John Manley has indicted his own party and a Liberal prime minister for mishandling Canada’s friendship with the United States.
A former senior Liberal cabinet minister says repairing Canada’s relationship with the United States should be a top priority for new prime minister Stephen Harper.
John Manley says the two countries have to regain a personal trust that critics say deteriorated between President George W. Bush and former prime minister Paul Martin.
Critics say? And why only finger Paul Martin?! The decline in Canada’s relations with the United States was well under way with, and because of, Jean Chretien. And it was not any better during Pierre Trudeau, for that matter.
If Manley had said that the relations with the US need improvement, that would signify that they were Okay but could be better. Manley’s call for a repairing of our relations with the United States, however, is an admission that his party and the two previous PMs, not just Paul Martin, have significantly hurt them and placed them in a state of disrepair. Typically, things that are working well do not need repair.
While he was in office, Manley once mused about getting rid of the Monarchy. He summoned enough independence of mind to call into question that institutions, but never dared to criticise either of the last two Liberal prime ministers for their part in damaging the relations with our closest neighbour.
So, he now calls on Harper to fix the mess. What a tough guy. While he was in the arena himself, Manley remained in a corner quietly watching the corrida, half afraid of the bull. Now that he is out of harm’s way safely seated among the spectators, he’s full of bravado. Now he can yell at the matador and tell him what to do.
I am inclined to say that it’s bull, but chicken is the animal that most readily comes to mind instead.
Crossposted from Civitatensis.ca
Anna Keightley wrote:
As indicated above in the website designation entry, I’m very new to the internet (three months)–just now beginning to read the ‘foreign affairs’ category. The Politic is informative proving reasoned discussions of the myriad issues our society is currently embroiled in. A constant theme I notice is ‘take Canada back to workable first principles’ for the generations to come. There is evidence in the entries of high intellect reclaiming a moral stance which has been obviously recklessly squandered during the stewardship of the Liberal government. Greed and illicit businesses are the culprits. With regard to our foreign relations with the U.S., our past leadership reacted too much like the new kid on the block (we want in) when they forgot Canada’s once proud history as a peacekeeping nation and respected worldwide as a standard bearer for the nations. This must be reclaimed during the next administration.
At the same time, America should be firmly advised the northern passage is Canadian territory — which PM Harper casually but firmly advised from the gatepost.
Canada is well placed now as cultural mosaic to showplace its cultural cohesiveness in action. The various cultures celebrating one another in shared institutional programs, musical and food fair summer festivals, etc.
For instance, here in London, Ontario the Moslem Mosque joins the Catholic faith in dialogue evenings promoting understanding of the cultures.
Perhaps one of our Foreign Affair’s minister’s first acts could be to advise United Nations of the need to set up an unprecedented meeting of all world leaders at the U N table to be televised worldwide.
The further unprecedented initiative would include offering amnesty for a specified period of time to terrorist organizations’ representatives. The dialogue would play out on the world stage, the grievances vetted with a view to establishing possible workable solutions. The failure of the growing cultural divide is the failure of the cultures to give pride of place to one another in mutual esteem. Canada, once the peacekeeper of the nations, has now a window-box opportunity to offer this up through her new foreign relations department.
The fact is, the cultures have MUCH to learn from one another, the West from the East, the virtues of modesty, the sanctity of marriage, submission and prayer five times daily in submissio to the will of God, etc. The East, I suspect they have less to learn from us presently, as even our ethical business practices of late have gone by the wayside.
How can we support our leadership? By voicing our concerns to our MPs, they glean the doable ideas from ‘the politic’ and implement them where possible. I know this is offtrack with regard to above fine article, but I assume foreign affairs category is the place for this vetting of ideas.
Another thought came to me as I watch the Moslem violence played out in the Middle East — the more instructional cartoon could have included Abram (Abraham) speaking to his three sons, eldest, Ishmael, then Jacob, and finally Christian waving a finger for them to behave themselves or else, or to some such effect. I want to submit that idea to Globe and Mail.
Submitting now as I don’t know if there is a word limit on this entry site.
Posted on 09-Feb-06 at 2:32 pm | Permalink