CAUGHT LOOKING THE WRONG WAY ?

As much as I hate to admit, the President of the United States and I are of the same generation. But after a week when most mainstream American media have described the mayhem in their nation's capital, and in particular the White House, as 'Pure Madness' - I am first to admit that sometimes at least, I keep my crazy to myself.

As best I can: I sympathize with how lonely it must seem being the most powerful man in the world when everyone has concluded you're an idiot. Perhaps just like the great icon of American manufacturing, Henry Ford who became increasingly dictatorial and ever more demented in the post World War II years,  Mr. Trump has convinced himself and a handful of 'believers' that America will be great again when dinner is brought to your car window on roller-skated damsels or the 'cinemascope' movie speaker hangs from the driver side window.



Unsafe at any speed !

How else to explain the delusional notion of plunging the world into a global war on trade over the manufacture of key components of the great muscle machines of the pre-Viet Nam era:  Steel and Aluminium.

From beer cans, appliances, aircraft, auto making, and God forbid gun-making (Sigh !)  more than 6 Million Americans depend directly on jobs which use manufactured steel and aluminium. Less that 100,000 Americans work in the country's ageing steel and aluminium rolling mills, mostly along the mid-Atlantic rust-belt which can't, won't and could not keep-up with domestic demand - Trade Wars are not good for America : They're wars in which.... OH WAIT !... I was going to say everyone loses.

On second thought, perhaps the one winner over yet another looming trade dispute with our bullying deranged neighbour to the south is our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and his embattled Cabinet. Even with the many gifts and promises of more in an early Federal Budget Tuesday last; nothing deterred the country's (and much of the world's) attention away from "That India Trip !" Until "The Donald" ill advised and unplanned blurting. Until the next shoe drops, perhaps Mr. Trudeau should be thankful.

PAY ATTENTION AMERICA !

We Canadians, in a manner of smugness with which we're really not accustomed, thought we'd cornered the charisma market in the post Obama years after your bizarro President, Donald Trump, was elected and our sophisticated, charming, debonair, young, image obsessed Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, rose to the world's media attention.

Alas ! When the history of our 23rd Prime Minister is writ...pretty much all that may need mention is "That India Trip" to challenge our preconceived perception and to pinpoint that week in 2018 when the wheels came off the charisma wagon.

We're about to legalize Marijuana in Canada. I am assuming perhaps that it was the celebratory Indian Ganja shared onboard the Prime Minister and his entourage's flight from Ottawa to India a few days back that kiboshed their official mission. And, somehow and in some unimaginable way (For no particular worthwhile reason) allowed our government's leader to parade and blunder his way, family and retinue in tow, in overly inappropriate Indian outfits across a chunk of southern Asia. All of which, to say the least in just about less than 72 hours, turned a really important international sortie into a bad joke and an international embarrassment. What could they possibly have been thinking ?

Pundits have suggested that there had been recent hints that bats were slippin' out of the belfry. One of which was a recent overzealous suggestion that the term 'mankind' should really be changed to 'peoplekind' to reflect gender neutrality - A comment Mr. Trudeau subsequently characterized as a silly joke - Be that as it may, the current India brouhaha has likely left the world's media to revise or downgrade some earlier glossy front page adorable fawning over our photogenic Prime-Minister. Even former advisors to other Liberal Prime Ministers have weighed-in with the opinion that there seemed to be little purpose, and clearly no proper planning to this get together of Canadian official misfits on Indian soil. In a blunt editorial even the 'Toronto Star', certainly not a newspaper unsympathetic to Canada's National Liberal Party, calls the India misadventure "(perhaps) the least successful foray into that country since the repelled Mongol invasions of the 13th century." - Yikes !

Canada's trade mission to India may be one for the books, the bad books. But there has also been little if any progress on the sputtering NAFTA talks with the United-States and Mexico, the Trans-Pacific deal (TPP) though still in talks, minus the USA, is progressing at a snails pace and though concluded,  there's been little if any more mention of the European Free Trade accord. Later in the spring, Prime Minister Trudeau presides over the G-7 Summit of world leaders at La Malbaie, an idyllic resort on Quebec's lower St. Lawrence River. The conclave will involve Donald Trump's first foray into Canada as President of the United-States. The world has a fairly good take on what Mr. Trump is all about. But in the afterglow of this India imbroglio, we may have suddenly been jolted into a revised notion of Mr. Trudeau's competence playing at the world's leadership table. Let's hope it's not too late to reverse the damage suffered, and that the next time our PM comes to play, he shows up as who 'HE IS' and not as a Mr. Dressup - The clown shoes have already been claimed by someone else already.

HAWAII CALLS

Clearly the Prime Minister and his handlers have (somehow) managed to convince the President of the United-States to appear and appease Mr. Harper's long sought photo opportunity over the penning of "Perimeter Security" lite: Booyah! And so what, if that pesky Mexican guy must tag along.

Three Amigos - Not exactly as shown.

High-Fives at the PMO in Ottawa as the White House confirmed late on Friday that President Obama is convening the North American government leaders and NAFTA partners to a summit of the "Three Amigos" in Honolulu on Sunday, November 13. Really just a brief get together after Obama hosts the leaders of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation, nations over that weekend in his hometown.

Frankly it's just we Canadians who may be sufficiently gullible to be sold a contrived photo-op which the handlers of "your Harper government" will tout as a sure sign of equality of purpose with the large economic power south of our border.

Amidst the mess back home, as Obama struggles to re-rail his failing presidency the last thing he wants is to appear to be facilitating business with foreigners (us!)  - Even less in the same breath explain to Mexican Honcho Calderon that he's opening-up Canada's borders while building a massive fence along Mexico's.  Fact is the "Three Amigos" last met when George Bush was President in 2009 at the Chateau Montebello Resort just south of Ottawa. In this case Obama and I suspect Calderone are happy to schedule the meeting as an afterthought to APEC, late on a Sunday afternoon in a time-zone 7 hours beyond the east-coast, and far enough away as possible from the prying-eyes of the American News networks.

Lest we be fooled: It's just the spin-doctors at Harperland Inc. who will doing their damned best to make sure this moment in history leads the following Monday's news headlines back here in the frozen north. The "Perimeter Security" pact announced with great fanfare the better part of a year ago was to have been finalized last summer. Instead, as Mr. Obama's popularity has tanked in the USA the negotiations have become an irritant and an embarrassment to the Harper Government: A "Buy America" provision has been tacked-on to Obama's jobs creation legislation. A new trade deal with Central America has re-introduced the $5.50 (per person) Customs user fee on Canadian travellers entering the United States, and legislators in Washington are agitating for U.S. ports to be given preferential treatment for goods entering North America from abroad.

Ay, Caramba! If this wasn't such a farce; I'd be expecting Don Ho to break-out into the Hawaiian Wedding Song.

TALKING WITH AMERICANS

The problem with the enhanced perimeter security discussions that Prime Minister Harper and President Obama spoke of just about nine months ago is that we perceive things differently. Approaching the ten year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, it's the "security" elements of the discussions which remain the focus of the American agenda. But as banks here on the northern side of the border lower growth forecasts for the Canadian economy, our agenda remains dominated by facilitating trade and easing the flow of goods and services across our "thickened" borders.

