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I
have begun to try to imagine what it must be like to be involved in politics.
There are a thousand reasons I could never do it. The first is, I know what I think
about most things, and am not really that open to persuasion. Since politics is
essentially about the art of compromise, I could never make a go of it.
For one thing, I would, supposing
myself for a moment to be in politics, occasionally be forced into making a
bone-head move, like Justin Trudeau’s bone-head move in going last week to New
York to beg Donald Trump to represent Canada with the President of China,
begging him (Trump) to ask Xi Jinping to release the two Canadians he has held in custody for
months, because we are holding an
important Chinese businesswoman in Vancouver, at the request of this same
Donald Trump. This is a plea to which I would already know the answer ---“you
release her and I will release them” --- and the solution to which lies within
my own hand. Talk about a bone-head move!
Even worse than discovering I have
made a bone-head move would be the fact that the surrounding acolytes on whose
advice I depend (especially in view of the upcoming election) would be virtually
unanimous that I was showing the highest level of statesmanship by grovelling
at the feet of this appalling American bully. (And always echoing around in my
head would be the sweet soprano of my Minister of Foreign Affairs assuring me
that it was all Russia’s fault, as, apparently, in her mind, everything is.)
Would this be a recipe for the
easy-going, relaxed life of the sort I have always craved?
Not at all. Far better never to have
got involved in this rat-race. Worrying ceaselessly about what would be the
right move, given all the circumstances --- the worry of our famers suffering
from their loss of the Chinese market, the threat of worse to come, the
uneasiness of our business community, always anxious in their ceaseless
grubbing for profit, the indignity of sending the Chinese leaders messages that
they don’t even bother to answer, my fear of an explosion of wrath against me
by the unpredictable man now running the United States into the ground, the
fact that my bone-head move flies in the face of my country’s long friendship
with China, with all the positive
results that have occurred over the decades, especially in having elevated our
status as a minor world power, all that, and more --- and I would probably pass
a sleepless night. But I would hope that when I emerge after my
sleepless night, the bare facts of the case would present themselves to me as the
obvious solution.
Okay, we have an extradition treaty
with the United States, but we never thought they would elect an unbalanced
Despot to power. That is one consideration. Another is that, as I would have
been repeating to myself over and over during my long sleepless night, we are a
country that believes in the rule-of-law.
Our extradition treaty mandates that
we cannot extradite a person to face a charge that is not a crime in our own
country.
Ms. Meng, the important Chinese lady
who is held under detention of a sort in Vancouver, is accused by the United States
of having somehow tried to avoid the
sanctions imposed by the Madman in the Oval Office, as he is affectionately
known, in relation to Iran. Not only are these sanctions not imposed by Canada,
but they have been imposed in defiance of the Join Comprehensive Plan of Action
in relation to Iran from which the Despot has withdrawn unilaterally, after it
had been laboriously negotiated by the combined diplomatic brains of the five permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
— plus Germany, and the 25 other members of the European Union.
Mind you, in my personal experience I have found that diplomats, as a
class, are guys who live high on the hog even in the world’s poorest countries,
and their judgments are not always to be trusted, but I would think that by
combining the knowledge of the world held by diplomats from the 31 countries
with probably the best educated diplomats extant, we could have expected more
respect for their work than the Despot has given them.
It would be deeply demeaning, it seems to me, that my good self in the
guise of a politician, would be required by the bullying tactics of the Despot
to abase myself before him in such as way as happened last week.
I would, of course have borne in mind the advice given by one of our
former prime Ministers, Brian Mulroney, who warned our young leader --- did I mention that I took the political
job as a young man, still a trifle wet behind the ears? --- that the number one
job of a Canadian Prime Minister is to keep on the good side of the President
of the United States, but this advice might have been somewhat tarnished in my
mind by the memory of his joining President Ronald Reagan in singing a
cringeworthy version of Abie’s Irish Rose,
or maybe it was When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,
before embarking an an economic plan for free trade that has resulted in the
takeover of our economy (once again) by the American moloch, a result that
anyone with his eyes open might confidently have forecast.
So I would hope that emerging from my sleeplessness, my first call would
be to the Minister of Justice asking him
to advise the United
States that
he has been advised by his officials that sufficient grounds do not exist for the
extradition of Ms. Meng, and that he so rules.
End of crisis, leaving me, as the
young nation’s young leader, with nothing more to do than ride out the storm of
tweets and insults that would emerge from the Despotic bully in the Oval
Office, which could be assuaged by offering
him a life membership in the exclusive 80-member Redtail golf club at Port
Stanley, Ontario, that once had Queen Elizabeth,
his pal, stay overnight, or better still, we could invest a paltry $78 million
in buying millionaire Craig McCaw’s golf club on James Island, near Victoria,
B.C, where he could become the sole owner of a whole island in which to indulge
his narcissism and megalomania, recently identified by author Michael Wolff in
his follow-up book on him, as being
among the Despot’s mental deficiencies.
And cheap at the price, I would say.
Wot the hell, wot the hell, I fear I am never going to make it in
politics….
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