according to a recent poll taken by the Strategic Council for CTV and the Globe and Mail, a majority of Canadians, 55 per cent, now support the deployment of Canadian troops in afghanistan. This is a dramatic increase from the poll taken shortly after the Harper government took power when 62 per cent of respondents were opposed to our commitment in afghanistan.
What a difference a month makes. The change in views stems from the fact that for the first time since 9/11, Canadians have a government who actually isn't ignoring the military. While the previous Liberal government did the right thing after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon and joined the coalition to remove the Taliban, they were reluctant to talk about it. There was a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" policy about what our troops were doing. Of course, the Liberals generally ignored the military, allowing the men and women to fly rusty helicopters while buying new challenger jets to shuffle cabinet ministers around from junket to junket. Talking about afghanistan and the military would just remind Canadians of the United States and the last thing that the Liberals would have wanted was to alienate their anti-american base.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper not only talked the talk when it came to the military but he walked the walk, making his first trip outside of Canada as PM a two-day surprise visit to afghanistan where he addressed the troops in the volatile region of Kandahar. His actions were a far cry from those of his predecessors, who went to far less dangerous areas of the world and did nothing more than pose with some soldiers in a photo/op.
There is truth to the theory that much of the opposition to the afghanistan mission came as a result of Canadians not knowing much about it because the previous government never discussed it. The Conservatives are now giving it the attention that it deserves.
and, of course NDP leader Jack Layton is also doing his bit to keep afghanistan on the front pages of the papers. Layton has now decided that the mission should be debated in Parliament; while the troops are in harm's way. The Conservatives reject the notion of a debate, arguing that the time for a debate should have been before the first troops were deployed. The call for Parliament to become involved now is nothing more than Jack playing politics with the deployment and playing to the masses that, unfortunately for Layton are not all that massive any more. One of the interesting aspects of the poll was that almost half, or 47 per cent of respondents who identified themselves as supporters of the pacifist NDP favour the current mission.
The letters to the editor and callers to talk shows by those who are opposed to Canada's role in afghanistan reveal that they are by and large influenced by one factor; George W. Bush. Those who criticize Stephen Harper by saying that he only travelled to afghanistan because he's in Bush's pocket are in fact the ones who are the most heavily influenced by the U.S. president. Many Canadians are opposed to the afghanistan intervention on the well worn theory that if we are nice to terrorists, they'll be nice to us. But what is really funny is the number of people who oppose our involvement in afghanistan simply because Bush favours it. It is these people who are being governed by Bush's actions, not Harper and the Conservatives. We should stay out of afghanistan simply because Bush and the americans are there.
Stephen Harper has done a lot in the six weeks he has been in power to help regain Canada's place in the world; a place that had been in a freefall under the governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.
In a recent column (The 3 M's — February 1), I wrote, "as of last week, Paul Martin was relegated to the history books, most likely as a footnote".
Steve Janke, of angry in the Great White North, pointed out to me that in the biography of Paul Martin that appears on the official Liberal Party of Canada website, Martin's life seems to have ended in November 2003 when he was elected the leader of the Liberal Party, the position that he now holds. There was absolutely no mention made of his time as prime minister or the two elections that he fought while holding the top job. Biographies of other Liberal Party stalwarts such as Bill Graham are amazingly up to date.
Janke is right; Paul Martin isn't even going to be a footnote. Canada Free Press regrets the error.
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