Canada cuts ties to Palestinian Authority
Mar. 29, 2006. 07:40 PM
CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — Canada has become the first country after Israel to cut funding and diplomatic ties to the Palestinian Authority over the new Hamas government’s refusal to renounce violence.

We haven't even started our first session of parliament yet and already I am so freaking proud of our new Conservative government. I never expected this level of ethics and sheer backbone so early. And how cool is it that we are the first country after Isreal to cut direct funding? At last we are really leading the world as a moral superpower, not just pretending we are.

It is obvious that we couldn't continue to fund a terrorist orgnization, but of course there are still people defending that idea. They give two reasons: 1) Hamas gained power through a "democratic" election; and 2) Palestinians are suffering in squalid conditions.

As for the first, I would tell them, you have the right to elect anyone you want, but we have the right not give you money. Your choices have consequences. Welcome to democracy.

And as for the suffering palestinian arguement, those conditions have been allowed to continue by the Palestinian Authority. From 1994 to 2005 the Palestinian Authority received a total of $5 billion in aid which instead of going to building housing and sanitation and hospitals went into guns and overseas accounts, like Arafat's bank accounts in France. The largest single country donor was the US, at $778 million, more than twice the amount given by Saudi Arabia.

In cutting funding, we are not "following the lead of Washington" as the usual anti-American quote in the Star tried to make people believe. We are leading. And I could not be more proud.