Maple Leaf Rag

In this week's installment of "Yikes! Harper ate Canada!"  Maude Barlow wonders where she can find some Pepto-Bismal for her nationalist indigestion.

Read "Ashamed to wear the Maple Leaf" in its entirety here.

And why is a grown woman wearing a maple leaf anyway? 

Here are a couple of excerpts that nailed me:

As a new year and a new decade begin, it is time to accept an unpleasant reality: Canada's international reputation as a progressive middle power is gone.

Actually that process had been going on well before Harper. Under the Liberals, Canada wasn't exactly Grade A Alberta beef.


Proroguing Parliament also puts time and distance between the Prime Minister and his shameful performance at the December summit on climate change held in Copenhagen, where Canada was held up as an example of the worst practices. Not only is Canada among the top 10 greenhouse-gas emitters in the world, but it is the only country to ratify and then abandon the Kyoto Protocol, announcing weeks before the talks that it would be a failure.

Enough already with the proroguing. We act as if he broke the law. Proroguing is actually a routine thing in Canada. Trudeau did it and so did Chretien. True, Harper's proroguing of Parliament was quite unique in that he tried to avoid a non-confidence vote. But then again,  wasn't he pushed into it by the other lousy parties making a cynical ploy to usurp power? It remains to be seen what the fall out will be from Harper's interpretation of prorogue. But is it really a reason to loathe him? It's constitutional and democratic. You may question his motives but little else.

Chretien signed Kyoto and proceeded to...do...what again? Oh yeah, squat. Was she ashamed then?


During the summit, climate-change activists in London took down the flag at the Canadian High Commission and drenched it in oil, an action that received widespread attention there, though not in Canada.

So, activists are a barometer for how we judge nations? Harper is leading Canada. Just because he chooses to protect the oil sands in Alberta to the anger of leftists is of little importance to Canadians out west I'm sure.

Look, well, you can't really look but listen. Hang on. You can't hear me. Sigh. Ok, I'm critical about Canada on two fronts: Our irritating habit of all talk and no action and the over reliance on the state to push society forward. I write about it. So Ms. Barlow and myself are not that different. We care and we try in our own way to voice opinions we hold dear to the heart.

But really. Most of her complaining could have easily been reserved for the Liberals under Dion, Martin and Chretien.

Read the rest for yourself.