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The most recent issue of National Review featured members of
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on horseback, decked out in
ceremonial red surge, with the word "Wimps!"
emblazoned in blue across the cover. Inside the
issue, Jonah Goldberg ponders, at great length, Canada's
"whiny and weak anti-Americanism." He then
goes on to label the country "Jean Chrétien's
Canada", and to suggest that Canadians are hell-bent on
opposing, as a mere matter of reflex, every action that America
happens to take and every position that it adopts. Goldberg
barely stops short of calling Canada the lapdog of the United
Nations.
First of all, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is hardly
representative of your average Joe Canuck. Thanks to
the Canadian electoral system, Chrétien took office in the last
federal election with far less than 50% of the popular vote. Moreover,
his support in the westernmost provinces of British Columbia,
Alberta and Saskatchewan was virtually non-existent. But
it's no secret that the only votes needed to secure a federal
victory are those in the most highly populated provinces of
Ontario and Québec. Chrétien couldn't give a damn
about the West; he's spent more time playing golf outside of the
country than he ever has visiting Western Canada.
King Jean's voice does not echo that of the Canadian West, where
voters habitually vote overwhelmingly for the Canadian
Alliance--a western-born conservative party that currently forms
the Official Opposition. According to a recent speech
by Canadian Alliance leader, Stephen Harper, the party "is
dedicated to a strong national defence and national security,
including protection for Canadian citizens and loyalty to
Canadian allies" like the USA.
The difference between the reigning Liberals and the Canadian
Alliance is illustrated rather succinctly in the following
exchange in the House of Commons between Alliance Member of
Parliament James Moore and Liberal MP Bonnie Brown:
MOORE: I understand her point very well about not
making lists of good and evil nations, but there are some
questions and there are some people that can clearly be
categorized as being evil. I am going to ask the
honorable member straight up, does she believe, yes or no, that
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are evil?
BROWN: Certainly Osama bin Laden offended us
terribly.
Thus the reality-challenged Liberal Party logic appears to go as
follows: Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have
"offended us", but still it wouldn't be right to
offend them in return by categorizing them as "evil"! The
Canadian Alliance, on the other hand, has no problem whatsoever
with calling a spade a spade.
But the Liberals weren't always so soft on terrorism. As
recently as 1970, then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau--arguably
the most popular leader in Canada's history, as well as one of
its most left-leaning-declared martial law and suspended the
civil liberties of Canadians after a series of terrorist acts. Trudeau
invoked the "War Measures Act" when the Front de Libération
du Québecois-a terrorist organization that favored the rapid
departure of Québec from the rest of Canada, and had planted 85
bombs and taken six lives--kidnapped James Cross (the British
Trade Commissioner to Canada) and killed Québec Minister of
Labour Pierre Laporte. And Trudeau invoked the act
initially without even consulting Parliament. In a
few cities, officials used the WMA to clean up the streets,
picking up "undesirables" and throwing them into jail. Anyone
belonging to the FLQ, or to any cultural or political
association suspected of being linked to the FLQ, could be
rounded up in the dead of night without a search warrant and
incarcerated without the right of habeas corpus. More
than 450 people were jailed in Québec for suspected connections
to the FLQ, but most were later released without any charges
being laid.
In a now-infamous exchange, Trudeau--the notorious lefty who
spent his youth traipsing around communist countries, remained
lifelong friends with Cuba's Fidel Castro, and was targeted and
spied on by former US President Richard Nixon and the FBI for
being a suspected communist--was questioned by the media on the
issue of having armed soldiers and tanks in the streets of the
nation's capital. He replied, "There's a lot of
bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with
helmets and guns. All I can say is go on and bleed." When
asked how far he would go, Trudeau said, "Just watch
me!"
In the end, the cold shoulder shown to the FLQ Trudeau in his
adamancy not to negotiate with, or appease, terrorists under any
circumstances, completely destroyed the FLQ. By the
time the crisis had ended, Québecers and Canadians had for the
first time seen a federal government willing to take extreme
measures to fight terrorism. And who was the junior
minister in Trudeau's cabinet at the time who urged his
colleagues to order sweeping police raids and arrests throughout
Québec without warning, and worry about the explanations later? It
was none other than Jean Chrétien!
So no, Mr. Goldberg. Canadians are not
"wimps" and the Jean Chrétien of today is not
representative of all Canadians. And he certainly
doesn't represent our collective take on the United Nations and
the war on terrorism. Not by a long shot. Canada,
after all, is far more than just Chrétien's power base in
Ontario and Québec. So what exactly has happened to
Chrétien over the past 30 years to make him change so seemingly
drastically? Perhaps University of Moncton professor
Donald Savoie has the answer when he states that "as it has
evolved over the past 30 years, the Canadian political system
gives Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his successors more
untrammelled authority than any US President could
imagine."
Just another case of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Perhaps
when Chrétien steps down from his post, as he's finally
scheduled to do within the next year, Canada's true political
colors will have a chance to stand out.
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