Canadians to Trump: Mangez de la merde.

How POTUS #47 revoked his own welcome in our country by threatening our existence

(Photo from Warren Kinsella Facebook)

Since the dawn of the Trump regime—but especially since January 29, when I posted a Substack essay calling for an end to “American mimicry” in our country—Canada has passed its “moment of truth” with flying colours. Nearly six weeks later, a flurry of transformative events has turned my little essay into the online equivalent of fish wrap by sending “American mimicry” into full retreat. Thanks to the covetous whims of the Orange Monster himself, MAGA worship in this country has been kicked to the curb, elbowed in the teeth by a reinvigorated sense of Canadian pride and solidarity.

Since POTUS #47’s inauguration, the initial shock of his many threats against Canada (the 51st state, the multiple tariffs, the pulled defence funding, etc.) has been followed by nationwide outrage and acts of resistance. Tit-for-tat tariffs on American goods. Blanket or selective boycotts of U.S. products and services. Cancellation of U.S. travel plans and investment. Op-Eds blasting the Trump regime for destroying a good relationship by ridiculing our sovereignty. Oh, yeah—and loud booing of “The Star Spangled Banner” at hockey games. (Speaking of our national sport—and with thanks to both comedian Mike Myers, for his “Saturday Night Live” appearance, and Member of Parliament Charlie Angus, for amplifying the term inspired by Gordie Howe’s playing style—there’s also a new slogan and rallying cry. “Elbows up,” indeed.)

Perhaps it should surprise no one that the stupidest, most morally vacant president in U.S. history would choose to insult a long-time neighbour and friend by repeatedly referring to our national leader as “governor” and saying that we are “not viable as a country.” But it is deeply disturbing, and a body blow, all the same.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in one of his final statements before turning over his job to new Liberal leader Mark Carney, said that Trump’s tariff threats are meant to cause “a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that will make it easier to annex us.” Dramatic talk from a lame duck leader on his way out the door? Hardly. The background for Trudeau’s sudden frankness was provided by a March 7 New York Times article that revealed the extent of Trump’s twisted designs on us.

Among other things, the Times’ sources revealed that the U.S. president has been floating the idea that the treaty establishing the border dividing our two nations is invalid, as are agreements to share the Great Lakes. (He wants our water.) They also revealed that Trump is mulling the expulsion of Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group of countries and is reviewing the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Yikes.

Andrew Coyne, a long-time Globe and Mail columnist not known for excessive alarmism, has been sounding the alarm since the twice-impeached president and convicted felon was re-elected. On March 5, he outlined the current reality in no uncertain terms.

“The President of the United States is trying to destroy us,” he wrote, adding that the point of the tariffs was not to negotiate but to break Canada.

“Sucker-punching your nearest neighbour and closest trading partner, even as you are cozying up to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, may not seem to make any sense, until you recall that Mr. Trump has been attacking every other democracy in sight, from Ukraine to Europe to Taiwan,” he continued. “At which point the penny drops: he sides with the expansionist dictatorships because he agrees with them – because he aims to establish one himself. When he talks about invading Greenland or seizing the Panama Canal – or using ‘economic force’ to annex Canada – he means it.”

Canadians are well aware of this existential threat. And we know that Trump has the full support of his fellow Republican legislators, who share their master’s contempt for and ignorance of our country and its history. As with everything else concerning this tiresome and insipid moron, Trump’s condescending incomprehension of our nation as distinct from the United States can be explained by solipsistic illiteracy and incuriosity: he simply fails to care about any place, culture, or tradition that does not bow to his sense of entitlement or slake his desire for instant gratification. (This is the same uncouth philistine and non-reader of books, remember, who fancies himself worthy of the chairmanship of the Kennedy Center for the Arts.)

Canadians know that the other half of Americans are decent people who are deeply embarrassed by what’s going on and have reached out to express solidarity with us. (Thank you, Rosanne Cash, you are a dear!) But during Trump’s address to Congress, the trained seals who do his bidding were standing and applauding on cue to his every declaration—including his attacks on Canada. It was most telling, the sight of those pandering sycophants on the Republican side of the House turning their legislative chamber into a frat party, their jingoistic chants of “USA! USA! USA!” matched in enthusiasm only by their sadistic glee when Trump began attacking trans people and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs. Pathetic human beings, the lot of them. Their fake Christian piety and cowardly, self-interested enslavement to Trump only exposed their moral depravity. But that’s okay: their names shall be recorded by history, on the wrong side of which they are all too happy to stand.

