These are messy days in world affairs. Now, some say Canada has egg on its face
CBC
A warning to any Canadian thin-skinned about seeing the nation being portrayed in a negative light: There is no safe haven, right now, on international news sites.
Not after the veteran of a Nazi unit being celebrated in the House of Commons snowballed into a major global news story.
It was among the top-read stories on some foreign news sites, carried by the BBC, The Guardian, NBC, ABC, Fox News, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico and countless others.
It led the morning newsletter of the conservative National Review, which noted Canada is already smack in the middle of that other international incident, involving India.
"For once, the Canadian government, our neighbors to the North, are actually outpacing us in political insanity and intrigue," said the U.S. publication.
That claim is deeply debatable, but the piece does make the serious point that Canada has now twice placed allies in a tough spot, most recently by unwittingly creating propaganda for Russia.
Russia Today, for example, had no less than four headlines about the Nazi-related debacle on its homepage and also promoted the story in other languages, including Spanish.
(Unsurprisingly, the Indian media were also all over it, with headlines carrying the words "slammed," "appalling," "red-faced" and "embarrassment.")
But National Review also expressed more sympathy in Ottawa's feud with New Delhi, saying its alleged act — the murder of a Canadian on Canadian soil — is unacceptable, no matter how important India is to the U.S.
Events of the last week fulfil a prediction made two decades ago in a major review of Canada's foreign policy.
The study under the Paul Martin government argued, in summary, that the world was about to get a lot more complicated, with new powers challenging the U.S.-led order, and that Canada had better up its game.
It obviously didn't predict China's hostage diplomacy, or Saudi Arabia's cutting off of relations for five years, let alone the latest crises involving Russia and India.
It did not predict Canada losing votes, for the first time in its history, then the second, for a seat on the UN Security Council (losing to Germany and Portugal in 2010, then more recently to Norway and Ireland).
But the crises of recent days crystallize its key argument: We're entering choppier international waters and navigating them will take new diplomatic skill.
