Aboard Air Force One enroute to Andrews Air Force Base
JIM STEINBERG: How you guys doing? Everybody good? Okay, great. Well, let me just give you a brief readout. There were, obviously, a very good series of meetings. It was excellent. I think people, you know, deeply appreciated the fact that the President had chosen Canada to be his first stop. He made a point out of saying, as he said in the press conference, that some -- because we are so close that people sometimes take it for granted, and he really wanted to use the trip as a way to really reenforce the fact that he didn't take the relationship for granted, that he really valued the partnership. And clearly, in all the meetings that he had, that was reciprocated by the people he talked to.
There were basically three sets of meetings, although with the government people it was in different parts, and I'll go into that. As you know, he started off with a meeting with the Governor General, and as you also know, she's Haitian by origin, so they started off talking about Haiti and the situation there, and exchanging views about how we could be helpful to the government there in dealing with economic and social issues. And the President made clear that this is something that he did care about and wanted to confer and get the views of others about how we could do a better job in supporting economic and social development in Haiti.
They then turned to discuss the Summit of the Americas that's coming up in April, and, again, because of her background in the region, talking about the importance of paying attention to the hemisphere. The President stressed the fact that he felt that we hadn't in recent years paid enough problems [sic] to the region and we really needed to show that this was something that we cared a lot about and had a real connection with the people there, and he saw his decision to go to the Summit of the Americas as an early indication of the focus that he wanted to bring to those issues.
They had a brief conversation about Afghanistan. The President, as he did in all the meetings, thanked her for the Canadian contribution and the sacrifice that the Canadians had made. He briefed her in very general terms about the review that's going on and wanting to work with them.
And then they concluded with a discussion about the remarkable diversity that exists in Canada and his appreciation for the diversity and the tolerance in Canada -- stuff that he'd experienced from his family and his own visits to Toronto and the like, and saw that as a great strength of the relationship and something that really united Canadians and Americans.
From there, we went over to Parliament Hill, as you know; had the public arrival, the signing of the book. The President then went into a private one-on-one with the Prime Minister. So what I can tell you about that is what he told us about that. There were no note-takers or anybody else present in -- for that meeting. The President said that they focused primarily on the economy in those discussions and how --
[REPORTER]: Could you step out a little bit? I can't --
STEINBERG: Sure, absolutely. Sorry, sorry.
[REPORTER]: Sorry, thanks.
[REPORTER]: Louder.
STEINBERG: Louder, that -- step out is easy, louder is not so hard -- so easy.
So in the one-on-one, the President said that they focused primarily on the economic issues and how we could coordinate our efforts to deal with the crisis and expressed appreciation for Canada's efforts on the stimulus. And both he and the Prime Minister talked about how to coordinate their efforts to have the maximum effect, and also how they could coordinate their strategy going into the G20 meeting in London.
They also, I think, talked a little bit about Afghanistan and Pakistan in their one-on-one, but then when they came out there was also an extensive discussion --
[REPORTER]: How long was that one?
[REPORTER]: Did you time it?
GIBBS: One-on-one? Was a little more than 30 minutes.
STEINBERG: And it was -- most of the time was in one-on-one.
So they came out, and General Jones and I joined them for the remaining part of that. There was a further discussion about Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Prime Minister talked about how they had developed this bipartisan approach to their own deployment through the Manley Commission, which had developed a road map for the Canadian involvement and led to the Canadian decision to deploy the troops until 2011.