How Serious a Danger to Canada is Trump?

By Henry Srebrnik, Saint John Telegraph-Journal

Is Canada in danger from Donald Trump? Prime Minister Mark Carney thinks so. Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed Carney earlier this month after years of diplomatic tensions between Ottawa and Beijing. The prime minister told Xi that we are forging a new strategic partnership which will yield “historic” gains for both nations.

“There is intrinsic value in the event of the visit happening,” L. Philippe Rheault, a former Canadian diplomat who leads the China Institute at the University of Alberta, told the New York Times Jan. 14. “These days it’s hard to talk about Canada-China relations without a reference to what’s happening in Washington,” he added.

Was Carney taunting President Trump and his “Donroe Doctrine,” with this trip to China? Is Canada going to be the “hole” in the western hemisphere’s fence? Does anyone really think China can supplant the U.S. as an ally, when we border it and share so much?

Canada’s culture aligns with America’s. We watch American movies, television, and sports, speak the same language, have a shared history and family ties, and so forth. Trump will not always be in the White House. But the United States will always be our neighbour.

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, on his War Room podcast talked about Carney’s “kowtowing” to China. “Let me be blunt, you are playing with fire. You will rue the day you did that.” He pointed to a “shift” in Canada caused by immigration. “These people are hostile to the United States,” he remarked. 

Most Canadians, no doubt, hate Trump. This is not news. But some of our writers and intellectuals have been turning him into an imperialist warmonger wishing to gobble up Canada.

Steven Chase, senior parliamentary reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail, in a Jan. 6 article entitled “Canada faces existential challenge from Trump’s hemisphere strategy, quotes Bob Rae, this country’s former ambassador to the United Nations, as contending that Trump’s military strike on Venezuela, his designs on Greenland, and his government’s declaration of ownership over the Western Hemisphere represent an existential challenge to Canada. (Trump has softened his stance on Greenland, however.)

Rae said that Canadians would be mistaken in thinking they’re not “on the menu” too, meaning “the American government doesn’t take Canada’s sovereignty seriously.” Canada is facing a more difficult situation than anything it has confronted since the Second World War, he indicated. “I think the challenges we face are existential.”

Globe and Mail writer Tony Keller, in a Jan. 9 oped, “Wake up, Canada. The Trump Doctrine is aimed at us,” warned that Trump is dangerous. “Do not take our country’s existence for granted. We are in the sights. Believe it.”

Globe and Mail writers Robert Fife and Gavin John wrote a front-page article with a large headline, “Military Models Canadian Response to Hypothetical American Invasion,” splashed across the top of the front page on Jan. 21, reporting that the military envisions that “small groups of irregular military or armed civilians would resort to Ambushes, sabotage, drone warfare or hit-and-run tactics.” The editorial page added that “In The age of Trump, it’s Time to Think about the Unthinkable.”

Given all this, it’s no wonder that a poll by Leger taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11 suggested that 31 per cent of respondents felt that the United States might attempt “direct action” to take control of Canada. Another Leger survey, conducted between Jan. 16 and 18, asked whether Canada should be concerned about U.S. ambitions toward Greenland, and 71 per cent said yes.

This came to a head at the World Economic Forum in Davos Jan. 21, where Carney basically threw down the gauntlet and told Trump the old relationship is over. He suggested the West could no longer depend on an American-led international order.

“Canadians will feel a sense of pride - and possibly some concern - because our prime minister has been so blunt,” said Laura Stephenson, a political science professor at the University of Western Ontario. “Carney is displaying courage by saying these things so publicly and there will be pride that the global reception to his speech has been largely positive.”

Liberal Americans agreed.

 “It has come to this: Canadian military planners reportedly are gaming how they might repel an American invasion with guerrilla tactics similar to those used by Afghan fighters,” wrote New York Times opinion page writer Nicholas Kristof in “The American Threat: Three Words I Never Imagined Typing,” in the Jan. 22 edition of the paper.

The same issue ran a laudatory piece on Carney by David French, calling the prime minister’s resistance to Trumps threats at Davos “The Carney Doctrine.” He praised Carney for delivering “what might be the most important address of Trump’s second term so far. To enthusiastic applause in Davos, he articulated a vision of how the “middle powers” -- nations like Canada -- should respond to the great powers.” Ian Austin, a Times Canadian correspondent, called Carney “suddenly a global political star.”

 Trump wasn’t impressed. “They should be grateful to us, Canada, but they’re not. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.” Carney fired back, retorting that the country “thrives because we are Canadian.”

So, is all this hysteria or is Trump a genuine threat to this country? Let’s hope it’s the former.