There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen. So said Vladimir Lenin. He could have been speaking about Canada in this extraordinary moment in history. It has been less than a month since Canada walked away from the US “negotiating” table, and we are seeing an unprecedented level of movement towards a different future. In a very real way, walking away from the negotiations on August 21st was a nation-defining moment. Contrary to some of the pundits in the media, this wasn’t a bump in the negotiating road. We had hit a fork. One direction led towards subservience. The other towards sovereignty and national integrity.
The Prime Minister spoke for all of Canada when he stated,
The MAGA regime was caught flat-footed. In response, they have come back with heightened threats, insults, and warnings. They seriously believed we would capitulate. But then came the meeting between Prime Minister Carney and President Zelensky and the plan to increase Canadian drone production to two million units in two years. Then there was the trillion-dollar summit of investors from all over the world. Then Canada was welcomed into the EU as the first associate member. In what was a clear repudiation of Trump, EU President Ursula von der Leyen laid out a vision for a new economic and democratic order: “We believe that power does not belong to the strongest, the richest or the loudest, but to all of us. That democracies have the freedom to choose with whom to work.” Any of these events on their own would have taken months, if not years, of negotiating. Previously, these would have been mountains that no one government in a single term could dream of climbing. But we are living decades of change in a matter of weeks. What does associate EU membership mean? At this point, who knows? What matters is the symbolism of Canada breaking free of the abusive constraints of economic coercion and charting our own path. It won’t be easy, and the threats have already begun to increase. This is because we are openly repudiating the “Donroe" Doctrine” on which the Republican right has based their entire vision of the global order. In their worldview, Canada had no choice but to be a vassal state. When Trump learned of the EU meeting, he accused Europe of committing a “hostile act” against the United States. There are two reasons for targeting Europe: Under the “Donroe Doctrine”, the MAGA administration claims that anything that takes place on the North American continent is under the control of the United States. A Canadian trade agreement with Europe is seen as an outside “intervention” with hostile intent.
Threatening Canada is clearly not working, so Trump is hoping to scare the Europeans back into line. Where that goes remains to be seen. Meanwhile, there are those like Senator Collins who are warning Canada not to break free of the abusive relationship. But what reason is there to stay? Former US ambassador to Canada David Cohen was recently interviewed in the Hill Times, telling Canada not to expect any real change on tariffs no matter what happens in the midterms. Cohen, who was Biden’s choice to work with Canada, points out that if the Democrats win the House, they are likely to stick with a number of the protectionist measures Trump has enacted. Canada is not going back. We are in uncharted territory, and it remains to be seen if our “allies” will journey with us. But no matter how rough it gets, we are going ahead. In the space of a few weeks, we have moved decades down the road to independence.
Here are some thoughts I gave on the morning of Prime Minister Carney’s address to Europe: HELLO EUROPE! BYE BYE ABUSER! (Latest Video from Meidas Canada)
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