Harper’s G20 follies

By Montreal Simon

OMG. I see Stephen Harper has stolen the spotlight at the G20 summit, by going dictator to dictator, with Vladimir Putin.

Stephen Harper told Russian President Vladimir Putin flatly that he needs “to get out of Ukraine,” when the two met at a Group of 20 summit of major economies in Brisbane.

Or mano a mano.

The Russian Leader stuck out his hand.

Mr. Harper accepted the gesture but said to the Russian Leader: “I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you, you need to get out of Ukraine.”‎

In a crass attempt to make the summit all about him, and the ethnic vote.

Although, since we have to rely on what the Kremlin and the PMO had to say about the alleged incident, who knows what REALLY happened…

Or what might happen next…

But since Putin is as crazy and as desperate as Harper, and since he has nuclear weapons is even more dangerous.

I think it would be prudent to warn the belugas in the St Lawrence to keep a lookout for Russian submarines.

And warn the polar bears about the new bear in OUR Arctic…

But of course, Harper doesn’t care about that. The more he can scare Canadians the better.

So he can pose as a Great Strong Leader . . .

And use his dust-up with Putin to help his good buddy Tony Abbott keep climate change off the agenda.

And in that regard he failed miserably.

The G20 communique will include a significant passage on climate change, EU officials said on Sunday, as the United States and other heavyweight nations override host Australia’s attempts to keep the issue off the formal agenda.

“The most difficult discussion was on climate change,” an EU official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “This was really trench warfare, this was really step by step by step. In the end we have references to most of the things we wanted.”

He was left on the sidelines with his fellow climate change denier Abbott. Looking like a loser, and as I pointed out yesterday, never more isolated.

Or more ridiculous . . . .