Before the U.S. Vice President’s visit, Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion explained Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Ottawa last week as routine. While some people might see it as a stick in the eye of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, Dion treated the visit as routine. There was nothing routine about it.
To have the lame-duck Vice President address the Canadian Prime Minister and provincial premiers was unprecedented. And for Biden to underscore the need for co-operation between Canada and the United States on climate change is to underscore the need for Donald Trump to be kept to a single four-year term. How Canada can help cannot be openly stated.
It will be whistling past the grave yard for Canada to be ballyhooing its environmental efforts in the face of Trump’s avowed lack of concern. He has said during his election campaign that global warming is a plot by the Chinese government. And when you read the background on Trump’s choice of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head, you wonder if the agency will even survive four years?
And does anyone think Canada is going to be high on Donald Trump’s Christmas card list after feting the outgoing Vice President? Joe Biden does not exactly fly around under the radar. There had to be American news media flying with him.
Biden is a very astute politician and he was saved the embarrassment that Hillary Clinton suffered this year. It was her one and only run for the White House and her only consolation was that she won the popular vote. The bad news is that she lost the presidency to a schlemiel like Donald Trump.
Biden must be betting that it will not take four years for Americans to realize what a disaster Trump is as President. As he and Trump are not far apart in age, he could be betting that he will be well positioned to take him on in four years. If Trump has built up a sizeable animosity by then, Biden will have an easy run for the White House.
In the meantime, Canada will have earned Trump’s ire for even inviting Biden to come to Canada at this time. While Dion thinks that diplomatically it should be a non-issue, he forgets that Trump knows nothing about diplomacy. Trump is spiteful and will remember it as a slight against him.
The cost of Biden’s pleasantries to Justin Trudeau at the state dinner for him might be more expensive than anticipated.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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