January 2008 Archives

Marc LePage is Canada's consul general in San Francisco. He had us over to his office for continental breakfast. He made a short presentation about Canada-California trade. Interesting facts about California:

—It is the fifth biggest economy in the world.

—It has 38 million people, more than Canada.

—In 2006, Canada exported $21.2 billion in goods directly to California (plus some petroleum that goes into Washington state and then down through the U.S.), of which more than half was in the "transportation" (cars and trucks, etc.) category. Agriculture exports were about seven per cent.

—California exported $10.5 billion in goods to Canada in 2006, of which about one quarter was agricultural goods.

—500,000 Canadians live in California, including 250,000 in the San Francisco Bay area. These ex-pats are not included in our list of exports, but this brainpower is incredibly valuable to the universities and Silicon Valley businesses in the area. Marc LePage had a slide of the top 20 universities in the world, according to The Economist. Almost all of them are in the U.S., and six are in California. Silicon Valley, which is in the bay area, attracts 36 per cent of all venture capital dollars in the U.S.

After lunch we met with Dave Stockdale, executive director of the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA). The office is the Ferry Building — the ferry terminal —at the end of Market Street in San Francisco. CUESA started in 1994 in response to a very popular harvest fair held in the city. The organizing group decided to keep it going, holding regular markets and educating the public at the same time. CUESA now holds markets all year long, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Not only does it screen its farmers closely, holding them to certain standards, it also goes so far as to set the standards and monitor farms to make sure they comply. Here are some features of the CUESA market:

—Farmers apply to take part in the market, and CUESA picks them based on merit and goods for sale. The  application is 20 pages long, and CUESA staff go out a visit the farm before inviting the farmer to participate in the market. Farmers have to meet CUESA standards, and CUESA wants to make sure the market has a variety of foods. It doesn't want all the stalls taken up with citrus growers, for example.

—The farmer has to show up in the booth at least once a month. He or she can't just send staff.

—CUESA holds seasonal cooking demos at the market, in which one farmer introduces a seasonal food he or she produces, then a local chef gives a demo to show people how to use that food.

—CUESA is also working on a precise definition of "sustainable agriculture." It wants to provide farmers with examples of best management practices that CUESA marketers will be expected to follow. You've heard about certain retailers in Europe setting their own food quality standards. CUESA is doing the same.

The end...

With that, my three weeks in the U.S. came to an end. I had hoped to spend my last evening wandering Fisherman's Wharf, but it was pouring rain all day. Instead I went to some high end art shops (selling original Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, and Camille Pissarro, among others) and wandered around a mall (Yuck!). We did go to the Franciscan Crab House on Fisherman's Wharf for supper. I had Dungeness crab, which was good, and Stephanie, Stephane and I shared a bottle of the "fruit juice" that made California famous — that super-sweet pink Zinfandel wine. After that it was hugs and handshakes all around. I look forward to seeing my new Canadian friends again, and making use of all my new contacts in the U.S. Thank you to the U.S. State Department, Brad and Mary at the U.S. consulate in Winnipeg, and our guides Ronn and Virgil. I will never forget these three weeks. But with my brain fully exhausted, I look forward to getting home.

          We left the hotel at 7:30 and drove to Sacramento and area for the day. Highway 50 was not too busy in our direction, but going the opposite way a steady stream of cars filled four lanes for the whole drive to Sacramento. Our driver Shawn says people will commute from Sacramento all the way to Silicon Valley south of San Francisco. It must take them three hours each way. To improve productivity and relieve some congestion on the roads, many tech-sector employees are working from home two days a week, Shawn says.

          We met with a few people to talk about agriculture and its importance to California. Agriculture is the largest industry in the state, generating $36 billion in revenue. Milk is the top commodity, followed by wine grapes, then dozens and dozens of other crops and livestock. While we were at the State Capitol, Paul Somerhausen, who is with the State Senate office of international relations, took us for a tour of the building. We saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's office. He has his name  in big gold letters above his office door, by his request. No other governor has had that feature. Paul says Schwarzenegger is surprisingly short, at less than six feet. We didn't get to see for ourselves, but we did take pictures with the guards in front of his office.

          Our last stop of the day was at Robert Mondavi's Woodbridge winery near Lodi (pronounced "Low-dye") in the flat and fertile San Joaquin Valley. This is no boutique shop. It churns out 15 million cases a year, with a fully mechanized and massive bottling room. I bought a bottle of "Old Vine Zinfandel" made from grapes from vines planted in the 1890s.

          California has about 500,000 acres of vineyards, compared to about two million in France and about the same in Spain. California grape growers actually ripped up about 100,000 acres of vines in the past couple years because a big crop in 2005 took the bottom out of the market. Many of those acres have been switched over to almonds. The problem with trees and vines is that they take years to get into production, so you have to guess the market well in advance. Grape vines take three to five years before they produce, while almond trees take seven years.

          We had a long drive back to San Francisco. It was raining and dark by the time we returned. We crossed over the Bay Bridge, which to me is more spectacular than the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bay Bridge has 10 lanes, with the five eastbound lanes on the bottom level and five westbound lanes on top. It must be three miles long, connecting the blue collar city of Oakland with the busy towers of San Francisco. At 6:15, traffic was bumper to bumper heading INTO San Francisco, but the slow pace gave me a good look at the evening skyline.

          A tidbit: As we exited the bridge, I noticed the price of gas — $3.75 per gallon. It was $3.35 in Sacramento, and $2.80 or so in Kansas City. Gas stations must have to charge extra in San Francisco just to pay for their real estate.

Supper...

          We went to a restaurant called Bacar. It was near the corner of Brannan and Third St., in what seemed like a warehouse district. AT&T Park, where Barry Bonds and the Giants play, is near here. We took a cab because it was raining a bit. The ride was only $6. (Our hotel, by the way, is the Hotel Nikko on the corner of Mason and O'Farrell. I'm giving you these streets in case you like to look up places on a map. I like the hotel and would stay here again. Steve from PEI finds the ambiance too cold. The foyer is tall, wide and all white marble.)

          Bacar was also cold. Everywhere we go we get ribbed about our weather, but at least our restaurants are warm. We were 80 feet from the front door, but every time that door open we got a gale of cold damp air. Steve put his foot down and got us moved to a slightly warmer spot upstairs.

          I had four oysters, oxtail minestrone soup and a small pizza. The oysters were the highlight, not because they were delicious but because they were different. I might have had raw oysters once in my life. They are served in the half-shell on a bed of ice. You tip the shell to your mouth and suck the meat out. It's salty and slightly fishy with a soft texture. I ordered the oxtail soup hoping to get a cross section of tail, with the meat around the cord. Instead the meat was cut up in small pieces, but it was a great soup anyway. The pizza was super dull so there's no point talking about it.

          One neat thing about San Francisco restaurants is that you can order a "flight" of wine. You get two-ounce glasses of four different wines, and the restaurant picks the mix for you. The catch is that these flights are expensive. Anywhere else you could get three or four full glasses of wine for the same price.

We decided to walk back to the hotel. It only took 10 or 15 minutes, and with a group I felt safe.

This was our last travel day. Only three more days before we all go back home to our real lives. To my wife and boys, I miss you! While on route from Kansas City to San Francisco, I went over some of the trade statistics I had collected over the past couple weeks. I came to the conclusion that I, being in the agriculture industry, sometimes lose sight of the big trade picture. I looked at some numbers today that put ag commodity trade in a new light for me. Trade in agri-food is significant to your livelihood and mine, and to the life-giving energy and enjoyment it provides all people, but in terms of Canada-U.S. trade it's but a small part.

In 2006, Canada exported US$303 billion worth of goods to the U.S. The top six exports were related to cars or petroleum. The top export was "motor vehicles for transporting people," valued at almost $37 billion. Next was crude oil, valued at $33 billion. Items three to six are as follows: petroleum gases, motor vehicle parts, oil (not crude), and motor vehicles for transporting goods. Total value of these six exports amounted to around $125 billion.