Mr. Harper has been mum on the subject since telling the Paris G-8 Summit back last spring that an action plan on this historic overhaul of Canada-U.S. Relations would be forthcoming this summer. In the ensuing months America's economic woes have worsened, the nation's $14+Trillion debt virtually brought the country (and the world) to its knees a few weeks back, and the Obama Administration has already engaged in a de-facto campaign to salvage the Presidential Election of November 2012. A significant measure of the opposition to Obama's agenda is fueled by a "Tea-Party" supported shift to more American protectionism.

Those who claim knowledge of and about the confidential and delayed (if not stalled) talks between our two countries say more than 30 significant files on, and aspects of, the cross-border relationship are being negotiated. And, there's ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that the political and economic climate south of the 49th parallel have slowed the forward movement on the talks. It's not just that everyone recalls Hillary Clinton's outburst: "Security trumps trade" in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Despite expending significant political capital and promises of Canadian Government loans, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder remains unable to convince his Legisture to back the plan to build a second bridge between Detroit and Windsor. Well financed opponents of the bridge project  have said that it..."stands in the way of American capitalism."

Though so far Canada seems to be making little perceivable gains on facilitating trade, just this week it appeared to bend on additional border security aspects. It's creating a new 50 officer RCMP contingent of experts in combatting illicit trade who will be deployed along the St. Lawrence River islands which form the international border east of Lake Ontario. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security already flies stealth un-manned observation aircraft along much of the Great Lakes basin and along the land border west of Ontario. It's believed that radar and sensor feeds along the border are a part of the perimeter security negotiations. With a Presidential election looming,  the Obama Administration is unlikely to acquiesce easily to Canada's trade "wish list" when American politicians back home believe Canada has a porous border which leaves the United-States vulnerable to terrorists slipping across the border to wreak havoc. Lest I digress: Lord knows; Obama had enough of an issue over his Quebec manufactured bus during his recent mid-western tour.

Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has already made it abundantly clear that these negotiations aren't going to be made in public. But the political vacuum in Parliament as a result of the recent death of Opposition Leader Jack Layton may very well mean that the secretive nature of the entire process undertaken to revamp Canada - U.S. relations by the Harper Government remains "under the radar" far too long.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

A weekend 'Globe and Mail' account of the Government's decision to restore the "Royal" prefix to the Navy and the Air Force describes the move as just one part of Prime Minister Harper's (grand) legacy plan to "create a new frame" for Canada. Patrick Muttart now a Chicago businessman and a former Deputy Chief of Staff to Harper says it's..."the emergence of a new alternative to the established Liberal narrative about Canada."

Much of the 40 (or so) year-old narrative Mr. Muttart describes is in the post 1967 Centennial legacy beget by the Trudeau Government and embraced across both sides of the political spectrum by the Governments of Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

Prime Minister Harper is just returned from a week-long mission to boost ties with Latin America. But the biggest failure of the government's efforts to reinforce Canada's place amongst the countries of  the lower Americas has been to imitate the failed United States approach in our relations with the island nation and the people of Cuba.

Since he took over from his brother Fidel, President Raul Castro has been deliberately nudging Cuba towards a freer market economy and slowly allowing more personal liberties. It's not perfect: Repressions, strict limits on speech, and human-right abuses still exist as they do in Columbia where Mr. Harper was last week to proclaim Canada's new Free Trade Accord with the government in Bogota. As they do in Honduras where, in addition to Costa Rica, Mr. Harper spent a couple of days promoting business and trade with Canadians.

This grand scheme in whichever manifestation by the Harper Government to re-frame Canadian history and derive an alternative to the last 40 years of Liberal narrative may risk jeopardizing our long-standing goodwill, economic, and tourism advantages with the people of Cuba. Canada earned Cuban respect and gratitude by being one of just two countries in the western world not to break diplomatic relations following the revolution in the 1960's. Fidel Castro acknowledged this historic bond by attending Pierre Trudeau's state funeral in Montreal on October 3, 2000.

One of a series of "secret" U.S. cables released by the infamous WikiLeaks last spring suggests that the Harper government's diplomatic posturing in central and south America is designed to gain influence and favour with the United-States. But, as the co-author of - "Canada-Cuba Relations: The Other Good Neighbour Policy" (Peter McKenna) points out: "The Canadian government's approach to Cuba is out of sync...all at a time when the Obama presidency is looking to change the tenor of U.S. - Cuba relations."

For example, President Obama in 2009 removed the restrictions on the travel of American Cuban exiles imposed by President George W. Bush that limited Cuban-Americans to one trip home every three years. Now they can go as often as they want to visit family members. An estimated 400,000 took U.S. charter flights to Cuba last year. To digress: (I've posted about this before) - Cuban authorities charge a 25% import duty on each gift brought into the country by the visiting Cuban-Americans. (See: "FELIZ NAVIDAD" Dec. 19, 2010)

It's almost too late to act before the Canadian government's regressive diplomatic policies towards the island nation of Cuba are outstripped by the Obama administration's desire and efforts to tap the enormous trade and economic potential which exists just off the North American coast. In spite of the roughly 900,000 Canadian tourists who visit Cuba each year, Mr. Harper's diplomatic holding pattern has Canada gambling our goodwill and storied relationship with the Cubans.

MIXED SIGNALS ALONG THE BORDER

There's plenty of anecdotal ammunition to suggest that the "Council of the Federation" meeting of Canadian Premiers just wrapped-up in Vancouver accomplished almost nothing in unifying the provinces: The founder of the "council" Quebec's Jean Charest didn't attend and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty upped and left early to deal with matters back home.

Perhaps it's because there are five Provincial Elections in the works for the fall (and potential for a possible record seven elections) that just about everyone brought an intransigent series of wants and needs to the table. Quebec and Ontario want to re-open the Canada Health Act discussions; the Atlantic Provinces agitate for greater Federal Transfers; Saskatchewan is still smarting over the sale of Potash Corp. debacle; and Alberta and British Columbia want trade deals with the Far East.

With the provinces bickering over regional matters and without any common accord to raise pressure on the Federal Government, it's pretty clear that Prime Minister Harper's parliamentary majority in the House of Commons will remain free to set both the agenda and the course of debate come the return of Members of Parliament in the latter part of September.

Though the Obama Administration is somewhat pre-occupied with a debt crisis which threatens to flatten the planet's most powerful economy. Canada's Federal Government seems undeterred by evidence of the sputtering thirty year old "Mulroney" Conservative ideological belief that what ails Canada is easily fixed by increasing trade south with the Americans. If in a post 9/11 reality this simplistic solution worked then everyone assumes the provincial governments could easily be brought "on board" and their demands for additional funding from Ottawa (for whatever cause) would be satiated.

