Interesting by its omission

The Globe and Mail is reporting on the speech Paul Martin gave in Toronto this afternoon. This was previously touted as a major policy speech concentrating on Martin's top five priorities. From the actual text (which carries the usual "Check against delivery" disclaimer):

Five areas we will pursue as overriding priorities.

These: ? health care, learning, Canada?s aboriginal peoples, our communities large and small, and our role in the world ? are areas in which quite simply we must break new ground.

The Globe story spends a fair amount of time on the health care portion, and summarizes the parts about communities and aboriginal affairs. What I wanted to see in particular was the foreign policy portion -- the part that addresses "our role in the world".

Parts of it seemed to be lifted almost straight out of the speech he gave at CFB Gagetown on Wednesday which I wrote about here. Take this for example:

Our approach to Canada?s security must reflect this altered reality. Canada?s presence in Afghanistan has all the hallmarks of the new type of operation that the Canadian Forces will be expected to lead.

It?s a multilateral mission aimed at reviving a failing state for humanitarian reasons but also so as to deny it to terrorists. Elements of defence, diplomacy and development are woven tightly together in the fabric of the mission. This will serve as the model for Canada?s involvement in the international crises of the future.

But what drew my attention to the previous speech was this:

But the absence of international consensus must never condemn us to inaction.

There's nothing like that in today's speech, no hint whatsoever that Canada would go charging off anywhere in the absence of an "international consensus" (though there is some lip service to our "sophisticated relationship" with the United States). I find that interesting. You don't suppose one of the Strategists at Earnscliffe reads me, do you?

Nah.