The same dynamic is at work in the realm of Canada-U.S. relations.
By any objective measure, Harper came away with almost nothing from his talks with Bush at the Cancun summit. He and Bush had to admit they couldn't get around the looming Congress deadline for passports to be required for cross-border travel. They couldn't announce any breakthrough in the dispute over softwood lumber.
There was more attention paid to what Harper wore than what he said, though that may be a poetically just result of his handlers' announced intention to provide "visuals only" on the first two days of the Prime Minister's first international summit.
Yet Harper can and will now walk away from those intractable disputes over softwood and passports and simply move on. There's an end, but there's also a beginning: he also has some important future considerations packed away in his vest pockets. Bush has invited him to Washington this spring and Canada is the host of the next "three amigos" summit next year. The mere fact of the events keeps Canada-U.S. relations on the front burner.
Full article: The PM's priorities
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 3, 2006]
Note: The PM's priorities
The PM's priorities
Stumble It!
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"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years........It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."<br />
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--David Rockefeller<br />
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<a href="http://www.bilderberg.org/rockef.htm#Back">www.bilderberg.org/rockef.htm#Back</a><br />
<p>---<br>People who openly hate America, while making money from America, burning U.S. flags, waving Mexican and Jamaican flags, while demanding the right to be American
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<a href="http://www.bilderberg.org">www.bilderberg.org</a><br />
<p>---<br>People who openly hate America, while making money from America, burning U.S. flags, waving Mexican and Jamaican flags, while demanding the right to be American