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02/26/2004 Archived Entry: "Not my Canada, not my Post"

Posted by steve @ 07:33 PM EST [Link]

STEYN SPEAKS: Mark Steyn has finally publicly addressed his departure from the once conservative National Post.

When Conrad Black sold his remaining fifty-percent share in the Post, he gave a farewell speech to the newsroom in which he said that the paper needed a proprietor who had better connections with the Liberal Party elite - presumably because that's the way things work in Canada. I said to Conrad recently that that's the last thing the Post needs. As a Canadian whose principal assets are in the United Kingdom and the United States, he's one of the few businessmen who doesn't need any favours from the government. Almost every activity in the dependents' Dominion - from books to aircraft manufacturing - obliges companies to enter into some sort of formal or informal relationship with the government. That's bad. It would be bad enough in a functioning democracy, where at least the asses one is obliged to kiss are rotated every five years. But it's worse in a one-party state like Canada, where it's always the same Liberal Party posterior, no matter how saggy and mottled it gets. Canada is no longer quite a respectable democracy, and I want to write for a paper that understands that.

Instead, week by week, the editorials are slowly but surely swimming back toward the shallow end of the pool.

Iraq? The Post now argues that Washington should "accelerate plans to bring the United Nations, international NGOs, and other Muslim nations on-board." Who needs The Globe And Mail? The NGOs have fled Iraq. Say what you like about the wicked Halliburton, its murky subsidiaries, and its sinister private-sector compadres, but, unlike the pussies at Oxfam, they're still sticking it out over there.

Canada's decrepit, underfunded military? The Post argues that there's no way we can compete - not just with America or Britain, but with Australia or France or Italy. Instead, they say that our armed forces should emulate . . . Norway.

Is that really "as conservative as Canada's media get"? Is that the most Canadian conservatives can expect from a so-called conservative newspaper?

Well, that explains why I can't get anything published in the Post. I wish I could argue with Mark about Canada but there's nothing in his piece that I can disagree with. Canada has become in all respects a one-party state. There are few aspects of this country that haven't succumbed to Trudeaupia. I guess that's why I'm applying for jobs in the United States now...ideologically my nation is hostile to me. I may as well go where I can fit in.

Read on.