(Canadian OpEd) Column: A new ambassador for a cold relationship

[unhappycamper]

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/Column+ambassador+cold+relationship/9292952/story.html

Column: A new ambassador for a cold relationship
By Andrew Cohen, Ottawa Citizen
December 16, 2013

So great is the institutional paralysis of the United States in 2013 that the world’s indispensable nation still remains without an ambassador in the capital of its largest trading partner. In Washington, no one is terribly fussed.

The U.S. Senate has finally given a hearing to Bruce Heyman, whom Barack Obama has nominated as his ambassador to Canada. Unsurprisingly, the confirmation hearing was light on news, thin in attendance and short in duration.

One reason that it has taken so long may be that the Senate is tying Heyman’s appointment to the approval of the much-studied Keystone XL Pipeline. Senators resent the administration’s glacial process and are treating Heyman’s nomination with the same urgency.

Or, more likely, it may be that the Senate simply doesn’t much care when the next U.S. ambassador arrives in Ottawa. The relationship between Canada and the United States is so big and bureaucratic — codified in agreements, treaties, protocols and exchanges, administered by a welter of agencies and departments — that, day-to-day, it largely runs itself.