We Need an Independent Foreign Policy Again

Canada proudly punched above its weight on the world stage for decades under Liberal and Conservative governments. On foreign aid, apartheid, peace-keeping, banning use of landmines (the Ottawa Treaty), we were admired for strong principled and independent stands. We made a difference and we were respected across the world. Stephen Harper has broken that proud tradition. He has embraced an ideology far to the right of where we once stood. If anyone had any doubts about that, revelations that Harper delivered an addresss which plagiarized huge portions of John Howard's speech on going into Iraq should make it crystal clear. For those who say it was five years ago, well candidates have been dismissed in this campaign for offensive things they did or wrote more than five years ago and Conservatives called for their dismissals. They may have apologized for what they did but what was done was still not acceptable. Unless we think plagiarism is acceptable (and it certainly isn’t for students or journalists who can be expelled or fired for these things) then we can’t dismiss this act of plagiarism on the part of our current Prime Minister either. Nor did past politicians get away with it. Joe Biden had to abandon his Presidential aspirations in 1988 because he plagiarized a speech from a British politician and it took him years to recover politically from that and he still apologizes to this day for it and says how unbelievably stupid it was. Barack Obama was given quite a hard time by Conservatives (probably blogging Tories too) for using a section of Deval Patrick’s stump speech (“just words”) in his own and had to atone for that. But in the latter case he was told to do so by Patrick who was working on his campaign team and Obama fully admitted who he stole the lines from. Did John Howard directly tell Harper to use the same speech in this case? If so, it just proves the main point here.

Because the real story here and is that Canada simply does not have an independent foreign policy under a Harper administration and we have even more clear evidence of that today. We see no evidence that Harper has moderated his views on foreign policy since 2003. Harper gets his cues from elsewhere and Canada deserves a real leader, not a follower. You would think that on an issue as important as going to war Harper could articulate his own views. If he throws the blame on a staffer (UPDATE: as appears to be what he has done) the fact remains Harper couldn’t come up with an original rationale himself and put very similiar material in numerous op-eds which he signed. Not to mention he would be refusing to take responsibility for words he was proud to take credit for before.

Our past Prime Ministers led on the world stage and this one has failed to the point where our world standing has NEVER been lower. Stéphane Dion would restore our standing on the world stage and make us a real world player again.

People can say the economy is the main issue in this campaign and that’s fine, but it would be a tragedy not to have a real debate on foreign policy as well. Canadians pride themselves on our international reputation and how we comport ourselves across the globe so we need to make sure Canadians know what kind of foreign policy a Liberal versus Conservative government would undertake and what inspires those kinds of policies.

If Conservatives say we should just stick to the economy (where they’ve shown incompetent management anyway) it’s simply because they desperately want to avoid Canadians discussing their foreign policy and how far we’ve veered from our proud international record over the past 2.5 years.





Here is Bob Rae's speech today on foreign policy following up on yesterday's solid speech by Ignatieff on the economy.

UPDATE: Wonderful international press for our country, courtesy of our current PM

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Harper’s world allies down to one

This could not have made Mr. Harper very happy. Australians have just given the boot to one of Harper’s biggest allies. After all, Mr. Howard was the first major foreign dignitary Harper invited to address the House of Commons and it’s well-known that Harper was even advised by Howard on election strategy. Just take a look at the Liberal Party press release on this and I think you’ll see that the new Australian PM doesn’t exactly share the same world view as our Conservative Government (something tells me there won’t be anything nearly as glowing coming from the mouth of Mr. Harper).

This is nowhere more true that on the environment. While Australia joins the Western world consensus on Kyoto, Canada moves away. While Harper blocks progress on the environment on the world stage, he will now find there is essentially no one in the Western world (except George Bush) to back him up.

How can you say you are “leading the world” when no one agrees with you? Care to answer that Mr. Harper?

Canadians want their country to be leading the way on issues such as human rights and the environment. Harper continues to take us backward instead. No independent group and now no other Western nation (except the U.S. who’s President who long ago reached lame duck status) thinks he’s doing a good job on these issues.

He’s certainly on pace with his track record to meet the same fate as his good friend Howard once his record goes under the microscope in the next election campaign.

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