This has got to be to good to be true. 

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[Editor's note: On August 21 in Ottawa, the Standing Committee on International Trade heard a U.S. trade lawyer damn the proposed softwood lumber agreement as a terrible deal for Canadians. Elliot J. Feldman of Baker & Hostetler LLP argued that Canada caved at a moment of strength, given that international rulings continued to land firmly on our side. Instead, Feldman argued, this deal will kill the NAFTA process which has favoured Canada's position, and forfeit at least a billion dollars plus hundreds of millions of dollars more in interest that would have come our way had our negotiators hung tough.

Feldman, who is based in Washington, D.C., offered one more bit of startling analysis, excerpted below. The deal, he said, will funnel nearly half a billion dollars directly to George Bush's White House, creating a political "slush fund" available to the Republicans and the U.S. timber industry for waging future campaigns.]

I talked to several candidates afterwards. The first candidate I talked to was Stephane Dion. He is slight man with a pleasant enough face. He is not as tall as I thought. Two other people approached him at the same time as me. After he shook each of our hands, the others went first. His hand shake was weak, but more on that later. Their question was about Lebanon. He gave his pat answer about the need to hold Israel to account; that is, after all, what friends do. The two seemed pleased with this response and thanked him. He went to shake my hand again; I reflexedly reached out my hand, but I caught myself and did not follow through with a tight grip. I mumbled something about us already having had shaken hands. I am not sure if he heard me. He appeared nervous. His second hand shake was weak too. I have no idea if this is regular occurrence, weak hand shakes that is, but his campaign people have to emphasis too him that this must not happen again. It is not just negative connotations associated with a weak handshake. A strong handshake almost always guarantees that, so long as there are not profound cultural differences with respect to what constitutes personal space, the other male will respect your personal space. You may be backtracking in more ways than one otherwise.

Having listened to what he had to say about Lebanon, I switched the topic to something I thought he might be uncomfortable with and something he could not answer while on auto pilot. I asked him about drug policy. I first tossed out a soft ball. I asked him if he supported the decriminalization of marijuana. He said yes. I asked him why. He said it was because people no longer believed in the rational for keeping it illegal. I could not agree more. I pressed further and asked why he would be content merely to decriminalize marijuana. He said the health effects worried him. I asked which ones. He mentioned something about potent pot and how today pot is a lot stronger than the pot of his youth. I was no longer impressed. I was annoyed. The evidence that today’s pot is substantially stronger than the pot of old rests on pretty shaky ground.  http://www.slate.com/?id=2074151" title="http://www.slate.com/?id=2074151" target="_blank"http://www.slate.com/?id=2074...  That said, even if it were true, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. Indeed, if anything potent pot should be welcomed. After all, the most prominent health effect related to marijuana is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high.

The next candidate I talked to was Hedy Fry. Hedy was by far the least guarded and intellectually honest of any of the candidates I talked to and I really wish she would put some of her ideas out that she is currently hiding beind a semantic firewall.  Fry, for example, is for the legalization of marijuana in everything but name. Her views on prostitution and drugs are refreshing and progressive. She has a ton of energy and is a motor mouth. It was hard to get a word in edge wise. I liked her; she has spunk and one can not help but feel at ease when talking to her. That said, Hedy would a campaign manger’s worst nightmare. She is not the least bit cautious, shoots from the hip and she does make glaring errors of fact (she was terribly confused about the origins of Opium Wars) that if viewed in isolation would paint her in a very bad light.

The final candidate I talked to was Gerald Kennedy. Unlike the Dion, Kennedy’s hand shake was strong and his glare was piercing. He gives off and aura of strength and confidence that could be interrelated at times as evidence that he was standoffish.

As Larry Campbell is one of his backers, I asked him about the safe injection site and whether the thought Harper would see the light. He said yes. He felt that evidence was such that Harper would have no choice in the matter. The political hit he would take would be too much. I wish I had as much confidence in Harper as he. I also asked him if he supported the proposed heroin maintenance program. He said he was not familiar with the program. I was disappointed and somewhat taken aback. However I appreciated his candor.

I then asked him about Afghanistan. He said that he would pull Canadian troops out after two years if NATO’s mandate had not changed. He said the current mandate does not place enough emphasis on nation building and far too much on offensive combat operations and he cited this as one of the reasons why things were getting worse in there and not better. He then went on to list the ways in which Afghanistan was getting worse. Among the things he mentioned was the fact that the opium production is up. I interjected and said the Taliban have repackaged themselve s as the defenders of the opium industry and it is the only viable industry the country has. I had wanted to go to say that this is one reason why the situation is hopeless and one should not wait in vain for the change in mandate. He never gave me the chance though. He said that it is not just the Taliban that were benefiting from the opium industry, but so too were the war lords linked to the Afghani government. I thought this a red herring, but he had to leave shortly there after and I did not have a chance to backtrack. Looking back, I could see how he could cow some people in submission. He delivered his position with a great deal of force.

Towards the end of the night I talked to Belinda Stronach. She is tall. I asked her a few questions about this and that, but ever since I have felt guilty. Stronach is not a natural politician. She wears her talking points like a suit of armour. She utters them in much the same way as a captured solider might utter his rank and serial number while being integrated. I wish I left her alone to enjoy the evening; she was, after all, not a candidate.