FROM CORRECT TO INSPIRED: A BLUEPRINT FOR CANADA-US ENGAGEMENT

FORWARD: A new administration and a new Congress in Washington provide a once in eight-year opportunity to recalibrate the Canada-US relationship. Particularly at a time of deep economic apprehension and continuing global insecurity, Canadians need bold and inspired leadership determined to make the best of Canada’s unique position next door to the United States. The key question is whether the government has the will to assert and defend Canadian interests in a relationship that is the lifeblood of the Canadian economy and the foundation of its security.

For a start, the global financial crisis demands early and sustained cooperation. The interconnections between the two countries’ financial and manufacturing sectors doom any effort to find made-in-Canada solutions. The problems of the auto sector illustrate the continued need to work together and find common solutions that limit the impact of the recession.

Second, policies affecting energy and the environment cry out for coherence and prudence in both countries. Today, there is a veritable spaghetti bowl of initiatives, regulations, congressional bills, and state and provincial measures complicating business and confusing citizens on both sides of the border. The two countries should get their mutual act together to ensure that they move in tandem to address concerns about climate change while preserving their capacity to supply energy. Some clear thinking and firm leadership by both governments are needed. We applaud the government’s resolve to engage early and intensively with the new administration to develop approaches to climate change and energy security that make sense for both countries. This should also strengthen the two countries’ respective positions in global negotiations on climate change. Above all, both governments should move beyond the hollow rhetoric of Kyoto and implement some practical solutions.

Third, there is a need for some common sense to undo the thickening of both sides of the border and to ease the congestion that currently impedes the success of key, highly integrated sectors of the two economies. The two governments should re-examine the benefits of a perimeter approach to the border and find a better balance between legitimate concerns about security and the need, particularly in a recession, for smooth, unfettered movement of goods and services across the border. The two governments should also take a blowtorch to regulatory differentiation and overlap that serve no useful purpose other than to preserve some government jobs and to perpetuate a preference for differentiation for its own sake.

President Obama will have to respond in some fashion to his campaign pledge to negotiate new labour and environmental standards for NAFTA. Canadians should not lose sleep over this, primarily because the concern is directed at Mexico, not Canada. Nonetheless, the prime minister should urge the president not to tamper with the fundamentals of an agreement that has been fully implemented, has served all three countries well, and should be the least of his immediate concerns. US trade problems today have nothing to do with NAFTA. Read more.