RadioRote: Canada. Driving Around Le Bloc Québécois

Canada is going to great lengths to extend its influence around the world. The country certainly has the resources and possibilities to do so. But is Canada doing so because it has come of age or, in part, to delay a domestic fight on its hands?

Stephen Harper, the Tory PM of Canada, has taken steps to toughen his country's foreign policy -- such as being one of the first nation's not to fund Hamas, committing Canada's sparse number of troops to Afghanistan, showing willingness to draw closer ties to the US, renewing NORAD without much debate, and a pledge to assist the US in the United Nations against Iran.

This policy bundle is all well and good, however, it is certainly a circuitous way to avoid its own domestic challenges.

Canada, as we discussed in earlier RadioRote Supplements, has the potential of becoming an even greater nation with more political weight. If merely based on its oil reserves, natural resources, standing in the world, brainpower, and accessibility to both oceans. A good start, but political will and the ability to back up policy with a clear identity of itself and future are a-priori in the development of a nation.

We earlier pointed out the Martin Administration began “feeling its Canadian oats” as an independent country by refusing to join in the US Star Wars initiative, threatening a trade war over the Bush Administration’s refusal to allow Canada’s soft lumber into the US at competitive prices (the current US ambassador to Canada, who only knew of Canada as the place that had those “falls”, came from a state which competed with Canada in the lumber trade), and thought twice about tightening its borders the way the US ordered them to do so.

But this sentiment was not only expressed in Ottawa. When Marc Emery was caught selling marijuana seeds across the border into the US, the Department of Justice wanted him extradited for selling “poison to our youth.” The Canadian government declined and the calls to the BBC supported the government’s refusal.

An editorial in the Globe and Mail followed suit. The general suggestion around Canada was that if the US was so incensed about some Canadian undermining the values of youth in the US by selling them seed, then the same Department of Justice would not mind if Canada extradited the owners of US gun manufactures as accessories to murder, due to a spate of hand gun killings were taking place in Toronto.

The Harper Administration recently took control of a minority Tory government in Canada, destined to return to the country to a weakened level. Riding the coat tails of the Bush Administration, the Tory leader prefers to retain a ‘tough guy’ image in the world by pointing to the White House and telling the world: “Yeah, we agree, whatever he said.”

The mood is that Mr. Emery will be extradited in December, given Mr. Harper’s willingness to do whatever the US requests, with the idea that the Bush Administration will suddenly remove the dim view it has of Canada when, in fact, Canada is ignored due to the dimness of US leadership in the White House. We shared with Readers how Mr. Bush thought Wales was a part of the US, but confessed he was not sure exactly in which State it was located.

Because the Harper Administration prefers to subsume Canadian identity under the auspices of the US, the Tory lead government is neither independent nor Canadian.

Part of its willingness to go throughout the world waving the US banner as a beacon of its own policies is because Canada is unwilling to come to grips with its own domestic challenges, which was an albatross around their neck well before the minority led party took office. Their insistent foreign stance is a circuitous route in avoiding a domestic entanglement in which they are snarled: the bloc Québécois.

In recent Canadian history, from the Meech Lake Accord under Mr. Mulroney to the political compromise of having Mr. Chrétien as PM (in order to avoid a Constitutional crisis) to the ensuing scandal and downfall over Mr. Chrétien’s illegal dealings with Quebec and the to keep them in line, the Canadian government moved closer in becoming a Belgian coat of many colours – or a quilt of potential separatists.

That is, in Belgium’s case, a polyglot of nationalities throughout distinct parts of the country and not much more – Belgium has foreign policy, but are they policies both the Walloon and Flemish sectors would agree to enforce if push came to shove?

What if the US states from New Mexico in the south to Idaho in the north decided to become an Axis, thus cutting of the coastal regions from the rest of the US? Thus, we find Canada’s quandary with Quebec – a potential time bomb blowing Canada up into a Belgian miscellany.

With this disengaged state of affairs, Canada’s foreign policy currently remains relevant as long as the US views it as such, and Canada pretends to retain its tough image. But, then, as far as the perception of Canada as an independent nation with a sound identity is concerned, is the tail wagging the dog?

Until Ottawa can both face and solve the bloc Québécois question by bringing the Province into the fold once and for all, even if it brings about a Constitutional crisis, which it may, then the best Canada can expect is to become a virtual powerhouse, dependent upon the approval of others.

The Rest is Silence

Readers can view other comments or post a comment to share. Readers can also reach us privately at radiorote@yahoo.com or radiorote@radiorote.com

Post a Comment