Senator McCain initially jokes that he’s non-committal on making Canada his first foreign visit, however, he followed this up with the following,
“Certainly, I think that that [first POTUS foreign trip to Canada] is a precedent that there’s every argument to follow that”
“I think it was very appropriate that both President Reagan and President Clinton took a trip to Canada before they took any foreign travel.”
— Senator John McCain
Senator McCain’s visit to Canada as a presumptive nominee for President is unprecedented in history. Before yesterday, no other such candidate for President, Democrat or Republican, has come to Canada during an election cycle.
I wanted to ask a question that was simple, and had the potential for headlines. I believe that McCain’s answer to my question indicates that he sees no reason not to follow the precedents set by Presidents Clinton and Reagan to make Canada his first foreign visit.
Three reporters focused on NAFTA-related stories even after McCain mentioned that he would not address the red meat of the NAFTA-leak story that many Canadian national reporters were after. I felt that these questions were guaranteed to provide non-answers.
Another question regarding Omar Khadr was important and elicited a somewhat uncomfortable shift of burden upon the Canadian government; McCain had mentioned his policy to shut down Guantanamo Bay as a detention facility but may have put Foreign Affairs on guard when he mentioned that Canada has not actually sought to intervene for Khadr.
I felt that Global reporter Ben O’hara-byrne’s question elicited one of the more interesting exchanges as Senator McCain formulated his own on-the-spot policy regarding the exportation of Canadian water and water-security. McCain indicated that it was not a strategy that he would likely be supporting.
The following is a transcript of NDP leader Jack Layton’s appearance on CNN’s Lou Dobbs tonight on March 6th, 2008:
DOBBS: Let’s take a different perspective on NAFTA if we may tonight, this one the Canadian perspective. At least one Canadian perspective and one major Canadian political party that adamantly is opposed to the trade agreement and to the threat of the North American Union.
Jack Layton is the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party and he joins us tonight from Ottawa.
Jack, great to have you with us.
JACK LAYTON, CANADA’S NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADER: Good to be with you, Lou.
DOBBS: The Canadian perspective, on NAFTA a lot of grumbling here and a lot of talk if it should be omitted in our presidential contest as well. Your thoughts?
LAYTON: We think NAFTA is not working well for working families and the middle class. I will just give you a couple examples. Here in Canada we have lost a third of a million jobs in the last three years in the manufacturing sector. The kind of jobs that allow people to pay a mortgage, to raise their kids, to make contributions to the local hockey team — we love hockey here in Canada, and really to the backbone and to the community. And they’re now finding the jobs that are available when they get laid off — out of these plants because their jobs have now been sent off to a far-off land where wages are one one-hundredth of what they are here — the kind of jobs they can find in Canada are minimum wage.
They can’t pay their mortgages, they are really struggling and I know many American workers are finding exactly the same thing. I think it’s time we made a little common cause and make sure the trade deals are working for the people who make the economy work.
DOBBS: I think most Americans would not pay attention a great deal to the fact Canada is a parallel, if you will, universe in terms of these agreements. When you talk about a third of a million jobs, that goes beyond just NAFTA, that goes to Canada’s overall trade policies, does it not?
LAYTON: Yes it does. Just to give you some examples. We ship raw logs from our forest all the way over to China where they are turned into products and they come back and we buy them. We even find sometimes the products don’t meet our standards our here. I heard you talking about toxic toothpaste in the U.S.
We’ve been facing toxic toys here in Canada. There goes the jobs. The trees go and they take the jobs with them and I know the West Coast is experiencing many of the same things. We need some fair and sustainable trade. That’s what we’ve got to put together.
DOBBS: What a wonderful expression. Fair and sustainable trade. In other words, Jack, let me say, I think many people, are surprised as they listen to you talking about the problems with NAFTA from your perspective, those are precisely what we’re doing now.
We’re sending timber and bringing back lumber. We’re exporting soybeans and scrap and taking in computers from China. The principle source of our computers, our consumer electronics and we look like a third world country for crying out loud.
LAYTON: It’s these multinational organizations under this so- called phrase globalization feel they can consume and produce in their own interests. And they are certainly doing very well by it but it leaves a lot of people behind and that’s why we think a renegotiation of trade should take place and today in Washington, our trade critic, Peter Julian was there from our party working with Congress members and legislators from Mexico to set up a working group to set up a working group. That is a bit of good news today.
DOBBS: Real quickly, we are out of time. Jack Layton, Mr. Brodie, the prime minister’s chief of staff, some talk about him being the source of that leak of Obama-gate as it is called here? Your reaction?
LAYTON: I asked the prime minister today in the House of Commons to apologize to the American people for this kind of interference on the democratic process in the U.S. It’s not right, he hasn’t yet apologized and he hasn’t yet fired the source of the leak. So we’ll keep working on that on our end.
DOBBS: It’s nice and it’s absolutely reassuring, Jack Layton, to find that politics are not just a mess here but occasionally up north. We thank you for taking time with us and hope you’ll come back soon as we discuss these important issues for working men and women and their families and both candidates and the United States and Mexico for that matter.
LAYTON: For sure, Lou. Take care.
DOBBS: Thank you. You too.
Up next here, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at it again. Moving troops up to the border with Colombia, maybe he intends to use them. We’ll have that report.
