To paraphrase an old golfing term: “Pandas for show. Trade for dough. ”Stephen Harper was right to concentrate on pandas and trade and to walk lightly on human rights on his China trip.
Why do we think for one minute that we can force China to do anything our way? Stephen Harper, or any other Canadian politician, should stick to discussing trade with the Chinese leaders and leave their politics and culture out of it. How would we feel if foreign politicians came here to discuss trade and then berated us for allowing a minority of voters to elect a majority government that had no checks or balances to prevent it from doing as it pleased? And how would we respond to a foreigner trade-negotiator asking why we don’t have our own head of state?
Why we don’t elect the senate? Why we abolished capital punishment when the majority of our citizens favoured it? Why we legalized same-sex—marriage without holding a referendum? Trying to force foreign leaders to do democracy our way is as futile as their hope would be trying to convince us to do things their way. Unless foreign dictatorships, whether left or right, pose a threat to Canada, trade talks with them should be about trade. Period.
William Bedford
