In Remembrance of Democracy 2004

Can Bush buy Canada with the “political capital” he earned in his first four years? I doubt he is going to spend it on us, i.e. Mad Cow, Softwood Lumber and other trade issues. Rather he is going to call in one of his beliefs that Canada owes him and will push up our dollar, demand more access to our water and energy and to suspend our moral, but naive, “Canadian Perspective” for his global military issues to name but a few.

Bush let us all know in his Nov 3 post-election press conference: “I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals.”  “Shares”? I imagine “everyone” refers to what’s left of 'The Coalition of the Willing', Israel and in some respects, Russia (Kyoto notwithstanding). And we all are told, you're either with him or against him.

Do we have the courage to exercise our “Canadian Perspective”? Sure 45% of our economy goes south of the border. That means 55% doesn’t. “Some good b’y”! As they say in Newfoundland where they know what courage is because the glass is always half full. Looking at the perspective that navel gazing is just a thoughtless habit, or like being ‘stuck in a rut’ with an elephant staring down at us, we ventured to be uncharacteristically innovative in the case of Mad Cow for example.  We developed a small but interesting silver lining - we are building more meat processing plants with plans to do more business with the rest of the world – it’s about time we stuck our heads out of the 49th Parallel! Would we hurt the US if we reduced our trading with them – sure – to some percentage (consider our natural resources) but would the US penalise us in the WTO – sure - but they haven’t been very successful with rulings in their favour. And don’t you think the rest of the world is getting tired of their trade bullying? – Yes! So why not capitalise on the situation - steal the wind out of their hot air and process more of our own resources and expand our global market. After all, the Canadian dollar is a better currency investment every day.
 
Should we persist in our “Canadian Perspective”? The one that reflects the feeling of the majority of Canadians? Let us lead the way and remind the rest of the world that we are Canada and have a place in the world and not in the back seat of a Humvee!

Can we as Canadians live up to Dubya’s Values?  On November 11th we will reflect upon the values of those who fought in the two great wars, WWI & II. Perhaps these were the last ‘just wars’, from the point of view of Western Civilised World, though others would argue the Korean War as well. But nonetheless, for what ever the causes, an obsessed, maniacal aggression set out to dominate the globe, and a potential for nuclear catastrophe, was temporarily avoided until Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Cold War.

 But for all the imperfections, these were the values of a generation that has all but disappeared, from whom was born new hope, new possibilities, new and better understandings – the ideal of the United Nations. These are still the working values of many Canadians and the progressive values that are shared by many individual nations of the world who manage to be examples of cooperation and respect for the rights of individuals.

Let us show the discouraged 49% of American voters that there is reason have courage and let us show them how capitalism and democracy can really work!

For information please Contact us.