- (JAnuary 2006)
Canada turns into a red state.
Canadians elected Stephen Harper, a convervative, to replace
former prime minister Paul Martin, a liberal.
The old prime minister was pro-Kyoto, pro-abortion, against the Iraqi invasion.
The new prime minister is against Kyoto, anti-abortion, and ambiguous about
Iraq.
Given the strong anti-USA sentiment generated since 2001 by George W Bush around
the world and particularly in Canada, one finds it baffling that a politician
who is so similar to Bush was elected in Canada, a country that prides itself
with being more "civilized" than the USA (low crime rate, universal health care,
no death penalty, metric system... you name it).
The sense of surprise for the anti-Bush movement gets even bigger if one
examines world trends. Among the main
leaders who supported the Iraqi invasion, only one (Aznar in Spain) was not
reelected, while all the others (Bush, Blair, Howard, Koizumi)
have been reelected, and sometimes even set new records.
On the other hand, one of the two main opponents (Schroeder) has been defeated,
and the other one (Chirac) stands to lose according to all polls.
The USA is evenly split between red states (that elected Bush) and blue states
(that voted against him), but the main powers of the world seem to be turning
red very quickly.
Last time the G8 met, it was Blair, Bush, Koizumi, Berlusconi vs
Putin, Chirac, Schroeder, Martin.
This time Putin will feel lonely: Schroeder has been defeated by Angela Merkel,
who is much closer to Bush. Martin has been replaced by a conservative who
sounds like a member of Bush's party.
Since the Iraqi debacle, Chirac himself has been doing exactly what Bush has
told him to do (see for example the Iranian crisis).
For once, it will be a very united G8 meeting.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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