Speech

So yesterday I watched a speech by the U.S. ambassador to Canada. It was for a maritime security exhibition/conference that my internship office organized and I was thick in the middle of it from writing market reports for the exhibition to paper-cutting my hands repeatedly from filing millions of company synopsis(es?) into bland little folders to hand out.

So Mon I was squirming uncomfortably in my tight thong and even tighter business pants (sigh. I should have joined Microsoft. Damn their generation Z workethic.) at the lunch table in the ballroom when the U.S. ambassador stood up to give his keynote speech. He started off with really bad French in a Southern accent so thick you could cut it with a knife and serve it with flan on the side. Wisely he decided to spare the 200+ full room and switched to English but it was already a bad start. When you're the amabassador to Canada, have been here for 4 months, and STILL can't speak french it says a lot about how much you feel you have to respect the other country. Even if he had continued in the rest of his speech in "Bonjour y'all" that, to me, would have said a lot more about his regard for Canada. His token gesture of "Je suis content au Montreal" I saw as precisely that, a token gesture to the "natives".

The rest of his speech merely confirmed my suspicions. There was much talk about softwood lumber (the bastard took the entire exhibition as just a platform to grandstand about his beliefs! Urrrg!!! He wasn't talking for the people there he was just talking for the cameras circling him) and the "respect and friendship between two neighbours". "a trading relationship that is the envy of the world" and "respect".

It was absolute horseshit. Throughout his speech, despite his claims of mutual respect and friendship, he gave the strong impression that he saw the U.S. as the superior in the relationship and to be regarded as such. It started off with his poorly spoken French and ended with his numerous assertions that the U.S. will not do anything about softwood lumber regardless of WTO rulings unless Canada agrees to come negotiate. His repeated assertions that Canada and the U.S. had a trading relationship "the world envies" made me wonder what type of person he must be to feel that to value something, it must be envied by everyone else. Couldn't we value it for the money it brings in not because of the supposed regard the "rest of the world" has for it?

I didn't stay till the end of speech but I had had enough. The manner of his speech, its content, and even his South Carolina twang left me unimpressed. This is a man not interested in friendship and cooperation but more interested that the U.S. holds its own. And clearly thinks it already can by itself.