Despite endless negotiations of local public service agreements, local area agreements and a host of other agreements, there was no devolution.
Education is the right of all children - and the obligation of all governments, its primacy proclaimed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and a host of other agreements, including the framework for action approved at the World Education Forum in Senegal.
Such feelings have been fortified by Mr Bush's doctrine of preventive war, Guantánamo, opposition to the world criminal court and a host of other international agreements.
And in recent years, critics of the United Nations in Congress have played down American involvement in world organizations generally, rejected a host of treaties and agreements and built up a huge debt in overdue payments to the United Nations budget.
Although the government is trying hard to find other markets, concluding a host of free-trade agreements with Latin American countries and negotiating broader economic pacts with the European Union and India, the United States remains by far Canada's biggest trading partner, buying 73% of goods exported last year and supplying 63% of imports.
This has raised concerns among some about exposing their immigration status, and some have backed out of agreements to host children.
After a host of complaints about the agreement were posted, a New York judge admitted that there were "significant issues" with the deal, and sent it back to the drawing board.
"There's a host of people who sign confidentiality agreements, whether it is royal family members, some celebs, some business people," he told the Times.
Instead, they will probably come from the host of sub- regional trade agreements now being busily negotiated by Japan, South Korea, Singapore and other countries in East Asia.Virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world, East Asian countries are getting together to make their own economic arrangements.
But each point of agreement raises a host of questions.
