"The news is spreading throughout the world: Canada's back," Harper told the crowd of about 35,000 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday.
Glen Pearson talks to Jeffrey Sachs.Since he travels to 40-50 countries a year, I naturally asked him how Canada was viewed from an international perspective. His comments were insightful … and troubling:
- your country has lost its distinctive voice
- Canada should be the conscience of the continent, but instead we’re just a business partner
- his discussions with many world leaders revealed that Canada had lost its presence - the legacy of Lester Pearson is no more
- Canada has lost its brand
- leaders in Canada have become so enamored with financial markets that they have denied this country’s own historical DNA that saw it as a beacon of peace to the world
There is more. As Canadians we observed the lamentable diminishment of American stature caused by the Bush Mal-administration. Now it is our turn:
An inter-national consensus is emerging that we have severed ourselves from our own past, a history that was powerful enough to define us in the world....His angst was fully revealed when marvelling how CIDA made the decision to pull out of 8 African countries. He found it unfathomable that when people like Obama and the EU are calling for heightened commitment to that continent, that Canada quietly moved to another part of the world. “Just as Africa is getting better, much of that due to Canada’s help, we are telling the world we’ve lost our moral, our spiritual, compass.”
Lost our moral compass. Where have I heard that lately?
Whether it is a spiritual or moral compass, the azimuth is clear. Harper is definitely reducing Canada from one of the World's leading countries to an irrelevant back-water with hitherto unimaginable speed.
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