Last week, I wrote about the importance of taking United States President Donald Trump seriously regarding his comments about annexing Canada.
This week, Donald Trump doubled down on his intention by moving from inviting Canada to becoming America’s 51st State to saying, in effect, “That’s what I want.” He continued to spread outright lies about Canada’s solvency and sovereignty. His threats about bringing Canada to its knees through economic warfare, or otherwise, are real.
Equally important are signals that come out almost daily, indicating that Trump is positioning himself for real control over Canada and its abundance of natural resources.
A huge signal is what Donald Trump has been posturing about Ukraine in recent days. He pretends to have empathy with them, but his actions suggest otherwise. He is after Ukraine’s natural resources and has said so.
In spite of the fact that Russia started this war, Trump has indicated that Ukraine should give up part of its territory. He wants to negotiate peace in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has expressed doubts that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should even be at the table.
Trump prefers that only he and Putin sit down to decide what’s best for Ukraine. In doing so, they will protect Russia’s interests, throw a few crumbs to Ukraine, and divide as many spoils as they can for their own purposes. Hardly a democratic process but one that will allow Putin to have real power and influence over its immediate neighbour.
Journalist Andrew Phillips wrote an article in the Toronto Star last week titled “Ukraine Deal Foreshadows Trump’s Plan for Canada.” Phillips had some interesting viewpoints.
He says this in part, “but the way Trump is treating Ukraine is highly instructive. He’s paving the way for Putin to claim back Russia’s traditional sphere of influence regardless of the national aspirations of Ukrainians, or, down the road, perhaps Poles, Lithuanians and who knows who else.”
Phillips also says, “The Americas, very much including Canada, are in the United States’ backyard… The same power principles apply… In Trump’s world, it’s all about power — and we’re just starting to figure out how to deal with it.”
Canadians need to come to grips with the reality that because of the current Administration in the United States, Canada has gone from being its very best friend to a potential enemy. Some of that is a wakeup call and some of it is simply frightening.
Globe & Mail journalist Andrew Coyne put it rather succinctly when he said, “The democratic world will have to get along without America. It may even have to defend itself from it.” Chilling words, but the groundwork for that is clearly present less than a month into the Trump Administration.
I know of many people who are upset with what is happening now, between Canada and the United States. Some of them had empathy for Trump but like Ontario Premier Doug Ford, now feel they have been stabbed in the back by him. Others just shrug their shoulders and feel there is nothing we can do about an inevitable takeover by the United States.
I disagree with that. Canadians have punched well above their weight since before the 21st century. They have done it time and time again in World Wars and other conflicts, including internal crises. We can and we will do it again.
But first we must demonstrate to Donald Trump just how tough Canada is. We may not have military strength, but we have a spine that will not be broken.
Foremost, however, Canadians must become fully united and speak with one voice when it comes to dealing with the Trump Administration. There is nothing Donald Trump likes better than a crack in the veneer of whatever objective he is seeking. He is an expert at exploiting that.
A recent Toronto Star editorial about the Trade war between Canada and the United States, but equally applicable to Trump’s covetous eyes on Canada, titled, “We didn’t start this, but now we must fight,” stated two things that stood out to me. First, “U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to bully us – and how we and other like-minded, similarly threatened countries respond will shape the direction of the world in years to come.”
And later in the same editorial, “It has never been harder (for Canada) to band together, despite our differences, and never more important.” It is a rare moment when I praise the Toronto Star, but on these two points, I say Amen.
When dealing with Donald Trump federal and provincial politicians need to put their partisan issues aside. They need to have a strong and single objective, without division or hesitation, and that objective is to secure Canada’s sovereignty, which includes economic stability.
Then we can deal with other important issues needed to preserve our sovereignty such as finding new trading partners, new military alliances, meeting our NATO commitment, and fostering more global support, as well as internal initiatives to secure our border and to remove trading barriers between provinces.
While diplomacy is important, it must be undertaken with both a carrot and a stick. It is important to Canada’s allies, some of whom have been disturbingly quiet, to see that Canada is fighting back, finding compromise where appropriate, but also imposing tariff for tariff and threat for threat.
Our politicians have a great deal of work to do, but so do we as ordinary Canadians. Purchasing Canadian products and avoiding where possible buying goods made in the United States, limiting our trips and investments there, will have an effect on the American economy and will send a message to Donald Trump.
We also need to show our pride in Canada, with flags and logos, anything to show that Canada is not for the taking, economically, or in any other way. Doppler is taking a step in that direction by adding to our corporate logo, “Proudly Canadian owned and operated.”
What we must not do is goad the beast. Booing American teams and their national anthem at sporting events is not something that is at all helpful. If we show disrespect to someone else’s flag or national anthem, we cannot object when they show disrespect to ours. We are better than that, and in doing so, we only give more ammunition to Trump and his MAGA allies when we stoop to that level.
The bottom line, though, is that Canadians must stand together with a strong, united, and fearless front against the threats from Donald Trump and his Administration. It may well hurt at times, but we will get through it.
I fully subscribe to the famous words of Sir Winston Churchill.
Never surrender!
Hugh Mackenzie
Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District of Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.
Hugh has also served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.
In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.
Currently, Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.
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Hugh Holland, your opposition to any new Canadian oil pipelines is clear.
