|
John_Galt
|
1# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:508
From:
Registered:
03/14/2002
Time spent:
0 hours
|
(Date Posted:03/23/2003 19:06:54)
Opinion polls show approximately 70% of Canadians in favour of the PM's stand on the war. Here in Quebec, anti-war sentiment is even higher, and among French speaking Qu??ois it is the highest. On February 15, over 100,000 marched in Montreal despite -20 Celcius temperatures. On March 22, Montrealers were over 250,000. Now French Canadians opposed Canadian participation in WWI and WWII (with many of the French Canadian ?ite supporting P?ain's Vichy r?ime). Quebeckers largely opposed the 1991 Gulf War and opposed the Kosovo intervention.
Support for the USA is strongest in Alberta (the only province where support for the USA is a majority) where the premier sent a letter to the USA ambassador expressing support (a breach of diplomatic protocol and the constitution as national foreign policy is to be decided at the federal level).
In Canada on Saturday, marchers protested outside the USA embassies and consulates across the country. Curiously (and incongruously) no one seemed to be protesting outside the Iraqi embassy in Ottawa asking Hussein to disarm.
In Quebec we live in a bubble. The governing Parti Qu??ois (which advocates the separation of Quebec from Canada) voted that an independent Quebec would NOT have an army, with the necessary implication that Quebec would not be a member of NORAD, NATO or any other military alliance. Although some French Canadians bore arms in WWI and WWII, there is no military tradition in Quebec. In Montreal few francophones observe Remembrance Day (November 11). Memorial services are largely confined to the English speaking community.
The last battle of significance in Quebec (where the war of 1812 is largely forgotton) was 1759, where the French Royalists were defeated. The rest of Quebec history has been peaceful (except for a minor armed uprising in 1837 and some terrorism in 1970).
As you know, I am a French speaking Qu??ois. I also support the action of the USA. The reaction of my people against the USA, along with the absence of any reaction against Saddam Hussein, leaves me feeling totally disconnected from my countrymen. This feeling is exacerbated in that most of the pro-USA voices coming out of Canada are from the same people who routinely denounce Quebec and French Canadians. I am also a francophile (even though I love to make fun of the French) but even more of an Anglophile. Quebec is the only part of the former French empire which is not a shithole, and Quebec has been under British tutelage since 1759.
Sorry for the incoherant rambling.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Il n'y a que deux puissances au monde, le sabre et l'esprit: à la longue, le sabre est toujours vaincu par l'esprit - Napoléon Ier
|
|
John_Galt
|
2# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:508
From:
Registered:
03/14/2002
Time spent:
0 hours
|
(Date Posted:03/25/2003 18:19:26)
Yesterday during a speech in Toronto, Paul Cellucci, USA ambassador to Canada openly criticised our government's policy on Iraq. The sound bite which was picked up by the electronic medias was a statement to the effect that if Canada was threatened the USA without question would support Canada and therefore Canada should have, without question supported the USA.
As I've stated before, I support the USA and I disagree with our government's policy on Iraq. However, I am upset when an ambassador of a foreign nation (including our best friends and allies) criticises our policy on our own soil. I'm no expert on diplomatic protocol, but I can't help recalling an incident in the 1960s. Our then Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Lester Bowles Pearson, was invited to speak at a USA University (either Yale or Princeton). In his speech, he openly criticised the USA policy and war in Vietnam. PM Pearson was summoned to Texas to met with then President Lyndon Johnson, who, according to most reports, physically assaulted our much smaller and shorter Prime Minister, accusing him of having "pissed in his backyard". Mr. Pearson chose not to turn the physical assault into an international incident and therefore it never "officially" occured. While Mr. Johnson's tactics were unacceptable, the message was clear. Foreign leaders should not publicly criticise the USA in the USA.
