Just about every day, Sean McCormack (left), spokesman for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, holds a Q & A session with reporters who cover the State Department or who have a specific interest in the relationship between the U.S. and one or more countries in the world. And so it was that, at his briefing on Jan. 24, McCormack was asked about the results of the Canadian federal election. The transcript — provided by the State Department — of his remarks follows below. Nothing earth-shattering in it but an interesting exchange nonetheless:

QUESTION: Change of subject? Any parting words for Paul Martin?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You caught me off guard there for a second.

 QUESTION: He's not dead. But he's gone.

 MR. MCCORMACK: Shocking. You know, the Canadian elections have taken place. The
 Canadian people have spoken, and the -- I believe that there's going to be a
 new government in Canada led by Mr. Harper. We look forward to working with Mr.
 Harper and his government, just as we would look forward to working with all --
 any Canadian government. Canada is a good friend, a good friend and ally, and
 we look forward to strengthening our already strong bonds, and that we
 certainly wish Mr. Martin well. I believe that he's going to continue to
 participate in political life. We had a good working relationship with the
 Prime Minister. The Secretary went to Ottawa just a short time ago, a couple
 months ago. She had good meetings with him there. And that certainly his voice
 will continue to be heard in Canada.

 QUESTION: But the new government is already -- has already spoken openly about
 trying to improve relations with the United States, not that they're not great,
 but that of course you can always improve, right? So is that something that you
 believe will happen, that these already strong bonds will be strengthened with
 Mr. Harper's arrival?

 MR. MCCORMACK: You know, again, we look forward to working with -- working with
 the new government. If there are opportunities to work on areas, resolve areas
 of disagreement, of course we look forward to doing that. That's something that
 we worked with Prime Minister Martin's government on as well. In any
 relationship that's this close and this important, you're going to have areas
 of disagreement. We talk in an open manner about those areas of disagreement.
 We talk in an atmosphere of mutual respect about those areas of disagreement.

 And I expect that over the coming months and years there are going to be issues
 which we can work well with the Canadian Government on and there are going to
 be areas where we continue to have differences. So we'll see. We look forward
 to working with Mr. Harper's government and look forward to building on the
 already strong foundation that we have.

 QUESTION: Do you think the missile defense question may be reopened under a
 Harper government?

 MR. MCCORMACK: We'll see. We think that, you know, our views -- our views on
 missile defense cooperation are well known. If it's something that the Canadian
 Government wants to talk about, I think of course we'd be open to talking about
 it.

 QUESTION: Would you initiate that in any way or ask for a reconsideration?

 MR. MCCORMACK: I'm not sure that it's something that we would raise. I think we
 certainly remain open to talking about that as well as other issues.

 Yes.