That leaves lots of money left over for other stuff, but in scanning the top 50 U.S. imports — from all countries! — I did not find anything remotely related to food. The only top-50 import related to agriculture was tractors in spot 46. And again, these ratings are for imports from all countries. Some of those tractors would be John Deere's coming from Germany. (All of these numbers are from World City, a publication of U.S. trade numbers. Go to www.ustradenumbers.com.) So even though the U.S. is the major market for Canadian agri-food exports, these rank low on the list of U.S. imports.

Interestingly, I found a number of farm commodities on the top-50 list of U.S. exports. The U.S. exported $7.3 billion worth of corn to the world in 2006, good for 21st spot on the list. Soybeans where one spot behind with $6.9 billion. The U.S. also exported $4.2 billion worth of wheat, putting it in 48th spot.

An info package I got from the Canadian Embassy in Washington says Canada imported $10 billion worth of U.S. agri-food products in 2005. This includes fruit and vegetables from California. (Source: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) This is about five per cent of total Canadian imports of U.S. products. In short, our biggest agricultural exports to the U.S. — canola oil, wheat and beef — don't add up to much when compared to oil, cars, wood or aluminum. Now you know why when Ontario and its autoworkers get nervous, Ottawa listens. 

My intro to San Francisco...

We had a two-hour tour shortly after arrival. We went up to Twin Peaks to see the city from above, we drove through Golden Gate Park, and we walked on Ocean Beach and saw surfers and 10-foot waves. Then we drove through Haight-Ashbury — the hippie haven of the '60s, Fisherman's Wharf, China Town, and down Lombard Street, "the crookedest street in the world." San Francisco is a great place. The temperature is cool, around 8 C, but it's a treat to see palm trees and green grass. The city only has about 800,000 residents, but it doesn't have any room to expand outward. That's why property values are very high and there is not an inch between houses. Streets that are too step to safely navigate are turned into the most treacherous parking lots I've ever seen. I would hate to be here the day they have snow.

This is Martin Luther King Jr. day, which is a holiday. We don’t have any meetings, and many of the museums are closed. Some of us went to an event this afternoon at the Gem Theatre across the American Jazz Museum. The program included poetry, dance, music and talk in recognition of King’s life and work. The underlying theme of the program is that the black community has to take responsibility for its own advancement. A young university prof, Boris Eugene Ricks, made a speech that combined encouragement and criticism. One statistic he gave that stuck with me is that 62 per cent of African American children do not have a father at home. He also had a great line: “The thing to try when all else fails is again.”

Before going to the King commemoration, we went to Harry S Truman’s presidential museum in Independence, Missouri — a suburb of Kansas City and Truman’s hometown. Truman was Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, so when FDR died on April 12, 1945, Truman was thrust into oval office while WWII still raged. He ran for president in 1948 and won narrowly over Thomas Dewey. Newspapers actually went to print saying Dewey had won, but by 4:00 a.m. the morning after the election, Truman was given word that victory was his. I haven’t given you any trivia for a few days, so here are a few questions to test yourself.

What is Harry S Truman’s middle name? A: “S” His parents couldn’t agree on a middle name. His father wanted him to be named after his father, Anderson Shipp Truman. His mother wanted a middle name to recognize her father, Solomon Young. So they gave him a middle initial to  recognize both grandfathers.

What three significant WWII events occurred on August 6, August 9 and August 14, 1945? A: The U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima August 6, it dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki August 9, and Japan surrendered August 14.

What was the name of the U.S. plan to rebuild Europe after WWII? A: The Marshall Plan, after Secretary of State George C. Marshall.

Why did the U.S. introduce the Marshall Plan? A: Because communism was rising in Europe, and the U.S. wanted to keep a lid on Russia’s sphere of influence. Between 1948 and 1951, the U.S. spent $13 billion on housing, infrastructure and industry in Western Europe.

Why did Harry Truman fire the very popular General Douglas MacArthur in 1951? A. Because Douglas wanted to launch an offensive attack on China during the Korean War, but Truman didn’t want to start WWIII. Douglas became critical of Truman’s leadership.

Supper…

We had a “home hospitality” meal tonight. Our host, Havaca Johnson, had Henry, Ranissah and me over to her home in an attractive older neighbourhood south of the Plaza area where our hotel (the Courtyard Marriott) is located. Kansas City is hillier than I had imagined, but its look and feel reminds me of any Prairie city in Canada. Havaca’s home was built in the 1920s and is a lot like the first house my wife and I owned in Winnipeg. Havaca also invited two of her friends, Julia and Ellen. We ate vegetarian lasagna and drank California wine. Julia says there are some very good Missouri wines, but we didn’t try any of them. Thank you Havaca for a great time.

We traveled to Kansas City today, and the only major event was a short tour of the birthplace of Kansas City jazz. Our guide, Anita Dixon, first took us for a late lunch at The Peachtree Buffet. We arrived at 3:00 and the place was packed. The clientele was 100 per cent black, creating one of those rare moments in my life when I was the minority. It was not uncomfortable at all. The food was classic southern (fried chicken not Tex Mex) and it was all you can eat. After lunch, we drove around the 18^th and Vine district. In the 1910s, Kansas City civic leader Tom Pendergast created an area for black people to live. At its peak, there were 60,000 blacks living within the district’s 24 square blocks. Dixon says Pendergast arranged to give this district all the utilities and services a town needed, including schools and a civic council. In this concentrated black community, there were churches, delis and nightclubs on almost every street. And in these nightclubs, black musicians created the Kansas City jazz sound — an upbeat combination of blues and beebop, Dixon says.

This neighbourhood is also home to Gates BBQ, which is one of Bill Clinton’s favourite restaurants. When he was in office, he had Air Force One make an unscheduled stop in Kansas City to get some Gates BBQ. The restaurant made up a tray for him to take on the plane. This “President’s tray” is now on the menu. It costs $80, Dixon says.

By the 1960s, the 24 square blocks had become seedy, and through urban renewal most of it was torn down. The area now has lots of open park space, and some tourist attractions — including the American Jazz Museum. (We didn’t have time to go in.)

This was our day to get to know San Antonio a little better. Our local tour guide, Kay Grosinske, concentrated on the top two features of the city: its Spanish missions and the riverwalk. They are the two most-visited attractions in Texas. Here are some highlights and interesting facts:

—San Antonio has five Catholic missions. Franciscan friars from Spain set up the missions in the 1700s to turn aborginal people into Spanish citizens. The friars taught them how to farm, speak Spanish and be good Catholics. The goal was to strengthen Spain’s control in the area due to threats of encroachment from the French in Louisianna. The best preserved of the five is the Mission San Jose, which has a small museum and guided tours.

—Our tour guide explained why much of southern Texas is covered with scrub brush and cactus, which I noticed on the way to Laredo. It used to be grassy plains, but intensive cattle grazing — especially during the Civil War — took the grass down to nothing. Normally the grass would out-compete all other plants, but with the grass grazed down, brush and cactus took over. Much of the land has never recovered.

—Spanish missions introduced ranching to Texas, and the first cowboys were the American Indian “vaqueros.” Cattle inside the mission walls ate all the vegetable crops, so the missions applied for more land. They got thousands of acres. Eventually the San Jose Mission had about 5,000 cattle on 16,000 acres, all free range. Many of the cowboy terms of today came from the original Spanish words. For example, chapperias became chaps, espuelas became spurs, and mesteno, the Spanish wild horse, became mustang.

—The most famous mission is San Antonio de Valero. After the friars closed the missions, the Spanish army used them. The San Antonio mission housed a garrison from Alamo de Parras, and their quarters were called the Alamo. In the Texas Revolution of 1836, about 200 fighters under siege in the Alamo fought Mexican general Santa Anna and his 4,000 troops for 13 days. Then finally Santa Anna’s army launched a full assault and wiped out the fighters in the Alamo. But “Remember the Alamo” became the rallying cry for the Texans. Under General Sam Houston, the Texans beat Santa Anna a month later and Texas became an independent republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States.

