351 - Canada's Strong Answer to Trump's Grandiose Bullying

Most residents of the lower fifty American states don't fully appreciate that they have lived seamlessly and without more than trifling concerns together with their English- and French-speaking fellow residents of the other thirteen provinces that comprise a nearly forever peaceful North America. Between the United States and Canada is the longest undefended border on the globe, stretching the horizontal length of the continent. Roughly for 200 years, these similar but differently ruled peoples have helped each other, relied on each other for defense and support, and established -- until this year -- a mutually beneficial free trade zone that has permitted (until this month) cars and parts to go back and forth with little pain or penalty between Detroit and Windsor. Lumber goes south. Tourists flow back and forth. Oil comes south. Electric power comes south. Before Trump, the two nations complemented each other in numerous ways.

Contrast the side-by-side ease and absence of hostility in North America (until recently) to India and Pakistan, sharing a single sub-continent, a colonial past, a deadly partition, several common languages, and nuclear weapons. They treat each other as arch enemy, go to war against the other easily, and with extreme venom. India and Pakistan may be at war again tomorrow, with deadly consequences.

With the Liberal Party's victory in Monday's Canadian election, it is clear that at least one of the North American neighboring states has definitively rejected Trumpism. By anointing Mark Carney Prime Minister and giving the Liberals 169 parliamentary seats (including the ridings of Carney's two main opponents), Canadians not only rejected Trump's strange offer to make Canada one big American fifty-first state, but they also rejected a Trump talk-a-like and potential acolyte in the person of Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader and Carney's chief rival. The denial of Trumpian pretensions was palpable.

As a Globe & Mail columnist commented wryly, “You’d think that part of a politician’s job description would be trying to win people over. Mr. Poilievre keeps on picking fights that don’t need to be fought” — just like Trump.

Carney, a former governor of the Banks of Canada and Britain, and never before a politician, made much of tough plain talk. It obviously resonated well, and should send a strong message south.

"America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country."

"Trump is trying to break us so he can own us. That will never happen."

“Who is ready? Who is ready to stand up for Canada with me? And who is ready to build Canada strong?"

Carney has also made it clear that Greenland is more of a security interest for Canada, and that the U.S. had to back off.

Carney also seems intent on reducing green-house gases and doing what he can in very difficult circumstances to make a Canada a more responsible climate actor, directly contrary to Trump's climax "hoax" denials. Canada is the eleventh largest global emitter of CO2.

All commentators, Canadian, British, and American, agree that Trump was the main electoral issue. Without his bullying and ballyhooing, the Canadian Conservatives might easily have defeated the Liberals. Carney was untried and inexperienced, after all. But he rose to call out Trump's foolish assertions and to make it clear that a Canada that he led would never put itself under Trump's thumb.

Now, in the endless imbroglios that Trump's tariff caricaturing have created, Carney promises to travel from Ottawa to Washington to try to make sense of what is left of the old North American free trade pact, to try to persuade Trump and his minions that it makes no good sense for either the U.S. or Canada to impose punitive taxes on such endlessly trafficked goods as car parts, finished automobiles, and aluminsum. Nor does it help the U.S. midwestern consumer to pay appreciably more for petroleum from the tar sands of Alberta.

Carney may need the votes of the twenty-two members of the Bloc Quebecois who won on Monday. They will want to realize full value for the electric power that Quebec ships to New England. They may insist on shutting off that power if Trump is too obstreperous regarding other economic matters.

Carney will want to explain to Trump, also, that fentanyl and immigrants cross the undefended long border only in very limited quantities, especially compared to the Mexican border. And Canada rushed military personnel to the border to contain any trafficking.

If Trump could see beyond his nose, he would realize that even his combative presidency needs friends and allies. Offending cousins accomplishes little except, in this case, producing a very good result for Canadians.

Carney, especially if he can neutralize attacks from Trump, could even transform Canada from an underweight middle power into a major force on the international scene. Having bested Trump, Canada could -- if Carney is ready -- become a middle power that punches much above its current weight globally.

In contrast to Trump's pervasive amorality and corruption, Carney could (as he seemed to be doing on the electoral stump) be clear about the stark differences between right and wrong. He could return morality to international relations by taking clear stands on Ukraine, on China (and Taiwan), on accountability, and on responsibility. He could speak truth to power regarding Putin's criminality and Netanyahu's various compromises with the truth. He could condemn Xi Jinping's attacks on the Philippines in the South China Sea despite world court rulings.

If Carney with all deliberative speed were able to return morality to the international arena, he would begin to elevate Canada's global standing. And if he did so while increasing Canada's spending on defense within NATO, Canada could and should play a much bigger role in the Ukrainian struggle than it now does.

Canada should be protecting North America robustly in the Arctic, also. It needs to build additional ice-able frigates and Coast Guard vessels. It can contribute more to its partnership with the U.S. by protecting the northern reaches from Chinese and Russian pretensions by strengthening NORAD.

Having curtailed the Trumpian threat, and minced no words about Canadian independence, it is Carney's opportunity to eclipse Trump as North America's moral leader. Canada has many fewer citizens than the U.S., but with Carney's election they are more unified and asssured of the direction of their separate destiny. O Canada -- onward!