Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to Washington this week for the first Three Amigos summit in five years — a trilateral meeting with U.S. and Mexican leaders that has been dismissed in the past as high on symbolism and low on substance.
The one-day summit comes at a challenging time for the Canada-U.S. relationship.
The election of U.S. President Joe Biden was celebrated by many in Canada as the dawn of a new era in bilateral relations after the fractious four-year term of his predecessor, Donald Trump. During his campaign, Biden promised a return to “normalcy” and better relations with U.S. allies; the revival of the once-dormant Three Amigos gathering is a sign that the Trump-era froideur is over.
But on Biden’s watch, a number of new irritants have emerged. Biden, more beholden to progressive elements in the Democratic Party than past presidents, has made climate policy a priority to appeal to green activists. Canada’s energy sector is paying a price.
Canada battling U.S. protectionism, anti-oil agenda
In the first week of his presidency, Biden cancelled permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, dealing a multi-billion dollar blow to Alberta’s oilpatch.
He has done little to stop Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, from trying to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline — a crucial artery that supplies oil products and natural gas to power huge portions of the Canadian economy. Experts agree its closure would be devastating to Canada — a threat to the continued operation of Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and the free flow of fossil fuels to other critical industries.
A spokesperson for Biden said this week the White House is awaiting a review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before deciding whether to wade into a debate over the future of the controversial pipeline. Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan — who served as the natural resources minister until recently — has said the line’s continued operation is “non-negotiable.”
Lauren Sargent takes part in a protest before the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline public information session in Holt, Michigan on July 6, 2017. (Cory Morse/The Grand Rapids Press via AP Photo)
While Canada lifted land border restrictions on non-essential travel this summer, the Biden administration only did away with its months-long ban on cross-border travel last week. Non-stop flights from Moscow and Beijing were arriving at New York’s JFK airport while fully vaccinated Canadian travellers were turned away at land crossings in the states of Maine, New York and Washington — disrupting business, tourism and family reunification.
Legislation before the Democratic congress also threatens trade relations between two of the world’s largest economies. Congress has drafted a bill, the Build Back Better Act, that would offer sizeable tax credits worth up to $12,500 to the buyers of new electric vehicles — as long as those cars and trucks are manufactured in the U.S.
That tax measure would be a devastating development for the Canadian automotive sector, which is trying to attract new investment as the industry transitions away from internal combustion engines.
A congressional staffer holds a copy of H.R.5376, the Build Back Better Act. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Biden’s massive infrastructure bill, which he is set to sign into law tomorrow, is littered with Buy America provisions that could leave Canadian companies out of the competition for contracts potentially worth billions of dollars in government business — provisions that undermine the new NAFTA signed by the three countries just a few years ago.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has identified this protectionist push as a significant problem but Canadian protests have so far fallen on deaf ears.
David MacNaughton, who served as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. during the Trump administration, said that while the former reality TV star-turned-politician generated a tremendous amount of “unpredictability” in the Oval Office, it was still possible for Canada to advance its agenda because Trump “didn’t have any particular ideology. In fact, he had no real ideology at all.”
“The problem you face with President Biden is you have some really comforting words about allies but you have, within his own party, and his own domestic agenda, some real ideologically protectionist elements which are going to cause problems in terms of our mutual economic interest. We’re already seeing that,” MacNaughton told CBC News.
“I think the problem with the Democrats is that a lot of them just don’t really believe in global trade and really would prefer everything be done in the U.S. It’s always better when you have somebody who’s sympatico [rather] than someone who’s constantly railing against you, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”
WATCH: Trudeau, Biden and López Obrador to meet in person in Washington
Trudeau, Biden and Lopez Obrador to meet in person next week in Washington
4 days ago
Agustin Barrios Gomez, former Mexican congressman, Maryscott Greenwood, former U.S. diplomat to Canada, and David MacNaughton, former Canadian ambassador to the United States, joined Power & Politics Wednesday to discuss the upcoming ‘Three Amigos’ summit. 11:34
The Three Amigos gathering, formally known as the North American Leaders’ Summit, is not the best forum to address Canada-U.S. bilateral issues because of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presence, said Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute.
The Mexican leader is not particularly concerned about the future of Windsor, Ont. as a centre for car manufacturing, or if a major source of Quebec’s national gas supply is in danger of going offline, he said.
