pressure to allow the International Joint Commission - the investigative arm of a separate 1909 boundary waters agreement - to investigate toxic mining runoff in the B.C. have been negotiating since 2018 to modernize the Columbia River Treaty, a 1961 agreement designed to protect a key cross-border watershed the size of Texas in the Pacific Northwest.ĭespite 15 separate rounds of talks, progress has been middling at best. "We understand that we can't do it alone."Ĭanada and the U.S. "This really is one of the most transformative moments since the Industrial Revolution," said Helaina Matza, the State Department's deputy special co-ordinator for the G7's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The issue has profound foreign-policy implications: China has long dominated the critical minerals supply chain, something the Biden administration is determined to change. and Canada these days would be complete without talking about critical minerals, the 21st-century rocket fuel for the electric-vehicle revolution that Trudeau calls the "building blocks for the clean economy."Ĭanada has the minerals - cobalt, lithium, magnesium and rare earth elements, among others - and a strategy to develop them, but the industry is still in its infancy and the U.S. No high-level conversation between the U.S. officials said Wednesday they are pursuing a solution with urgency, but insist the discussions are multilateral in nature and will have to involve Haiti itself, and perhaps even the United Nations. Military experts in Canada say the Canadian Armed Forces are in no state to be able to lead any sort of intervention. to be driving their pathway out of this crisis." "But we know from difficult experience that the best thing we can do to help is enable the Haitian leadership. "Canada is elbows deep in terms of trying to help," he said last month. Trudeau's response has been diplomatic but firm: the crisis is best addressed from a distance. officials have expressly name-checked Canada as the perfect country to lead the effort. The list of foreign-policy hotspots around the world that instantly bring Canada to mind is a short one, but Haiti is surely near the top.Īnd as Haiti has descended ever deeper into lawlessness in the wake of the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moise, the need for military intervention has been growing - and some senior U.S. Media reports suggest Canada could agree to an accelerated timeline. Glen VanHerck described as a "domain awareness gap": the archaic, Cold War-era system's ability to track small, high-flying, slow-moving objects.Ĭoupled with the brazen ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the ongoing but largely opaque joint effort to upgrade Norad - rarely mentioned in past Trudeau-Biden readouts - is suddenly front and centre for both governments. officials insist was a Chinese surveillance balloon, exposed what Norad commander Gen. Until last month, the binational early-warning system known as the North American Aerospace Defence Command might have been best known for tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.īut a February flurry of unidentified flying objects drifting through North American airspace, most notably what U.S. Such an agreement would help resolve a major political headache for Trudeau, while giving Biden the political cover he would need to devote more spending to northern border security. border since the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last June. Sources familiar with the details say the two sides have been working on extending the agreement to cover the length of the Canada-U.S. Capital Dispatch: Sign up for in-depth political coverage of Parliament HillĪs a result, critics say it encourages asylum seekers to enter Canada at unofficial border crossings, which allows them to make a claim.The two countries are already close to an agreement to expand the 2004 migration treaty known as the Safe Third County Agreement, which is designed to limit asylum claims in both countries but currently only applies to official entry points. Here are some of the issues the two leaders are likely to discuss: President Joe Biden is embarking on a 27-hour whirwind visit to Ottawa, where he will meet Friday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and speak to a joint session of Parliament - his first bilateral sojourn north as commander-in-chief.
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