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Draft Notes for Dinner Address Sponsored by Enbridge and the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute

Colin Robertson
Minister Advocacy and Head, Washington Advocacy Secretariat
Calgary, Alberta
September 20, 2005

A week ago the Wall Street Journal story on the front page of their third section was headlined: 'A Black Gold Rush'.

It went on to say:

"BY BRIEFLY BLASTING oil prices above $70 a barrel, Hurricane Katrina may have blown away any lingering doubts among oil producers about the long-term profitability of multibillion-dollar projects in the vast oil sands of this western Canadian province."

The oil sands story has now got the attention it has long deserved.

Those of you here will roll your eyes, but the story underlines one of the facts of Washington: for Canada to get on the map in Washington takes an earthquake, or in this case, a hurricane.

Margaret Atwood has accurately described the Canadian-American border as "the world's longest one-way mirror."

I'm often asked: "What do Americans think of us?"

The short answer is "they don't".

If we Canadians have an almost malevolent infatuation with our southern neighbours, for their part Americans have usually viewed us with benign neglect.

Their knowledge of us, especially if you're a Republican legislator, is through hunting and fishing expeditions to Canada's north. Perhaps 'mountains, Mounties and maple syrup' is not such a bad brand. Especially if the alternative is a North American edition of what one FOX news commentator once called the Europeans: 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys'.

After nearly seven years as our ambassador during the Reagan administration, Allan Gotlieb eventually concluded that benign neglect, indifference or ignorance was not such a bad thing.

I agree.

I'm from the Gotlieb school on Canada-US relations. I keep both at home, and at the office, a copy of his short memoir: 'I'll be with you in a minute, Mr. Ambassador'.

It remains the best single volume education for any diplomat wanting to do business in Washington , especially for what we do in the Embassy's Washington Advocacy Secretariat.

I know the title is a mouthful.

The Secretariat is third child of the Canadian Government's response to 9-11.

The first and most important was the 'Smart Border' initiative.

The second was what bureaucrats call the 'Enhanced Representation' initiative.

It will see a threefold expansion of our offices in the United States from 13 to 42 over the next couple of years. As our Consul General in the south west I opened offices in San Diego. There we literally launched our office aboard four visiting Canadian warships. We also opened in Tucson and Phoenix. Arizona is red state territory: the home of Barry Goldwater, of whom George Bush is intellectual heir.

It's doing diplomacy differently. In Arizona, we partnered with the local Chamber of Commerce to situate our staff in their offices, to use their boardroom and profit from their contacts.

The third child was triplets:

• a parliamentary secretary for the US to the Prime Minister, first Scott Bryson and now Marlene Jennings.
• a Canada-US Secretariat and cabinet committee on the US that includes Ambassador Frank McKenna.
• the Washington Advocacy Secretariat, charged with serving Canadian legislators from all levels of government and to give the premiers and provinces a single window into the Embassy as we advance Canadian interests on Capitol Hill. We connect to our offices throughout the US. We work with the media, business, the learning and research communities. We reflect back into Canada using the web.

I spend my time lobbying on Capitol Hill. Because politics in Washington is all-local and all-retail.

We don't have money or votes but we do have jobs and we're developing tools that help us do our job. This map, for example, that breaks jobs down by state. We've created an electronic counterpart, we call it GoCCART that allows us to go to the district level. This means I can go in to an office and talk 'local' with the names of our companies and the jobs that they support. It's Politicking 101.

It's also about being seen. And in the same news cycle. Actively responding to the myths that continue to abound about the terrorists finding a home in Canada.

And reminding Americans that while we are different we are still more like them and have more in common together than not. Because, yes, Houston we do have a problem. Increasingly, Canada has about it a question mark. Increasingly, we're described as 'European' and that's Europe without the UK. And no, it's not a compliment.

I want to share with you some observations after making more than 150 calls on Capitol Hill. They are derivative from my own experience as well as others, like Allan Gotlieb and Derek Burney, practitioners whose written memoirs are essential reading.

First, the most effective way to fight a special interest in the US is to find a US ally.

We would never have reopened the border if the National Cattlemen and Beef Association and the American Meat Institute hadn't joined us. Not because they like Canada but because the slaughter houses and packing plants represented by AMI were losing jobs. For the NCBA it was the integrated industry and the ability to send their cattle north to 'feedlot' alley.

Second, legislators have interests not friends.

Again, in the battle to open the border one of our best allies turned out to be conservative senator Wayne Allard of Colorado, a veterinarian who argued that science, not politics, should prevail. His Democrat counterpart from Colorado, Ken Salazar, sided with R-CALF.

This is a variation on Tip O'Neill's 'All politics is local'. And unless we can make it local or find a local interest we're pushing uphill. I've also learnt that when an issue reaches Washington we're also facing difficult odds. Nip problems locally using local interests. And so I tell premiers and legislators, federal and provincial, to actively cultivate their American counterparts, especially those across the border.

Look at the big three flashpoints of the past year: beef, lumber and Devils Lake . They all originated in three small border states: Montana and the Dakotas. At Frank McKenna's initiative we've begun a 'charm offensive' that will rely on our offices in Denver and Minneapolis but will only succeed if the provinces take the lead with the local business community. For example, we'll be targeting meetings of local farm bureaux to take about the interdependence of our agricultural trade.

