In his speech to Congress yesterday, President Bush thanked several countries for their show of support in the wake of last week’s outrage in New York. However, he pointedly failed to mention Canada.
With good reason.
I’m not an American wannabe, although I admire and respect the American people. I’m proud to be Canadian, but I am deeply embarrassed by our government.
I attributed our Prime Minister’s wishy-washy response to the tragedy to senility or gross stupidy. Perhaps it’s a mixture of both. But the problem goes much deeper. Our own intelligence agency, the CSIS, has reported that there are at least 350 people in this country who have terrorist ties and are actively engaged in fund raising. We know about them, and they’re still doing business?
Our immigration policy, if it can be called that, is a joke. There are over 4000 illegal immigrants here, who have been “ordered deported.” Most have dropped out of sight, and some are fighting the order, which takes a long time, and the order is too often reversed. These, of course, are only the ones we’re aware of.
The Americans have repeatedly asked us to do something about this mess, but to no avail.
To the Canadians who revel in America bashing, let me remind you that if it wasn’t for them, we’d be speaking Russian long ago.
Hell, fucking Venezuela could conquer us on a long weekend.
He organized the what? fourth? fifth? national day of mourning in Canadian history.
We accepted practically all of the international flights that had been diverted from landing in the US, grossly overstuffing our airports.
And Chrétien has been for the last week, and for his entire tenure in office, been foursquare behind the US, whatever I may think of this. He danced to the US’ tune in Durban and in the Hague. Hell, eight years ago he was elected when we thought he’d get rid of NAFTA and he’s gone and tried to bring in the FTAA.
There are some things that the gov’t can be accused of over the last week and points previous, but not backing up the US enough is not one of them.
Actually, I think Bush doesn’t even know we’re here. He was the first president in quite some time not to make his first visit as president to Canada. All I can hope is that his continued snubbing of us will make us realize that maybe standing for ourselves and paying for our own tunes might be a better idea than having all our eggs in somebody else’s basket.
Okay; is 4000 a lot? A little? What do other nations with large numbers of immigrants have? How many immigrants are in a similar state in the U.S.? Australia? The UK? You say there aer 350 terrorists in Canada. Is that a lot? How many are in the U.S.? How many in France? Italy?
Without context, your criticism here means nothing.
You may have a point about your PM. However, I’d note that I’ve seen (quite literally) hundreds of supportive and sympathetic messages from Canadians…and that’s just in the few newsgroups I haunt.
I don’t know where this originally came from, but I’ve seen it attached to a lot of messages coming from .ca domains.
As a born-and-bred 'Murrican from the heartland, I’d like to thank you for your support. And don’t sweat it too hard - we’re embarrassed by our leaders on a damned-near daily basis.
IIRC, so did most European countries. If they had not organized one, it would have been a slap in the face to our southern neighbour.
I believe this was requested of us, was it not? Were we going to say no?
Plus, I don’t think Chretien would have a thing to do with it, it was likely the decision of canadian flight authority.
Unfortunately, when he was voted in I was 13. I’ve grown up with this guy in place. I haven’t seen anything get better, I’ve just seen things slowly degrading.
Maybe those with more long term experience can tell me why Chretien is a good PM as opposed to an ‘okay’ one.
Not the government, the PM. He has been deliberatly non-commital up until yesterday.
‘We will honor our NATO obligation.’
‘We will do what we must.’
Translation: we’re not going to do anymore than we’re obligated to.
The news as of this morning said we were offering ground troops for anti-terrorism OR peacekeeping replacements in Kosovo so the US would have more troops at their disposal.
You think his script-writers didn’t mention to him that maybe Canada should be included?
Also, as for the last statement, IIRC our current PM has said that he doesn’t mind the fact that the Canadian dollar is so low in comparision to the American, because it helps encourage tourism. (I will attempt to find a cite for this, btw.)
How’s that for looking out for your citizens? If you want the latter to occur, we HAVE to get someone in office who can make it happen. Obviously, he can’t.
Sorry, Slip, I respectfully disagree. (Is that allowed in the Pit?)
As an American, I AM embarrassed that Canada was not mentioned in his speech.
While airplanes were being used a weapons, Canada took all the inbound international flights after U.S. airspace had been closed.
From the time-line I remember, it was an immediate decision, too, not “Hmmm… Let’s think about this for a while… Should we… Shouldn’t we… Maybe if they gave us Alaska…”.
That took courage. Even if your Prime Minister did not make the decision, it was made by someone else who I am sure was also a Canadian.
Also, while all flights were grounded, it was Canada and Canadians who took in the redirected travelers and showed them hospitality until flights resumed.
It was the assistance we needed at our time of greatest need.
For that, please accept the gratitude of this American.
Chretien will be in Washington on Monday. That’s when you’ll see the US stroke Canada, just as it did to the UK and France this past week.
(As a Yank living in Canada, I would also like to thank Canada for its prompt action and its generosity in hosting the thousands of international passengers who were stranded there.)
“Just where the hell does Canada get off sharing a border
with countries far superior to it?
Why you lousy stinkin’ Francophonic bacon-lovin’ bastards,
your country is just a lousy piece of…”
Why would anyone bad-mouth Canada? It’s a lovely state! And the city of Buffalo is a right nice place to visit in the summertime.
I mean, how can a place where all the police ride on horses, wear those cute uniforms and have chin dimples be bad. Plus, if you don’t speak French you get to live in an igloo!
cough, cough
Got that out of my system. Continue with your too-reasoned-for-The-Pit thread.
As a couple of fellow Americans have pointed out, thank you to all of the Canadians who have made a difference and shown their support for the past 10 days. You have a great country, at least from the Canadians I have met. We ain’t perfect down here, either. It’s tough to balance the freedom and acceptance gig with the security thing.
Normally I love to pick on Canada like you might pick on your favorite sibling, but I’ll save that for another time. I’m also going easy on Bush right now, sometimes you have to stand by your leadership even when they’re not who you would have personally picked.
Ok so that’s what happened to the Canadian thing. I think you spoke out plainly enough of why the Pres snubbed Canada. Its too bad that a nice country like Canada is getting their share of pot growers, and terrorists. But I don’t think it should turn their back on us. Say, I don’t even know what kind of military you guys have???
