Angry in the Great White North

From Mike Duffy Live tonight.  Jason Kenney has just finished explaining that Canada will not participate in the Durban II preparations because the government has concluded that the conference will be even worse than Durban I, which degenerated into a anti-Semitic free-for-all.

Remember that pamphlet from Durban I?

Those NGOs are all invited back. 

Mike Duffy apparently thought the government's decision to skip this conference was reasonable.  Mike Duffy is a smart guy, and he knows about Durban I, and how the Liberal government in 2001 was deeply disturbed by what happened.  Mike seemed to think the Liberals could easily get behind this.

Apparently, Stephane Dion has sent Liberal MP Dominic Leblanc with different marching orders.

Mike Duffy: Dominic, I gather the Liberals are supporting the government on this one?

Dominic Leblanc: Well, Mike, we've said all along that the government has an obligation to speak out against racism worldwide, and those kind of anti-Semitic comments that Jason correctly attributes to the government of Iran are clearly unacceptable, but this is a government, Mike, that really has no interest in United Nations institutions.  We saw it with AIDS, we see it with climate change, we're seeing it with the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People, so it's a pattern of disrespect they have for the multilateral process.  Very much, in fact, like the Bush administration.

So let me get this straight:

• Senior Liberals like Manley and Cotler have said that first conference in Durban, South Africa, was a disaster.
• Durban II is shaping up to be more of the same.
• Canada needs to take a stand against racism.

But...

• Since this is a UN conference, we ought to go, because Canada must always respect "the multilateral process".

The reference to George W Bush is a gratuitous attempt to play to the NDP voters listening.  But it is Stephane Dion's love affair with the UN that seems almost pathological.  For Stephane Dion, it is as simple as this. 

The UN is more important than anything. 

The UN is more important than Canada's Charter. 

The UN is more important than the feelings and fears of Canada's Jewish community.

The UN is more important than the memory of Canadian soldiers who died at Dieppe and on Juno Beach and during the Battle of the Scheldt and on countless other battlefields in order to destroy the Nazis. 

And the UN is certainly more important than Canada's credibility or reputation. 

If the UN wants to host a conference run by anti-Semitic governments and NGOs who think it a shame that Adolf Hitler didn't get to finish his work, then by golly, Stephane Dion wants Canada to be there, because if the UN thinks it's a good idea, then it must be a good idea.

The only thing worse than a UN-sponsored conference of Nazis is insulting the UN by not showing support for a UN-sponsored conference of Nazis.

I really can't believe I wrote that.  But there it is.  It's really a shame.

Note: No doubt Canada's left will be enraged at the kudos being won by Stephen Harper from American bloggers like Captain's Quarters and Atlas Shrugs.

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