Unfortunately border perimeter security has been the all consuming top priority of the Government of the United States since the heinous attacks on the homeland ten years ago this fall. And, the reality no Canadian Government seems willing to acknowledge under the current circumstances is that trade and security are mutually exclusive. Add the ongoing melt-down of the United-States economy in the aftermath of the great-recession of 2008 and the attendant rise of American protectionism, and the pop-up perfect economic storm risks leaving Canada's export dependant provinces and Federal coffers battered and bruised beyond reasonable recovery.

Mr. Harper has vowed to press forward negotiating with the Americans to cut "red-tape" and bureaucratic inefficiencies which frequently trump reason at the border. But in reality, with the prospect of a bitter and divisive Presidential Election campaign just over the horizon, Mr. Obama's adversaries are sure to make sure America's security boot on Canada's economic throat remains firmly in place. Already the Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is being pressed to respond to a sharply critical report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (The GAO) which claims that the American Customs and Border Protection Agency provides an "acceptable level of security along less than one percent of the border." The study commissioned by the GAO applied the criteria used by the US towards guarding its border with Mexico, and concludes that Border Patrol agents can exercise proper control over just 51 kilometers of the 6400 kilometer border between Canada and the United States - Based on its Mexican model, the GAO implies that the U.S. "does not have the ability to detect illegal activity across most of the northern border."

The Mulroney era free-trader model may have been good for business 30 years ago. Excepting Canada's finite vast energy resources; it now seems essential for our future prosperity as a nation to look outside of the immediate neighbourhood to modernize our trading model - Whether the provinces can agree or not on what precisely it is they want.

1-2-3 "RED" LIGHT!

Faced with an economy so fragile that this week Standard & Poor's issued an unprecedented warning to the U.S. to fix it's financial woes or risk it's credit rating; the Obama Administration can ill afford to offend America's Cuban diaspora.

As the joke goes; our neighbour's economy is so bad that a truckload of Americans has been recently caught sneaking "into" Mexico...I digress. Both the economic and political clout of the the Cuban exiles and their descendants now scattered throughout many southern states (and beyond) is sufficient to deliver the State of Florida and to influence the results in many others in American Presidential politics.

So that despite the rhetoric of his first campaign on easing the five decades old hostilities between Cuba and the United-States; it seems at the threshold of his campaign for a second term, Mr. Obama is prepared to reverse course. In Washington though U.S. officials think that they have done enough to elicit a more positive response from Cuba; in reality the easing of travel restrictions for Cuban exiles in America to visit relatives and families on the island is their only concrete achievement. And the exiles in Florida and elsewhere have warmly embraced the change. Hundreds of charter flights shuttle between Miami and Havana each week...but they are loathe to support any measures which would open-up tourism for "other" Americans to the Caribbean Island 90 miles offshore.

In the American capital they say that it's Cuba which has soured the political climate. The current irritant is the detention and 15-year jailing of contractor Alan Gross for spying. The U.S. Government claims that Mr. Gross was in Cuba to expand Internet services for Jewish groups but concedes that he entered the island on a tourist visa that would not permit such work. And, his work was funded under a U.S. Government program aimed at "promoting democracy in Cuba" - A program which the Cubans claim is part of a long term campaign to topple their government.

Overshadowed by the crisis in North Africa, the former Democrat President, Jimmy Carter, spent three days in Havana from March 28 under the auspices of the "Carter Center Foundation" which was founded in 1982, the year after he left the Presidency. Under the guise of various enterprises since Mr. Obama's election, both former Presidents Carter and Bill Clinton have travelled as "de facto" emissaries of the administration. The Carter Center claimed that the ex-President sought to learn about..."new economic policies and the upcoming Party Congress (held last weekend." Though it's widely rumoured that in a private "tete a tete" with President Raul Castro, Carter advised that, for the reasons just outlined, Obama was backing away from the fragile improvements until into his second term of office...Ah; assuming he has one.

Fidel Castro reportedly said on the weekend that it just never occurred to him to step-down as Chair of the Cuban Communist Party after he handed the country's Presidency to his brother Raul five years ago. Be that as it may; yesterday the full transfer of power was (apparently) completed when President Raul also became Communist Party chief. It was Prime-Minister John Diefenbaker who in 1961, primarily because he couldn't stand President Kennedy, refused to follow America's lead and cut-off Cuba. Canadians have had an up-and-down relationship since, but some economic ties particularly pertaining to the tourism industry have remained strong. Recently, each winter about 3/4 of a million Canadian tourists descend on Cuba to inject about $700-Million into the Cuban economy. It's an economic relationship that Cuba can ill afford to jeopardize.

Back then John Diefenbaker believed that with the United-States breaking relations, Canada could fill the gap. In general subsequent (Liberal) Prime Ministers, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau subscribed to the idea. Pierre Trudeau in particular had a warm personal relationship with Fidel Castro. But with the rapprochement of our shared economic vision to that of the United-States under the free-trade accords of the early 1990's, the political relationship with the island nation has chilled. Tourism aside, our bilateral relations have been "shaded" by the United-States.

And - It seems that when it comes to U.S. - Cuba relations, old habits die hard. Perhaps only for purely political gains in the 2012 Presidential elections down south, both the Americans and the Cubans are on the verge of falling back into old antagonistic ways which will obscure whatever progress had been made and hinder further advances. In the end; we may all lose.

SUPPOSE YOUR "WIKI" LEAKS

The Canadian Security intelligence Service (CSIS) has a list of people "permanently bound to secrecy" under the country's Security Information Act. I am not one of them.

In the nation's capital nothing happens quite by accident. All the more so when a "control freak" is at the helm, as others have described the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

Last fall when a draft communications plan to sell Canadians on a secretive agreement with the Obama Administration titled: "Beyond The Border; A Shared Vision For Perimeter Security And Competitiveness" was leaked to the media, Canada's government went into overdrive to deny the agreement was set for President Obama and Prime Minister Harper signatures in January. It's an omnibus agreement which aims to facilitate the cross-border transfer of goods and services between our two nations in the aftermath of the so-called "thickening of our 5000 mile border" since the savage terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Supporters and proponents of the deal say a North American perimeter security pact is the obvious next logical step. Despite its reluctance to confirm the details of any agreement in the works, the Federal Government has trotted-out a number of high profile public supporters of the "shared vision" including five former Canadian Ambassadors to Washington and several former Government officials involved in the Free-Trade Accord of the 1980's and its subsequent follow-up evolution the "North American Free Trade Accord" (NAFTA.)

Of course the Devil is always in details. Even though the Harper Government has been reluctant to clarify just what is involved in this new tentative deal with the American Government, the widely anticipated "tete-a-tete" between President Obama and Prime Minister Harper has been delayed while officials grapple with the details of the accord. There are a couple of "sticky" issues, and recent seemingly unrelated developments within Canada, may (in fact) be designed to allay American demands and / or concerns. They involve both Canada's northernmost border, as well as our southern border along the United States.

