Quelle Fuckin' Suprise!

Could this have anything to do with this?

Some times, the conclusion of a big election can put a few things in perspective.

For example, Michael Byers seems to have had a change of heart regarding the United States. Byers, who typically doesn't like Americans very much, suddenly seems to think that Prime Minister Stephen Harper should re-connect with the United States.

A week ago today, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix reported on an address Byers delivered at the Canada Trade Summit in Saskatoon.

"On a formal level, Mr Obama needs to receive an invitation to Ottawa ASAP, and also an expressed willingness on the part of Mr. Harper to travel to Washington, again on a formal level, as soon as possible," Byers remarked. "I would want to see Canadian diplomats reaching out to members of Mr Obama's team within a few weeks of the election result."

Naturally, that wouldn't have happened if John McCain had won the election. But now that Obama has officially emerged victorious, one can only hope, like Byers, that it would happen soon.

But one would have to wonder what Byers would be suggesting if George W Bush were winning a third term.

...Oh, yeah. Byers doesn't like Bush very much.

One can only wonder if Byers would be so eager to see a renewal of relations between the United States and Canada if John McCain had somehow won this election.

Byers' known antipathy to the United States doesn't, however, change the fact that he's correct -- if only incidentally. Barack Obama's Presidency is a crucial opportunity to redefine relations between the United States and Canada.

It seems that the federal government seems to have recognized this as well. And not merely the bureaucracy, either: it seems the Conservative party is eager to get down to work with Obama.

"Most [of us] are leaning towards Obama," one unidentified Conservative staffer told CTV. "But still the general overall thought, I think for us, is that either [one] is better than George W."

"I'm a solid Republican myself," admitted the staffer. "But there really is this Conservatives-for-Obama thing going on."

It seems that the Conservatives are actually optimistic that a bilateral accord on greenhouse gas emissions can be reached between Harper and Obama -- neither are proponents of the Kyoto protocol.

Beyond this, however, the Conservatives stand to reap a distinctly superficial benefit from Obama's victory.

"We can't play the Bush card on them anymore," admitted what CTV describes as a "prominent Liberal".

But Michael Byers clearly underestimates the importance of the relationship between the United States and Canada if he honestly believes he can reduce the entire relationship to shallow cross-border partisan parochialism.

It's unsurprising that Byers is eager to re-connect with the United States following Obama's election. What is surprising is that the Conservative party seems especially eager to do it, too.