—Today, the Department of Defense is the biggest employer in San Antonio. Some bases have been closed recently, including Kelly Air Force Base, but the biggest based — the army’s Fort Sam Houston — is getting bigger. Our guide Kay takes visitors around as a volunteer. Her real job is as an engineer with the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment.

—A worker at the Alamo told me that Texas comes from the local American Indian word “tejas,” which means friendly. But Texas bumper stickers say, “Don’t mess with Texas,” which doesn’t sound friendly at all. Turns out, as Kay tells me, “Don’t mess with Texas” was originally an anti-litter campaign that became a universal slogan for the state.

—The River Walk goes up both sides of the tiny San Antonio River for about two and a half miles. The riverbanks are all concrete and the walk — which is only about six feet wide — lips right up to the river — which is only about 30 feet wide, tops. All of this is about 20 feet below street level. The result is an intimate, warm and windless world, full of lanterns, tall trees and restaurants. It’s the city’s best feature, no doubt. And it almost didn’t happen. An information package from the San Antonio convention and visitors bureau noted that after a flood of 1921, which killed 50 people and caused lots of property damage, there was a public outcry to pave over the river. A small group of women saved the river. Then 20 years later the River Walk project began. It has been a work in progress ever since. Only recently did it become a place where tourists and average San Antonio citizens would actually want to visit. Elena Villerreal, whom we met yesterday, says the River Walk is now the one place every visiting mayor wants to see (and perhaps try to recreate in their own cities).

            Finally, I give a big thank you to Jerry and Cindy Gomez. Part of the international visitor program includes “home stay” meals. Jerry and Cindy made supper for Steve MacLean and me, along with four international students. Cindy travels the world buying and ordering merchandise to sell in HEB stores, a Texas chain. Jerry runs a home stay business, in which he matches international students with families in the area willing to host them while they’re at university. The Gomezes have had 76 students from 22 countries over the years.

 We had meetings today with various organizations trying to boost business in San Antonio. They have identified about 10 target industries, but these are the same industries that every city in world wants to attract: Biosciences, aerospace, manufacturing, financial services, information technology, etc. To me, San Antonio’s key selling feature is its proximity and familiarity with the Mexican market. Elena Villerreal is the global trade and foreign investment manager for the City of San Antonio. One of her jobs is to promote the city as a launching pad for business in Mexico. San Antonio has its own international offices in the three major Mexican cities — Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara. Villerreal’s strategy is to encourage companies to set up San Antonio and get a taste of Hispanic business culture within the U.S. Then these companies can use the city’s international offices to get a toehold in Mexico.

Understanding Mexican business culture is essential to success in Mexico. You have to be prepared to have a long lunch and socialize for hours. Villerreal used to work for a big company, and she remembers a meeting between her boss and a potential business partner in Mexico. The two men met for lunch at 2 p.m., socialized until 11 p.m. and didn’t talk about business until they were getting up to leave. The two sides made a deal in about a minute. But the nine hours leading up to that deal were an important part of the process. “You first have to connect on a personal level to do business in Mexico,” Villerreal says. She sums up the Mexican business philosophy like this: “I’m not going to do any business with you until I know you, and until I can invite you into my house.”

The Port of San Antonio…

Like other major cities, San Antonio wants to be a freight hub. The city has one of about 200 foreign trade zones in the U.S. In these zones, goods can come in from other countries and be further assembled or engineered and then brought into the U.S. economy at a different (probably lower) tariff level than the separate parts. Or loads from abroad can be processed or repackaged and taken to another country without having to pay U.S. duties. The hot new feature in San Antonio’s foreign trade zone is at the decommissioned Kelly Air Force Base, which is being converted into the “Port of San Antonio.” The port is beside two major rail routes, one from L.A. to Miami and the other from Lazaro-Cardenas seaport in Mexico all the way up to the rail hub at Winnipeg. The port also has an 11,500-foot airstrip that can handle the biggest cargo planes. Finally, San Antonio is at the crossroads of four Interstate Highways. Jorge Canavati, vice president of business development for the Port of San Antonio, plays up these links in his efforts to promote the port.

As an aside, Canavati thinks the container ports of Lazaro-Cardenas and Prince Rupert, B.C., play major roles in keeping freight moving through North America. After strikes shut down the American west coast ports in 2002, importers and exporters in the U.S. realized the need for alternative ports. “The market is not going to let a shut down like that happen again,” Canavati says. Trade will move through the most efficient seaports, and use whatever transport gets goods to customers cheapest.

So has NAFTA been good for San Antonio? In the past year or so, a 120-year-old company called Friedrich — the last room air conditioner manufacturer in the U.S. — announced it would shut its San Antonio factory and relocate to Mexico. About 200 people lost their jobs. But around the same time, the new Toyota truck plant opened up in San Antonio. It is directly responsible for over 4,000 new jobs. Texas is a big market for trucks, so whether NAFTA gets any credit for this plant is open to debate, but Toyota has taken the sting out of other job losses.

Supper…

We went to The County Line, a place that specializes in BBQ sauce and lots of meat. Henry Han asked our waiter about the serving sizes. The waiter said serving sizes in Texas are generally pretty big, so he didn’t think The County Line servings were bigger than any other restaurant’s. “But maybe that’s why San Antonio is the fattest city in the U.S,” he added. I had the “Pork Rib Combo”, with four baby back ribs (four ribs, not four racks), a small pile of beef brisket and one medium sized sausage.  I chose beans and coleslaw for my “fixin’s.” The serving size was not outrageously large, in my mind. As if to put its overeating customers at ease, The County Line put a reassuring note at the bottom of the menu: “We use 100 per cent pure canola oil for frying.” I guess I should have had the fries.

    We had a day trip down to this inland port city on the U.S.-Mexico border, about 140 miles south of San Antonio. The four-lane divided highway between the two cities is in excellent shape, and the traffic flow is similar to that between Calgary and Edmonton. It was a cool day today – around 5 C – which is very cold for this area, even in winter. So with the browned off grass and flat land, it looked and felt like November on the Prairies, except for the large cactuses, the miles of scrub brush and the 95 per cent Hispanic population.

NAFTA has been good for Laredo. The city of 240,000 is the fifth busiest U.S. customs district in terms of dollars of trade. (L.A. is first, followed by New York, Detroit and Houston.) About 46 per cent of U.S.-Mexico trade moves through Laredo, according to the trade magazine World City. Laredo city owns four border-crossing bridges over the Rio Grande, and collects tolls of $3.75 per axle at each bridge. This raises US$48 million for the city. Then there are the spin-off benefits of having lots of traffic. And finally, as a busy border crossing, Laredo has hundreds if not thousands of federal government employees. The Mexican border, after all, is a major security project.

   Because the port is so important to the Laredo economy, the town wants to make sure its port meets the needs of shippers. It has to be as fast and efficient as possible under the new security rules. Part of making it more efficient is to use technology to move trucks through faster. This includes electronic manifests, so the border knows in advance what a truck is carrying and whether it has all the paperwork in line. Tolls are collected and vehicle weights are taken without the truck having to stop. If the truck is overloaded, a $500 fine applies to the automatic toll bill. These features are available at the new World Trade Bridge, which is designed just for trucks. In 2000, the port only needed four or five lanes open to handle the volume. Today, the have all eight lanes open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. And soon they will add seven more lanes — all in the name of moving freight faster. “The city of Laredo remains a leader in international trade by being efficient,” says Jesus Olivares, assistant city manager. That means lots of co-operation with the department heads in Washington (including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security and many others). “We want to make sure our partnership with the U.S. government goes hand in hand with our operations at the border.” This is business for Laredo. Its city leaders visit Washington on a regular basis to make sure policy makers for security and trade don’t forget this fact.

   Businesses are also coming up with their own solutions to improve efficiency at the border. About 12,000 trucks a day cross at Laredo. While it takes under a minute, on average, for a truck to get through the checkpoint, it takes two to four hours waiting in a line to get to the checkpoint in the first place. Rather than have big expensive trucks idling for hours, trucking firms drop the trailers on one side of the border and hire a “drayage” company to take the trailers across. The same trucking firm has other trucks waiting at the other side to pick up the trailers and take them to their destinations. This is how it works in both directions.