I wish Mr. Cellucci would have extended this courtesy yesterday.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Il n'y a que deux puissances au monde, le sabre et l'esprit: à la longue, le sabre est toujours vaincu par l'esprit - Napoléon Ier
|
|
Stumpy
|
3# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:350
From:
Registered:
12/21/2001
Time spent:
0 hours
|
(Date Posted:03/25/2003 19:00:20)
Reply to : John_Galt ----really sorry. Didn't you know we can do things like that because.....ah.....ah....well, we just can. We're the bad ass you United States......"if ya ain't with us you's against us!!!!"
I would have to say "diplomacy" is not this administration' strong suit, perhap not even in their vocab. So many lose cannons shooting mouths off and then back peddling. In the arena of foreign affairs/diplomacy the phrase "like taking a sandwhich to a banquent" comes to mind. How else could we alienate so many?
Stumpy
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Have mercy on my soul
I'll never let you know
Where my mind has been....."
Angels Would Fall/M. Etheridge
"Did you take it too far?
Did you forget who you are?
Did you stash your soul into
the closet forever.......?
Beth Hart
|
|
John_Galt
|
4# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:508
From:
Registered:
03/14/2002
Time spent:
0 hours
|
(Date Posted:03/25/2003 19:27:43)
I wish I were a fly on the wall in the Canada-USA discussions. My guess is that we are witnessing a personal pissing contest between the leaders which has little to do with each nation's true interests.
It's no secret that the President and Prime Minister do not get along on a personal basis. The reason for this is anyone's guess.
This is the first time since 1984 that our respective leaders have not been close personal friends. PM Mulroney (Conservative 1984-1993) made it a cornerstone of his foreign policy to cultivate personal friendships with Presidents Reagan and Bush. PM Chr?ien (Liberal 1993-present) accused Mulroney of placing friendship above national interests, but then proceeded to become one of President Clinton's favourite golfing partners. Clinton was invited to address the Canadian Parliament in 1995 several months before the Quebec referendum on sovereignty, and at the behest of the Canadian Government, he issued a plea in favour of Canadian unity.
These close relations were encouraged by the fact that our Conservative governments coincided with Republican administrations and the election of the Liberals in Canada followed on the heels of Clinton's election. However, 2 weeks following the USA November 2000 election (before the results in Florida were definitively known, Canada reelected the centre-left Liberal governement with a huge majority. Upon GW Bush's election the governments of our two countries have been divided ideologically. I have no doubt that Chr?ien would have been great friends with Al Gore or that our opposition leader Stephen Harper (Canadian Alliance - right) would get on famously with GW Bush.
Perhaps in Washington, Chr?ien is seen as having been too closely identified with the Clinton/Gore administration rendering him suspect in the eyes of the current administration.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Il n'y a que deux puissances au monde, le sabre et l'esprit: à la longue, le sabre est toujours vaincu par l'esprit - Napoléon Ier
|
|
nologoboy
|
5# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:513
From:
Registered:
07/24/2001
Time spent:
0 hours
|
(Date Posted:03/26/2003 01:48:58)
Reply to : John_Galt
Yesterday during a speech in Toronto, Paul Cellucci, USA ambassador to Canada openly criticised ourgovernment's policy on Iraq. The sound bite which was picked up by the electronic medias was a statement to the effect that if Canada was threatened the USA without question would support Canada and therefore Canada should have, without question supported the USA.
As I've stated before, I support the USA and I disagree with our government's policy on Iraq. However, I am upset when an ambassador of a foreign nation (including our best friends and allies) criticises our policy on our own soil.
the same happened in australia recently, with the US ambassador making comments about the opposition leader, Simon Crean. Mr Schieffer is quoted in Bulletin magazine accusing Mr Crean of indulging in a "rank appeal to anti-Americanism, to anti-George Bush feeling" by expressing his disapproval at the deployment of our troops in Iraq. he also criticised Crean for not being cosy enough with members of the BUsh administration. Crean fired back, saying that Schieffer should be recalled to america for engaging in unprecedented interference in australian politics. article here
--------------------------------------------------------------
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught." -Baba Dioum
|
| | Welcome to The Collection of Flashlights!Wolf-eyes ,your eyes break the darkness! |
|
|
