When All Else Fails - Attack!

Bob Rae, as a sturdy, committed spokesman for the Liberal Party of Canada and an enthusiastic critic of the Government of Canada led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper portrays his party as Canada's only salvation to bring the country out of its current state of economic decline. He insists it is in Canada's best interests that he has gone to the United Arab Emirates to attempt to bridge the gap in business interests that suddenly appeared when Canada's government refused the UAE's request for increased landing rights in Toronto.

That refusal led the UAE into a hysterical reaction whereby it flounced off in a huff and took the rather unusual step of confusing business relations with diplomatic relations, invoking its right to withdraw permission for Canada to continue using a sandpit on its territory as a transit and landing base for Canada's participation in the U.S./U.N.- and NATO-led war in Afghanistan against the fundamentalist Islamist Taliban.

Arab and Muslim countries are equally threatened by the Taliban and their al-Qaeda counterparts, but they have not invested treasury and active dedication to combating the violence-torn Islamist mission as the West has done. While they are beneficiaries of the West's investment on the 'war on terror' they have opted to sit on the sidelines. While casually, surreptitiously continuing to fund terror groups which they feel do not threaten them, only the West.

Mr. Rae righteously sloughs off any criticism of his cap-in-hand solicitations of good fellowship with UAE diplomatic and its princely reigning corps, speaking of them as 'another sovereign country' which he has approached on behalf of Canada, as a patriot reflective of himself as a natural leader, quite in contrast with Stephen Harper who gave them short shrift when they sought an economic advantage that would cost Canada enterprise opportunities and jobs.

He defends the U.A.E.'s reaction as 'frustration and anger', at being strong-armed by the Harper government. The U.A.E.'s purported frustration and anger, which some may interpret as arrogance and condescension led them to viciously insult Canada when air passage and landing permission was denied both our Minister of National Defence and Chief of the Defence Staff, along with the summary instruction to vacate "Camp Mirage".

Bob Rae engaged in ad hominem, self-exculpatory attacks on Canada's Conservative-led government and the National Post when it editorialized ("Cheering Against Canada") on his decision to defend the U.A.E. at the expense of offending his own country's values. He wrote a despicable anti-government tract as the Liberal party of Canada's foreign affairs critic, as his personal response to that editorial, surfeit with circumlocution and obfuscation.

He has accused the Prime Minister of Canada of not acting in Canada's best economic interests, but overlooks the questionable social ethics and political morality of the oil-rich kingdom he lauds. He emphasizes that "...someone has to speak up for the economic interests of Canadians", and he makes it quite clear that he has elevated himself as a sterling candidate to that position.

"The Harper government's diplomatic bumbling with the U.A.E. has endangered a $2-billion bilateral trade relationship, cost Canada access to a strategic airbase in the Middle East, and saddled taxpayers with at least $300-million in relocation costs."

Actually it was a deliberately spiteful act on the part of the U.A.E., snubbing Canada in response to the refusal to allow an increase in landing rights for Emirates and Etihad airlines that saddled taxpayers with "at least $300-million in relocation costs". To which additional insults were added with a $1000-visa charge slapped on Canadians wishing to fly to the U.A.E., and of course the boycotting of Canada's Security Council bid in the United Nations.

Liberals, Mr. Rae avows, "...will continue to defend Canada's international reputation and our traditions as a country. In our travels abroad, we work with government officials to promote Canada's interests. We shall not be cowed or intimidated into silence, nor should any Canadians." Nobility of purpose fairly bristles. Methinks the man protests too much. Nor should Canadians let it slip their memory that Bob Rae was once the NDP Premier of the Province of Ontario.

In that capacity he sang a somewhat different tune. As attested to by someone who had the unfortunate experience of witnessing that out-of-tune Ontario NDP government leader, now reborn as a Liberal fixated on Canada's international reputation and international economic advantages. Here is the opinion of a now-retired, former senior trade representative with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade:

Bob Rae is no poster-boy for Canada's economic interests abroad.

One of the low-lights of my career as a trade commissioner with Foreign Affairs (DFAIT) occurred in the early 1990s (Post Tiananmen). As the trade commissioner responsible for trade development with China, I was tasked in Canada with an incoming mission initially organized by the Canadian embassy in Beijing, led by the vice-governor of an important, leading industrial hi-tech province. It was common knowledge that this vice-governor was already earmarked for advancement in the hierarchy of Chinese political power in Beijing. Events have subsequently confirmed this.

At the time, all Canadian provincial trade departments were eager to expand trade with China and responded to the incoming mission by lining up key business and government meetings in their respective provinces to discuss trade issues. The federal government policy at the time was not to isolate China for its human rights policies post-Tiananmen but to use trade as a device to address those issues. At the time, all provincial governments accepted this policy and responded to this trade mission positively.

The exception being the Rae government in Ontario. Not only did the Ontario minister responsible for trade refuse to meet with the vice-governor (or any Chinese government representative); as a stated policy of the Rae government, bureaucrats in his department refused to co-operate in his meeting itinerary with both the government and private sectors.

I was subsequently able to arrange a short ad hoc meeting with the deputy trade minister. The obviously disinterested and offhand treatment of the vice-minister at this sham meeting was an embarrassment that even today makes me recall this incident with disbelief.

Post-Tiananmen I met regularly with Canadian business leaders, particularly those in the Chinese/Canadian community in Toronto to assure them that we would not isolate China and continue to foster our mutually beneficial trade ties, despite the Rae government's attitude to the contrary.