U.S. Homeland Security has identified a serious flaw in the country's strict control over who enters and leaves American soil: It is done at airports and seaports, but there is no way to track who is leaving the United States along the dozens of land-routes which enter into Canada. The fear is that terrorists, extremists and others who would do harm can drive across the border and grab a flight out of Canada without knowledge. As an essential part of the "perimeter" agreement, Homeland Security wants the Canada Border Services Agency's (CBSA) list of who is entering the country from the United States. The issue could be directly related to the Harper Government's adamant rejection of additional landing rights in Canada for the Middle Eastern air carriers "Emirates Airline" and "Etihad Airways." The resulting diplomatic rift has led to the cancellation of Canada's nine-year military lease on a Middle Eastern airfield used to transfer troops and supplies to Afghanistan; as well as unprecedented Visa restrictions for Canadians wishing to enter the United Arab Emirates.

Up at the Arctic border, America's giant Massachusetts based defence contractor Raytheon covets the management contract for the North Warning System (NWS). On 9/11, NORAD lost significant minutes in tracking the five hijacked passenger jets over the United States because it's Radars, like the guns of France's fabled "Maginot Line," were aimed "out of country" rather than inward...I digress. The remotely monitored "North Warning System" Radars built in 1992 are controlled from an underground bunker in North Bay, Ontario, but it's a joint Alberta and first nations (Inuit) firm that holds the maintenance contract. Raytheon has its sights on the contract worth about $70-Million per year of which about 60% is paid by the American Government. It expires in the fall. The 47 automated Radar sites are located on Inuit land, and the Aboriginal have invoked land-claims agreements to kibosh the Harper Government's international tender-call.

The volatility intensifies if you add a potential Canadian Federal election in the not too distant future. Critics and opponents of the proposed "perimeter security" agreement are claiming already that the additional collaboration with Homeland Security and the U.S. Defence establishment poses serious Canadian privacy and sovereignty concerns.

Ultimately improving the flow of goods and services between our two countries is a worthwhile objective. However in its current context, the political cost may be beyond any national party's ability to withstand once the details see the light of day.

A CHARMED OFFENSIVE

"Go north, young man, go north," screams the header in the 'Washington Times' daily newspaper earlier in the week; extolling the virtues of America's neighbour to the north of the 49th parallel.

Granted the conservative leaning "Times" doesn't quite have the cachet of the venerable 'Washington Post'. But in Washington, the world's most influential city, one takes compliments and accolades where one can. I quote: "Now, instead of expanding Canada's welfare state, the Conservative government led by Mr. Harper is intent upon building the nation's global competitiveness...The last time Canadians really caught Americans' eyes was when prime ministers (sic) such as Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, both leaders of the Liberal Party, were proving uncooperative in the realm of foreign policy."

Game, Set, Match: The battle is engaged for the hearts and minds of Canadians for "Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Competitiveness" - The omnibus agreement negotiated between the Obama Administration and the Government of Canada which will be announced when Prime Minister Harper and President Obama meet before month's end.

There was a time (not so long ago) when Canadians prided over the line separating our country from the United States, which stretches 5,500 miles (8,900 Kilometers) as the world's "longest undefended border". Alas, since the attacks of September 11, 2001 our "thickening" border has suffered a decline of goods shipments from Canada to the United States from 87% of our national output, to 73% for the last full year of which figures were compiled: 2009. Exporters have been screaming at successive government's about how much more difficult it's become for people and goods to cross-on over the other side.

Though Mr. Harper's government seems to be purposely keeping opponents in the dark as long as possible about this alleged revised version of the failed Fortress North America perimeter agreement. Opponents believe it could harmonize immigration, customs and national security policies. Essentially making Canada adopt American policies in just about every matter related to continental security in order to expedite the flow of goods, services and travellers across our international border.

Conspiracy theorists will vouch that timing is almost too good to be accidental: Just this week thousands of Canadians lined-up for hours at the Buffalo, New York border crossings to be processed (passports in hand) to attend the World Junior Hockey Championship games, where they made up more than 80% of fans. And; eventually to witness Canada's dream team being humiliated by the Russians in the Gold Medal final. Dirty "Ruskies!" - Digressions aside: Won't that just about justify Harper's purchase of those F-35 stealth fighter airplanes from our American allies?

The stakes for Mr. Harper's political future are close to extreme. If he does not win a majority in the next election which is widely expected before the end of 2011. Then, pretty much everything for him will get worse, and despite his iron-clad grip on the Conservative Party, his caucus will likely opt to have him spend more time with his family and less being a leader; as was observed in the wake of this week's Cabinet "shufflette".

One suspects that it`s easy enough with the right spin to charm both Canadians and Americans. After all, in the United-States Canadian rockers "Arcade Fire," Hip-Hop artist "Drake" and teen heart-throb "Justin Beiber" already are at the very apex of the music charts. And, let`s not forget Canuck doughnut icon Tim Hortons Inc., which is the second fastest growing fast-food restaurant chain in the country. A nation which is so desperate for jobs in the aftermath of its endless recession that cheap restaurants in America have become a haven for the nation's economy battered job seekers. A country recently described by the 'Los Angeles Times' as a nation of hamburger flippers where the rate of poverty has risen to close to 15%; the highest level in more than 50 years...I digress (somewhat).

A couple of years back Mr. Harper`s government paid handsomely for two well connected U.S. media consultants, including former George W.Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, to secure the Prime Minister podiums on Fox News and CNN to shill government and party initiatives. This week`s presumed plant in `The Washington Times` is probably just more of the same...Fox News and CNN interviews will doubtless follow.

As for our Canadian hearts and minds: Toronto media outlets have confirmed that Mr. Harper`s own former spin-doctor, Communications Director Kory Teneycke, is returning from his embarrassingly forced sabbatical to take-over Quebecor`s ``Sun-TV News`` before it launches in early March.

MAYBE IT IS US!

An international poll being published this week at the onset of the G-8 and G-20 twin summits in Toronto suggests that one of Canada's greatest failures is as a world trading partner.

It seems the key impediments are in large measure within our own borders because provinces and territories are often at protectionist logger-head over such basic issues as trade, professional and worker qualifications. Let alone the free flow of products and services from one province into one, or out of another.

For instance the Minister of Transportation, John Baird, was in Michigan last month making a very public case to take down the barriers to allow construction of a new bridge to promote trade between Windsor and Detroit. But; a bottle of Moose Head Beer brewed in New Brunswick is still being sold (if at all) west of the Quebec border as a premium "imported" lager. Just last week, Newfoundland's Premier was accusing neighbouring Quebec of..."thwarting growth across Eastern Canada" over yet another decision involving the transmission of hydro generated power into the United States market. So it goes: But, just how should we expect our international trade efforts to be recognized and succeed if in a nation of just 30 million we can't settle internal trading issues amongst our own ten provinces.

I have just returned from four or five days of business related travel into southern portions of New Brunswick, the province where I was born. Lest I digress; in these first warm days of this 2010 summer, I was struck by the verdant green colours of the "Picture Province's" vast pine and spruce forests devastated during my childhood by the rampant dreaded "Spruce Budworm" which had turned the millions of acres of forested regions into dull brown dead overgrowth.

