Here's The Bottom Line

"Friends, here's the bottom line.  The world is moving quickly.  Canada and India must also.  On our side, we have been deepening trade and investment ties with the largest, most dynamic markets in the world, the United States, the European Union, Japan, China.
"We want India firmly in that list.  But time and tide wait for no one.  We must redouble our efforts.  Let us not lose the chance for both nations that this moment offers."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

There is nothing particularly new of Canadian resentment against its largest trading partner taking it for granted and behaving in a casual, dismissive manner, cavalierly assuming that whatever America sees as paramount to its own interests takes precedence over scrupulously balanced and fair trading relationships with a much smaller country well endowed with natural resources that just happens to share a geographic location with contiguous borders.

In his time, Pierre Elliot Trudeau also decided that Canada should look elsewhere for trade options.  Getting fed up with American slights and its propensity to pull its considerable weight in decision making that often leaves Canada out in the cold in trade decisions, Mr. Trudeau led missions to Europe, at a time when the European Union was dropping its traditional reliance on Canada for some long-term products, and looking inwardly instead.  Not much came of those initiatives.

Jean Chretien, when he was prime minister, famously embarked on quite a few trade missions to China, Canadian business leaders in tow, trumpeting that he would open China's guarded gates to Canadian enterprise.  And while some very large Canadian corporations - which still get preferential tax breaks from Canada - operate widely within China for handsome returns, our China trade still bears no resemblance to that with our largest trading partner.

For all his generous flattery to that great democracy that is India, with its industrious, next-to-China immense population, Mr. Harper - though a nuclear and uranium-supply deal was ratified - will be returning home without the free trade deal he hoped force of personality-and-promise would succeed in eking out of his talks with India.  Perhaps one will yet eventuate; India wants first to review its free trade agreements with other countries before committing to Canada.

In any event, perhaps a comparison of trade figures might prove some consolation.  Though Mr. Harper's appeal to Dr. Manmohan Singh, that it would benefit both countries, that "we need to become closer partners more quickly", seems compelling enough, our export to India is a mere $2.6-billion.  There's another fly in that ointment; child labour, and working conditions for many in India that more than resemble slave labour with zero labour standards.

Our trade with the United States, on the other hand, despite frustration over such items as the Keystone pipeline, amounted to $300-billion last year.  The statement of Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada notwithstanding, that this country should diversify its trade targets.  "Over-exposure to the United States and under-exposure to faster growing emerging markets is almost entirely responsible for Canada's loss of world market share."

Which contrasts peculiarly to the condition of Canada's economy as a G20 nation, with our more robust financial situation and greater economic security in our banking system, our stable housing market, our employment statistics.  We're vulnerable to the conditions that afflict Europe and the United States, but India and China have their own problems as growing economies with huge workforces and a hunger for energy sources.