Heavy Lifting

1 December 2004



Bush Visits Canada to Mend Fences, Expectations Kept Low

Appalling as it may seem, Mr. Bush’s trip to Canada this week is the first visit by an American president in ten years. He’s been to Britain, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia and China, but Mr. Clinton’s trip in 1995 was the last time America’s biggest trading partner saw the top man from the States. Part of the reason was the general distaste that former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has for the 43rd president and vice versa – the two go together like freedom fries and maple syrup. But with Mr. Martin as the new Canadian-in-Chief, there won’t be any change anytime soon, no matter how hard Washington and Ottawa try.

According to Canada’s news magazine MacLean’s, about 80% of the Canadian population doesn’t approve of Mr. Bush’s politics, style or some other facet of his public persona. Top Canadian politicians have publicly described Mr. Bush as a “moron” and a “bastard.” Meanwhile, the tardiness of Mr. Bush’s visit sums up his administration’s view of Canada, although Mr. Martin is more popular with Karl Rove’s Republican Raiders than Mr. Chrétien was.

Then again, American-Canadian relations have never been easy. The longest undefended border in the world exists despite, not because of, the relations between presidents and prime ministers. MacLean’s noted “John F. Kennedy thought John Diefenbaker was an SOB, Richard Nixon was caught on tape calling Pierre Trudeau worse, Lyndon B. Johnson once grabbed Lester Pearson by the lapels and shook him in a fit of rage.” At least, LBJ never lifted Mr. Pearson up by his ears as he did his dog, but that is the thinnest of silver linings. On the other hand, the Reagan-Mulroney love-fest known as the Shamrock Summit was a bit too much the other way.

Relations between the two nations are largely a function of their nature as liberal-bourgeois democracies. The governments reflect what about 52% of each nation believes. And at their must fundamental level, Americans and Canadians start from different places. The US political-social system is founded on a rejection of the 18th century British system. The Canadian is founded on an adaptation of the 19th century British system with an accommodation (not always a happy one) with its francophone population. And on a continent settled east to west, boundaries north and south are rather silly (surely British Columbia has more in common with Washington State than it does with Newfoundland).

What does keep American-Canadian relations on track is self-interest. And this is what one hopes the PM and POTUS keep in mind. Canada gets to trade with the world’s biggest economy with the incredible advantage of proximity and a relatively free-ride on national defense (would any American administration permit a military threat against Canada – that wasn’t an American threat?). In return, the US gets a neighbor that doesn’t export illegal immigrants and doesn’t put barbed wire and machine gun nests along the border, but does offer more or less free access to a broad range of natural resources. They don’t have to like each other, but a little enlightened self-interest from Messrs. Bush and Martin wouldn’t go amiss right about now.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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