Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler
David and Goliath
The time has come for Canada to forget about Donald Trump. It is true he is larger than life. Whenever you turn on the TV, it is all about Trump and no one likes that better than The Donald himself. Canadians, it seems, are as mesmerized by the Trump phenomena as the Americans. But enough is enough.
During the past six months, public policy in Canada, at least on the federal level, has centred around what Donald Trump will or will not do as President of the United States. Civil servants wrote endless papers on what a Trump presidency would mean for Canada. Cabinet ministers went on retreats to figure out how to handle Trump. The Prime Minister chooses his words oh so carefully every time he has to address an issue raised by the President of the United States. Everyone tip toes around because they are afraid of the elephant in the next room. Well, it’s time for that to stop.
Canada is a small country in the great scheme of things but it has long proven that it is a mighty one. Through war and peace, through adversity and prosperity, we have earned our place as one of the most respected countries in the world with one of the strongest economies. We do not need to take second seat to any other nation. To coin a phrase, the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
Recently, President Donald Trump has decided to dump on Canada. He has said that Canada has done “disgusting” things to America. He is talking free trade of course but he is also trashing America’s strongest ally. They have no greater trading partner than Canada and they have no greater friend than Canada, in a world that is becoming more and more wary of a nation that is led by Donald Trump.
Renegotiating NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was a plank in the Trump election campaign and no one should be surprised that he has now put it in play. But preempting the process by slapping ridiculously high import taxes on Canadian dairy and lumber products is hardly negotiation. Nor is calling Canada names.
Last week Donald Trump threatened to pull the United States out of NAFTA. He changed his mind, he said, when both the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada phoned him and petitioned him to renegotiate, rather than pull out. Being the nice guy he is, according to Trump, he agreed, but then effectively said that if he didn’t get his way, he was out of there.
Trump makes it sound like our Prime Minister and his Mexican counterpart went begging, if, in fact, that was the tenor of their conversations (Trump doesn’t always tell the truth). Canadians have no reason to beg. We may be known as gentle souls, but we also have backbone. If he has not already done so, Prime Minister Trudeau should make it equally clear to Trump that a renegotiated NAFTA deal must also be fair to Canada or WE will be the ones pulling out. Trump’s way or the highway is not a good strategy for Canada.
The United States is an important market for Canada but it is not the only one. With the collapse of the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement, Canada has many new opportunities for direct trade deals. And the U.S. cannot walk away from Canada. Not only are we their largest customer but they rely on us for commodities like oil and lumber that they cannot sufficiently produce in their own country. The Keystone pipeline, for example, is dead without Canada.
Canada should not over-emphasise the Trump phenomena and we certainly should not be paralyzed by it. At heart, Donald Trump is a bully. Bullies respond to strength. This country has an abundance of strength. We need to concentrate on those strengths and forget about our preoccupation with Donald Trump. We are perfectly capable of standing up to him. It is a classic example of David and Goliath. And we have the slingshot!
Hugh Mackenzie
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Canada can’t control what Trump does. We can control, however, the threat to democracy that is underway within our own country, the irreversible damage our current government is inflicting. Most, however, chose to ignore and fail to acknowledge the reality that Trudeau is a serious threat to Canada. This is where Canadians should focus and become knowledgeable about his agenda. Trudeau is in the process of ramming through changes that will severely damage our Canadian democracy and identity. He plans to silence and take debate power away from the opposition and backbencher MP’s and keep increasing our debt to insurmountable levels. He has limited our freedom of speech with bill M 103, pushing Islamaphobia and diversity relentlessly while totally ignoring racism and discrimination directed at, among others, our Jewish, Christian, white, Hindu population. He dismisses anyone that gets in his way (high level military dismissals are an excellent example of this), but stands behind his government pals even when their dismissal is clearly warranted. He is ensuring that all immigrants will have the right to vote by the 2019 election and this vote will not come in the best interests of all Canadians.
He has given preferential access to billionaires from China, and let that country buy a sensitive high-tech firm against the advice of Canadian security officials. He has given billions more to other countries while our own people suffer. He has weakened our defences, bringing military spending down to its lowest level as a percentage of GDP ever in our history. He has foolishly and dangerously rolled out the welcome mat to let everyone in our country, and then refused to secure the border as the consequences of his actions manifested themselves. Our Canadian dictator says, “We should have a conversation as a society about labelled radicals still working at Canadian airports.” He encourages convicted terrorists to stay in Canada ( a Canadian is a Canadian), has successfully passed Bill C 6 in this regard, refuses to appoint Supreme Court judges so hard core criminals just walk away after their cases don’t come to trial in 30 months. More recently he has established a Canada Infrastructure Bank scheme, a 35 billion infrastructure bank funded by taxpayers. with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager which manages investments worth trillions of dollars, virtually writing policy and influencing how this bank will work.
