Is President George Bush Livid

The US President has to be furious at Canada today.

Let me ask the direct question:

Are Canadian politicians and bureaucrats complete idiots?

Do they really think that trying to pressure or end run George Bush will work? Do they not understand that in his world NO really means NO! The recent leak about the so-called bridge deal between Canada and the US to Radio-Canada is sheer stupidity that could jeopardize the relationship between Canada and the United States in ways that our politicians and diplomats have not yet figured out. Who needs another softwood lumber dispute over the Windsor/Detroit border.

It is bad enough that Ambassador Michael Wilson is in effect persona non grata especially if the Democrats win in November but why antagonize the Republicans too.

Stephen Harper tried at the SPP meeting and failed with respect to convincing the President to support a new DRIC bridge in competition with the privately owned Ambassador Bridge. That hardly was a surprise given the rejection of the central crossing proposed by DRIC by the US Department of State years before. The State Department acts on behalf of the President of the United States with respect to Presidential Permits for border crossings. [BLOG: May 12, 2006 "President Bush's Choice: The Twinned Ambassador Bridge"]

At the Three Amigos SPP Meeting, there was hardly a mention of the Windsor Crossing other than in relation to another border crossing in Tijuana. It is very clear from his remarks that Harper brought up the subject with the President but that nothing was accomplished since the joint communiqué barely mentioned the subject. [BLOG April 23, 2008 "Canada Loses Big Time" and "BREAKING BLOGnews: Three Amigos Lump Windsor and Tijuana Together"].

The North American Competitiveness Council Report at the SPP dealt with nuts and bolts issues as did the Brookings Institute report if it is read closely.

Want more evidence that Canada has been singularly unsuccessful on the DRIC bridge issue. Here is part of what Minister Prentice said at the Council of the Americas at the 38th Conference on the Americas respecting the border a few days ago:

• "Canada is investing an unprecedented $33 billion in long-term, stable and predictable funding to meet infrastructure needs. For Canada, nowhere is more important than the Ambassador Bridge that joins Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan. On a typical day, that bridge carries more than 8000 semi-trailers. About 40 percent of Canada's commerce with the United States crosses that bridge, and it carries more trade annually than the entire trading relationship between the United States and Japan.
  
  But it is not an easy crossing.
  
  Shortly after I became Industry Minister, I wanted to experience first-hand the frustrations that our cross-border trade can encounter. A senior executive from a successful automotive supplier was good enough to have me loaded into one of the firm's transport trucks. I travelled across the Ambassador Bridge as if I were an auto part and I witnessed the delays myself. This experience galvanized my conviction that we need to maintain momentum in the design, approval and construction of an alternative bridge crossing to increase our trade throughput.
  
  The governments of Canada and the United States have roles to play; so do the state government of Michigan and the provincial government of Ontario. We continue working with our binational partners and are determined to build this new bridge between Windsor and Detroit. In fact, we just announced $1.6 billion to link Highway 401 with that new bridge."

It is pretty clear that he was making a direct pitch and plea with respect to the new border crossing. His comments were a little better this time than his last reported comments that appeared to spread misinformation about the crossing. Here is what George Bush said about Canada specifically in his speech at the same session and especially about the border.

• "I'm also pleased to be here with ministers, representatives, ambassadors from the governments of Canada, Colombia, Mexico and Peru -- honored you all are here."

Do you get it? Not a word about Detroit/Windsor. He has no interest in the border subject any longer! He spent more time talking about medical clinics in Guatemala run by US soldiers than he did about trade with Canada. While the news media tried to give Prentice some credit for what he was doing

• "Prentice's warnings about the "thickening of the border" were much more pointed than those Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed last month at a summit with President George W. Bush in New Orleans"

he achieved nothing as well. His comments fell on deaf ears.

Given all of this background one has to wonder who came up with the brilliant idea of giving Radio-Canada an exclusive story about the bridge that can be spread throughout the news media in Canada and perhaps be picked up in United States as well. Here is the story as reported in the Globe:

• "Canada, U.S. agree on new Detroit-Windsor bridge: report
  The Canadian Press
  
  May 7, 2008 at 11:32 PM EDT
  
  WINDSOR, ONT. — Canada and the United States will reportedly build a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit.
  
