Home Washington Secretariat Jackson Executive Lecture Forum

Notes for the Jackson Executive Lecture Forum Luncheon

Mississippi State University Capitol Club
Jackson, Mississippi
December 8, 2005

Colin Robertson
Minister and Head (Washington Advocacy Secretariat)
Canadian Embassy, Washington

This week we lit up our Christmas tree, a balsalm pine from Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, at the Canadian Embassy. It sits majestically, 20 feet high, in the rotunda of the provinces. Anyone passing down Pennsylvania Avenue on their way from the Capitol or visiting the National Gallery, just across the street, can see the lights that celebrate our respective faiths, our diversity, and the festive season.

The tree has a twin, a bit bigger at 46 feet. Last week it was lit in Boston Common. It is a gift of the people of Nova Scotia and it has its origins in the kind of tragedy that you’ve all experienced with [Hurricane] Katrina.

The year was 1917 and Canada had been at war with Germany for three years. Early in the morning of December 6th, a French munitions ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with a Norwegian vessel, the Imo, bound for New York. The resultant explosion literally levelled the city of Halifax.

The moment the news reached Boston, the citizens opened their hearts and wallets. Even though Halifax was a trading rival, ties of friendship and family meant that a rescue train left that evening loaded with food and medical supplies and doctors and nurses. Halifax recovered and is today our leading Atlantic port. And every year a Christmas tree is sent to Boston. It’s our way of saying thanks to a good neighbour.

Flash forward to September of this year and that same port of Halifax. Days after you all endured Katrina and then Rita and our hearts and prayers are with all you as you begin reconstruction, American Ambassador David Wilkins stood with Prime Minister Paul Martin, on the deck of HMCS Athabascan, to bid Godspeed to the 1000 sailors as they steamed out of Halifax harbour - the three warships and coast guard tender laden with water, generators, water purification systems and medical supplies. They were bound for your Gulf to give the same kind of help that the city of Halifax had enjoyed from you nearly a century earlier.

Over the next month our sailors worked with your Forces and National Guard - Major General Cross has just described their collaboration, to give help and relief. Many of the sailors had been part of the relief work in Halifax two years earlier in the aftermath of Hurricane Juan. Our sailors were joined by an elite emergency team of divers from Vancouver and Red Cross workers from across Canada. At the Embassy, Ambassador Frank McKenna hosted a fund-raising breakfast, lunch and pub dinner. From our embassy hung a banner proclaiming that our thoughts and prayers were with the victims of Katrina. When we learnt of the destruction at the University of Mississippi, we donated our surplus computers as you begin reconstruction of the campuses in the Gulf Coast and Hattiesburg.

Across Canada, Canadians have opened their hearts and wallets – on behalf of the people of Alberta, Premier Ralph Klein, gave the hurricane relief fund led by Presidents Clinton and George H. W. Bush a cheque for $5 million.

We did so in the same spirit that the people of the United States have done for us in so many other calamities over the years. I think especially of our ice storm in January, 1998, when the then American Ambassador Gordon Giffin organized linesmen from our South to help reconnect our power. As Ambassador Giffin reminds me, he was asked to help because he was bilingual – not French to English, but English to southern. Apparently there were ‘communications difficulties’.

All of us can remember where we were on September 11th.

What some of you may not know is that when President Bush ordered American airspace secured, it was a Canadian, General Rick Findlay, who was sitting in the chair at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado where we jointly manage our air defence. The protection of our shared airspace has been a binational partnership since 1957 through North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD). NORAD’s mandate is to ‘Deter, Detect and Defend’. Like so much else of our shared defence arrangements, the mandate stays evergreen. The next iteration is likely to include a role for our maritime forces.

When the curtain came down on American airspace on 9-11, there were 233 planes in the air headed for the United States. We landed them and their 33,000 passengers in Canada, mostly on our East Coast. It meant in Gander, Newfoundland, population 4100, an early Thanksgiving. The difference was that it lasted a week and there were 7000 ‘unexpected’ guests.

They stayed the week and the friendships that were created through that time of terror and turmoil endure. The late Stephen Jay Gould, who found himself in Halifax, called it an ‘extraordinary act of human decency’. And a year ago November, President Bush went to Halifax to say thank you.

The President proclaimed: “Our two people are one family and always will be.” In response, Prime Minister Martin said simply, “That’s what neighbours do, that’s what friends do.”

The words of the President and the Prime Minister capture the essence of the Canada-US relationship. We’re friends, we’re family. And we are also allies together in the war against terrorism.

Late last week Canadians were reminded yet again that freedom has its cost. Another Canadian was killed and four wounded when their Light Armoured Vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, the deadly IEDs, on the road into Kandahar in Afghanistan. Last Friday, hundreds packed the gymnasium at the Canadian Forces base in Gagetown, New Brunswick to bid farewell to Private Woodfield. He was 24.

