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WHAT DOES THE AMERICAN ELECTION MEAN FOR CANADA?

Say what you want about Americans, their leaders, and their relationships with the rest of the world but let's get one thing straight: what happens in the United States affects us in Canada in many ways. One of the things that many of us, as Canadians, define ourselves as is Not-American. And that is fine as long as you realize that we have a very strong relationship with them in many different ways. Our biggest tie to Americans would have to be economically as we do the majority of our international trade with them. So when the Americans elect a new president and government like they did on Nov. 4th we will see the effects here in Canada.

For now I am going to look at what the American election means for Canada from a political standpoint. The Americans shifted their government from a George Bush-led administration to a remarkable Barack Obama administration. This shift will take a couple of months as Obama's transition team gets to work on taking over everything Bush was in control of over the past 8 years. Less than a month prior to the American election on Nov. 4th here in Canada we had our own election and renewed Stephen Harper's Conservative minority government, this time even stronger.
Some people would incorrectly point out that having Obama elected as president, a major change from the Bush administration, would have negative impacts for Harper here in Canada. Harper may be a Conservative but that term has two very different meanings in Canada and in the United States. The truth is that if many of the Conservative MPs were politicians in the United States they would be Democrats or moderate Republicans. Throughout the American election campaign people inside the Conservative Party were hoping for Obama to win and believed it would be better for Canadian-American relations.

Also, the most significant impact on this election in regards to Harper's leadership is that his opposition have lost their major piece of ammunition against him. They can no longer compare him to Bush and say that he is turning Canada into the US. I am interested to see how Canadian-American relations progress from this and see the kind of relationship that Harper and Obama have.

- DCM

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