GHY Tradelines

(CBC News)

U.S. President Barack Obama has selected a partner at the investment firm of Goldman Sachs in Chicago to be the new U.S. ambassador to Canada, CBC News has learned.

Sources tell CBC News Network’s Power & Politics that Bruce Heyman has accepted the job but still has to pass a vetting process in order to be be formally nominated. His confirmation will be up to the U.S. Congress. If he is approved, Heyman would replace David Jacobson, who has held the position since 2009. Jacobson is also from Chicago.

Well known as a high-level fundraiser to Barack Obama, Heyman and his wife Vicki, also a fundraiser, raised more than $1 million for Obama and were on his national finance committee. Heyman runs the private wealth fund at Goldman Sachs and his areas of responsibility include parts of Canada. Read more here.
 

(Carl Meyer – Embassy)

Jacobson, Kerry talk climate compromises.

The United States is looking to Canada to “take the lead” in environmental initiatives to boost its reputation as a climate do-gooder and consequently make it “easier” to export its energy, said U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson. “It is important that Canada take the lead in some of these things, that Canada be perceived as not just doing what they’re forced to do, but really taking the lead,” he said in a speech at the Rideau Club on Feb. 7. “The more that Canada does in that regard, I think, in my mind, the easier it will be for Canada to find markets for its energy.”

The two countries should also have similar, if not identical, carbon pricing regimes, said Mr. Jacobson: if they were out of sync, it would lead to companies deciding “where you can pollute the cheapest.” Mr. Jacobson’s comments come amid speculation that U.S. President Barack Obama is considering moving forward again on economic initiatives that would address greenhouse gas emissions. Read more here.
 

(Mark Kennedy – Canada.com)

U.S. President Barack Obama will be sending a new ambassador to Canada this year, a move that could have ramifications for Canada -U.S. relations.

On Tuesday, officials at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa said it’s expected Ambassador David Jacobson’s term will not be extended. Traditionally, they said, two-term presidents send a new ambassador to Ottawa for the second term. They added that no decision has been made on Jacobson’s successor, or exactly when that new ambassador will be appointed.

The departure of Jacobson, who arrived in Canada in October of 2009, could leave a significant hole. He is a former Chicago lawyer who was a senior fundraiser for Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign, and has continued to have clout with the president in the White House. Read more here.
 

(Steven Chase — Globe and Mail)

U.S. ambassador David Jacobson says the most useful thing his country can do for Canada is not green-lighting the Keystone XL pipeline but curing its ailing economy.

“The single most important thing … that the U.S. can do for Canada is get its economy back on track,” Mr. Jacobson told an Ottawa conference on Canada-U.S. relations Monday.

The U.S. is Canada’s biggest customer for exports and any improvement in American economic growth would boost sales for Canadian companies. Read more here.
 

(CBC News)

Jacobson says Canada has offered to help Americans in wake of Sandy

The single most important thing the U.S. can do for Canada is to get its economic house in order, says U.S. President Barack Obama’s representative in Ottawa.

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House, David Jacobson, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada told host Evan Solomon the one issue that will have the most implications for Canada is the U.S. economy — more than border security, trade, energy or foreign policy. “When we do well, you do well.”

Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney “have diametrically opposed views” on domestic policy and more specifically with respect to economic policy, said Jacobson.

But which of the two candidates is better for Canada depends “on which one you think is going to do a better job of getting the U.S. economy in shape quicker.”

“They can’t both be right,” said the ambassador. Read more here.
 

(Bill Graveland –The Canadian Press)

Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. isn’t expecting any major upheaval in international relations once the American presidential election results are known in November.

Gary Doer and his U.S. counterpart David Jacobson discussed the state of Canada-U.S. relations Thursday evening at the Global Business Forum in Banff. The two men said they don’t expect any chill in the longtime relationship between the two countries whether President Barack Obama is reelected or if he is unseated by Republican Mitt Romney.

