Canada's Relationship With Bush Now Ice Cold

by Mark Bourrie

Ottawa's refusal to join the invasion against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was the first Canadian rejection of a major U.S. foreign policy action since the 1960s, when Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister Lester Pearson refused to take part in the Vietnam War.

But the current cold relations between the leaders of the two major trading partners set in long before the invasion of Iraq. While Chretien, who leads the Liberal Party, was a regular golf partner of Bush's predecessor and Democrat Bill Clinton -- whom he also talked to weekly by telephone -- before Saturday he had not met the far more conservative Bush since late last year and had talked to him only once in the past three months.

In retaliation for Ottawa's stance on Iraq, Bush in April cancelled a planned trip to Canada indefinitely. If he does not visit before the November 2004 presidential elections, he will be the first president since Harry Truman to refuse to visit Canada during his first term in office.

Canada and the United States are locked in a dispute over lumber subsidies and U.S. tariffs that has crippled the economy of northern and western Canada. Canadian beef is banned from the United States because in late May, a Canadian cow was found to be sick with BSE (mad cow disease).

Even garbage being shipped from Toronto to a dump in neighboring Michigan has been stopped at the border because of fears that it might somehow be contaminated with the SARS virus, which has infected patients and staff at three Toronto hospitals.

And despite U.S. pressure, Chretien's government moved in late May to eliminate criminal penalties for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana (although Ottawa watered down the bill after Canadian Justice Minister Martin Cauchon visited Attorney General John Ashcroft -- Washington has let it be known it would appreciate its northern neighbor being a stronger ally in its "war on drugs").

To further aggravate matters, the prime minister continues to warn the president about his high federal budget deficit, despite worries from members of his own party and strong reaction from right-wing commentators in Canada and Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

"Everyone should work on the problem of accumulation [of debt] because what will happen eventually is that the savings that would go to pay for the deficits of all the nations will be money that will not be available for investment in the private sector," Chretien said during a visit to Athens last week.

"And it was the situation we were trapped in at the beginning of the last decade. And the interest rates went up and up."

The prime minister had complained two days earlier about the rising U.S. deficit, which is expected to top $500 billion this year. That shortfall is expected to grow now that Bush has won congressional support for a major tax cut aimed at stimulating the economy.

Canada, which has an economy about one-tenth the size of the U.S. has a $5.5 billion budget surplus.

At a luncheon with Greek business people, Chretien said the G8 meeting is crucial to get the stagnating world economy back on track. He said he also plans to push Bush to adopt a more multilateral foreign policy.

"We believe multilateralism is more than ever necessary as we face the threats of global terrorism, crime and corruption, environmental damage on a vast scale and other challenges which cannot be successfully met by one nation -- however powerful -- acting alone."

Despite hand-wringing from conservative opposition politicians in Ottawa and the strong corporate lobby that does $1 billion of business with the United States daily, Chretien, who will retire in February, 2004, says he will not take advice from those who say his criticism of U.S. policies hurt Canada-U.S. relations.

"I've not been known to shut up because I do my job the best I can and I've been doing that for 40 years. It is the responsibility of the prime minister of Canada to bring up this problem."

Ottawa has reached out to Washington with one olive branch. It will, says Defense Minister John McCallum, consider joining the U.S. missile defense system, though it is too early to say what the United States would expect of Canada.

But even that vague promise might face serious opposition at home.

Nobel laureate John Polanyi, a University of Toronto scientist, told Canada's parliamentary committee on defense the U.S. plan is based on "dubious technology" and added that if Canada joins the U.S. program, "we will have stepped on a conveyor belt leading to arms in space."

In the end, the decision might rest with Chretien's archrival, former finance minister Paul Martin, a more conservative politician who is expected to take over the Canadian premiership when the prime minister retires.

Martin and Bush appear more likely to become golf partners. The prime-minister-in-waiting supports the missile defense system and wants a closer relationship with Washington.

But until Martin or another leader takes over the top political job in Canada, relations with the Bush administration are expected to be stormy.