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US President Barack Obama Visits Canada
January 15, 2009
Don Currie, Chair, CPS
Canada is the first country US President Barack Obama will visit following his January 20th Inauguration. The media is aglow. Establishment politicians are being briefed by nervous advisors about the new post-Bush spin. The spectacle of pro-Bush media pundits and right-wing politicians reinventing themselves as born again Obama Democrats will merit many academy award nominations.
Obeisance to US Presidents is the norm for all Canadian establishment politicians. The success of Liberal and Conservative politicians is considered incomplete until they have touched the feet of greatness in the White House.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper passed the test. For eight years he has been the most enthusiastic Canadian supporter, collaborator and accomplice of the Bush-Cheney Government.
Since an Obama victory became obvious, the Conservative brain-trust has been quietly distancing the Prime Minister from the Bush-Cheney legacy. One will search in vain for a Canadian media commentary discussing the grievous harm caused to Canada and its people by the Bush-Cheney-Harper collaboration.
The Bush-Cheney-Harper collaboration mired Canada deeper in an unpopular and costly US-NATO war in Afghanistan and exposed Canadians to the worst made-in-USA economic depression since the Dirty Thirties. Most indefensible of all is the support accorded by the Harper minority Government to the Bush sanctioned Israeli massacre of the people of Gaza.
The Bush-Cheney-Harper collaboration increased US control of Canada’s vital energy resources, ceded Canadian defense and security functions to US authorities, diminished the fundamental rights of Canadians as provided in the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by harmonizing Canadian law to suit US security demands and drew Canada into an ignoble effort to derail the United Nations and replace it with a so-called “coalition of democracies” headed by NATO.
By any measure one may wish to choose, Canadians are worse off today than before the Bush-Cheney-Harper collaboration.
The Canadian public will be watching closely for any indication that Mr. Obama represents a real departure from the Bush-Cheney doctrine of militarism and war, rampant global financial irresponsibility and the presumption of a US imperial prerogative to reorder the affairs of all people’s and all countries including Canada.
Canadians will also be watching to see if during Obama’s visit, there is a single Canadian political leader that will have the courage to repudiate the Harper record of collusion with US imperialism and call for the restoration of Canadian sovereignty over foreign relations, diplomacy and military and economic development lost during the long bleak years of the Bush regime.
The opportunity has been presented to the Liberal, NDP and Bloc coalition to publicly enunciate a new direction for US-Canadian foreign, economic and political relations that can begin by disengaging Canada from the ruinous affects of membership in NAFTA, SPP, NORTHCOM and NATO and align Canada with people’s progressive movements in the USA and around the world that seek peace and economic development that provides work and the basic needs that all people require.
It is important to send a message to Michael Ignatieff leader of the Liberal Party of Canada that if he intends to become Prime Minister it can only be as the leader of a coalition of the majority. Anything less will saddle Canadians with more years of Conservative government. Should Ignatieff continue to equivocate, there is nothing preventing the NDP and the Bloc, leaders of organized labour, the peace movement, democratic and patriotic organizations of the Canadian people from speaking out resolutely for Canadian independence from US imperialist oversight.
In welcoming President Obama the left progressive movement is called upon to restate some fundamental truths for the benefit of the new incoming US administration and those in Canada who will greet him in our name.
Canadians are a sovereign people. From coast to coast to coast including the far arctic, all of the nations that inhabit this land, all those who labour in its economy, all those who contribute to its accomplishments, all those who value and seek to conserve its vast natural resources, its grandeur, wilderness and natural beauty, all those who believe in the youth and in their right to a future, all those who dream and fight for peace and justice for all people of the planet, all those who do not live in envy of anyone; the people of Canada who call this place our home and native land will decide its destiny.
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