Below is an opinion article from this morning's Toronto Sun by John Snobelen - former Member of Provincial Parliament of Ontario. The parts I highlighted are exactly how I (and many Canadians) feel about what the occupant in your Oval Office is all about. Your Republican Party has been hijacked by a cult and you have a tough road ahead to reclaim your country. I'm certainly not saying that the current version of Democratic leadership is without issue or the answer, but America is a mess now and I feel bad for family and friends across the border who have to live through this turmoil.
As angry as Canadians are when hearing how your occupant wants to annex us and erase the "artificially-drawn" border, it has awakened a usually subdued sense of pride in who we are and how we're viewed around the world. Canadians are always proud, but we don't thump our chests and boast about it to the rest of the world. People here are worried about the economic fallout from what your occupant is doing, but we're all walking with our heads a little higher and feeling good about who we are.
We will NEVER become a "51st state"...image how you would think if the same rhetoric was aimed at America. We all know that your occupant wants access to our resources and northern borders - his verbal diarrhea about better military protection and no tariff trade is BS. He sees himself as a dictator, and admires Putin - it's hard to believe he has as much support as he does (I don't get it...).
It's hard to believe so much damage has been done in just a couple of months. Good luck America - I'll miss my vacations in New Mexico, the Frozen Four and trips to Maine to watch the Black Bears, but I'll certainly visit again when you have real leadership in your White House.
I found myself at a rodeo south of the border last week. It goes without saying the event was in a rural area in a deeply red state. It was a good rodeo. The stock promoter and cowboys put on a great show and my old friend Bobby Kerr entertained the crowd with his mustang act.
Most of my friends in the cowboy world know I have more than a passing interest in politics generally and in Canada specifically so, deep in MAGA country, I was expecting a few pointed political conversations. What I heard kind of surprised me.
While my friends understood the need to cut the size and cost of government, and most probably voted for Trump, they all wondered why they were suddenly expected to hate Canada. What’s up with that?
It’s a heck of a question.
Before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln opined that the succession of the states was a physical impossibility. He said it was akin to a man and woman divorcing and being condemned to live forever in the same house with a joint bank account. The same is true for the relationship between two historically good neighbours. We share more than just trade. Our cultures aren’t the same, but our values are — or used to be — similar.
Cultures are shaped by geography and weather. A lobster fisherman in Bass Harbor, Maine faces the same rough seas and cold winds as his neighbour in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. A farm family in Ripley, Ontario says the same prayers for rain and sun as a family in Findley, Ohio. And cowboys in Longview, Alberta and Shelby, Montana share the same long, cold winters and, I’m guessing, the same love of Ian Tyson’s music.
We aren’t so different. Which is a good thing to keep in mind as we are pulled to react to the taunts and threats emanating from Washington. Trump claims to be a master negotiator — and maybe he is. But I don’t think he knows or cares much about the fishermen, cowboys and farmers on either side of the border.
Which doesn’t make an irrational president any less real. Canada and the rest of the world are experiencing a suddenly unreliable America.
This America cannot be trusted. No agreement is sacrosanct. America is no longer willing to be its word on anything.
Inevitably, this gives great relief to the world’s madmen. For the rest, it calls for unity to take up the leadership once provided by America. We will need to lean on each other for trade and security.
This is a good thing. It is time for us all to grow up and take responsibility for our financial well-being and collectively resist the imperial tendencies of Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping.
But, unlike our friends in Asia and Europe, Canada will enter this new era sharing a physical boundary with an, at best, unreliable neighbour. We share a house and a joint bank account with a suddenly angry, unstable partner.
Trump is not a fad. America has drifted into a mean place, and it won’t find its way out anytime soon.
The cult of mean, petty, vindictive, volatile politics isn’t our problem. The fishermen, farmers and cowboys of America will have to sort that out.
The job for our leaders is to ensure we don’t go down the same path and to ensure Americans continue to wonder why they are required to hate Canada.
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