Each week, Kyle Muzyka sifts through what our PM has been up to in this column, The Radical Adventures of Stephen Harper, for your personal enjoyment.
The crisp air of October is now upon us, and our Prime Minister feels it too. The end of this week coincided with the beginning of the UN Climate Summit, which, as we are well aware, is one of Stephen Harper’s favourite topics ever. Let’s see what 24SEVEN had in store for us this week.
What seemed to be of greatest importance this week was the PM’s visit to the HMCS Haida, which filled Harper with nostalgia. He used to frequent this now-museum, back when it was anchored in Toronto, as a wee tyke.
We then shift gears over to his wife Laureen, who ran 5km for our troops. She even cleared enough room in her schedule to head over to the Harpers’ favourite place, Tim Hortons, to smile with a Smile Cookie. There just so happened to be reporters there. Weird!
Back to the main topic of our conversation, we join Stephen Harper in his talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, where they just announced a free-trade deal with one another. The government projects that this will boost our economy by $1.7 billion. Although questions stem from this deal, such as how this will affect our local automotive industry, and how this will affect farmers in South Korea, the PM doesn’t really seem to care. In fact, he’s too busy throwing out free-trade agreements willy-nilly to whomever will accept them, it seems.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing; even the NDP, traditionally against free-trade agreements, has agreed to show support. That’s actually huge, but probably because Mugatu gave his support.
As we approach the end of the week, we near the beginning of the UN Climate Summit. 24SEVEN shows a video of the PM catching up with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, where they presumably talk about how “they like, totally have, like, the same life,” as they discuss their escapades with groups of people attempting to secede from their respective countries.
We then find our PM addressing the UN Security Council, which has to sting a little, even though Canada has not made it a priority to return to it, at least for the near future.
Laureen makes her way back on the screen, where she is interviewed by 24SEVEN about the importance of volunteering. She doesn’t have to volunteer to keep up an image or anything; she does it from the good of her heart.
Lastly, 24SEVEN prepares us for Harper’s speech to the UN General Assembly, making it seem as if this will literally change the world.
Unfortunately, we all know what happened that fateful day.
It could have been because he talked about less relevant, albeit equally as important, things in his speech. In this time of global uncertainty, revolving one’s speech around child and maternal health was definitely a strategy to come out of left field. It makes a ton of sense to not focus on issues that U.S. President Barack Obama had focused on in his speech. However, considering how Canada’s stance within the UN is already perceived as irrelevant, discussing something that could be put on the backburner to make room for the situations of ISIS, Ebola, and Ukraine may not have been the smartest decision our PM has ever made.
He mentioned, however, that Canada is considering the request for additional help in the fight against ISIS. Although they aren’t sure whether they will send additional help or not, they may be able to send one more adviser to even the number out to 70. It would be in everyone’s best interest.
24SEVEN has a heavy focus on making the UN seem of greatest importance to Harper. What didn’t make it into the video was his lack of attendance at a variety of UN events. Granted, it’s most likely impossible to attend them all, but one specific event that didn’t make Harper’s agenda has upset people. Yep, that was the UN Indigenous Peoples’ meeting.
Harper can’t please everyone, obviously, so it’s no surprise that some were critical of his lack of appearance. Some questioned Harper’s leadership, saying that he should step in and make his own agenda.
This entire UN week has been like watching people go to a buffet and take plenty of the same food. Wanting to be different in hopes of praise, you only take Caesar salad, telling people that you’re on a diet and therefore refuse to eat what everyone else is having. And then you glance across the table to see another person who took only garden salad, and they tell you that the dressing in that Caesar salad has way too many calories. YOU JUST CAN’T WIN.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
“I was this big when I was a child, which is why I think maternal health is important.”
Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press