Bob Rae's blog

The Chinese Premier's comment about Prime Minister Harper's absence from China for four years is indeed unprecedented and deliberate, but then so was Harper's truly ignorant behaviour. Mr Harper's provocative refusal to engage with China for four years comes with a price, which Canada is paying for, and which this incident reflects.

Every PM since Diefenbaker has nurtured this relationship, and the immaturity and clumsiness of Harper's approach has set the relationship back years. We have been warning the government about this publicly and privately, and have been

OTTAWA - Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic, the Hon. Bob Rae, passed a unanimous Resolution in Parliament today to commemorate the victims of Europe's totalitarian regimes.

The second fire in a few months at a Sinhalese Buddhist Temple in Scarborough is a deplorable act. Police are describing it as a hate motivated crime, which is deeply worrying.

"We hope the police can catch the perpetrators, and steps must be taken to protect religious and community institutions that are subject to threats and attacks.

Richard Colvin is a hardworking Canadian diplomat who was simply doing his job when he wrote memos about reliable evidence of mistreatment of Afghan prisoners by Afghan authorities.

The focus must now turn on why it took Ottawa a year to admit there was a problem. It was only when stories began appearing in the Globe and Mail, and then questions in the House that the Harper government realized it had to do something.

But in reality the government had known for a year there was a problem, and failed to act.

The decision by Prime Minister Harper to miss any appearance at the United Nations the same week as the presence of senior leaders around the world, including President Barack Obama was a typical triumph of his personal spite over long term Canadian interests.

Edward Kennedy was a great friend of Canada. He came here often, spoke eloquently about the environment and health care, and over many years took a deep interest in Canadian public policy. On acid rain, wilderness policy, Canadian initiatives on land mines and governance internationally Senator Kennedy spoke eloquently and opened many doors. His great good humour and sense of humanity touched all of us who came to know him, and his passing is a cause not only of public tribute but deep sadness to his many friends around the world.

August 23, 1939 was a dark moment in human history. On that day the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact that was breathtaking in its cynicism and calculation. Two regimes whose lifeblood had been their mutual loathing, without warning and just as they were concluding a brutal proxy fight in Spain, came together to rule out fighting between them.

The secret deal behind the pact was the carving in half of Poland, which Hitler invaded a short ten days later. Stalin's troops moved in with the pretext of "defending" Poland,

I know nothing of the private character of Stephen Harper. He has a sullen sharp-eyed look as he faces the Liberal opposition, and we all have opinions as to "what he is really like". But none of us know the answer, so all we have to go on is politics.

What was a poorly kept secret is now leaking all over Ottawa.

When John Diefenbaker was elected he used to fulminate about "the Pearsonalities" in the East Block, then the offices of the old Department of External Affairs. Ironically Dief's Minister Howard Green came to get along famously with his civil servants and realized that a long war with the public service was thoroughly counter-productive.

Watching the debate in the US about health care has been a fascinating, if depressing experience. And the fact that a Canadian woman has played into the hands of the Republican lobby because of her understandable anxiety about her medical condition doesn't make me mad, if just makes me sad.