Bush's Victory And Canada's Choice

It is our opinion that, faced with an increasingly belligerent and menacing America, it turns out that putting as much distance as possible between the United States and Canada is the prudent thing to do. The United States has chosen the road of predatory imperialism. Pragmatic economism will not serve as policy under such circumstances. Is Canada to be swallowed without resistance? Does anyone seriously believe that Canada can moderate American aggression by going along with it? Are the lives of Canadian citizens to be forever imperiled at home and abroad because we are forced to fight wars not of our own choosing? Canada signed NAFTA to sell our exports into the American market. Did we really have to sign NAFTA to sell our electricity, petroleum, natural gas, lumber, minerals, farm products and lower-cost automobile manufactures to the Americans? But vested American interests determine what we can or can not sell — NAFTA or no NAFTA, NAFTA-plus or no NAFTA-plus. When they need our products we can sell them, and when they don’t, we cannot. Witness lumber and cattle. There can be short-term difficulties, but in the longer term they will buy because they can’t do without what we produce. In any event, other markets like China and East Asia are opening up to us in a significant way allowing us more political and economic choices. NATO has no long-term future. The Cold War is over and danger comes not from the East, but from being politically and economically dominated by an aggressive and paranoid America. Whatever politicians like Tony Blair might like, the Europeans, including Britons, detest and fear American imperialism, and will force the political elites to take their distance. Canada needs to search out European, Asian and Latin American friends who will not easily accept subjugation. But aside from negotiating trade matters more aggressively and seeking allies, how else can Canada resist? It can resist by building a counter-society to the United States based on economic and social justice and deeper democracy. The recent Health Care Agreement between the federal government and the provinces is a case in point. The health agreement has many imperfections, but what a contrast to the desperate health care situation in the United States! Moreover, Prime Minister Martin didn’t come up with this agreement because he wanted to. Rather, he did so because he heads a minority government under democratic scrutiny, with health coalitions across the country mobilized against privatization and for re-establishing funding. The agreement reflects what can be accomplished when citizens actually have some say in politics. It’s in the direction of deeper democracy and social and economic equality that Canada must head, setting an example for the beleaguered citizens of the nation to the south. Original article: http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca