This attitude helps explain several other articles posted about Canada - the snide comments their legislators have made, the rude behavior of their citizens.
Canadian PM Admits to Major Differences with Bush Reuters
Tuesday, May 27, 2003; 7:08 PM
By David Ljunggren
ATHENS (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, whose rocky relations with the White House hit a new low over the Iraq war, admitted openly on Tuesday for the first time that he disagreed on many issues with President Bush.
Chretien's comments only served to underscore the gulf between the leaders of the world's two largest trading partners. The two men have not met since last September and on Monday they spoke by phone for the first time in three months.
Until now, the veteran Canadian leader, who plans to step down next February, has said the only major disagreement between Canada and the United States was over Iraq. Washington was angered by Ottawa's refusal to commit troops to the war.
But Chretien -- on the left of the ruling Liberal Party -- went much further on Tuesday, saying he little in common with the Texas Republican.
"Of course we don't think alike, particularly on social matters. He's a conservative from the southern United States and I'm a liberal Canadian," Chretien told reporters in a long and unusually frank conversation during a flight to Athens.
"I'm for gun control, he's against it. I'm against capital punishment, he supports it. I'm for the right to abortion -- even though I'm a Catholic -- :rolleyes: and he's against it," said Chretien.
Chretien's relations with Bush deteriorated after the U.S. leader walked away from the Kyoto accord on curbing global emissions of greenhouse gases, scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and generally poured scorn on the multilateral diplomatic approach favored by Ottawa.
Canada's refusal to back what it called the "unjustified" war on Iraq because it lacked U.N. authorization prompted Bush to put off an official visit to Ottawa planned for early May.
Bush pleaded pressure of work, but at the same time he was supposed to have been in Canada, he entertained Australian Prime Minister John Howard -- who backed the Iraq war -- at his Texas ranch. Chretien has never been invited to the ranch.
[Why on earth would Bush invite a cretin like Chretien to his ranch. The ranch was for friends and allies - not insolent shitheads like Chretien.]
Chretien and Bush will see each other later this week in Russia at celebrations to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg.
Despite the Chretien-Bush differences, the prime minister insisted there would always be good relations between Ottawa and the White House, and stressed his close ties to former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
"I think I will always have good personal relations with the president," said Chretien.
That said, Canadian officials say there are no specific plans for a bilateral meeting between the two leaders, who will also attend a summit of the Group of Eight leading nations next week in France.
Chretien's domestic policies are also at odds with current U.S. thinking. He is currently pushing controversial legislation through Parliament that would effectively ban big corporate and union contributions to political parties.
He says this is to avoid the problems seen in the United States, where candidates need to raise many millions of dollars before running for office.
"It's only 'Money, money, money, money' in the States. It's not healthy," Chretien said on Tuesday, taking the opportunity to boast about the performance of Canadian economy.
"In the United States they're going to have a budget deficit of around $500 billion U.S. dollars this year. If that were the case in Canada (which has a population roughly 10 percent of that in the United States), our budget deficit would be C$75 billion," he added.
Preliminary figures for this year show Canada will record a budget surplus of around C$8 billion ($5.8 billion).
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