the Walnut Diary

Last night I watched the third American presidential debate on foreign policy which pitted President Barrack Obama against his challenger, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  Lacking a genuine context for the viewing, I opted for an American sit-com approach to the show and started a drinking game.  I would listen for the key word “Canada.”  It was a long, scoreless night.

It’s easy with a steady diet of CBC and National Newswatch feeds to inflate Canada’s importance on the world stage.  Hell, we own a lot of land, a huge chunk of the Arctic, food, energy and minerals galore, and perhaps the only weather in the world which is improving with climate change.

But does Canada count?  To judge from the foreign policy debate last night, the answer is a profound “no.”  So why are Canadians so caught up in the political and economic struggles of the elephant to the south?  We don’t want to get rolled on in our sleep, or blown away by a sneeze?  Because it’s a great show?

I gravitate to Obama because I agree with his point of view, but like many who would vote their aspirations against their interests, I realize that he doesn’t give a damn about anything except his own country.

So what’s it going to take to change the position of the restless, sleeping elephant?  A Canadian leader who is not a doormat?  Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave Obama the finger when the President coyly winked to the north and blocked the Enbridge pipeline until after the election.  But no one south of the border bothered to notice Harper’s grand gesture.  A pipeline through the Rockies would just wreck B.C.’s salmon rivers out of spite.  With some of its of surplus cash China would like to colonize Canada.  But where would we be then?

Mitt Romney’s a lifelong summer cottager in Southern Ontario, but he’s also a big coal man.  Oil sands acids are bad enough, but at least they flow north and they’re a long way away.  Coal-fired Rust Belt industries blow their smog right over my woodlot in Eastern Ontario.  Obama pays lip service to the concerns of the Sierra Club and Hollywood because there’s a lot of soft money along the coastlines of the United States, but I suspect he would cheerfully drain Lake Michigan down the Mississippi if it meant a block of electoral votes in Arkansas.

My favourite’s Martin Sheen for American president.  He’s highly idealistic, appears well grounded in the classics, and on the many back episodes of The West Wing he is surrounded by a staff who genuinely care about striking a balance between power and the desire to do good.  And they have that Total Crackpot Day once a month when all of the staffers have to listen to people who would otherwise be ignored by government.  Canada would have a real chance to be heard on Crackpot Day.