Harper must be so proud...

...that Canada is beginning to be reviled as much as the United States in the world. It's only taken 18 months of ham-fisted diplomacy and sucking up to the Bush Republicans to destroy an international reputation that took 60 years to develop. Till this past year, nations would generally welcome Canadian troops in to help stabilize a region. Now, it's becoming clear that that's a thing of the past. Canada's New Government (TM, Pat. Pend.) has seen to that. It's becoming clearer and clearer that the only thing that Harper and his merry band of Tories care about internationally is how the Bush Republicans think of them and the country.

This radical change in foreign policy by Canada for the dubious short-term purpose of appeasing the Bush Republicans is not in the long term best interests of Canada. As a world power the United States is in decline. Sure they have a military that's second to none making it a force to be reckoned with but economically they have been in decline for years. As large trading blocs have formed all over the world, trade with the United States has become less important to other world economies, specifically, buying goods from the US. Since most countries now simply sell things to the US and not buying things from them, the debt the US is incurring, before any war is taken into consideration, is huge. The US economy can't keep that up forever and eventually this will cause it to if not collapse, at least shrink considerably. Any further shrink of the US economy will cause it's relevance to the rest of the world to also shrink and military might will only get you so far. Further, George W. Bush is quite probably one of the least popular presidents in recent memory and if things continue, the Republicans are likely to lose control of both the White House and Congress.

So by tying Canada's fortunes to this falling star, and falling presidency, Harper is doing a disservice to the long term interests of Canada. In terms of US economic might, a shrinking US economy will have less need for Canadian goods and services, which will hurt Canada economically in the future. Creating better ties with other countries, increasing our trade to both Asia and Europe would be a far better course of action. Second by tying us to the fortunes of the Bush Republicans, there may be some animosity in the short term when they're finally punted from office. Bush's neo-cons have so polarized the US political system, it may be years before the Democrats want to deal with people who were intimately friendly with the Bush Republicans. This would further hamper Canada-US relations over a medium term. So in the longer term, Harper's appeasement of the Bush Republicans is not going to help our relationship with the United States.

It's also not going to help our relationship with the rest of the world. Harper is busy showing the world that he's a ventriloquist dummy for the Bush Republicans. This damages Canada's reputation abroad as we begin to be painted by the same brush the Americans are painted by. What a lot of Canadians don't realize is that in the international community, reputation and prestige is virtually everything when dealing with other countries. By destroying our reputation as a middle power interested in peace and replacing it with a reputation as being an American puppet, our ability to control our interactions with the rest of the world is greatly reduced. We will no longer be able to "punch above our weight" diplomatically as we have in the past as anything our diplomats say will simply be judged to be echoing the US. Our ability to act as an honest broker is being destroyed and will disappear completely soon, further reducing our input in international affairs.

Of course, this is what Harper could be aiming for. The complete subservience of Canadian foreign policy to American foreign policy. The creation of fear within the Canadian populace that exists in the US so that the Conservatives can rule forever. If this is the case, he's doing a good job in subverting an independent Canadian foreign policy, how he's doing in scaring Canadians to his party is another question. Hopefully the Canadian voter will not give in to fear to the chants of "death to Canada" and look at the causes, mainly the intimately close ties between Harper and Bush and vote accordingly in the next election.