Shadow Minister Leo Brincat gives his impression of a lightning visit to Canada on parliamentary business
On the same day Prime Minister Gonzi was stating in the House of Representatives that the Canadian PM will be giving the Malta CHOGM summit a miss, the Canadian press carried a feature which stated that he will be doing so because he intends to attend a meeting of provincial premiers and native leaders aimed at figuring out how to improve the lives of Canada's aboriginal people in the coming decade.
With the country already in election mode, one can very well understand the way in which Paul Martin has reprioritised his agenda.
While we were meeting Canadian ministers and parliamentarians at both the Westin Hotel in Ottawa and the Senate and Parliamentary House of Commons on Parliamentary Hill, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was busy paying an official visit to Canada.
Some Canadians were irked that she only found time to visit Canada on her 40th visit abroad, as well as after 10 whole months in office as Secretary of State, but what gained most attention was the agenda of the bilaterals that she conducted with Federal Prime Minister Martin.
With the softwood issue marking the major point of divergence between the two countries, the Canadians talked tough in the sense that they argued that Washington had so far failed to abide by its NAFTA free trade obligations towards Canada.
In simple terms, the Canadians claimed that the US owed Canada some $3.5 billion in illegally collected duties on softwood lumber. This might not sound as the most exciting of issues, but on the domestic front is was perhaps the issue that the Canadians prioritised most.
The feeling in Canada was so strong that three of every four Canadians believed that Canada should even restrict oil and gas exports to the US if the US does not repay the softwood lumber tariffs that were ruled a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
On the other hand, many Canadians I spoke to seemed less ready to throw in the towel, because although they like tough talk when it gets right down to it, they prefer negotiations.
Although the Canadians made it clear that the issue was not negotiable Ms Rice subtly asked them to tone down the rhetoric. When she was asked whether she had brought a cheque for such an amount with her, she jokingly retorted that she does not normally carry so much money when she travels abroad!
An issue that could equally cause potential damage to the Canadian tourism industry is a US proposal on passports.
At first I thought that this was a bit of a storm in a tea cup - that is, until I realised that effectively what will happen is that on December 31 of next year, the US will demand passports or equivalent secure documentation from anyone crossing its borders by air or sea, including returning US citizens, while on December 31, 2007, that requirement will expand to all land border crossings.
The sticky point is this. As things stand, just over 20 per cent of the US population has a passport while 37.6 per cent of Canadians have one.
The Canadians were hoping that the US would reverse its decision eventually to require Canadians and Americans crossing the border to possess a passport.
It might sound strange but such statistics show that many US citizens do not have passports; so much so that they can enter Canada on other forms of identification, such as birth certificates or driver's licenses.
The Canadians have reason to be concerned about this development because the Canadian tourism industry fears it will drastically reduce the number of Americans who travel to their country.
To avoid chaos, Canada is asking the US to drop that requirement and to work with it to intensify border security, pointing to this month's Canada-US pact to strengthen marine cargo security.
Another issue between Canada and the US is that while concern is growing among Canadian society about the increase in violence, particularly in gun use - especially in the Toronto area - it has been found that more than 50 per cent of the illegal handguns have come into Canada from the US.
For this reason the Canadians have been arguing that this is a problem that cannot be solved by the mere imposition of passports.
But this does not imply that US-Canadian relations have suddenly taken a turn for the worse. On the contrary, the feeling I had was that Ms Rice was a very welcome visitor, and that if her visit is to prove of lasting value, both Canada and the US could agree that problems should not fester to such an extent before they are resolved.
These sentiments were also echoed in the Canadian press - including the influential Globe and Mail.
The only thing is that the Canadians, who tend to see everything in terms of electoral votes right now, feel that it was time to draw a line in the sand.
Canada currently depends so heavily on trade with the US that, rather than curbing oil sales to the US, it is now threatening to sell Canada's oil and gas to resource hungry China, thus jeopardising US access to Canadian energy resources.
Their major hidden concern is that it might not be in their economic interests to retaliate where obviously it would cause economic consequences... because the Americans would retaliate too.
There is a strong feeling in Canada right now that the more the federal government leaves the provinces to manage their affairs, the better.
A new study published while I was in Ottawa showed that the federal government prevents Canadians from achieving a better quality of life by interfering in areas of provincial jurisdiction, such as health care, child care and welfare.
Another study that came to light during the same period of my short, lightning visit to Canada was that Canada has allegedly all but abandoned taking part in UN missions and is now on par with Peru and Guatemala in the number of troops it contributes to the world body.
According to the left-leaning Polaris Institute of Ottawa, the Liberal government has embarked on a full-scale retreat from UN missions in favour of taking part in ad hoc US- or NATO-led operations.
In fact many of the Canadian troops now serving overseas are in Afghanistan, taking part in the US-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
An interesting statistic surfaced, in the sense that while in 1992-93 the government spent a little more than $9 of every $10 earmarked for overseas missions on UN operations, today that spending level for UN missions has dropped to 31c out of every $10.
The report also notes that, despite suggestions that Canada spends little on defence, statistics provided by NATO show that this country is the seventh largest spender among the 26 members of the military alliance.
The institute is also questioning the need for some of the Defence Department's more expensive equipment programmes, which it argues are designed more to improve how the Canadian forces can work with their US counterparts rather than to bolster Canada's contribution to world security.
The Martin government currently spends about $14 billion on defence but says that will increase to $20 billion a year by 2009.
At the same time, a recommendation is being made to the Canadian Finance Committee that there should be a freeze on such spending increases until a defence review can be carried out.
Quite frankly, although I was obviously not privy to the intimate, behind-the-scenes discussions held between the Canadians and Ms Rice, I think that this could have been the main thrust of her visit! (leo.brincat@gov.mt)
Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and IT.