Viewed from my Ontario perspective where I have lived for just about 30 years, I confess to having difficulty with the concept of a reality whereby none of the four Atlantic Provinces has a population greater than the single National Capital Region of Ottawa/Gatineau, the twin cities where I reside. In fact, New Brunswick's own population of 750,000 is about the same as the single industrial southern Ontario city of Hamilton. Yet as a province it's tax and rate payers are encumbered with supporting and maintaining the reality, infrastructures, costs and every other elements of a full fledged partner (in fact an original partner) of Canada's 143 year-old nationhood. In the cold light of modern economic realism, this may not make much sense.

Out west; Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia have been taking a hard look at their own not dis-similar situation. Earlier this spring (in late April), they announced the "New West Partnership" agreement which will create Canada's biggest inter provincial barrier-free trade and investment market. Not only does the effort combine the strength of the economies of the three provinces but a couple of the partnership's keystone elements include a procurement agreement whereby the western provinces have combined their buying power; as well as an international co-operation agreement which launched four week's ago when Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. essentially took over responsibility for their own business dealings with China, the world's fastest growing economy, by opening a trade and investment office in Shanghai, China's financial capital.

By contrast, Prince Edward Island's effort this summer will be to spend a million dollars to host the syndicated "Regis and Kelly" American television morning gabfest for two or three days in Charlottetown in mid-July...Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams blames the greed, arrogance and entitlement displayed by his neighbour (Quebec) for milking Newfoundland dry over the infamous Churchill Falls hydro agreement signed 41 years ago...and which should have long ago been either forgotten or relegated to the pile of learned experiences along with Brian Peckford's hydroponic cucumber operations; The so-called Newfoundland "pickle palace" of the 1980's.

There's hope still for our Atlantic Provinces. Perhaps a good first step would be to work with (and on) the synergies, infrastructures and projects which unite them rather than with economic realities which are no bigger than most of Quebec and Ontario's main cities.

GRAPES AND WRATH

Infrastructure supporting the emerging wine producing regions of Chile has been seriously incapacitated by the recent earthquake which rocked South-America's most advanced nation. It's one more blow to the bitter harvest of wine producers from the effects of last year's global recession.

Canadian wineries have been among the worst affected; not just because of the recession but just as much by the poor weather during the summer of 2009 and passport rules which have choked-off U.S. visitors to the wine regions of Ontario and British Columbia. In the fertile Niagara peninsula it is estimated that as much as 10,000 tons of grapes died on the vines last fall because they could not be sold.

The producers of the premium wines have been among the most vocal and most affected. They claim that poor government regulations have compounded the situation and are killing this internationally recognized industry. It involves a so-called labelling loop-hole which some say has hoodwinked consumers into believing wines labelled "Cellared In Canada" are actually Canadian.

The Vintners Quality Alliance through its VQA Label ensures that wineries adhere to regulations which require that the product is made with 100 per cent grapes grown on Canadian soil. But: Under a separate program which was adopted by the Canadian Standards Board in 1996, wines designated "Cellared in Canada" actually contain anywhere from 70% (in Ontario) to 100% (in British-Columbia) of wine which comes from cheaper foreign producing countries (including Chile)...as long as it's been bottled in Canada.

As many as 50,000 tonnes of wine a year are imported to be used in bottles that will be labelled "Cellared in Canada." In its most recent estimates from 2008, 3.3 million litres of VQA Ontario wines were sold...compared with 23 Million litres of "Cellared in Canada" wines. It's a wine labelling nightmare which several experts claim has tarnished Canada's reputation..."if a country can't sort out its wine labelling, why should the rest of the world take it seriously?"

The importers of the foreign wines say it's never been their intention to deceive anyone or confuse consumers. In fact the three largest producers plan to roll-out new labels to clarify the content. On the west coast, British-Columbia's Minister of Agriculture has threatened that otherwise, the wines made from foreign grapes will be moved-out of the B.C. products section of government liquor stores.

Climate change and advances in hybrid grape growing could encourage additional regions to develop a wine industry. But, producers in Ontario in particular say the "Cellared in Canada" controversy is killing progress and the advances made in the latter years of the 20th century. They say consumers think they are buying local products when that may not be the case.

LIKE BEGGING FOR SCRAPS

The Department of National Defence is attempting to deflect criticism by putting the best possible spin on news from the the U.S. Pentagon that the Americans will not share the sophisticated codes that program the new F-35 jet interceptor.

The Canadian government has invested half-a-billion dollars in the development of the F-35, "Lightning II", so-called Joint Strike Fighter, which made two maiden flights shrouded in secrecy at the Patuxet River (Maryland), Naval Air Station 10 days ago.

Canada is one of eight NATO members that have put-up a partner's share of the development costs of the jet fighter which is being built by Lockheed-Martin at the company's fabled California "Skunkworks". The partners have now been told by the Pentagon, in no uncertain terms, that "no country" will be given access to the software codes that program the aircraft's sophisticated electronic systems. Critics claim that without the codes, any participating or purchasing partner will require American involvement in maintaining and/or upgrading the future needs of the F-35. So incensed are the British that the U.K.'s air force has threatened to cancel its order for 138 of the jet fighters.

Canada has been looking at spending more than $10-billion to buy the fighter beginning in 2017 to replace our ageing fleet of the American (McDonald-Douglas) built CF-18 "Hornet". It appears that in order to deflect any criticism back home, National Defence has trotted-out a charm offensive over our significant joint involvement and sharing of resources with the Americans in NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command. It just so happens that NORAD is currently undergoing a review of its resources which, since the end of the Cold-War, are more appropriately aimed at protecting major cities from attacks by terrorists. A Canadian, Major-General Pierre Forgues, is in charge of this review as Director of Operations for NORAD. He's now apparently been tasked with making the media rounds to tout our involvement in the protection of the continent.

The scenario playing-out over the development of the F-35 "Joint Strike Fighter" all sounds too familiar. Half a century ago the U.S. Government of President Dwight Eisenhower torpedoed the Canadian developed CF-105 Avro "Arrow" because it was superior to any aircraft the Americans then had in their fleet or in development, and they did not want that to occur. We were subsequently sold 75 used CF-101 "Voodoos" by the U.S. Air Force. The half-dozen "Arrows" build were cut-up for scrap and Canada lost the best and brightest brains of the world's aerospace sector. They emigrated to the United-States where they became the backbone of the Apollo "moonwalk" program a dozen years later.

FROM THE OTHER SIDE

It may be argued these days that from an economic perspective Canada is better off than its much larger partner the United-States. Recent statistics indicate that Canada's unemployment rate is below 9%; the Americans are at about 10%. Governments in both countries are tallying-up enormous deficits...but on a per capita basis, Canada's remains well below America's monstrous debt.

Still though it is good to get the occasional perspective from the "other side". That's what I aim to do as I head south through nine of the Atlantic Seaboard States into central Florida...abandoning the miserable winter of eastern Ontario for the warmth and the perspective of a winter spent amongst our American brethren.

The drive through the next week is steeped in American history, from the majestic "Thousand Islands", through the coal mining communities of Pennsylvania; the historic Civil War battlegrounds of the Washington belt-way...Gettysburg, the Mason/Dixon Line, the Shenandoah Valley, the Dixie Capital of Richmond, and on to Petersburg, Savannah and well beyond.

