We are increasingly under America's thumb

--Globe and Mail, Stephen Clarkson--

In the controversy over Michael Ignatieff's putative lack of Canadian bona fides for having talked and written in the first person plural about being American, it is surprising that the apostles of continental integration, who have long been trying to erase the Canadian-American border, have not rushed to his defence.

After all, the surrender of federal and provincial powers brought about by the misnomer called "free trade" has contributed not just to Washington's growing control over Canadians' - and of course, Mexicans' - lives but to the ability of Canada's constitutionally empowered governments to govern.

We have a devastating economic crisis? Ottawa waits for Washington to take the lead.

The Americans close the border to Canadian beef when a mad cow is discovered in Alberta? Ottawa sends civil servants to talk with U.S. Department of Agriculture officials, but the Canadian beef industry has to wait several years for satisfaction until a domestic dispute is played out in Washington, where the food-processing transnational corporations (which needed Canadian cattle) finally prevailed over the western American ranchers (who used the mad-cow excuse to invoke high import barriers so that their prices could be raised).

We have a crisis in the automobile industry? Ottawa has to wait for Washington to decide what the solution will be and then coughs up a disproportionate contribution to the bailout.

We have a global climate crisis? Ottawa denies its existence until Washington starts to act. As John Ibbitson made clear recently in The Globe, there is now nothing for the Canadian government to do in the face of the climate-warming crisis other than wait for the Obama administration and Congress to finalize their cap and trade plan, at which point the Canadian government will have to adopt it.

Read more: http://www.portalfornorthamerica.org/pnacigi-news/2009/06/we-are-increasingly-under-americas-thumb

Stephen Clarkson, professor of political economy at the University of Toronto, is Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He is the author of the newly published Does North America Exist? Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11.

Related:

• Op-ed: (Clarkson) The special relationship is over
• Past Feature: Does North America Exist?
• Read: It's time to talk about North American integration
• Read: Another big thinker, but don't compare him to Trudeau
• Teaching Resource: Building a North American Community
• Video: North Americanism: Our Common Future

(Image credit: Flickr user christhedunn)