Relations between the United States and Canada, though generally close, have undergone changes in tenor over the past three decades. During the 1980s, the two countries generally enjoyed very good relations. The early 1990s brought new governments to Ottawa and Washington, and although Canada™s Liberal Party emphasized its determination to act independently of the United States when necessary, relations continued to be cordial. In early 2006, a minority Conservative government assumed power in Ottawa. It was regarded as being more philosophically in tune with the George W.

In December 2003 a Holstein dairy cow in Washington State tested positive for BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease), the first case discovered in the United States and the second native case in North America. (Canada confirmed a third and then a fourth case in early January 2005.) The U.S. BSE cow and the first two Canadian cows were born in Canada, before both countries banned, in 1997, the practice of feeding most ruminant material back to ruminants, including cattle. The latest Canadian case was in a cow born in March 1998.