Is Washington dictating Canadian Foreign Policy?

China has just tested an anti-satellite weapons system. This test means that not just the Americans and Russians can take out someone's satellites. The Americans, of course, are incensed about this. Now as I was perusing the Calgary Herald at work today I noticed in the article reporting on the test (Calgary Herald, Friday 19 January 2007, Page A7) that the United States had not only announced that they were very upset with the Chinese about this, but that Canada and Australia were on side with the US. The article went on to state that Canada's new government had yet to announce it's stance on the test, but was likely to echo Washington's position.

I will forgo the discussion about how a country like the US who's president is all for the weaponization of space, as long as it's only the US doing the weaponizing, is complaining when other countries do it. My concern is that the timings of the announcements gives the impression that our government's response was penned in Washington. It gives the impression that the Harper Tories don't even want to give the impression of an independent foreign policy. This doesn't bode well for Canada. Harper and his cronies have to realize that sucking up to the Americans, specifically the Bush government, doesn't play well with the voter outside of southern Alberta. It's all well and good for Harper to defend US national interests, but it would be nice if Canada's government, new or otherwise, would defend Canadian interests. It would appear that the Harper government would be unwilling to do so. If the Canadian people have to learn about our country's position from a foreign government, there's something seriously wrong with our government.

I also find it interesting that this little tidbit was only reported in the Calgary Herald (or at the least not reported on the major Canadian on-line news sources). Perhaps the Tories didn't want the fact that they take their marching orders from the US State Department to get out outside of the area of their core support. I suspect by trying to keep this under the radar, they hope not to speed up their eroding support outside of their home province. I hope they fail and it costs them in the next election.