Epochal changes are taking place beyond our borders — including the U.S. potentially leaving NATO. But our politicians slumber on
The world appears to be drifting inexorably towards catastrophe but you wouldn’t know it from watching the House of Commons, where momentous global events are subordinated to the relative domestic trivia of car thefts and carbon taxes.
What will it take to rouse Canadian politicians from their torpor? How about the candidate who is odds on to be the next president of the United States indicating in a speech that he will give Vladimir Putin free rein in Europe, if he is elected?
At a campaign rally in South Carolina on the weekend, Donald Trump said he would “encourage (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want” in Europe to “delinquent” countries that “didn’t pay” into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The implication is that Trump would not honour NATO’s Article 5, the collective defence agreement that has helped preserve the peace in Europe since 1945 and has only been invoked once — when member states agreed to defend the U.S. after 9/11.
For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-the-world-is-in-trouble-when-will-the-trudeau-government-wake-up