Mr. Speaker, today is a significant moment in Canadian political history for what is not happening.
Today the President of the United States was scheduled to visit us in Ottawa to cement our most vital foreign relationship. He was to meet with the Prime Minister, opposition leaders and address the House to build on the largest trading relationship in world history, one that amounts to $1.8 billion of daily trade and which is responsible for nearly 40% of Canadian jobs and income.
The Prime Minister fooled no one with his pathetic suggestion that the summit was cancelled because the president was stuck in Washington due to the war in Iraq.
Instead of visiting Ottawa, President Bush is coming off a weekend summit at his private ranch with the Australian prime minister and is flying to Arkansas for a speech.
No, the president is not in Ottawa today for only one reason. It is because the government has brought Canada-U.S. relations to their lowest level in decades. By siding with France and Russia rather than the U.S. and Britain in the war to liberate Iraq, by inciting hate speech directed at our American friends and by plain neglect, the Prime Minister has given himself a shameful legacy which will not soon be forgotten.