Delacourt: The elephant in the room was Donald Trump,
It took Justin Trudeau about one minute to tell Joe Biden at their first summit meeting that the new president was a big improvement over Donald Trump.
“There’s a lot to rebuild,” Trudeau said, thanking Biden for stepping up on climate change. “U.S. leadership has been sorely missed over the past years.”
Moreover, Trudeau said, it’s more fun to work on the joint communique. “It’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all references to climate change and instead, having them in.”
Trudeau’s father Pierre once famously described Canada’s relationship with the United States as like sleeping with an elephant.
The elephant in the room for the first Biden-Trudeau summit was Trump, of course, and the memories of his rampage through the Canada-U.S. relationship over the past four years. Above all else, the purpose of Tuesday’s meeting was to get past the rogue-elephant chapter in the long history between these two countries.
On that basis alone, it will be deemed a success.
Everything in the joint statement by the two leaders was about the future and how Canada and the U.S. intend to be a lot better friends, whether it is on fighting climate change or the new Biden government helping to free the two Canadians being arbitrarily detained by China.
But the past is not yet a distant memory. Comparisons are inevitable — and useful.
First, it was hard not to notice the role of women in the two governments and how front and centre they promise to be in the Canada-U.S. reset.
Biden and Trudeau were flanked by their seconds-incommand — both strong women, who are firsts in their country: Vice-President Kamala Harris, the first woman to serve in that role, and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is also the first woman to serve as Canada’s finance minister. I do not recall any Canada-U.S. summits that gave such a prominent role to vicepresidents or deputies or women, even, unless they were spouses or relatives.
Contrast it with the first Trudeau-Trump summit, where the nod to powerful women was the creation of a Canada-U.S. council for women in business and the highwattage if brief support from the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump. It made for a good photo op, but ultimately, it was just a fleeting moment in four years of flashpoint moments in Canada’s dealings with Trump.
Every big meeting between Canada and the United States features the usual boilerplate comments about the long history of friendship between them. This was also true of Tuesday’s meeting, but the personal history was real.
Biden really did have a relationship with Trudeau, dating back to his previous role as vice-president, including a poignant visit to Ottawa at the end of Barack Obama’s administration in late 2016. Biden made sure to mention it in his closing statement. “I wish I could reciprocate the hospitality you gave me when I visited Ottawa as vice-president in 2016,” he said.
Harris really did go to high school in Canada, and Freeland did work in the United States before she was lured into politics. Harris, who has already had one long phone conversation with Trudeau, spoke at the outset of the summit about the memories she holds dear.
“I spent many of my teenage years living in Montreal when my mother was teaching at McGill University and doing her research at the Jewish General Hospital there,” Harris said. “So I have fond memories of my time in Montreal, and it certainly left me with a lasting impression about how much our two countries have in common in terms of shared values and priorities.”
Canada had to work a lot harder at forging personal connections with the last guy when he was first elected.
Some will recall that Trudeau cleverly arrived at his first summit with Trump bearing an artifact that would have appealed to that presidential ego — a photo of Pierre Trudeau with Trump, dating to the 1980s. It wasn’t evidence of a deep connection, but it was all about Trump, and that was the theme of Canada-U.S. relations, circa 2017-2020.
Trudeau reportedly advised his cabinet over the past two months that the end of Trump did not mean that it was open season for airing four years worth of grievances against the former president. Trudeau spent a lot of time since the November 2016 election disciplining himself not to lash back at Trump, and speaking out now would be pointless.
It was interesting, then, to note how he allowed himself some very public remarks of relief when he sat down with Biden formally on Tuesday. “There’s a lot to rebuild,” says everything about the future and the recent past of the Canada-U.S. relationship.