U.S. Ambassador says Canada must return to the table in softwood dispute

[CHIMO]

U.S. Ambassador says Canada must return to the table in softwood dispute
Last Updated Wed, 17 Aug 2005 22:28:52 EDT
CBC News

Canada must put aside the rhetoric and return to the negotiating table if the softwood lumber dispute with the United States is to be settled once and for all, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins said Wednesday.

"That's a decision the Canadian government has to make," said Wilkins. "We want a negotiated settlement, we want to bring finality to the issue."

"What we don't need is continued rhetoric to raise the emotional issues."

Canadian and American negotiators were scheduled to meet next week on the issue, but Ottawa canceled those talks after the U.S. refused to abide by a recent NAFTA ruling in Canada's favour.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/08/17/US_ambassador_softwood_dispute20050817.html

Thank you Mr. Ambassador. We stopped being a colony awhile ago. In case you weren't aware what the implications were out in Banff last week let me spell it out.

We either have an agreement called NAFTA or we don't.

And I know that you just arrived here and are not used to the subtitles in our northern drawl but thems the facts.

Now we are going to have an election shortly and the government is being bashed on health care and assisting in your mess in Afghanistan. And you expect what...!

[Lisa]

1. I thought it was settled ...

We won.


Perhaps Mr. Ambassador wasn't briefed, during his "crash course" in diplomacy ... if you don't like the verdict, you can't keep returning to the court. (Especially when your administration, ahem, casts aspersions on "filing a lawsuit".)

[Bassic]

11. No you see, whenever NAFTA decides against the US

The NAFTA is wrong. This really pisses me off, fuck...

[daleo]

2. "You must continue negotiating until we get the answer we want"

What is the point of NAFTA if one side just ignores rulings when they don't like them?

[tuvor]

3. Fuck that shit.

They steal $5 billion of our dollars, and now they want to continue to steal our time.

What's with the arrogant, stupid, ignorant ambassadors they've been sending us lately?

:mad:

[Bassic]

12. Is there any other kind?

[HuffleClaw]

4. negotiated whatzits ?

geeze, what a loon. cheap propagandist. i wonder who this crap was meant for. not a canadian audience surely. ;-)

[Maple]

5. We've been at the table for what....?

20 years now? We win ruling after ruling.

Free trade or get off the pot Mr Ambassador.

[Spazito]

6. My, my, my, the new Ambassador sounds eerily like the old

Arrogance was transferred with the position it seems. Time for sanctions and additional tax levies on exported oil and gas to the US. How do you like THAT rhetoric, Mr. Ambassador?

[MaineDem]

7. Arrogance surrounds this administration

It touches every one of them.

Sorry, Canada. We didn't all vote for the jerk.

[Bassic]

13. Yes, I've been saying that years!

But our oh so great government does not have the balls to do it.

Urgh.

[bemildred]

8. Or what? nt

[SidDithers]

9. F*ck 'em...

There are other markets for our softwood. Lots of building going on in China, I hear.

Sid

[Mizmoon]

10. clear cutting forests

maybe canada would better benefit the world by keeping their forests instead of cutting them down and selling them to the south?

[Bassic]

15. Also true, or at least replanting (and not just spruce, fucking morons)

[iverglas]

18. thanks for the advice

Unfortunately, it sounds a lot like something a US ambassador would say.

Maybe the the US would benefit the world if USAmericans stopped using sixty gazillion times their share of the world's resources? Yeah, sure, including our timber -- but I might suggest starting with something like gas and oil ... and disposable plastic objects ...

Do you know anything at all about this issue?

[Theduckno2]

14. Ambassador Wilkins the dispute is over!

The verdict is in and we have to pay back $5 billion. Now be a 'Good American' (in the true continental sense) and cough up the money! Maybe Canada could find a way to start charging interest because that would get Bushco's attention. :)

[chopper]

16. law school 101

"don't ask for settlement talks after the verdict is already in"

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. Are they talkin' about the same "table" they got Iran on?

.
.
.

:scared:

[CHIMO]

19. The end of NAFTA: Canada signed away its energy and got nothing in return;

The end of NAFTA: Canada signed away its energy and got nothing in return; the U.S. response to a recent lumber ruling shows it's time to get out

David Orchard
Citizen Special

For two decades those of us critical of the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement (FTA), and its successor NAFTA, have pointed out that these agreements didn't give us free trade, but would cost us a large part of our sovereignty and national well-being.

Today, even promoters of the FTA as a "rules based" nirvana of "secure access" to the U.S. market -- and part of a move toward global "free trade" -- have been forced to face hard realities.

A couple of recent examples deserve examination. Recently, the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) was forced by what it called "unprecedented political opposition" in Washington to withdraw its open-market bid to buy California-based Unocal Corp. Congress saw the deal as a threat to American "energy security." U.S.-based Chevron is now almost certain to pick up Unocal -- for a substantially lower bid than that offered by CNOOC.

Canadians, on the other hand, living in a larger, colder country with a critical dependence on energy, have signed away under the free-trade agreements our energy security and -- even though our industry is far more foreign-controlled than that of the U.S. -- are told repeatedly by the government that we no longer have any need to own or control our oil and gas reserves.

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=135eb7e5-b098-4b28-8fe0-5078f12c6f33&page=1

David Orchard, author of The Fight for Canada -- Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism, ran for the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Party in 1998 and 2003.