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You may recall our video earlier this month in which we reported that the City of Brampton flies the flag of the United Nations – right beside the cenotaph, no less.

We reached out for comment from the City and its mayor, “Sneaky Patrick Brown.” No comment was provided, which is du rigueur when it comes to Brampton’s media relations strategy in the Canadian version of the Hermit Kingdom.

Interestingly, in the comments section of the video, several viewers weighed in to say that their municipalities were also flying the flag of the United Nations.

One of those cities is Richmond Hill, Ont. And get this: Not only is the UN flag on display, but there’s actually a UN think tank operating out of City Hall!

What’s going on here?

Indeed, this UN office was established last year. Its debut received a smattering of local media coverage. But from what we could tell, the mainstream media reporters failed, yet again, to ask the right questions.

In any event, here’s what York.com reported:

The United Nations think tank on water has chosen Richmond Hill as its new worldwide headquarters.

A signing ceremony on Friday, April 26 welcomed the think tank, formally known as the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

Afterwards, the blue UN flag was raised outside Richmond Hill City Hall for the first time.

Mayor David West stated the following in a release. ‘This is an exciting time for Richmond Hill to welcome this globally respected organization to our city. To have the opportunity to collaborate with a like-minded group on environmental matters that we as a community have been long committed to is huge.’

“Huge”? As in the cost to taxpayers, perhaps?

As for a think tank on water… say, do you think the UN brainiacs are going full-speed ahead in terms of perfecting Justin Trudeau’s preferred packaging for H20? Remember Trudeau’s quote for the ages, some six years ago, pertaining to water bottles (or something):

“We have recently switched to drinking water bottles out of… water… out of… when we have water bottles… out of a plastic… sorry… away from plastic towards paper… like drink box water bottle sorta things…”

Um, was Blackface trying to say “Tetra Pak”? But never mind…

Anyway, we did reach out to Richmond Hill Mayor David West. Here were our queries:

1. Are there any tangible benefits to report thus far?

2. What has been the cost to taxpayers thus far?

3. Is the City questioning its alliance with the UN, given the scandal that emerged pertaining to a UN agency (UNRWA) that employed Hamas terrorists?

And the response? Radio silence, which is typical when dealing with Mayor West.

So it was that we went on a fact-finding mission to Richmond Hill City Hall. A UN employee met us in the lobby and informed us that nobody was available to speak with us, and he was not “authorized” to speak to the media. And in the spirit of “your call is very important to us”, he passed along an email address for the UN.

We will reach out, although something tells us we will likely have to file a Freedom of Information request to get any tangible information.

In the meantime, we are left to ponder another thing about the UN office at Richmond Hill City Hall: Why the lack of transparency?