In the immortal words of Foster Hewitt and Wes McKight on Hockey Night in Canada, “He shoots, He scores!”
Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, that is.
After one long year, Harper, figuratively speaking, put the puck right in the net in getting the Obama administration to let Canada back in on competition cut off by the `Buy America’ clause in the stimulus plan.
The loud cheers coming from Canada today aren’t just hockey fans but small business let back into the game.
Eight times the Canadian Prime Minister has broached President Barack Obama on how the `Buy America’ policy was hurting America’s largest trading partner.
Harper’s “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” obsession made him a one-man Canadian Tea Party.
It was loss of jobs that kept industry on both sides of the border continuing an intensive campaign for relief from `But America’ provisions. Out in the cold for a year and up against an Obama whose stride caused the Tea Party cry: “Can you hear us now?” it looked like the door was not going to ever open again.
There is no doubt that getting around the protectionist wall took a lot of stick handling by Canada.
Caught up in the infrastructure cutoff, Canadian companies, largely in Ontario and Quebec, have been forced to cut jobs during recessional times with many forced to shift production to the U.S. in order to survive.
Harper’s success today brings those jobs back to their home country.
You won’t be able to discourage Canadian business that the agreement, under negotiation since September, may be too long in coming for Canadian companies hoping to bid on urban renewal projects funded out of Obama’s year-old American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, because they can’t hear them now--they’re back in business.
Of the Obama administration touted $275 billion (U.S.) in infrastructure projects, contracts worth $200 billion had already been handed out to American companies by the end of December, according to U.S. government reports.
It was the Buy America provisions attached to the Recovery Act that saw Canadian pipe put into the ground in California, torn back up. The Act forbid “foreign-made” components from being used on U.S. infrastructure projects.
Led by Canadian municipalities, Canadian business people turned to Harper for an exemption for Canadian firms.
This is their day. But the worms are already grubbing in the garden. Led by the opposition, protesters have been out protesting that Parliament has been prorogued.
In other words, Harper reopened the door for Canada in the Buy America exemption while Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was out “proroguing”.
Worse, with candid comments about its place in Canada, Harper put that Canadian tradition of pond hockey right back on the map.
A hockey fan from boyhood with pictures to prove it, Harper told writer Michael Farber at Sports Illustrated that he’d rather be playing in the NHL if he had his druthers.
“Asked if given a choice, he would be serving as Prime Minister or playing in the NHL, Harper said perhaps the most honest and endearing thing he has ever said.” (sportsillustrated.cnn.com). “It’s probably terrible to say, but any Canadian boy, if he could play in the NHL, would play in the NHL.”
For a year the Obama administration has been 'ragging the puck' on keeping Canada out of bidding on infrastructure contracts. But you can’t keep 'ragging the puck' when the competing team is spelled C-a-n-a-d-a!
Meanwhile, what are you doing on the date of the next scheduled Tea Party, Mr. Harper?
Victory in battle against Buy American provisions
-GORD YOUNG, THE NUGGET
Mayor Vic Fedeli says a deal expected to be announced today resolving a dispute between Canada and the United States over Buy American provisions is a major victory.
"It's a spectacularly huge win," said Fedeli, who was heavily involved in a grassroots campaign to convince the U.S. to lift provisions prohibiting the purchase of foreign iron and steel for any of its stimulus-funded infrastructure projects.
If Thursday reports are accurate, Fedeli said the deal would exempt Canada from Buy American provisions involving any contracts funded from what remains of that country's $787-billion economic stimulus package.
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Judi McLeod——
Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
