Stephen Harper’s Steadfast Support For Israel Reminds Us Of Canada’s Desperate Need For A Principled Foreign Policy In A Dangerous World

OpinionSpencerFernando

Rather than playing ‘both sides,’ former Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognizes that values-based leadership requires siding with those who value freedom.

It’s safe to say that Justin Trudeau is not the leader for these times.

Of course, he’s not really the leader for any time, as he has shown through his evident lack of understanding of basic economic/monetary reality and through his removal of individuals like Jody Wilson-Raybould who had their own ethical foundation rather than simply submitting to the Prime Minister.

With that said, Justin Trudeau is especially unsuited to leading Canada in a dangerous world.

In times of peace and widespread prosperity, a country can muddle its way through with a feckless, naive, arrogant, and narcissitic leader at the top. It’s not ideal by any means, but it is survivable.

But in a time when economic prosperity is under threat, dictatorships and terrorists are emboldened, and global war seems like an increasingly likely prospect, having someone like Justin Trudeau in charge is a risk Canadians can’t afford.

Foreign vs domestic

Attack ads, negative campaigning, criticism, and exagerrated slogans are all staples of politics in democratic countries, and that will never go away.

Nor should it.

Winning a campaign often requires making a clear contrast between yourself and your opponent. Criticizing the government in power is essential to defeating the governing party, which the governing party counters by warning that things will be worse if the opposition win. And so, every real democracy will have a lot of attacks going back and forth.

At the same time however, it is important to recognize that domestic politics and foreign policy are not the same thing.

“Politics stops at the waters edge,” was once a way of describing this by pointing out that our differences with our political opponents within our country were far smaller than our differences with our foreign enemies.

A Conservative supporter, Liberal supporter, and NDP supporter who all believe in free elections, and freedom of expression (even though all would likely disagree on how far it goes), should have much more in common than any of us do with the leadership of a brutal dictatorship like China or Russia.

This is something all of our Prime Ministers have understood – until now.

Justin Trudeau has been a outlier, and nobody has done more to turn foreign policy into domestic policy and vice versa.

And that’s not a good thing.

If politics doesn’t stop at the waters edge, then a principled, values-based foreign policy is impossible.

And if we don’t stand for anything on the world stage, then we don’t stand for anything here at home.

That’s exactly what we are seeing.

All across the country, anti-Semites and terror supporters are more emboldened than ever before. Jewish Canadians are being targeted, and the authorities seem unsure of how to react, thus helping the extremists to become more powerful:

Anti-Semites feel they have the momentum.

‘Protestors’ are even openly expressing their support for terrorism, without any concern for consequences.

As Conservative MP Shuv Majumdar – one of the most principled voices in this country – noted on Twitter, “Never Again is now”:

Sadly, we aren’t seeing this kind of principled leadership from the Prime Minister.

Instead, Justin Trudeau, Melanie Joly, and most of the rest of the Liberal government – with a few principled exceptions like Anthony Housefather – have fed into the anti-Israel narrative by pushing a false equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

They lecture Israel, they spread falsehoods against Israel (Tweets falsely claiming Israel bombed a hospital still haven’t been deleted), and they repeatedly push for a ceasefire that would leave Hamas in power. They go out of their way to be seen as warning Israel against hurting civilians – even as Israel does far more to save civilians than any other military.

All of this has helped to fuel the false anti-Israel nartive that is used by anti-Semites to ‘justify’ their pre-existing hatred and give it the cover of a ‘foreign policy’ dispute.

This is what happens when there is no barrier between foreign policy and domestic policy. Justin Trudeau – trailing in the polls and desperate for anyway to catch up – has chosen to abandon Canadian principles and Western values to try and score votes from unsavoury elements of our society, at the cost of throwing Jewish Canadians overboard.

Stephen Harper reminds us of what Canada once had, and what we could have again

Canada is now effectively leaderless when it comes to the defence of our values on the world stage.

But we have been given a strong reminder of the kind of leadership Canada once had, and could have again.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently wrote a strong defence of Israel in the National Post, and visited Israel to express his steadfast support.

Here’s an excerpt:

“The world — at least we in the West — said of the Holocaust and the forces which unleashed it “never again.” Back then, only we could make that pledge. The Jewish people, half-annihilated and stateless, could not make it on their own behalf. Today, they can act on that pledge. And they rightly ask whether we will honour our own.

From that perspective, Israel’s war objective — the elimination of Gaza’s Hamas regime — is essential. Leaving the job unfinished, with Hamas’s existence tolerated and its actions contained, has been tried, and it has failed. The Israeli people cannot be reasonably asked to return to the pre-war status quo. That is the position our own nations took toward the attacks launched by Nazi Germany against us. Israel has as absolute a right to absolute security now as we did then.

Of course, we all wish the war to end. From the ongoing suffering of Israeli hostages and their families to Palestinian children caught in the crossfire, innocent people on both sides have suffered horribly. So, this war should end. And it should end the same way our war with the Nazis did — by the unconditional surrender of its perpetrators. I say to Israel’s friends, stop asking it to stop short of victory. Instead, bring pressure to bear on Hamas, directly and through its allies and partners, to force its capitulation.”

That is moral clarity.

That is principled, values-based leadership.

That is what Canada should be.

Canada is a nation built upon the ideal of freedom.

We are built upon the Western values that have created the most free, open, prosperous, and successful nations.

Part of living up to those values – a key part – is standing with the Jewish community and standing against anti-Semitism.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper understands this, while Justin Trudeau clearly does not.

And this kind of leadership is nothing new from Harper.

During his time in office, Harper was one of the most principled anti-Putin voices in the world. Even when other Western leaders were trying to strengthen their ties with Russia and overlook Putin’s annexation of Crimea, Harper told him to get out of Ukraine:

“Harper’s spokesman, Jason MacDonald, said the prime minister was speaking to a group of G20 leaders at the retreat when Putin approached and extended his hand.

MacDonald said Harper told Putin: “I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: You need to get out of Ukraine.”

According to MacDonald, Putin did not respond positively. He didn’t provide further details.”

Unlike the pro-Putin far-right, and the pro-Hamas far-left, Harper has been consistently pro-freedom, which means standing with both Israel and Ukraine. Harper embodies the idea that foreign policy is something that should be based on consistent principles, not just short-term political gain.

By contrast, Justin Trudeau has used both Ukraine and Israel as political tools, seeking to falsely divide Canadians on Ukraine (the Conservatives have been staunchly pro-Ukraine despite Trudeau’s claims otherwise), and by using criticism of Israel to try and win votes.

Canada needs to get to back to the kind of principled leadership we had under Stephen Harper. Thankfully, Pierre Poilievre has been just as strong in support of Israel as Harper, and has spoken eloquently on the need to hold Hamas accountable, rather than blaming Israel for responding to the existential threat facing their nation.

This bodes well for Canada’s future, because it indicates that the unprincipled Trudeau-era will be a mere short term deviation from the Canadian norm, rather than a portent of the future.

Spencer Fernando

Photo – Twitter

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