Third, the narrowly targeted lobby is more effective than broad-based ones like consumer groups.

Nowhere is this more true than in our continuing battles to remove the duty on lumber. Supporting us is a made-in-America coalition, American Consumers for Affordable Housing. It consists of Homebuilders, Home Depot, even the folks who make mattresses. They do good work and we hope that industry will renew their support. As California Speaker Jesse Unruh famously observed, "Money is the mother's milk of politics".

ACAH can do three things better than anyone else:

First, get the message out to our primary supporters to weigh in on the Byrd duties. (Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and in the Senate Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Second, do fund-raisers for those we need to reach. We're playing hardball and this is how it works down here. We can't do it but ACAH can.

Third, reach the grass 'roots' and grass 'tips' through their existing network.

Fourth, advocacy is as much about getting attention as getting your message across. Get attention and your message follows.

And so in the wake of Katrina we argued strenuously that besides being the right thing to do, the neighbourly thing to do, it was also crucially important to inform Americans of what we were doing.

Canadians were justly proud of how we responded to 9-11: letting the 233 aircraft land and giving a home to the 33,000 stranded passengers; the national outpouring of grief across Canada including the 100,000 who turned out on Parliament Hill. But very little of this penetrated the American consciousness because the medium by which it is passed: television, didn't cover it.

This time we arranged for crews from FOX and CNN to be in Halifax when our three warships HMCS Athabaskan, Toronto and Ville de Quebec left with a thousand sailors to bring relief and supplies to the Gulf.

At the Embassy we hosted two weeks ago today a breakfast, lunch and pub dinner in collaboration with a local DC radio station. We raised over $20,000 for the Red Cross.

A banner hangs from the Embassy on Pennyslvania Avenue and it proclaims: 'You are in our thoughts and prayers. Vous etes dans nos pensées et prieres. Victims of Katrina'.

We did the right thing.

And we did it the right way.

When in Washington play by Washington rules.

Chris Matthews is host of Hardbal and he wrote a book of the same name. Hardball.

That's how Americans play in Washington. As my boss, Frank McKenna, puts it, "When you go to a gunfight, don't bring a knife." So we're pumping up our advocacy efforts. It means using our growing network of offices across the United States: 23, up from 13 two years ago and to be 41 by 2007.

My view is that our American interests are so important that we should have representation in each American state by the next American presidential cycle. Not necessarily with bricks and mortar but by hiring locally: Americans or expatriate Canadians who can work from their home.

Speaking of Canadians.

Jeffrey Simpson wrote a book about the 'star-spangled' Canadians who live in the United States . I know how helpful the Canadians in California were to me in the four years I spent as Consul General: the Digital Moose Lounge of smart young Canadian engineers and computer technicians living in San Jose opened doors for me and we drew on them to provide an audience, for example, when Premier Klein and his ministers came to town. We developed the same relationship with Canadians Abroad in Los Angeles, many of whom work in the entertainment industry, and who gave us a core audience when, for example, we put the spotlight on Alberta for Canada Day 2000.

We're now systematically reaching out to the 'star-spangled' Canadians through another Frank McKenna initiative www.connect2canada.com. We want to mobilize them nationwide and so create a Canada lobby to be our eyes, ears and mouth. We launched connect2canada on Canada Day this year and it's already paying dividends.

Here's one response we got last week that sums up a key purpose of the network:

"I attended a neighbourhood get together last evening. Naturally the issue of Hurricane Katrina came up. One of the participants remarked that he had seen on TV a statement that Canada was not participating in a meaningful way in relief.Thank goodness I had your Email which I later sent to my neighbours. Several later commented on the exceptional generosity of Canadians. You are making my effort to have my neighbours better understand Canada a lot easier."

We've already enrolled 11,000 members who can access 24/7 our 'Virtual Embassy'.

Our goal is 100,000 within a year. We're working with our universities, for example, to target their alumni living in the United States. You too can help. Encourage your friends, relations and Canada watchers in the United States to subscribe to www.connect2canada.com

And this leads me to my fifth point:

Access is everything.

And access comes in every form: Canadians studying in the United States and Americans studying in Canada . We can do a lot more to promote the latter.

Last week I met with a recruiter from the University of Alberta and we're now looking at how we can improve our recruitment activity and increase the numbers of Americans studying in Canada. When American students spend 3-4 years in Canada , they learn about our culture, history, life. They build a network of contacts that they can turn to in their professional careers when they return to the States. And they will carry a special bond with Canada the rest of their lives.

I spent five years in Hong Kong when the British still ruled and our access to government and business was hugely improved because so many had attended Canadian schools. The same still holds true through much of Asia. We now need to target America 's future leadership.

A last observation before I talk about America today:

On Capitol Hill an issue is never over as long as any interest feels they are hard done by and can find a receptive congressional ear.

We've faced harassment on lumber, for example, since 1784 when timber merchants in what is now Maine persuaded the Washington administration to limit the imports of New Brunswick timber.

