http://online.wsj.com/articles/mary-ogr ... RDS=canada
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/ ... p-pouting/
President Obama once promised to remake America’s image around the globe. He has kept that promise — only not in the way many
voters who backed him had hoped.
Mr. Obama’s latest step in the image makeover is to tell Canada — the U.S.’s largest trading partner, largest supplier of energy and
most loyal ally in war and peace — that its long-nurtured special relationship with the U.S. is not so special after all. To carry out the
mission, Mr. Obama has sent a new U.S. ambassador to Ottawa.
Bruce Heyman, a former Goldman Sachs banker based in Chicago and a top Obama campaign bundler in both 2008 and 2012, may
have deserved an ambassadorship for his services. But that’s what all those tiny islands in the Caribbean are for. Appointing Mr.
Heyman — who is diplomatically challenged, to put it diplomatically — his top representative to Canada says a lot about what the
president thinks about his northern neighbour.
Mr. Heyman made his debut in Ottawa earlier this month with a dinner speech at the National Gallery followed by a Q&A with former
Canadian ambassador to Washington Frank McKenna. Mr. McKenna used the event to raise what Canada sees as troubling “irritants”
in the bilateral relationship. Mr. Heyman used it to explain to Canadians how insignificant they are in the eyes of Washington.
Mr. McKenna began with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free-trade agreement among 12 countries that Canada is eager to
see completed. He thanked the U.S. for inviting his country to join but then pointed out that the members are “all hung up because
we’re waiting for fast track” negotiating authority, which would assure an up or down congressional vote on any deal. When will it
happen, the Canadian wanted to know.
Mr. Heyman called this “focusing on the wrong things.” With or without fast track, “I don’t think that should be a reason for anybody
not to negotiate.” He even told Mr. McKenna that TPP “could be” completed without fast-track.
This is nonsense: No country is likely to put the opening of its most protected markets on the table until they know that the U.S.
Congress will not be allowed to pick the deal apart. Mr. McKenna seemed incredulous that the ambassador was trying to spin it
otherwise. He politely moved on.
The Keystone XL pipeline, he told Mr. Heyman, “in many ways is a proxy . . . for the relationship” with the U.S. That is to say, from
Canada’s perspective, things are not good and Keystone is the reason. He asked why, after five years, the pipeline has not been
approved.
What followed was a lecture from Mr. Heyman that was more suited to children than a foreign-policy audience. The government
has received three million comments from Americans since the beginning of the year, he said. “Maybe tonight on your drive home” —
boys and girls — “you can think about how long it would take to process each individual memo.” Then he added: “This is a very, very
large and significant number of comments and we have to process it. It’s going to take some time.”
Things didn’t go too well either when Mr. McKenna tried to get a U.S. commitment to fund the customs plaza that Canada needs to
support a new bridge it is building at the Detroit-Windsor crossing, where the U.S. trade with Canada is greater than with all of Japan.
“We support nice infrastructure between our two countries,” Mr. Heyman said. “This is a financing issue and I think it’s best that we
wait and have those discussions privately.”
When Mr. McKenna moved to raise “another issue that has turned out to be bothersome,” Mr. Heyman cut in: “Do you have any good
issues here you want to talk about? I try to take this at a high level and make this a lot of fun. I’m sorry you’re all bummed out here.
We have this incredible relationship. C’mon.”
Mr. McKenna kept his cool: “When you’re the small partner in a relationship the irritants do become quite significant,” he calmly
explained.
Mr. Heyman remained clueless. “Frank,” he asked, “did you ever buy a new car? You get a new car? And you have that new car, it
smells great and it looks beautiful and everything else. And you bring that new car home and you realize there’s a scratch on the
bumper that you didn't notice when you bought it. And you go inside and start thinking about the scratch all day long. Ever do that?”
Mr. McKenna deadpanned: “No.” But the American went right on with his analogy that effectively belittled Canada’s concerns as
trivial next to its good fortune in being a U.S. neighbour.
Many Canadians have already been saying that they've given up on Mr. Obama and now count the days until he leaves office. That
may be a good survival strategy for Canada. But it can’t be good for the U.S., which doesn't have so many allies that it can afford to
offend one of the most important.
