For What?

That cagey prison shower look?

Ex-con, ex-financier, ex-Canadian Conrad Black is at it again, telling Canadians what's wrong with us and our country.

This time he used a podium opportunity to exhort Canada to "seize more global influence" in a world rocked by global instability and broad decline of the affluent states.   Black said this presents an invaluable opportunity for big resource exporters like Canada and Australia to step up and throw their newfound weight around.

As I read the news reports I was struck with the idea of Canada "seizing" anything.   Seize what exactly?   Seize it from whom?   Just what do we do with whatever we've seized once we've seized it?   What is there to seize that we really want in the first place?  Questions, questions, so many questions.

So vague and ill-defined was Conrad's quest that it was borderline Quixotic.   Yet it seemed to reveal a man whose character might be the love child of a shark and a turkey buzzard.

Remember it was the Prince of Darkness, Harper himself, who promised to elevate Canada on the world stage and yet has succeeded mainly in transforming Canada into a global pariah, a petro-schemer and saboteur of international consensus.   The Harper-Black formula would surely be a circus act of one step forward, two steps back.

Lord Black has delivered himself of a thoroughly unhelpful and unwanted opinion.   Perhaps it's time for his Lordship and his Lady to pack up their bags and head back for the Olympics.