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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen O who wrote (3027)	9/12/2003 9:38:39 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 37332

The GG's trip is corked Don Martin National Post nationalpost.com Friday, September 12, 2003 OTTAWA - Gosh. Such big fish. Such a small barrel. The shooting's almost too easy. Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson is preparing to depart aboard a wide-bodied military jet for a 20-day, million-dollar, tax-financed, government-approved jaunt with 60 business and cultural bluebloods to "strengthen Canada's links with the circumpolar world." The tour of Russia, Finland and Iceland will include a pitstop at a reindeer herder's farm, 32 photo opportunities, numerous welcome ceremonies, a bunch of state dinners and what has become a regular attraction on all three of her state visits abroad --Canadian wine-tasting. The trek is this particular Excellency's third state visit overseas following 2001 trips to South America and Germany. There are common elements to all three -- a million-dollar price tag for each, a total lack of any post-mortem expense accountability for all, a top performing arts contingent dating from Clarkson's television host days and that nagging fetish for wine. After inquiries were made seeking justifications for her state visitations, the First Man himself called me to chat. Clarkson's husband, award-winning writer John Ralston Saul, is an expert on oenology, which I didn't know until Thursday was the study of wine, and has lead the tasting sessions with local dignitaries on all three trips. He volunteers, without being asked, that his love of wine is an "obsession." "These countries are extremely healthy wine consumers," Saul says. "Here are five markets which are very interested in our market. For example, at the state dinners in Helsinki and Reykjavik, they'll be serving Canadian wine. That's never been done before in history." I didn't have the heart to recite this year's wine export statistics to a man who insists the gateway to European wine markets is through the polar ice cap. Total wine exports from Canada to Russia, Finland and Iceland in 2002 and 2003: Zero. Total wine exports last year to the United States, a country a long-dead governor-general last visited in 1937: 400,000 litres. So instead of trying to sell wine in Russia, a nation where vodka is dispensed in pop machines at prices cheaper than bottled water, I pressed on, wondering why our royal reps weren't promoting Alberta vodka or that great Canadian cultural icon -- beer. "We take very good beer with us for the airplane," Saul explains. "But one of the big problems with exporting beer is that there's a lot of competition [and there isn't for wine?]. I agree with you though. I think there probably could be a market and it would be an interesting thing to look at and if you have some specific ideas I'll take them ..." OK, I interrupt, what about Big Rock beer from Alberta? "I know Big Rock beer." How 'bout Sleemans of Ontario? "We serve Sleemans. Right across the country there's great beer. I found one in Whitehorse," Saul says. OK, so the guy knows his wine. The guy likes and plans to promote his beer. The guy has had many books published in many languages, as the Governor-General's Web site reminds us repeatedly. But can he justify star-trekking the globe on the taxpayer ticket? "You have to get Canada into their imaginations, into their minds, into the way they think about the world," Saul says. "It's not about a business contract. It's about a state of mind. It's a conversation from our elites to their elites." He said much, much more during his 20-minute answer to my opening question, but a nasty deadline looms and there's just no time to listen to the whole conversation again. But this much I'll give the tenants of Rideau Hall. They have assembled a tagalong delegation so stacked with intellectual weight, you can only wonder what value they can see on an itinerary which is not readily visible to me. Some of Canada's best authors are on the trip to discuss "how geography, climate, nature, weather and isolation influence literature"? Some of the biggest business leaders are joining Clarkson to learn about "the realities of northern fisheries" by visiting an Iceland seafood plant? Our Official Languages Commissioner, whose job it is to keep track of French language grievances in Canada, somehow finds it necessary to talk language with the Russian President's wife? But here's the ultimate rub. Next year Mme. Clarkson plans another state visit to fire up another country's imagination about Canada. To the United States where we've been forgotten? To the supermarket potential of China? To get those mad cow vigilantes in Japan rethinking our beef? No. No. No. Mme. Clarkson's heading back into the same general direction to Denmark, Norway and Greenland. New wine markets beckon. dmartin@nationalpost.com © Copyright 2003 National Post