Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Frank McKenna

I remember Frank McKenna from the 80s. I was a teenage, and he was the New Brunswick Liberal leader who swept New Brunswick, literally. No seats for the opposition. He was so impressive in the way he carried himself. Though he was the Liberal leader, he did not appear beholden to the federal leader of the time by grovelling and so forth.

Well, after being out of political for quite a few years, he's back in the headlines, as Canada's new Ambassador to the United States.. Upon first hearing thijsx, I thought, well, OK. That should be a good choice, with his reputation for integrity. Problem is, it has surfaced that he has connections with the Carlyle Group. For those who don't know, the Carlyle Group is a US investment firm controlled by a number of Republicans, including James Baker III, and US Ambassador to Canada James Carlucci. Furhtermore, they are a key member of the US military-industrial complex that has put considerable money into the companies that are complicit in the war on Iraq. This all clearly places McKenna in a conflict of interest.

So, Frank McKenna is our new Ambassador to the US. His connections to Carlyle don't mean necessarily that he will be a bad ambassador, or that we shouldn't give him the opportunity to display his impartiality. However, it does mean that we should watch him very closely.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Frank McKenna is a person that has a very long history of being corporate friendly and talking before understanding. He always says what the crowd wants to hear no matter what the subject is. He has destroyed the New Brunswick Economy with call centers.Bragged about the education reforms he implemneted but forgot to mention that he paid the new Kindergarten teachers a partial salary. Gave Millions of Tax dollars to set up call centers and then criticised corporate canada for not investing in training. He has been part of the Carlyle Group and asks the Canadian Government to rethink missile defence so that Carlyle would get its share. He has insulted americans saying their goverment is dysfunctional and that the Congress is in a protectionist mood, yet he works for TD bank who is free to aquire business in the rest of the world while Canadians have no competition to lower banking fees.

9:31 a.m.  

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