November 2, 2002
SOMEBODY DROP A PUCK:
Buchanan calls Canada 'freeloading nation' (Canadian Press, 11/01/02)Canada is a "whining" country that has been "freeloading" off the U.S. defence budget for decades, outspoken American talk-show host Pat Buchanan said Friday.The latest attack to come from the failed Republican presidential candidate followed his televised comment that Canada is a "Soviet Canuckistan" because Canadian officials objected to a U.S. law demanding photos and fingerprints from Arab-Canadian visitors to the country.
"Post 9-11, we've been making a tremendous effort to try to secure the American people," Buchanan said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where he co-hosts a daily talk show.
"And to hear this kind of carping criticism from north of the border, from folks whom we give a $50-billion (U.S.) trade surplus each year and whom we defend while they have been in some ways freeloading off the United States, got a little bit into my craw."
"We exercise occasionally the right to criticize [Canada] and what I hear from up in Canada is some juvenile whining."
With a fight like this can a hockey game be far behind? Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2002 12:59 PM
Elsewhere, it is reported that Buchanan has
borrowed "soviet Canuckistan" from a
notorious (but unknown to me) Holocaust
denier.
My own view is that Buchanan is a conscious
fraud who does not believe anything he says
but finds it an easy and congenial way to
make a comfortable living.
Interestingly, if you search for "canuckistan" you get a bunch of hits, but "Soviet Canuckistan" brings up only a Holocaust denier.
Posted by: oj at November 2, 2002 1:08 PMI really hate to agree with Buchanan, but he's partly correct. Like Europe, Canada is freeloading off the US when it comes to defense. We mothballed our one and only aircraft carrier in 1970, we have hardly any airlift capacity, our equipment is largely obsolescent and we were hard put to field 850 personnel to Afghanistan for six months--even with transport from the Americans. Just call us Leichtenstein north. But what really creeps me is the nauseating odor of sanctimoniousness that Canada is always directing at the US. We really ought to just say thanks to the US for protecting us and then shut up.
Posted by: bryan at November 2, 2002 5:42 PMIn the alternate universe that Buchanan inhabits, he does believe everything he says.
Posted by: Tom Roberts at November 2, 2002 7:40 PMI've written about this numerous times for Canadian newspapers and while I dislike Pat Buchanan completely, I have to agree that there is an element of truth to what he says. Long gone are the days when Canada could punch at its own weight when it came to a sustained military commitment. Thank the Liberal Party for decades of spending cuts to the military.
Posted by: Steven Martinovich at November 4, 2002 12:56 PMI've written about this numerous times for Canadian newspapers and while I dislike Pat Buchanan completely, I have to agree that there is an element of truth to what he says. Long gone are the days when Canada could punch at its own weight when it came to a sustained military commitment. Thank the Liberal Party for decades of spending cuts to the military.
Posted by: Steven Martinovich at November 4, 2002 12:58 PM