National Post invokes Reputation Institute in defence of Harper foreign policy

Michael Den Tandt, one of the few remaining PostMedia writers still drawing a paycheque from the shrinking media conglomerate, has come out swinging against the elitist critique of people like former Ambassador Paul Heimbecker and Peter Jones of the University of Ottawa.

The Harper/Baird destruction of Canada's international reputation is a myth, and don't just take Den Tandt's word for it, he's got a study from the Reputation Institute to prove it. That "global leader in corporate reputation management" has pegged Canada as having the best reputation among fifty countries in the world, so pshaw to Jones and Heimbecker and the rest of the Harper-haters and Baird-baiters.

Oddly enough, in the middle of an article claiming that Harper reads Main Street better than his elitist critics do, Den Tandt offers this;

The global diplomatic corps may indeed hold Canada in lower regard now than it did, say, 15 years ago. We know this to be the case at the United Nations, where Harper and Baird have fallen into a pattern of finger-wagging or official absence.

Precisely! Hence the "bitter, small-minded" Canadian foreign policy of Mr. Jones' article in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

Of course Canadians favour support for Israel over Iran. That's a no-brainer. (Those countries rank 37th and 49th on the Reputation Institute's list of virtue, by the way.) But what's small-minded is closing our embassy in Tehran and then claiming that you are using "direct diplomacy" to further the interests of Iran-Canada relations.

Yup, it's still a "hot topic" on the home page of our Department of Foreign Affairs, Gold Mining Development, Religious Freedom, Gay Rights, Gold Mining Freedom and Development Rights... well over a year after we closed our Tehran embassy!

Through direct diplomacy, Canada is committed to supporting the people of Iran in achieving a better future for their country.