Canada's Ted Kennedy

Lloyd Axworthy, who surely ranks as one of the dopiest former Liberal cabinet ministers, has written a hilarious 'open letter' to Condoleeza Rice in the Winnipeg Free Press. In it, he obnoxiously berates the Americans for their supposed crudeness and boasts of Canada's much more responsive form of government. It's so over the top, I could believe it's a parody -- but no, it's the real thing:

Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.

You might also notice that it's a system in which the governing party's caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.

Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

Bob Tarantino takes him apart.

Posted by Bruce Gottfred at March 5, 2005 09:27 AM | TrackBack