Taking back our flag

Meanwhile, how long ago it now seems that I wrote this of my home country:

These days, it’s a safe bet that if your car is flying the maple leaf—or a really big flag is hanging from your sundeck—you don’t vote New Democrat.

That observation, from my January 29 post, summed up how our maple leaf flag had been appropriated in 2022 by a home-grown crowd of hard-right conservative red necks led by the trucker convoy protesters. The most extreme of these folks used our flag to promote their own blinkered, selfish vision of “freedom,” which aligned with MAGA Nation by opposing public health measures to combat COVID-19. Because of their often aggressive and intimidating behaviour, the three years that followed those protests saw very little flag-waving by Canadians to the left of that crowd. (Most of us.)

But then something funny happened after Trump was sworn in on January 20.

All those obnoxious anti-vaxxers, the pro-MAGA Canadians who kept whining about their “freedom,” appeared to have slunk into the shadows, unavailable for comment. Apparently they had nothing to say in defence of their country after their American hero began flapping his mouth about us. This silence did not go unnoticed. For several days last month, there was a profanity-laced tirade on Facebook that called out these flag-waving pseudo-patriots, asking them where they were now: why they weren’t condemning the U.S. president’s attacks on us, etc.

Perhaps they were biding their time, trying to figure out how to achieve the sort of reactionary, anti-woke Canada they truly desire from their hopefully soon-to-be Conservative government without sounding too, well, Trumpian. That’s the current dilemma for Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose poll numbers—already dropping after Trudeau’s resignation—began to slide after Trump started attacking us. Behold P.P’s defensive contortions, once the federal election campaign kicks into gear. (Carney, for his part, has his hands full. He should call the election asap.)

In any case, the sixtieth anniversary of the maple leaf flag neatly coincided with Trump’s threats, so history intervened to help us reclaim our most treasured red-and-white symbol. The flag has now been taken back, this time by Canadians who don’t want to be annexed, who value our cherished traditions including public health care and strong public services, and who will always defend our sovereignty. (Such Canadians also know that the continuing work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples would be halted by absorption into the United States.) So, yes, there must be plenty of maple leaf flags once again flying from the decks of New Democrats.

Even “Joe Canada” has come out of the woodwork, revising his “I am Canadian” rant from a beer commercial twenty-five years ago to produce a contemporary version in response to Trump’s threats. Meanwhile, if the response so far to my free comms advice for Wayne Gretzky is any indication, there is growing impatience with Canadian icons who fail to stand up for their country when called upon to do so.

Trump and Musk: No pasaran!

There’s all sorts of resistance going on. Charlie Angus, the Timmins-James Bay MP who has decided not to run for re-election, has used his extra time to combat the forces of Trumpism on his Substack. Along with the Pledge for Canada, his work on “The Resistance” includes advancing a couple of petitions.

The first is one of the largest in Canadian history: a call to strip Tesla/X/SpaceX owner and Trump senior advisor Elon Musk of his Canadian citizenship because of his actions against us. Since there are clear rules for revoking citizenship that make such a result unlikely, the petition is mostly performative. If nothing else, it will raise awareness about how Musk, in his capacity as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has undermined our sovereignty.

The other petition calls for Donald Trump to be barred from entering Canada when the G7 Summit is held in Alberta in June. This one, it seems, is more compelling. It’s probably a lot easier to bar someone—even a world leader—from entering Canada than it is to revoke someone’s Canadian citizenship. Quite apart from his criminal convictions, the case has already been made that POTUS #47 represents a clear and present danger to Canadian sovereignty.

Do we really want to roll out the red carpet, pretending it’s business as usual, for a U.S. president who is openly contemptuous of our sovereignty and looking for the easiest way to annex us? No. When he next shows up at our border, this should be our bottom line: Cancel all tariffs permanently, respect our leader by using the proper title, and abandon all attempts to unilaterally dismiss our agreements, or turn that bloated ass of yours around and fly the hell back to Mar-a-Lago where you belong.