If A Deal Falls In The Forest....

.....Does Anybody Hear?

Or, put another way, as we said in the last post and in numerous other ones before that - how is it that we have a freaking deal if there are two unagreed upon proposals, one Canadian and one American?

By definition, does that not mean that there is no deal?

Here's the latest, datelined today, Monday June 12th, 2006:

VANCOUVER CP -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his trade minister defended the Conservative government's strategy in negotiating a softwood lumber trade deal with the United States on Monday as the clock ticked towards a late June deadline to get related legislation through Parliament.

Federal negotiators missed a key benchmark Sunday when a final legal text was not completed.

Sources say the two sides are deadlocked on several key issues, including treatment of the B.C. government's market-based timber pricing reforms and Quebec and Ontario concerns over the agreement's quota provisions.

Ontario Natural Resources Minister David Ramsey said his province supports the Canadian draft proposal but "it's the American one that's nickel and diming us to death.''

Again, notice the statements. There is no deal. The reality, as ever, is that there is an American proposal and a Canadian proposal and the twain have never yet met.

So, the real question that the press poodles should be asking is the following: Why have Little Stephen and his 'Lumberman of the Year' (a.k.a. as the MP for Canforcouver Kingsway) put us in the propaganda bind of fixing a deadline on a deal that does not exist?

Could it be that they are actually trying to railroad the Canadian public into accepting anything as a 'victory' when in fact it is really a capitulation to the Bush Cabal who, apparently, have already been set free from their previoulsy ruled-upon NAFTA obligations by the 'Lumberman'.

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