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.
mo
The petty politics of Trudeau’s 'Canada-is-back' gang | AKIN | Columnists | Opin
“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.
mo
The petty politics of Trudeau’s 'Canada-is-back' gang | AKIN | Columnists | Opin
