Twitter is an amazing social tool but to fit comments into 140 characters, one often has to rely on assuming the audience gets it. Often the shortest way to communicate your meaning is to use tropes taken from literature such as metaphor or analogy. Clearly, from the April 17 letter of Mr. Shoesmith, Canada is not North Korea, he did not get it.
The underlying premises that: 1. Canada has been acting toward environmental laws as a rogue state by pulling out of signed agreements such as the Kyoto Accord, and now, the drought treaty negotiations, and; 2. that North Korea is widely accepted as the very definition of a rogue state easily lead one to the analogy that Elizabeth used and that Canada is becoming the North Korea of environmental law.
The sad fact is, Canada has been actively sabotaging international climate meetings and other scientific management bodies such as the recent talks on Blue Fin tuna.
Twitter just did not allow for the underlying premises to be spelled out so the analogy went over some heads.
I am assuming, of course, that the misunderstanding was not personal and that his position with the defeated Gary Lunn campaign does not mean that his comments are politically motivated.
Sue Sheane
Salt Spring Island
