President Joe Biden will play host to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday for the first bilateral meeting of his presidency, but he will do it virtually.
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HAALAND TESTIMONY: Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland
President Biden’s temporary pause on new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, ensuring the policy will be a major source of conflict with Republicans and the fossil fuel industry.
Haaland, carefully avoiding stating her own policy views in a confirmation hearing, reiterated that she would follow Biden’s agenda.
“If confirmed, it is President Biden’s agenda, not my own, that I would be moving forward,” Haaland said before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weren t able to meet in person because of COVID-19. The White House tried to simulate the experience instead.
Montreal, Canada – In 1969, then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau famously described Canada’s proximity to the United States as akin to sleeping with an elephant: “No matter how friendly or even-tempered is the beast … one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
Decades later, with Joe Biden in the White House, the “elephant” to Canada’s south will at least be more predictable than it was under Donald Trump, said Daniel Beland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal.
“The Trump years were very hard in terms of Canada-US relations. It was a rollercoaster,” Beland told Al Jazeera. “With Biden, it’s a return to more stability in Canada-US relations.”