CIAO DATE: 11/03

Canada as a Minor Ally: Operational Considerations for Relations with the United States

Abstract

Good morning. I want to thank the organizers of this year's Canadian Crude Oil Conference for bringing me out here to join you today. Albertan hospitality is hard to beat, and for a kid from Detroit, I am happy to say that I had the chance to live here as a temporary Albertan one summer. My Dad is a professor of geography and urban planning, and one summer our family relocated to Alberta while he researched a book on the patterns of suburban development in four cities: Edmonton, Calgary, Phoenix, and Houston. It was a great adventure for me, especially camping and hiking in Banff and Jasper. You will get a sense of how long ago this was when I tell you that my souvenir from that summer was a t-shirt with Chewbacca, C3PO, and R2-D2 posing with a bear.
The shirt read, "The Empire Strikes Banff."

Given my topic today - Canada-U.S. relations and what we can do to improve them - and since you know that I am here today from Washington - a city one of my colleagues likes to call, "The Imperial Capital," let me begin by reassuring you that I have not come to strike Banff.

Instead I would like to share with you a perspective on three points:

• where we are with the Canada-U.S. relationship,
• what Paul Martin can and can't be expected to do, and
• what options we have to strengthen the relationship as citizens.

Full text (PDF format, 6 pages, 134.2 KB)