oh stockwell!

Looks as if the foreign affairs critic is doing his job. No one here knows who Stockwell really is (the image of him beaching himself and hopping off the seadoo comes to mind) so let's not tell them.

GOVERNMENT IGNORING ETHIOPIAN CRISIS

For Immediate Release November 3, 2005

Ottawa – Ethiopia is on the brink of civil war, their democratic system has been called into question, and the Canadian Government has not issued so much as a statement of their concern, said Stockwell Day, Official Opposition Foreign Affairs Critic.

“We need to be responsible as a developed democratic nation for aiding young democracies like Ethiopia,” remarked Day. “Our Government has watched this happen without doing anything.”

“The Liberal Government should have already been working to broker peace between the Ethiopian Government and Opposition Parties and supporters, said Stockwell Day, Official Opposition Foreign Affairs Critic,” said Day. “Many Ethiopian citizens have been killed or injured amidst clashes with the Government Police in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, over the last two days.”

“First the Liberals ignored the pleas to send monitors to the election, then they gave over a million dollars in unaccountable aid that was never used to stabilize the electoral process,” said Day. “Now, as social cohesiveness unravels, our Government ignores the cry for help and turns away as the post election problems move towards crisis.”

It has been widely recognized that Ethiopia’s ability to flourish democratically is paramount to the stabilization of the entire Horn of Africa.

It is imperative to the democratic process and to the safety of the Ethiopian people that the killing be stopped and that all those imprisoned after the May election for political reasons be freed,” remarked Day. “It is time the Government acted on its historic past relations with Ethiopia and listened to the desperate appeals for Canada to be a peace broker before the situation spills over affecting the entire region."