OTTAWA - Barack Obama's visit to Canada on Feb. 19 to discuss economic issues with Prime Minister Stephen Harper will likely serve to acquaint Canadians with the popular new president's steely pragmatic side.
On his first foreign trip since his inauguration last week, Obama heads to Ottawa in the dead of winter for a face-to-face meeting with the prime minister.
"This is a testament, not just to the size of our trading relationship and the closeness of our alliance, but also the strength of our friendship," Harper told the House of Commons on Wednesday.
"I look forward to an important and productive working visit."
The Obama administration provided scant details about the visit except to say that the flailing economy will be a top item of discussion.
"Without getting into what the bilateral agenda might be for that trip, it's safe to say that the health of each economy and the health of the global economy will be a large part of that agenda," Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, told the daily White House briefing.
"And I strongly anticipate, as was the case when the then president-elect met with the leader of Mexico, that trade will be part of that docket."
In Ottawa, government officials said Obama's visit would be businesslike. "The prime minister and president are looking forward to getting to work," said a Canadian official.
There had been hopes that Obama might address Parliament the way presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman have done before him.
But the House isn't sitting during the week of his visit. There were suggestions that MPs might be called back early to take in Obama's legendary oratory skills in Parliament, but no such address is scheduled.
Liberal Marlene Jennings, the only black MP in the House of Commons, said she was disappointed Canadians might be deprived of the opportunity to see the two leaders exchange views in the Commons and compare their styles and approaches.
"It's too bad," said Jennings, who added she has close relatives in the United States and her family ancestors include African-American slaves.
One observer of Canada-U.S. relations says Obama will likely forgo a lot of pomp and circumstance and concentrate on discussing common issues between the two countries -- the economic crisis, trade, Afghanistan, energy and climate-change policy.
Canada is the top trading partner and the biggest source of oil for the United States. Harper has expressed hope that he and Obama can make some headway on a joint North American energy and climate-change plan.
"I doubt very much he'll be staying overnight, or that there will be a big ceremonial dinner or any of that sort of thing," said David Biette, the director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
"The president will be in and out and simply want to get things done. Canada will see a very practical president, and it will pull a lot of Canadians out of the clouds. There won't be a lot of ceremony; he'll be there intending to get down to business."
A recent poll by The Canadian Press and Decima Research, conducted before Obama took the oath of office, suggested 81 per cent of Canadians hold a positive view of him.
Harper spoke with Obama last week and discussed plans for the trip.
Their first sit-down meeting may put to rest any repercussions from the NAFTA disagreement that arose during the American primaries last March.
Obama, campaigning in the U.S. industrial heartland, told audiences the United States should threaten to withdraw from the free-trade pact unless it was renegotiated to protect American jobs.
A Canadian diplomat in Chicago wrote a memo suggesting this was less a concrete threat and more "political posturing" to lure protectionist votes.
After the memo was leaked, Obama's campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, seized on this contradiction, leading to embarrassment on all sides and claims that Harper's Conservative government was trying to sow dissent in the Democratic presidential race.
Biette predicts Harper and Obama will now forge a courteous, professional relationship -- neither a chummy association like Brian Mulroney enjoyed with Reagan, nor a toxic one like John Diefenbaker's with Kennedy.
"You're not going to see them playing golf or street hockey or singing songs on a stage together, but it's also not going to be like Diefenbaker and Kennedy," he said.
"They are in completely different places and there are very different politics at play here -- Obama wants to move ahead, he's new, he's got a mandate, while Harper has been around for awhile and is holding on by his thumbnails to power. But nonetheless, they have shared issues and will need to work co-operatively."
Canadians need not fear that Obama might be taken aback by the bitter cold and snow of Ottawa in mid-February.
The president expressed astonishment Wednesday that schools in the D.C. area were closed for two days amid a minor blast of winter.
"As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never cancelled," he said. "In fact, my seven-year-old (Sasha) pointed out that you'd go outside for recess. You wouldn't even stay indoors ... we're going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness in this city."