“It’s like, ‘Yeah, we want to talk to you but not with the other guy in the room,'” Sands told CBC News. “Canada feels like an afterthought.
“But it’s the Americans trying to economize the president’s time and focus because there are some similarities on things like borders, North American competitiveness and economic issues with both Canada and Mexico. Just for efficiency, they’re grouped together. It’s the way the Americans think.”
The only major trilateral accomplishment of Trump’s term — the renegotiation of the new NAFTA, the Canada-U.S.-Mexican Agreement (CUSMA) — was done without formal Three Amigos summits, Sands said.
But despite the format’s shortcomings, it’s still a chance to get these leaders around a table talking about issues of common interest, he added.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Trudeau will use the short time he has before Biden to press these bilateral concerns and “discuss shared priorities and find North American solutions to the challenges of today and tomorrow.”
Coming off the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Trudeau is also eager to discuss the environment as the world struggles to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels. López Obrador skipped COP26 and Mexico, a major oil producer, has rebuffed renewable energy projects.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador rings the bell as he gives the annual independence shout from the balcony of the National Palace to kick off subdued mid-pandemic Independence Day celebrations at the Zocalo in Mexico City on Sept. 15, 2021. (Fernando Llano/AP Photo)
“Our countries are committed to providing a better future for our people, including creating more middle class jobs, building a cleaner economy and tackling climate change and finishing the fight against COVID-19. I look forward to meeting with my counterparts to discuss a new path for our partnerships at a time when the world is facing complex global challenges,” Trudeau said in a media statement.
In its own media statement, the White House pitched the summit as a way to “strengthen” the “partnership” and “revitalize our leadership and respond to a widening range of regional and global challenges.” The statement says that Biden — doubtless with an eye on domestic politics — will also use the meeting to discuss “a regional vision for migration,” an issue of little relevance to Canada.
The first formal North American leaders’ meeting was held in 1956 when then-U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower gathered his continental counterparts — Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent and the Mexican leader, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines — as the Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union was starting to heat up.
Canadian ambivalence
Canadian ambivalence at the time about this trilateral dynamic was reflected in a piece in the Chicago Tribune.
On the occasion of the first-ever Canada-U.S.-Mexico leaders’ meeting in West Virginia, the newspaper reported that “Canada traditionally has kept aloof from Latin America in trade matters, in the belief that it can deal better with Washington on a bilateral basis.”
The focus of the 1956 summit was on how the three countries could “develop democratic processes” at a time when communism was on the march in the developing world. The U.S., seen by some as an imperial power, wanted to recruit “smaller countries like Canada and Mexico in offering a helping hand to countries that have been determined to remain neutral in the ‘Cold War,'” according to an account of the summit in the New York Times.
The leaders’ summits were held sporadically in the decades that followed. U.S. President George W. Bush created the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in 2005, a regular forum for the three countries to meet to cooperate on security and economic issues.
Mexican President Vicente Fox, U.S. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left to right, walk along the steps of the Mayan Pyramid in Chichen Itza, Mexico in 2006. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)
The SPP was the subject of much criticism: left-wing groups in Canada said they feared it would be the first step toward a North American union, while right-wing activists in the U.S. fretted about a possible spike in the number of people crossing between the three countries. Bush’s successor, President Barack Obama, scrapped the SPP but kept the leaders’ meeting portion.
“They’ve always been more important to the Americans. Stephen Harper didn’t put much of a priority on this. Canada skipped hosting it a couple times,” Sands said. “Now, the Biden administration has put great stock in the return to normal.”
“It’s not a longstanding tradition but having civilized conversations with your neighbours is pretty normal compared to what we’ve seen recently. Is it absolutely necessary? No, we can live without them, we did for a long time and we did just recently. But I think what makes this important is the U.S. signalling it wants to have this conversation and it’s bringing it together on relatively short notice.”
