Editorial: OUR VIEWS Toward a foreign policy
Posted on December 30th, 2011
Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . Canada
30 December 2011
The Editor (Letters)
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
Sir:
I read your editorial; “Our Views Toward a Foreign Policy” with great interest.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Here’s my views on Canada’s Foreign policy which is driven by ethnic vote counts.
Canada’s Foreign Policy on SriƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ LankaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ has much to be desired.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ When the Tamil Tigers who perfected the art of suicide bombings and detonated 388 suicide bombs in Sri Lanka, and haemorrhaged that island nation for 27 bloody years was finally eliminated militarily on 19 May 2009, Canada had difficulty to pat the back of the Sri Lankan Government and say, “well done, my Commonwealth friend”, while almost all the western nationsƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ did so. The then Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon put out a pathetic Press Release of the event.
Here is my reasoning for that inadequate response by Canada towards Sri Lanka.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Canada was not upto having 10,000 Tamils marchingƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ carrying red Tamil Tiger flags along Sussex Drive and blocking the roadƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ which leads to the Lester B. Pearson Building, the home of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to the residnece of the Governor General, and did not have a slush fund of $100,000 to clean up Major Hill Park and the washrooms of the National Arts Centre since there were no washroom facilities along the routeƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ to accommodate the nature’s-calls ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ that throng of Tamils protesting against the Canadian Government for supporting the eliminating of ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ their Tamil Tiger terrorists.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It was that simple.
So there is our foreign policy on Sri Lanka driven by the ethnic Tamil votes in the Greater Toronto Area.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Not good in my ‘Conservative’ eyes.
Asoka Weerasinghe