Let me know shift to the mood in America and what it means for Canada.

America is at war.

9-11 remains the most profound event in America since Pearl Harbour. Everything we do has to be put through the litmus of the threat Americans believe is just a mistake away. Said Republican Congressman Peter King, new chair of the Homeland Security Committee: "It's like we live in two parallel existences . You know something could happen, and yet you don't want to alarm people constantly, or get too specific in your recommendations."

The threat is personal. The implications are cultural and economic.

It's a Sputnik moment: one of those periodic alarms about some foreign economic menace. It was the Soviets in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Germans and the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, and now it's the Chinese and the Indians. 'Outsourcing' is shorthand for the sense that maybe America can't compete. (FORTUNE cover) Sense that 'fairness' and social mobility has been sacrificed on the alter of 'entrepreneurship' and 'freedom'.

Bush's statement 'you're either with us or not' captures the mood.

Disagreement is fine, silly words wind up on FOX and feeds the 'Canuckistan' lobby. On borders we continue to differentiate between our border and that America shares with Mexico. The bureaucratic inclination is to always apply the model they know best and on the southern border is it: 'walls, wires and minutemen'.

Linked to this is the requirement to show a passport, or similar documentation not yet determined, at the border by 2008.

It is already having a chilling effect. We need to aggressively make our business case. We have allies, especially amongst border states who rely on Canadian tourism and trade and we're working with the Northern Border Caucus as well as our own legislators to find something that will respect security but not hamper access.

One challenge is the politics of not seen to 'differentiate or discriminate' against Mexico and the growing political weight of Latinos who while less cohesive, now outnumber blacks, and at 40 million, well outnumber Canadians.

For Canada, we have to go beyond the headlines and begin to change the 'atmospherics by creating a better climate' especially on security.

Otherwise, the risk is that the US will, as Ambassador McKenna puts it, "zipper up the tent and we'll be left outside." And lest we be complacent, my boss also reminds me that "too often, we sail against yesterday's wind".

With this in mind: Province-state relationship is hidden wiring of the relationship.

The Pacific Northwest Economic Region of legislators, for example, works and is a model. The western governors and western premiers meet regularly. This institutionalization is exactly right. When you are the smaller partner institutions matter.

There are ten governors now sitting in the Senate and four of the last six presidents were governors. Fifty of the 80 new members in the 109th Congress served in local levels of government. Tell our story: what we're doing overseas in Global War against Terrorism, what we're doing through 'Smart Border'.

And our energy story. Most have no clue that we're their main source of imported energy. A tenth of American consumption. That it's gas from Alberta and hydro from Quebec that lights up Broadway. Uranium from Saskatchewan , processed in Ontario that goes into US nuclear plants. That hydro from BC keeps the lights on in Silicon Valley. That there is more energy potential in the oil sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan, gas in pipelines through the Yukon and NWT and offshore Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and hydro from Manitoba and Quebec and Labrador.

At home: Get out and remind that local prosperity and security are bound to that of the US.

Each province now trades more with America than with one another. We share more in common than we think. The headlines on lumber, beef and Devils Lake distort the reality of mutually beneficial economic integration that pays the bills for sovereignty.

Finally we need to get beyond the transactionals of beef and lumber and to invest effort in the Security and Prosperity Partnership. It's NAFTA plus. It's the next step.

Frank McKenna is actively reaching out and speaking out (we play hardball, politely Canadian but forthright). You can help in recruiting our star-spangled Canadians through your own visits and encouraging business and universities to 'connect2canada'. With your university presidents recruit American students, create centers of American studies, establish exchanges with the leadership of tomorrow and bring American legislators to Canada to hunt and fish.

Last week I participated in the annual Washington conference of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Among the speakers was Charles Krauthammer. He is to the Bush Administration what George Will was to the Reagan Administration: the columnist and pundit and political philosopher whose criticism and advice is heeded in the White House.

Krauthammer spent his formative years living in Montreal and graduated from McGill. He described two trends at play, each of which has implications for Canada.

First, the end of the Cold War has meant the hegemonic alliances (NATO and the like) don't matter as much. There has been no serious power other than the United States for fifteen years but now both China and Russia are re-emerging. He noted the latter's armed forces were doing joint exercises together in Siberia. The war in Iraq had been waged, in retrospect, under false pretences (there were no WMD) and this had only further exacerbated tensions in the old alliance.

As a result the US is actively looking for friends.

Australia and the UK are there. Americans would like Canada to join them. The differences over Iraq and ABM mattered less than having like-minded countries who will help preserve the peace. Security, observed Krauthammer, is the defining issue of the post 9-11 age, "if you want to help us, and reap the credit, help us on security".

Second, energy has re-emerged as a priority for the Administration.

Krauthammer faulted the US for doing nothing since 1979 beyond strategic petroleum reserves. The energy bill was a start but he observed there had been no new refineries built for 30 years and nuclear power was still a taboo. This would require leadership and investment and, in the meantime, secure sources of energy that Canada could offer.

For Canada, the opportunities are obvious: investment to develop the oil sands and build the northern pipelines from the Mackenzie Delta and Alaska.

Black gold indeed!