Donald Trump has shown his true colours and what his ambition truly is with his tariffs on Canada.
Disguising this under the disguise of fentanyl and organized crime, his real ambition is the 51st State.
Canadians and the Government can breathe a little easier because of a thirty-day reprieve, but in no way should we relax with a laissez-faire attitude as if this was the last of the problems.
Donald Trump has continually mentioned, reposted, or tweeted this constantly. This gives a sense of normality to those following his every word. It is true that if something, no matter how absurd, is repeated, it becomes an accepted norm.
These tariffs, which will continue because of this obsession, are a blatant financial attack on our sovereignty.
Canada and Canadians will have to move quickly to avert the stinging effects of a policy meant to crush what remains of the Canadian economy.
This situation did not come overnight.
Trump, however, being the biggest threat to our sovereignty as a country is not the root cause of this situation.
The problem began with the signing of the FTA (Free Trade Agreement), the NAFTA(North American Free Trade Agreement) and later, Chretien's into the WTO (World Trade Organization).
The signing of the NAFTA and The WTO destroyed the Canadian middle class because both are corporate agreements and our manufacturing, production, and technical jobs flooded to the slave market economies of Mexico, China, and India where people can be driven like cattle with no form of redress.
The Japanese and Korean automakers took the autopac to court, tearing up an agreement signed by Lyndon Johnson and Lester Pearson as an unfair trade practice that ended its existence. At that time, the automakers Ford, GM, and Chrysler shut the doors of most of their assembly lines and other parts and assembly plants and fled to Mexico to hire people who were basically slaves to make their automobiles.
People my age still remember Canada before these agreements, both in Eastern and Western Canada. During the oil crisis of the seventies and early eighties in Alberta and Saskatchewan, I left my prairie home and headed to Ontario to reestablish myself.
Like many other Albertans and Western Canadians, I was treated to an economy that was booming with manufacturing and abundant opportunities to make a good living and enjoyed the ability to own a house and raise a family.
This would end overnight with the signing of NAFTA and WTO, and Ontario would become a giant warehouse just like the rest of Canada to store goods once made in Canada, which are now made in Mexico, China, India, and Indonesia.
This is reflected in the spiralling lowering of wages and benefits that most Canadians were accustomed to. Canadians began to refuse to look for work that they knew would not sustain their ability to live a life that brought both a good return for their efforts and a comfortable existence. The Conservatives under Steven Harper brought in the Temporary Foreign Workers Act now, employers could hold the thumb over employees by giving employees only one right, and that is "there is the door."
Now, migrants to the country were just that: no path to citizenship, just there to work or leave and keep Canadian wage expectations low. Now, low-income workers as the middle class have been absorbed in working two or three jobs to try and keep their heads above water, or tragically in defeat, live in shelter systems or tent cities that have become so common in our cities.
If Americans looked around, they would find that most of them are leading the very same lives, just as Canadians have every right to be angry with the institution of Government and Corporations. When they do, they will find as we know it now that Donald Trump is not a part of the solution but a major player in the ongoing problem.
Canada will have to hurry to correct the problem we face: an American imperialist sentiment that will crush us like a bug underfoot.
The first thing we must do is fix the bottom of the economy: that is, the working poor, homeless, and disenfranchised.
We can not build or rebuild a country without recognizing that the most essential element of our society is its people.
We need a more significant and effective trading relationship, and just as I said to Mulroney in the 1980s, Canada would fare better its economic ambitions by joining the European Union.
With a country of 40 million, we will always be faced with a neighbour to the south who can hold us hostage financially at its every whim.
Those who think we don’t have a connection to Europe need only look to the Maritimes as the Islands of St Pierre Miquelon, a part of France, lay a short distance from the shores of Prince Edward Island.
The second is to bring in a tax code ensuring that those whose wealth has become so excessive pay their fair share.
Our mega-rich did not become that way by skilful investing and intelligence. They became that way because they were able to lobby the governments, no matter what party, to hand over our democracy and regulations so they could do as they please.
Canadians, be strong, look for solutions and build a Canada we can all be proud of where all Canadians are stakeholders in what is and what can be a great nation to be an even greater nation to be a part of.
