SIBLING RIVALRY

Sibling rivalry is inevitable. The only sure way to avoid it is to have one child.
~Nancy Samalin,
Loving Your Child Is Not Enough

The long running friendly familial feud between Canada and the United States was reignited recently with allegations that Barack Obama was less than forthright when he said in a televised debate that he would reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement, while privately reassuring the Canadian government that his firm stance against NAFTA was ‘just for show’.

A leak on the alleged duplicity, some suspect may have come straight from the Canadian Prime Minster’s Office, has sent politicos on both sides of the border into near apoplectic fits or rage and indignation (heavy on the indignation).

Hillary Clinton’s righteous indignation is less than righteous. She accused Obama of running a “wink, wink” campaign, while she herself said she would opt out of NAFTA unless the U.S. can renegotiate on terms that are favorable to all of America. What she fails to mention is that she has not only been a proponent of the deal in the past, but that it was her husband who signed the deal in the first place.

In Canada, NAFTA-gate has consumed the House of Commons as it consumed Barack Obama chances of winning the Ohio Primary. The Opposition is calling for head of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Ian Brodie, fingering him as a free trade “Deep Throat” and accusing the Conservative Government of Prime Minster Stephen Harper of trying to interfere in the politics of friendly neighbours to the south.

This wouldn’t be the first time a little cross border campaigning has gone on. It was rumoured that John F. Kennedy detested Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker so intensely that JFK torpedoed “The Chief” in the 1963 Canadian Federal Election, which Diefenbaker lost.

And there is also that whole War of 1812 thing. They burned down the Upper Canada Legislature, we torched the White House.

We’ll call that a draw.

This latest encroachment by Canadians into American politics has conspiracy theorists buzzing. Was the Harper Gang trying to give a hand to the GOP? After all, both the governing Conservative Party of Canada and the U.S. Republican Party are members of what is called the International Democrat Union (a sort of right wing support group).

What would Brother John Birch think of that?

Maybe the Canadian Conservatives figured why not? If the Liberal Party of Canada can have Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean as keynote speaker at their leadership convention, why can’t the “Cons” channel Don Segretti and the Watergate crew and try to “Edmund Muskie” Obama. Does anyone remember the infamous “Canuck Letter”? (Coincidentally, Segretti did work for John McCain in as co-chair in Orange County, California during McCain's ill-fated 2000 campaign.)

Back to NAFTA-gate, the PM says he will get to the bottom of this, though some doubt the pledge made by a leader, who in same week his right hand man was alleged to have attempted to take the Obama campaign out at the knees, the PM himself was accused of trying to bribe a dying man for a vote.

It is like asking Richard Nixon to chair the Watergate hearings.

Maybe the Yanks are just getting their comeuppance? Canadians long ago tired of being the whipping boy for the Excited States of America. Great White North jokes and talk of pet moose and igloo accommodations have long since grown stale. Yet it hasn’t stopped our politicians from dumping on Americans from a dizzying height. In the last Canadian federal election you would have thought that former PM Paul Martin was running against George W. Bush, not Stephen Harper, and the chief of staff of Martin’s predecessor, Jean Chrétien, referred to Dubya as “a moron” and got canned for her lack of discretion.

Pierre Trudeau, whom Nixon called a name that shouldn’t be repeated in polite society, once said of the U.S. that “living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast…one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

Maybe this is just a case of grunting back?

Canadians have, over time, come to realize more and more the only thing, without a doubt, they have in common with the United States is a common border. We disagree on a wide range of issues, from medicinal marijuana and same sex marriage, universal healthcare and the war in Iraq. Canadians do get along with their Americans neighbours, for the most part, but don’t necessarily agree with everything going on across their southern boundary. However, when it comes to talk of top level leaks potentially designed to influence the outcome of an external democratic process, even the most fervent Canadians patriot must bristle at the thought of our political interference in a foreign country.

Well, at least one we aren’t at war with.