Interestingly there is a very senior Canadian government minister who believes that support for the US is the way to go. His name is John Manley and he happens to be Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. It has surprised me that he had not spoken up before on this issue because he is known to be fairly pragmatic in his dealings with the US and he enjoys a very good working relationship with his counterpart Tom Ridge, as Manley also deals with cross border security. Yet, for those of you familiar with the workings of this government (read my post regarding the old man) it is clear that Manley has been bullied into submission. But you could also argue that he has wisely shut up as he is a contender for the leadership of the Liberal party and thus a candidate to lead Canada as Prime Minister. By showing his hand now he would lose the chance to ever have a real shot at that leadership position. His main contender for the job is one Paul Martin who I can only describe as not very different from the man he seeks to succeed: sheer ambition for the top job but no vision at all. Business elites in Canada like him as he is billed as a fiscal conservative who was Minister of Finance during the boom years of the 1990s but there is scant evidence that he had anything to do with the economics of those revered 1990s. He rode the wave and benefited from the groundwork laid by his predecessors, just like Bill Clinton. None of the fiscal policies coming out of Ottawa would have been there would it not have been for the final decision maker: Chretien. I am not clear what the fascination is with Paul Martin but that is besides the point now.

The point is that if Manley starts to play his cards right he may well end up out-maneuvering Martin. Skeptics will argue that the Martin leadership is a done deal but I do not buy into that. The quest for the leadership bears a lot of similarities to the power struggle in the conservative party in Britain in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher’s days were counted. The absolute favourite to succeed her was Michael Heseltine but he stumbled just before the finish line and John Major became Prime Minister as Margaret Thatcher skillfully inserted the latter in order to dash Heseltine’s lifelong ambition of becoming Prime Minister. The same could happen here as Chretien detests Martin and does not care that much as to who succeeds him, as long as it is not Martin. This scenario could leave Canada with a pro-US Prime Minister which is good news, it could however further relegate the conservative free-marketers in Canada to the sidelines if not completely obliterate them and that is bad news. The shaping of the relationship with the US may well become a decisive factor in what Canada will look like in the future, if it isn’t already.