Free Republic

Wilsonian diplomacy OTTAWA SUN February 26, 2006 By Greg Weston Back in 1991, in the days of Brian Mulroney’s government, then Conservative trade minister Michael Wilson summoned reporters to explain why Canada was tearing up a softwood lumber agreement with the U.S. governing billions of dollars a year of Canadian timber exports. The bilateral agreement, Wilson said, had “served its purpose — it ended a bitter and highly politicized trade dispute.” Not exactly. Fifteen years later, Wilson is about to join several generations of newly appointed Canadian ambassadors to the U.S. who have arrived in Washington with a diplomatic...