By arthur Weinreb
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
The Liberals really blew it last time when they selected Paul Martin Jr. as their leader and the prime minister of Canada. It had been his turn to get the top job for so long that no one really gave his ability to lead the party and the country much thought. and the Liberals could easily pick the wrong candidate in December. But the Liberal Party of Canada can certainly not be criticized for selecting Bill Graham as their interim leader during what seems to be the leadership race that won't die. Graham's qualifications for the job are about as close to perfection as you can possibly get.
The job entails keeping both the political party and the Official Opposition functioning both inside and outside of the House. at the same time, being interim leader involves doing nothing and saying nothing in order to not take attention away from the 10 candidates who are battling for the gold ring. and when it comes to saying nothing and doing nothing, no one has the experience that the current interim leader has.
First there was William Sampson. The Canadian citizen, along with other foreign nationals, was arrested on a trumped up charges in Saudi arabia after a British man, Christopher Rodway was killed in November, 2000. Sampson spent 2? years in jail, sentenced to be beheaded, during which time he was routinely beaten and tortured. During the time that Graham was Foreign affairs Minister, he said almost nothing and did even less. Graham was concerned that if he actually did something, Sampson's torture that the Foreign affairs Department never really believed happened in the Middle East kingdom would have gotten worse. In the end, Sampson at least had the good fortune to be imprisoned along with a citizen of the U.K.; Prince Charles had a talk with his House of Saud buddies and the men were eventually released.
and then there was Zahra Kazemi. The dual Canadian and Iranian citizen was detained in a Tehran prison for purportedly taking pictures of a student demonstration in the summer of 2003. Kazemi died after being beaten and tortured during her imprisonment and the government of Iran played games with Canada's attempt to get information about her death and see that Kazemi's killers were prosecuted. Graham's idea of action was to go to the United Nations for help. The U.N. was really the place to seek assistance ≠ let's face it, 800,000 dead Rwandans can't be wrong. Graham huffed and puffed when the Iranians stonewalled, but the government in Tehran paid no attention to him.
Bill Graham's vast experience in doing nothing, saying nothing, or being completely ignored if he did say something, gave him the perfect qualifications for the job of the Liberal Party's interim leader. Graham's skill at being completely ignored even handed the Liberals an unintended benefit.
Graham spent the dying months of the Martin government as Canada's Minister of Defense. He was constantly telling Canadians that beginning in February 2006 the military mission in afghanistan was going to change. Canadian soldiers were going to move from the relative safety of Kabul where they were engaged in reconstruction work to Kandahar where they would be involved in fighting Jack Layton's wannabe friends, the Taliban. Graham also warned the country on more than one occasion to expect more military casualties. The Defense Minister was right, but Graham being Graham, no one listened to anything that he said. On January 31, 2006, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives swept the Liberals from power and the next day, the military in afghanistan did indeed begin to change. Now the casualties are mounting and many Canadians are accusing the Harper government of being war mongers (unlike those peacekeeping Grits) and blindly following the lead of that evil George Bush. Being ignored while warning of the upcoming dangerous missions had to be one of Graham's finest moments.
It is really sad that we don't erect statues or rename airports after great Canadian interim leaders ≠ Bill Graham would then get the recognition that he so justly deserves.
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