Canada-U.S. Relations: The Politics of Adolescence

(Megapundit — Macleans)

“The last thing Canada needs is a protectionist in the White House,” John Ibbitson writes in The Globe and Mail, “especially since every indicator is pointing to major Democratic gains in Congress.” And yet for many reasons—some ideological, some honest, some downright stupid—we continue to overwhelmingly favour Barack Obama’s stated protectionism over John McCain’s stated promises to defend NAFTA and, perhaps more importantly, to “reduc[e] border lineups and streamlin[e] regulations.” For our own sake, let’s hope America doesn’t get the change it so desperately needs!

Clearly both candidates are intent on winning friends north of the border, John Ivison suggests in the National Post. After all, Obama dismissed his own past trade rhetoric as “overheated and amplified,” and went out of his way to tell Fortune magazine that he’d spoken to Stephen Harper after securing the Democratic nomination. In fact, though McCain and Obama might just be lusting after our “ample natural assets—those being our reserves of oil and natural gas”—Ivison believes “all the signs point to the beginning of a beautiful friendship with Canada, whoever becomes the next president.”