Which topics went unresolved during Trudeau-Biden meeting?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/04/2023 (908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For any Canadian prime minister, there are a handful of top policy priorities that rise above all others — including the protection and security of individual Canadians and maintaining the overall unity of the federation. Also on that shortlist is the critical need to effectively manage relations with our southern neighbour and best customer.

The turbulent Donald Trump years clearly demonstrated how conducting bilateral relations with the U.S. is a tricky matter, and one that requires a significant amount of finesse and careful diplomacy. As former deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister John Manley once stated: “You can’t get too close to the United States, but you can’t get too far, either.”

To further complicate matters, there is never a shortage of thorny issue-areas on the bilateral agenda. More to the point, there are always issues that are already, or are bordering on becoming, full-blown Canada-U.S. disputes or so-called “irritants.” Take your pick from a wide variety of policy dimensions: economic, security, diplomatic, cultural and foreign policy.

That was plain to see during U.S. President Joe Biden’s late-March two-day visit to Ottawa. There were plenty of discussions around critical minerals, the war in Ukraine and climate change. There were even bilateral conversations on supply-chain resilience, the deadly opioid crisis and geostrategic concerns in the Indo-Pacific region.

The main focus, however, was on a broad sweep of issues from the overflowing bilateral defence-security basket. It is instructive to note here that military-related challenges have always been a central preoccupation of U.S. governments since at least the 1940s. And after the string of high-altitude balloon incidents in February, it was understandable why North American security and the “modernization” of NORAD were major talking points.

The Americans are happy to see Canada accelerate efforts to increase defence spending in NORAD, NATO and especially our northern air defence radar system. They are certainly not shy about calling for more military expenditures for the Canadian Armed Forces’ capabilities and readiness on the ground, in the air and on the seas.

Security for the Biden White House also takes into account irregular migration at the 9,000-kilometre Canada-U.S. border. There have been reports from U.S. border security agents that the numbers of migrants from Africa, Eastern Europe and South America crossing into the U.S. — after having secured Canadian travel visas — have exploded in recent months.

And when you factor in Biden’s laser-like focus on the 2024 presidential election, combined with his obsession with the record flood of undocumented asylum-seekers coming into the U.S. today, this issue will remain a key priority between the two countries.

The big surprise, of course, was the meaningful progress made on the controversial Roxham Road unofficial border crossing. The Trudeau government now has an agreement with the Biden team to extend the 2002 Safe Third Country Agreement, which will send migrants seeking refugee status in Canada and intercepted at undesignated border crossings back to the U.S., right across the entire undefended boundary.

In return, Canada has apparently agreed to accept 15,000 migrants from Central America and Haiti through legal channels. It’s unclear, however, whether this will actually stem the flow of irregular migrants (or ensure their safety) seeking entry to Canada.

What was noticeably absent from the bilateral discussions was substantial movement on the important disputes of softwood lumber, the Line 5 oil pipeline and the ongoing crisis in Haiti. Obviously, there’s a good explanation for that — namely, they are all long-standing issues for a reason, are politically prickly and clearly difficult to resolve amicably.

Although Haiti was understandably discussed behind closed doors, the notion of Canada coming to the rescue of a failing state was never on. At one point, I thought that the resolution of Canada’s Roxham Road quandary could have been linked to the U.S.’s Haiti conundrum. But the prospect of Ottawa being “out-linked” in this instance no doubt killed it.

The lumber dispute, however, has been dragging on for over six years, and without any hope of a bilateral timber accord in sight. All the while, punishing U.S. softwood duties remain in place against several Canadian exporters — with the total tally of import fees already surpassing $8 billion.

More importantly, the powerful U.S. Lumber Coalition, which represents the timber industry, has deep financial pockets and is politically connected in Washington, wouldn’t touch the idea of a bilateral lumber agreement with a 10-foot pole.

As for the Line 5 pipeline flap, it remains caught up in court actions/environmental reviews and is largely in limbo right now. While the proposed project is important to Alberta oil and gas producers and to commercial operations in southern Ontario and Quebec, the recently re-elected governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, is dead set against the idea of an underground pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac.

Essentially, that means that environmental issues associated with the pipeline proposal and Biden’s friendship with Whitmer (and presumably Michigan voters in 2024) amounts to a stalled Line 5 tunnel.

Admittedly, some progress was made on bilateral files important to Canada during Biden’s high-profile visit. But it also reinforces once again just how challenging the Canada-U.S. relationship can be when even a seemingly Canada-friendly Biden still can’t (or won’t) deliver the goods.

» Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.