Counter-point: Canada more than capable of handling its own diplomatic affairs
To see point, click here!
By Ryan Bromsgrove
Photos by Adam Ovenell-Carter
EDMONTON (Gateway) — “Hey you guys, remember when we had that empire? Wasn’t that smashing?” Thank you, United Kingdom, for reminding us of that with the announcement of Canada and the U.K. sharing embassies. This decision — along with the future potential of roping in Australia and New Zealand — sends the wrong message to both Commonwealth nations and the rest of the world about what Canada stands for.
“We are two nations, but under one Queen and united by one set of values,” said UK Foreign Secretary William Hague in a statement, quoting British prime minister David Cameron speaking to the Canadian Parliament earlier this year.
It’s one thing to allow inertia to justify the continued symbolic reign of an octogenarian woman through the accident of birth. It’s quite another to use that walking rubber stamp to justify the overseas conflation of two supposedly separate countries. Take it from someone who’s spent years living in both these nations: we are not united by one set of values. The idea that we are is nothing more than the same political PR that any diplomat spouts about two more-or-less allied nations.
Hague went on: “We have stood shoulder to shoulder from the great wars of the last century to fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and supporting Arab Spring Nations like Libya and Syria.”
Yeah, Mr. Hague, you’re forgetting something there. Living in the U.K. in 2003, I recall the scattered Iraq war protests and the government not only giving zero fucks about what the people thought, but the shoddy — and since proven false — evidence it gave to make the case for war.
In a commendable show of sanity, Canada decided not to break international law and embark on a near-decade-long money-sink of an excuse to kill foreigners. When the U.K. was hungry for killing, Canada said, “No.”
This may be only a single example, but it’s a significant one, enough to show that these two nations do not necessarily share the same values. Canada’s are better, and we don’t need to be further tied to a former colonial owner attempting desperately to pretend its post-imperial period is not one of decline.
Of course, none of that need matter when there are also financial reasons to bunk up. “In this economy,” you can justify any dumb shit idea you want.
It’s time we stopped putting up with bad ideas for the sake of “the economy.” It’s pretty clear at this point that the economy does what it wants. The cost of maintaining our own embassies is minimal compared to some of the other things we blow our money on.
Formally sharing embassies may not result in many obvious meaningful changes when it comes to actually doing the work. But what it would change is Canada’s reputation. What the U.K. does will reflect more strongly on how Canada is perceived. And for a country perpetually figuring out its own identity, wars, the Queen, and saving a few dollars are not worth the cost of further muddying our international image. Canada is more than capable of handling its own affairs. For that reason alone, it should be ever-severing ties with its parent. Not building new ones.
Point: Sharing embassies is not a threat to Canadian democracy
To see counter-point, click here!
By Gian-Paolo Mendoza
Graphic by Ben Buckley
The Canadian and British governments have both recently announced a plan to share embassies and foreign properties in a number of different countries. This move comes following a provision in the March 2012 budget where our government promised to save around 170 million dollars by “restructuring” its offices and diplomatic missions abroad. It is the first time that both governments have ever announced the co-location of embassies publicly, and has stirred a wide debate in the public and press in the past few days. The harsh adversity to the decision has been slightly blown out of proportion, focusing mainly on abstract socio-cultural elements of our history with Britain instead of the functional benefits of the agreement itself.
According to our government, the rationale for sharing foreign offices with the U.K. is primarily to reduce the cost. Foreign affairs minister John Baird has said that the agreement will take place in only two countries to start: British diplomatic staff will be working out of Canada’s foreign office in Haiti, while Canada’s ambassador to Burma will work out of the British Embassy there. This arrangement would allow Canada to provide diplomatic services in countries where it does not have an embassy, but where Britain does, and vice-versa.
The idea of sharing embassy properties is not a new one either. British and Canadian diplomats already work out of shared offices in countries such as Mali, where Britain’s ambassador operates in the Canadian office in Bamako. Australia also provides consular services for us in a number of pacific countries such as Cambodia, and Italy has recently agreed to provide services to Canadians in Iran.
