There are times when, as a Canadian, I feel a little less than proud of my
country's political leaders. This is one of them.
I see by today’s local paper, the Ottawa Citizen, that Canadian Federal
opposition members are demanding that Prime Minister-to-be Paul Martin's first
order of business this week must be to phone U.S. President George W. Bush to
arrange a meeting that will begin the process of repairing badly damaged
Canada-U.S. relations. The softwood lumber crisis, mad cow disease and the
Iraq war are just three issues he should address with Mr. Bush immediately,
not to mention establishing a good personal relationship, they say. Tory
leader Peter MacKay said Mr. Martin should not wait for Mr. Bush to call and
congratulate him on winning the Liberal leadership, but should pick up the
phone first and do so this week. And, says Alliance MP Deb Grey: "He needs to
prove what he says about mending relations with the U.S. -- on BSE, get the
borders open, deal with softwood lumber. We didn't want to get involved in
Iraq -- so what are we going to do on that front?"
Yes, what indeed? What might Bush want in return to favoring us with a pat
on the head? Well, he could grant us the privilege of joining the US in
sinking into the Iraqi quagmire. The Americans certainly need help there.
According to this morning’s Power and Interest News Report (PINR) dispatch,
"… if the White House is able to corral a greater number of countries into
committing troops to Iraq, the president and his administration --
specifically the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz -- will appear vindicated on charges of
unilateralism and anti-internationalism, which is one of the most widespread
and accepted criticisms of this White House's foreign policy. It would be both
an international and domestic political victory over their critics if the Bush
administration were able to create a true coalition of military forces sharing
constabulary duties in Iraq."
Question for my fellow Canadians: Do we really want to help these guys out
even if it does mean getting a few more cows over the US border?
Ed Weick