Mr. Harper takes a compliment for us.

Ahmadinejad got a University, Harper got a think tank.

It's UN field trip week for most of the world's leaders, as they take part in the annual speechifying contest down Manhattan way. In their spare time the world's Prime Ministers and Presidents found some sideline activities to kill the time, Mr. Ahmadinejad took on the faculty and student body of Columbia University, while our Prime Minister attended a more genteel debating society of New York.

Part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's travels in New York this week have taken him to an American think tank, where the Council on Foreign Relations examined the major issues of the day.

One question posed by famed author and Kennedy biographer Ted Sorenson, asked Mr. Harper why Canada was not as hated as the United States is on the world stage.

Uh, Stephen, we believe this was a compliment...

Raise a reader comes to the Hill

Monday, was Stephen Harper's birthday (we'll leave aside the irony of the nation's leader celebrating his birth on tax deadline day) and as the Prime Minister celebrated his 48th birthday, a member of Canada's cultural community decided what the MP really needs is the gift of reading.

In what author Yann Martel promises will be a bi-monthly tradition, the author dropped off a book for the PM, his way of protesting cutbacks to Canada's literary community.

For his first selection for the Harper book club, Martel selected George Orwell's Animal Farm. A timeless epic of political intrigue, which perhaps the PM could read aloud from during cabinet, just in case some of the backbenchers are getting a little uppity.

Harper's press people said that these days the PM is a tad too busy to be reading the classics, and that when he does have time to read he apparently only reaches for children's books for the little Harper's and government documents, which we assume he pulls out when he wants the kids to fall asleep.

Now, here's the part of the blog where we give the readership the chance to participate!

Feel free to leave a comment in our comment section, advising which book you think Martel should drop off next for the Prime Minister's reading pile. Play nice Podunkians, play nice!

Back on the top of the Pack

Well here we are again, ready to trot out the red and white pom poms. Canada is ranked number once again.

In a BBC World Service survey, Canada scored 54% acceptance to the question which country has a positive or negative influence on the world. 54% of the 28,000 respondents selected the Truth North Strong and Free as exhibiting those traits that make the world a better place, 14% didn't think we were made of the right stuff, leaving 32% to have either no opinion or no idea where Canada was.

Canada tops the pack of 12 countries surveyed, technically tied with Japan and with the EU and France nipping at our heels. As for the countries perceived as having the a negative impact on the world, leading the axis of untrusted were Israel, Iran and the United States.

All nations perceived as having militaristic ambitions and a tendency not to be interested in accommodation.

This will be an inadvertent bonus for the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the last time Canada came out on top of a world survey was during the Chretien years when we topped a UN poll. The Liberals milked that pronouncement for months and made it an integral part of their election campaign.

With Stephane Dion's leadership already suffering some slings and arrows from the nervous Liberal's of Ontario, the thought of a Conservative PM receiving the accolades of the world might be too much for the Liberals to take.

We can only wonder what the Conservatives might do with such a gift!

Now look what you’ve gone and done Mr. Harper

Steven Harper’s recent motion to declare “Quebec a nation within Canada” has had an unusual spin off effect. Long time Sovereigntist lawyer Guy Bertrand has dusted off his old plans to put a Team Quebec into International hockey, starting with the 2008 World Hockey Championships.

It’s an event which coincidentally, will be taking place in Quebec City and Halifax that year. In a bit of symbolic destiny, that is the year of Quebec’s 400th anniversary celebrations and they suddenly seem to be setting up for a giant coming out party, which if Bertrand has his way will be played out on the ice rink in Quebec City.

Bertrand has been arguing on behalf of a Team Quebec for a number of years and has become a perennial pain in the backside for Hockey Canada, with his demands that they sanction the formation of a team to represent the province. Hockey Canada has repeatedly told him that he can’t have a team, as he doesn’t yet have a nation. However, with the parliamentary declaration that Quebec is a nation (even if that inconvenient tag line "within Canada" is still there) Bertrand feels that he’s probably one step closer to the goal, even if most feel he's a little off the beaten path with his plans.

Bertrand who is now emboldened by the developments in Ottawa , is apparently not against gooning it up with the Prime Minister. Going so far as to suggest that a lack of support for the Quebec team idea by Harper could cost the Conservatives "thousands of votes" in Quebec in the next election. How’s that for standing Harper up as he crosses the blue line, best keep your head up Stephen, best to keep your head up.

Harper has apparently been busy working on a book about hockey which he hopes to have completed sometime in the future. If Bertrand wins the public relations war on his plan, it will make for a chapter in Canadian hockey that the author of the book helped to bring about. This might be the kind of legacy that Harper might not want to go down in history over.

Messing up the country we can probably live with, as we have come to expect that of our leaders, but messing up our hockey, well that’s something that a career just won’t recover from!

The above post first appeared on my HockeyNation blog, for more items about hockey check it out.