Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Harper rewards defeated minister Lawrence Cannon with Paris post

Stephen Harper has appointed his former foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon, as Canada’s ambassador to France.

Mr. Cannon lost his seat as part of the NDP’s near-sweep of Quebec ridings a year ago, and has been rewarded by his former boss with one of the most plum diplomatic postings in Canada’s foreign service.

He’s the second defeated Tory minister to be made an ambassador since that election, after Jean-Pierre Blackburn was appointed ambassador to UNESCO, also in Paris, last December.

Mr. Cannon is a former provincial Liberal minister from Quebec who switched parties to join Mr. Harper as a Quebec adviser when the Conservatives were still in opposition. Since last October, he had worked as a consultant for law firm Gowlings Lafleur Henderson in Ottawa as chair of its government affairs group.

His appointment as ambassador in Paris has been rumoured almost since the day he was defeated in May, 2011. He replaces Marc Lortie, a veteran foreign service officer who has been in Paris since 2007, an unusually long tour in a diplomatic posting.

The post is one of a handful of the top-ranked ambassadorships in Canada’s foreign service – where Washington is the biggest job – like postings to London, Beijing, or the United Nations.

Original Article
Source: Globe
Author: CAMPBELL CLARK 

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