POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JOHN IBBITSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"It’s what the
Chinese and Indians and Japanese and South Koreans and Malaysians and
Indonesians and Filipinos and Vietnamese and all the others think of us that
matters now.
"That’s where the
growth is. That’s where we have to go. Even if the Pacific alternative is a
much, much harder row to hoe."
Yes, Mr. Ibbitson, that statement is very true so far as it
goes, but in fact it doesn't go very far.
I believe you are playing word games, being essentially
dishonest while seeming to say true things.
Harper's only "achievements” in widening our world
trade has been to walk in lock-step with America, both in the pathetic little
agreements with small states in Latin America and in joining the Pacific Rim
effort.
Both of those efforts have more to do with America's desire
to lock-in these smaller states in geo-political terms than any meaningful
extension of the world's free trade.
Nothing of substance has been done by Harper concerning the
world's growing future giants: China, India, Brazil, and Russia.
Again, that failure relates to his servility towards the
U.S., an imperial power which is very wary of closer relations with these
countries and would not appreciate genuinely Canadian initiatives.
In fact, we have not had in my lifetime a prime who cares
quite so much about what Americans think.
Indeed, in his words and actions, I think it completely fair
to describe him as an American wannabe.
Yet he is your man, Mr. Ibbitson.
The basis for the rupture in American-Canadian relations, if
it may be called that, is simple: Harper has been hit with the stunning truth
so many leaders in the world have been hit with in the past: when you cozy up
to the big bully to the South, giving him everything he wants and then some,
you do not earn any reciprocity or special status.
In fact, you just keep getting asked for more. My favorite
recent example is Tony Blair, a man who demeaned the office he occupied with
lies and crimes serving American interests, and yet who was not even listened
to on issues where he thought he could make a contribution to world affairs.
He became a pathetic figure, having money showered on him in
his retirement (the way America tends to reward those who have served it
acceptably), but having made no contribution to humanity worth mentioning and
having served American interests with war crimes.
Harper has, along many lines, badly compromised the
integrity of Canada's traditional identity and role in the world while chasing
the fantasy of becoming America's favored son, a traditional identity which
most American governments did not like but had some grudging respect for.
Now we look to American eyes as a rather pathetic figure,
begging for pipelines, begging for inclusion in trade talks, begging for their
honoring free-trade treaty terms which they have regularly violated when it
suited their needs.
And we've compromised ourselves heavily, more or less
cutting the attachments in the world that depended upon the perception of
Canada as an honest broker, a fair-minded and progressive society reaching out
to the world.
And we owe it all to your boy, Stephen Harper.
