Friend and Foe: The twists and turns of Canada-U.S. relations
"So things haven’t always been great and they weren’t great recently under Stephen Harper’s government.
A mere two years ago, the Canadian government essentially told the U.S. ambassador to go get stuffed.
In April 2014, Bruce Heyman began his tenure as the president’s representative in Ottawa and within 10 days of his arrival he was put on a diplomatic “do not call” list. He was shunned and repeatedly humiliated by the Harper government.
Heyman, a gregarious financier from Chicago, expected better. After all, his predecessor, David Jacobson and his lively wife, Julie, had become the toast of the town.
Like Heyman, Jacobson was a lawyer from Chicago who had raised big money for President Barack Obama. Julie Jacobson and Vickie Heyman were likewise similar in their enthusiasm for the job and both were vibrant emissaries on the cultural front. So Heyman had every right to ask: “What gives?”
He did and he didn’t much like the answer. Harper, it turned out, was as mad as hell at Washington, primarily over Obama’s dithering on Keystone XL. Ten days after Heyman settled into the stately Lornado, the residence of the U.S. ambassador, Obama again delayed a decision on Keystone XL because of a court case in Nevada."
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