Ad campaign takes aim at U.S. trade policies

www.globeandmail.com By JOHN SAUNDERS and STEVEN CHASE Thursday, February 20, 2003 - Page B9

WASHINGTON and OTTAWA -- There are as many as 180,000 Canadian tax dollars at work in today's issue of The New York Times, where you will find a full-page ad from something called the U.S.-Canada Partnership for Growth, which gets most of its money indirectly from Ottawa but says it is not a Canadian government front.

The $125,000 (U.S.) ad, one of a series in U.S. newspapers and on U.S. television, seems at first glance to be about oil, but aims to persuade Americans to give Canada a break on trade in lumber. "Reliable energy. Right next door," it says, stressing that Canada and the United States are "steady allies" and that the United States gets more oil and natural gas from Canada than from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, Kuwait or any other country.

The main sponsors, not named in the ad, are the Canadian government and the Forest Products Association of Canada, which got a $17-million (Canadian) federal grant last year to run a two-year lumber information blitz. FPAC confirms that it is the "primary funder" of the ads, and Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade says it is given a chance to check and revise them before they run.

James Blanchard, formerly a Michigan governor and a U.S. ambassador to Canada, is one of the old Washington hands hired to serve as co-chairmen of the partnership.

"The idea very simply is that Americans generally have no idea of the magnitude of the trade with Canada and the jobs produced, and most people have very little idea of the incredible energy relationship with Canada," Mr. Blanchard said in an interview yesterday.

If people understood the situation, he said, they would see that there is no excuse for special U.S. import duties of 27 per cent on Canadian softwood lumber, which Washington alleges is unfairly subsidized through cheap provincial wood sales and dumped on the U.S. market.

"They've been seeing our TV ads and I have people come up to me and say, 'Do you know that we get more energy from Canada than anywhere? Do you know that?' They don't even know that I'm affiliated with the our Canada-U.S. Partnership for Growth."

The original ad in the series, run late last year, was a soft sell illustrated by a snapshot of two freckled-faced youngsters. "We grew up together," it said.

Another ad, scheduled for certain editions of USA Today tomorrow, is headed "Canada buys American." It points out that Canada is the United States's biggest trading partner and a major buyer of goods from Arizona or Pennsylvania or wherever.

Mr. Blanchard comes to the campaign as a consultant to Burson-Masteller, the giant New York public relations firm orchestrating the partnership's ad and lobby efforts. He said that his law firm receives a fee for his services as co-chairman but would not disclose the amount.

Mr. Blanchard said that some of the money going into the campaign is from the partnership's U.S. members, notably house builders, lumber retailers and others who stand to gain from lower lumber prices, but he declined to name the donors or to give a figure.

Communications director in the office of Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew, Sébastien Théberge, said: "It is true that there is a competition for attention in the United States media to reach the American public and we believe we have a role to play in ensuring that the average American, as well as media and politicians in Washington and New York have a clear understanding of the importance of this two-way relationship."