So, How're We Doing, Canada?

Awful, just dreadful, according to the Official Opposition in the House of the Commons. And as far as the Liberals too are concerned, the governing Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has abandoned Canada's traditional 'fair broker' role in favour of a style that pits us against the sensibilities and political direction of our friends and collegial countries. Canada has lost its once-respected reputation as a moderate country, straddling the fairness middle.

It's a Conservative government, after all, what else can one expect? It's a government with a 'hidden agenda' which hasn't yet decided to pull out all the stops and burden Canada with a regressive system of social contracts taking us back to the Middle Ages. But just wait; should enough Canadians be foolish enough to re-elect the Conservatives to another majority government the country will live to rue that foolishness.

Meanwhile, from the outside looking in, things don't look quite so dire, it seems. Take, for example, the New York and Copenhagen-based Reputation Institute's list of the world's 40 "most reputable" countries taken from an online survey of 27,000 respondents from across the G8. The membership of the G8 includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Russia. If that's not enough of a cross-section opinion, heaven knows what would be.

And their decision? That Canada's international reputation is very well appreciated. For the past three years it has enjoyed the status of top of the "global reputation" listing. Sweden took second place, then came Switzerland, and Australia, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, The Netherlands, and Austria. It's not just that we're in good company, but those named after Canada's top ranking, were themselves in good company, following Canada's lead.

Spain came in at 18th, the United States at 22nd, and China, oops, 44th. The social democracies topped the list. And the list was topped by Canada.

So the descending reputation of Canada under the Conservatives continually chimed by the opposition parties is a sad figment of their dementedly partisan imaginations. Or perhaps simply wishful thinking; a dismal record that if, repeated often enough, might convince the voting public not to go with their instinct and appreciate the decisions made by Canada's current government...?

True, Canada's standing at the United Nations as a fair broker has been disrupted somewhat by the current Canadian government's decision not to 'go along to get along'. Stated otherwise, not to wince and smile while some of the world's worst human-rights abusers are appointed to committees despite their disgustingly blighted policies, sitting in judgement on other countries whose social progressiveness they rate as abusive.

Canada, because of its choices to align itself with social democracies rather than tolerate the pretense of not-noticing tyrannies or choosing to support them over democratic countries' rights, lost a seat on the revolving UN Security Council. A snub from cliques whose general tendencies toward intolerance and abuse at home extended to the international scene in a forum where respect for human rights and the endless search for peace is meant to prevail, but fails.