A singular lack of leadership

An international conference in Canada dealing with a scourge that kills 3 million people a year, and our Prime Minister can't be bothered to show up. AIDS may be the second greatest threat to humankind after global warming, but it is not, apparently, sufficiently important to Mr. Harper to take a moment out of his schedule.

Mark Wainberg, Director of the McGill University AIDS Centre and former president of the International AIDS Society, had this to say to his country's leader: "Mr. Harper, the role of the Prime Minister includes the obligation to show leadership on the world stage." Indeed.

Mr. Harper has been described as aloof. A calculated display of indifference to the deaths of millions of the world's people, and the plight of millions of orphans, is more than aloof, it is cold, it is callous. And it is a failure of leadership.