And five years since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security a few questions remain like why aren’t our borders and ports secure? I’ll be talking with Congressman Lamar Smith about that.
We’re coming right back. Stay with us.
For whatever the depth of this “scandal” for all parties that message on it, it’s a good one for Jack Layton because it fits well into his message track as he advocates on his views regarding organized labour, manufacturing, and free trade. This sets Layton up firmly against our Conservative Prime Minister who stands opposed to Layton’s principled, however misguided, views on most, if not all of these issues. Jack Layton receives great profile here from CNN and if we contrast this to the faltering leadership of Leader of the Opposition Stephane Dion, we find Layton to be more of a credible voice for those that oppose the Conservative government’s agenda.
Also a scandal in Canada is that the news media is focusing more upon the leak on Obama’s position rather than the Chicago senator’s nebulous position itself. The preservation of NAFTA and full political disclosure of the candidates on the issue is in Canada’s best interest. While it is unfortunate that there is now a perception of interference in US electoral politics by Canadian government staff, Canada is better off for having the issue front and centre on the US political stage. Americans are now be able to evaluate the positions of their political candidates on such an issue of importance to Canada. It is to Canada’s advantage that U.S. candidates for president are now being vetted on their position regarding free trade with our country.
In the U.S., the scandal is based on full disclosure of policy in a political campaign (“keeping them honest”, as Lou Dobbs might say). In Canada, the scandal is the inappropriate nature by which Americans were given an opportunity to have an honest policy debate.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be affected by renegotiating or ripping up NAFTA. What’s got the Ottawa press buzzing is which one job close to the Prime Minister (in Ottawa or Washington) may be affected instead.
John Tory is in Ottawa tomorrow to meet with members of the Ontario CPC caucus and key federal Conservative strategists. Of course, the PCPO leader comes to the nation’s capital under the cloud of a challenge of a possible leadership review being organized by conservative strategist Nick Kouvlalis, who is leading the charge for a review with his “yes” campaign. The leader of the “no” (to review) campaign is John Capobianco, a long-time conservative organizer in his own right. After interviewing Kouvalis on his efforts last week, I immediately sought to ask Capobianco a set of questions about the possible leadership review and his team’s efforts to shield Tory and promote him as a strong leader for the party membership.
ST.CA: “Mr. Capobianco, in the face of this challenge to John Tory’s leadership of the PCPO, do you recognize this as a significant ‘grassroots’ campaign of the base, or the efforts of a few discontents?”
JC: One should never discount the efforts of party members who are calling for a leadership review. I’ve seen some websites and read reports of a dinner where folks gathered to discuss organizing for a
review vote in February. I don’t think these can be called either a
campaign of the ‘grassroots’ or efforts of a few discontents – however,
I take all constructive criticisms seriously as does John Tory. Given
our loss, I certainly think this is a time of valid discussion for the
entire party, and John Tory has been at the forefront of this
discussion, meeting Tories in their ridings face to face or calling them
on the phone, which is about as ‘grassroots’ and genuine as one can get.
The response John has been getting is good, he is out there, with the
party and real conservatives, every day, face to face, hearing about
their concerns and, more importantly, learning from them.
ST.CA: “In the last campaign, John Tory stated that ‘Leadership Matters’. Some say that the results indicated that Tory failed this standard that he set for himself. Why should Tory stay on now?”
JC: It’s true that John Tory set high standards for himself, and didn’t achieve what he wanted to, he knows and laments this. However within weeks of the election, he was out in the ridings, face to face with the party and working with them to discover what he did wrong, which shows he is indeed a leader.
Tory should stay on because his drive and energy to create a compelling conservative vision for the province is relentless. Out of nowhere he almost became mayor of Toronto, and within three years of winning the leadership of the PC party – at a time, I will add, where we were $10 million in debt and with the lowest morale I’ve seen in years – many thought we were in a position to win the province, despite an economy that appeared strong and huge liberal spending.
When you talk to party members, of course they’re upset at the loss; we as Conservatives have certainly suffered our fair share of losses both provincially and nationally over the years, but we usually determine where we made our mistakes and went about fixing them… we don’t and should not get into the practice of defeating our leaders after one election loss. If we did, we wouldn’t have had Mike Harris as Premier or Stephen Harper as our current Prime Minister, both suffered initial electoral defeat, but come back to win their respective elections the second time.
Tory is currently listening to and working with the party and over the next 4 years will create an incredibly dynamic Progressive Conservative Party.
ST.CA: “The ‘yes’ side of the campaign has made their first move. Will you be responding? What will you be doing to sign up as many delegates as possible to meet the challenge, whatever its degree, from the ‘no’ side?”
JC: Tory will be doing what he has been doing since October, meeting with the party, face to face and in the open, learning and letting progressive conservatives across the province know that they can trust him to be a strong Conservative leader.
Much is being made of Tory’s tour to connect with the membership for feedback and for a post-mortem to the election loss. Critics on both sides of the debate argue about the merits of how these consultations are being held. Tory’s people would seem to claim that these consultations show a grassroots effort to consult the membership, while the “yes” campaign suggests that the consultations are framed by Tory and show little accountability. Capobianco seems to counter the self-proclaimed label of “grassroots” by the “yes” campaign by suggesting that the campaign is being organized by a handful of senior conservatives.