America is suddenly noticing how Canadians aren’t coming to the U.S.
When the chance of being detained at the border for weeks, as has occurred recently, or as two Jesuit Priests from the University of Manitoba were refused entry simply because they suggested, when asked, what they thought of President Trump, by stating;
“I suppose he’s good at some things and bad at others.”
That strikes me as rather innocuous.
Or a neighbour who was refused entry into the U.S. when attempting to go through customs, because he wouldn’t provide the password for his phone?
No. Canadians aren’t coming America, and this isn’t a short term issue. I have friends who have sold their winter homes in Florida and Arizona, and many of us, myself included, who cancelled my holiday to the U.S. in favour of a trip to a Caribbean Island that isn’t American.
But it doesn’t just extend to tourism. Trump’s asinine tariffs led me to cancel buying an American vehicle and buying a Japanese product, made completely in Japan, instead.
We are also planning a major two month holiday, in Spain this winter, and we don’t plan to ever return to the U.S. In previous years I would vacation in Hawaii. No more.
And this is no anomaly.
Canadians don’t trust America anymore.
You can’t attempt to extort or annex a neighbour and then return to business as usual. In fact, if Canadians have their way, trade will become non-existent with America by the end of Trump’s term in office.
Besides, you don’t need our strategic minerals, our oil, gas, lumber, steel or aluminum, and your farmers and dairy farms don’t need any of our agricultural products or fertilizers.
But that’s okay America, because the rest of the world, including China, does.
The fact that America is alienating every foreign country, doesn’t bode well for the future, but America doesn’t want partners or allies, it wants subjects.
As for American products, Canadians would rather pay 20% more for anyone else’s product, rather than buy American.
Canada will chart a new path, one that doesn’t depend on the U.S. or enable it to coerce, threaten or steal resources from Canada.
Canada is done. We trusted America would keep its word, but it didn’t and won’t. Instead it has torn up two former agreements in NAFTA and CUSMA, which Trump himself called “the best trade agreement ever.”
Even Americans are leaving. I was also an academic, and remained friends with a number of American professors, notably from the western United States. Two of them and their families have now immigrated to Canada and are teaching at institutions in western Canada.
As I stated earlier, there is no turning back the clock. As PM Carney stated a few days ago, the old relationship “is over”.
Canada will find new trustworthy partners and join the EU as a non-voting member. It will align its interests both politically and militarily, with Europe and will support Ukraine as long as necessary.
In the future, Canada will remove itself from America’s sphere of influence. And as for Canada’s ship of state?
It sailed when Trump was elected and won’t be coming to a port in the US again, ever.
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