Could Foreign Policy Be Stephen Harper’s Achilles’ Heel?
By Yves Engler
Sunday, December 23, 2012
According to a recent Leger Marketing poll Canadians care a great deal about their country’s international standing. Sixty-four percent of respondents said that “our country’s reputation in the world” was “very important” to them and 29 percent said it was “somewhat important”. After universal health care, Canada's reputation was of second most importance among a dozen symbols, achievements and attributes (the monarchy and war of 1812 were at the bottom of the list).
Yet Harper’s policies have spurred an unprecedented international backlash against Canada. And, after nearly seven years of this government’s more belligerent and corporate centric foreign policy, displays of opposition are growing.
According to a video making the rounds online, during the Palestinian statehood vote at the UN two weeks ago foreign minister John Baird was the only speaker who wasn’t cheered by the General Assembly. This is only one sign of the growing awareness of the Conservatives’ extreme pro-Israel policy. The day before the UN vote the Toronto Star ran a picture of Palestinians marching on office of Canada’s diplomatic representative in Ramallah carrying signs with a dog snout superimposed on Harper’s face next to the dismissive slogan “this dog doesn’t hunt”.
In another example of the world’s growing disdain for the Great White North, at the just completed Doha round of international climate change negotiations Canada won (with New Zealand) The Colossal Fossil, the Fossil of the Year Award. Unbelievably, this was the sixth year in a row that the Conservatives have won this award given out by hundreds of environmental organizations to the country most actively obstructing global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
More: http://www.zcommunications.org/could-foreign-policy-be-stephen-harper-s-achilles-heel-by-yves-engler
= new reply since forum marked as read
If the Spaceman, or the Patrick Swayze of Canadian politics are our only hope, then we're doomed.
Neither of these two stooges are even remotely progressive, and both are beholden to further tax cuts for big business and increased foreign ownership and exploitation of natural resources. I hope voters have the smarts to dig for their policy positions and disregard the optics.
(Lately the CBC is having quite a love affair with all things LPC 
)
