On the global stage each country has a persona that it represents or is well known for. In the case of Canada we are suppose to be the "peace keepers", the "freedom fighters"or any other variation of this that you may have heard. But over the past few years as our tyes with the United States has grown Canada has managed to grow out of this image. An example of our new "Canadian personality"is how we are planning on dealing with the Libyan conflict. To summarize, Libya agreed to a ceasefire upon authorization by the United Nations to use force in Libya if necessary to ensure the no-fly zone is upheld. Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared that for the threat of military force to remain credible the "forces" (military presence from various countries) must be present and therefore we will deploy six fighter jets to help the cause.
With this one announcement Harper has managed to completely undermine Canada as a peace keeper. He manages to make military strength a strong underlying factor for Canada when that has never been what we are about. It is basically saying that 'Hey, we are okay with fighting now!', when are our entire persona has been based on being the ones who try to keep the peace. By using military force and the threat of fighting our proiorities become skewed. And as a Canadian, the fact that we are continually becoming more like the United States is more then irritating. I have prided myself my entire life on being Canadian and being so different from the US. But as the years go by I find the peace keeper image slowly slipping out of our grasps.
We have abandoned our image for that of our neighbour, moving away from our roots as a country. We should be trying to find another way to contribute to the Libyan conflict instead of using military force. We have become just another military country that promotes violence instead of peace - something the world could really use right about now.
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