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Two articles. Both are written in response to American Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins' comments regarding Canada's "emotional tirades" when it comes to the softwood lumber dispute. Those comments can be found here, US to Canada: Trade "Tirades" Unproductive.

The first article is from the National Post, Ottawa: We Won't Bow Down to Bully.

"I respect Ambassador Wilkins, but I found his comments a little hypocritical," [David Emerson, Industry Minister,] told reporters as he entered a federal Liberal cabinet meeting.

The Minister, a former CEO of a forestry company, said his experience during five years of negotiations was that the U.S. uses "punitive duties and whatever aggressive actions they can take to force us to come to our knees in a dispute where legal rulings have shown time after time that we are in the right."

Mr. Martin told reporters after the meeting that he backed the tough position taken by Mr. Emerson and other ministers.

"It's not emotional to state the facts," he said, "and the facts are that when you sign an agreement you should live up to its terms."

Mr. Martin declined to lower the volume of the war of words, rejecting suggestions that some of his ministers' language may have gone too far and hurt chances of resolving the dispute.

"No," he said. "What the ministers have done is to simply outline the options, and they outlined them in as dispassionate, but as comprehensive way as they could. And they should have."

The second article is from the Toronto Star. Its original headline reads Liberals Take Aim at US Bullies, but NealeNews' headline for the article is far more apt of the sentiment:




Isn't it interesting that anytime the government takes a tough position against the United States, it is met with cries of "anti-Americanism" rather than a rallying cry of "pro-Canadianism".

Will the day ever come when "pro-Canadian" and "anti-American" are no longer used as synonyms of one another?


Update:

• Canadian Cynic provides another more fitting response to Mr. Wilkins' remarks.
• Brad at A Little Bit Left also ponders the Anti-American / Pro-Canadian paradigm.