Dakota Beacon

Why should Canada be important to America?  To most Americans, Canada is a place to go hunting, a place with quaint accents, the colorful and whimsical Musical RIde of the scarlet-clad Mounties, not a football in 21st Century global geopolitics.  But, in fact, that might be what Canada will become in the near future.  

This is why last Monday’s election in Canada is significant.  And until very recently, the result would have been unexpected.  Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party, went viral with his “apple” interview, and his staunch defense of Canadian sovereignty, his opposition to “woke” ideology, support for smaller government and for the Canadian economy and strong opposition to mandating of vaccines (anyone who watched the truckers’ convoy and its aftermath opposing the vaccine will understand the visceral impact of this), his concern about over-immigration.  His message was resonating with Canadians who have become so sick of former PM Trudeau that they - Canadians! - were actually demonstrating against him and calling him out.  He was so hated, in fact, that he was forced to step down and allow Mark Carney to take his place (a man who had not to that point won any election anywhere), so as not to be trampled at the polls by the rush to Poilievre’s camp.  

This week Poilievre and his party went down in flames, Poilievre himself losing his own seat in parliament.  What happened?  What changed so suddenly from last summer to Monday night?  In large part, Trump happened.  

Trump began his belligerent side show of focusing on trade deficits and how he was going to put that right overnight.  In retrospect it might seem that he should have first kept other promises like pulling support out from under the festering Ukraine war for example.  True, he has also done a few things right - that cannot be denied.  We could cite deportations, cleaning up the military, standing against wokeness in the culture, but when it comes to foreign/economic policies and more than that, Trump’s obnoxious presentation, we need to acknowledge this.  A few months ago, when asked about Canada, he rambled on about the trade deficit and his plan to impose crippling tariffs.  He finished his rant with the intention of annexing the nation of Canada.  He referred to Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau” from the state of Canada.  He taunted, he insulted, he had a Trumpish ball insulting and humiliating Canada.  Not just Trudeau - that would have been acceptable to most of us and probably to a lot of Canadians as well - but he kicked out of his way all sense of respect or decorum in his revelry at their expense.  

This was not helpful to Poilievre, who had been largely supportive of Trump, asserting his business acumen and alluding to the fact that we were historically strong allies sharing the same geopolitical adversaries - such as China.  Until Trump revealed his plans for Canada, Poilievre’s belief was that the United States and Canada would go forward as a united front and as good trade partners, while being bastions of freedom and human rights.  And then Trump opened his mouth and out poured ridicule, taunts, threats . . . and crushing tariffs.  Had he sat up all night for a year trying to think of a way to ensure that Canada would elect another Liberal, he would have done exactly this.  

It left Poilievre - a legitimate, committed champion of the right (or at least center-right) in Canada, with nowhere to go, nothing to say.  Trump set out to make himself the most hated man in Canada, taking Trudeau’s crown away, and everything Poilievre said sounded like Trump to Canadians.  That together with his earlier support and praise of Trump, drove some away and gave Liberals volumes of talking points with which to flay him.  Very soon, the common-sense, bold apple-crunching Poilievre had become synonymous with the now hated Trump.

The Liberals, near death under Trudeau, and not much better with Mark Carney, got life breathed into them and their demise on hold, other smaller parties saw opportunities for quasi-coalition status by dropping out in favor of the Liberals. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP threw support to the Liberals, the Green Party and other lesser parties also dropped out and their adherents went over to Carney.  Obviously there will be some rewards for this.  And it was easy to get uncommitted voters to cast their vote “against Trump” by voting against Poilievre.

So Poilievre lost his hat and seat in parliament.  And Trump played a sizable part in this.  Meh, says Trump, why should we care?  It’s only Canada and they just want to be a state anyway.  RIght?  

First of all, Canadians for the most part do not want to be American.  Only people who don’t know them would think that.  While it’s true that Alberta, an outlier for sure, has rattled a bit about separating from Canada - which is legal there and established as a right by the Quebecois referendum many years ago - and many of those supporting that also had the somewhat knee-jerk and hair-brained idea that the logical next step would be to become a state, most Canadians think of themselves as Canadians and value their own cultural history and color.  It’s not surprising that someone like Trump would just assume everyone wants to be American.  It would be accurate, perhaps, to say that a large majority of people would like to live in freedom and wealth they believe we have, but not to become “Americans”.  

Secondly, Americans, and especially conservative Americans should never wish to admit Canada or any part of Canada as a state!  Conservatives have been terrified of the idea of creating the District of Columbia a state.  Doing so would give Democrats two senators and one congressman.  It could doom the future of the Republican or any other future conservative party to certain defeat.  Conservatives have resoundingly rejected the idea of admitting Puerto Rico for the same reasons.  Yet there are far more compelling reasons to admit these first.  Puerto Rico has been a U.S. territory and then a U.S. commonwealth since 1898.  Not only that - Puerto Ricans are already full U.S. citizens.  D.C. speaks for itself - they are the only Americans other than Puerto Ricans who cannot vote in federal elections and have no vote in congress.  

Why oppose them and seek to annex Canada as a state?  It’s insane.  It should be laughed off and probably would be by Trump himself if anyone suggested that to him as a real policy.  

But it is more than enough to anger and irritate Canadian voters and alarm some of them.  

For 200 years we have been at peace with Canada - and for its 158 years as an independent nation - and overall it has been a pleasant neighbor.  True, we have some trade issues, but these could have been corrected over time with diplomacy and respect and perhaps then with a responsible and patriotic Canadian leader.  