   In Laredo, we had lunch at La Posada. We had real fajitas made with skirt steak, enchiladas with corn tortillas, and great refried beans followed by flan — and eggy custard — for dessert. It was the best Mexican food I’ve ever had, which isn’t surprising since this is the closest I’ve been to Mexico. After lunch, we walked over to one of the four bridges and had a peek at the Rio Grande. It’s much smaller than I expected (i.e. not “grande”). It used to be bigger, but much of the flow has been diverted for irrigation. Thus the river is not an imposing barrier to illegal crossings. The multitude of security guards and cameras on the U.S. side make up for it. Border crossing people who spoke to us later in a meeting did not have numbers to share on now many illegals actually get across. Most people cross legally, and many of them are on foot. Laredo is a 250-year-old city and families in the area have a long history of crossing back and forth to do business and to visit. The sister city on the Mexican side, called Nuevo Laredo, has 750,000 people. Pedestrian traffic across the border bridge amounts to five million crossings per year.

   Laredo, Texas didn’t strike me as a rich city, but the people we met were friendly and hospitable. Before we left, the city manager Carlos Villarreal — who joined us for lunch — gave us each a bottle of “1800” tequila. I haven’t had tequila for a long time (for good reason), but this is supposed to be the good stuff. I look forward to trying it.

We had a travel day today. We left the hotel in Atlanta at 9:00 a.m. and didn’t arrive in the Holiday Inn Riverwalk in San Antonio until 5:30 p.m. It gave me a day to find out a little more about my fellow Canadian travelers.

Henry Han

Henry works for the province of B.C., helping to facilitate trade and investment into the province. Henry was born in Richmond, B.C. His parents are from Korea. His dad worked as a computer programmer for the U.S. Department of Defense during the Vietnam War. After leaving Vietnam, Mr. Han chose to relocate in Canada rather than return to Korea. His wife joined him two years later — in 1972.

Henry thinks the U.S. Embassy picked him for this trip because he has been working closely with the U.S. consul in Vancouver on the Pacific Gateway project and on the Security and Properity Partnership (SPP) with the U.S. and Mexico.

Henry read my blog three days ago, and did not agree with my assessment of the CNN tour. He didn’t find it boring at all, and he wants to go on record saying, “I am thoroughly disappointed in editor Whetter’s comments about the CNN tour. He demonstrates a clear bias against all non-print media.”

Stephen MacLean

Steve is the deputy minister of transportation and public works for the province of PEI. He lives in Stratford, a suburb of Charlottetown. Steve is busy these days working on a PEI government initiative to set spending priorities for the province. The goal is to work horizontally with all relevant departments to make decisions that are best for the province — and not for any one specific department. “Infrastructure is the physical plant for the economy,” he says, “but there is never enough money for all infrastructure needs.” If the province has $100 million to spend, for example, the PEI government wants to give priority to projects that provide the biggest economy return on investment. This requires lots of research, talk and negotiation. At the same time, Steve loves the adrenalin rush of helping to run a government more efficiently.

Steve met the U.S. consul, based in Halifax, while the consul was touring the region. He was in Charlottetown early for a meeting, so Steve spent an hour with him talking about the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, border inspection fees for agricultural products, and general concerns about “thickening” of the border. About a month later, Steve got a call asking whether he’d be interested in this trip.

Taieb Moalla

Taieb is a reporter with Media Matin Quebec. This is an employee-run paper that they started after their employer, Le Journal de Quebec, locked them out nine months ago. Le Journal wants staff to work five days a week for the same pay. Staff had been working four days a week. Le Journal also wants reporters to provide reports in various media, including audio and video, without any restriction. Management locked out the workers until they’re ready to come back under the new terms.

Taieb was born and raised in Tunisia. He speaks French, Arabic and English. Taieb’s introduction to Canada came through the Internet. He met his girlfriend from Rimouski, Quebec online in 1998. Her chat room nickname — “Balzac” — caught his eye, and they started chatting. They chatted online every day after that. In December 1999, she traveled to Tunisia to meet him in person. It was her first trip abroad. Over the next two years, Taieb traveled twice to Rimouski before moving to Quebec permanently in 2001. Taieb studied law in Tunisia and got a Masters in public communication from Laval University. He became a Canadian citizen in January 2007.

Taieb thinks he was chosen because of his former involvement with the Canada-Palestinian Coalition. He was often talking with the U.S. consul general and correcting her — politely, he says — on the facts about Palestine.

Stephane Paquin

Stephane is a professor of International Politics and Economy, specializing in Canada-U.S. relations, at the University of Sherbrooke. He lives in Montreal and commutes. Stephane was born in Quebec City. He went to the Universite de Montreal. Then he met Natalene and his life changed.

Here’s the story: During WWII, Canadians sent food to help hungry families in Europe. A family in Ontario had sent food to Natalene’s grandparents. In the 1990s, Natalene came to Canada to visit this family. Stephane’s mother happened to visit the family while Natalene was there. Stephane’s mom told Natalene to get out of that boring Ontario town and go to Montreal to visit Stephane and have some fun. Stephane wasn’t really thrilled with the idea until he saw this girl. They hit if off. Over the next few months, the two went back and forth across the ocean to visit each other. Stephane enroled at Science Po university in Paris, where he got his Ph.D. and lived with Natalene. After that, he taught at Northwestern University in Chicago, and then they settled in Montreal.

Stephane has written seven books, and he does regular political commentary on the radio. But he got picked, he thinks, because the U.S. consul in Montreal had gone to one of Stephane’s classes to speak. She was very impressed with how much his students knew about the U.S. political system.

Ranissah Samah

Ranissah is senior policy advisor, specializing in the U.S., with the Ontario Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs. Ranissah was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Her mother is from Newfoundland. Her father is from a tiny village in Malaysia. He was raised in a wooden house on stilts. The Samah family went to live in this village when Ranissah was seven years old. They lived there for six months. What did you do? I asked. “Sat in a corner rocking back and forth wondering what happened to us,” Ranissah said. She moved from Malaysia to Toronto at age 17 and went to University of Toronto. Her three siblings are also in Toronto, but her father still lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and her mom lives in Costa Rica.

Ranissah thinks she was picked because all of her files deal with U.S. relations. She and representatives from the U.S. consulate attend many of the same meetings. The consul probably thought she’d benefit from the further insights this trip provides.

Stephanie Trudeau

Stephanie is the director of public affairs for Quebec’s liquor board, the Societe des alcools du Quebec (SAQ). She lives in Montreal. When Stephanie got picked for this trip, she was director of community relations for Rabaska. The consortium wants to build a $1 billion transfer facility in Quebec to off-load liquefied natural gas (LNG) from ships. It would only take 60 shiploads of LNG a year to satisfy the whole Quebec market, and with LNG you can buy gas on the world market. The province would not be tied to one supplier at the end of a pipeline.

Stephanie thinks her work on the Rabaska hearings helped get the attention of the U.S. consul in Montreal. She was in the media often, defending and explaining the project, which still doesn’t have full approval. Stephanie was also president of the Quebec Liberal Party youth wing not long ago. And she is involved with a few international relations board, mostly to do with Europe. The consul probably thought the trip would help her learn more about the U.S.

The greater Atlanta area — which includes 28 counties and municipalities — is 100 miles across and has 5.1 million people. Population density is pretty low for a big city because it’s not confined by any natural barriers, such as mountains or the sea. Downtown Atlanta follows a similar spread-out pattern. Cranes are working everywhere to construct new high rises, and while there are two primary clusters — downtown and midtown — two or three miles apart, you also see very tall buildings all by themselves here and there. This belt of high rises is like a smile with a bunch of missing teeth. Our hotel, the Regency Suites, is in midtown. This morning I took a walk around the neighbourhood and found an older street with very big homes just east of the hotel. Two days ago, we drove through the Buckhead area north of midtown. It also has very large homes on massive lots. That is the charm of Atlanta. You have a slightly rolling landscape, with big trees and lots of little parks. Neighbourhoods are cut into this topography, and the city goes on and on.

