Jones: Is there any consequence to Harper’s decision not to address the UN General Assembly?
Director and Senior Fellow of the NYU Center on International Cooperation
Many world leaders chose not to do this. Merkel is not here, for example; she sent her foreign minister. That’s a perfectly rational decision for any head of state with major domestic business to focus on. In the case of Harper, one could make the following case: that the decision not to come will reinforce people’s perceptions that Canada has unplugged from foreign policy, except where Afghanistan and Israel are concerned. But the truth? No one will notice.
