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I’m not one who thought Canada actually went away during the Harper years. The week after our election, Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter and dean of columnists at the Wall Street Journal, marked the result by observing, “An interesting question for history is who was the real leader of the West the past half-dozen years, Angela Merkel of Germany or Canada’s Stephen Harper…”

Now, among the progressives who are our new prime minister’s biggest fans, praise from Peggy Noonan will not count for much. But in the internationalist Atlantic establishment that has guided the West these last few decades, and may yet survive to look back on Donald Trump as an aberrant nightmare, it is high praise. Harper never impressed Canadians who disagreed with his worldview, but he clearly made an impact.

Moreover, Noonan’s praise was unbought. By contrast, we’re starting a several-year lobbying campaign to persuade members of the UN General Assembly we deserve our two-year turn in the Big Room. Not to be too undiplomatic, but the average General Assembly member is not an entity you really want to be beholden to.

Most aren’t democracies. Some are pretty outrageous when it comes to things like freedom and human rights. Out of 158 countries on the Fraser Institute’s index of freedom, the 10 sitting members of the Security Council rank, in the order in which they were listed above: 134, 146, 30, 105, four, 104, 35, 79, 38 and 153. (We rank sixth.) Groucho Marx said he wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would have him. We should think twice about joining this club whether they’ll have us or not.