We met today with the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Their city is the business and economic hub of the southwest U.S. — a role it has served for 200 years. During the Civil War, the Union army took Atlanta and burned it to the ground, knocking out a major Confederate hub. That is how the Atlanta Flames (now the Calgary Flames) hockey team got its name. Atlanta’s airport, Hartsfield-Jackson, is now the busiest in the world, with 89 million passengers last year. (About 65 per cent of travelers do not leave the airport, they just change planes and keep going.) Atlanta is headquarters for Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, Delta Airlines, AGCO and many other companies. Atlanta was fourth in fDi magazine's ranking of the “top North American cities of the future.” Chicago ranked first. Interestingly, Toronto was second and Montreal was seventh.

What we have not seen of Atlanta is its poor areas. Our van driver, Gerard Baptiste, says the southwest parts of Atlanta proper have high poverty and high crime. The area around Atlanta University, which has a largely a black student body, is “infested” with crime, Gerard says. “These people are stuck,” he says. But at the same time, he says Atlanta can be a very good city for black people. It’s called “Black Mecca” for the opportunities afforded to bright and ambitious African Americans. There are affluent black neighbourhoods with million-dollar houses. The current mayor is black and so were the four mayors before her. Mayor Shirley Franklin gets great respect from the chamber of commerce for her pro-business views.

Gerard our driver moved to the U.S. from Haiti in the late 1960s. His father was an agronomist, which was his ticket out of revolution-torn Haiti. The family arrived in New York right around the time Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.

When Gerard was older, he volunteered for the army because he knew he was going to get drafted. After serving in Thailand during the Vietnam War, Gerard returned to New York City, got married, then moved to Dallas. New York was pretty rough and the time, and he wanted to get out. About 20 years ago, his wife — who worked with IBM — got a transfer to Atlanta. They have been living in Black Mecca ever since.

Ronn Francis, one of our guides, grow up in New York City — Harlem — in the ‘60s. He said the civil rights movement was a bigger deal in the south than in New York City. When I asked Ronn about Martin Luther King Jr., Ronn said he connected more with the words of Malcolm X. Rather than preach non-violence, Malcolm X wanted African Americans to stand up and defend themselves — “by any means necessary” — in response to an unprovoked attack. Malcolm X was shot and killed in 1965, apparently by someone from within his own muslim movement.

Supper tonight…

Members of the Georgia Council for International Visitors hosted a meal for us. The council is a diverse group of about 200 Georgians who coordinate visits from people such as us Canadians. Every other month, they have supper at a different restaurant in the city and invite official "international visitors" who are in Atlanta at the time. We went to a Persian restaurant. I sat beside a woman whose mother came from Winnipeg. She said if the Republicans win the next election, she’s moving to Canada. (I don’t think she was serious.) Her husband runs a company that sells forestry equipment and he has been to more places in Canada than I have. A woman sitting across from me told of her narrow escape from her native Iran in the mid 1980s. She and her husband told the border guards that they were just going for a holiday in Turkey, but she had all her personal documents in her boot. The guards asked her to take off her boots, but at that moment her baby son started crying and screaming. The border guards said don’t bother with the boots, just go on through and help that screaming boy. I also met a man who works as a Chinese interpreter. I asked if he would write my name in Chinese characters. He had trouble because the closest sound to Jay starts with a “J” sound but rhymes with “high.” It means “house.” This meal wrapped up our time in Atlanta. We fly tomorrow to San Antonio.

We had a breakfast meeting this morning at the handsome art-filled residence of the Canadian consul general in Atlanta. Brian Oak is the current consul general. Chris Young, director of international affairs with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, joined us. The key discussion topic was the South East United States (SEUS)-Canada Alliance, a new group that brings together politicians and business leaders to discuss trade opportunities. The alliance just had its first meeting in Montreal in November, and the next one will be in Savannah, Georgia June 15-17 of this year. Young expects several hundred people at the conference, including business leaders from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in both countries. I asked Young whether he thought these trade alliances actually worked to “raise all ships” in an economic sense. He thought I was being negative and cynical with my question, but I wasn’t. For an answer, he described the 31-year-old SEUS-Japan Alliance. As a result of meetings and co-operation established through that alliance, many Japanese companies set up in Georgia. One example is YKK — best known for its zippers, but now producing a wide array of products. Its factory in Macon, Georgia produces mostly window frames and door sidings, and employs about 1,000 people. Back when this factory was first built, the founder of YKK became friends with Georgia Governor at the time, George Busbee. When the founder Mr. Yoshida died, Busbee was invited to speak at his funeral in Japan. And when Busbee died in 2004, the consul general of Japan was one of the first to pay his respects. “Business is about relationships,” Young says. The SEUS-Canada Alliance gives Canadian companies a chance to establish or re-establish relationships in the SEUS region. “Closest relationships are the ones you take for granted,” Young says. “This alliance will help to make sure the fires stay lit.”

After that meeting, we went to the Martin Luther King Jr. museum. Although the Civil War ended slavery in the south, it certainly did not end oppression. Segregation of blacks was legal for 100 years after the Civil War, and King was part of the movement to bring down these segregation laws. King was born in Atlanta in 1929. His father was a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is right across from the museum. After returning from university in Boston, King joined his father as a pastor, which gave him time to lead the social justice movement. King believed in the power of non-violent protest and was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi. “Rivers of blood may have to flow before we gain our freedom, but it will be our blood,” Gandhi said. He also said, “I am always willing to return to jail.” These words inspired King. He encouraged and participated in non-violent protest of segregation laws, and was arrested 14 times for his causes. I can’t do King justice in a couple of paragraphs, but what I found most striking was the speech he made April 3, 1968 in Memphis. He was facing many threats on his life when he spoke these words: “Well I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The next day James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King Jr. in the face. On April 11, two days after King’s funeral, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act that prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan made Martin Luther King Day a national holiday. (Thanks to Amy Pastan’s biography of Martin Luther King Jr. for background information.)

Supper and blues…

We all wanted some southern cookin’ in Atlanta, so we went to a place called Mary Mac’s. It had it all: fried chicken, catfish, ribs, grits, collard greens, black eyed peas, corn bread and peach cobbler. I had super-greasy fried green tomatoes for an appetizer, and ribs (excellent!), black eyed peas and cheese grits for the main course. The waiter also brought us baskets of cornbread, cinnamon biscuits and yeast rolls. To top it off I had a mint julep with about three ounces of bourbon mixed with a cup of sugary mint syrup. I would have preferred straight bourbon with a mint leaf thrown in. After we rolled out of Mary Mac’s, some of us went to a blues club called Blind Willie’s. It’s a spitting image of Times Change(d) on Main Street in Winnipeg. We heard a great local blues duo of Nathan Nelson on guitar and David Roth on upright bass. I particularly liked one song. It was a Bo Carter cover about “barnyard justice,” as Nelson says. Here is my favorite line: “Soo cow, you better not kick or I’ll break your leg with a stick.” I talked with Nelson after the first act. He asked what I was doing in Atlanta. I told him I was on a tour at the invite of the U.S. Embassy to learn about the U.S. government system and now it works. Nelson says, “When you find out, would you let me know?”

We had another free day to see what we wanted of the city. A small group of us went to CNN in the morning, and then to the Atlanta History Center in the afternoon. Here are some highlights of the day:

—The Atlanta History Center has the Swan House mansion built by the Inman family in 1928, the Tullie Smith farm from the 1840s, and a great Civil War museum. Emily Inman came from a well-educated Georgia family. Her mother, Emily MacDougald, led the suffrage movement in Georgia and was regional head of the League of Women Voters. The best story I heard during the Swan House guided tour was about Lizzie McDuffy, one of the family’s black servants. Lizzie’s husband “Mac” was a barber in Atlanta, and while Franklin Roosevelt was resting at his house in Warm Springs, Georgia, he hired Mac to cut his hair. FDR like Mac so much, he took him to Washington when he became president. Emily Inman insisted that Roosevelt also take Mac’s wife, Lizzie. It seems this didn’t cross Roosevelt’s mind. But in the end, FDR learned to trust and appreciate Lizzie’s presence. She became his unofficial advisor on African American affairs.

