[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 40 (Monday, October 11, 1999)]
[Pages 1978-1985]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's News Conference With Canadian Prime Minister Jean 
Chretien in Ottawa

October 8, 1999

    Prime Minister Chretien. Mesdames et monsieurs, ladies and 
gentlemen, it's a great pleasure for me to receive the President of the 
United States in Canada for this occasion of opening the new Embassy and 
for the President to come and make a speech in Mont-Tremblant on 
federalism.
    As you know, the relations between Canada and the U.S. are 
excellent, and the President is here for his fifth visit to Canada since 
he started in office. And when I asked him to come to the conference at 
Mont-Tremblant, I had to call upon our longstanding friendship. And 
everyone is very pleased that you, the leader of the greatest democracy 
and the greatest federation, should come to give your point of view.
    [Inaudible]--the President of the United States to come and make 
this statement, the speech in Mont-Tremblant, because he has been--he is 
in a very privileged position. He has been the Governor of a State, of 
Arkansas, and he has been the president of the conference of the 
Governors, and he as been, on the other side, the President of the 
United States. So he knows the functioning of a federal system inside 
out. And I'm sure that the people coming from around the world will 
benefit very strongly from his experience. And I want to say thank you 
very much. And I take it as a great sign of friendship for Canada and 
for myself that you have accepted to be with us today.
    If you want to say a few words.
    President Clinton. Thank you. First of all, Prime Minister, thank 
you for welcoming me back for my fifth trip to Canada since I've been 
President.
    I would like to be very brief, and then we'll open it to questions. 
I'm here today to dedicate our Embassy, to speak at the Prime Minister's 
federalism conference, and to have the chance to meet with Prime 
Minister Chretien. I want to just mention two or three issues.
    First of all, I'm profoundly grateful for the leadership shown by 
Canada in our common efforts to promote world peace, the work we've done 
together in Haiti, the work we did together in Bosnia, the work we did 
together in Kosovo with NATO, and the efforts that we're all making in 
East Timor, which is still a difficult situation, where we've got to get 
all the refugees home and safe and where we strongly support Secretary-
General

[[Page 1979]]

Annan's efforts to establish a United Nations program there.
    One of the things that we have worked on together is our efforts in 
nonproliferation. And Canada and the United States agree with all of our 
NATO Allies that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is the right thing to 
do, it's in the interest of the United States.
    There has been far more controversy about it in our country than in 
other countries, including other nuclear powers who are our allies. And 
I was--we've been trying to have a debate on this for 2 years, but it is 
clear now that the level of opposition to the treaty and the time it 
would take to craft the necessary safeguards to get the necessary votes 
are simply not there. So I hope that the Senate will reach an agreement 
to delay the vote and to establish an orderly process, a nonpolitical 
orderly process, to systematically deal with all the issues that are out 
there and to take whatever time is necessary to do it.
    With this treaty other nations will find it harder to acquire or to 
modernize nuclear weapons, and we will gain the means to detect and 
deter. If we don't have the treaty, the United States will continue to 
refrain from testing, and we'll give a green light to every other 
country in the world to test, to develop, to modernize nuclear weapons.
    I think it's clear what we ought to do, but it's also clear that we 
ought not to rush this vote until there has been an appropriate process 
in the Senate.
    So those are the major foreign policy issues I wanted to mention. 
The other thing I wanted to say is, I think Canada and the United States 
will be working very closely to try to reinvigorate the movement to 
expanded trade around the world. If we're going to really see the rest 
of the world's economy pick up and enjoy the kind of prosperity we have 
enjoyed in the last few years, we've got to make the most of this WTO 
ministerial. We've got to make the most of Canada's hosting the Free 
Trade Area of the Americas ministerial. And I think that's important.
    Now, as to our bilateral relations, I wanted to mention one thing 
that we talked about in our meeting. We have agreed to have a more 
intensive dialog on border issues, through a new forum we creatively 
called the Canada-United States Partnership, or CUSP. This will enable 
us to have local businesses, local communities, talk about managing 
border issues, and figure out how we can resolve some of the hassles 
people have with the vast volume of goods that go back and forth across 
the border and the vast number of people. So, I thank you.
    And you've already said why you invited me to the federalism 
conference. And I can tell you, I was a Governor for 12 years, and no 
matter how hard you try, you will never solve all the problems of 
federalism. So the best thing you can do is to paraphrase Winston 
Churchill and say it is the worst form of government, except for all the 
others.
    Thank you very much.
    Prime Minister Chretien. Thank you, sir. Now, we'll take questions.
    Sir?

