I’m tempted to write about the Provincial Election but nothing’s happening yet and it’s too early to speculate on outcomes.

I suspect that issues and party positions won’t crystallize until after the Labour Day weekend so let’s deal with matters national or international.

The Harper Government is boasting “majority support” from the softwood lumber industry for its “Softwood Lumber Agreement” with the United States.

Majority support is somewhat less than the 95% it originally demanded for a go-forward agreement. The undetermined “majority support” was obtained by coercion i.e. by Minister Emerson and the Prime Minister who warned the industry that if they didn’t support the Agreement, Government would drop it and leave them on your own. The Agreement will be presented to Parliament for approval later this month with Harper’s promise of an election if it’s defeated.

There is a matter of principle here that is being ignored by the federal government, some Canadian provinces and those in the softwood lumber industry who support the Agreement. The United States has been illegally collecting tariffs on the import of Canadian softwood lumber since 2002, some $5 billion dollars worth. Harper’s Softwood Lumber Agreement provides for a return of about 80% of those payments or $4 billion over a two or three year period.

The Agreement ignores the fact that international courts and trade tribunals have consistently ruled in favour of Canada. It seems that our federal government and some players in the softwood lumber industry are prepared to say we are half pregnant.

In other words, even though Canada is in the right, it is willing to admit a partial wrong by waiving return of a $1 billion in wrongfully collected duties. Further, the Agreement requires the industry to drop its legal challenges to the wrongful collection of duties.

Parties to this Agreement are willing to cede some portion of Canada’s sovereignty to the United States by agreeing to let the U.S. dictate the amount of wood Canadian producers will be allowed to sell to U.S. builders through a mix of quotas and new tariffs that kick in when the market weakens. U.S. economists are already predicting declines in the housing market that will lead to a downturn in lumber demand and lower prices.

In a tumbling market, Canadian lumber producers could end up facing higher tariffs than they pay today and face quotas that would guarantee them a shrinking share of a declining market.

This Agreement is counter to all the principles of free trade.

I suspect that opposition politicians would love to fight an election on this issue because a majority of Canadians would reject the payment of a $1 billion blackmail fee to the United States and reject the notion of U.S. managed trade for Canadian producers.

Speaking of the United States, there is an interesting military prosecution going on in that country.

In June, U.S. Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada refused to be deployed to Iraq on the grounds that the war in Iraq is illegal and that he was upholding his military duty not to obey illegal orders. That didn’t impress U.S. military officials and they promptly charged him with violating Army rules and sent him on a path to likely court martial. In doing so, they set up a collision between the man and a military justice system that will effectively be asked to rule on the legality of the Iraq war.

The Lieutenant’s defense is that the Iraq war is illegal and as a result, he has a right to refuse participation. His defense counsel argues that the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003 without U.N. sanction and under false premises was fraudulent. It’s a catch twenty two for both prosecutors and defendants.

If the U.S. military sides with the Lieutenant, it will refute the self-proclaimed legality of Bush’s war in Iraq. If the military convicts the Lieutenant, it may give comfort to the U.S. Administration but the process of public trial will magnify the weakness in the Administration’s war premise.

George Bush's disastrous policies in the Middle East and his adamant refusal to change course, suggests the President has become a danger to the security of the United States and the world.

His Iraq invasion was wrapped in the language of "democracy" and the promise of weapons of mass destruction but it proved a fallacy when no weapons were found and the ousting of Saddam Hussein was followed by a stubborn insurgency and a sectarian civil war that has effectively made the country ungovernable. Nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of Bush’s misguided adventure in Iraq.

Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as unrelated to the fight against terrorism, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News polls. Dah! These guys must be slow learners. The world has known for years that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Americans are finally waking up to the deficiencies in their presidency and their congress.

Bush is despised in the Middle East. Iraq has been transformed into a rallying cry and a training ground for al-Qaeda terrorists. It would appear that the U.S. President has little or no interest in pursuing a conciliatory course toward peace. He seems determined to pursue confrontations in the middle-east with Iran now clearly in his sight.

It has been said that a man is known by the company he keeps. The same could be said for nations.

Does Canada really want to keep company with the current U.S. Administration in a ‘Softwood Lumber Agreement” that fails to meet the test of principle and fairness?

I don’t think so. The Prime Minister could not have chosen a worse time to champion this deal.

Bring on the election.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com