Coyne v. Wells in a post-Obama Ottawa

Great vlog.

On NAFTA, it strikes me that Obama and Harper both played it right. Obama must, as the vloggers say, appease rustbelt protectionists rhetorically, so he says “open it up”; we wouldn’t mind incorporating the side-agreements — but only the side-agreements — into the treaty, but we fear opening up the whole thing. So Harper, quite rightly, says we have to be careful about starting from Square One. Prediction: Obama makes protectionist noises, passes some token legislation that doesn’t affect us, and either we do get American agreement on incorporating only the side-agreements, or we don’t and nothing happens. Bottom line: as Mr. Coyne says, Obama is not a protectionist (nobody is) and we can all cool off a bit on that score.

Technical note: would it be possible in post-production to even out the sound levels? Mr. Wells was rather louder than Mr. Coyne and my neighbours now think I’m a loud, canny man.