For over a century, the United States of America and Canada have stood shoulder to shoulder against forces that would threaten our Western democracies. Our sons and daughters have sacrificed their blood in conflicts spanning the globe, standing up for our shared values. From trenches in Europe, to jungles in Asia, the mountains of Afghanistan, across the length and breadth of the world’s oceans, we have fought side by side, confident that we have each other’s backs.
This week, our closest friends have revealed themselves as enemies bent on our destruction.
Small wonder that our nation finds itself now reeling in horrified disbelief as the President of the United States, the leader of our dearest ally, the bastion of the free world, the nation with which we have long boasted to share “the world’s longest undefended border,” has not only unjustly hammered our economy with outrageous and potentially crippling tariffs, but stated plainly his plan to annex our country.
Make no mistake. This is not a joke.
As much as we may stare through our curtains at the posturing belligerence of Donald Trump, just as we might gaze upon the antics of a mentally ill neighbour ranting in the streets—remember, that neighbour is brandishing weapons and is clearly meaning to do us harm.
Donald Trump is convinced that the road to MAGA is paved with threats against his nation’s closest friends, fueled by grievances both imagined and overblown—and his nation seems unable or unwilling to call the ambulance. In fact, they are apparently busy taking the ambulance wheels off.
In recent days, we have been witness to one of the most un-Canadian of protests. Fans at sports arenas across the nation are actively booing the strains of the US national anthem, an ode most of us could sing as well as American citizens.
It is hard to overstate the pain; it is deep.
What makes it all the worse is the apparent indifference being displayed by the American public, with the man and woman in the street shrugging in indifference as more than a century of deep bonds are severed and so many of their neighbours’ lives are shattered.
An unsettling notion comes too easily to mind—given the musings emanating from the White House.
In the days before the outbreak of the Second World War, a pact between Germany and the Soviet Union was secretly created wherein both those authoritarian nations agreed to divide neighbouring Poland between them. What transpired in the two-hour secret conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held in Helsinki during his first term as president? History might eventually tell us, but the clues are unsettlingly similar.
If there is a silver lining to come from this current turn of events, it is that Canadians are coming together to combat these economic atrocities being foisted upon us. We will not go down without a fight. There are those who say that will be playing into the Donald’s hands, as any resistance risks stoking America into a military rage, but the sentiment against foreign wars runs deep in the heart of the MAGA movement and that may buy us some time.
We have in our toolbox many things that can blunt the impact of tariffs, not the least of which are our own interprovincial trade barriers, the removal of which can boost our internal economy to nearly offset the impact of the tariffs.
In the meantime, too many of us are in the denial, anger and bargaining stages of the five stages of grief. We don’t have time for depression (even though recession may well be upon us). Let’s move into acceptance, roll up our sleeves and get to work rebuilding our economy. If we focus on that, we will come out of this stronger and much, much wiser.