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    Q. Mr. President, the Senate majority leader has stated that he 
would consider taking the test ban treaty off the table, withdrawing it 
from consideration under the caveat that it would not be reintroduced in 
the 106th Congress. Would you, sir, in order to preserve this treaty, be 
willing to give up ownership of it to the next Congress and the next 
administration?
    President Clinton. First of all, I don't own it. And insofar as I 
do, we always will, since we negotiated it and the United States was the 
first to sign it. But it isn't mine. It belongs to the world. And I 
think the whole nature of your question shows what's wrong with the way 
the Senate has treated this.
    They've treated this like a political document. They've treated this 
whole issue like a political issue. They went out and got people 
committed to vote against the treaty before they knew the first thing 
about it. And what I have said is--I don't understand what he's worried 
about. This thing could never have come up in the first place if he 
hadn't agreed to it. And I wouldn't bring it up unless I thought we 
could ratify it, because I won't treat it politically.
    So this whole thing is about politics. It's about: Burn us in 1999 
because we're against the treaty that 80 percent of the American people 
support, but please don't burn us

[[Page 1980]]

again in 2000. It's political. This treaty is not going to come up until 
we think we can pass it, and it won't come up until they treat it 
seriously.
    Every serious American treaty, for example, has the legislative 
language attached as safeguards, just like we did in the chemical 
weapons treaty, so that everyone understands exactly what it means. In 
this treaty they actually went out of their way to try to keep 
safeguards from being attached to it so that they could have the maximum 
number of votes against it.
    So I will give you a nonpolitical answer. I will say again, they 
should put if off, and then they should agree to a legitimate process 
where Republican and Democratic Senators think about the national 
interest. They have total control over when it comes up, not me. If it 
had been up to me we'd have started on this 2 years ago. We'd have had 6 
months of hearings, 2 weeks of debate, lots of negotiations, and this 
whole thing would have been out of the way a year and a half ago.
    It was not out of the way because that's the decision they made not 
to bring it up. They control when it comes up. So you're asking the 
wrong person whether it would come up next year. You should turn around 
and ask Senator Lott whether it would come up next year.
    What I want to do--I don't care when it comes up, except when it 
comes up, I want it to come up as soon as we can, pass it, with a 
legitimate process. As messy as this has been, this has illustrated to 
the American people, beyond any question, that this whole deal has been 
about politics so far.
    Now, there are some people who are honestly against this treaty. But 
we haven't been able to hear from them for 2 years, and we haven't been 
able to answer them, and we haven't been able to work on it. So I think 
it's been a very healthy thing to bring it up. But now we ought to do 
what's right for America, take it out of politics. This is not going to 
be a huge issue next year in the election, one way or the other. We 
should deal with this on the merits. They should agree to a process, and 
they control when it comes up.
    Prime Minister Chretien.  And I would like to add that we all have 
an interest in that. And all your allies to Americans will want this 
process to be terminated as quickly as possible, because there's a lot 
of other nations that have to live with the consequences of what the 
American Congress will do. And peace in the world is extremely important 
for our neighbors, too.

Canadian Defense Industries Licenses

    Q. Prime Minister, did you discuss the concerns that Canada's 
defense industries have had with having to get licenses? And did you get 
any answer from the President?
    Prime Minister Chretien. Yes, we discussed and we have found an 
agreement. And the agreement will be in details made public by Madam 
Albright and Mr. Axworthy.
    Q. Was it important to get an agreement? Why?
    Prime Minister Chretien. But, yes. It's always important when you 
have a problem to find a solution. And we found a solution. That's all. 
[Laughter]
    Next. Next.