He had forced a carbon tax on Canadians. This makes our economy far less competetive, and takes more money out of the pockets of consumers.
It will hurt economic growth, and slow our economy down in both the short and long-term. This comes at the same time the United States is making their economy more competitive, which gives them a far greater advantage over us in the endless competition for investment and jobs.
He has expanded the government at the expense of Canadian taxpayers. As the government gets larger, more money is being directed into less efficient uses. That money is taken from Canadians, who are already overtaxed and struggling with a high debt load and stagnant wages.
This damages the consumer engine of our economy, weakening the strength of our domestic market. That forces us to rely even more on exports, which – as we are finding out – are subject to the whims of other nations of
On this issue, he is more subtle, but it could have long-term consequences. He is a globalist, elitist, focused on winning international praise and attention, including the UN, rather than stand up for the interests of Canada.
This will have very long term consequences for Canada. He will say all the right things about protecting various industries as they are challenged by the United States, but his default position is to always favour global institutions over Canadian workers. This is what drives the carbon tax, the expansion of the bureaucracy, and the political correctness that we see emanating from Trudeau.
JUSTIN TRUDEAU TOLD THE NEW YORK TIMES THAT CANADA IS BECOMING A NEW KIND OF COUNTRY, NOT DEFINED BY OUR HISTORY OR EUROPEAN NATIONAL ORIGINS, BUT BY A “PAN-CULTURAL HERITAGE”. “THERE IS NO CORE IDENTITY, NO MAINSTREAM IN CANADA,” TRUDEAU SAID, CONCLUDING THAT HE SEES CANADA AS “THE FIRST POST-NATIONAL STATE.” EVEN THE NEW YORK TIMES CALLED THE SUGGESTION “RADICAL.”…….
It is apparent that he wishes to cancel our national identity and publicly states that nationalism is bad and Canada, in his opinion has no cultural roots. Canadian patriotism-forget it. This attitude is beyond disrespectful and dismissive of the Canadians who sacrificed and patriotically gave so much to preserve our freedom and way of life during both world wars. If Canada became a post-national state we would cease to resemble a real country. We would be hopelessly divided, and thus extremely vulnerable to dangerous outside forces.
Derek, Dave and Rob,
I love that you’re discussing word usage. Not enough people do.
Both of these instances (a whole nother and phenomena) are acceptable, if uncommon, choices in the context of an informal piece (i.e. opinion rather than news) and we stand by them. See here https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whole%20nother and here https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phenomena.
Thanks for reading so carefully!
Exactly right, Dave. And using “phenomena” (plural) when one means “phenomenon” (singular) is likewise ubiquitous.
Well said.
Doppler should submit your piece to a national newspaper!
Well done. Required reading for all. Thank you.
“a whole nother” is just poor diction! it should be “a whole other” but most folks are just too lazy when they speak, or mumble as the case may be!
Today my cynicism about politicians and their antics has gotten the best (better) of me. I am tired of Trump’s outright stupidity and those who follow him including the legitimate news/journalists who continue to buy into his baiting of them (good comments Hugh).
Canada isn’t fairing much better but because of Mr. Trump a lot of stuff is just happening under the radar so to speak. We elected a sunny ways team and that is just what we are getting; same old same old. What has really changed? Just the name. In Ontario it is no different. Choose between the devil or the deep blue sea across the land (BC and NS). Let’s set dates for elections, unless we choose to go to the polls sooner.
I am not American – don’t want to be American – but did read somewhere a comment about a government by the people, for the people. Is’t that supposed to apply to us too (democratic elections) where a minority of people elect a majority government.
Sorry for the rant but I’ve had enough
One more thing – I hear a lot of people use the words – a whole nother… – when did nother become a word?
What we have to remember is that everything is brinksmanship negotiating with Trump and we need to be smart, know our facts and be determined, not get into a power struggle with a narcissist.
I agree Hugh, we do have to have a backbone but let’s be more strategic. Trump will easily underestimate Canada and this is the opportunity for us. This is the time and situation when Trump will need a win but at the same time he understands the art of negotiation. Why should we not get a solid win ourselves!
Wonderful article, Hugh! One of your best! All Canadians should have a chance to read it!
And Canada cannot only look South, but North to Russia. NBC new just aired a piece on the Russian buildup in the Artic where 13% of the word’s oil and 30 % of the natural gas lies. Truly frightening the military build up they have underway.
Well said Hugh !