Mending Fences: Warmer US-Canadian Relations

Hemel, Daniel, Harvard International Review

Not since US President James Polk threatened to invade British Columbia in 1845 have tempers flared so hotly along the US-Canadian border. In March 2003, Carolyn Parish, a member of Parliament from Canada's ruling Liberal Party, publicly exclaimed: "Damn Americans, I hate those bastards." Parish's remarks came less than five months after Francoise Ducros, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Jean Chretien, described US President George Bush as a "moron" while speaking within earshot of reporters at the NATO summit in Prague.

These political insults underscore more substantive disputes between the two neighbors. In April 2002, a US F-16 fighter pilot fired a laser-guided missile into a Canadian training area south of Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing four Canadian soldiers and wounding eight others. The same spring, the United States imposed a 27 percent tariff on softwood lumber imports from Canada to combat dumping of subsidized Canadian surplus lumber. …

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Publication information: Article title: Mending Fences: Warmer US-Canadian Relations. Contributors: Hemel, Daniel - Author. Journal title: Harvard International Review. Volume: 25. Issue: 4 Publication date: Winter 2004. Page number: 12+. © 1999 Harvard International Relations Council, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group.

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