Harper Snubs UN General Assembly–Why?


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Harper speaks to an empty hall at the UN last year.

What kind of Canada has a prime minister who does not speak at the UN General Assembly?

Stephen Harper’s Canada.

But why?

CBC journalist David Common tweeted yesterday about Harper skipping the UN this year:

#UN schedule says #Canada PM Harper not speaking at this year’s General Assembly

via Twitter / @davidcommon: #UN schedule says #Canada ….

Possible reasons why he did this:

  1. The world community judged Canada as unworthy as a rotating seat on the Security Council, so Harper is sulking.
  2. He doesn’t like to cooperate.
  3. The UN is often useless so it is better to ignore it instead of trying to enhance its legitimacy, like this: “Stephen Harper’s choice for Canada’s representative at the United Nations is a public servant many Canadians have never heard of.”
  4. The last time he spoke there, most of the assembly left the room before he spoke, which may not have been personal, but honestly, if they cared what he had to say, more than about 27 people would have stayed. So why should Harper expose himself to this kind of embarrassment again this year.
  5. He likes bilateral relationships with weaker countries or countries he wants to suck up to so he avoids multilateral venues like the UN.
  6. He wants to make Canada’s reputation more bold and decisive…and rogue.
  7. He’s a closet imperialist, with one foot out the door.

In my opinion, these are all correct.

And our job now is to work on ways to improve our standing in the world community after May 2, 2016 [or sooner] when we can rebuilt a post-Harper Canada.

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun
Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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