Calling out America, then taking it back

While the U.S. State Department was careful yesterday not to say who the United States voted for at the United Nations, the Foreign Affairs Minister is less diplomatic.

Cannon reiterated what several top government officials have disclosed already this week — that Canada had 135 written assurances of support and 15 verbal ones. "The United States was among that group," Cannon said from Brussels, where he was meeting his NATO counterparts.

Cannon made that remark only in French, during a short teleconference with journalists in which he took only three questions. Cannon immediately backtracked from the statement when asked a follow-up question. "Let me clarify that: I don’t want to indicate that we did or did not get support from the United States. I want to make that clear," the minister stated. "I don’t want to go into who supported . . . during the course of that vote. I’ll leave it to the individual countries to indicate their position, vis-a-vis that given that it is a secret vote."