Why won't Canada answer the phone?

Opposition politicians in Canada are calling on the minority right-wing conservative government of Stephen Harper to end its diplomatic spat with the UAE.

We couldn't agree more.

The Liberal party and New Democrat MPs want Ottawa to negotiate and open a constructive dialogue with the UAE.

We couldn't agree more.

But the trouble is that the UAE has been trying to talk with Ottawa for the past four years on obtaining more landing rights for Etihad and Emirates. Canada is supposed to have an open skies policy. It is supposed to believe in free trade. It is supposed to be against protectionism.

For the past four years, the Canadian government has ignored the advice of its own bureaucrats to grant more landing rights and destinations to the UAE carriers. Both Etihad and Emirates are each limited to three flights weekly only to Toronto. They need more destinations like Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary. And more flights.

We couldn't agree more.

Pity then that the Calgary Herald, the hometown newspaper of its hometown boy, who made good in Ottawa, chooses to ignore blatant protectionism.

How sad that the experiences of Calgary-based WestJet in trying to break the Air Canada monopoly should be so easily forgotten by Albertans. (Heck, if there was direct flights from Calgary to the UAE, it might even help the petrochemical companies based there!)

The reality is that Ottawa has been unwilling to talk to the UAE. From 24 Sussex to the Department of Foreign Affairs and to the Prime Minister's Office on Parliament Hill, the calls of the UAE Ambassador, Mohammad Abdullah Al Gafli, are being handled by political aides and Conservative Party apparatchiks. Since October, Al Gafli's calls have gone unanswered.

It's time for Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, Lawrence Cannon, to pick up the phone.

We couldn't agree more.