Oh, Alastair, that was too easy. Just insert 'martin canada hate us words' into google... here's a couple examples, and another link of Canadian bloggers... There are many! We LOVE Canada, and go there frequently (Vancouver and Victoria in BC)...the people themselves seem to like Americans, but the people they elect seem not to....
blogscanada.ca
Canadian blogs
Then here is another....
Damn Americans
December 22, 2005
Why our politicians love to hate those bastards, but then always back down
macleans.ca
TONY KELLER
American ambassador to Canada David Wilkins comes from swampy South Carolina, so he presumably knows a little folk wisdom about quicksand. Quicksand Rule Number 2: the harder you struggle, the deeper you sink. Rule Number 1: to avoid having to remember Rule Number 2, don't walk into quicksand. Maybe he just forgot.
It all started two weeks ago, when Prime Minister Paul Martin took some very public shots at the Bush administration over global warming -- criticisms meant to sway Canadian voters, not White House policy. But if the Americans chose to respond, giving him a stage on which to engage in a little more anti-American posturing, so much the better.
Wilkins saw the quicksand and jumped in with both feet. "It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner," he said in a pointed speech last Tuesday. "But it is a slippery slope." A slope Martin was only too happy to ride. The Prime Minister got a decided bump in the polls after Wilkins's remarks and his response -- "I am not going to be dictated to" -- made headlines.
Even Stephen Harper called Wilkins's intervention "inappropriate," adding, "I don't think foreign ambassadors should be expressing their views or intervening in an election." That's diplomatese for, "Shut up. Please." The Liberals love to insinuate that Harper is too pro-American, so an election where Martin gets to act as if he's running against George W. Bush cannot help Harper.
But running against the U.S. President, and more generally against the United States, is not a new idea, nor is it uniquely Canadian. America is the superpower, after all, and what better way to demonstrate your courage and independence than by standing up to the biggest kid on the block? And the more powerful America becomes, or is seen to become, the more value some may find in bashing it. Gerhard Schröder won the German election in 2002 by casting Bush as his opponent. The strategy was so successful that he trotted it out again this year, and nearly retained the chancellorship, despite starting the campaign far behind in the polls. Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva scored a landslide victory in the 2002 presidential election in part by attacking the Free Trade Area of the Americas as a kind of American plot. In France, accusing someone of wanting to introduce an "Anglo-Saxon" economic model is as serious a charge as accusing a Canadian politician of wanting to introduce "American-style" health care.
But if Martin's squabble with Wilkins seemed somehow empty -- more shadowboxing than substantive disagreement -- that's not surprising. The tenor of our fights with the U.S., and the nature of our fears about our neighbour, have changed a lot over the years. In a heated TV debate during the 1988 free trade election, Liberal leader John Turner accused Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of destroying Canada "with one signature of the pen." The Free Trade Agreement, insisted Turner, "will reduce us, I am sure, to a colony of the United States, because when the economic levers go, political independence is sure to follow." That was only 17 years ago, and yet Turner's words, so resonant then, sound hysterical today. For Liberals, they are an embarrassment, long forgotten. The only criticism the current Liberal leader has of free trade is that more of it would be a good idea.
The change in Canadian attitudes may have something to do with the change in Canada's economic position. Canadians once worried that foreigners, especially Americans, would buy up our companies and resources. Instead, the opposite has happened. In 2005, according to Statistics Canada, foreign direct investment in Canada, primarily from the United States, was worth $390 billion. But Canadian ownership of foreign companies -- and the U.S. remains the most popular place for us to invest -- has for years been growing at an even faster rate, and is now worth $452 billion. Canadians own more of the world than the world owns of Canada. And as a Maclean's poll earlier this year discovered, most Canadians believe that closer border security and anti-terrorism co-operation with the U.S. are a good thing, at least in principle, and no threat to Canada's independence.
Though Ambassador Wilkins is no expert on this country, he's right about this much: baiting the American bear can pay short-term electoral benefits. Paul Martin will not be the last Canadian politician to conjure an American threat that he can visibly and volubly appear to be standing up to -- and then, after the election, do his best to stand down.
To comment, email letters@macleans.ca
|