Because of Canada's "minority government" status the threat of a Federal Election is forever present. But, the worse seems to have passed for now and the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is planning trips to China and to India. Both countries are emerging economic forces in the post crash months since the collapse of world markets about a year ago.

Getting, and subsequently reporting on these pages, America's perspective on and opinion of Canada will be all the more significant over the months ahead. On the domestic front, the first half of 2010 at least will be enormously significant for Canada's international status and reputation. The final determination of our contribution to the world's quarrel with Afghanistan may be a year away...in the meantime though Canada will host the world at the Winter Olympic Games of 2010 in February in British Columbia. It is widely expected that in early spring our delegation to the United Nations will be elected to an always important seat on the "Security Council": A matter which could be of significant interest to the United States as the world grapples with crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and the always existing tensions of the Middle East.

By early summer Huntsville, Ontario will receive both the world's G-8 Summit Leaders and the G-20 Economic Summit. It is widely anticipated that the Queen will travel to Canada to open one or perhaps both of these "World Stage" events. The G-20 is widely credited with pulling back the planet from the brink of economic collapse during the past 18 months. World powers owe a debt of gratitude to Canada: Specifically to the former Prime-Minister, Paul Martin, who as our Finance Minister in 1997, created the "Group of 20" and hosted its two first meetings in Montreal and in Ottawa.

With eyes opened-wide and my ears perked for the latest insight, even gossip sometimes; I am anxious to focus on the topics of interest to matters of politics in Canada from the widened perspective and insight of the all significant most powerful country on earth, The United States of America. Sometimes it helps to see ourselves as others see us. As always I shall value your comments, interest and input. Let this journey begin!

RILED-UP - NO PLACE TO VENT

A few weeks back after the European Union invoked a ban on the importation of seal products from Canada, French film legend Brigitte Bardot vowed to boycott Maple Syrup.

Ms Bardot has been a vocal opponent of Canada's seal hunt for more than 30 years. Now in the twilight of her career, It seems that dissing Canada is about the only thing the aged European sex-kitten has got remaining on her agenda. Canada produces about 85% of the world's maple syrup, and Bardot contends that a world boycott of the product would pressure Canadians to reconsider our position on the annual harvest of seals off the east coast. Bardot's ally in the cause against "Maple Syrup" is PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). It was on a PETA blog that she called for the world's pancake lovers to rise-up...comparing the idea to the 2003 American boycott of French wines over the Iraq War.

Brigitte Bardot who is about to turn 75 was last seen in Canada in March of 2006. She hitched her visit then on the heels of the much publicised high-profile jaunt through the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward Island by Sir Paul McCartney and his then wife, Heather Mills to protest the seal hunt. At the time Bardot was given the cold shoulder on a whistle stop through Ottawa where both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Fisheries refused her requests to meet.

It probably isn't much of a knock-out punch to Bardot's latest crusade. It's even doubtful she's heard the news. This past weekend Parks Canada, the agency responsible for the country's national monuments and historic sites, unveiled a plaque in MacDonalds' Corners in eastern Ontario honouring the..."Production of Maple Syrup as an event of national historic significance." Sweet!....No pun intended.

As of this month, the E.U. ban on the importation of seal products is in effect in each of the Union's 27 member countries. The Government of Canada is now challenging the action before the World Trade Organization as an unfair trade restriction. If maple syrup is next on the hit-list producers in the $220-million industry will at least have a plaque to be remembered by.

CAN'T WE "JETZ" GO?

The Prime-Minister's brief 36 hour visit to the USA provided several photo-ops for the folks back home but few tangible results on key areas of Canadian concern: Hardening of our mutual border; buy American provisions imposed by Congress; and Afghanistan.

Pretty much touted as the only significant achievement on the whirlwind visits to the White House, Capitol Hill and then on to New York; was a somewhat nebulous agreement so that Air Canada "Jetz" may continue to fly professional sports teams from city to city within the USA; a practice commonly known as "cabotage". In an unexpected turn of events, on September 4, the American Department of Transportation had banned Air Canada from the practice throwing the carrier's exclusive wholly owned subsidiary; "Jetz" into panic and chaos.

Though Prime Minister Harper is a devoted NHL fan and his love of hockey surely helped. The fix to the Air Canada malaise was more the doing of the Minister of Transport, John Baird; seconded by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawrence Cannon: Both of whom (as is known in Ottawa circles) are adept at backroom arm twisting. It seems that there was a lot more than the practice of "cabotage" to the sudden surprising decision by U.S. Transport authorities to clip the Canadian bird's wings earlier in the month.

Lest I abuse of the birds and wings metaphor - I like to pigeon hole discussion points: First the background then the issue: For the uninitiated, Air Canada "Jetz" is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Montreal based Canadian flag carrier. It operates a fleet of five specially configured Airbus A-320 passenger jets exclusively for the high end charter business. In the case at hand, millionaire hockey playing members of the National Hockey League. Curious about how special the aircraft are? For starters, a regular Air Canada A-320 carries 146 passengers. A "Jetz" Airbus has 64 seats. "Jetz" has carried rock bands U-2, the Rolling Stones and several others on world and North American tours.

But - the main business of the charter carrier is professional sports teams. Its exclusive domain includes all six Canadian NHL franchises, the Toronto Raptors, the Boston Bruins and until the September 4th action from Washington was also about to include the Anaheim Ducks. And - Therein lay the problem! Legacy carriers, Delta, American, United, US Airways and several charter operatives south of the border have seen profits vanish and red ink flowing by the billions through the recessionary period. Predictions for this fall travel season are even worse.

Gary Bettman aside, the National Hockey League is a Canadian institution, and senior managers in most American franchises have connections to Canada. Our national carrier has been aggressive both in lobby efforts and in touting "Jetz" as the carrier of choice for NHL teams south of the border. When the U.S. Department of Transportation issued its edict against the carrier on September 4th, not only did it ice the deal with the Anaheim Ducks, but it froze confidential negotiations underway with the St. Louis Blues and the New Jersey Devils as well as an extended renewal deal with the Boston Bruins. Unprecedented pressure was being applied to transportation bureaucrats in Washington D.C. by airlines and their employee unions in the United States. Reflective of the American Congress desire to "Buy American", the Department of Transportation was only too happy to oblige and freeze the Canadian competitor all the way out of the USA.

When Ministers John Baird and Lawrence Canon were seized with the real motive behind Air Canada's clipped wings, the Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, though himself a Republican, albeit one with the same Illinois connections as the President, relented to avoid embarrassing Barack Obama during Harper's short 45 minute visit to the Oval Office. Obama's retaliatory message was clear when he sent an unknown underling to greet Harper at the front door to the White House. Diplomatic niceties aside: Now you know! Surely Air Canada will happily oblige if the Conservatives need a campaign plane for the next election.

THE PACHYDERM NEXT DOOR

Another manifestation of the decades' old conundrum of the mouse sleeping next to the elephant: Prime Minister Harper heads to Washington and New York to repeat Canada's case against America's growing trade protectionism.

