A longtime friend, now part of Ottawa’s diplomatic community, married into a family of lawyers with an established practise in a central Mexican city. Life was good until the family was approached by an underworld cartel looking to acquire a property the family owned.
It might be for sale, the family said.
No, we don’t wish to buy it, was the response. You will sign it over to us for nothing. The ‘or else’ didn’t need saying.
At first their targets ignored the extortionists. But the threats (including photos of my friend and her infant daughter) escalated to the point that the young familt decided to flee — first to an American border city where they knew they wouldn’t be safe — and then to Canada,
I was reminded of their story by Trump’s rantings to the Davos crowd vis-a-vis Canada becoming the 51st state. There’s no distinction to be made between #47 and a Mexican cartel boss. “Nice little country you got here…a shame if something would happen to it.”
Like that Mexican family, the initial reaction is one of indignation. Greenland, the Panama Canal or Canada aren’t for sale. But the threats continue, the hostility ramped up. Anxiety builds among those targeted. But unlike my friends, there’s no escaping to a safe haven.
Canada isn’t dealing well with Trump’s megalomania, but I don’t suppose anyone else is. A big problem is the power-sharing agreement between Ottawa and the provinces. Gray areas abound on the jurisdictional map. Energy was a federal competency; it has been steadily eroded by provincial pressure depending on whether it involves fossil fuels, electricity or nuclear — or whether it’s a have or have-not province in the Canadian interprovincial wealth-transfer system, with or without a carbon-compensation structure. Regardless of which political party wins the spring federal election, the winners will get to work with a gridlocked confederation crippled by interprovincial trade barriers and jurisdictional spats.
…which brings me back to how best to deal with Trump. Is he corruptible, ready to drop this lunacy if the price is right? Or should Canada address the list of pretexts Trump plopped in front of Justin Trudeau at that Mar-a-Largo dinner? Trumpian grievance creep is notorious; what was a GDP two-percent NATO contribution in Trump’s first term was more than doubled to five in his Davos call.
Other U.S. pet peeves — security and fentanyl — are issues Canada should be dealing with long before we were forcibly reminded of having swept them under the rug for far too long. What have been justified as progressive policies, such as allowing needle centres in residential neighbourhoods and homeless encampments in our city centres are already generating pushback throughout the country. Shouldn’t we have been dealing with these surface-level issues, along with homelessness and ruinous cost of living increases?
Over the past months I’ve been reading up on what Canada has been up to in addressing some of the more glaring shortcomings, such as our subpar NATO commitments. Halifax Shipyard has just launched the last of six ice-capable warships. Lauzon’s Davieship is preparing to cut
metal for 10 icebreakers, including three medium and one polar-class ship to replace our ageing fleet. Military equipment specialists, like Rheinmetall Canada in Brantford, Ontario, are pioneering new generations of materiel inspired by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
What irks me is the absence from the leadup to next March’s federal election of authentic discussion about Canada’s role on a planet where America, Russia and China are jockeying for world supremacy. Do these bubble dwellers think Canadians can’t handle reality? I’ve tuned out of the major parties’ juvenile attacks on their opponents, knowing that Justin Trudeau and his inner cabinet remain in power during prorogation. I don’t know many Canadians who like the idea of a government they don’t support making daily decisions that will bear on Canada’s future as a nation, but without Parliament’s counterbalance.
I lie awake nights knowing that Canada is a rudderless ship in stormtossed, reef-strewn seas. This worldscape we’re living in has no spectator seats, nowhere to take shelter except for the ultra-rich. And as my Mexican friends learned, the rest of the world may sympathize, but don’t expect them to rush to your rescue. They have their own problems with America’s extortionist-in-chief.
thousandlashesdotca 