She's no Simon Reisman

What in Gawd's name is Chrystia Freeland doing with NAFTA?!  She's been at it for what, years?  And can't get anywhere.  She is obviously not up to the task.  So get her out of there and bring in someone else to negotiate with the Americans.  They obviously neither respect, nor take her seriously. 

I was part of the original Free Trade Agreement negotiations, when I worked for Customs and Excise, in 1988 between Simon Reisman and Peter Murphy, US negotiator.  Murphy had had cancer, but Reisman still wielded a big stick and we got a great deal.  Is the problem that she's a woman?  That she's four foot something?  That she insists on wearing those ridiculous pearls?  Maybe all of the above.  She is not taken seriously.  She is dealing with high-powered, chauvinistic American men and apparently can't hold her own.  But will Trudeau replace her?  Never.  We're effed. 

I had to work all through Christmas and New Year's in 1988-89 to ensure the agreement was implemented on January 1st.  But hey, I was a dedicated public servant and was happy to do my part.  Here is my official "thank you" from the deputy minister of Customs and Excise for my work on the FTA and my official certificate:

 





As to the Kinder-Morgan fiasco, Trudeau should have put his foot down two years ago.  Yes, he would have pissed off the tree-huggers, but he would have had two years to dig himself out of that green hole.  But he waited until the whole thing was a mess.  Guess what?  That $4.5 billion is just to compensate Kinder Morgan for what it has spent in vain trying to get the approved pipeline built.  We are now looking at another $8 billion to actually get the thing in the ground.

As I have said, ad nauseam, he will have to call out the army to get shovels in the ground.

And he won't.