jean Chretien in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003

Brian Mulroney in 1985, 1988 and 1990

Stephen Harper in 2006, 2010, and 2014

John Diefenbaker in 1957 and 1960

Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1978 and 1982

Paul Martin in 2004, 2005

William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1948

Lester B. Pearson in 1963

Kim Campbell in 1993

Source: Dag Hammarskjöld Library, United Nations