Diplomacy: Canada: Harper visit to Bush a solid success in Canadian diplomacy

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Canada's Stephen Harper, Prime Minister for only a few months and head of a minority govt, reversed the brittle and narrowminded relations with the US that had been sponsored by the Liberal predecessor govts for the last 13 years. The occasion of the visit was both the American national holiday and the personal celebration of the American President's birthday.

On the agenda of the bilateral discussions were a host of heavy-duty world problems. Iran's nuclear-bmob ambitions, and North Korea's fireworks were among them.

But, perhaps even more important in the immediate situation, was what Toronto's Globe and Mail termed Harper's "caution" to his American counterpart on easy passage across the border between the two countries. This ties in with the hottest of all issues in the States: the massive ongoing influx of illegal immigrants over the US-Mexican border.

Canada

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America is super-border sensitive since 9/11, and is becoming more so since whole new bureaucracies are tasked with filling each and every security gap, no matter how intractable. In the face of the clear implications of this concern at large in the US and Bush's own limited political reconfiguration space, Harper went to argue for an assymetrical solution to American border issues between Mexico and Canada.

Dissuading Americans from the widely held belief that lax immigration policies have made Canada a haven for Islamic terrorists plotting cross-border strikes remains the No. 1 job for Canadian diplomats.

But bringing Mr. Bush on side won't persuade those in Congress who are seeking far tougher border restrictions.

Mr. Bush noted that Mr. Harper had given him an earful on the issue. He repeatedly said he was keen to satisfy Canadian demands for either a delay or some simple solutions to the law that will require passports or equivalent documents for land border crossings in 18 months.

No longer will Canadians or Americans be able to breeze across the border with a drivers' licence and a claim of citizenship.

"I would hate to see a law go into place that has the effect of not just limiting or endangering trade or tourism, but endangering all those thousands of social interactions that occur across our border every day and are the reason why Canada and the United States have the strongest relationship of any two countries, not just on the planet, but in the history of mankind," Mr. Harper said.

Mr. Bush was sympathetic to Canadian concerns, saying that as a former Texas governor he had first-hand knowledge of the ebb and flow of Mexican day workers crossing the Rio Grande and needing simple documents.

"If the Congress provides flexibility, of course we will work with the Canadian government to extend deadlines," Mr. Bush said. "If the Congress says, 'No, this is what our intent is,' we will work with the Canadian government to make the law work.''

When Harper used the argument > "endangering all those thousands of social interactions that occur across our border every day and are the reason why Canada and the United States have the strongest relationship of any two countries, not just on the planet, but in the history of mankind" > he seemed to resonate the language used by Russ Kuykendall of Work Research Foundation (WRF) in a major article in Policy Options, "Six Trade Corridors to the US: the lifeblood of Canada's economy."(Jul,2k6). The former part of Harper's argument > "I would hate to see a law go into place that has the effect of ... limiting or endangering trade or tourism"> is formidably buttressed by the Kuykendall article just cited, but is also definitively demonstrated in Michael van Pelt's and Kuykendall's impressive WRF title, Greenlighting Trade: A Trade Corridors Atlas that analyzes in the framework of six different industrial sectors how Canada actually conducts its trade with the US, with a favourable balance upon which Canada depends economically. Harper's argument is precisely what Van Pelt and Kuykendally have documented and disseminated, as much for the sake of Canadians who have swallowed the Liberal/NDP constant attack on the US and have forgotten just how exactly Canada needs good relations with our huge neighbour to the South.

–– Politicarp

Further Resources:

Stop US Border plan, says National Post
PM to US: Delay new passport law, says Ottawa Citizen