49th Parallel North

Alberta's Mar weathering U.S. anti-oil storm - Calgary Herald

2008-06-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Don Martin

Thursday, June 26, 2008

There was a time when being Alberta's man in Washington, D.C. involved golf rounds and cocktail circuits of non-stop fun.

As America's most reliable energy supplier, the province rated a red carpet reception in a national capital thirsting for secure oil.

Not anymore.

Gary Mar is not yet a political pariah, but he's running an Alberta office in the Canadian embassy that's fighting negative perception battles on multiple fronts.

Arguably the brightest cabinet minister to grace former premier Ralph Klein's front bench for more than a dozen years, he's been representing the province in the U.S. capital for less than a year and finds himself under increasing siege by an organized environmental backlash against the Alberta oilsands.

Mar's continuing to fight the threat from a U.S. energy bill that would prohibit federal agencies, including energy gobblers like the air force and post office, from buying oil produced by discharging above-normal emissions such as the oilsands.

He opened a Washington paper last week on the day Senator John McCain was visiting Ottawa to front page headlines that the Republican presidential nominee rates Middle East oil preferable to the "dirty" Alberta oilsands.

He watched this week as U.S. big city mayors pushed for a boycott of tarsands product as environmentally unacceptable energy.

Now the kicker that Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama is talking tough against importing oil that emits excessive greenhouse gases, presumably including oilsands product. (Continued)

Obama seeks to square circle on globalisation - Financial Times

2008-06-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: June 26 2008 20:01 | Last updated: June 26 2008 20:01

A Barack Obama administration would mark a “break” from the US trade policies of the last few years and push for agreements that would help overcome America’s growing scepticism towards globalisation, says Jason Furman, Mr Obama’s economic policy director.

Many observers have expressed concern about Mr Obama’s fealty to existing trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he has promised to renegotiate to improve its labour and environmental protections.

Both Canada and Mexico, America’s Nafta partners, have signalled anxiety about Mr Obama’s pledge to re-open the deal. But Mr Furman, a former Clinton administration official who joined the Obama campaign earlier this month, insisted that Mr Obama was “a free trader” who was “firmly committed to the multilateral trading system”. (Continued)

The Future of North America - Foreign Affairs

2008-06-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Robert A. Pastor

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008

On January 20, 2009, if not before, a new national security adviser will tell the incoming president of the United States that the first two international visitors should be the prime minister of Canada and the president of Mexico. Almost every new president since World War II has followed this ritual, because no two countries in the world have a greater impact economically, socially, and politically on the United States than its neighbors. The importance of Canada and Mexico may, however, come as a surprise to most Americans, as well as to the new president. In the presidential campaign, instead of discussing a positive agenda for North America's future, the candidates have focused critically on two parts of that agenda, the 14-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and immigration. And overall, one could conclude from listening to the campaign that Iraq is key to U.S. national security, China is the United States' most important trading partner, and Saudi Arabia and Venezuela supply most of the United States' energy.

None of these propositions is true. For most of the past decade, Canada and Mexico have been the United States' most important trading partners and largest sources of energy imports. U.S. national security depends more on cooperative neighbors and secure borders than it does on defeating militias in Basra.

The new president will take office at a low moment in U.S. relations with its neighbors. The percentage of Canadians and Mexicans who have a favorable view of U.S. policy has declined by nearly half in the Bush years. The immigration debate in Congress and the exchange between the two leading Democratic presidential candidates on who dislikes NAFTA more has left a bitter taste in the mouths of Canadians and Mexicans. The ultimatum issued by Senators Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to Canada and Mexico -- renegotiate NAFTA on U.S. terms, or else -- hardly displayed the kind of sensitivity to the United States' friends that they have promised. On the other side, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has offered such an unvarnished defense of NAFTA that it would appear he feels nothing more is needed. Moreover, although an author of legislation on immigration reform, McCain retreated from such reform after being harshly criticized. CNN's Lou Dobbs' reports on the disastrous effects of illegal immigration and trade seem to have had a more profound effect on the national debate than many people have thought. Indeed, the candidates seem to have accepted Dobbs' variation on Hobson's choice -- either reject NAFTA or suffer decline as a candidate and as a nation.

Sadly, the United States' leaders are looking backward at NAFTA rather than forward by articulating a new vision of shared continental interests. NAFTA has become a diversion, a piata for pandering pundits and politicians -- even though it succeeded in what it was designed to do. It dismantled trade and investment barriers, and as a result, U.S. trade in goods and services with Canada and Mexico tripled -- from $341 billion in 1993 to . . .(continued)

June '08 The Monitor US Canada Business News

2008-06-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

Connect2Canada.com

"A monthly round-up of news and views on the U.S.-Canada Business and Economic Relationship." Subscribe

Obama's fight against 'dirty oil' could hurt oil sands

2008-06-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

6/24/08 from National Post - World

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil if he is elected U.S. president -- and one of his first targets might well be Canada’s oil sands...(continued)