Harper, Obama meet in Hawaii after APEC summit

Prime Minister Harper has been invited to Washington, D.C., in December.

The visit was announced Sunday following a meeting of Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama at the APEC summit in Hawaii.

The two leaders discussed a number of bilateral issues, including a delay in the U.S. State Department decision regarding TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Obama is reported to have told the prime minister that delaying the pipeline project until 2013 will ensure that all questions are properly addressed.

According to official accounts of the leaders’ meeting, Harper expressed his disappointment with the U.S. State Department’s decision to reroute the pipeline project and order further environmental assessment.

Before the meeting, Harper suggested the decision was the result of what he called the “political season” in the United States. Obama is running for re-election next year.

Canada further signalled the importance it places on ensuring access to Asian markets by reversing an earlier decision that membership in the Trans Pacific Partnership was not necessarily in Canadian interests.

A key sticking point had been the suggestion that Canada needs to consider shelving supply management policies for the dairy, egg and poultry industries.

The Conservatives have been steadfast in their support of the subsidies and quota system for those sectors, but Harper announced Sunday that Canada wants to be at the TPP table.

The switch gives Obama a boost in his drive to lead expansion of the new trading bloc and contributed to the president being able to walk away form the APEC summit claiming victory for the American economy.

Harper said a review of the criteria for membership in the TPP indicated Canada could easily meet the conditions.

“For the question of specific sectors, whenever we enter negotiations as we’ve done in the past with other countries, as we’re doing right now with Europe, we always say that all matters are on the table,” Harper said.

“But of course Canada will seek to defend and promote our specific interests in every single sector of the economy.”

Another issue of concern for Canada was the ongoing negotiations for a border security deal that was announced with much fanfare nine months ago but appears to have lost much of its lustre.

Harper and Obama say negotiations continue and the prime minister signalled an announcement was coming in the very near future.

Their talks followed the conclusion of the APEC leaders summit where they led parallel charges for greater collaboration among member economies.

Harper and Obama crossed paths Saturday night at the official opening dinner for the APEC summit as the president welcomed the various world leaders to his home state.

Obama asked whether the Harpers’ two children had come for the meetings, but Harper’s wife Laureen said “we wanted them to be away from all of this.”

While Obama has championed a new free trade pact among nine member countries, Harper has kept the focus on bilateral talks as Canada is sidelined from the U.S.-led TPP.

Harper and Obama were to be joined by Mexican President Felipe Calderon but that meeting was postponed due to the death of the Mexican interior minister in a helicopter crash.

Ahead of his talks with Obama, Harper met Saturday with American business leaders gathered for an Asia Pacific business summit.

Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao both addressed the gathering, but Harper held a more intimate discussion with executives from FedEx, Time Warner, Walmart Asian, Johnson and Johnson and Cargill.

The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who was also at the table, said it was like meeting with family.

“We value the extraordinary relationship we have between the United States and Canada,” Tom Donahue said. “We have a list of issues that will consume a lot of discussion.”

Donahue cited the economy, the oilsands, and even the Keystone pipeline as matters to be raised.

Harper’s meeting with Obama comes only days after the U.S. State department ordered TransCanada to reroute its proposed pipeline and subject it to further environmental assessment, which will delay the $7-billion project at least another year.

The 2,700-kilometre pipeline would bring crude from the new oilsands expansions in northern Alberta to be turned into gasoline and other fuels in Texas, the hub of the American refining industry.

Canada has lobbied hard for an expanded pipeline to be built, saying it would provide jobs and economic benefit to both countries.

But opposition in the U.S. has been vocal, including high profile environmental protests. The rerouting and subsequent assessments allow Obama to delay making a controversial political decision on whether to allow the pipeline to be built.

It was just the latest of a number of recent decisions by American officials that have irked Ottawa.

A provision in the new pact between Columbia and the U.S. contains a clause that eliminates the exemption of a $5.50 “passenger inspection levy” on visitors to the United States from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Buy America provisions have also been resurrected in Obama’s $447 billion US jobs legislation.

Those measures are being implemented even as Canada and the U.S. finalize the broad border security arrangement.

Harper’s meeting with Obama was his fifth bilateral discussion during his weekend in Hawaii, including one with Jintao.