Monday, September 24, 2012

Canada: Say "No" to sharing embassies with Britain

From CBC news website, September 24, 2012
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and British Foreign Secretary William Hague will sign an agreement to open joint U.K.-Canadian diplomatic missions abroad in an effort to extend each country's diplomatic reach while cutting costs, CBC News has learned
Cost cutting, more outlets for Canadian embassies, more efficiencies...be damned!
This is just another way in which our penny-wise-pound-foolish federal government Harper-puppets/accountants are betraying both our foreign policy and our federation.
Imagine the outcry, for example, if Baird were announcing that we were going to share embassies and consulates with France, especially from "English Canada."
Now, this move will like provoke the most predictable, and now justifiable negative reaction from the Quebec government. It will also blurr the Canadian identity in foreign lands, especially when the government is basically running foreign policy as an add-on to trade policy, which it clearly is not.
We have not taken identical positions on foreign issues with Britain, nor with the U.S. One of the more prominent examples is the Chretien stand on the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Are we now being seduced/bullied/tricked/misled into thinking that by saving a few thousand dollars, we will retain our independent foreign policy, or will we be expected to "poodle" up to Great Britain, as Tony Blair was accused of doing over Dubya's invasion of Iraq?
If colonialism is the shackel that countries traditionally shed when they mature into interdependence and autonomy, then this current Canadian government is taking the country back to its dependent infancy, for what gainful purpose?
The word "royal" has been replaced on our armed forces.
The royal visits have to studiously avoid appearances in urban Quebec, given the hostility in those quarters to anything smacking of the British crown.
Now with the election of the PQ government in Quebec, is Harper thumbing the nose of the federal government (and thereby the people of Canada) at Quebec, a government that is still part of the federation.
For my part, I wish to be excluded from such a premise, whether valid or not.
The people and the government of Quebec need to know that not all of the people in the rest of the country will approve, or perhaps even tolerate this decision, and they need to know it before it becomes another "legacy" of the Harper myopia.

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