‘No Chemistry between Harper and Obama,’ Say Experts

Relations between a Canadian prime minister and an American president have rarely been so stormy. But this is not necessarily the death knell for the special relationship that has united the two countries for centuries, according to experts.

At a fringe event at a conference on U.S. foreign policy held in Montreal, political scientists Charles-Philippe David and Louis Balthazar discussed at length the fact that, right from the start, there has been no spark between Stephen Harper and Barack Obama.

Mr. David, who holds the Raoul-Dandurand chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), concluded that, “This relationship is one of the worst in the history of U.S.-Canada relations, at least in the modern era.”

According to Louis Balthazar, eminent professor at Laval University, who has studied U.S.-Canada relations for decades, this “malaise” is in part due to the differing ideologies of the two politicians. “Usually, Canadian prime ministers are more liberal, more audacious than American presidents in a wide range of areas. Here, everything has changed. We have a prime minister who feels much more at ease with the evangelists of the American right and the Republican Party than with the president,” explained Mr. Balthazar.

However, according to Mr. David, it is not so much the political colors as the personalities of the two leaders that matter. He adds that there is clearly no chemistry between Mr. Harper and Mr. Obama, and moreover, believes that the failure of the Keystone XL pipeline construction project was caused by this poor relationship. “Mr. Obama was neither impressed nor convinced by Stephen Harper of the necessity to go forward with Keystone XL,” noted Mr. David.

No Long-term Effect

However, the experts concluded that the special relationship between Canada and the United States will not be affected in the long term. “The Canada-U.S. relationship is so strong and so structured that presidents cannot change it. It will continue with whoever is president and whatever their ideology because there are too many vested interests,” Mr. Balthazar stressed.

Each time Canadian prime ministers have taken steps to break relations with the United States, they have reconsidered, or at least the diplomats have been able to reassure their American counterparts. Mr. Balthazar recalled that, during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson vehemently criticized the military intervention undertaken by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Yet, Canada sent weapons to the country to assist the United States.

At the time, Mr. Pearson explained his ambivalent position as follows: “We could not ignore the fact that a clear disagreement with the United States on the Vietnam question would have had the immediate consequence that the United States would have a more critical view of certain aspects of our relationship, which benefits us as much as it does them.”*

It is hardly likely, then, that the apparent conflicts between Mr. Harper and Mr. Obama will cause any long-lasting damage to the relationship between the two countries. “The only thing that would completely overturn the relationship between Canada and the United States would be a terrorist attack originating on Canadian soil perpetrated in the United States. That would be a game-changer,” said Mr. David.

The relationship is in any case a constant concern for Canada, which would suffer considerable economic losses in the event of a breakdown, which would be much more damaging for it than for the United States. According to Export Development Canada, 70 percent of Canada’s exports go to the United States, whereas the United States Trade Representative estimates that in 2013, 19 percent of American exports went to Canada.

“It is Canada’s most important relationship, but it is not the most important relationship for the United States,” noted Mr. David, adding that this is why our southern neighbors sometimes take us for granted. “For Canada, it is an extension of the economy and of foreign policy. Canada is not a constant concern or daily preoccupation for American policymakers. The president does not say so, but what is Canada to think? We are not a very high priority for American foreign policy,” explained Mr. David.

*Editor’s note: Accurately translated, this quote could not be verified.