Madame President, Mr. President-Elect, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

It is certainly my pleasure to come to here to Buffalo and talk with my American colleagues.

Perhaps right off the top I should provide a little bit of a “Canadian context” when it comes to attitudes about you, our southern and closest neighbour.

In 1969 then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, quipped: “Living next to you is like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

To say that there has been some twitching — not to mention a great deal of grunting — here in America over health care reform in recent months is a bit of an understatement.

However, on that front I will not claim to be holier than thou. In fact, I guess it would be more accurate to say “I feel your pain.”