This weekend’s WaPo featured a scathing American perspective of the upcoming Canadian election. The author accuses Canadian politicians of making US policy a central theme in the federal election and criticizing it “for taxing Canadian lumber imports, for failing to fight global warming, for lax gun-control laws, for dealing inappropriately with the war on terrorism.” In fact the American ambassador stepped in last month telling everyone to calm down. He was rightly told to back off. Of course he can defend his government’s position on any of those issues, that is his job, but telling others not to discuss it goes against everything I think America stands for. The US-Canada relationship is one of the most important and intertwined in the free world, and many US policies affect the average Canadian voter. I think these are all fair criticisms, and the only reason you don’t see Canadian policies as US election issues, is that the US has more important stuff to think about. I would love to see what George Bush or John Kerry would have said if Iraq’s ambassador said “leave us out!” This is a side-effect of globalization folks, what happens over there affects us over here. Don’t get me wrong, blatant America-bashing is uncalled for and wrong, I just don’t think that any of the stuff brought up by our candidates was bashing for bashing’s sake.
Anyways, though US-Canada relations are important I do not think it is the central issue that Anna Morgan makes it out to be. She makes it sound like Hugo Chavez and Harry Belafonte are running. Her examples of Canadian political avoidance are pretty laughable in their fleeting vagueness as well. Currently I would say the most central issue is gun crime (which is a total media circus IMHO) and suprise, suprise! is related to our relationship with the US: horizontal, not central, issue.
So, to all my good American friends, there is no need to worry about any “less-than-benign” neighbours to the north, or evil maple syrup oozing over your country. We are not amassing at your border, you shouldn’t need to invade Canada. And finally please don’t pay any attention to sensationalist reporting aimed only to prod sensitive patriotic sensibilities. Just sit back on the couch with a couple of stubbies, watch some hockey and chillax, eh?
Rant over.
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Comments to this entry
Curzon
January 11, 2006
2:37 am
Chief Wiggum
January 11, 2006
6:23 am
_After a spasm of heart-rending, frightening violence, Toronto's Mayor, David Miller, and its news media want Torontonians to remember one thing: The city is very, very safe. Really...If there is any problem in Toronto, the Mayor insists, it is traceable to the United States: "The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto," David Miller complained on Dec. 27...Canada's overall crime rate is now 50% higher than the crime rate in the United States. Read that again slowly -- it seems incredible, but it's true. It's true too that you are now more likely to be mugged in Toronto than in New York City... Since the early 1990s, crime rates have dropped in 48 of the 50 states and 80% of American cities. Over that same period, crime rates have risen in six of the 10 Canadian provinces and in seven of Canada's 10 biggest cities..._
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=fb715fde-9cee-42e2-ae75-81061c3cee14
Frum, of course, has no credibility due to his contamination in the service of George Bush. Martin and the Liberal Party seem to be slipping in the polls a bit, so there should be an increased Great Satan-baiting until election day. America-bashing worked quite well for Gerhard Schroeder in 2002.
Kushibo
January 11, 2006
9:48 am
You're thinking of pre-9/11 America. Right now, you're either for us or against us.
I think these are all fair criticisms, and the only reason you don't see Canadian policies as US election issues, is that the US has more important stuff to think about.
Just wait, because the following issues could easily become central to political issues in the U.S.: legalization of pot in Canada, getting prescription drugs from Canada, and using Canadian health care as a model in the lower 48.
Don't get me wrong, blatant America-bashing is uncalled for and wrong, I just don't think that any of the stuff brought up by our candidates was bashing for bashing's sake.
Blatant? Don't you mean "mindless"? I don't mind it being blatant as long as it's appropriate. It's the mindless stuff I don't care for.
snow
January 11, 2006
10:08 am
adamu
January 11, 2006
12:13 pm
All the posters (mostly Americans) on forums supporting any number of odd activities, from anorexia to marijuana worship to pedophilia, consistently construct convoluted justifications for their lifestyles. Whenever someone comes on and makes fun of them/criticizes in any way, the people's defenses almost always center around the idea: "everyone is entitled to their opinion, so why don't you just shut the hell up and let us be weird?"
Check it out:
http://www.somethingawful.com/weekendweb/
Younghusband
January 11, 2006
2:41 pm
Yes.
_Yes!_
Yes!
Evd.
January 11, 2006
9:23 pm
We're now mostly talking about corruption, gun control, and healthcare.
Kenneth
January 11, 2006
10:59 pm
With pleasure. Yesterday I had a political forum at my highschool involving regional candidates for the federal election (I think). It was devastatingly stupid. The Canadian Healthcare Act, or whatever it was that consolidated our healthcare system into an inefficient public monopoly, was accorded the status of holy writ, with candidates attempting to outdo each other on the issue of maintaining the system against any alternative at all costs (better dead that not-red!). Many a bilge was spewed forth about meaningless concepts like "social justice" and the New Democrat pontificated at length about the need for a populist government with national control, of, among other things, the oil industry (lesson of OPEC: oil and government should never, EVER mix) and the liberal sidestepped the probing questions about her party with red herrings about how she "earned" her position. The "need" for foreign aid was never question, though the conservative at least had the sense to raise scepticism over the issue of debt relief, and many an annoying reference was made to Sweden and Finland (nonwithstanding that the median income in Sweden is lower than for blacks in the USA, Sweden doesn't have large minorities that have been marginalised for a long time, and a continuous influx of immigrants from much poorer countries, and that Finland owes its prosperity to its oil reserves, not its government. As a counterexample to all these, there is always Chile). The Liberal, the New Democrat, and the Green paid tribute to the Almighty State by expounding upon the "need" for social programmes, and the remainder of it was a mud-fest, with parties accusing each other of "secret agendas" and "corruption". As H.L. Mencken once said: _"In a democracy, each party devotes its chief energies to proving that the others consist of scoundrels, and all commonly succeed, and are right..."_. The only good thing that came of it was the fact that I got to miss a full hour and a half of classes.
If I were old enough to vote, I'd boycott the election.
ursa arcturus
January 11, 2006
11:02 pm
Now our benighted PM wants to ban all handguns in the nation. Support from outside Toronto the (formerly) Good? Near-zero. Handguns have been heavily restricted and regulated in Canada since 1930 (so the Registry fiasco only concerns 'long guns') and 'legal' hand guns are involved in less than 1% of all the violent crime in this country.
Similarly, vetting of third-world immigrants has nearly evaporated in the last 12 years, while it takes a European, American or Antipodal wannabe Canuck ages and much expense to come here no matter what skills and/or fortune they'll be bringing with them.
Cry the beloved country...
Plum Blossoms
January 12, 2006
12:44 am
At Coming Anarchy, Younghusband dispels the idea that Canada is on the slide to becoming another bastion of anti-American sentiments. It's hard to say whether US relations will be a key factor in voter choice on January 23, but the...