“It’s going to be good no matter who the next guy is,” said Jacobson. “To me the relationship is strong because when we have differences we talk about them. We don’t get into fights, we don’t fuss.” Read more here.
 

(Lee-anne Goodman – Canadian Press)

Cites port security at Prince Rupert, floats idea of tax on containers from Canada

The U.S. ambassador to Canada is praising a report by an American federal agency even as two of its commissioners take public issue with the study that examined Canadian “cargo diversion” and cited suggestions to remedy the problem that could prove prohibitively costly to importers.

The report by the five-member Federal Maritime Commission is complimentary to Canada while fully advocating healthy competition among ports in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, David Jacobson said from Ottawa in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“It emphasizes the need for competition … from where I’m sitting, I read this as good news for Canadian ports,” he said.

Two commissioners, however, disagree. Read more here.

Innovation has been the engine of economic growth for millennia. Entire civilizations have been built on “innovation advances” like fire, the wheel, the stirrup, gunpowder, and the steam engine. More recently we have seen our standard of living increase dramatically as a result of the benefits – and the jobs – created by advances in health care, telecommunications, and information technology. Innovation is our hope for a better tomorrow. It allows us to learn faster, reach farther, work better, dream bigger, and live longer.

For generations, North America has led the world in innovation. But our innovation dominance is being challenged. In order to be able to hand over a strong North America to future generations, we must not let our innovation lead slip away. We must lead in discovery. We must lead in the application of technology to improve the safety and wellbeing of the citizens of the North America.

This reality is reflected today in both Washington and Ottawa, where innovation is at the top of the agendas of both the Obama administration and the Harper government.

President Obama’s State of the Union Address earlier this year had innovation as a central theme and he has proposed numerous initiatives in that speech to improve America’s innovation performance. Prime Minister Harper has also emphasized the importance of innovation to the future living standards of Canadians in his government’s most recent Speech from the Throne and in his creation of an Expert Panel on Research and Development to analyze the contribution of R&D to Canada’s innovation performance.

A few weeks ago Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech in New York in which she laid out her vision of “economic statecraft”, where she talked about the need to elevate the role of economics and business in our diplomacy. They go hand-in-hand. Diplomacy strengthens our economy at home and the economy strengthens our diplomacy abroad.

I had an important lesson in how all of these strands come together in the relationship between the United States and Canada when the United States Embassy, along with Canada 2020, sponsored a conference, The U.S. – Canada Partnership: Enhancing the Innovation Eco-System , designed to enhance the U.S.-Canada innovation climate in order to spur economic recovery and create jobs in both of our countries.

Conference attendees from business, NGOs, government and academia from both countries heard from keynote speakers Governor General David Johnston, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (introduced by Canadian Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer) and White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel.

Panels featuring American and Canadian experts covered four topics, each of which saw a focus on our natural grass-roots level closeness:

• how sub-national government policies (think: cities, states/provinces, and even regional organizations) and federal policies can have a positive effect on innovation;

• the important role research universities play in the innovation eco-system and how collaboration is a key to the future;

• financing innovative entrepreneurs; and

• how successful companies manage a culture of innovation.

A few takeaways:

• Canadian and U.S. cities are interconnected and influence each other, in part because they’re looking for answers to the very same questions. Good ideas are passed on from city to city and region to region, within and across the border of our two countries.

• Universities on both sides of the border plan to scale up the relationship and make the interactions more strategic. In this way we will have a better chance to allocate the resources and the drive to accomplish far-ranging goals.

• The border doesn’t play as big a role for venture capitalists as many believe. Where companies build their factories is strongly influenced by where the technology was created.

The event was a great lesson for all of us in how we can do much more when the United States and Canada work together than either of us can when we work alone. Stay tuned for follow-up activities, including a Fulbright Fellowship in Innovation; an upcoming speakers’ series; and a focus on youth entrepreneurs.
 

