NAFTA leak reveals U.S.-Canada divide
In Ottawa this week, the politics of hope runs smack into the politics of cynicism
Mar 08, 2008 04:30 AM
OTTAWA–Several weeks ago, as the U.S. presidential race was growing more fascinating by the day, ChaptersIndigo warned its Canadian online customers that Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, was on back order – delivery would be delayed by weeks.
It was one small indication of the fascination in this country with the Illinois senator blazing through the race for the Democratic nomination. There are tributes and Canadian fan groups on Facebook, too, and one earnest little YouTube ballad called "Canada Loves Obama."
After this week, however, it's not clear that Obama would say he returns the sentiment – at least not as far as it extends to Canada's Conservative government.
Either accidentally or deliberately – and that's at the nub of the controversy – Prime Minister Stephen Harper's administration stands accused this week of leaking information that hurt Obama, specifically in Ohio, where free trade is a burning issue. In brief, word emerged from this country that Obama was saying one thing about NAFTA on the campaign trail and another behind the scenes to Canadian consular officials.
Hillary Clinton won Ohio handily on Tuesday and her advisers candidly admitted in the aftermath that Obama had been wounded by the so-called Canada controversy.
This is all interesting in itself, but then there was the bombshell revelation Wednesday night that the origin of all this Obama trouble was Harper's own chief of staff, Ian Brodie, who was talking off the cuff to journalists during a federal budget lockup in Canada. An internal investigation is still under way in Ottawa about the leak, but there now seems little question that the very highest office in Canada played a part in this whole episode.
Perhaps, when Obama wants to write the sequel to his much sought-after book, he might want to call this chapter "Audacity versus Hope." It isn't often you see Canada in the news at all in the U.S., let alone cast as a sleeper agent in a bid to rattle the Democrats.
There are many ways to analyze NAFTAgate, or Canada-bama, or whatever one wants to call it.
But perhaps the most fascinating aspect is through the lens of political culture – and how this whole episode has highlighted the cultural differences between Obama's campaign and Harper's Ottawa. Where is Canada's Obama? Nowhere in sight on the current federal scene, and certainly not in the current power regime.
On one side is Obama's oratorical inspiration; his appeal to citizen empowerment – "Yes We Can." On the other side of the political-culture divide, and the 49th parallel, is the strict, all-discipline-all-the-time regime of politics, Harper-style – call it "No You Can't." Some might cast this distinction as naïveté versus realism. Others might say it's hope versus cynicism – big ambitions versus small, low-expectations government.
And then there's the issue of whether Harper is just another Republican foe for Obama and Democrats in general. A recent Canadian Press-Harris Decima poll showed that 49 per cent of Canadians would cast their ballots for the Democrats if they had a vote in the U.S. election – and only 12 per cent for Republicans – which only makes it more paradoxical that our government would be seen to be playing for the other side.
Yesterday, yet another Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey showed if Obama led either Canadian party, he would double its public support. It's probably not a surprise that some of Obama's biggest fans in Canada are opponents of Harper. Liberal MP Navdeep Bains, the party's critic on Canada-U.S. relations, says that by his estimate, Liberals are pretty evenly divided in support for Clinton and Obama, with much of the younger generation of Liberals more attracted to Obama's message. Bains himself won't say where he stands – unlike Deputy leader Michael Ignatieff, for instance, who's been unabashed and open in his admiration for the Obama campaign. Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, talking to the Star's editorial board yesterday, said he's impressed by how many people are following the race closely, but he remained tactful about who he favours.
"I will learn from each of them – how to communicate as Mr. Obama and have as strong views as Madame Clinton," Dion said.
For several years now, Harper has been repeatedly painted as a Republican-style leader, welded to the politics of George W. Bush and the tactics of his chief strategist, Karl Rove. Republican consultants such as Fred Luntz have been brought in to trade strategies with Harperites such as Tom Flanagan, the former Conservative campaign chief. The Liberals went to the trouble last year to put all the Harper-Bush similarities into one multi-media package, which they presented at a press conference to reporters – complete with telephoto-lens shots of Republican posters on the walls of offices in the PMO enclave.
So any foe of Bush's is seen to be a foe of Harper's, too – that includes Obama, and Clinton.
New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton has been hammering away at the Canada-Obama issue all this week and appeared on CNN Thursday night. He says Canadians are offended by the slight to Obama because they're caught up in the slipstream of the demand for change in the U.S. – change from Bush's approach to politics, and by extension, Harper's too.
Canadians, says Layton, "have been concerned about the Bush administration for years...And now they see the prospect that those policies could change with a change in the White House whether it's with the first woman president, whether it's with the first black president...Canadians are intimately concerned. They're excited. They're following this."
That's why, says Layton, they're now embarrassed for their government to be seen as meddling. "To have our government step in, in a fashion that jeopardizes the success of either of these two candidates, is something that has a lot of Canadians deeply concerned and rightly so."
Bob Rae, the Liberals' foreign affairs critic, says only those who are romanticizing politics want to pitch this battle as one of Obama's hope versus Harper's audacity or cynicism.
"This is about a Republican farm team in Canada doing what it can for McCain and Republicans," Rae says. "They think the same character assassination they're using on Dion can work on Obama...Don't romanticize this. It's about politics. The Harperites are trying to kill another liberal. Period."
Of course, this raises questions about the Liberals' and New Democrats' neutrality toward the U.S. presidency, as well. When all is said and done, this week highlighted once again that there's a political-culture divide between current events in the U.S. and Canada. Though few Canadians have a say in all this talk of hope and change, they seem to feel they have a stake in it. And now, thanks to events from the government, they are also players.
That's audacity, indeed, but Canadians may still be asking: Where's the hope?
