— Feature, Musings —12.10.2024 01:40 PM
My latest: no way, USA!
In October 1988, the Liberal Party started running an election ad in French about a free trade deal with the United States: “There’s just one line that’s getting in the way” of an agreement, the ad declared. Then, a hand appeared and erased the border between Canada and the United States.
Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives shrugged. Turner was spent force, they reckoned. The election was in the bag. Mulroney was going to win again.
On October 25, the English-language leaders’ debate took place at CJOH in Ottawa. There were no fireworks for most of it. And then, in the last few minutes of the debate, the discussion turned to the free trade deal.
Turner wheeled on Mulroney, jabbing a finger at him: “We gave away our energy. We gave away our investment. We sold out our supply management and agriculture. And we have left hundreds of thousands of workers vulnerable because of the social programs involved. I happen to believe you have sold us out.”
Mulroney grew red in the face. He sputtered and tried to interrupt. Turner was contemptuous: “[The] ability of this country to remain as an independent nation, that is lost forever and that is the issue of this election, Sir.” He said the word “sir” like it was a curse.
Turner went on: “We built a country East and West and North. We built it on an infrastructure that deliberately resisted the continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years we’ve done that. With one signature of a pen, you’ve reversed that, thrown us into the North-South influence of the United States and will reduce us, I am sure, to a colony of the United States.”
The impact was immediate. Within 48 hours, 72 per cent of Canadians said Turner won the debate. Internal polls, broadcaster Steve Paikin wrote in his excellent Turner biography, showed Mulroney was in big trouble – as many as 70 Tory seats were now in jeopardy, and potentially his Parliamentary majority, too. Frantic, the Conservatives started running ads calling Turner a liar and showing a hand re-drawing the border. The Tories’ ad guru said they were only saved by “bombing the bridge” on Turner’s credibility.
Which brings us to today, and Donald Trump. Who, according to his social media postings, is already regarding us as “a colony of the United States,” as John Turner memorably put it, so many years ago.
On Monday night, Trump posted this on his Truth Social platform: “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT”
The “DJT” means Trump wrote his statement, personally. A few days earlier, he was a bit more oblique, and posted an AI-generated picture of himself under the words: “Oh, Canada.” In it, he is facing a mountain – one he possibly thought was in the Canadian Rockies, but which is actually the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Confronted with all this, Trump’s fans in Canada shrugged. He’s just joking, they said, which is what they always say when Trump says something stupid.
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Doug Ford is going to win a third majority by running hard against Trump. His off the cuff remarks the last few days reveal that intuitive calculation. He can smell it like a dog smells a cooked steak. Liberals who think voters view them as the Trump solution have completely lost the plot.
JT completely ceded ground on the Trump mess. That photo and the huge smiles at the dinner will be in NDP attack ads for sure. No one is ever going to see him standing up to Trump now.
Campaigns are about emotional sentiment these days. JT voluntarily offered himself up on a platter to be seen as a craven coward, begging a pseudo fascist for favor. That’s the pre game image of the next campaign and there’s no hope in fixing it.
I dunno, my sense is that a lot of Canadians are actually quite pragmatic when it comes to relations with the US. Yes, there are these loser xenophobe knee-jerk lefties, but I don’t think they form anything close to a majority of Canadians.
I think what most Canadians want is sensible negotiations and solutions that will keep things running along with a minimum of disruption and stupidity.
Most Canadians are unaccustomed to dealing with bullies. Sucking up to them only makes things worse. The only thing they respect is a punch in the mouth. Maybe Canadians want pragmatism, but that is off the table for 4 years. Ford gets it. Justin’s team does not.
It has been famously stated that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Ginning up fear of an American take-over of Canada has been a long cherished shibboleth of the LPC (and Laurentian Elites). It gets trotted out when the Libs and NDP have run out of their normal excuses and scare tactics (like the “secret agenda”). These geniuses all figured thought Trump would never be back after 2020, and they acted accordingly. Now the have egg all over the collective faces, and are trying to cope.
Interesting sub-facet of the Free Trade situation, but history has shown that in the grand scheme of things, the Liberals were very very wrong about NAFTA. Nearly all Liberals now admit NAFTA was a good thing, and they defend and wish to continue it.
So while I agree Trump’s current approach is moronic and xenophobic, I don’t agree there are many parallels to the free trade situation of the late 1980s. Thank goodness the Liberals didn’t get their way on that one.
Notwithstanding that the annexation of Canada would likely mean 53 or more states, the reasons for wanting to takeover is pretty clear – we are the greatest country in the world for which one can live!
I have often marveled at how pre-occupied centre-left to left movements are to our great neighbour.
It’s such a small penis syndrome. Warren that is not at all directed at you, I read your article as observation how we in Canada view ourselves in the North American context.
Canada has always been at its best when its leaders stood strong. I have no desire to join the union south of the border. If DJT truly wants to make Canada a state – he has all the tools at his disposal to do so. I’m not thinking his invasion of Canada would go quite so poorly as Putin’s of Ukraine.
I’d much rather everybody walk back the rhetoric that includes Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau. Stop running to the media for a sound bite. Lock yourselves in a goddamn room and figure out a real strategy not to beat the Americans, but to compete with them to show them by example not by virtue signalling that we are an important friend and neighbour.
You can be tough, but you don’t have to be stupid. You can have retaliatory measures but let’s not play that hand in open media before anything even happens.
I do think it will happen. I don’t think tariffs are about the border or trade but more about funding a mandate.
In the 1770s, some of our for fathers decided not to join the US rebellion against England. During two world war Canada punched above its weight and was there leading the way for US to join in a decisive victory.
Let’s find a way for my money The first step should be an election on the issue of who Canadians wish to defend their interest against or alongside this new US regime.
I am not worried that conservatives will give away Canada. If the majority of my fellow citizens disagree it gives what is now a lame duck, Prime Minister a mandate.
Canada has changed since 1988. That world, that border, that 1812 overture mindset is long dead, and buried. The options today, deep into the 21st century, are a world away from your dreams of a self directed country. Canada’s future is now being reoriented with and within America in totality. The machinations we are seeing in response to the earth shattering realignment of the English speaking protestant peoples is upon us, finally. This nation, captured for so long by Catholics, both Quebecers and the coal dust immigrants from wave after wave of 20th century migration, crested back then, in 1988. It is now preparing to be reborn, and be consumed, all in one shining moment. You can be upset, you can scream at us powerless troubadours, or you can join the choir, after all, to heat is to melt, to become one. We are now white hot, burning to the core by the Somalian shore, and what matters not is our past, what matters is the end of the now, of the insistent attacks of the new sea peoples with their religions of inclusive, iron fisted hates, their Orwellian double speaking tongues and their murderous, blood curdling hatred… of us. Trump is just a by product of this upheaval, soon to be forgotten. When the histories of the now are written, and the old countries borders, the artificial Machiavellian separations dividing into weakness the strongest book of common culture the world will ever know, when that history is written, the five eyes will be one.
Powerless troubadours is a good band name
I personally took Trump’s talk and social media statements as jokes. However, I am quite surprised by the number of people that are in my circle, who would be quite fine with being taken over by the USA. I’m talking folks from Red, Blue, and Orange constituents. I haven’t yet figured out if that a product of having endured years of Trudeau and his clowns, or because of some love of Mr. Trump….or of the USA itself. The whole discussion warrants some further discussion and investigation. Maybe Mr. Trump was sending up a trial balloon to see what the appetite was, north of the border. We do indeed live in interesting times.