Argeo Paul Cellucci (born April 24, 1948) is an
American politician and diplomat who served as the
69th Governor of Massachusetts and
US Ambassador to
Canada.
Cellucci took a conservative approach to crime, and in 1998 he signed into law one of the toughest gun control measures in the United States. He supported
Roe v. Wade and abortion rights, which did not always make him popular with the Catholic Church
On 10 April 2001, Cellucci resigned to become
U.S. Ambassador to Canada, being appointed by President
George W. Bush. This made him the second consecutive Massachusetts governor to resign in order to assume an ambassadorship: his predecessor William Weld resigned after being nominated to be Ambassador to Mexico by
President Clinton. (Weld was never confirmed by the
United States Senate, however, and hence never served as Ambassador.)
U.S. Ambassador to Canada
On April 17, 2001, at the Citadel in
Quebec City, Cellucci presented his credentials as the 20th
United States Ambassador to Canada to
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.
His four-year tenure would be a historical and controversial period in the United States - Canadian relations. On September 14, 2001, three days after the terrorist attacks on United States soil, Ambassador Cellucci thanked
Canada for its overwhelming support and sympathy, including the accepting and aiding of over 25,000 diverted air passengers, at a memorial in front of 100,000 people on
Parliament Hill in
Ottawa. The months and years that followed the
9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States would see extraordinary cooperation between the United States and Canada on the
Smart Border Agreement, on their law enforcement and intelligence agencies to stop terrorist attacks in
North America, and in
Afghanistan in the war against the Taliban.
On March 25, 2003 at a speech to the Economic Club of
Toronto, Cellucci faced controversy when he criticized Canadian opposition to the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq. He argued that America was waging war for its own security, and that the United States would "never hesitate" to support Canada if it faced a security threat .
[1] This wording was considered especially unfortunate by some since the United States did in fact delay years before joining the British Empire in both
World Wars I and
II in Europe.
The Globe and Mail reported Cellucci's remarks under the front-page headline
U.S. rebukes Canada[2] and Canadian nationalist
Mel Hurtig called him "ill-mannered, obnoxious, [and] arrogant".
[3]
He also earned the ire of many Canadians for his repeated support for Canada joining the U.S.
missile defence program, and for urging Canada to increase defense spending. These statements, frequently perceived as implied trade threats, caused Cellucci to be sarcastically christened "the U.S. ambassador-turned-
proconsul" by former
Liberal cabinet minister
Lloyd Axworthy in an opinion piece titled
Say no to missile defence published on April 29, 2003 in
The Globe and Mail. Canada has since declined to participate in the U.S. missile defence program.
Cellucci officially resigned his Ambassadorship on March 17, 2005. One indication of opinion in Canada of Cellucci's tenure was provided by
CBC Television's resident satirist Rick Mercer who promoted on his program, Monday Report, that week a fictitious Paul Cellucci Farewell Special entitled Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Ass.
[edit] Post-ambassadorship
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Paul at a 2008 campaign event for Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
Since leaving his position as Ambassador, Cellucci has penned a book called
Unquiet Diplomacy, a
memoir of his time as ambassador. In the book, he praises Canada as "a truly great nation", but also has some criticism for the governments of former Prime Ministers
Jean Chrétien and
Paul Martin.
While the frosty relations were due to the Canadian government's opposition to President Bush's policies, there has also been criticism of Chrétien for tolerating anti-American outbursts from his aide, while Martin attempted to paint his opponent as pro-American during the 2004 Canadian federal election.
On September 23, 2005, shortly after an interview where then-U.S. Ambassador to Canada
David Wilkins stirred controversy over comments he made on the case of
Maher Arar, Cellucci gave an interview in which explained his position on the Arar case.
While he was Ambassador, Cellucci had declined to participate into the inquiry into the Americans' "extraordinary rendition" of Arar to Syria and the possible role of Canadian officials in the rendition, being consistent with the Bush administration's position that nothing improper had been done. Cellucci's comments in the 2005 interview were seen as a rebuke to Wilkins. Cellucci acknowledged, "Part of the unfairness was that we took a Canadian citizen, shipped him to a third country without consulting with Canada," apparently exonerating Canadian officials. Cellucci did point out that as a result of the Canadian Government's protest about Arar, the United States and Canada exchanged letters, in which each undertook to notify the other country if either government was going to remove, involuntarily, a National of the other country to a third country. While each country retains all rights to do what is in its security interests, Cellucci believes that as a practical matter, this makes it highly unlikely that anything like the Arar situation will happen again.
The same interview revealed that Cellucci, as a private citizen, also had second thoughts about the stance he had taken as Ambassador on the
Invasion of Iraq. During the lead-up to the
Invasion of Iraq,
Cellucci had put pressure on Canada to join in the invasion, based on the American and UK assertions that Saddam's administration possessed a dangerous arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
But in 2005 Cellucci acknowledged: "We’re not always right, and on that particular one it looks like we weren’t right, although we know at some point in the past he did have these weapons."
Cellucci has said that after thirty-five years in public service he has no intentions of seeking further office. While he has no interest in serving as Vice President, he did not exclusively rule it out. He supported
John McCain's candidacy for president in 2008
TELEX clip: ************************************************** **************************************************
(SBU) There is little basis on which to estimate the size of the "upside"
gains from an integration initiative concentrating on non-tariff barriers of the kind contained in NAI. For this reason, we cannot make claims about how large the benefits might be on a national or continental scale.
When advocating NAI, it would be better to highlight specific gains to individual firms, industries or travelers, and especially consumers.
