The headline in Canada's national magazine, Maclean's, is an attention-grabber: "The U.S. and Canada: we used to be friends." Followed by this subheadline: "Why Barack Obama shelved the Keystone pipeline, and insulted Canada (yet again) in the process."
The Nov. 10 decision to again delay a final decision on TransCanada's 1,200-mile Keystone XL pipeline that will carry Alberta crude to Texas refineries (until after the 2012 U.S. elections) was, it's generally agreed, made by the Obama administration for purely political reasons. (Visualize a can in the road.)
A post-Thanksgiving idea: We Americans should be a helluva lot more thankful for having such a friendly (and understanding) neighbour like Canada. We could, but we probably won't. That's because the vast majority of Americans, I know all too well from personal experience, know very little -- and care even less -- about Canada. This could have negative repercussions in the future. Bad karma and all that.
This month's Maclean's article largely examines the political processes in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln, Neb. (where powerful landowners opposed the stalled Canadian pipeline) that led to another delay after the U.S. State Department's pipeline-friendly "final environmental assessment" last August had green-lighted the Keystone-XL.
The last to know?
Adding insult to financial injury, TransCanada officials were stunned by the State Department's call for another study. A TransCanada spokesman told Maclean's, "We found out about it after others did. It was a surprise." Nice going by the department of the U.S. government that's supposed to be diplomatic to other countries.
The "yet again" part of the Maclean's headline was a reference to several other recent U.S. government actions (and inactions) that show little concern about Canadian concerns.
Among them:
An analogy
Consistently and predictably putting U.S. economic and political interests ahead of those of Canada's is a bit like building a large storage shed that cuts off your next-door neighbour's prized view. And when he asks why in heaven's name you did it, you tell him sorry, but your brother-in-law's construction company really needed the work. (You're supposed to be understanding).
We Americans are so fixated on building our foolish and short-sighted consumer/gladiator-show culture (ESPN, BCS, NCAA, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, etc) that it's easy and convenient to forget who provides most of the imported oil fueling our auto-centric society.
Actually, many Americans have absolutely no idea that Canada is our biggest oil supplier. As I discuss often as MarketWatch's Canada columnist, most Americans have little idea about most things Canadian. It's pathetic, actually.
True, the market for Canadian crude may be a bit bearish right now. But it won't always be this way.
I am not, I should point out, a big fan of Keystone. We need to wean ourselves off oil. But I DO support handling these politically sensitive matters with Canada a lot more diplomatically.
I don't know if Canadians have long memories, but I know they've been long on patience with the U.S. And for that if nothing else Americans should be thankful.
Let's just hope Canada stays as understanding as it always has about Americans' mistreatment of its good neighbours.
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It's a sad story. I myself grew up being a big supporter of the USA, and when I studied history, I came to appreciate just how much the world owes America.
But now that I am older, I am starting to really appreciate just how America has squandered much of that legacy. An aggressive American military-industrial complex has stirred up anti-American feelings everywhere, even in friendly Canada. How long does America think this will go on without very serious backlash?
And I'm not talking about anything violent (although we've seen that), but something much more basic, like a refusal of people do do business with Americans. But regardless of the form, people will turn away from America.
Unfortunately, I don't see that changing any time soon unless America gets really humbled. But unless that happens, Canadians know that Americans will ignore our concerns because, ultimately, if America want something from us and we resist too hard, they will just try to come here and take it, regardless of our history of friendship.
Canadians are waking up to the fact that lately, a lot of Americans feel they don't need international friends. And that's just pitiful.
As an American living in Florida, I know everything I need to know about Canadians.
Here goes: They love to vacation in Florida (God bless 'em) ... They like ice hockey ... And they have the best darn waterfall for thousands of miles around.
Is there something else I need to know???
Our troops are dying in Afghanistan fighting a war to help protect America.
on 9/11 tens of thousands of air travellers bound for the U.S. were allowed to land in Canada, were housed, clothed and fed by Canadians without any pomp or circumstance.
The next day George W. Bush went on tv and thanked Great Britain and snubbed Canada.
and one last thing
Canadians embassy officials in Iran risked their lives to create fake passports for some Americans so they could sneak out of Iran during the hostage crisis back during the Carter administration
Canada is America's best friend contrary to what some would say
Oh and Bill, another one, its kinda old but still hurts, four Canadian soilders in Afganistan in 2002, bombed by a boob in the Illinois (or what it Ohio) Air National Guard, he got off without so much as a wrist slap because c&c didn't tell him that the Canadians were doing a live fire exercise near his patrol zone. Those soliders were among the first Canadians, heck the first soliders to die in that horrible swamp.
this weekend warrior decided to go in on on his own, ignoring orders to drop 500 lb bombs, citing that the machine gun fire that was being fired parallel to the ground was anti aircraft fire being fired at him and all this from 5000+ feet
4 brave canadian paid with their lives for his hubris and stupidity
8 others were injured
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/friendlyfire/
"You acted shamefully on 17 April 2002 over Tarnak Farms, Afghanistan, exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline. When your flight lead warned you to "make sure it's not friendlies" and the Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft controller directed you to "stand by" and later to "hold fire," you should have marked the location with your targeting pod.
Thereafter, if you believed, as you stated, you and your leader were threatened, you should have taken a series of evasive actions and remained at a safe distance to await further instructions from AWACS. Instead, you closed on the target and blatantly disobeyed the direction to "hold fire."
Your failure to follow that order is inexcusable. I do not believe you acted in defense of Major Umbach or yourself. Your actions indicate that you used your self-defense declaration as a pretext to strike a target, which you rashly decided was an enemy firing position, and about which you had exhausted your patience in waiting for clearance from the Combined Air Operations Center to engage. You used the inherent right of self-defense as an excuse to wage your own war."
Your editors keep perpetuating the myth that we're not here. We're getting sick of it. As are the 190 plus other countries in the Rest of the World who are considered non-existant and unimportant... unless of course the US has a vested interest in them...Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Afganistan.
We shouldn't be sucking oil out of the tar sands. It is inefficient and costly, not to mention that it is terrible for the environment. But if we are going to be short-sighted enough to go through with it, why not build refineries in Alberta and ship out the refined crude? That would create jobs for Canadians and not force us to rely on the Americans for anything. I think that is a much wiser way to go about this than building a massive pipeline, putting the environment at great risk, and sending the profits away.
agreed oil should be refined in Canada but harper is appeasing his oil baron bosses