I don't think the lads in UAE who dreamed up this fiasco of a diplomatic strategy realize how happy Harper and the Conservatives are to have an external enemy like the emirates to heap a pile of crap on and make themselves look good to Canadians. Turning emirates into the enemy has no downside, and may win them some votes in the next election. That's how politics is done everywhere in the world including Canada.
Harper to UAE: “Give me a break”
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper hopes Canada never does to any of its allies what the United Arab Emirates is doing to Canada. In an exclusive interview Friday with QMI Agency,
Harper said he couldn’t believe that the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would try to use Canada’s offer to help the global fight against terrorism in order to gain a commercial advantage for the state-owned Emirates airline.
In 2001, the UAE allowed the Canadian Forces to set up Camp Mirage near Dubai. It became an important logistical and supply base between Canada and Afghanistan.
But when Emirates airlines was unable to get landing rights fast enough for flights at Calgary and Vancouver airports, the UAE government late last year told Canada’s soldiers and air force personnel to pack up and get out.
“That’s just not how you treat allies, and I think tells us you better pick your friends pretty carefully in the future,” Harper told QMI Agency during a visit Friday to Welland, Ont. “I could never see [Canada] treating an ally like that. Could you imagine after 9/11 if the Americans had come to the Canadian government and said, ‘We need help on something to do with security’ [and we said] ‘Well, only if you do something on Buy America.’ I mean, give me a break.”
Canada has allowed foreign airlines access to Canada’s market when those airlines are ready to play by the same rules as Air Canada, WestJet and other Canadian airlines. Emirates airline, though, is heavily subsidized by UAE’s oil wealth through the state-owned Investment Corporation of Dubai.
“When we, as a country, offer to be part of a international mission to help protect global security then somebody comes along and uses that to try and leverage demands on our domestic airline industry, I don’t think that’s a situation we as a country want to be in,” Harper said. “What this teaches us in future and when we’re looking at other options is: Don’t get in a place where somebody’s going to try and use it to leverage some unrelated issue.”
Harper’s comments are the latest in a war of words between the two countries and come as Canadian diplomats are active in the region to secure an alternative location to Camp Mirage.
QMI Agency has learned that some Canadian government officials worry that the UAE is trying to put pressure on its neighbours, including Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman, to block any attempts by Canada to set up a base in their countries.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay heads to the Middle East next week for meetings in Palestine and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon will visit Qatar and Algeria at the end of the week.