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Strategies & Market Trends : Fascist Oligarchs Attack Cute Cuddly Canadians -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: johnlw who wrote (1223)	3/4/2005 9:15:38 AM
From: johnlw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1293

This getting tiresome Where is the Enbridge proposal for the pipeline to Prince Rupert at? Lack of refining capacity in North America? I bet the Chinese could find a use for synthetic crude. JW NAFTA talks with Bush off table at Texas summitBy BRIAN LAGHI AND JEFF SALLOT Friday, March 4, 2005 Updated at 8:27 AM EST From Friday's Globe and Mail Paul Martin's plan to discuss flaws in the North American free-trade agreement at a summit with George W. Bush have fallen off the agenda as the leaders officially announced the meeting for March 23. The omission comes as trade difficulties between the two countries were exacerbated yesterday by a vote in the U.S. Senate to keep the borders closed to Canadian cattle. Canadian producers predicted it could now take up to nine months before they reopen. It is the latest trade irritant to emerge in a week's worth of difficulties following Canada's decision not to participate in ballistic-missile defence. Mr. Martin's office announced yesterday that the PM will travel to Baylor University in Waco, March 23, to meet with Mr. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox on a series of issues designed to increase security, cross-border traffic and other quality-of-life issues. However, a hoped-for discussion on NAFTA is now not expected to happen, sources said. In late January, Mr. Martin told reporters he wanted to work on a better way to solve trade disputes -- like the battle over Canadian exports of softwood lumber. He said he raised the topic of a meeting on NAFTA with Mr. Bush when the two men met in late November. "What I said is, 'Listen, there are gaps in NAFTA and they've got to be fixed,' " Mr. Martin said in January. "It remains to be seen how far those discussions, what kind of fruit that they will bear." One senior government official said the NAFTA issue was pulled because it would likely go nowhere, given that Mr. Fox will be in attendance. Yesterday's announcement also came against the backdrop of controversial comments made by Frank McKenna, Canada's new ambassador to the U.S., who said Wednesday that trade irritants played a role in the BMD decision. Mr. Martin brushed off the remarks, saying Mr. McKenna did not "really" make a link between trade irritants and the decision. However, others weren't quite so forgiving. "It's not how we work a partnership with another country," said Claudette Bradshaw, Minister of State for Human Resources Development. Also yesterday, Mr. Martin outlined a robust interventionist plan for Canada's military which officials acknowledged would find favour in the United States. Mr. Martin said the recent decision to spend an extra $12.8- billion over five years will help protect residents of unstable nations as the international community tries to rebuild their countries. Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci went out of his way yesterday to praise Canada's military co-operation with his country and to deny that there will be any linkage between defence issues and trade irritants