Cross-border issues worry Canada’s Mulroney

BANGOR – Canada may impede its economic progress and damage relations with the United States if its government continues to isolate that country from the Bush administration, a former Canadian prime minister will tell a group at the University of Maine later this week.

“I am deeply concerned for Canada right now,” former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said Tuesday in a telephone interview from a hotel room in Toronto. “Canada is turning its back on what used to be a strong North American alliance.”

Mulroney, a member of the country’s Progressive Conservative Party, was elected Canada’s 18th prime minister in 1984. He resigned under pressure in 1993 amid a recession and great concern with his economic policy.

Mulroney will speak at 11 a.m. Friday, May 9, at the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce at the University of Maine in Orono. Admission is free.

Declining relationships between the two countries, free trade and international security will be among the items Mulroney will touch on Friday, he said.

President Bush was supposed to be in Ottawa earlier this week but postponed the trip abruptly. Critics of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien claim the “snub” by the Bush administration was a “clear message” that U.S.-Canadian relations are in trouble.

“So instead of speaking to parliament in Ottawa, Bush was speaking to a small-business group in Little Rock, Arkansas. That is not good news for Canada,” said Mulroney.

With $700 billion worth of trade and commerce conducted between the two countries, cooperation and “White House accessibility” are crucial to both countries, Mulroney said.

The North American Free Trade Agreement signed by the United States, Canada and Mexico was crafted during Mulroney’s administration, and that trade agreement must continue to be strengthened, he said Tuesday.

While critics blame NAFTA in part for the collapse of Maine’s shoe industry and the decline in the pulp and paper industry, Mulroney, a huge supporter of the agreement, insists the agreement must be strengthened and that it is “no doubt a good thing for both countries.”

Mulroney suggested that agreements such as NAFTA and the Canada-United States Acid Rain Treaty all could be at risk if Canadian and U.S. relations are not improved.

“For 135 years, Canada had a common cause with Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. We fought in World War I, World War II, Korea. We took part in the Cold War and in the Gulf War, and then in a seminal moment in the war against terrorism the president of the United States says he needs our support and doesn’t get it. I reject that [stance] fully and completely,” he said.

Chretien’s refusal to support that war on Iraq has prompted Mulroney to speak out about his concerns.

“You know, I worked with the Reagan administration, the [former] Bush administration and the Clinton administration, and, trust me, we had fundamental differences on a number of issues. You can have disagreements, but if you want to use those disagreements to showboat and strut your stuff to Canadian citizens, then that is wrong,” he said. “It’s all in the manner in which it’s done. It’s a question of good judgment and good taste.”

Mulroney noted that he was able to maintain positive relationships and direct access to the U.S. president despite disagreements on important matters such as Cuba, Central America, the Strategic Defense Initiative and South Africa.

Sour relations will have a direct effect on discussions on how to make the countries’ borders safer, Mulroney surmised.

“You cannot seal off the borders. Because of our borders our futures are interlinked, and therefore it is crucial that we harmonize our policies and interests,” he said.

Mulroney said Americans “quite properly” aren’t going to entertain open borders if it means a threat to U.S. security.

“We need to find a way that encourages openness and vigilance,” he said and that may involve a system similar to that of the European Union. Under that system travelers arriving on the continent at any entry point would be screened once and then travel freely between member countries.

The current Bush administration has pushed Canada to adopt a common security perimeter by harmonizing its security and immigration laws with those of the United States.

After resigning as prime minister, Mulroney joined the Montreal law firm of Ogilvy Renault, where he serves as senior partner today. He’s also the director of a number of U.S. and Canadian corporations.

He is married with four children and resides in Westmount, Quebec.