Since 9-11 we’ve rotated over 15,000 troops through Afghanistan and other places. We led NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and we’re now relieving American forces in taking over a provincial reconstruction team in the south of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile from our airbase in the Persian Gulf we’ve flown over 5000 tactical airlift, patrol and helicopter sorties. Twenty Canadian warships have been deployed, many of them frigates like HMCS Regina on whose deck I stood, just before it steamed out of Pearl Harbour two and a half years ago to join the fleet in the Persian Gulf - intercepting the bad guys who use boats to smuggle weapons and terrorists back and forth. Or doing escort duty for American aircraft carriers like the USS John C. Stennis. 'Ninety tons of diplomacy' as a poster in one of the congressional offices I called on this week put it.

Our ‘interoperability’ with the American navy is unique to ‘foreign’ navies. Our equipment can ‘talk’ to yours. But we also have the telecommunications capacity to talk to our other allies and this often puts us in a tactical command role.

Arguably, this ‘interpreter’ role is one that Canada is ideally placed to play. Like you, we resemble the world, but as alike as we are, we aren’t. The same…but different, eh!

Both Canadians and Americans play a North American brand of football that is different from that of the rest of the world. We call their game soccer. But while Canadians can play American football and lots of Americans play Canadian football, our game is one with three downs, and a wider and longer field to encourage play action. And because of our climate, our ‘Superbowl’ – we call it the ‘Grey Cup’, takes place around your Thanksgiving. But we share one thing in common: the same love of tailgate parties!

Yesterday, someone asked me why Canada wasn’t in Iraq. Like Americans, Canadians were divided, and they remain divided, on the war. We turned down President Bush’s invitation to join the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ in the case of Iraq because we weren’t convinced that it was right for Canada. Going to war – sending our young men and women into harm’s way, is probably the most serious decision invested to government and national leaders. Americans didn’t think it right to enter World War II, until you were attacked at Pearl Harbour. For us, World War II began in 1939 and the First World War began, not in 1917, but in 1914. Two of my great uncles died there and a third came back shattered.

In the case of Afghanistan the complicity and collaboration of the Taliban regime with Al-Qaeda was unequivocal as a clear and present danger to our way of life. And so we were the first nation, after America, to send troops into Afghanistan. Canadians fought and died alongside America’s sons and daughters. In recognition of the work done by our snipers with the 101st Airborne in cleaning out the caves of Bora Bora, the President awarded 30 Bronze stars to Canadian soldiers and our special operations unit has been given a presidential citation.

And make no mistake. In the war against terrorism we are with you.

Security comes in various manifestations. I’ve talked about our military alliance and partnership. Now I want to talk about economic security and our trade partnership, through the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, and its successor, NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement).

For Canada and the United States - well, let me tell you how American Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, recently described it:

“Here we have the single most successful, productive, and peaceful relationship the world has ever known - and who would really know that? Who would know, by following the news, that there is no better, closer relationship between two nations than the one we share?”

I have a lot of respect for Ambassador Wilkins.

He is, as you may know, from the South. Until his appointment by President Bush, he had served for fourteen years as Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives, representing the people of Greenville where they make the tires that go on the big trucks in Fort McMurray – the site of Canada’s oil sands.

Remember Fort McMurray and remember the oil sands. They are going to be part of America’s future energy security.

A lot of people don’t know, unless they listened to the West Wing election debate a few weeks back, that Canada is the biggest supplier to the United States of oil, of crude, of natural gas, of electricity, of uranium — every single energy category. Today pipelines and hydro poles literally crisscross our border. After Saudi Arabia we have the largest oil reserves in the world. And we displaced Saudi Arabia two years ago as the largest supplier of crude oil to the US.

The foundation of our energy relationship, like the rest of our trade, is NAFTA. A section of NAFTA guides the energy security relationship. You should be aware that there’s a small protectionist coalition of timber interests in the United States has now challenged the constitutionality of NAFTA because of an ongoing dispute about our lumber exports. The Coalition has lost all the cases and appeals they’ve brought before the dispute settlement mechanism we jointly created. Now they’d like to blow up the NAFTA itself.

Does anyone here know the value of the Canada-US trading relationship?

A billion? Ten billion? A hundred billion?

A hint: Last year American trade with Japan was $184 billion. Trade with China was $231 billion. Trade with Mexico - $267 billion.

Trade with Canada: $446 billion.

Take Mexico and China out of the equation and that’s more than your trade with the next fifteen countries, including Japan, combined. Yes, ours is the biggest trading relationship in the world.

We have a $50 billion trade surplus. The value of Canadian energy imports. And when you subtract energy, our trade is virtually in balance.

The integration of our economies is literally out of this world. You all know the Stennis Space Center. Did you know that the robotic arm used to transfer cargo on the space shuttle is made by Canadians and that the camera, used to check the outer shell of the shuttle after the last launch when tiles were lost, is also made by Canadians.