U.S. Documents on Augusto Pinochet

    Q. Mr. President, today a London magistrate ruled that former 
Chilean dictator Pinochet be extradited for trial in Spain. The CIA has 
been accused of withholding documents that are said to show that the 
United States encouraged the coup which installed Pinochet in power and 
that the CIA maintained close ties to Pinochet's repressive security 
forces. Will you order that the release of those documents be sped up?
    President Clinton. Well, I believe we've released some documents and 
my understanding--before I came out here, I was told that we're about to 
release some more. So I think we ought to just keep releasing documents 
until we--I think you're entitled to know what happened back then and 
how it happened.
    And obviously, the Governments of Spain and the United Kingdom are 
following their own legal systems. I would point out, in defense of the 
people of Chile, is that they actually succeeded in moving away from the

[[Page 1981]]

Pinochet dictatorship and solving the problem they had in a way that 
allowed them to make a transition to parliamentary democracy. And I 
think even the people that spent their whole lives opposed to Pinochet, 
they have some--they're trying to figure out, now, what the impact on 
their democracy will be of all these actions.
    But the United States has supported the legal process, and we 
continue to do so. And we support releasing the documents in an 
appropriate fashion. And we support the democracy which now exists in 
Chile.
    Paul?
    Prime Minister Chretien. Okay, en Francais.
    President Clinton. I've got to take a couple of the Americans--go 
ahead. France, yes, go ahead.
    Q. Monsieur Clinton----
    Prime Minister Chretien. Oh, the question is for Clinton. [Laughter]

President's Meeting With Premier Lucien Bouchard of Quebec

    Q. Mr. Clinton, I want to know if your meeting with Mr. Bouchard 
today is an indication of any change in U.S. policy towards Quebec 
sovereignty? And secondly, if Mr. Chretien asked you anything about that 
meeting today?
    President Clinton. No, and, no. That's the short answer.
    Prime Minister Chretien. Thank you. Next. [Laughter]
    President Clinton.  The short answer, no and no. I did meet with him 
when he was in opposition about 4 years ago. He is the Premier of the 
Province. We're going there. He's the host. It's a courtesy, and I think 
I should do it. But there has been no change in our policy, whatsoever.
    Prime Minister Chretien. American.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    Q. First of all, Mr. President, are you going to meet Senator Helms' 
demand that you actually submit what you announced here today in 
writing? How badly has this hurt the United States----
    President Clinton.  I'm sorry, what----
    Q.  Senator Helms' demand that you submit it in writing to him.
    President Clinton.  Submit what?
    Q.  The CTBT--I'm sorry--the CTBT, the withdrawal of it in writing. 
He's asked for that. How badly has that hurt U.S. leadership role in 
arms control? And what's the message from India where the world's 
largest democracy just overwhelmingly reelected the Government that you 
criticized heavily for conducting nuclear tests?
    President Clinton.  Well, I think, first of all, if you look at 
India, you have to see the people voted for that Government for all 
kinds of reasons. And what I believe is--look, France conducted a 
nuclear test before they signed the treaty. What I believe is that the 
United States does not sign the treaty and show a little leadership 
here, why should the Pakistanis and the Indians do it?
    Ever since the end of World War II and beginning with the election 
of Dwight
Eisenhower, we have had a bipartisan commitment to leading the world 
away from proliferation. It has never been called into question until 
the present day. Never.
    Now, we had to work for a very long time to get the Chemical Weapons 
Convention passed, which is very important. But Senator Helms and the 
others followed a legitimate process. I never had a doubt that the 
objections that they raised and the safeguards they wanted were 
absolutely heartfelt and serious. This treaty was never treated 
seriously. They took 2 years, had no time for hearings, said, ``I'll 
give you 8 days,'' and later we discovered--after they said that, that 
that was offered only after they had 43 commitments on a party-line vote 
to vote against the treaty from people who hadn't heard a hearing and 
hadn't even thought about it, most of them.
    So they want me to give them a letter to cover the political 
decision they have made that does severe damage to the interest of the 
United States and the interest of nonproliferation in the world? I don't 
think so. That's not what this is about. They have to take 
responsibility for whether they want to reverse 50 years of American 
leadership in nonproliferation that the Republicans have been just as 
involved in as the Democrats, to their everlasting credit.
    Now, they have to make that decision. I cannot bring this treaty up 
again unless they

