I open this column up with an observation about Canada’s reaction to Donald Trump’s unfeasible and unjustifiable threats against our sovereignty. Canadians have been outraged and frankly, I don’t really blame them that much. I personally am not going to participate in boycotts of America, although I will consider other destinations such as New Zealand and Australia. Trump frankly is playing with fire and if I were him I would seriously consider dropping the 51st state rhetoric.
But you can tell that I am genuinely apathetic about this. I dislike Trump personally: the man is, in the court of law, a convicted felon. He is someone who would unironically believe in lies in order to further himself to victory, a delusion implanted in him by Roy Cohn, a self-hating homophobe who represented Trump in several court cases when he was about as young as me. But he is not totally wrong to call Trudeau a “Governor.” In fact, he’s under-exaggerating just how little our politicians cared.
Now, why do I say he isn’t wrong? Well, because Canada’s reaction to Trump’s tariffs is entirely reactionary. It isn’t birthed out of a genuine desire to make Canada self-sufficient from America. It’s not out of a newfound nationalism that Trudeau has, it’s entirely a reaction to Trump! Because when Trump became President-Elect, Trudeau flew down to Mar-a-Lago over his tariffs. When Trump exaggerated (although I should say 42 pounds of fentanyl is still a horrific amount) the amount of fentanyl and weapons coming through our border, we pledged a Blackhawk helicopter to fly over the border and installed a fentanyl czar (now a commissioner). In response to his unjustified and dumb threats against our sovereignty, provinces finally began to negotiate a way out of the idiotic trade barriers. All of this is good.
When I see Trudeau, or really, our leaders finally doing all of this, all I am left is with a bewildering sense of: wait. You could have done all of that without Trump.
A Canada which takes the fentanyl crisis far more seriously, meaning fewer deaths from the toxic drug crisis, a Canada where you do not have trade barriers between provinces and a Canada that can stand up to the United States as equals. This is something that we should have been working towards all the time. This leads to the most comedic and absurd, but true conclusion I get from this:
So wait, now Donald Trump is the voice of us? I didn’t elect him! You didn’t elect him! Actually, under U.S. law, we couldn’t! When did Trump become more important for our politicians than the people? Like, when did we elect Donald Trump as Presid-no. KING of Canada? (Sorry, Charles the Third, you are no longer King. Trump declared himself as King on X.)
When did our politicians care less about our own vote, which by the way, is why they are even in power and more about a man with a small loan of a million dollars? All of this happened because Trump opened his mouth! Even worse, you can make an argument that Trudeau’s initial reaction to Trump calling Canada the 51st state before he realized Trump was serious is an insane blunder! You do not dismiss threats to sovereignty as “jokes”. Ambassadors have been recalled over less.
Sadly, the widely considered successor to Governor Trudeau (thanks Trump) is Liberal Party leader candidate Mark Carney, who also is using nationalism as a tool and not as an ideal. Governor Carney literally moved his business, Brookfield, to New York City (the same city where Donald Trump came from!) from Canada. Which should be enough to raise suspicions about whether or not he actually cares about our great nation.
So how about this, Canadians. How about we take this wake-up call that the egotistical maniac gave us, and how about we actually hold our leaders to account for whether or not they will solve our problems? Because they just told us with their actions: you matter less than Donald Trump. And that is horrendous.