(International Freighting Weekly – Pete Goldin)

Ambassador attempts to play down claims of plan for levy on shipments from over the border

The U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, has confirmed that the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has no plans to tax cargo coming into the country from Canadian ports.

Jacobson made the statement this week to the Canadian Club, in response to a controversy sparked by comments from FMC Chairman Richard Lidinsky in Montreal a few weeks ago.  Lidinsky implied that U.S. would have to take action to “level the playing field” between west coast Canadian and U.S. ports. Read more here.
 

(DFAIT)

In these challenging economic times, there is no better American job-creator than trade with Canada and vice versa, says Minister Fast

The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, today concluded a productive two-day visit to Washington to reinforce the vital importance of a strong Canada-U.S. relationship that benefits Canadians and Americans alike. His trade visit to Washington included talks with his counterpart, United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk, as well as other government officials.

“History shows that deeper and stronger trade ties are key to the global economic recovery. Free and open trade ties between the U.S. and Canada are fundamental to improving the prosperity of Americans and Canadians alike,” said Minister Fast.

“Our government’s top priority is to create jobs, increase prosperity and protect and strengthen the financial security of Canadians. Broadening and expanding access to the U.S. market is a key part of our government’s job-creating, pro-trade plan.”

In their face-to-face talks, both Minister Fast and U.S. Trade Representative Kirk expressed the view that strengthening the Canada-U.S. friendship will bring greater prosperity to both countries, and that in these challenging economic times governments must work together to address common challenges.

“The importance of the Canada-U.S. trade relationship, and the jobs and prosperity it supports on both sides of our shared border, couldn’t be clearer,” said Minister Fast. “All told, the jobs of over eight million Americans depend on trade with Canada, just as over two million Canadian jobs depend on trade with the U.S.”

Minister Fast met with Senator David Vitter, Ranking Member, Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Senator John Thune, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, Senate Committee on Finance.

Minister Fast also met with leaders of U.S. business associations, including the Coalition of Service Industries, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Foreign Trade Council, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Canadian American Business Council, as well as the Washington representative of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters.

“I look forward to a sustained engagement with our American friends which will continue to help long-term prosperity and economic growth to our countries’ mutual benefit,” concluded Minister Fast. “In my meetings here in Washington, our American friends and I shared the sentiment that we must do our part to ensure that the Canada-U.S. relationship, which is the envy of the world, gets even stronger as we go forward together in these challenging times.”

About $1.8 billion in goods and services cross the border between Canada and the United States every day, or about $1.2 million every minute. Over 4,500 Canadian-owned businesses in 17,000 U.S. locations directly employ over half a million Americans.
 

(Industry Canada)

Monday, the Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism), attended a round-table meeting with Canadian and American small business owners on cross-border issues affecting small business. The Minister of State was joined by David Jacobson, United States Ambassador to Canada, and Catherine Swift, President and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

“I was pleased to sit down with small business owners from Canada and the United States to hear about the challenges of cross-border trade,” said Minister of State Bernier. “Canada and the United States remain strongly committed to improving our shared border to increase cross-border trade, economic growth and job creation for our respective countries.”

The United States is Canada’s most important export market, with trade supporting one in seven jobs in Canada. In turn, Canada is America’s largest export market-larger than China, larger than Mexico, larger than Japan or all the countries of the European Union combined. Thus, it is in the interests of both Canada and the United States to ensure that our common border remains open, efficient and secure.

In February, Prime Minister Harper and President Obama announced an initiative entitled “Beyond the Border: a shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness.” This initiative establishes a new, long-term partnership between Canada and the United States that is designed to strengthen security while accelerating the legitimate movement of people and goods between the two countries, thereby improving economic competitiveness. The Government of Canada is working with the U.S. government to develop a joint action plan to implement the goals of the initiative, which is expected to be released later this year.

“Jobs and growth will continue to be a priority for our government, and we are committed to ensuring that small businesses play a key role in driving our economy forward,” said Minister of State Bernier. “These efforts include defending free and open trade on the global stage, as we recognize that protectionism stalls growth and kills jobs.”

