Musings of a Canadian Slacker

Sunday, December 12, 2004
 
I'm usually a fan of Paul Wells', but on this particular instance, I have to raise a minor point of order: It doesn't really constitute 'paradiplomacy' when the regional leader is also the leader of half the federal Opposition. Edmund Stoiber {German Link} is the Minister-President of Bavaria, but he is also leader of the CSU, which is half of the conservative coalition which opposed current Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schoeder in the last election. Indeed, Stoiber was the CDU-CSU candidate for Bundeskanzler. The argument may hold true about paradiplomacy, but in this case, the proper analogue would be a foreign leader meeting Stephen Harper, which we've seen as recently as this past month, when President Bush dropped by for a visit.