The best tidbit from Tullie Smith farm, named after the last resident of the house, was about the traveler’s room. Middle class southern homes often had a room on the front porch that was left for travelers. Each morning, the mother of the house would check the room to see if anyone had come along in the night. If yes, the traveler would get a big breakfast inside the house with the family. In exchange, the visitor would share news from his travels. This was the one of the few ways people could get information from outside their immediate areas. This warm welcome for strangers is at the root of “southern hospitality.”

I had only a few minutes left for the Civil War museum, but I learned a lot. The gist of the war is that southerners didn’t want the federal government to abolish slavery, which was a key part of the southern economy. The southerners thought they should have their own country and set their own laws. The northerners did not really care about slavery. Their motivation for fighting was to punish the south for treason against the union government. The war started in 1861 and ended four years later with the south surrendering. It was the bloodiest war in U.S. history, with 670,000 soldier deaths. One quarter of all the men in the south died in the war. (The U.S. lost “only” 60,000 soldiers in Vietnam.) What I found sad, but interesting, is that two-thirds of soldiers in the Civil War did not die in combat. They died from dysentery and other diseases caused by filthy conditions in the base camps.

—In the morning, we had a boring tour of CNN headquarters. Ted Turner started CNN in Atlanta in 1980, and though the main newsroom is still here, most of the big names work in New York, Washington and L.A. While we were on the tour, CNN was running pundit commentaries on Hillary Clinton and her tear-up the day before the New Hampshire primary vote. These commentaries added absolutely nothing of value for a voter wanting enlightenment on the issues. It made me think of a comment by Jordan Lieberman, the magazine publisher we met in Washington. (See my January 8 entry). He said there are basically four newspapers that influence all other commentators and pundits. These are Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times. Everyone else copies them — over and over. That’s what CNN was doing today.

—Page one of this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on a poll in which 35 per cent of Georgians say the “water crisis” is their biggest worry. Georgia has had a two-year drought, and apparently everyone is talking about water shortages. The 20-country metro region of Atlanta now has five million people, stretching the water infrastructure. People want the state government to build more reservoirs and do more to reward people for installing low-flow plumbing features. Some also want controls on suburban expansion in the Atlanta area, but Governor Sonny Perdue won’t consider it.

It was a travel day, so we didn’t have any meetings. The big event for today was a hockey game at the Philips Arena between Atlanta Thrashers and Pittsburgh Penguins. The game had it all — except a fight. I hadn’t been to an NHL hockey game since the Jets left Winnipeg, which was in 1996. Philips Arena is an elegant facility with soft lighting and a great sound system, but the Quebecers in our group said Bell Centre in Montreal is better. Sidney Crosby scored both Pittsburgh goals and could have had a couple more. Atlanta also scored twice, so the game went to four-on-four overtime and then to a shootout. The old man Mark Recchi won it for the home side. It was my first time seeing four-on-four overtime and seeing a shootout. They are way, way more entertaining than a tie.

I got a news release yesterday from the offices of the U.S. Trade Representative and the USDA. These offices had sent a delegation to Mexico City to discuss NAFTA with Mexican officials. NAFTA was fully implemented on January 1 with removal of final duties on a handful of agricultural commodities. These include U.S. exports to Mexico of corn, dry edible beans, and nonfat dry milk; Mexican exports to the United States of certain horticultural products; and two-way sweetener trade.

Here is the lead quote from the release: “NAFTA has been a positive force for our respective agricultural sectors, creating not only dramatic growth in two-way agricultural trade, but providing our farmers, ranchers and processors with the potential to take advantage of new export opportunities, while providing a clear and certain path to enhanced trade,” said Mark E. Keenum, USDA under secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services. This comment backs what I said a couple of days ago about there being strong support for trade in these departments. But their actions have to respect the wishes of Homeland Security, and the voices of the many farm lobby groups who don’t always seem to realize the value of trade.

The release also noted that Canada and Mexico are the No. 1 and No. 2 export markets for U.S. agriculture, respectively.  In fiscal year 2007, two-way agricultural trade between the United States and Mexico was valued at a record $22.2 billion, a nearly fourfold increase over fiscal 1993 — the year preceding the implementation of NAFTA — when two-way trade was valued at $6.4 billion. In fiscal 2008, USDA predicts two-way trade at $24 billion.

According to Ag Canada data, two-way agricultural trade between Canada and the U.S. was $25 billion in 2005.

“There is an impression in Canada that Democrats would be bad for trade with Canada, and that a Republican president would be better. I think that’s complete crap.” Maryscott (Scotty) Greenwood said this during our meeting this morning at the Canadian American Business Council (www.canambusco.org). Greenwood is managing director with the law firm of McKenna Long and Aldridge, and part of her job it to help with the business council. She is also a former Clinton-appointed attachee to the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. The Can-Am business council is there to remind American politicians and business leaders that North America — not just the U.S. — is a global economic force when the nations work together to protect and enhance their integrated economies.

One thing Greenwood is watching is the U.S. Food Safety Initiative, designed to protect the U.S. food supply. It stems from recent scares about tainted pet food from China, E. coli in spinach, and E. coli in imported beef. As the bill is currently written, food could only enter the U.S. through a crossing with an FDA inspection site. The only one along the Canada-U.S. border is at Windsor-Detroit. The bill has been introduced and assigned to committee. Let’s hope the bill gets softened or scrapped before it gets passed. If there is another food scare shortly, it could pass Congress quickly, Greenwood notes.

Before the meeting at the business council, we met with David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. The institute coordinates all sorts of learning programs, including a mini-UN type program that brings together students from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. for mock NAFTA negotiations. I hope to get more information on this in case you know a young person who might like to go. One thing that came up in our conversation with Biette is a possible border dispute in the Beaufort Sea. There are oil reserves up there, so location of the border is significant. The U.S. wants it to go straight north from the Yukon-Alaska border. Canada wants it to angle more toward Alaska.

We had lunch today at Agraria restaurant in Georgetown. North Dakota Farmers’ Union owns the restaurant, which serves local food, free-range chicken, and wild seafood. The attractive building is right on the Potomac River within sight of the Watergate Hotel. The location sounds great, but the business isn’t doing very well. In fact, the union board brought in two new managers to turn it around. The one manager we talked to had never been to North Dakota.

At the end of the afternoon, I had time to visit one more Smithsonian Museum: National Museum of the American Indian. The museum was designed by Douglas Cardinal, a Blackfoot from Alberta who also designed the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec. Here are some trivia questions for you, based on what I saw:

1. How many bison roamed North America in 1830? A: 50 million

2. How many bison roamed North America in 1889? A: 1,000

3. Who invented the revolver, the first gun that could shoot more than one bullet without reloading? A: Samual Colt, from Connecticut

4. Who is Rebecca Rolfe better known as? A: Pocahontas (Her father, a Powhatan from Virginia, approved the marriage of his daughter to Englishman John Rolfe in hopes that it would bring peace to his people. It did, for eight years.)

5. Mohawks from Quebec and New York are known for exceptional skill at which job? A: Highrise ironworks. (They helped build the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center, and many other buildings and bridges.)

6. South and North American aboriginals introduced Europeans to four key crops, which the explorers took with them around the world. What were they? A: Corn, potatoes, tobacco and chocolate.

