Harper's "very British-centric approach to the world"

From Doug Saunders in the weekend Globe and Mail: Canada's "London mission is something akin to a ministry".

"Our Prime Minister has a very British-centric approach to the world," Mr. Kirton says. "He's from a Loyalist family; he's a long-term admirer of their system; a loyal Economist reader; his role model was Margaret Thatcher; and he says 'God save the Queen' in speeches.

"In Stephen Harper's map of the world, London is at the conceptual centre. So putting Wright there is not putting him at some Ye Olde Prestige post."

Oddly, all sides agree, the Canadian right is slowly accomplishing what the Canadian left long argued for -- a move away from an exclusive focus on the U.S. and toward a closer engagement with Europe.

Of course, it's on the Conservatives' terms, with an aggressive military posture in Afghanistan, an Israel-centred policy in the Middle East, and so on. But even opponents in the diplomatic corps speak favourably of the transatlantic shift: Bridges are being built, people say, and some day they can carry different traffic.

"Europe has changed since I was here last," says Mr. Wright, who was a low-visibility second-in-command here in the early 1990s. "NATO is bigger. The European Union is bigger. But Britain and Canada -- we are both transatlanticists now. . . . It is a relationship that has become much more important and more demanding."

Hat tip to commenter Splendor Sine Occasu