Softwood, not soft-skinned

Taking a detour from holidays, noted recent Wilkins comments on softwood:

[US Ambassador] Wilkins called on Canada to resume negotiations rather than trade litigation to settle the softwood dispute, which has escalated following Washington’s announcement that it would ignore a NAFTA ruling in Canada’s favour.

“Emotional press conferences are not going to settle the issue,” Wilkins told the Citizen editors. “Canada needs to come back to the table. We need to close the door, roll up our sleeves and negotiate as need be, with good faith, and bring finality to it.” (Canadian Press)

As a Conservative I shouldn’t be praising Industry Minister David Emerson (Vancouver-Kingsway, my riding) but I will – he’s absolutely spot on:

Industry Minister David Emerson said David Wilkins’ comments, are hypocritical because they suggest Canada hasn’t been serious about negotiating. The minister said Canadians may need to start gearing up for a trade war with the United States.

“Candidly, Canadians have to decide as a small trading economy, are we going to stand together?” Emerson said at the start of a federal cabinet meeting in Winnipeg.

“Are we going to be stronger than the sum of our parts or are we going to be endlessly bickering amongst ourselves and allowing the bully to basically mop the floor with us?”

I’m pleased Emerson was elected over our candidate, a comment I say with no disrespect but the industry can use someone like Emerson – a former lumberman himself – at this time, and in my view politics is about serving the needs of the country, not about kowtowing to partisan expectations.

(and truth be told, Emerson was the best candidate of the slate, and the only one to answer a question I posed to an all candidates meeting, about the illegal drug problems in the riding, to my satisfaction)