7. What did George Crum, an aboriginal from New York, invent in 1853? A: Potato chips

In the January 14 issue of Grainews, which you haven’t seen yet, I write about my wish to have a dry-aged steak. Well, I had one today. One of the Canadians in our group, Ranissah Samah, had been to The Capital Grille on Pennsylvania Ave., and thought we should all go. (Ranissah is senior policy advisor on the U.S. for the Ontario Ministry of International Affairs. She is based in Toronto.) Actually, she suggested we go yesterday and I shot her down. I can get steak anywhere, and this place would be expensive. So that night we went for Italian instead, and I had a sardine appetizer and a roast duck breast entree with the best polenta I’ve ever had. Tonight we went with Ranissah’s choice, and I’m glad I went. The Capital Grille is within sight of the Capitol Building, a block from the Canadian Embassy, and it attracts Washington’s political elite. Congress is not in session these days, so the restaurant was not packed with attractive young clientele like usual, our server Eric tells us. (Eric is a big jolly dude with slicked back longish blond hair. He’s a fan of Our Lady Peace, a Canadian rock band.) The restaurant was fairly expensive. I chose a 14-oz dry-aged sirloin — which was the “small” steak — so I could finally say, with certainty, that I have eaten a dry-aged steak. It was thick and delicious. The steak alone was $37. Then you pay for vegetables, potato and soup separately. We also shared a few bottles of wine. It was worth it, for the company and the experience of being there. I am really enjoying my small group of fellow Canadian travelers, and I will remember this meal in Washington forever.

Before the good steak, we had our daily line-up of meetings. Today we met with the Department of Homeland Security in the morning and the Department of State in the afternoon. The main theme was the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will tighten up ID requirements at the borders. The U.S. is way ahead of us on this one, which is good — I suppose — for those Canadian businesses that depend on U.S. tourists. As of June 1, 2009, you need solid proof of citizenship to get into the U.S. by land or sea. You already need a passport to get in by air. To help the situation, the U.S. will introduce a “Passport Card” that fits in a wallet, qualifies as proof of citizenship, and costs less than a passport. In the U.S., a passport — which lasts for 10 years, not the five years that ours is good for  — costs $97. A passport card is $45 for first time applicants and $20 for those who already have a passport. That card has a radio frequency ID code that the border staff can read within 15 to 20 feet of the border station. The cardholder’s RFID number pops up on the screen inside the border office, and the number lifts his or her photo and passport info out of a database. Not only does the card provide proof of citizenship that the border needs, but it should also speed border crossing. It sounds like a good idea for Canada to adopt. For someone who has no plans to fly to the U.S. or anywhere else, the Canada-issued passport card would give them a lower cost alternative. As an aside, I asked whether it mattered to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security whether Canada issued five-year or 10-year passports, and the people we met said it didn’t. Is the passport office is ripping us off by issuing passports for only five years?

The most interesting meeting today was with Aleta Botts, one of six staff directors with the House Committee on Agriculture. She works in the House of Representatives offices in the Longworth Building beside the Capitol Building. She and the rest of the committee are in the middle of drafting the new farm bill. The House has an 858-page draft and the Senate has a 1,800-page draft. President Bush says he would veto both versions as they are currently written. So between now and the end of February the House and Senate ag committees have to get together and create one bill that will pass both chambers and win approval of the president. I get the sense that no matter how the final bill looks, the level of support will not change much, if at all. The U.S. is not likely to reduce its farm support programs unless it has to under a WTO agreement. And even then, it might not. Right now the House and Senate have different numbers for target prices, market loan rates and direct payments — the three tiers of commodity price support. There is also some pressure to level the real (or perceived) supports for southern crops — particularly rice and cotton — with the supports for wheat, corn and soybeans in the Great Plains. House committee leader Collin Peterson has to work with his Senate counterparts to go through the bill line by line to find middle ground, all the while taking advice from interest groups, who are widely varied and relentless, and from the president, who has veto power. We thought making policy in Canada was tough. Writing a U.S. farm bill is a two and a half year process. 

Not everything we see and hear in D.C. comes out of a stuffy meeting room. I heard two neat things about Ulysses S. Grant the past couple of days. Grant was president from 1869-1877, and it was in the famous Willard Hotel in Washington that he invented the term “lobbyist.” He must have had an office in the hotel and everyone who wanted to bend his ear over some issue would wait in the hotel lobby for their moment. Grant one day referred to these people as “lobbyists,” and the term stuck.

There is a big statue of Grant on a horse out front of the Capitol Building. Seeing him today inspired one of our guides Virgil Bodeen to tell another story about Grant’s dying days. He was poor and had throat cancer and was worried he would die and leave his family with nothing. So Mark Twain encouraged Grant to write his memoirs as a way to make some money. So Grant did, and Twain edited them. Most of the stories are about Grant’s many war experiences and not his presidency, Bodeen says, but he says the book is a great read. And it did make some money to carry his family through.

I had time before supper today to go the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. All Smithsonian museums are free and this one is the most visited museum in the U.S. — for good reason. You walk in and right above you are Charles Lindburgh’s Spirit of St. Louis and Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1, the first plane to break the sound barrier. It just gets better. There is a whole room full of WWI planes and another with WWII planes. You’ll see lots about jets and space travel. Here is some trivia that I learned at the museum. You can test these questions on your family.

1. How many Americans have walked on the moon? A: 12

2. Where were the Wright Brothers from? A: Dayton, Ohio

3. What type of business did the Wright Brothers operate? A: They made and sold bicycles.

4. When was the first Boeing 747 commissioned? A: 1969

5. How many planes did the Red Baron shoot down? A: 80

Trade is almost a bad word in the U.S. these days. We had two meetings today — one at the Department of Commerce and one at the office of the U.S. Trade Representative — that were “off the record,” which means I can’t report what was said. It wasn’t earth-shattering information by any stretch. It’s just that some government people are sensitive. But the general message I gleaned is that while civil servants in Washington appreciate the close relationship between the U.S. and Canada — and Mexico — many Americans do not share that appreciation. This is reflected in the statements of those running for leadership of the democrat and republican parties. Protectionism and security are fashionable. Free trade and the global market are not.

I learned a bit about the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Government and business reps from each country are working together on the dual pronged goal of improved security and improved prosperity. Critics in all three countries fear the purpose is to create a common market and erode sovereignty. Staff at the Department of Commerce recommended I visit the web site at www.spp.gov for more information. You’ll find lots there, including a note under the “myth vs. fact” section that says, “The SPP in no way, shape or form considers the creation of a European Union-like structure or a common currency.” One component of the prosperity agenda is to “Lower costs for North American businesses, producers, and consumers and maximize trade in goods and services across our borders by striving to ensure compatibility of regulations and standards and eliminating redundant testing and certification requirements,” as the website says. Agriculture regulations are a big part of that. (The Canadian SPP website is www.spp-psp.gc.ca) A poster on the wall of the commerce building noted that U.S. exports to NAFTA countries had risen to $360 billion in 2006, which was double the amount the U.S. exported to the rest of the world. You would think that figure alone would be enough to support a pro-trade agenda.

Later in the day…

We had a fun meeting with Jordan Lieberman, publisher of “Campaigns and Elections” magazine. He gave us the run down on his political views and provided come background for the party leadership candidates. Here’s a review:

Mitt Romney (Republican) — a Mormon with lots of business experience and lots of money, but he got clobbered in the Iowa primaries because he’s not the kind of guy “you want to have a beer with,” Lieberman says.

Mike Huckabee (Republican) — Baptist minister farther to the right than George W. Bush, Lieberman says. He’s a likeable guy with not a lot of money behind him compared to others. He won in Iowa but got beat bad tonight in New Hampshire.

Rudy Giuliani (Republican) — Former mayor of New York who guided the city through 9/11. He is pro-gay rights, pro-choice, and leading in national polls. But he got fewer votes than Huckabee in New Hampshire tonight.

John McCain (Republican) — Says he wants to personally find and shoot Osama bin Laden. He comes from a military family, has lots of political experience, and the press and people like him. The geezer won the New Hampshire primary handily over second place Mitt Romney.

Barack Obama (Democrat) — On a roll with his message of change, but if the race stays close, Lieberman expects the Hillary Clinton machine to start digging up dirt on his past drug use and his middle name: Hussein.

Hillary Clinton (Democrat) — She has experience and passion and her husband, but some don’t view her as likeable. Women went with Obama in Iowa, but Hillary cried on TV last night, and women went back to Hillary in New Hampshire. She won the state primary by a hair over Obama.

Bill Richardson (Democrat) — Lots of experience, especially on the international scene with the UN, etc. Wants the U.S. out of the war in Iraq. He was a distant fourth in New Hampshire.

