Why Do We Do This?

So I am lying in bed late last night watching the local news, and they have a report from Paul Martin's visit to Edmonton Centre to shore up support for Anne McLellan.

At the conclusion of the report, they interview a constituent who says "I am so scared of Stephen Harper and if he is elected we will be part of the United States within 10 years!"

I almost threw the remote at the tv! Good thing I didn't because I would have awaken my spouse and she has already displayed an extreme tolerance for my "monitoring" of this election.

So here is why I am upset with that statement.

I am completely disgusted with the Liberals continuing attempts to paint Americans as bad guys in an attempt to win votes. We have seen it in negative ads, statements from the Prime Minister and policy approaches that make no sense, unless you look at it as "good politics."

Yes we have had our disputes in softwood lumber and BSE. Yes, it was inappropriate for the U.S. ambassador to Canada to provide his two cents on the election. But why do we have to stoop to such a low level of trying to make "us" look good, by making "them" so bad? We can do better than that. Don't we have enough confidence as Canadians to focus on ourselves instead of repeatedly knocking down our best friend?

I was on the campaign tour in 1988 when the issue of the day was the Free Trade Agreement. I remember being on the media bus (it was like herding cats!) and we would drive into a community for the next campaign event, and some clowns would pull in front of Mulroney's bus with a bunch of American flags flying out their windows. I also remember "experts" in the trade union movement saying that we would have U.S. flags flying on our legislature and that we would soon be singing the Star Spangled Banner in schools as we would quickly become the 51st state!

Of course they were trying to leave the impression that Canada was going to lose our sovereignty and that we would become part of the U.S. I guess they were wrong then like they are wrong today.

But would the U.S. even want us? Think about it. We have social programs that we can't afford, at times a divisive French-English issue and alienation from region to region. The U.S. has enough of their own problems without wanting to inherit ours.

I have the privilege of working with a group of Americans and they are nothing but first class individuals. Yes there are some similarities between us and yes there are some differences. But bottom line, they all want to be good citizens, provide for their family, be leaders in their communities and treat others with respect.

We know more about them, than they know about us. This is solely because we have easy access to their media and entertainment, where they have little or no access to ours. And for the most part, they see no reason to vigorously follow what is going on here, where we feel we must follow what's happening in the U.S. My guess is the vast majority of Americans have no idea that there is an election in Canada.

So back to the best friends part. Prime Minister Martin now cannot come out and publicly thank the U.S. in the aftermath of the suicide bomber incident in Afghanistan; the one that left a Canadian dead and injured three of our soldiers. Remember that it was a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter that first arrived on the scene; who then transported our injured soldiers to a U.S. hospital in Germany on a U.S. cargo plane.

Paul Martin can't thank the U.S. because he has to save face.

So I will. To our U.S. friends..."Thank You."