Sorry we don't speak Liberal
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is due to announce "an important initiative to support the language industry in Canada" tomorow, across the river in Gatineau Quebec.
Presumably, judging from this article in Embassy magazine, Mr Cannon won't be introducing anything to support the *Liberal* language industry.
DFAIT insiders tell Embassy that since the Conservative government took power in 2006, political staffers have directed rank and file Foreign Affairs bureaucrats to stop using policy language created by the former Liberal government.
"There are phrases you are not supposed to use," said one Canadian diplomat, on condition of anonymity. "Anything that smacks of the previous government is totally verboten.
"There is this tendency, almost like a knee-jerk reaction, to discount or ignore or change whatever it is the Liberals did and let's put a new Conservative face on it," he added. "There's a whole range of words and expressions that are being depopulated out of the documents, and are replaced with ones that are more to the [Conservatives'] liking."
Chief among the forbidden phrases, multiple DFAIT insiders have told Embassy, are "human security," "public diplomacy" and "good governance." Preferred key words include "human rights," the "rule of law," and "democracy" or "democratic development."
At ease, Canadians
Early into his first term as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper mused aloud about how he wished Canadian reporters would stand when he entered the room. I believe the collective reply to this musing had something to do with weather forecasts and the temperature in hell.
But yesterday, on Canada Day, Global TV news showed us how Harper managed to get the military to give him a salute that's normally reserved for the Governor-General. As Heritage Minister James Moore explains in the video, this was something that the Prime Minister apparently wanted.
So if you do run across our Tim Horton's, hockey-dad, regular-guy PM this summer on the barbecue circuit, give him a little salute. Or stand up, or something. He really seems to appreciate deference.
4 comments:
While I (and 65% of Canadians) would prefer to see an end to the monarchy in Canada, it can't come at giving all of that power to the PMO which is already suffering from an over abundance. What we really need is a separately elected President or some other position to hold Cabinet in check (even though Parliament is also supposed to do that). Maybe an elected senate.
We just need change around here, and we're not seeing it from either of the arrogant majority seeking politicians.
By all means, let us overhaul the system. Proportional representation. Abolition. It is all time for that. But not arbitrarily by a self obsessed would be tyrant.
And not a peep from the the Monarchy League of (Upper) Canada. Shocked. Simply shocked.
" . . .give him a little salute. Or stand up, or something. . . .
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The big questions is why haven't more real Canadians stood up to this runty and lame excuse for a man and leader?
Why are so many afraid of putting him in his place?
Breathtaking arrogance on this part and he's been taking advantage of it for more than 3 years!
Let's work to get him out by year's end.
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