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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-12-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1987. PAGE 5. Here's a former American citizen who wants Canada to stay Canadian BYTONY McQUAIL There are a lot of questions in my mind these days as I consider the nebulous information surrounding the “Free Trade Deal” that has supposedly been worked out with the United States. There is the question of whether we trust Brian Mulroney and his colleagues to sell Canada for a fair price but there is an even more fundamental question dowe wantCanadatobe sold? While we explore the one we should not lose sight of the other. IamaCanadianby choice and as many Canadians before me from the time of the American Revolution. 1 chose Canada over the United States for some very good reasons. I left the United States because it was a country obsessed with “fighting Forum FORUM is a feature of The Citizen which attempts to bring different points of view from area residents to the fore, it is designed to stimulate discussion. FORUM will appear once a month in 'the Citizen. If you have a topic you would like to contribute 1,000 to 1,500 words about, please contact the editor. Letters to the editor in reply to the ideas expressed in Forum are also welcomed. communism’’ by supporting fascism and despotic dictators. It was a counter productive policy then as it is now forcing liberation movements to turn to the eastern bloc. Unfortunately the US commitment to democracy is far less than its desire for economic domination of its less developed neighbours on our planet. It is no accident that approximately six percent of the world' s population in the US consumes about 30 per cent of the world’s resources. Since the US is a country of vast private wealth and public squalor the benefits of this global exploita­ tion are not universally shared but are held in the hands of a few w hile many Americans lack the basic health care and educational opportunities which we take for granted in Canada. While fighting communism has been the claimed objective, keeping control over other nations’ bananas, tin or oil has often been an underlying motive. However propping up fascist puppets is costly and potentially embarrassing. Perhaps the US/Canada “Free Trade Deal” is really a progressive new thrustfor US foreign policy. Rather than setting up a puppet and pumping in military advisors and machinery to wage a war against “commie Canadians” who would like to hold onto our fresh water and our oil and perhaps even develop a strong Canadian economy which offered meaningful jobs to ordinary Canucks, Washington has realized that it would probably be cheaper to have a puppet who would simply sell Canada down the river on the installment plan. Enter phased in free trade. But would you trust this man to sell your country? The simple answer is nol If you hark back to 1984 you may recall that Mr. M was busy reassuring seniors that their universal programs were a “Sacred trust” which he would not tamper with. After the election his perspective changed and he came to regard them more as a trust fund to be plundered by an unscrupulous trustee until seniors across the country pulled him up short. You may also recall that free trade was not an issue in the 1984 election. Mr. M very clearly stated that free trade was not something he was out to promote or pursue. It was only after he was elected that Canada was put on the block and that free trade became the rudder and the sail for Mr. M’s political vessel. If you wanted a Canadian economic policy you were offered free trade as the means to a glorious and vibrant economy. If you wanted a Canadian social policy, free trade was the way to have a richer and more contented society. In fact free trade has been the vision this government has offered Canadians for a better tomorrow while it has used its massive majority to wallow about in scandal and inept inaction. Impressed with the creative response to the Farm Credit Crisis? Over joyed at tax reforms designed to squeeze more from the working poor? Perhaps you can ignore these little problems if you’ll just take another swig from the free trade joy juice bottle-it promises “prosperity in our time”. I was impressed with a line from the Ontario Federation of Agricultures brief on the trade agreement. “Farmers have learned that international markets don t operate in text book fashion ... Fairness is defined by the most powerful. The naive do not survive. Reflecting these international realities, Canadian farmers have promoted domestic policies which give them a measure of control over their destiny. Any sacrifice of this control deserves the closest scrutiny.” Canadians have developed policies in many areas which have given them “a measure of control over their destiny” as well as made their lives pleasanter and their society more equitable. These are not to be lightly traded away. The processes leading to this trade agreement are instructive. After receiving no mandate to do so Mr. M. undertakes to begin negotiations. He assures us that a number of things “aren’t on the table” and sets out a number of conditions that “must be met”. The negotiators get down to business behind closed doors. We later discover that things were on the table which we were told weren’t. Indeedsomemay still be on the Tony McQuail and his wife Fran operate a farm in West Wawanosh township. He has been active in community affairs and is a member of the Huron County Board of Education, a past president of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture, former candidate for the N.D.P. table since, for two months after an agreementwas supposedly reached, the two sides couldn’t agree on the legal wording of the agreement they supposedly agreed to. AstheOctober deadline approached the Canadian negotiator walked away from the table saying the Americans weren’t going to meet enough of our conditions to get a deal. Did we wait for them to make some concessions and lure us back to the table? No. Mr. M