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rfmcdonaldLawyers, Guns and Money's Robert Farley commented upon a Foreign Affairs article written by two Canadians of a particular right-wing and continentalist bent--one was Canada's ambassador to the United States under Brian Mulroney of free-trade agreement fame--who claimed that Obama's decision not to authorize the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline connecting Alberta's oil sands to American refineries ruined Canadian-American relations.
It goes without saying that the original authors' conclusion passed by the fact that a recent poll suggets that United States and Obama are still quite popular in Canada, the Keystone XL pipeline being an issue of niche not national interest in Canada (Albertans and/or Conservatives much more than other Canadians), that Canadian-American relations were much worse in 2003 while Canada opted out of the Iraq War. It could also be concluded--as Farley does--that the authors are best understood as people trying to gain attention for their country in the world's superpower in an effort to make the patron-client relationship run more the way that they want (Israel, Poland, Taiwan, and Georgia are all name-checked as examples of countries which do the same thing).
What Farley or many of the non-Canadian commenters at his blog don't seem to get is that it might actually be in Canada's interests to cultivate non-American trade partners and avoid overdependence on the United States, and that it's not at all clear that Americans would really mind this diversification of Canadian interests. Do Americans really care if Canadians develop profitable economic relations with countries other than the United States, so long as Canada doesn't follow up by offering the Chinese missile bases? I'm far from convinced that the Third Option that the Trudeau government tried to develop in the 1970s, cultivating Europe and Japan as trading partners to avoid overdependence on the United States, is automatically a bad policy, or that a new version mightn't be worth trying to cultivate in the 2010s with China's addition to the list of major Canadian trading partners
Permitting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline should have been an easy diplomatic and economic decision for U.S. President Barack Obama. The completed project would have shipped more than 700,000 barrels a day of Albertan oil to refineries in the Gulf Coast, generated tens of thousands of jobs for U.S. workers, and met the needs of refineries in Texas that are desperately seeking oil from Canada, a more reliable supplier than Venezuela or countries in the Middle East. The project posed little risk to the landscape it traversed. But instead of acting on economic logic, the Obama administration caved to environmental activists in November 2011, postponing until 2013 the decision on whether to allow the pipeline.
Obama’s choice marked a triumph of campaign posturing over pragmatism and diplomacy, and it brought U.S.-Canadian relations to their lowest point in decades. It was hardly the first time that the administration has fumbled issues with Ottawa. Although relations have been civil, they have rarely been productive. Whether on trade, the environment, or Canada’s shared contribution in places such as Afghanistan, time and again the United States has jilted its northern neighbor. If the pattern of neglect continues, Ottawa will get less interested in cooperating with Washington. Already, Canada has reacted by turning elsewhere -- namely, toward Asia -- for more reliable economic partners.
It goes without saying that the original authors' conclusion passed by the fact that a recent poll suggets that United States and Obama are still quite popular in Canada, the Keystone XL pipeline being an issue of niche not national interest in Canada (Albertans and/or Conservatives much more than other Canadians), that Canadian-American relations were much worse in 2003 while Canada opted out of the Iraq War. It could also be concluded--as Farley does--that the authors are best understood as people trying to gain attention for their country in the world's superpower in an effort to make the patron-client relationship run more the way that they want (Israel, Poland, Taiwan, and Georgia are all name-checked as examples of countries which do the same thing).
What Farley or many of the non-Canadian commenters at his blog don't seem to get is that it might actually be in Canada's interests to cultivate non-American trade partners and avoid overdependence on the United States, and that it's not at all clear that Americans would really mind this diversification of Canadian interests. Do Americans really care if Canadians develop profitable economic relations with countries other than the United States, so long as Canada doesn't follow up by offering the Chinese missile bases? I'm far from convinced that the Third Option that the Trudeau government tried to develop in the 1970s, cultivating Europe and Japan as trading partners to avoid overdependence on the United States, is automatically a bad policy, or that a new version mightn't be worth trying to cultivate in the 2010s with China's addition to the list of major Canadian trading partners
