Addressing His Peers

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is off for four days to meet with his counterparts in the G8 and NATO.  One of the issues to be discussed is food security.  Canada, having weathered the global financial crisis quite handsomely, has basked in self-congratulations for a few years, witnessing the turmoil elsewhere, hoping it wouldn't too noticeably affect Canada's well-being.  And it really hasn't, very much.

As to the topic of food security, Canada now has the distinction of being the only wealthy, advanced country of the world to have been visited by the United Nations' right-to-food rapporteur.  Prime Minister Harper can now regale the others with tales of how charming the man was, while a guest of the country, how much he professed to admire the way in which Canadians live, generous to a fault, with their own less favoured by chance, and to the starving of the world through humanitarian support of the global needy.

Of course there will be other topics under discussion.  The little disagreements that have so unfortunately erupted between Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and the larger Sunni majority who simply do not understand that it is regally imperative that they suffer as neglected underdogs while the Alawite Shia regime reigns with fairness and justice meted out to all.

Ah, yes, climate change is to be discussed and Canada can soothe the environmental concerns of other countries should they raise the issue of the Alberta oilsands; should they inadvertently name them the tarsands, the Prime Minister may gently chide them and recommend a change of vocabulary.  Iran's nuclear plans and the issues surrounding ballistic missile defense will rear into prominence, of course.

All these issues to be addressed are of vital importance to the world at large.  And, of course, the European debt crisis will not be overlooked; it will be discussed at tedious, mind-wrenching length.  Europe's financial state, teetering on the cusp of worrisome crisis may evoke a recommendation from somewhere that countries still on a sound footing, not part of the European Union, might wish to consider balancing their excess against the EU's need.

This suggestion is certain to result in some very interesting discussions, and eventually perhaps the interested public will be made aware of the proceedings.  And then, of course, the matter of Afghanistan and its eventual destiny to pull itself laboriously up by the bootstraps toward a self-reliant position of strength and determination.

The United States is firmly committed to a continuation of its financial support for Kabul's plans to have its national police force and its military fully capable of ensuring security for the country against the continued predations of the Taliban, so ably aided and assisted by its neighbour, Pakistan.  An estimated 230,000 Afghan security force hugely dependent on the ongoing financial support of the international community is the price to be paid for a humane future in that country.

But commitments come with no guarantees.  And already-financially-straitened economies will not be too eager to commit their treasuries to an enterprise fraught with so many potential perils; the Taliban are resilient, determined and fiercely committed to their own view of what should prevail in what is, in effect, their own country of origin.

From Camp David to Chicago, a good time will likely not be had by all.