The Government of Canada is committed to providing the best business climate possible for entrepreneurs through measures such as creating the Hiring Credit for Small Business, reducing the small business tax rate from 12 to 11 percent and establishing the Red Tape Reduction Commission to cut government red tape and reduce unnecessary paperwork.
 

(Associated Press — CBC News)

The top U.S. envoy to Canada says the trading relationship between the two countries is now the most important international business issue in Washington.

U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson said Tuesday there is “a huge amount of time” being spent on easing trade between the two countries at the highest levels of government — including the White House.

Jacobson was referring to the long-awaited perimeter security deal, billed as an effort to boost cross-border trade and reduce congestion, without compromising security.

The potential economic spinoff of making the border more permeable to goods is massive, he added. Read more here.
 

(Andrew Mayeda — Bloomberg)

The U.S. and Canada plan to harmonize regulations governing the most-heavily traded products, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson said, one day after a report showed some Canadians are uneasy with the idea.

The two countries will release more details over the next several weeks on the “first tranche” of industries where conflicting regulations will be harmonized, Jacobson said in an Aug. 30 interview with Bloomberg News. He didn’t elaborate on specific products.

“It’s fair to say that we want to focus on areas where there is more trade, because the more trade that we focus on, the more jobs that we’re going to create in this process,” Jacobson said.

The effort will focus on streamlining “dumb” regulations that are “different because they’re different,” said Jacobson, 59, who took office as ambassador in October 2009. Read more here.
 

(Quentin Casey — The Telegraph-Journal)

Premier takes aim at bringing down barriers between N.B. and its largest trading partner

Eastern Canadian provinces and the New England states must work to cut red tape along the Canada-U.S. border, says New Brunswick’s premier.

“As a whole the movement of goods is quite efficient, quite effective,” said David Alward on Sunday. “But we have all seen how things tightened up post-Sept. 11. Security trumped everything else.

“There is certainly a lot of bureaucracy.”

Alward, who is in Halifax for annual meetings between eastern Canadian premiers and New England governors, says border bureaucracy must be reduced and regulations better streamlined between the two countries.

“We need to make sure the bureaucracy of the border doesn’t hinder trade or make us less competitive,” he said in an interview at a downtown Halifax hotel. “There’s always need for improvement.” Read more here.
 

(John Ibbitson — Globe & Mail

Canada and the United States are closing in on a deal to allow vital workers to move easily from one country to the other, a key step in a series of agreements designed to ease border congestion.

“While there’s a ways to go, we really have made some progress over the last few months” on the issue of temporary workers, American Ambassador David Jacobson told a gathering of Canadian business executives and American trade officials who met Tuesday to discuss border issues.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama launched the Beyond the Border initiative in February, which aims to improve trade by streamlining and dismantling regulations, while moving toward a continental approach to border security.

An action plan from the negotiating teams is expected by September. One issue that has surfaced repeatedly is that of temporary workers. Often, companies need the expertise of a worker in one country when equipment breaks down or a new factory goes up in the other. But visa regulations can make that temporary assignment difficult or impossible to achieve.

“If there is one thing we have heard consistently every time we have one of these discussions, it is the problem of getting temporary workers over,” Mr. Jacobson said. Read more here.
 

(CTV News)

Washington’s top diplomat in Ottawa attempted to tamp down concerns Friday over a U.S. proposal that could result in an additional tax on Canadian freight heading south of the border. Reports of the freight tax proposal, which was recently tabled in Congress, come as the U.S. also mulls a visitor inspection fee on Canadian travellers going to the U.S.

But U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson said that Canadian businesses should not be worried about the proposal, which likely won’t make it far in the legislation process in Washington. Read more here.

(Macleans.ca – Luiza Ch. Savage)

At a meeting [Friday] in Washington, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched a “Shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness”. They announced that a group of senior government officials from both countries would form a “Beyond the Border Working Group.” The group will look for ways to streamline border security while creating a shared “perimeter security” around both countries. In addition, a Regulatory Cooperation Council will look for ways to coordinate and harmonize regulations in order to ease red tape for companies that do business in both countries.