What we might be looking forward to now is not a pretty picture.  Those who have followed Canadian news and leaders, are well aware of Justin Trudeau’s admiration of Xi Jin-Ping and the Chinese communist way of governance.  He often observed that the Chinese manner of controlling its people allowed for very streamlined policy making.  When you don’t need to consider the wishes of the people it’s like that.  Carney is a bit to the left of Trudeau and a more serious person.  He will be a strong supporter of China.  China is an aggressive kind of friend to have.  If one doubts this he can consult the relationships among China’s “Belt-and-Road” partners.  Where China goes, China tends to take control.  This is one reason Trump wants to change our relationship with Panama vis-a-vis the Panama Canal.  China has taken control from Panama.  

How will this affect Canada?  For one thing an alliance with Canada will go a long way to solving China’s food problem.  Food production in China was recklessly destroyed long ago by Mao Tse Tung in his Great Leap Forward and his cultural revolution, tearing farmers from their land and putting them in collective housing.  China is in high production mode - they can use all the mineral resources they can lay their hands on.  Canada is rich in minerals and also in forestry.  Wood and minerals are valued commodities in China.  Carney will invite and embrace Chinese participation in education, in industry, in commerce, agriculture, in all types of business.  Their influence will be profound in Canada.  What about coastline?  As most of us know, Canada has the longest coastline of any nation on earth, with some 125,567 miles of it and on the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  Think of the naval and satellite bases, the shipping advantages, the strategic dominance this could create.  And all of this would lie between the United States and its largest state, Alaska.  

Under Trudeau’s government, China was already training its military on Canadian soil.  Why would we think this will not expand under Carney?  If Trump thinks we “need” Greenland, maybe he will conclude that we “need” Canada - it's a more compelling case in the view of many.  So will Trump feel he has to make a state of this - assuming the Chinese allow this to happen?  Has he dealt himself a hand in which drowning the Republican party with Canadian votes is the only option left to him?  A tic-tac-toe game gone awry?  It doesn’t look much like 4-D chess to some of us.  

Where Poilievre was sounding the alarm on unbridled immigration, the Liberals encourage and expand it.  Think what this means.  What if Mexico decided to stop immigration?  The biggest beneficiary would be the U.S.  Our terrifying immigration problem is largely people who come through - not from - Mexico.  They come from Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.  If Mexico stopped this we would have instant relief in America.  Now, with the attention on the southern U.S. border, there will be increased pressure on our Canadian border - which is a stretch of over 5,000 miles, much of it in remote and unmonitored areas.  If Poilievre had been elected he would have been able to slow or even halt this or put it on pause so as to vet immigrants at least.  Remember - in Canada a Prime Minister has far more power than a U.S. President to get his policies through.  He comes with the power to enact his policies.  Now we have someone who - at the expense of actual Canadians as well as Americans - will open all flood gates (or keep them open as they are) and ramp it up.  How will this affect us?  Not in a positive way, we can be sure.  Now, with southern access to the U.S. limited, the obvious alternative is our only other border - that 5,000 mile one with Canada.  It will be expensive and very unpleasant to enforce this one.  Poilievre would have done that for us.  Wouldn't it be great if Mexico had a chance to elect a leader who would do the same?  (It will never happen there but if it did we could expect Trump to swagger in there and up-end it anyway.)  Just one more "uninteded" consequence, another unforced error by Trump.

None of what Trump has done or said regarding Canada has helped America achieve a better future, much less made it great again.  What he has done by sticking his nose in and meddling in Canadian politics by foisting this tariff on them before they even had a chance to choose a different leadership and perhaps a better trade policy, was near criminal.  It was full-out stupid.  And this will certainly not be the last of his mischief.  As a TV game show host he was entitled to be outrageous and absurd.  As a President of the United States he has no right to play that part.  Someone should tell him to knock it off . . . wait . . . that is what Poilievre did tell him, and he was right on that.  Whatever power we have in the U.S., we should not misuse it or flaunt it.  We should use what power we have judiciously and diplomatically as far as possible and above all we should use it to further the legitimate interests of the United States, not to humiliate or manipulate others.  We’ve seen what a failure “nation building” was in the Bush era.  Now we can find out what “nation dismantling” could do in the Trump era.

Trump has done some things right and may do many more.  Deporting illegal alien violent criminals is a good idea.  Closing the Mexican border is a good idea.  Ending the “wokeness” trend and stopping DEI hiring is good.  Cleaning up the military is huge.  Downsizing the enormous hulking bureaucracy is much needed, as is working on diminishing the national debt. We can even see some benefit in careful use of tariffs to help create balance in our trade and to bring home much needed jobs.  But bullying other countries for the sake of it, making light of our allies’ elections and governments does little or nothing to improve America’s prospects for a brighter future.  It will bring us nothing but hatred and unnecessary opposition for some gratuitous insult or joke of Trump’s.  

Pierre Poilivre had a challenging task but without Trump’s interference and premature imposing of devastating tariffs, he stood a very good chance of success - the best chance in decades.  All this was lost in part due to meddling by Trump by pulling the tariff strings from afar.  It’s not something Trump should be proud of.  He cost young Canadians their future.  John F. Kennedy said, “A rising tide raises all boats.”  We should be hoping that Canada will succeed, not fail, if we want to secure American interests.

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