Just when Condoleezza Rice thought she had avoided the cold by postponing her trip to Ottawa, Lloyd Axworthy put a few icicles in her inbox with some harsh words reaffirming Canada’s decision to stay out of Ballistic Missile Defense. To the surprise of us all, the former Liberal foreign minister and Nobel Peace Prize nominee unshackled his tongue from diplomacy’s yoke, showing that he now prefers to take his cues from the derisive tracts of Juvenal or Twain, over the harrumphing and jowl shaking of some impotent and indignant parliamentarian.

Thanks, Lloyd. We owe you one.

It’s about time that somebody had the courage to rescue our political rhetoric from the grasp of the banal. What should be a source of amusement for those who value a good read, too often resembles the distended puffing of an artless hack. Our apologies go out to Dr. Rice for being the butt of Axworthy’s missive. We suspect that despite all of Axworthy’s condescending bon mots, she still found pleasure in reading the words “teleological” and “diktat” in a letter addressed to her as Secretary of State. Who knows? It may have felt like she was back in grad school again, poring over the learned texts of antiquity in rapturous bliss. Afterall, Dr. Axworthy even managed to slide in an obscure reference to The Iliad. Not too bad for a former diplomat.

Last year, the theatre of Carolyn Parrish infused Canadian diplomacy with a garish hint of the burlesque. Now, Axworthy has added his sharpened quill to the mix, with the incendiary “Epistle to Dr. Rice”. This is a spirited contribution to our national ouevre: one that deftly traverses the bounds of diplomacy, as it points to the human follies and vices of the Bush Administration. And, unlike conventional diplomatic letters, it is brazen and to the point.

Bravo.

The following is excerpted from an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, written by former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy. It first appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press.

“Dear Condi, I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions[.]

Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.”