Softwood Should Not Spoil Good Relations, Wilkins Says

Good Relations??? <br />
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- The country that shot and killed two of our soldiers a couple years back. <br />
- The country that blamed Canada for harbouring the 9/11 terrorists, when proof exists that show the 9/11 pilots were trained at U.S. CIA/FBI facilities, that proof exists of ample foreknowledge of the attacks, that proof exists that Osama Bin Laden was/is a CIA Agent!!!<br />
- The country that forced NAFTA down our throats, then refuses to live up to their side of the deal.<br />
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With friends like that, who needs enemies.<br />
<br />
9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government to justify their war for oil.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.911blogger.com">www.911blogger.com</a>

I totally agree with you on what you wrote somebigguy!

>>Canada's position and frustration on this issue of softwood lumber. You have valid points,” Mr. Wilkins said.

“So to does the United States.”<<

The United States has un-instantiated points in regards to the Lumber disputes and they still do not abide by the rule of law. A double standard of doing business with foreign countries that the U.S. would not tolerate for one moment if the same was applied to them. They don’t know what a level trading field is.

What I detest the most is the U.S. Administration calling Canadians friends, neighbours and family while in the same breath they trash Canada and Canadians as thiefs, threats, enemies, foreigners to North America and a visible threat to U.S. National Security.

When someone spits in your face the only reaction I understand is punching them right in the face!

The U.S. totally disrespects Canada!!


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Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.

Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.

Charest and Martin must both be fanatic optimists. The US does not even have the $5 billion - they will print the greenbacks that are losing value every day.

Thanks JensonJ, spread the word!!!

Canada and the United States have been good neighbours and good friends for a long, long time. I believe that a significant majority of Canadians would like it to remain that way, and I confess that I am one of them.

But it's really hard to be friends with someone who wants us as a security buffer or a gas tank, but rejects our friendship when we occasionally, if very rarely, speak up for ourselves. How do we do it?

It's not that Canada's weak governments have not gone the last extra mile to try. They certainly have. We have violated domestic human rights and raped Canadian values to meet their "security" demands, and join their internationally unpopular "war on terror". We have given four young lives to support their invasion of Afghanistan, and are certainly about to sacrifice more. We have made some very, very questionable "extraditions" to their country which have put the already wobbly integrity of our own justice system at further risk. We share personal information with them in a most irresponsible manner that has already endangered both the lives and reputations of our own citizens. We are all paying outrageously inflated fuel and energy prices in order to share our domestic supplies with them, much of which they squander on overseas adventures. They own most of our companies, and our media is totally overwhelmed by their culture. Unless we tore down our flag, I really cannot see what more we could do to protect our relationship with them.

Still, they sometimes hassle us at their borders for no rational reason and despite our NAFTA sacrifices in the energy sector, they refuse to abide with that agreement when it does not suit their purpose. (such as with softwood lumber) And still we give. Despite his recent political theatre, our Prime Minister is quietly caving in on that front too. A negotiated, US approved, deal is not far off.

Their increasingly strident far right continues to trash us as wimps and cowards. They still labour under some kind of empty illusion that they are protecting us from non-existent enemies becasue we are too weak to to do so ourselves.

None of this is their fault. It is ours. If we act weak, look weak and always cave in, they can't be blamed for thinking we are weak and treating us that way.

Somehow we need to stagger back to our feet. We need to break the grip of big business and big money on our political processes and further weaken the two badly compromised old line parties. We need new blood, new ideas and a new economic model. We need to stand tall for our own citizens. We need to grow up and be a country again. Our relationship with the US is valuable, even precious. But making us a helpless toadie as Liberals and Conservatives advocate will not strengthen it.

We need to be a real country! We have to have something left besides a tattered flag and an empty shell when reason returns down south, as the dictates of harsh reality will eventually mandate. I wish our people cared as much about Canada as most Americans do about their country. If they did, we wouldn't be where we are today and wouldn't have to worry.

In international relations there is no such thing as good neighbours or good friends. Two nations generally work together for common objectives, whatever those objectives might be. It is not out of "friendship" or "neigbourliness" but for national self-interest.

The corporate CEOs that have put all their eggs in the American basket currently run our national government and they are ready to sacrifice everything and everyone else for their private self-interest.

>>Canada and the United States have been good neighbours and good friends for a long, long time. I believe that a significant majority of Canadians would like it to remain that way, and I confess that I am one of them.<<

For some reason, we Canadians actualy believe that the average American thinks about NAFTA and Canada. Few have any thoughts on the matter. Canada is the least of concern to them. Our wrath is based on their government and system. Seldom do we see their wrath directed to us.
The Capitalist system prohibits fairness or equality. Nothing is personal when the Americans stab Canadians in the back. It's only Canadians that are insulted and that, Americans can't understand.

It is pleasure to see a post as yours that does not rely on rhetoric that is misinformed and generally nuts. The United States is the most enjoyable to visit. The folks are terrific and our family visits as much as possible. Canadians know very little about America and the superiority of some of us is very unbecoming and totally wrong. Me thinks that Condeleeza Rice visiting will raise the intelligence level of Ottawa several points during her visit. If we only talk her into replacing Pierre Petticoat. As Canadian Mark Steyn writing in the London Telegraph suggests; "With the exception of the United States the free world really means a free ride". Does one dare to suspect he included Canada in this quote? I will leave the answer to the kind and gentle hearts of fellow Canadians.