Wednesday's one-hour photo-op with Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the world's most famous mansion is really more for the folks back home. It's basically designed to raise Harper's international profile just in case a Parliamentary misstep back in Ottawa plunges the country into a Federal election no one wants. And, for which some politicians would likely to get a severe thrashing at the polls...I digress.

Futile as the open trade effort may be. Harper and those who surround him know these days the real power in Washington comes from the Democrat controlled Houses of Congress. Though D.C. and the rest of the United-States are mired in the more pressing issues of the health care reform debate - both leading Congressional Democrats; Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and Harry Read, the Senate Majority Leader, have at least made time to hear the Prime Minister state his case on Capitol Hill Thursday morning, before he heads to New York for a speech to the Canadian-American Business Council.

Any power has pretty well eroded from all three levels of Government here at home to mitigate against the impact on the Canadian business sector of the "Buy American" provisions which were included in the close to One-Trillion dollar U.S. stimulus plan adopted by Congress late in the spring of this year. At July's meeting of Canadian Municipalities in Whistler B.C. it took several behind the scenes arm-twisting initiatives from Federal officials to narrowly avoid the additional embarrassment to Canada of having the country's major cities refusing to do business with the United States in retaliation...after all that is not the Canadian way!

There is some anecdotal evidence frankly that some Americans; Governors in particular, may be getting tired of Canada's whining against U.S. protectionism.
Just wrapping-up today in Saint John, New Brunswick is the annual conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers. I was the CBC's lead reporter at the first conference 33 years ago in Sugarbush, Vermont...as well as the second: In St. Andrews, New Brunswick...and third in Chatham (Cape Cod), Massachusetts - Humour me, I am old and given to digression. - This week's session in Saint John hasn't received much media attention. It seems to me far less than past conferences. Perhaps telling is that Governors from Connecticut and New Hampshire didn't bother to attend, while Massachusetts' representative was the State's Lieutenant-Governor. The six New England Governors combined represent a population of about 40-million American consumers, clear targets of lobbying by the Premier of Quebec and his four Atlantic provinces counterpart: Graham of New Brunwick; Ghiz of P.E.I; Williams of Newfoundland; and Nova Scotia's Dexter...all hit as hard as any other Canadian region by the economic meltdown which began in the U.S. a year ago.

Tradition dictates that the 2010 meeting of the Governors and Premiers take place in the United States. The economy may turn better in the interim. It's hard to tell though whether America's spiral into protectionism, fueled by an ongoing psychosis over securing and hardening its borders, will also turn-around no matter what arguments Canada may advance on the issue. If we're going to bed down with an elephant, maybe we should be planting peanuts!

TIDBITS FROM THE DESK

In the midst of these "dog daze" of the summer of 2009, and as Hurricane "Bill" huffs and puffs into a category 4 storm through the Caribbean, let's take a moment to clear-out a backlog of accumulated notes on my workspace.

Best to clean these out; after all it's a matter of short time before our Parliamentarians return to their Ottawa offices...the debate in the House of Commons sinks to new inconceivable lows...and the blind race towards an election no one wants heats up to a fever pitch.

-AIRLINES, AEROPLANES AND RECESSIONS DON'T MIX
Doubtless it's been a tough tourist season for Canada's air carriers. Visa and Passport restrictions have reduced cross-border travel. Summer load factors have slumped and aviation consultants predict "lean, dark times" for the usually slow fall period. Air Canada is mired in debt once more...the word bankruptcy has been bandied about. It won't happen...but if it did, for the second time in one decade, it could usher-in irreversible damage for our national flag carrier. WestJet had been counting on a cash infusion from SouthWest Airlines in the USA. The two airlines follow the same business model, and were to enter into a code-sharing arrangement this summer. Code-sharing involves booking flights on each other's routes. Instead, SouthWest has pocketed the money to bankroll a bid to buy bankrupt Denver based discount carrier, Frontier Airlines. And, orders for Bombardier's business jet aircraft are said to be down about 40% as client companies, like GM, Chrysler and others shed their private aircraft and adjust to the new economic realities.

-WHERE'S THE MISSING LOOT?
If the Royal Canadian Mint can find it, maybe the airlines could use it. Very little has transpired...er, well nothing really...since the Federal Government called-in the RCMP to investigate the disappearance of more than $15-million in gold from the mint. It has been almost a year since auditors at Ottawa's most heavily guarded building started to query how a thousand pounds of gold went missing from the Fort Knox like vaults on Sussex Drive. Although "who's got the loot?" (Bernie Madoff? Earl Jones? Michael Jackson?) has become a favorite parlour game in the Capital, the daily "Ottawa Citizen" reported this week that the Mounties have yet to launch their government ordered investigation..."That suggests they don't suspect the missing gold has been stolen." The Mint's bean-counters are knee-deep in the middle of three ongoing "last-ditch" efforts to account for the missing bullions. Lest of course they be knee-deep in dark doo-doo if they can't find anything.

-TIMMY, IN FOR THE DUNKIN'
Going for the gold? Invaders from the north became the darlings of the "Big Apple" over the summer months when Tim Horton's took over about a dozen former Dunkin Donuts stores in New York City. The stores are owned by franchisee Riese Corporation. Some will recall a few year's back the scandal when photos were published showing mice on the racks of one of their Manhattan Dunkin' stores. Obviously engaging in a rear guard action against "Buy American" provisions. New Yorkers have apparently fallen in love with Tim's rich calorie laden Ice Cappucinos. If we can't beat'em, maybe we can clog their arteries. Tim Horton's reported earlier this month that it now has 536 restaurants down in the USA. Same store sales in the United-States have grown as much as 5% over last year. Sales at the Canadian stores, of which there are just short of 3000, grew less than 2% during the same period. The company has said it may have to raise prices in Canada to meet its year-end goals. The American owned McDonald's restaurants, Canada's second largest chain, have been increasing pressure on the Canadian icon by offering discounted breakfast and premium coffee options. Roll-up The Rim to see who wins!

FOOLS RUSH IN

Unlike Chrysler and General Motors, our elected parliamentary elite (oxymoron?) cast Nortel adrift when the technology giant faced financial collapse. Truth be told, Nortel once the darling of the world's telecommunications industry had been poorly managed and sucked dry for years. Come to think of it so have Chrysler and GM.

Nortel is bankrupt: Be that as it may now in its wisdom, the House of Commons Industry Committee is meeting in emergency session on Friday to discuss the court ordered bidding process which netted Ericcson of Sweden one and half billion dollars' worth of its technology. Horror of horrors!

It is mid-August, the silly season in sleepy "By Town", politicians doubtless bored in their own home ridings...time for a taxpayer funded late week jaunt back to the Capital - Here they come, all 12 members of the committee and doubtless a retinue of hangers-on.

It is hard to believe that sabre-rattling from Canada's new technology darling, Waterloo based Research In Motion hasn't had something to do with this latest "prise de conscience" from our politicians. Jim Balsillie, RIM's billionaire owner, raised a stink after claims his company had been excluded from bidding for Nortel's technology. As witnessed by his efforts to get an NHL hockey franchise into Hamilton, Ontario; Mr. Balsillie can be tenacious (if not obsessed) when it comes to something he's wishing for.

