Recent Visit to Canada by President Bush

RECENT VISIT TO CANADA BY PRESIDENT BUSH -- (Senate - December 07, 2004)

Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I commend President Bush on his recent trip to Canada and efforts to build on our strong relations with our neighbor to the north. Canada is our Nation's largest trading partner and one of our closest allies, and this relationship must continue to remain vibrant and strong. As the co-chairman of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group, I continue to work with my peers in Canada to do what I can to assist in this effort.

Despite certain media coverage to the contrary, many Canadians warmly embrace Americans and the President's policies. I want to share comments made by Senator Jerry Grafstein in the Canadian Senate on the occasion of President Bush's visit. I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

"Manifest Democracy"-The Bush Doctrine

Honourable senators, today President Bush visits Canada. We welcome President Bush, his wife and his senior advisers to our nation's capital. As Co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group, now the largest interparliamentary group in Parliament, it is my hope that Canada will actively engage President Bush and the Bush doctrine, which I call "Manifest Democracy."

Senators will recall that, in 1947 the then Minister of External Affairs, Louis St. Laurent, in Toronto defined the principles and practices of Canada's foreign policy based on these words: "freedom, liberty and democracy." Mr. St. Laurent and his then Deputy Minister, Mr. Pearson, were not confused by political debate or shifting political opinion within or outside Canada when it came to Canada's strategic interests.

In 1947, the UN was gridlocked. It was Mr. St. Laurent who convinced a reluctant Mr. King that Canada should take the lead in constructing and joining a transatlantic coalition of democracies to enhance our collective security called NATO. Mr. St. Laurent had learned well from the lessons of history-the sad experience of the League of Nations and the causes of World War II. Mr. St. Laurent believed in the democratic dialectic. Both Mr. St. Laurent and Mr. Pearson were not confused. They understood that democracies did not make war with democracies.

Before the shock of 9/11, it seemed the 21st century voices for a democratic dialectic were muted. The origins of the Helsinki Process were forgotten. It was the Helsinki Process, in 1974, that laid the groundwork for democratic change in Europe. The Berlin Wall collapsed following the popular democratic movement of Solidarity in Poland and the "Velvet" revolution in the Czech Republic. The drive toward human rights and expanding democracies slowed at the turn of the century. Yet, the appetite for democracy once tasted cannot be easily satisfied. With the "Rose" revolution in Georgia, and now the "Orange" revolution in Ukraine, democracy is on the march again.

The Bush doctrine of manifest democracy provoked by September 11, 2001, continues to gain support by raising the banner of freedom, liberty and free markets. Public sentiment for democracy is rising not only in the East, in Georgia and now Ukraine, but across Eurasia, in Afghanistan and seeping into the dialectics of the Middle East as well as, painfully, in Iraq.

My hope is that Canada will regain its principal place as an active protagonist and creative partner for democracy, liberty and freedom and as a forceful agent in the spread of free trade and free markets around the globe.

Canada owns a capacious toolbox of democratic instruments and best practices that can quickly and cost-efficiently be deployed to help build the infrastructure of democracy-independent parliamentary commissions; parliamentary practices, including checks and balances; separation of powers; policing; independent judging and free trade agreements.

We hope that Prime Minister Martin and Canada will actively re-engage with President Bush and America, as we did after World War II, in a collective effort to spread democracy, free trade and free markets around the world.