Giffin, Gordon D.

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Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S. Relations: An Overview Proceedings of the Canada-United States Law Institute Conference on Multiple Actors in Canada-U.S. Relations: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S

Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Canada-United States Law JournalVolume 30 | Issue Article 9January 2004Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players inCanada-U.S. Relations: An Overview Proceedingsof the Canada-United States Law InstituteConference on Multiple Actors in Canada-U.S.Relations: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - ThePlayers in Canada-U.SGordon D. GiffinFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cusljPart of the Transnational Law CommonsThis Speech is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals at Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons.It has been accepted for inclusion in Canada-United States Law Journal by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School ofLaw Scholarly Commons.Recommended CitationGordon D. Giffin, Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S. Relations: An Overview Proceedings of the Canada-UnitedStates Law Institute Conference on Multiple Actors in Canada-U.S. Relations: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S,30 Can.-U.S. L.J. 13 (2004)Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cuslj/vol30/iss/9MULTIPLE ISSUES, MULTIPLE ACTORS - THE PLAYERS INCANADA-U.S. RELATIONS: AN OVERVIEWAmbassador Gordon D. GiffinttU.S. SpeakerThank you, Dr. King. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here. I thinkBob and I are hoping to have more of a conversation than a lecture here thismorning. Therefore, I will make a few minutes of remarks and then let Bobmake his remarks and then we can have a dialogue with all of you.The context for my analysis is considering the Canada-U.S. relationshipin a broad geopolitical context as opposed to the specific sectors that you willtalk about later in the conference, from an American's perspective. I willprobably talk primarily about a perspective on how Canada deals with theU.S. I do not by doing that suggest that the United States does everythingright in the way we deal with Canada or anyone else in the world. It is ratherthat I see my assignment to be looking north rather than looking south.The Canada-U.S. relationship is enormously complicated. In my view, itis enormously complicated primarily because Canada makes it enormouslycomplicated.When I think about it, the best way I can express it is the relationship islike a telescope pointed across the border. Canadians look through the endthat magnifies everything. Everything is bigger than it appears or than it is.Gordon D. Giffin is the co-chair of McKenna Long & Aldridge L.L.P.'s Public Policyand Regulatory Affairs practice. He maintains offices in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, Geor-gia. His practice is focused on international transactions and trade matters, governmentprocurement, federal and state regulatory matters and public policy. From August 1997 toApril 2001, Mr. Giffin served as the nineteenth U.S. Ambassador to Canada. From 1979-1997,Mr. Giffin maintained an active practice of law in Atlanta and Washington focused onadministrative, regulatory and public policy representations. From 1975-1979, he wasLegislative Director and Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator Sam Nunn in Washington. He alsoheld the position of adjunct professor of law at Emory University School of Law. Mr. Giffinserves on the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Trustees for the Carter Center, theBoard of Advisors of the Woodrow Wilson International Center, the Board of the Canadian-American Business Council, the Board of Trustees for the Georgia Research Alliance, and heis chairman of the Board of the Friends of the National Arts Centre (Ottawa, Canada). Heserved on the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation from 1993-19P7. Editor's note - Thanks must be extended to Samantha Brutout, a second year student atthe Case Western Reserve School of Law, for her assistance in editing the first session.1Giffin: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S. RelPublished by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons, 2004CANADA-UNITED STATES LAW JOURNALThe United States looks through the other end where everything is so dis-tant, they do not even think about it. It is so far away, so obscure, there is notenough attention. So just think about this big telescope pointed across the49th parallel, and that will help.I used to kid people at the embassy, in my view, and I am being a littleflippant to dramatize the point, but Canadians obsess about the United States.As a result, the Canadian government obsesses about the United States.Jokingly, I used to say our goal here is to achieve a circumstance whereone week a month they obsess about somebody else, pick any other countryin the world and obsess about that one this week so I can relax a little andmanage some of the personnel. I would