Give me a good reason why he should address parliament? So that loose canons like CP can turn the spotlight on themselves? Or maybe that some other irrelevant MP can get his 15 minutes of fame?
Like Bush I wouldn't let myself be used like this.
When Allawi spoke to congress there was no heckling, although there were a lot of Democrats that though he was illegit or just there to tout the Republican line.
Bush probably read up on history and found that Reagan was made unwelcome when he spoke to parliament.
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No Red Carpet For Bush
Stuart Trew
It's an understatement to say Ottawa's been waiting for this moment for years.
The last time Bush tried to make an official visit to the Capital about two years ago he cancelled last minute. No word on why, although protestors planning to bus in from across the country hoped it had something to do with them.
This time there will likely be no backing down. The buses from Montreal and Toronto are booked, the protest organized, and the official proceedings top secret. Local police from Ontario and Quebec have been meeting with RCMP officers behind closed doors for two weeks to discuss security tactics.
A leaked memo from the U.S. Secret Service, sent to Canadian Customs and Immigration at Toronto's Pearson airport, asked airport officials, starting last Wednesday, to do secondary checks on all Saudi citizens entering Canada. It also demanded mandatory background checks on them using Canadian and U.S. crime databases, the Winnipeg Sun reported. This cooperation on security matters is just one reason why Mobilization Montreal, a group of peace activists, students and other social justice groups, is heading to Ottawa on November 30, said Tim McSorley, a member of the group.
Citing the Bush administration's policies on Iraq, and what he called an apparent interest on Canada's part to move towards a more U.S.-like system of privatized education and health care, McSorley said, "We have to tell [Bush], and remind our representatives ... that Canadians are very much against this."
McSorley, who is the chairman of the Quebec branch of the Canadian Federation of Students, said, "I think that it's a shame that more Canadian politicians aren't speaking up," like MP Carolyn Parrish, recently booted out of the Liberal caucus for openly hoping Prime Minister Paul Martin would lose his next election.
In his November 16 column in the Toronto Star, Thomas Walkom asked whether Canada should indict Bush. After all, he argued, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently called the Iraq invasion "illegal," and torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay counts as infringement of the 1949 Geneva Convention, which makes it legal, as of 2000, for Canadian courts to try Bush.
Martin said at last weekend's APEC meeting in Santiago that protest is an important public good but that this time he hopes it remains "reasonable." Thousands showed up in the Chilean capital to greet Bush and wish him unwell in a government-approved protest. Demonstrators threw rocks and clashed with police, and police in Ottawa know it and are preparing for it.
Paul Derber, of the Ottawa Witness Group, a group of citizens who "witness" police action at protests to protect the right to dissent, told XPress he hasn't noticed much fear-mongering in the media, and following a brutal G20 protest in 2001 the police "work a little harder at communication.
"They're a great deal more civil than they were. I think they realize they don't need to get the riot police out to deal with mothers pushing babies around," he joked, kind of. Derber said he is expecting a large showing, from the chatter he's seen on the web.
Up on the Hill, Parrish has promised to keep it down, and NDP leader Jack Layton has assured the media his MPs will control themselves should Bush address Parliament. Which is too bad, said McSorley said because MPs "represent a country that for the most part is strongly against Bush's polices."
Organizers are planning a "mass demonstration against Bush and for justice, freedom and equality" in Confederation Park at noon, November 30. At 5 p.m. there will be a demonstration against the war in Iraq on Parliament Hill. Bring candles, say organizers.
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/news/news.aspx?iIDArticle=4858
(IMHO) He's chicken shit.
Annessa
xoxo