I’ve noticed that those adverse to the government’s decision tend to congregate around the idea of the social ramifications of the idea of co-located embassies; or more specifically, the message that it would send to the rest of the world. The idea that the Canadian government may appear to be integrating closer on the level of foreign policy with its former colonial power has made many critics of the government uneasy. But Canadian interests would never be spoken for by British diplomats, nor vice versa. The opposite just doesn’t make any political sense.
Sharing embassies is a great idea: we’re cutting a lot of spending from our federal government’s pocket, and only compromising the convenience of having our own building. The critical perceptions of the Union Jack and our flag flying side by side on the same property are reasonably founded, especially for Canadians who are less sympathetic towards our British roots. The Canadian government should be wary of the public’s regard for the aesthetics of the arrangement; perhaps moving our flag to the opposite side of our real estate in Haiti would help to ease the anxiety back at home.
Groups clash over the controversial decision to take over-fed man off feeding tube.
By Gary Lim
VANCOUVER — The ICU at Vancouver general hospital was the site of substantial ethical debate late Thursday evening, after housewife Miriam Wilheim signed the final termination orders to take her husband, Walter, off of the breathing machines which had been hooked up to the food-comatose man. Walter has been in a persistent vegetative state (that vegetable being candied yams) since consuming his third slice of pumpkin pie Thanksgiving Monday.
Doctor Richard Hartman, one of the on-call physicians, describes the chilling circumstances the night Wilheim was brought in.
“We knew it was bad when we saw the paramedics unloading him. They’d already unbuttoned the top button of his pants. But we didn’t know the full extent of the damage until we had him in intensive care. He was already in the early stages of meat sweats and fading in and out of consciousness. When we got finally him into the MRI, we could see clear indicators of the onset turkey brain and immediately transferred him into emergency sweatpants.”
Since his admittance to VGH, the food comatose man has attracted a lot of attention from various groups around B.C. One of the most prominent, Right to Life, received media attention in 2009 for their protest against the removal of feeding tube of one Alice Peterson, a woman determined to be brain-fed after being examined by prominent neurologists.
In a strongly worded letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Vancouver Sun, Penelope Fink, vice president of Right to Life, posits the question: who among us should have the right to choose between life and death for our most enfeebled?
“Look it boils down this. If it were you, and you were temporarily incapacitated from having eaten too much ham, who would — nay, who could you trust with making sure the doctors did everything they possibly could before selling your organs off? That’s not a responsibility that your loved should have to bear and it’s certainly not something the government should be able to decide.”
Besides, there are dozens of cases of people emerging from extended periods of gastrointestinal unconscious, so who are we to choose when someone is really “gone?” Brendan Mayfield, a 32-year-old plumber from Yorkton, Saskatchewan suffered a brief shank-based stroke in 1994, leaving him temporarily lambatose. But 10 years to the month, his nurses found him sitting up in his bed asking them how he got there. ”
According to the Society for Gastro-comatic Health, this affliction affects over 200 Canadians each year, whit cases typically spiking during the holiday months. The GHC reminds Canadians that they can reduce their likelihood of illness relating to meat consumption by having a protein spotter, and eating a salad once every goddamn while.
At press time, Walter Wilheim has lazily rolled over in his sleep.
By Gary Lim and Eleanor Qu
Petter surprised to find out that after decades of Thanksgivings, he’s a dark meat kind of man.
Professor convinced that not making students remember ‘exact dates’ sets his class apart
An unnamed SFU History professor apparently still believes he is unique in not making students remember the exact dates of historical events despite this being true of every single professor in any course at the school.
The professor has reminded his students during every lecture for the past 20 years that he’s fine with them just knowing a general time frame of events instead of “the exact date Saskatchewan entered Confederation,” a somewhat humorous example that he refers to every single time.
Although the memorization of useless trivia has not existed in any university for a very long time, the professor believes he was the first and remains the only prof to be cool enough to let that kind of stuff slide.
In his best recollection, he hasn’t asked for specific names or dates since April 23, 1985 but all you need to remember is that it was before Robert Bourassa was elected premier of Quebec for the second time, but after John Buchanan’s Progressive Conservatives won their third consecutive majority government in Nova Scotia . . . see, isn’t that so much easier?
