Insults are our chief export
By NORMAN SPECTOR
Tuesday, February 4, 2003 – Page A19
A visitor to Washington finds a capital fixated on the coming war in Iraq. As is Ottawa, judging from Question Period recently. With one difference: In Washington, the discussion has real consequences, including the possibility Saddam Hussein will use chemical weapons against U.S. troops. On Parliament Hill, the debate unfolds like a faculty seminar, or a convention of the federal New Democrats.
Rookie Foreign Minister Bill Graham -- himself a former professor -- also seems not to understand that to govern is to choose. He travelled to Washington last week to warn Colin Powell, a battle-scarred ex-general of dovish persuasion, that war could have untold consequences in the Mideast. If that's all there is, he could have saved the air fare.
Now, it's the turn of Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew -- headed to Washington today on a "charm offensive" -- to discover how irrelevant we've become.
During my Washington visit, even former Clinton administration officials were embarrassed to ask about Jean Chrétien's position on Iraq. Instead, hoping I'd take the hint and steer discussion to parallels in the Great White North, they lampooned the "Euro-weenies" -- feckless leaders of people who consider themselves morally superior to Americans.
Mr. Pettigrew is no doubt charming -- in the Paris bistros he favours. However, as a negotiator, he's badly mishandled the No. 1 irritant in the trade relationship -- softwood lumber.
The Americans, notwithstanding pretensions of being a light unto the nations, have been pursuing their interests in a bloody-minded fashion. Mr. Pettigrew, in contrast, has zigged and zagged. For 18 months, he rejected past approaches to resolving the dispute, including an export tax, insisting that "Team Canada" would this time fight and win through legal channels at the WTO and NAFTA.
Eventually, he agreed to negotiate, after Quebec's industry, which hoped to get off the hook as it had in previous disputes, was hit with a preliminary duty. Now, the Americans smell blood -- a divided Canadian industry, and divided provinces. They've proposed a tax on lumber exports until provincial governments modify their forest policies. That won't be soon. Both business and labour are resistant to market-driven change.
Over the years, the U.S. lumber industry has petitioned for relief whenever Canadian producers' market share rose above 30 per cent. To resolve the dispute now, there's no need to leap into Big Ideas that would spell the end of the Canadian experiment. Strengthening our independence, however, takes hard work, not soft options.
In a recent e-mail exchange, Bill Robson of the C. D. Howe Institute estimated that of the total improvement in Canada's overall competitive position relative to the United States since 1993, about one-sixth was attributable to a better price/cost performance, and the rest was due to a falling (nominal) exchange rate.
The loonie's value, not American perfidy, is the root cause of many current trade disputes. To resolve them, we must above all avoid gratuitous insults and needless provocations. And, given our geography, we cannot hope to be an oasis in the war against Islamic extremism, or even in the "war" on drugs.
In my years studying in New York during the Vietnam War, I never encountered any bitterness at Canada not being "on side." That's changed, judging from the irate cab driver who picked me up last week at Kennedy Airport. I've sensed the same hardening attitude in e-mails from U.S. readers objecting to the slightest criticism of President George W. Bush.
The problem is not so much our minimal defence spending, as U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci pretends, since few of his countrymen have any illusions about our firepower. It's that Americans think of us as cousins and expect us to think more or less like them. They are disappointed when we don't, and get downright angry when we comfort their enemies.
The Bush administration may soon demand pre-notification of all Canadian commercial shipments. It will also require all visitors to go through an entry-exit registry system, and Canada is seeking an exemption. Since Bill Graham's main objective is to keep the border open to $1.9-billion-a-day in trade, he should have implored his seatmate, Colleen Beaumier, not to visit Baghdad to lend support to Saddam Hussein's propaganda campaign.
Now, all parties should be urging Vancouver NDP MP Libby Davies to rethink her travel plans. Later this month, she will join a group of "inspectors" searching for weapons of mass destruction in the United States. Even her freshlyminted leader, Jack Layton, must understand that equating George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein is not the best way to garner Bush administration help for her province's -- and Canada's -- beleaguered forest industry.
enspector@hotmail.com
