The Old-new Canada Re-emerges

"The old Canada of Stephen Harper is gone and the new Canada of Stephane Dion is ascendant. We no longer take sides on global affairs. We don't pass judgement on right or wrong. We issue 'tough messages' to our 'friends' in Israel, while agreeing to let bygones be bygones with Iran. We signal our sympathy for Ukraine, but also our willingness to pursue 'common interests' with Russia. We're good guys. We're on your side -- whoever you are. However bad you may be, we want to get along. We mean no offence."
"You knew it was coming. You could tell, back when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was leader of the third-place Liberals and -- desperate for ways to differentiate his party from the Conservatives -- pledged to end Canada's involvement in the bombing campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It was obvious during the campaign debates when Trudeau invoked Canada's mystical, and largely mythical, past as a stalwart of the UN's peacekeeping forces. Appointing Dion as foreign affairs minister left no room for doubt: Canada was clambering back onto the fence of international affairs, where moral equivalency rules and every outrage is relative."
"On Sunday, Dion issued a fairly pallid statement signalling that the Liberals had no intention of continuing the uncompromising support the Harper Conservatives had offered Israel."
Kelly McParland, journalist, National Post

"As a steadfast ally and friend to Israel, Canada calls for all efforts to be made to reduce violence and incitement and to help build the conditions for a return to the negotiating table."
"[Isolating Iran, as the Conservatives had done] is not good for the people of Iran ... for the promotion of human rights ... for our strategic interest in the region ... for Israel."
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion

The Canada that preferred its milquetoast image of not unsettling foreign powers whose agendas are rife with malice on the world stage is back. It returned on the back of the Liberal Party of Canada whose new leader, recently installed as another Liberal Prime Minister taking his predestined place, is set to reverse virtually all initiatives and directions that the former Conservative-led government of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper had committed the country to as a nation proud of its equable nature but firm convictions.

Diplomatic relations with a country that has underhandedly conspired to furnish itself with nuclear weapons the more convincingly to threaten its geographic neighbours, are to be resumed. In a country where such foreign missions are often under siege. Iran finds common cause and partnership in nuclear and ballistic missiles development with North Korea, reminiscent of Pakistan's aid in persuading Libya's Moammar Ghadaffi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein that they too could aspire to the prestigious nuclear club.

The time of Canada naming and co-sponsoring the annual resolution against the Islamic Republic of Iran as an gross abuser of human rights and a supporter of terrorism in the United Nations in the annual rebuff of civilized nations to Iran's power-hungry aspirations is obviously now a thing of the past. It will be viewed by the new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau as diplomatically inappropriate, while re-establishing ties with the rights-abusing Republic.

Not only do the mullahs and ayatollahs of Tehran make life miserable for religious minorities in Iran, for gays, for political dissidents, but before the Iranian mission in Ottawa was shut down, expatriate Iranians living in Canada were treated to the delightful anomaly of Iran violating their safety and security through threats and intimidation within Canada itself. Now that diplomacy will be resumed, so too can the interference in Canada's internal matters be taken up once again.

Israel will have to become accustomed to gentle official Canadian chiding about 'disproportionate' responses by the IDF to Palestinian assaults against Israel and its people. The mantra is that Israel must be responsible for handling the Palestinian demands of nationhood which they interpret as the dismantling of the state of Israel with the kid gloves preferred by European governments, while no mention is made about inconvenient and ongoing attacks by Palestinians terrorists against Israeli civilians.

"The Palestinian people has developed its [methods[ of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry", bragged Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, augmenting the statement by former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh: "We love death like our enemies love life". And nor is Palestinian Authority (Fatah) President Mahmoud Abbas a laggard in promoting the Palestinian cause, promoting assassins of Jews to martyrdom status, naming squares and streets in their honour, conferring handsome annuities on their families.

But Canada is now being committed to resuming warm relations with those formerly held at arm's length, including a regime that excels in beatings of its citizens in custody, along with torture, execution, and generally inhumane treatment of Iranians; inclusive of the imprisonment of the Bahá’í leadership. Ethnic minorities see themselves discriminated against in Iran. Women have few rights, and political dissidents are imprisoned and murdered. Freedom of speech is non-existent; Iran imprisons more journalists than any other country in the world.

Iran vies with Saudi Arabia in the frequent and medieval-style imposition of a death penalty, imposing hanging of juveniles, criminal convictions less due process resulting in beheading, crucifixion and military-style executions by firing squad.  Coerced confessions are useful against gays, for a fairly comprehensive picture of an rights-abusing state which should remain a pariah within the international community, but is now enjoying an enthusiastic renaissance embraced by trade-hungry countries of Europe -- and Canada.