We stand up to Whitehall where appropriate, for instance 1956, St Laurent and his minister for external affairs Lester Pearson said to the british french and israelis - stop this, now ... they got Eisenhauer onside and did a quick consciousness raising session at the UN, and the israelis pulled back a bit from the canal, leaving the british and french without pretext .... those were the first peacekeepers, princess pats who jumped on a plane from Camp Borden, their officers wrote the rulebook for peacekeeping on the flight ... meantime they were squabbling in the UN, israelis said they wouldn't accept canadians as they were 'too british', but then the danes stepped up and said 'no canucks, no danes then' ... and that swung it, one short speech from the danish ambassador, who happened to be Pearson's good friend
The difference of style of declaration of war between 1914 and 1939 shows the story of increasing nationhood here ... even in 1914 it was not automatic ... still the strong will of the people, there were lineups at recruiting stations and thousands on their way to them before the politicians got it officially declared in the house of commons ... there were regiments raised independently, organised and financed themselves, until a regular officer could come and consecrate them as part of the army, and they went over and fought as a unit
1939 - hours of debate, involvement opposed by many of the quebecois ... never any question of which way it would go, but demonstrated complete independence
So you see - that ill-thought and bloody revolution that doesn't seem to be working out very well for you people just wasn't necessary after all, eh |
