President George W. Bush stopped for a day of neighbourly diplomacy in Canada yesterday. He thanked those "Canadian people who came out to wave - with all five fingers" along his route into Ottawa. Then he delivered the verbal equivalent of a single-fingered rebuff to his many critics north of the border.

"I haven't seen the polls you look at," Mr Bush said, when asked about his unpopularity among Canadians. "We just had a poll in our country," Mr Bush continued with a faint smile, "where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to be - stay in place for four more years."