American consumers who were paying an average of 1.85 dollars for a pound of ground
beef before the ban and 2.55 dollars the day before the ban was lifted.
were U.S. cattle ranchers and their lawyers who were able to delay implementation of
Washington’s order to open the border. The process was inexorably slow and some
Canadian ranchers faced tragic financial consequences, but it worked in the long run for
the good of the bilateral economic relationship.
Similar slow but concrete progress was made in solving the Devils Lake dispute
between neighboring North Dakota and Manitoba. An agreement reached in August
2005 will permit North Dakota to engage in a portion of its proposed water-diversion
project to ease chronic flooding, but safeguards would be put in place, including
installation of advanced filtration systems, to protect Manitoba waterways. The accord is
not perfect and more negotiations will be needed, but the overall outlook remains
positive.
The overall interest on Capitol Hill in economic relations with Canada is,
unfortunately, not very high. Part of the reason is that many members are fairly parochial
and most know little if anything about Canada, other than some time-worn stereotypes.
As former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Celucci has observed, at best a handful of
these members of Congress actually visited Ottawa during his period in the U.S.
embassy. In addition, not many of their constituents have close ties to Canada. Three out
of four Americans do not reside in a state that shares a border with Canada, whereas 98
per cent of Canadians live in the eight provinces which share a common border with the
United States. Even in states that share a border along the 49
th
parallel, many of their
population centers, such as New York City in the state of New York, are situated
hundreds of miles from Canada. Moreover, American residents with ties to Canada are
21
Convention