Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Canada Fail

This week we've been thrown out of the country hosting our forward logistics base for our war, and have now lost for the first time in 60 years a seat on the UN Security Council.

Canada dropped out of the race because it did not have the numbers on the second ballot — 78 to Portugal's 113. A two-thirds majority is needed to win a seat.
It is the first time that Canada has failed in its bid for a Security Council seat. Canada has been on the Security Council six times, roughly once a decade, since the 1940s. The country's last term ended in 2000.
Some observers believe the Harper government's foreign policy is largely responsible for Tuesday's outcome, including its pro-Israel stance on the Middle East, cutting foreign aid to Africa, and also the move away from UN peacekeeping and toward the Afghan mission.

When, in the history of this country's international involvement has anything occurred like the events we've seen this week? Canada, fair-broker, peace-seeker, general global do-gooder, does not get kicked out of countries or lose council seats at the UN. Our foreign policy is more or less fair-minded and our reputation more or less solid.

Then...
 
Four years of a Stephen Harper minority government, and we're now a pariah-state. 

7 comments:

Dana said...

Harper's sure to win a majority now.

The dearly beloved darling, puddingheaded people will eat up his excuses, distortions and lies like so much cotton candy.

Double good plus, the NDP will join in and blame the Liberals too and the Liberals will do nothing whatever.

A series of ads highlighting Harper's bad mouthing of the UN over the past 20 years would be well advised but that won't happen because the only blood the Liberals have a taste for is their own.

Holly Stick said...

UAE says Canada leaked misinformation:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/uae-disappointed-with-canadian-actions-1.695559

Beijing York said...

Good catch, Holly.

Hmmm, I thought Harper didn't like Air Canada. Will they pin the landing rights blame on them?

West End Bob said...

CBC's News Now noon-time show spent a lot of time on the Security Council vote and how cannon put the blame squarely on iggy.

After going live to iggy, rae and brison giving their response, anchor Carole Macneil was about to show the iggy film clip that cannon is using to excoriate him. Problem is, apparently the producer was out of time for commercials and they broke instead to a series of adverts to end the program.

Guess harperco will blame iggy for that, too . . . .

Edstock said...

"have now lost for the first time in 60 years"

Well, at least the Leafs are off to a great start . . .

The legacy of Copenhagen and G8/G20?

Boris said...

Ed, I go back to comments I heard a few years ago about how the Harper crowd had muffled our voice at the UN. Everything else just builds from there.

Alison said...

Holy crap, did anyone listen to Cannon's defeat speech at the UN? He blamed Ignatieff three separate times in an 11 minute speech.