Looking both back and forward is a trick of a God such as Janus. Humans find it easiest to look ahead as we enter a new year. We have already written off the year behind us as a bad dream. And we have much excitement to look forward to in 2017.
In North America, the circus is coming to town in Washington with the inauguration of Donald Trump as President. Canadians might feel they have a ringside seat for this presidency but we can only hope to avoid the splatter.
Nobody here is worried about Trump building a northern wall to eliminate illegal immigration but then the Mexicans are not all that worried either. We can also expect that rewriting the North America Free Trade Agreement will not be of particularly high priority for the Trump administration either.
And we will have our home-grown turmoil in Canada as well. The first move of the American Kinder Morgan pipeline company to resume twining its pipeline to Burnaby, B.C. will set the drums pounding throughout the mountain forests. There will be troubles.
And, speaking of pipelines, corporate greed being what it is, watch for further ruptures of the Husky pipeline near the North Saskatchewan River. This is an old pipeline working at high pressure to pump more heated tar sands bitumen than it was originally designed to carry. And the sooner CBC stops calling it oil, the sooner fat-cat Premier Brad Wall of Saskatchewan will get his comeuppance.
Nor is the entire world just waiting for Mr. Trump. Dictator Bashar el-Assad has his own designs for his fiefdom of Syria and there are still scores to settle. The flimsy Russian-Turkey ceasefire in Syria might not be recognized by the Syrian murderer of women and children.
While Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel might think he can treat outgoing President Obama rudely, not all others agree. Great Britain might jump in to support Netanyahu but they just need to get everybody off the Brexit file for a bit. The rest of the world diplomatic corps is a tight community and they will wait an opportunity to show Netanyahu up for his bad manners towards Obama and his Secretary of State. America has always been a very good friend to Israel and Netanyahu needs to smarten up.
The New Year promises to be an interesting rollercoaster ride. Buckle up!
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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