have a work plan for a week or for amonth that regularly would get sidetracked by the front page of a Canadianpaper that was focused on something the U.S. did, that somebody in Canadawas upset about, often times legitimately upset, but the intensity of the focuson the United States was remarkable.Now, if you flip that over, there are very few days when the CanadianAmbassador in Washington gets up to find something on the front-page ofthe Washington Post where the United States is focused on what Canada didthe day before. That is unfortunate I am not suggesting that is positive, butthe dynamic is so different.Now, I believe that our relationship together has to reach a new stage ofmaturity. We have gone through several evolutions over the century and ahalf or so of our history together. The latest plateau that I suggest that ourrelationship achieved was the so-called free trade plateau.NAFTA is a species of free trade. It is not fulsome free trade; in anyevent, it is the free trade plateau. Nevertheless, that piateau was achieved in1988.If you think about it, the FTA is 16 years old. That is before we were us-ing the Internet.At one point, I referred to that component of our relationship as an Edseland the more I think about it, that is not fair, because an Edsel was not a suc-cess. NAFTA or free trade has been a success. It is just antiquated and it istime for a newer, more mature relationship. The challenge there is it requiresfocus and effort on both sides of the border in order to achieve that new ma-ture relationship. On the U.S. side, we as a country and as a governmenthave to focus on how important the development of our continent is and therelationships on our continent. Certainly, Mexico has its own challenges andour relationship with Mexico similarly has its own challenges. I do not wantto purport to know much about that because I do not. However, there is noquestion that we as a government and as a country have to refine our focusand refine our view of what the future of the continent is. We are all intoglobalization, worrying about what globalization's effect on us may be.[Vol. 30:132Canada-United States Law Journal, Vol. 30 [2004], Iss. , Art. 9https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cuslj/vol30/iss/9Giffin-Multiple Issues, Multiple ActorsI suggest to you that continentalism is a subset of globalization and theU.S. has missed it. We are not paying attention to it as a country. Our per-spective is far afield to places in the world where there are problems. Obvi-ously, you do have to pay attention to problems. Nevertheless, I often referto Canada as the wheel that does not squeak. We have to turn our attentionas a country and as a policy-making group to that wheel.In Canada, I suggest that there should be what I refer to as a national con-versation about what Canadians want the relationship with the United Statesto be going forward. There is a schizophrenia, in my view, in Canada, withrespect to the United States. On the one hand, we are known to be a ratherfriendly group of people that buy everything they make in Canada, does notmatter what it is, ship it south and we buy it. About 88 percent of what isexported from Canada comes to the United States and we buy it., Canadianslike that trade relationship. It helps the standard of living, makes life quitepleasant. That is a good thing. We have Florida and we have Arizona, Ca-nadians get to travel there. It is warm, pleasant, and sunny. That is a goodthing.Therefore, on the one hand, the right side of the Canadian brain likes theUnited States. The left side of the Canadian brain tries to establish what allthe differences are between Canadians and Americans. It is extraordinarilyimportant to Canadians explain to themselves and to the rest of the world thatthey not Americans and to define the reasons why they are not.It always gave me a little bit of a chuckle when Canadians would talkabout how as compared to Americans they're much more modest and under-stated, and after about fifteen minutes of telling me how much more moralthey were, how more interested they were in world affairs and so forth, andI'd look and say that's the modest part, right? However, the challenge for therelationship from the Canadian perspective is for Canada and Canadians tocome to grips with what they want the U.S. relationship to be.There is this phrase in Canada, referring to the United States, "you are ourbest friends, whether we like it or not."2 That phrase displays an ambiva-lence that gets in the way of the evolution of the relationship. I was asked bythe press often times what was my primary goal as U.S. Ambassador to Can-ada. I would respond, my primary goal is the day I drive back across theborder to re-enter private life, I want to be able to say that I erased the phraseafter the coma; to finally reach the point where all Canadians would say,"you are our best friends," period.1 Robert Samuelson, G-8 Must Squelch Economic Nationalism Leaders Should Act toPrevent Consequences of a Weaker Dollar, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, May 30, 2003.2 METROPOLITAN CORPORATE COUNSEL, CANADA AND THE U.S. - THE WORLD'S LARGESTBI-LATERAL