Two Carleton faculty members threw an “intellectual Molotov cocktail” by writing an article claiming that relations between Canada and the United States are worse than they have been in decades because of U.S. president Barack Obama, said Carleton professor Andrew Cohen.
Fen Osler Hampson, director of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs, and Derek Burney, visiting professor and former ambassador to the U.S., published an article called “How Obama Lost Canada: Botching Relations with the United States’ Biggest Trading Partner” in the American foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs.
In the article, they claim Obama has allowed “narrow political considerations to trample high-priority interests” of Canada, noting his delay of the Keystone XL Pipeline and failure to support Canada’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.
Their article was met with wide criticism from their peers, Cohen said.
“The idea that relations are worse than they’ve been in decades, that Obama has somehow lost Canada, is, to me, perplexing,” Cohen said, “and I’m not alone in this.”
Cohen cited many examples of times when he thinks Canada-U.S. relations were worse than they are now – including 2003, when Canada decided not to participate in the invasion of Iraq, and the 1980s, when ideological differences caused tension between Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Ronald Reagan.
Hampson was unavailable for comment. Burney could not be reached for comment.
Hampson and Burney wrote a rebuttal for iPolitics, a website based here in Ottawa, in which they call the criticism “predictable” and point out “anti-Bush anti-Harper prejudice.”
