Canada, US finalize softwood lumber deal
.
Scanning the online headlines and accompanying stories this morning, the media barely accepts that this is news, much less good news for Canada. Oh sure they’ve expended a lot of ink and hot air poo-pooing the tentative deal announced some weeks ago, but only the National Post features it as a top story online right now. The state-run media has it buried down their list on the state-run web site, below the big alarmist feature story of the Israeli bombing of the empty Palestinian authority offices in the middle of the night.
GENEVA/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada and the United States finalized a deal to end a long-standing trade dispute over softwood lumber on Saturday after ironing out final details on the sidelines of World Trade Organization talks in Geneva.
Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab initialed the agreement in a late- evening ceremony on Canada’s national holiday.
The seven-year deal—first agreed to in principle in late April—now needs to be formally approved by both sides and should take effect on October 1, Emerson said.
“This is a very exciting way for me to celebrate Canada Day,” he told reporters in Geneva, saying the agreement should end “decades of squabbling and trade wars” that have strained relations with the United States in past years.
[…] Schwab told reporters in Geneva the deal would temper “a lot of bad feelings” that have arisen between the world’s two largest trading partners. A spokesman for the U.S. coalition described the deal as “a critical step toward what we hope will be a negotiated resolution of the dispute.”
President Bush said he was pleased the dispute was over and looked forward to the deal taking effect in the autumn. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper—who will meet Bush in Washington on Thursday—hailed what he said was “a great day for Canada.”
The Reuters news article, having quickly dispensed with all the annoying boring good news and “great day for Canada” yawn-yawns thanks to the work of the new Conservative government of Canada, got into “BUT” mode as quickly as possible, starting with a new heading half-way through the article in all capital letters: “CONCERNS REMAIN”, and with the first line following it: “Some potential challenges remain,” and then explaining that all in detail.
This is in contradistinction to how the liberals’ big day was
reported
celebrated (and still is more than a year later) when they changed the definition of the Canadian family and of marriage to suit their agenda, in which no concerns remained, and no potential challenges remain even now.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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