SOFTWOOD

I was at a party in Georgetown a few weeks ago. We were standing in a group of about 10 people. Turns out one of them (an American) is a local staff member at the Canadian Embassy. He started going on and on about some of the more "ridiculous" aspects of Canada, such as, according to him: parliamentary democracy ("there was, like, this weird vote last year that the government depended on and this guy that was dying of cancer had to fly all the way across Canada just to stand up in the House of Commons to vote") and our "obsession" with the softwood lumber trade dispute.

He asked the group if any of them knew about the trade dispute - none of them had any idea what he was talking about. After his explanation, which focused on the fact that nobody in the States cares or is interested in softwood lumber, I ventured to enlighted him on the subtle art of North American diplomacy:

Rule #1 - there is nothing in the world that Canadians dislike more, than being lectured to (by Americans) on the idiosyncracies of our own delightful system. Especially when, (in the case of softwood), we happen to be in the right.

In his honour, I give you Rick Mercer's Everything you ever wanted to Know about softwood but were too afraid to ask...(just scroll down to the week of February 7th)

(Thanks also to Savage Washington for pointing out that Wonkette - an American blog of note - has discovered Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans...and thus provided the inspirational force behind this post.)