“Living next to you is like sleeping with an elephant — no matter how friendly and even tempered the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grumble.” (Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau speaking to the U.S.)
“Americans have made their bed, now we must lie in it.” (Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star)
The United States is the world’s biggest and most powerful democracy. It is “the land of the brave and the home of the free.” But Americans have just elected, by a comfortable majority, a convicted felon with some extremely right wing ideas. No doubt some Canadians are happy Donald Trump will be the U.S. president again, but what we mostly hear are concerns that his policies will hurt us, especially economically. (As if we don’t have enough problems).
There is a long list of things Mr. Trump can — and might do — that are negative for us. What can we do about it? For starters our politicians can forget the feuds, stop the name calling and finger pointing (leave that to Trump) and get together to agree on a plan on how to protect our Canadian way of life. The U.S. is our biggest trading partner so that won’t be easy. As citizens, we can support, not nag, our politicians.
A number of Canadian pundits believe this is not a good time for us to think about changing federal leaders. No matter that many of us dislike Justin Trudeau, they point out he’s had four years experience dealing with Mr. Trump and is better able to deal with him than are many other world leaders.
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Some in the U.S. suggest President Biden resign, making Kamala Harris President. She’d have two months to come up with laws that could slow Trump down.
