As soon as possible.
There is hope attached to those words.
Now that prime minister Paul Martin has met with U.S. president George W. Bush, it falls to us and to every other journalist in Canada to dissect each word exchanged, view it under the fancy semantic microscope and extract, eviscerate and scrutinize the meaning of each. Such is the nature of our fascination with Canada-U.S. relations.
The United States border will open to live Canadian cattle “as soon as possible,” the president said April 30.
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That’s more hope than has been offered by any other American in recent weeks so it’s nice to get encouragement from the top dog. Yet I find myself wishing Bush had added a modifier to his carefully crafted statement.
“As soon as humanly possible,” is a lovely phrase, for example, and would have meant near immediate resumption of trade.
I fear instead he meant “as soon as bureaucratically possible,” which would require a few more weeks or months of wrangling before borders would reopen to the beleaguered Canadian cattle industry.
Martin met with other political movers and shakers during his Washington visit, providing further opportunities to interpret the words that surround diplomacy.
Joseph Biden, ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s foreign relations committee, met with Martin and later described Canada and the U.S. as being like ham and eggs: “It’s kind of hard to separate them, whether we like it or not.”
Considering a current trade dispute over Canadian pork exports, it appears at least one American faction is actually quite keen on separating our ham from their eggs. And our bacon from their eggs too.
Then again, Biden can be forgiven for difficulties in choice of appropriate simile. International relations “tighter than bark to a tree” wouldn’t pass muster, mindful of the softwood lumber dispute. References to the difficulties of separating wheat from chaff would be awkward as well, considering the wheat trade dispute. Nautical terms (fishing disputes) and military metaphors (war involvement differences) should also be avoided.
The fancy semantic microscope suggests peanut butter and jelly might be a useful comparison, with the U.S. claiming all the peanuts and Canada often cast in the role of jelly.
It does little good at this juncture to dwell on disagreements with our American neighbours. Too much of that has been done already. So instead let us take what positive messages we can from Bush and Biden and hope cattle trade resumes soon.