This economic integration also matters to you in Jackson and to you in Mississippi.

Did you know that Mississippi sold more to Canada than it did to Mexico and all of South America combined.

We are your biggest foreign market, buying a quarter of your exports.

We buy from you plastics, household goods like furniture, lighting and lamps, even refrigeration equipment. The biggest part of our trade, reflecting the biggest traded commodity between Canada and the United States, is the auto industry.

Did you know that last year Canadians bought trucks and cars made in Mississippi valued at over $80 million. Automobiles like Nissan’s Altima, made just north of here in Canton.

All this business means jobs for Mississippi. The Commerce Department estimates that sales to Canada generate 43,000 jobs here in Mississippi.

Jobs with a future.

That doesn’t include the investment that Canadians are making here. Canadian companies have created 2100 jobs here through companies like Masonite, Canadian National Railway, Norbord and Alcan.

How many of you shop at Circle K or do business with John Hancock?

In both cases their management are through Canadian corporations: Alimentation Couche Tard, the Quebec-based drugstore chain and Manulife, the Toronto-based life insurance company.

And the investment from Canada continues.

Did you know that the construction around Tunica that will see a casino, indoor golf course, convention center and water park is the brainchild of Myriad World Resorts, based in Edmonton, Alberta. That development is valued at over half a billion dollars.

So the next time you hear Lou Dobbs talk about ‘exporting American jobs’ remember that trade and investment is dynamic, especially between Canada and the United States and Canada and Mississippi.

And that doesn’t include the $12 million that the 41,000 Canadians who visited Mississippi last year spent in your restaurants and hotels and on the golf course.

The balance of tourism is in your favour so I invite you to come north to visit, to fish, to hunt, to ski or to golf. It’s how we get to know each better.

We are concerned, however, about a congressional requirement called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, that will require the citizens of both countries to use a passport, or, as yet undefined, other documents, when crossing the border. Business on both sides say this will significantly cut back on our trade and tourism. That’s serious, and it will fly in the face of progress we’ve made in making the border both safe and business-friendly through our ‘Smart Borders’ initiative.

Look at the work of our integrated border enforcement teams, IBETs. Their approach mirrors that of our armed forces. Here’s a quote right from their rules of operation:

“Shared credit for shared work. This philosophy does not single out individuals such as RCMP seized this and US Border Patrol seized that. The true effectiveness is what the Team seized, period.”

Actually it should be an exclamation mark.

What the terrorists seek to do achieve is to divide us from one another and to ruin our economies. That’s why we’re not sure that the passport requirement is the right approach. You’ve two borders but they are very different and their difference means different approaches.

As a kid I used to travel to Grand Forks and Minneapolis for scouting jamborees. These occasions are the cement that creates the ties of friendship that define the special nature of the Canadian American relationship. Require a passport and these events will die; it was hard enough for my Mom to pack my socks and underwear. We want to keep our border open for the families and friends who go back and forth for Little League and hockey.

I have said little on foreign policy.

Obviously, we care about the direction America is taking. You are our friend, ally and partner. We stand with America in the war against terrorism. We parted company on certain approaches – the intervention in Iraq. But we serve together in Afghanistan and we will be part of the reconstruction in Iraq when the security situation permits. We participated in the election process and we are training Iraqi police in Jordan.

America is remarkable. No other country in the world has such capacity to innovate, engineer and then apply to effect and profit what it creates. One should never underestimate this country’s entrepreneurial spirit. America is not just the world’s consumer -- it is also the world’s workshop and laboratory.

You have led the way in civil rights and in creating a society that is open and embracing, that welcomes all that is good in whatever is new. And to do so in a way, as William Faulkner said when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, that we not merely endure, but prevail.

You built a country based on the rule of law. You applied that principle on the international stage – the architecture of the UN, the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF owes much to America and Americans.

The challenge for America has always been to find the right balance between a government that is powerful enough to protect, but not so powerful that it can oppress. That balancing is the gift of the Constitution and is guarded by the courts. And in a broader sense, maintaining this balance is the work of all of us.

American ideals continue to inspire millions throughout the world.

I saw it first-hand while living in Hong Kong in the days before the massacre of Tiananmen Square when the students fashioned their own version of Lady Liberty. It was one of the first symbols destroyed when the tanks rolled in but I keep a copy in office, alongside a picture of the brave man who stood up to the tanks rolling out of Tiananmen Square.

America is a great country. A powerful country.

America is also a good country.

The country that created the idea of a United Nations and that has given it a permanent home. The country that rebuilt Europe and Japan after the Second World War and Eastern Europe with the end of the Cold War. The country that is taking the lead in reconstruction and relief in Asia after the tsunami.

This is the America the world needs to see more of.

The America of people with the Big Heart. The People that Care.

A people that Canadians are proud to call friend, neighbour and ally.