Outrage over the duplicitous diplomacy used to avoid treaty
obligations on Devil's Lake is not enough.

Cancelling a meeting of trade bureaucrats in defiance of a
NAFTA trade ruling on softwood lumber is blowing smoke in the wind.

Telephone tag between the Prime Minister and President George
Bush is a sop, not a solution. Huffing and puffing will neither
impress nor influence the Bush administration in Washington, nor
their regional allies like the governor and senators of North Dakota.

The reality is that we are dealing with an American political
system currently steeped in the ideology of "empire." It recognizes
few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to
basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that
counts is the exercise of raw power.

In its mildest form, it practises a la carte bilateralism, co-
operating only when it wants to, and when it suits short-term
domestic or international objectives. In its bad days, it simply
follows a strategy of "take no prisoners," "damn the torpedoes, full
steam ahead," "don't tread on me," "America First," or any other of
the clichés used by ultra-patriots. These are the extant policy
directives from the White House.

While most Canadians responded with dismay to the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, few could quite grasp that the same cavalier,
imperial attitudes exemplified in Washington's rejection of various
agreements on disarmament, its fierce opposition to the
International Criminal Court, its indifference to climate-change
warnings, and its undermining of the U.N. would prevail in our
continental relationship as well.

There is a chronic and dangerous failure to fully appreciate
the shift going on in the political demographics of the U.S. and how
this change affects attitudes not only toward Canada but also to the
broad U.S. approach to its international role.

The reality is that political power is shifting to the south
and west of the United States, bringing with it less understanding
or interest in our country and certainly an anti-internationalist
notion that the U.S. can and should go it alone. Growing, as well,
is the attitude - especially prevalent amongst congressional
Republicans - that the U.S. should legislate extraterritorially to
compel other countries to abide by its decisions.

Anyone who thinks that neighbourly proximity brings favours or
privileges is living in a dream world. In the changing landscape of
U.S. politics and policies, Canada lacks the necessary traction.

We rely too often on old connections and our ability to
negotiate a crisis, rather than trying to anticipate issues and
build a different political case to meet the challenges that the new,
parlous state of U.S.-Canada relations presents.

Part of the problem is that we are working through a system of
border arrangements that are obsolete. Of the more than 200 treaties
governing our relationship, most rely on goodwill - they have no
prescribed set of dispute-settlement mechanisms that are binding or
subject to arbitration procedures.

The International Joint Commission worked well in resolving
water disputes, as long there was a co-operative attitude on both
sides. Now that one of the partners treats this venerable
institution as irrelevant, the capacity to effectively share
stewardship of the continent's most valuable resource has been put
in jeopardy.

Most vexatious are the free-trade agreements concluded on the
basis that each country's trade laws would apply in disputes. This
means that any sector of the U.S. economy that feels threatened by
competition can use the domestic system to impose penalties and
engage in constant harassment - read, softwood lumber, beef, steel.

Meanwhile, Canada is prevented under NAFTA rules from applying
any strictures on energy that could be considered by the Americans
as discriminatory and the U.S. passes an energy bill that assumes
Canadian oilsand reserves are part of their continental supply.

Equally noxious is NAFTA's Chapter 11, which allows private
industry to sue governments if they think there is a restraint of
trade. Under this provision, United Parcel Service has challenged
Canada Post operations, British Columbia has fought restrictions on
the sale of fresh water, and the Canadian government's efforts to
prevent the use of toxic engine additives have been stalled.

Compounding these difficulties are new U.S. security measures
at the border that increasingly restrict the movement of goods and
people. Canada has been exceedingly compliant with these security
demands, accepting with little challenge the U.S. view of
counterterrorism, to the point of conceding an erosion of basic
Charter rights.

Let's face it: This is a painful and uncertain time in our
relations with the United States. Muddling through from crisis to
crisis won't work.

Neither will listening to the chorus of continentalist
claptrap promoting more U.S.-Canada integration - look no farther
than the present disputes to see where such policies have landed us
- or the calls for protectionism and retaliation that can still be
heard from the Left. It's time for new policies and tough action to
shift our trade and security strategies away from a preoccupation
with continental matters to a more global footing.

Let's begin by seriously considering an end to NAFTA and
reliance instead upon the World Trade Organization to regulate the
terms and provisions of free trade.

Not only would this offer us the protection of a trade body
that has some teeth in its regulations - ones not rooted in U.S.
domestic procedures and laws - it would also free us to engage in a
much more innovative and active global trade strategy.

The emergence of new economic powers like China, India, Brazil
and South Africa provides markets hungry for the resources and know-
how that Canada possesses.

Our NAFTA connection impedes our ability to take advantage of
this potential. To make this work, however, we have to pull up our
own socks and tackle long-neglected or perhaps too-sensitive
domestic issues.

It's a bit hypocritical to blame the Americans for problems of
freshwater pollution when we have been so remiss in our own water
management. Despite more than a decade of federal-provincial
negotiation, there is still no sign of a national freshwater policy.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans spends most of its funds on
ocean fish and salty seawater, largely ignoring its responsibility
to research and monitor our valuable freshwater resources.

Since the demise of the National Energy Policy in the 1980s,
there is nothing resembling a co-ordinated energy strategy that
would see, for example, a national power grid or effective
incentives for renewable alternatives.

And, as the the cost of fuel skyrockets, revenues from the
windfall are not evenly distributed.

Add to this list a moribund industrial-development policy, a
fractured Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs that can't seem to
produce a unified policy, a piecemeal approach to higher education
and innovation, a crumbling national infrastructure, and an
increasingly restrictive immigration regime.

The bottom line is that the essentials of a vibrant public
domain, capable of taking greater control of our own decisions and
pursuing global economic and security initiatives in a forceful,
made-in-Canada way, are not being built.

The late Tory political thinker George Grant wrote a book
called Lament For A Nation, in which he debunked the assumption -
made by too many Canadians - that our prosperity, security and well-
being could be easily obtained by simply riding on the economic and
political coattails of the Americans rather than by paying real
attention to our own institutions and defining our own way.

The Bush administration's actions and attitudes make Grant's
lament worth reconsidering. It's time to redefine this historic
relationship.

-Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of
Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign affairs minister.

-Published in the Toronto Star, Aug 22 2005

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