[[Page 1982]]

want to. I have asked them to put it off because we don't have the 
votes. I have talked to enough Republicans to know that some of them 
have honest, genuine reservations about this treaty, and they ought to 
have the opportunity to have them resolved, instead of being told that 
they owe it to their party to vote against the treaty and that the 
leadership of their party will do everything they can to keep us from 
writing safeguards into the treaty which answer their reservations, 
which is what we do on every other thing.
    So I don't want to get into making this political. But they 
shouldn't tie the Senate up or themselves up in knots thinking that some 
letter from me will somehow obscure from the American people next year 
the reality that they have run the risk of putting America on the wrong 
side of the proliferation issue for the first time in 50 years. And they 
want to do it, and then they don't want to get up and defend it before 
the American people in an election year. That's what this whole thing is 
about. That is the wrong thing to do.
    We don't have the votes. I'm not going to try to bring it up without 
the votes. Let them take it down but also agree on a legitimate process 
to take this out of politics. I will not criticize them as long as they 
are genuinely working through the issues, the way we did in the chemical 
weapons treaty.
    They're entitled to advise and consent. They're entitled to take all 
the time they want. But nobody hit a lick at this for 2 years. And then 
they tried to get it up and down on grounds that were other than 
substantive, and that's wrong. And it's bad for America. It has nothing 
to do with me and my administration. I wouldn't care who got the thing 
ratified, as long as we did it in the right way.

Canada in the New Millennium

    Q. On your throne speech next week, sir--on your throne speech next 
week, do you see it as charting some kind of grand new course for the 
millennium? Or is it just more of the same? [Laughter]
    Prime Minister Chretien. Yes, it will be--if Canada is considered as 
the best country in the world. [Laughter]
    President Clinton. Are you sure he's not one of ours? [Laughter]
    Prime Minister Chretien. You know, they're complaining because I 
keep telling them that Canada's been considered, Mr. President, as the 
best country in the world to live in. I'm sorry to tell you to that. 
[Laughter] And I want to carry on in the 21st century with the same 
thing, and they say I have no vision. Imagine if I had a vision. 
[Laughter] So you will see.
    Q. Mr. Chretien? Mr. Chretien?
    President Clinton. Go ahead. [Laughter] I'm sorry. That was great.

Oil Prices

    Q. You've been asked to sell oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve to fight rising heating oil prices as the winter comes. Do you 
think this is a good idea, and do you agree with Senator Schumer that 
OPEC has been engaged in price gouging, to raise the prices?
    President Clinton. I think we should look at the reserve and the 
question of whether, if we released some oil from it for sales, we could 
moderate the price some.
    I think that the States in the Northeast, as you know, are unusually 
dependent upon home heating oil and, therefore, are the most sensitive 
to oil prices. But it's also true that the price of oil was historically 
low for a good long time. And it's made a modest rebound, now.
    I'm grateful that it hasn't put any inflation in our economy and so 
far we can manage it. But we have to be sensitive to the people who are 
disproportionately affected by it. And I have not reached a decision 
yet, because I haven't been given a recommendation yet, about whether we 
could have any appreciable impact on the Americans that are most 
disproportionately affected.
    One of the reasons we always fight hard for the LIHEAP program, 
apart from what the summertime can do to people all over America, is 
that we know these people in the Northeast have a problem that no other 
Americans have, with the impact of the oil prices. It hits them much, 
much harder. So we're looking at it.
    Prime Minister Chretien. Thank you.
    Madam?