After the leaders’ meeting, I spoke with U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, about what this all means. Read more here.

[Ed. Note: There is nothing of any meaningful substance whatsoever in the ambassador’s responses.]

pspan style=”font-family:’Arial’, ‘sans-serif’;font-size:10;color:black;”span style=”font-size:85%;”(The Calgary Herald)/spanbr /br /The first line of defence for protecting Canada and the United States from terrorist attacks starts overseas and shouldn’t mean a painful clampdown at the border, U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson told government officials Monday in Calgary.br /br /Speaking at the annual Pacific Northwest Economic Region conference, Jacobson recognized the reality of the Canada-U. S. border has been “radically altered” since the 2001 terrorist attacks.br /br /There have been myriad “headaches” at the border, including delays and hassles for passenger and commercial traffic in an effort to improve security, he said.br /br /But he believes improving security along the 49th parallel doesn’t mean gridlock at the border. He urged Canadians and Americans to look at the border “not as our first line of defence, but as our last line of defence.”br /br /A secure and efficient border is possible, Jacobson stressed, but it means investing in infrastructure and new technology at home. He’s advocating for a “layered” approach to security that reaches beyond North America; one that identifies and confronts security threats before they make it to Canada and the United States.br /br /Quality intelligence, improved security and screening at other airports around the world, and better co-ordination among various national governments are all needed, he said.br /br /“The more we do to improve our security efforts out on the perimeter, away from the border, the more we can focus on working in partnership to achieve border efficiencies here,” Jacobson said.br /br /“We don’t have to choose between security on the one hand and efficiency on the other hand,” he said. “We can achieve both.” span style=”mso-spacerun: yes”/spanRead more /spanstrongspan style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’, ‘sans-serif’;font-family:Arial;font-size:10;” a href=”http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Canada+border+last+line+defence/3298022/story.html”span style=”FONT-WEIGHT: normal”h/spanspan style=”FONT-WEIGHT: normal”ere/span/a/span/strongstrongspan style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’, ‘sans-serif’; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; mso-bidi-: boldfont-family:Arial;font-size:10;” ./span/strongstrongspan style=”FONT-FAMILY: ‘Verdana’, ‘sans-serif’;font-family:Arial;font-size:10;” ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /o:p/o:p/span/strong/p

span style=”font-size:85%;”(State University of New York College at Plattsburgh)/spanbr /br /David Jacobson, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, will be speaking at the 2010 Global Supply Chain Management Conference, being held from June 15-17, 2010 on the Campus of SUNY Plattsburgh. This is an exciting addition to the list of presenters/speakers.br /br /The conference website is a href=”http://www.supplychainmanagementconference.com/” target=”_blank”here/a.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(Windsor Star – Chris Vander Doelen)/spanbr /br /The Obama administration supports construction of the proposed DRIC bridge over the Detroit River but the border here will never again be as easy to cross as it once was, says the new U.S. ambassador to Canada. With the DRIC project now the only bridge-crossing application still standing for U.S. regulatory approval after the Ambassador Bridge’s disqualification, “my government supports the DRIC,” said David Jacobson. “We think it’s a good thing.br /br /“We believe there is probably demand for both” crossings, Jacobson said in an interview Tuesday, prior to delivering the annual Herb Gray lecture at the University of Windsor. “But certainly there is enough for the DRIC.”br /br /Jacobson, a lawyer and Democratic party organizer, was appointed the U.S.’s 22nd ambassador to Canada by President Barack Obama six months ago – a posting he describes as his “dream job.” Fixing the Windsor-Detroit border will be part of that job, but it “is going to take time,” Jacobson warned. “We’ll have to be patient.” Read more a href=”http://www2.canada.com/scripts/story.html?id=2719023″here/a.