Your suggestion to ship oil by rail and freighter from Alberta to Ontario and Quebec, “almost immediately” (but not all the way to the east coast, as the Energy East Pipeline was planned for) presumably is to avoid it transiting through pipelines that run through the US. It makes no sense, and would never happen. Why? The oil volumes involved are huge. Ontario and Quebec alone consume over 740,000 barrels per day (b/d) of refined petroleum products (RPP) produced in Canadian refineries. Over 90% of it comes from pipelines flowing through the US. How much rail traffic is that? About 1000 oil tanker cars per day, every day. Good luck finding the rail capacity to handle that, or communities that would tolerate that volume rolling through them every day. As for lake transportation on tankers, today there is no oil transiting the Great Lakes, and there are no oil terminals on the Canadian side. Building them would take years, at huge costs. The environmentalists would freak out at the idea of oil moving on the Great Lakes. Then there’s the roughly 80,000 b/d of RPP imports from the US. The Canadian & US oil industries are very integrated.
I suggest being more realistic about solutions.
I agree with Hugh Mackenzie but I would like to add a further comment. An American president in his second term has the first two years to fulfill his election promises, thereafter two things will happen, firstly the mid term elections will take place and that may well change the disposition of power in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and secondly within the President’s own party there will be some who will want to seek his office for themselves, and in doing so will distance themselves from some of his policies thereby removing their support.
Very good overview Hugh.
The US has done very well with their current systems. Their main problem is the growing internal inequity that the Trump regime selfishly seeks to solve at the expense of former global allies. But there are reasons to be optimistic. There are many factors that will prevent the USA from falling into total autocracy.
• Trump’s declining mental capacity, and Musk’s documented Asperger’s syndrome (see below)
• US public realization that he is going far, far beyond his pre-election promises
• Emphasis on reckless speed with the expense of many costly mistakes.
• Shifting a greater share of wealth to the ultrawealthy at the expense of average Americans
• A sharp drop in stock markets caused by Trump’s economy-crippling tariff wars
• Bannon’s MAGA movement finally seeing they have been duped by Trump and Musk’s DOGE
• 5% of Republicans in Congress and 10% in the Senate finally submitting to their moral compass and getting a backbone to help to preserve the constitution and historical reputation of the USA
• Severe climate impacts and costs destroying support of the climate-prone Republican states
• A coup by career military leaders and diplomats alarmed by Trump’s siding with dictators, destroying the trust of all global allies, and encouraging adversaries.
• All the above
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-mind-faltering-top-psychologist-harry-segal-1886069
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/tech-tycoon-elon-musk-aspergers-34429899
Sven Miglin – A recent open letter from a judge in Florida said, “The King of Chaos couldn’t leave well enough alone. Based on his delusions of perpetual victimhood, out of the clear blue, he’s declared economic war on Canada. On CANADA! And he did it based on Canada being a national security risk to the US! For no good reason, other than the voices in his head that told him it was a war he could win. So why not do it, then?” Again, we’re talking about Canada. Our closest ally, friend and neighbor.” On behalf of an embarrassed nation, people of Canada, I apologize for this idiotic and wholly unnecessary attack. Please leave the back channels open. We the People of progressive persuasion stand with you.”
Jeff Kilgour – Building a 4,600 km pipeline across the hard rock Canadian shield in less than 5 years may not be possible, but we could deploy a couple of large lake freighters and a string of rail cars with the needed capacity to move oil to Ontario and Quebec almost immediately.
I would like to advocate for another resource we should be using in our struggle against a U.S. takeover.
Most of us have American friends and neighbours. We need to be talking to them one to one, neighbour to neighbour, friend to friend. We need to tell them we while we value our friendship, we value our independence even more. We do not like being threatened, coerced and bullied. Friends don’t do that to their friends and neighbours shouldn’t do that to their neighbours.
Some will respond by saying “Oh that’s just Trump posturing and negotiating”. Our respond to this is:
“No thats not Trump speaking, that’s the President of the United States of America speaking. Your President. When he speaks, he speaks for your government, for your country, for you”.
If you don’t like what he says, if you don’t agree with what he says you need to tell him. You need to tell him and all your other leaders that you don’t want to treat your friends and neighbours this way. You need to tell him to stop.
Trump doesn’t care what Canadians think. He doesn’t care what our government says. But he should care what the American voters say. If enough of our American friends raise their voices he may just sit up and take note.
If our American friends aren’t inclined to raise their voices, then the hill we need to climb has just got a lot steeper!
Well said Hugh.
All I will add is that I feel like our politicians are one to two steps behind your level of comprehension of the situation. The alarm bells should be going off, waking up our sleepy nation about the danger from the country to the south of us. An urgent plan of action must be communicated so that we the masses can help ward off what I believe in an imminent and existential threat to Canada’s sovereignty.
Perhaps that is shopping local, not heading to the US for vacations, buying Canadian booze instead of California reds, but we at the local level can have a big impact.
Interprovincial trade barriers must be wiped out. Not in 12 months or 3 years which is typically Canadian, but NOW. By the end of March would be a good objective.
Green lighting pipelines to move crude to our coasts and build refineries allowing us to export around the world rather than to the US. Environmental issues vs Sovereignty…..I vote for remaining Canadian anyday! So….build them NOW, not in 5 years.
Our politicians and business leaders need to get on board……and fast!