Canada's Defense Minister Hopes for the Best

Gordon O'Connor hopes that President Bush's new plan for Iraq, sending in 20, 000 more troops, does not in any way hinder Canada's objectives in Afghanistan.

O'Connor is worried that the new U.S. proposed committment will not mean taking out U.S. troops from Afghanistan in order to place less of a troop burden on the homeland.

I don't blame O'Connor for being worried, I mean serioulsy,Canada decided to go along and help the U.S. fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Bin - Laden's boys and for that help if the U.S. were to abandon its allies to the North that would defiantely cause some serious foreign policy issues, not that any don't exist already.

I think the President won't get congressional approval or the the Congress will at least stop his plans for a new plan in Iraq and start getting troops out, considering that's one issue many new congresspeople were elected on.

Canada and O'Connor don't have anything to worry about for now.

Currency Discrimination

I was reading Macleans just a short while ago and came upon a news article about A restaurant along the mexican border that just started accepting Mexican Pesos as payment:

"A pizza chain has been hit with death threats and hate mail after offering to accept Mexican pesos, becoming another flashpoint in the nation's debate over immigrants. 'This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico,' one e-mail read. 'Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans,' demanded another."

Wow, don't you love ignornance.

Macleans did point out that shops in Minnesota and New York take Canadian dollars as well:

"Wal-Mart, H-E-B supermarkets and other American businesses in towns along the Mexican border accept pesos. And some businesses in New York and Minnesota communities along the northern border accept Canadian dollars. The difference here is that many of the pizza joints are far from the border, in places like Dallas, more than 650 kilometres away, and Denver, more than 1,130 kilometres. 'If people would understand that the majority of our customers are Hispanic, then it might make more sense for a company to sell pizza for pesos,' Gamm said. 'It doesn't make sense in Connecticut. And it doesn't make sense in North Dakota or in Maine. But it makes perfect sense here in Dallas, in Phoenix, in Denver - areas far from the border that have significant Hispanic populations.' The company said it has received hundreds of e-mails, some supportive, most critical."

Its great that people think its just mexicans that come to the U.S. illegally, people from Canada and Western Europe do it all the time, and they definatley don't get away with it.

Wake up people and try to see things from outside your ass.

The Childcare Industry

Just today the Tory government has been blasted over not delivering on a promise to ease the child care industry (Daycare specifically) in Canada.

Why would this be a relavant topic concerning U.S. - Canada relations? Think about it, we are very close to having the same issue ourselves.

The Tory pledge was to give CA$1,200 a month to parents to ease child care realted costs. Here in the U.S., since welfare was abused in our system and no longer exists except in the form of Bush's increased child tax credit (hey, that wasn't really a bad idea for people who really deserve it) which can be used for whatever a family wants to use it for, such as non-child related expenses.

Because the U.S. looks at socialism and shudders at the thought of any state-controlled systems we face increased costs on individuals and families because everybody is forced to pay for things themselves (U.S. ideology is people should take care of themselves). Any help recieved from an indivudal state controlled system is so meager because of welfare reform that no one can really pay for any helpful expenses to make life easier.

Canada's issue will eventually come down here in the form of corporate child care, seriously, every single industry in the U.S. is owned wholly or partly by a Canadian group and vice versa. What U.S. company is not going to seize the opportunity to provide high quaility (if you want to call it that) low cost child care to Canadians in order to grab a family's government subsidies?

Think about it, Halliburton Daycare, shit, they own every other industry.

(i.e. yes I'm being extremely pessimistic, but unless people start respecting sovreignty of states this crap will continue).

God...not the Middle East Again...

From the CBC:

"MP Wajid Khan was sitting as a Liberal when he agreed in the summer of 2006 to act as a special adviser on Mideast to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Khan promised at the time that his report would be available to all political parties, promising it would be "unbiased and freestanding."

For Americans who either could give a crap or simply don't understand parliamentary politics, for a member of parliament to be working with a party other than your own is considered, essentially, disloyal to your party. Here in the U.S. a Democrat can work with the President on his cabinet and vice versa for Republicans without too much of a problem but in loyalty stricken parliaments party is everything.

Wajid Kahn recently went from being a Liberal member of Parliament to a Harper Conservative because he decided that since he was working for the PM anyway and not exactly in touch with his party anymore he would just switch sides. This ended up being great news for the NDP because their party's coaltion actually gained more power!

Kahn is the Middle East affairs minister to PM Harper and in Canada, since there is actually a debate concerning the status of Occupied Palestine (or as some like to call it 'israel') Kahn become a top Pakistani in the government to report on the Middle East because appointing a Muslim is a lot more sensitive to Canada's consituency (at least Harper made another good move, Bush and the U.S. governmen should learn from this).

Issue at hand now is that Kahn's most recent report never went public and oppostition parties are looking for honest and open government and seem to not be getting it anymore, especially over a volitale isse such as the Middle East.

Update as of 11:02AM EST: Khan assailed Harper before joining Tories

Read the rest of the report, I will more than likely be posting again once the government opens up the report, more than likely by the end of the week.

Punishment is....being thrown over the border?

This story is from the CBC:

I find it appaling, even though this story was started back in October, that a U.S. judge would actually allow someone to go into exile into another country just because they had a residence there.

It is a blatant violation of international law to allow a convicted criminal to be thrown into exile without the permission of the recieveing country. Obviously a hard-headed American judge thought this was ok and must have missed International Law class more than a few times, or never took the course, to know that this was a decision he was not allowed to make on his own.

Canadians were furious at this ruling and the border patrol also arrested this guy at the border for making an illegal entry into Canada. Good for the border guard and standing their ground protecting their country from the foolishness of more Bush Administration follies.

Goodbye to Ambrose

From MacLeans:

"Rona Ambrose wasn't exactly a hit with Quebecers during her ill-fated stint as Canada's environment minister. But if she's looking for solace in the wake of her demotion last Tuesday, she might note that Quebec's provincial government is genuinely excited that she's now in charge of intergovernmental affairs."

Rona Ambrose wasn't a hit with anybody and its not surprising the PM Harper has decided to move her postion to a more domestic position in the conservative government. This is the same woman who said, "Canadians don't care about Global Warming, they care about Air Quality" and she also gave a stunning performance in Kenya during a Kyoto follow up summit a couple months back.

Ambrose lamented the previous Liberal government for its short commings on environmental policy but I find it funny that she couldn't even try to live up to at least some of Kyoto's protocals (Canada will be reporting that they are 50% over the limit on Carbon Dioxiode and other elements in the air).

Since I started really becomming more interested in Canadian politics I noticed that Ambrose seems to be the one (at least through the CBC) who tends to hit the Left really hard with comments, yet in the end shes the one that lost essentially being shunned by the Tories.

Hello!

Hi All!

After talking with my boy Spazeboy (www.spazeboy.net) I have decided to start up a blog concerning U.S .-Canada relations. I will hopefully be an expert in this area soon and I care enough about this realm of U.S. foreign policy that I will devote a blog to it.

Enjoy, more is to come very soon!

NB Democrat