WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Thursday made a tightly scheduled seven-hour visit to Canada as his first international trip since taking office one month ago.
Analysts say the high profile trip was significant and successful and further tightened the close relationship between the two allies and laid the foundation for deeper cooperation.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who had been viewed as being more ideologically aligned with former President W. Bush than Obama, seemed to have realized that the American president may be more popular than he is in his own country.
Indeed, the US president is so popular that he used the news conference on Thursday to thank Canadian volunteers who crossed the boarder to help his campaign. Obama used the trip to try to ease tensions between the two nations.
At a joint press conference in Ottawa, Harper announced that he and Obama had agreed to seek common approach on three priorities: working together to restore economic growth; a continental framework to tackle climate change; and joint efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
Obama promised that his tough campaign rhetoric on the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, would not disrupt the relationship between the US and Canada, the worlds’ largest trading partners, and that the “Buy American” provisions in the stimulus were consistent with American obligations.
Canada is the biggest exporter of oil and gas to the United States, and Harper has been trying to win an agreement to exempt Canada’s vast tracts of oil sands, which may contain up to 173 billion barrels of recoverable oil bound into sand and clay, from any new American environment regulations.
Obama is under intense pressure from environmentalists to resist that effort, who say that extracting that oil produces more greenhouse gases than conventional oil drilling. And because Obama has listed fighting climate change as one of his priorities and vowed to reduce the US reliance on the “dirty oil,” Canada is worried about a possible decline of US demand on its Alberta oil.
“We’re not going to solve these problems overnight,” Obama said at a joint press conference.
Harper said they had agreed to a new “US-Canada energy dialogue” that would include senior US and Canadian officials who would “collaborate on the development of clean energy science and technologies.” On environment, Harper said: “I don’t think the differences are near as stark as you would suggest,” a subtle jab at those who said he found former President George W. Bush a kindred philosophical spirit.
Harper also lauded Obama for approaching world leadership “in a way that is more collaborative” a remark some said was a subtle dig at Bush’s foreign policy.
Both leaders emphasized their countries’ friendship and longstanding bonds. Obama mentioned that he had a Canadian brother-in-law and that two of his top aides were Canadian.
While Harper responded to a question about border security with a powerful sound bite: “Threats to the United States are threats to Canada.”
By taking his first trip to Canada, Obama is following in a tradition for United States presidents, including Ronald Reagan, who made Canada his first visit and, four years later, charmed some Canadians — and horrified others — by singing: “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” on St. Patrick’s Day with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
Obama managed to add his human touch by making an unscheduled, surprise public appearance at a renovated farmers’ market in an historical district in Ottawa, where he bought a key chain and a snow globe for his two daughters.
Grant Hooker, who had invented the custom-made Beaver Tail pastry and called the Obama Tail, which was served at the Canadian Embassy during the Obama inauguration back in January, had written the president with an invitation to stop by during his trip.
Hooker said he never dreamed Obama would stop off to try his ‘Obama Tail,’ a tail-shaped deep-fried pastry, coated with cinnamon and sugar and topped with maple-flavored eyes.
“I had said there was a snowball’s chance in Florida he would actually accept,” Hooker told reporters.
But accept he did, though no one at BeaverTails knew he was coming ahead of time.
“We didn’t have the faintest hint,” Hooker said.
As for the Obama Tail, reporters present said Obama politely avoided eating the “cholesterol-laden confection,” promising to do so once he got back to the White House.
