Q: You said at a Maclean’s/CPAC forum in Washington that sometimes you have to educate Canadians about how they don’t have a “human right” to enter the U.S. What else do you want to educate Canadians about?
A: Sometimes you get questions about flying over the U.S., and [American] requests for certain things, and you have to point out it’s their sovereign airspace to manage. It’s not Canadian airspace. It’s also my job to point out the major trade issue that the U.S. has with Canada—it’s intellectual property. It’s my job, when asked these questions, to point out what the priorities are in the U.S. But if it’s not in the cards and not reasonable, you make that point as well. [U.S.] Ambassador [to Canada] David Jacobson and I have a good working relationship. Part of it is to work with all the issues in a way that is a two-way communication system. And to the Americans, I have to point out the obvious at every speaking engagement. We are your best customer. It’s us, not Saudi Arabia, that is your biggest and most reliable supplier of energy. And you get more visitors from Canada than any other country.
Q: What is it like to be the Canadian ambassador in Washington in 2011? We have this image fixed from the Allan and Sondra Gotlieb days that everything happens at Georgetown dinner parties. Do you go to dinner parties, or hockey games, or attend rallies like the Jon Stewart rally or the Tea Party rallies?
A: I haven’t. I was tied up with work on those occasions. I just attended a Martin Luther King event recently. So I attend some of these events that unite Canadians and Americans in terms of human rights. What goes on in Washington is similar to what goes on in Ottawa. People who are elected will go home on Thursday or Friday night to their districts. They are very involved and engaged not in Georgetown but in Peoria. I think that’s similar to what’s going on in Ottawa. People go back to their constituencies because that is who they report to. There are three or four events a year I go to—such as the Alfalfa Club dinner—where lawmakers and lobbyists and cabinet secretaries go. Yes, I go to hockey games and I enjoy attending events that are part of American culture. One major difference is that in Canada you’ve got to know your hockey teams and hockey players. In the U.S., you’ve also got to know the football teams, and in March, the basketball teams.
Q: You are a former NDP premier. What is like representing a Conservative government?
A: When I was a premier, I travelled to the U.S. with Bernard Lord, Dalton McGuinty and Jean Charest, and most recently with Ed Stelmach and Brad Wall, and I’ve always felt that I was part of the Canadian team. This is no different.
Q: What has struck you as interesting or surprising since you’ve been in Washington?
A: One thing that is surprising is when a bill is being discussed in Congress you can’t get a bar stool in Washington because there are 35,000 lawyers and lobbyists in town wining and dining—not that I was looking for a bar stool.
The think tanks in Washington are also interesting. In the U.S., they exchange prisoners after every election with all the [changeover] in staffing that goes on. In Canada, we have more of a permanent public service, but they do have public-service-in-waiting in the think tanks. It’s my advice to Canadian decision makers—whether in business or NGOs, or elected representatives or consumer groups—to take advantage of the think tanks. The people there are very bright, and tomorrow they might be an undersecretary. They are very important. Today they are giving you advice, tomorrow they may be making decisions. It’s very useful to soak up their knowledge and ideas and give them your own views of what Canada has to offer and what our priorities are on an ongoing basis.
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