John Edwards (Democrat) — Lieberman talked about Edwards’ $400 haircuts, but didn’t mention anything else about him. He looks good and this is his second time around. Still, he’s a distant third so far.

After meeting Lieberman, we went to Porter’s pub a few blocks from our hotel to watch results come in from New Hampshire. It was a meeting site for Obama supporters. The place was packed tight but subdued, because Obama lost — which was a surprise. Lieberman and most other pundits and polls predicted Obama would win by 12 percentage points over Clinton. This proves once again that political pundits don’t have any more ability to predict election results than you or I do.

From what I’ve learned about U.S. electoral process in the past day or two, the primaries — which occur in every state — determine how many delegates each candidate gets to send to the leadership conventions in August. If you win 40 per cent of the vote in a state, you get 40 per cent of that state’s delegates. With only the small states of Iowa and New Hampshire counted to date, the leadership races are far from over.

It’s 9:00 p.m. and I’ve just returned from supper at a Moroccan restaurant three doors down from our hotel. I’m staying at the Palomar Hotel on P Street, about a mile north of the White House. Washington D.C. has a reputation for violence but this area around the hotel seems clean and safe.

Before supper, a member of our group — Stephanie Trudeau, who works with the liquor control board in Quebec — organized a visit to the Canadian Embassy. Her friend Jonathan Sauve is deputy spokesperson with the embassy’s media relations office. The embassy is on Pennsylvania Avenue within sight of the Capitol Building. It has this neat echo chamber just off the sidewalk. It’s like a concrete bandstand with a domed room. A whisper inside this chamber amplifies to a loud voice. The embassy could use this technique to get its message across more forcefully. Sauve says the biggest issue for the embassy right now is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which is the U.S. policy that requires passports to enter the country. Air travelers already need one, and the requirement for land and sea travelers has been bumped back to June 1, 2009 at the earliest. Not only would Canadians need a passport to get in, but American travelers who visit Canada would need a passport to come home. The hope is that the U.S. will accept an enhanced drivers’ licence as an alternative, so the one-year delay gives us time to develop one that meets U.S. approval. The travel initiative is one part of a general “thickening” of the border between Canada and the U.S. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security now says “security trumps trade” and this is “worrying,” Sauve says. This thinking threatens the $561 billion per year in Canada-U.S. bilateral trade. It also reduces competition of North American industries built around an integrated economy. As Sauve notes, a North American-made car crosses the border seven times before it’s finished. Restrictions on this movement will add costs to North American-built cars, while Asian-made cars come into the U.S. only once. Sauve also notes that Canada is America’s No.1 energy supplier. One of the embassy’s jobs is to constantly remind U.S. elected officials and media of these facts. But with 170 other embassies in Washington and with a federal election going on, getting the message through is a challenge. Time to turbocharge the echo chamber.

Earlier in the day, we heard a presentation by Alan Levine. The associate professor with American University in D.C. gave a 90-minute introduction to the American republic system of government. I could have listened to Levine all day. He took a potentially dry topic and made it interesting with an animated and enthusiastic style. Every so often he raised his voice to a Jerry Seinfeld falsetto to make a key point. Levine talked about three tenets of the U.S. government system: separation of power, checks and balances, and federalism. I’ll give a brief summary of each:

—Separation of power. There are three key bodies in U.S. government: legislative (which is Congress, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate), executive (the president) and judicial (the Supreme Court). In short, the House and Senate pass laws, the president and his cabinet carry out laws, and the Supreme Court provides a fair and impartial body to settle disputes.

—Checks and balances. Though Congress, the president and the Supreme Court have their separate duties, the spheres overlap to keep checks on each other. For example, the president can veto congressional decisions; Congress can override the president’s veto with two-thirds support in each chamber; the Supreme Court can deem laws passed by Congress to be unconstitutional; Congress can impeach the president; the Senate has to approve all treaties signed by the president; the Senate has to approve key appointments by the president; and while the president can take the country to war, Congress alone can declare war and Congress approves the war budget.

—Federalism. The federal government only performs those duties outlined in the constitution. States control welfare payments, speed limits, whether to have the death penalty, etc. (Most states governments are also set up with much the same system of separation of power and checks and balances.) Local governments are responsible for zoning, education and police. There are 17,600 independent police forces in the U.S.

Levine’s most interesting comments:

1.   Since the constitution was first drawn up, in secret, and then passed in 1787, there have only been 27 amendments. All other changes have come through reinterpretation of the constitution by the Supreme Court.

2.   Supreme Court judges are appointed for life. That is by design so judges can maintain their “moral authority” without having to fight — and make compromising promises — to get reelected.

3.   Elected officials in Washington vote against their party 25 per cent of the time, on average.

4.   There are over 87,000 local governments in the U.S., including counties, cities, townships, school boards and “special government districts” (such as water authorities). With federal, state and local government combined, the U.S. has 521,000 government offices. “This system of government was set up to prevent tyranny,” Levine says. “In doing so, it guaranteed that we will not have an efficient government, but given the alternative, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

This was our day to tour the city. We had a three-hour bus tour in the morning, which was very good. We saw the Iwo Jima monument at the Arlington cemetery for American soldiers killed in action. You’ve probably seen pictures of the Iwo Jima monument. It has four or five soldiers pushing up the American flag. We also saw exteriors only of the National Cathedral (which looks very old but was built in the 1900s), the Capitol building and the White House. Mary Speer, the U.S. consul in Winnipeg, told me an interesting story about the White House. She said Thomas Jefferson wanted it painted white to distinguish it from the red brick townhouses in upper class Georgetown, an old community, now part of D.C. Jefferson wanted the White House to be representative of the common man, not the elite. Interestingly, Jefferson also greatly scaled down the size of the White House plan. Pierre L’Enfant, the man who designed the city of Washington, D.C., envisioned a huge presidential palace on the scale of Versailles in France. Jefferson didn’t want anything of the sort, so the White House, grand though it is, is a shack compared to what it might have been had L’Enfant got his way.

While the tour was a great introduction to D.C., the moment I thought, “OK, I’m in Washington,” came in the afternoon while I was walking around on my own. I hiked the whole length of the “mall”, which stretches from the Capitol building to the 500-foot Washington Monument obelisk to the Lincoln Memorial — a distance of about two miles. It was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where I had my moment. From there, looking east over the large rectangular pool — the one the Forrest Gump waded through to find Jenny — you see the Washington Momument just like in the postcards. The monument completely blocks the Capitol from that vantage point, but if you move 20 paces left or right, the Capitol dome comes into view in the distance. From this same spot, Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963. It is when I can stand in the footprints of history that a city comes alive for me.

Inside the Lincoln Memorial, which looks like the Greek pantheon with its marble columns, is a massive tablet etched with Lincoln’s Gettyburg address. Delivered November 19, 1863, this is perhaps the most famous two-minute speech in history. Here is the memorable lead line: “Four score and twenty years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” (It reminded me of Jefferson’s White House story.)

I have to hand it to Americans. They do a great job of idolizing their presidents. Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a more modest memorial built among the cherry trees behind Lincoln’s. Carved into Roosevelt’s memorial are not full speeches, but many of his best statements. Roosevelt led the country out of the depression and into World War Two. He was elected four times, and after his death in 1945 Congress passed the two-term limit for President. Here is one of my favourite Roosevelt passages, spoken during the Depression: “In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man.” Now fast-forward 60 years. I wonder how George W. Bush will be remembered? George McGovern wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post just today calling for Bush’s impeachment. About Bush and vice president Dick Cheney, McGovern wrote, “They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world.”

Which brings me full circle back to why I’m here in Washington in the first place. The U.S. Department of State hosts 4,500 people a year, from all around the world, for what it calls the International Visitor Leadership Program. I and six other young Canadians are here together for three weeks — at the expense of U.S. taxpayers — to find out how and why the U.S. makes its decisions on trade policy. The underlying goal, I suspect, is to get other nations to like or at least understand the U.S. a little better. The purpose of this diary is to share with you what I learn each day.