[[Page 1983]]

Quebec

    Q. This morning you talked about rule of law, respect for rule of 
law being one of the fundamental principles Canada and the U.S. share. I 
am wondering, in that context, if the President could tell us what he 
thinks of Mr. Bouchard saying that Quebec could secede without regard to 
the Canadian Constitution, or the Supreme Court ruling last year, which 
said they must have a clear majority vote, yes, and a clear question. 
Would the U.S. ever recognize a sovereign Quebec under those 
circumstances?
    Prime Minister Chretien. I think that it's for me to reply. I think 
that the rule of law will apply to Canada. We have a judgment of the 
Supreme Court of Canada, which said very clearly that the question has 
to be clear and the majority has to be clear. And if there is a clear 
will expressed, that only after that, that negotiations could start.
    So the rule of law will be applied. The question will have to be 
clear, and the majority will have to be clear. And I know that if they 
have a clear question, the President of the United States will never 
have to make a decision on that.

Natural Disasters

    Q. Excuse me. I would like to say something. You've had a lot of 
disasters lately, and so has the world. And I'm with Christian News, and 
I would like to ask you, have you thought that possibly this is a 
message from above that there is moral decay, that there is abortion, 
that there is violence? I was wondering if you had given it some 
thought.
    President Clinton. Actually, I have. You know, we--particularly 
because of all the millennial predictions. But I think the fact is that 
some of these natural disasters are part of predictable weather 
patterns, and the others have been predicted for more than a decade now 
by people who tell us that the climate is warming up. And I think that 
the real moral message here is that as we all get richer and use more of 
the resources God has given us, we're being called upon to take greater 
care of them. And I think that we have to deal seriously with the impact 
of the changing climate.
    I was just in New Zealand at the jumping-off place for 70 percent of 
our operations in Antarctica, the South Pole, talking about the thinning 
of the polar ice cap there and the consequences it could bring to the 
whole world.
    So I believe that insofar as these natural disasters are greater in 
intensity or number than previous ones, the primary warning we're 
getting from on high is that we have to keep--to use the phrase of a 
person I know reasonably well--we have to keep Earth in the balance. We 
have to respond to this in an appropriate way.
    Yes.
    Prime Minister Chretien Okay. And that will be the last one.
    President Clinton. Go ahead.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    Q. Sir, you talked about the Republicans playing politics with this 
arms ban treaty or weapons testing ban treaty. Are you talking about 
normal partisan politics, just Republicans versus Democrats? Are you 
talking about the kind of politics where some Republicans--maybe not a 
lot of them, but some will say, ``I'm sorry, Bill Clinton is for it. I 
feel so viscerally that I despise Bill
Clinton, I'm not going to go along with something that he wants that 
much, and I'm not going to give him a victory during his administration 
on something this important''?
    President Clinton.  I don't think that's what's going on. I mean, it 
might be, but I don't think so. That sounds like Wile E. Coyote and the 
Roadrunner, you know? [Laughter] But I don't think that's what's going 
on.
    I think you have the following things. I think you have--I will say 
again--you have some Republicans who have thought about this and 
listened to people who aren't for it and really believe it's not the 
right thing to do. I hate it when we have fights. We're always 
questioning other people's motives. There are people who genuinely 
aren't for this. I think they're dead wrong, and I think it would be a 
disaster if their view prevailed, but I believe that's what they think.
    Now, in addition to that, however, this process--the Democrats were 
frustrated because for 2 years--that's why I don't think the second part 
of your thing is right--for 2 years they've been trying to bring this 
treaty