Just as Eisenhower gathered his Canadian and Mexican counterparts while the Soviet Union was flexing its muscles in the 1950s, Biden is hosting this year’s summit as the Western world grows increasingly concerned about China. Biden will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping before Trudeau and Lopez Obrador arrive in D.C.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, was in a jovial mood as he had informal talks with Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent in Ottawa in January, 1951. (Archive/Canadian Press)
“It’s pretty clear North America will have to work together to counter its competitor in China and counter the threats in China,” said Scotty Greenwood, a former U.S. diplomat and an expert in Canada-U.S. relations at Crestview Strategy.
As the U.S. shifts its supply chain away from Asia and an increasingly hostile China, Canada and Mexico will become “extremely relevant” to the American economy, she said.
Mexico’s low-wage labour and Canada’s critical minerals and natural resources could help the U.S. “decouple” from its continued reliance on China, she said. “I think the outline is there for really important North American cooperation.”
MONTREAL – The employers association at the Port of Montreal has issued the dockworkers’ union a “final, comprehensive offer,” threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn’t reached.
The Maritime Employers Association says its new offer includes a three per cent salary increase per year for four years and a 3.5 per cent increase for the two subsequent years. It says the offer would bring the total average compensation package of a longshore worker at the Port of Montreal to more than $200,000 per year at the end of the contract.
“The MEA agrees to this significant compensation increase in view of the availability required from its employees,” it wrote Thursday evening in a news release.
The association added that it is asking longshore workers to provide at least one hour’s notice when they will be absent from a shift — instead of one minute — to help reduce management issues “which have a major effect on daily operations.”
Syndicat des débardeurs du port de Montréal, which represents nearly 1,200 longshore workers, launched a partial unlimited strike on Oct. 31, which has paralyzed two terminals that represent 40 per cent of the port’s total container handling capacity.
A complete strike on overtime, affecting the whole port, began on Oct. 10.
The union has said it will accept the same increases that were granted to its counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years. It is also concerned with scheduling and work-life balance. Workers have been without a collective agreement since Dec. 31, 2023.
Only essential services and activities unrelated to longshoring will continue at the port after 9 p.m. Sunday in the event of a lockout, the employer said.
The ongoing dispute has had major impacts at Canada’s second-biggest port, which moves some $400 million in goods every day.
On Thursday, Montreal port authority CEO Julie Gascon reiterated her call for federal intervention to end the dispute, which has left all container handling capacity at international terminals at “a standstill.”
“I believe that the best agreements are negotiated at the table,” she said in a news release. “But let’s face it, there are no negotiations, and the government must act by offering both sides a path to true industrial peace.”
Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon issued a statement Thursday, prior to the lockout notice, in which he criticized the slow pace of talks at the ports in Montreal and British Columbia, where more than 700 unionized port workers have been locked out since Nov. 4.
“Both sets of talks are progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved,” he wrote on the X social media platform.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Employers and the union representing supervisors embroiled in a labour dispute that triggered a lockout at British Columbia’s ports will attempt to reach a deal when talks restart this weekend.
A spokesman from the office of federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has confirmed the minister spoke with leaders at both the BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514, but did not invoke any section of the Canadian Labour Code that would force them back to talks.
A statement from the ministry says MacKinnon instead “asked them to return to the negotiation table,” and talks are now scheduled to start on Saturday with the help of federal mediators.
A meeting notice obtained by The Canadian Press shows talks beginning in Vancouver at 5 p.m. and extendable into Sunday and Monday, if necessary.
The lockout at B.C. ports by employers began on Monday after what their association describes as “strike activity” from the union. The result was a paralysis of container cargo traffic at terminals across Canada’s west coast.
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint against the employers for allegedly bargaining in bad faith, a charge that employers call a “meritless claim.”
The two sides have been without a deal since March 2023, and the employers say its final offer presented last week in the last round of talks remains on the table.
The proposed agreement includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term along with an average lump sum payment of $21,000 per qualified worker.
The union has said one of its key concerns is the advent of port automation in cargo operations, and workers want assurances on staffing levels regardless of what technology is being used at the port.
The disruption is happening while two container terminals are shut down in Montreal in a separate labour dispute.
It leaves container cargo traffic disrupted at Canada’s two biggest ports, Vancouver and Montreal, both operating as major Canadian trade gateways on the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
This is one of several work disruptions at the Port of Vancouver, where a 13-day strike stopped cargo last year, while labour strife in the rail and grain-handling sectors led to further disruptions earlier this year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
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