SEEN, NOT HEARD:

Canada has earned America's suspicion (David Frum, November 02, 2002, NationalPost)

The old English-speaking alliance inherited from the Second World War and the Cold War -- the United States, U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- is breaking in half. The U.S., U.K. and Australia now sit at the alliance's adults' table, where the decisions are made. Canada and New Zealand sit at the children's table where their noises won't disturb the grown-ups. From time to time, when the kids really yell, the adults remember to send over a cookie, as the Americans did last week.

On the merits of the dispute about the treatment of naturalized Canadians, Canada is surely right. In both Canada and the United States, foreign-born citizens are entitled to be treated as citizens, plain and simple. Even on its own terms, the fingerprinting program makes little sense. If we're trying to predict terrorist sympathies from place of birth, surely the people we would want to fingerprint are people born in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, not Iraq? Yet for strategic reasons, those two most dangerous nations are exempt.

I am sure that Canadian diplomats quietly raised these points a month ago. Nobody in Washington seems to have listened, because in Washington attention and respect are earned. What Jean Chretien and Bill Graham have earned for Canada instead is suspicion and disregard.

Nice to have David Frum back from his White House captivity and speaking his mind. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 5, 2002 7:46 AM