[[Page 1984]]

up for a hearing, during which time we did ratify the Chemical Weapons 
Convention. And they could never even get hearings. So there was 
something about this thing that they didn't want to give hearings on.
    So then the Democrats agreed to what they knew was a truncated 
hearing schedule--almost no hearings--and debate schedule, only to find 
that basically a sufficient number of votes in the Republican caucus had 
been locked down for reasons of party loyalty, whatever their motives 
were, from people who couldn't possibly know enough about the treaty 
right now to know they were against it on the merits. Now, maybe it's 
they don't want some alleged victory to come to the administration 
during the pendency of the political season. Maybe that's it, maybe not. 
My point is, I don't care about that. I don't care who gets credit for 
it. If they adopted it, I'd be glad to say it was Trent Lott's triumph. 
It's six and one-half dozen of the other to me. What I want to do is to 
leave this country with a framework--my country--with a framework for 
dealing with the major security problems of the 21st century.
    I believe that there will still be rogue states that want nuclear, 
chemical, and biological weapons. I, furthermore, believe that there 
will be enemies of all nation states--terrorist groups, organized 
criminals, drug runners--who will be increasingly likely to have access 
to miniaturized, but powerful weapons of mass destruction. And what I 
would like to leave office doing is not getting credit for anything--I 
don't give a rip who gets the credit for it. What I want is the Chemical 
Weapons Convention to be enforced, the Biological Weapons Convention to 
have teeth added to it so it actually means something, and this 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to be in place so at least we have a shot 
to reduce the number of nuclear states and the sophistication of their 
weapons and their ability to use them. That's the whole deal with me.
    Because I think that our successors are going to have a whole lot of 
headaches from all these groups, and we need to minimize risk because as 
societies grow more open they'll be more vulnerable to being terrorized 
by people who have access to this. That's the whole deal with me. I 
don't care who gets credit for it; I just want there to be a framework 
for dealing with it.
    So if they take more than a year to deal with this, if there is a 
legitimate process of working through, that's okay with me. If there is 
an emergency in the world where the rest of the world--it looks like 
we're going to have 10 other people try to become nuclear powers, and 
they've had 2 months of hearings or 3 months of hearings, and I think 
there's some reason we ought to vote--that goes back to your question--I 
don't want to say on the front end, ``Yes, I'll play the same political 
game, and no matter what, we won't vote next year, no matter what other 
developments we see on the Indian subcontinent or in other places.''
    But this thing can't come up for a vote if they don't bring it up. 
And I'm not going to willfully try to get it up if I think it's going to 
get beat. That's the only thing I want to--I'm sorry to bore our 
Canadian friends with a discourse to American politics. And the other 
thing, the United States cannot afford to relinquish the leadership of 
the world in the cause of nonproliferation.
    So if they want to strengthen the treaty, there are all kinds of 
vehicles through which we can do it. We do it on every other treaty. And 
if they want to take months, if they want to take a year--whatever they 
need to take--just play this straight. I'm not going to be out there--
there's no downside for them to playing it straight.
    But I will not say in advance, no matter what--no matter what 
happens in the world, no matter what unforeseeable development there is, 
no matter what other countries are about to do--no matter what, I would 
not ask you to deal with this next year, because on the merits there 
might be a reason. If it's just politics, we won't, because I'm not 
going to bring it up if we can't win.
    Prime Minister Chretien. Perhaps, Mr. President, I would like to add 
that when we were at the summit in Birmingham, and it was at the moment 
that India was about to do the experiment and Pakistan was to follow, we 
were all extremely preoccupied about it. And it is a problem that 
concerns the world. And it's not only the United

[[Page 1985]]

States; everybody around the globe has a stake into that.
    And for me, I cannot agree more than the President that the 
leadership of the United States for the allies is extremely important. 
And keep up the good fight.
    And unfortunately, we have to go. Merci beaucoup. Thank you.
    President Clinton. Thank you.

Note: The President's 181st news conference began at 12:05 p.m. in the 
Parliament Building. In his remarks, he referred to United Nations 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy of 
Canada. The President also referred to LIHEAP, the Low Income Housing 
Energy Assistance Program. A portion of this news conference could not 
be verified because the tape was incomplete.