and his political pals, realizing that they had a lot more political bacon in the frying pan than Mr. R, rushed back down to Washington to play “let’s make a deal”. And they did make a deal or at least that’s what they tell us. Ifyou are familiar with the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes you will appreciate why I view it as our Emperor’s New Deal. If you are a Canadian of Courage and Confidence you will be for this deal we are told. No doubt if you have these fine attributes you can see it. It is only those of us who are cowardly and insecure who can’t See it, who find it disquieting that Canadians can’t be given a legal text to scrutinize and that it took so long for the lawyers on both sides to agree to what should be in it. Well my friends, sad to say, but the emperor has no clothes, no deal and no courage. The reason 1 know this is that I asked one of his advisors a very simple question. 1 asked Mr. Wise(this issimply his name and not an attribute) whether the government had the courage and confidence in their trade agreement to go before the Canadian electorate in a general election. If 1 understood the answer correctly it was to the effect that no they would not because they are afraid they would lose. My father had an old cartoon which he had framed and which hung on a wall in our home. It was titled “long faces at the corn exchange ’andhadsomeverystoutandvery sad looking merchants moaning “Peace. Not Peace. Oh no, we are ruined”. As a kid I never understood it. I knew it was old, probably from the late 1800’s. The message that what’s good for the trader, the speculator is not always good for the ordinary person is one worth considering today. Ordinary Canadians are not naive. They like being Canadians and want to stay Canadian. It’s why, given a chance, they would reject a free trade sell out of their resources and national soveriegnty. A bit more majesty, if you please BY RAYMOND CANON 1 am of two minds about the whole concept of the monarchy. On the one hand I have made no secret of my opinion of the stability which it often provides in an other wise explosive situation and I have only to point to the success of the monarchy in both Belgium and Spain as shining examples of this. On the other hand, it goes against my egalitarian grain to put some­ one up on a pedestal as is so frequently done with kings, queens and the like. On balance I would probably admit that I am more in favour of the stability which is provided that I am against the pomp and circumstance. I am always interested to read, nevertheless, of the taboos which exist in one’s relationship with monarchy. It seems that there are things that one simply does not do in the presence of such greatness and former US President Jimmy Carter found that out when he paid an official visit to Queen Elizabeth of England. He, being much taller than she, bent oyer to give her a light kiss and so doing, probably earned the eternal enmity of the Queen. It seems that she does not liketobekissedinpublicandso instructions have gone out not to even think of it. Perhaps it was that the American chief of protocol forgot to point it out to Carter, perhaps the ex-president chose to ignore it. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that he did it and, had we lived in more primitive times, he would probably have been boiled in oil for his transgression if not beheaded on the spot. I was thinking of all this in the light of a recent news release from my secret agent in Thailand who reports that, in spite of recent egalitarian trends, the king of that country is still considered by many of his subjects to be considerably above us mere mortals. You may be interested to know that, until the law was changed about a century ago, it was not permitted for Thais even to look at their monarch. Today you may actually look at King Bhumibol butyou had still better be very careful what you say either to or about him. It seems that one of the high officials of the government forgot this dictum and is he ever in hot water (figuratively speaking of course)! During a recent election he expressed the opinion in public that he regretted not having been born into a life of ease in a palace instead of that of a peasant. He did not ha veto refer to Bhumibol by name, the inference to the king was clear enough and as a result the person in question, Mr. Veera Musikapong, felt obliged to kneel before a portrait of the king in Parliament. That, apparent was not enough; he was hauled into court and has just learned that he has been sentenced to six years in jail. This appeared to be a bit harsh andsonowthe case is before the Supreme Coun which is expected to give a decision in about six months’ time. Ifthis court finds the same as that of the lower court, the only recourse that Musikapong has is to throw himself at the mercy of the King. He might have a chance, if this turns out to be the only way, in that Bhumibol is of the opinion that the law might be relaxed a bit; last year he pardoned three men who were up for a charge of somewhat the same nature. However, the law as it now standsisquiteexplicit. Itstates that “whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen or the heir apparent shall be punished by imprisonment.” One man felt the sting of this recently when he, in a weak moment, boasted that the power of the press was such that it could make a government or even a king. He had just be nominated to be the director of Thailand’s mass communications organization but, when news of his remark became public, he felt obliged to resign before he was asked to. This all reminds me of the time I was living in Spain. The country was still a dictatorship with Franciscp Franco the dictator in question. He was treated as someone akin toBhumibol and woe betide anybody who criticized him in public. One of my English journalist friends did and the last wesawofhim was when he was being led off to the Madrid Hilton as we used to call it. The next time I am in Thailand I will most certainly watch what I say, even in jest.