TRADING RELATIONSHIP (2003).200413Giffin: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S. RelPublished by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons, 2004CANADA-UNITED STATES LAW JOURNALI did not get there. I believe that in order for the relationship to make thekind of progress that we need to make together, Canadians are going to haveto have a conversation and decide, "are we, or aren't we, should we be orshouldn't we be, are the things we have in common so overwhelminglydominant in the relationship that they should be the things that drive us, asopposed to the things that we disagree on." I think that kind of consensus hasto be achieved in Canada for us to move to the next to plateau.Any Prime Minister in Canada right now has to walk an enormously fineline of on the one hand maintaining a close enough relationship that the eco-nomics work very well, that the transborder movement works very well, but,on the other hand, has to satisfy, the left side of the Canadian brain that keepsthe Americans at arm's length. That is an enormously difficult challenge.Bob and I were talking last night, if you look at recent Prime Ministers inCanada, Brian Mulroney had an enormously close relationship with PresidentReagan and President Bush 41. 4 I think as a consequence, he was able to dosome things not just in the bilateral relationship, but to do some things wherehe drew the United States into global issues that were very, very productive.His efforts, because of that close relationship, helped the bilateral relation-ship and actually caused the United States to do things that we should doanyway. Nevertheless, he was criticized in Canada. Ultimately, one of thereasons why he had to retire as Prime Minister is because he was viewed tobe too close to the United States.On the other hand, at the end of Prime Minister Chr6tien's tenure, he wasbeing criticized in Canada for being too distant from the United States, fornot getting along well enough with George Bush 43.6 Again, flippantly, Irefer to that as the Goldilocks conundrum, the Prime Minister of Canadacannot ever get it just right because he or she will fall on one side of that lineor other.They tend to want to fall on the arm's length side of that line for politicalpurposes. Therefore, before we can get to the institutions that implement thepolicy goals, you have to examine what the greater framework of the rela-tionship is going to look like going forward and exactly what the two coun-tries want the goals to be.3 Susan Delacourt, Uncle Sam and Us, TORONTO STAR, Jan. 10, 2004, at Fl.4 Sheldon Alberts & Bill Curry, Left and Right Attack PM for Criticizing Bush: 'Ex-tremely Unwise': Mulroney: Comments Harmful at Time When U.S. Needs to be Onside, SayAlberta Premier, Liberal MPs, NATIONAL POST, May 29, 2003, at A4.5 Susan Delacourt, Uncle Sam and Us, TORONTO STAR, Jan. 10, 2004, at Fl.6 Pilita Clark, Despite Striking Similarities, Australia, Unlike Canada, is One of U.S.President Bush's Biggest Cheerleaders When it Comes to Iraq. What Gives?, GLOBE ANDMAIL Focus, Feb. 8, 2003, at F3.[Vol. 30:134Canada-United States Law Journal, Vol. 30 [2004], Iss. , Art. 9https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cuslj/vol30/iss/9Giffin-Multiple Issues, Multiple ActorsMoreover, I suggest it is going to require Canada to come to grips withthe relationship first, not because they should, but because of the U.S. atten-tion span that I referred to before, that we are looking at the wheels thatsqueak.I would hope that Canada, maybe in the context of its next election,would have a conversation about what it wants the U.S. relationship to looklike, get a coherent view of it, chart a course, and then be the demandeur withthe United States about progress. I think it is going to take Canada to be thatfocus demandeur, because of the A.D.D. in the U.S. government, not just thisgovernment, but any government.The myth that is out there in the press, particularly in Canada that theCanada-U.S. relationship is somehow in the tank, that it is at a historicallylow point, that things are just awful, I think is nonsense. I do not think theCanada-U.S. relationship is in the tank.If you go back and look at the Diefenbaker period, you look at the Tru-deau/Nixon period; I do not believe that the current aggravation betweenCanada and the United States even makes the top five.That is just a little food for thought. I have got a lot more specifics wecan discuss. I do not want to take up Bob's time and, hopefully, we can en-gage in a conversation.2004]5Giffin: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S. RelPublished by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons, 20046Canada-United States Law Journal, Vol. 30 [2004], Iss. , Art. 9https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cuslj/vol30/iss/9

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Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S. Relations: An Overview Proceedings of the Canada-United States Law Institute Conference on Multiple Actors in Canada-U.S. Relations: Multiple Issues, Multiple Actors - The Players in Canada-U.S

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