Listening to question period today, it was hard to believe that it wasn't so long ago in this country that the winning political play was to maintain a respectful distance from Washington.

Canadian politicians strived to avoid being seen to be too closely aligned with the U.S. government. Now, not so much.

Susan Bonner

The off-the-scale popularity of U.S. President Barack Obama has created a political paradigm shift in Canada-U.S. relations, which seemed to explode into being on the day of the presidential visit.

At that time, Conservative cabinet ministers were quite comfortable, indeed eager, to talk about the rapport they felt they had experienced with Obama.

Today in QP, Industry Minister Tony Clement made three references to "working with the Obama administration" and he was far from being the only one to do so.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty mentioned the visit in one of his replies and Environment Minister Jim Prentice managed to fit in two passing remarks about working with his counterparts in Washington.

For his part, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a day trip of the trend.

He was in New York where he said he hoped to continue the "momentum" that came from the Obama visit.

— Susan Bonner