No doubt it also helps that Micheal Chong, the Industry Committee chairman who called the urgent meeting in Ottawa, is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills. His riding is deep in the heart of RIM's southwestern Ontario home turf. Hanging from the coat tails of this little mis-step, the parties in opposition and committee members, Marc Garneau (Liberal) and Brian Masse (NDP) have since called on the government to review the sale to Ericsson arguing that it will lead to the loss of potentially leading-edge technology. The Industry Minister, Tony Clement, says he's looking into that.

Realistically folks, there is no technology here that isn't already known elsewhere. Nortel and others in efforts to out-do each other with ever cheaper products,(Ericsson and RIM included) have allowed their communications technology to be learned, adopted and manufactured in several emerging third world nations such as China, Taiwan, Viet-Nam and India from where "grey market" technologies and products are now emerging.

Nortel's economic downfall had been predictable for many recent years. Out of concern over the loss of Canadian developed technology the politicians and RIM (or others) could and maybe should have acted sooner. Instead of circling over the carcass waiting to pick at the entrails once the inevitable had occurred.

ADRIFT IN THE COSMOS

Strange as it seems when billionaire Guy Laliberte takes-off from Russia on his scheduled September 30 flight to the International Space Station, he could potentially forever be the last known Canadian to blast into space.

Despite its $350-million budget, the Canadian Space Agency based in the Montreal suburb of St. Hubert, is seemingly bereft of any viable plans for future human travel despite selecting two new "astronauts" to join its current stable just two and a half months ago.

Guy Laliberte is the founder/owner of "Cirque du Soleil". The former Montreal "fire-eater", aged 49, has forked-over $35-million to the Russians to become their, and the world's 7th space tourist. He'll board the workhorse Russian supply ship "Soyuz MTS" headed for 12 days to the Space Station at the end of September. Canadian Bob Thirsk, currently on board the I.S.S. also hopped a Russian "Soyuz" to get there. He's due back on earth late in November aboard Shuttle Mission STS-129, one of the very few U.S. space flights remaining. The entire Space Shuttle program is being dismantled come September of next year...therein lies Canada's problem, and the seminal reason our space agency has no future manned flights on its calendar though it is probably desperate to get its hook into one.

America's next venture into space is the "Orion" project and its anticipated first manned flight of between 4 and 6 Astronauts is not expected until 2015. May I hasten to add, Canada hasn't been invited. The sad facts are that despite the glowing coverage of our Canadian media, we've never been much more than a bit player in the conquest of space. We've been indoctrinated into believing our robotics contribution - Canadarm 1, Canadarm 2, and Dextre - are essential to every mission. Unlike some of the elements of other Space Station partners: Russia, Japan, the European Union...to everyone else, in particular the Americans; Canadarm is the shuttle's "robot arm," never mind the red maple leaf on its side.

Next week when enthusiasts mark the 60th anniversary of the first flight of the "Avro Jetliner" in Toronto; just as a few weeks back on the 40th of man's conquest of the moon; we can again remind ourselves that it's our damned fault if Canada has become but a hitchhiker depending on the goodwill of others to advance our own exploration of space and its related technologies.

When the "Avro Jetliner" project was cancelled, and ten years later when the Diefenbaker government scuttled the CF-105 - Avro Arrow - developed by the same Toronto based R.V. Roe Ltd. aircraft designers, engineers and employees; the best of the company's brains marched-on off across the border to lead NASA's manned space programs. (Including Mercury, Apollo and those flights to the moon). Thereby striking a death blow to Canada's acknowledged world leadership in jet and rocket aircraft technology. Good Grief! Too bad then no politician had the sense to fear Canada's brain trust being lost abroad as they do now about Nortel's patents falling into Swedish hands.

Until convinced otherwise, I remain pessimistic that we'll somehow enhance that minuscule role we've inherited in space exploration because of some ill-conceived 50 year old notion from our politicians of the era that our southern Uncle Sam would have "our back" in times of need. Come to think of it: Maybe it's fitting that a circus clown, albeit a billionaire one, could be our last triumph into space.

SUPER-SOAKERS AT 50 PACES...

Though the planned commemorative battle of the "Plains of Abraham" was cancelled after Federal officials got cold-feet, a re-enactment of sorts will take place over the August civic holiday weekend.

American and Canadian re-enactors had originally signalled their intentions to engage in the historic battle of 1759 last spring, but Canada's Battlefields Commission scuttled the deal when hard-line separatists in Quebec threatened to disrupt the friendly encounter. Now, Quebec rock station CHOI-FM has several hundred takers for its invitation to fight one another with water pistols. The event is "on" for August 2nd.

A much better idea it seems, and perhaps a worthwhile alternative as well for the ill-advised campaign just launched by the Ottawa Riverkeepers against plans by west coast based Aquablue International to bottle water in Smiths Falls, Ontario. Essentially the Riverkeepers claim residents of eastern Ontario are being duped into exporting their tap-water for profit. What's wrong with that?

American based Hershey Chocolates hightailed out of Smiths Falls in the last year for cheaper production of its chocolate line in Mexico. In the process the eastern Ontario town lost its major industry and 500 jobs. Aquablue is taking over the Hershey factory with plans to employ about 200 in a water bottling facility similar to its Vancouver Island operation which exports "glacial water" down to the USA.

The contentious and eventually unsustainable argument is that Canada forbids massive exportation of fresh water outside our national borders. Since we share the Great Lakes and their basin, including the waters of eastern Ontario, with the Americans the issue is moot. Fact is the United States of America, particularly the southern states, are running dry. Canada, which claims as much as 20% of the entire planet's fresh water resources, will eventually have to come to terms with sharing this plentiful natural resource, as we do with our other bounties, lest the "thirsty" forcibly take it from us.

In Smiths Falls, as it does out west, Aquablue will take advantage of a loophole in Canadian law that allows water to be exported for profit as long as it is packaged in containers of 20 litres or less. Environmentalists it seems to me would be far better to be concerned with those damned plastic bottles which our "silly" law forces packagers such as Aquablue to use in order to be "legal". The Rideau River lakes system which borders Smiths Falls is where the company plans to take about 350-million litres a year in bottles for export primarily south of the border.

The Ottawa Riverkeeper is described as a citizens' group which protects the Ottawa River and its tributaries. It's most recent arguments are similar in nature to those of the Ottawa based "Council of Canadians" which first voiced concerns when rumours surfaced about plans for the abandoned Hershey plant. While there is nothing wrong with citizen advocacy, the "Bottle" in bottled water is what's nefarious to the ecological, social and economic condition the planet. I am hopeful that the Ottawa Riverkeeper's objection isn't somehow a misguided application of the advocacy for "water justice" advanced by the international Blue Planet Project co-founded by Maude Barlow.

Critics might very well be confused because Ms Barlow is also National Chair of the Council of Canadians and a senior advisor on water issues to the United-Nations. Ms. Barlow's book though: "Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis And The Coming Battle For The Right To Water" speaks volumes about the future looming just over the horizon if we don't share...including with the Americans.

Maybe it's time trade the rhetoric for water pistols.