I think it is important for Canadians to understand that in the American system, power is highly diffused. Even the President has to work with Congress to secure legislation.
I would applaud the efforts of various governments of Canada to bring us out of simply working with the White House in the relationship. But we've been less successful than some other countries--Australia, I would argue, has been very successful in Washington--in building on perhaps the early successes that we had 20 years ago in dealing with Congress, dealing with sub-national levels.
Premiers are very effective. You saw how effective they were in Chicago, then in Houston, a couple of weeks ago on the Buy America issue. In part that's because they've been around for a while, and they've met with and formed relationships with governors. And you see that governors often become cabinet ministers and senior party activists in the United States system.
So I think we have to be more deliberate about how we engage not just the President, and perhaps not even just certain committee chairs, but actually the broader political spectrum of national and sub-national actors, to restore in advance some of the connectors that used to be given.
That's been exacerbated in the American context by three factors. One is that population and political power have shifted south and west, so not along the border. Second, the pace of politics creates less time for parliamentarians and congressional people to get to know each other. Third, Canada has less currency in Washington's thinking on policy issues. We're not a problem, and that's a good thing, but at the same time, we need to find ways of having the ideas that will render engagement with us as something the Americans want to do.