Canadians let it all out in Obama welcome

Canadians put aside their usual snide remarks about US politicians yesterday as thousands gathered in unabashed adulation of President Barack Obama on his first foreign visit.

More than 3,000 people withstood freezing temperatures and snow on Ottawa's Parliament Hill to catch a glimpse of the US leader as he waved briefly from behind a plexiglass barrier as he met Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"Maybe We Can" and "Yes Oui Can" were some of the signs being waved by the screaming crowd. People held up pictures of Mr Obama and adorned snowmen with Obama T-shirts and flags.

Television networks ran nonstop coverage of the visit, starting hours before the President's arrival, and local restaurants offered special Obama coffee - a blend of Kenyan, Hawaiian and Indonesian beans - and typical fried-dough "beaver tails" with an "O"-shaped topping of whipped cream.

A five-foot tulip painted with Mr Obama's likeness was presented to the US Embassy in Ottawa.

The fervour was unusual in a city whose people are often sceptical about US politicians.

Lesley Marshall, a university student, waved a small American flag on the snow-covered lawn outside Parliament even though she is a Canadian citizen, something she said she wouldn't have dared do a few months ago.

"We came for the Bush protest here (in 2004)... there were just lines of police officers with gas masks because there was so much anti-American sentiment. It was horrifying," she said, while e-mailing a photo of Mr Obama to her American-born mother.

"I think Canadians feel that he is about change and that he will actually change something, not just in the States but in our relations as well," said Megan Whitman, 18.

Environmental and human rights activists were prominent in the crowd, expressing hope for a new era of US-Canada cooperation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and that the Guantanamo prison would be closed.

Mr Harper, a poker-faced Conservative who rarely draws a crowd, took advantage of Mr Obama's celebrity status to turn and wave to the thousands gathered for the President's arrival.