Well, our Joe, anyway . . .
By Dorothy Dobbie
As the President of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, it is not unusual to get invitations to hear foreign dignitaries. There was one a few weeks ago when the President of the European Union was in town, but I sent the Hon. Jack Murta in my stead because that was budget day in Manitoba.
This time, though, it was an invite to hear the President of the United States. I had other business in Ottawa, so it was easy to say yes! It is not like you are invited to the dinner or even to meet the luminaries, unless you are on the government side of things, but I did get an invite to sit with the VVIP’s, mostly foreign diplomats, senators, and some notable formers such as former speaker Peter Milliken, with whom I served and enjoy. I could always make Peter laugh even when he was in the midst of a very serious speech, by getting page to take him a quirky question. It was good to see Peter. And we laughed.
Also at the morning reception in the Senate were the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark and Maureen McTeer. Remember what a big deal it was back then when the independent Maureen refused to take Clark as her last name and set the precedent by staying a McTeer when they married? She is still feisty, although she said this was the first time she and Joe had been in a crowd without a mask since COVID-19 began. Joe and I chatted about our old Winnipeg friend, former St. Boniface MP Leo Duguay, who also served as Joe’s Chief of Staff when Joe was Foreign Affairs minister.
We had entered the Senate, now beautifully housed in the old railway station, by the back courtyard and here the buses were waiting to take us up the hill to the West Block, where the temporary House of Commons has been created in what used to be an open courtyard. Once inside, it is very reminiscent of the old Centre Block House which is under renovation. As you can imagine, the city was locked down for blocks. There were snipers in the turrets of the Chateau Laurier, and the streets were crawling with police and RCMP and no doubt secret agents of another kind.
We were escorted through the new visitors’ entrance up to the Gallery facing the government side of the House. I could barely glimpse the first two rows of the Opposition below, but I did catch sight of Jagmeet Singh and his baby girl, who is now three months old. The baby got a standing ovation from all sides of the House and the Gallery when she was introduced by the speaker a few minutes later. Maybe that set the tone because it was very warm and relaxed for the speeches.
Since this was not a true sitting, the mace was not present and the floor was set up for senators, just as it is in the Senate when the House visits. The Senate Speaker had a special chair beside that of Speaker Anthony Rota (whom I also like very much as a decent and very patient man), and a podium was set up in from of the clerks’ table.
Everyone was milling about laughing and joking until the clerk announced we had five minutes to put away cell phones (which we were not supposed to have anyway but which the VVIPs had not relinquished as we didn’t have to be scanned). I quickly grabbed a few shots, then turned off the phone.
At that point, the Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien entered our gallery to sit beside Joe Clark and Maureen. Pierre Poilievre made his appearance on the floor – they had been at the reception with the President – the Prime Minister and Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau entered along with the guests of honour. They were seated on four chairs on the floor directly across from our gallery seats. Then the speeches began.
After a few brief comments by the Speaker, the Prime Minister made his remarks, highlighted by an introduction to the two Michaels who were in the gallery next to us, and recognition of a newly arrived Ukrainian refugee.
Biden’s speech was very relaxed. He brought down the House by saying he liked our hockey teams – “all except the Leafs” because he was married to a Philly girl! You have all heard the highlights on the business side of the speech, so I won’t repeat them, but he did make one notable blunder when he meant to say Canada and said China, instead. “So, today I applaud China [sic] for stepping up — or, excuse me — I applaud Canada — (laughter) — I’m — you can tell what I’m thinking — (laughter) — about China. I won’t get into that yet.”
As Biden spoke, I watched the room opposite. Every seat was occupied, even the prime minister’s as he was on the floor with the senators, so there were obviously some instant MPs made that day, probably on both sides of the House. Minister Omar Alghabra was very busy on his cell phone throughout the speech, contrasted by Minister Chrystia Freeland, who turned her seat toward the podium and spent the whole time nodding and taking notes. I couldn’t see what was taking place on the Opposition side of the House.
When it was over, we returned to the Senate and I couldn’t wait to leave and go somewhere to relax. There is so much pomp and circumstance to these visits that they are stressful. I did not envy Joe Clark, who was invited to the state dinner (without Maureen) that evening.
Did anything productive happen due to this meeting? Not really. It was ceremonial and political. It was used by the government here to extricate themselves from the mess they had created at Roxham Road where 40,000 illegal immigrants had entered Canada in 2022, almost 5,000 in December alone. The cost to taxpayers is enormous at both the federal and the provincial levels.
And there was never any real doubt that the US would ban Canadian products – our economies are simply too intertwined to be so casually waived. Could Canada be realistically expected to take over in Haiti? That is an impossible task which will have to be sorted by Haitians, who seem to have trouble coming to grips with living under any kind of law-abiding regime.
Still, the visit was a positive reaffirmation of our important relationship.
Now all I have to do is to figure out a way to get both governments interested in celebrating our International Peace Garden!
Possibilities together
The most notable part of President Biden’s speech were the final few words:
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re living in an age of possibilities. Xi Jinping asked me, in the Tibetan Plateau, could I define America. And I could’ve said the same thing if he asked about Canada. I said, “Yes. One word – and I mean it. One word: possibilities.” Nothing is beyond our capacity. We can do anything. We have to never forget. We must never doubt our capacity.
Canada and the United States can do big things. We stand together, do them together, rise together.
We’re going to write the future together, I promise you.
“Possibility” and “together” are the watch words here. We need to forget the negatives and focus on the future where people forgive each other and move forward together to all the endless possibilities that cannot be realized any other way.
