Stick to diplomacy

Imagine this:

It’s a spring day in Ottawa, and Important People have gathered to honour the memory of Sir John A. Macdonald. It’s a fairly formal occasion; there’s an honour guard and plenty of security on hand.

All of a sudden someone steps forward, shouting “this is an insult!” It turns out it’s a First Nations man protesting Sir John A.’s decidedly mixed record on dealing with indigenous people.

In a split second, the Irish ambassador to Canada, of all people, springs into action. He grabs the protester, hauls him forcefully away and delivers him into the arms of police.

Question: would we regard the Irishman as a hero, or as a meddling outsider sticking his nose into our affairs?

Of course, in real life it was Canada’s ambassador in Dublin, Kevin Vickers, who took it upon himself to enact a very similar scene last Thursday.

He was attending a ceremony honouring British soldiers who died fighting Irish nationalists 100 years ago, when a man named Brian Murphy disrupted the event by shouting that it was an insult to Irish people. After all, British troops put down Ireland’s Easter Rising in 1916 with considerable violence, and 15 leaders of the rebellion were executed. It’s still a raw wound for some.

So it was bizarre, to say the least, that Vickers was the one who grabbed Murphy and manhandled him away (to use a phrase).

In Canada, Vickers is a genuine hero for his role in challenging and finally killing the Parliament Hill shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, in October 2014. As a veteran RCMP officer and sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons, he’s a security man through and through. Clearly, those instincts came alive when Murphy stepped forward to make his protest.

Everyone likes a hero, and Canadians love one of their own who looks tough on the world stage. It’s not something we get to enjoy every day. “Canadian” and “action hero” don’t often appear in the same sentence.

But the fact remains that Vickers was way out of line. He’s no longer a security officer; he’s a diplomat. And one thing diplomats are emphatically not supposed to do is interfere in the domestic politics of the country they’re appointed to. Let the Irish sort out the legacy of the Easter Rising; we have our own touchy issues to deal with.

Kevin Vickers is undoubtedly a brave man; he proved that 19 months ago and he doesn’t have to prove it again. He should cool it, and stick to diplomacy.

He’s a Canadian hero, but ambassador to Ireland Kevin Vickers was out of line in Dublin