  Citing unnamed sources, Radio-Canada reports the bridge will be built at a cost of $5 billion alongside the existing Ambassador Bridge.
  
  The French-language network of the CBC says the site for the Canadian side of the bridge has already been picked and an official announcement will be made by mid-July.
  
  Prime Minister Stephen Harper is reportedly pushing to sign a final deal before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office early next year.
  
  The bridge will be built with the biggest public-private partnership in the history of Canada, Radio-Canada says, and will create up to 25,000 jobs in the economically fragile area of Ontario.
  
  A 15-kilometre freeway will also be built to feed the new link.
  
  The aging, narrow Ambassador Bridge is the route for a quarter of the traffic between the United States and Canada. Some 10,000 trucks pass over it on a typical weekday.
  
  Radio-Canada calls it the biggest joint construction project in the history of the U.S. and Canada."

It is pretty obvious that the expectation was that the Canadian Government would gain something at the SPP conference with all of the Ministers running to Washington over the past year lobbying the US Government. Wait until they start getting snubbed now by the Bush people.

However, the Canadian government should have remembered the incident over a dispute over a four-foot-high fence near the U.S.-Canada border in Whatcom County. President Bush fired Dennis Schornack as U.S. Commissioner to the International Boundary Commission and member of the International Joint Commission. The comment was made:

• "Sooner rather than later, the Administration will be seen to prefer private property rights over national security and ready to undo an international treaty with Canada to serve that preference."

This is not some story that a Radio-Canada reporter dreamed up on his own in my opinion. From the video news story, it is clear that this story was prearranged considering that the reporter and cameraman (It is CBC after all with their union, not the private network) came to Windsor and had an interview with the Mayor. It may even have been in Eddie's office as well or in a City Hall meeting room. He also interviewed Transport Minister Cannon and there was a mention at the end of a new Federal Minister involved, Michael Fortier, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the unelected Senator appointed by Harper. How many Ministers and Ambassadors have been involved so far in this file!

Can you believe it, the story was so poorly done that now the cost of the bridge alone seems to be $5 billion with 25,000 jobs created. Moreover, Harper seems to be getting slammed because the story makes it appear as if a twinned Ambassador Bridge going to be built because it states that the new bridge will be built:

• "alongside the existing Ambassador Bridge."

What a crummy PR effort this was by whomever in the Government! They cannot even get the DRIC bridge located properly. Which P3 investor would want to touch this project now at a $5 billion cost? Absurd.

Naturally this story with respect to the bridge and the comments by the Ontario Ministers with respect to the road pretty much undercut the entire DRIC Environmental Assessment process and makes it appear very obvious that the whole DRIC process has been a joke right from the beginning. It was all poltical designed to justify what the bureaucrats wanted to do in the first place.

To me the big shocker is that a Conservative Government in Canada with their political leanings would go along with something as ridiculous as this. They too got sucked in by the bureaucrats.

However, the big story is the headline

• "Canada, U.S. agree on new Detroit-Windsor bridge"

Do you really think that President Bush is going to appreciate the pressure when he already said forget about it? Do you think he will be pleased at a story that was obviously put together by the Government of Canada to embarrass him?

Do you really think that President Bush is going to appreciate making it appear as if this is something that he is doing that jeopardizes the Environmental Assessment process and undercuts what the State Department said several years ago so that Harper can get a win before Bush leaves office.

• "Prime Minister Stephen Harper is reportedly pushing to sign a final deal before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office early next year."

They are NOT bestest buddies after all!

Do you really think that the Democrats after the Wilson faux pas with respect to NAFTA are going to like what Canada is proposing to do with Bush if in fact a Democrat is elected President? Do you think they will appreciate a move decided to endrun them as well?

What is wrong with these people in Ottawa? Are they so desperate to take over the Ambassador Bridge that they are prepared to jeopardize the future of Canada and its trading with the United States? It's time that some people be moved into new positions or be retired. They have been around too long and have lost their sense of direction.

Just wait until Monday when I tell you who I think is behind the leak! He should be drummed out of Cabinet if true for the mess he has made in our relationship with the US.