RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2025. So far the height of the Canadian mainstream media response to Donald Trump’s latest absurd remarks on the Canadian future must be this past Saturday, January 11, 2025 op-ed in the Globe and Mail by Jean Chrétien, 20th prime minister of Canada, 1993–2003. (And a Canadian also celebrating his 91st birthday on January 11, 2025.)

The final “full letter” (to the Globe as it were, or even to all Canadians as readers of what at least used to call itself Canada’s National Newspaper) was soon enough made available online, even to those among us who do not subscribe to the Globe and Mail.

This full letter is a rather long piece by former PM Chrétien (1095 words on my count). Yet as one might expect it is equally a collection of somewhat folksy but pithy wise remarks on assorted subjects related to the future of Canada (and the United States next door of course).

On the over-arching main subject M. Chrétien just says, early on : “Of course, it’s about the totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our sovereignty from Donald Trump.”

(1) Some progress on two very clear and simple messages

The former (Liberal) Canadian tough-guy prime minister — “Le petit gars de Shawinigan” — went on : “I have two very clear and simple messages … To Donald Trump, from one old man to another: Wake up! What makes you think that Canadians would ever give up the greatest country in the world? And make no mistake, that’s what we are.”

Somewhat further along Jean Chrétien turned to : ”We built a nation on the most rugged and difficult terrain imaginable, and we did it against all odds. We may seem easygoing and gentle, but make no mistake: we are determined and tough … And that brings me to my second message—to all our leaders, federal and provincial, and to those who aspire to lead our country: Start showing that determination and tenacity.”

At this point in the about-to-ufold next four years of Democracy in America (and parliamentary democracy in Canada … diverse democracy in Australia, Barbados, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, and on and on etc), I think these two messages broadly summarize the current Canadian state of what former PM Chrétien has dubbed “the totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our sovereignty from Donald Trump.”

Having observed (on TV) the latest First Ministers meeting in Ottawa and the resulting Team Canada approach to the not-so-great Trump Tariff Threat (even allowing for the extreme regionalist position of Danielle Smith in Alberta) has given me some sense that at least some kind of constructive beginning on M. Chrétien’s second very clear and simple message has now been made as well.

(2) “History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors” (in one of which which Donald Trump mistakenly boosts Canada)

Whatever else, an actually surprising nine out of 10 provinces — the same super-majority that voted the Constitution Act, 1982 into the real world — have jumped on board the Team Canada approach to whatever the Trump Tariff Threat might mean in practice. And a recent opinion poll confirms that nine out of 10 Canadians do not want to join the United States in any case. (Another recent poll suggests a somewhat more complex same broad answer ; but there remains solid polling evidence for the 9 out of 10 boast!)

Danielle Smith is also not the only political leader in Alberta. On social media new Alberta NDP leader (and former Calgary mayor|) Naheed Nenshi is singing a different more Team-Canada Alberta tune. Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and then Governor of the Bank of England, launced his Canadian federal Liberal leadership campaign this past week in the Edmonton, Alberta where he grew up. The other major candidate for the Liberal leadership after Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Chrystia Freeland, is a “daughter of Alberta” whose parents still reside in “Wild Rose Country.”

There are, I certainly agree, all kinds of things wrong with Canada and its response so far to the current bout of the 47th US president’s mindless (and obsolete) right-wing American imperialism. At the same time, I wonder whether what former PM Chrétien has dubbed “the totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our sovereignty from Donald Trump” may have the ultimate deep impact of giving our Canadian identity as an independent UN member state an upward boost we weren’t quite expecting.

It wouldn’t be the first time that an aspiring (and not always successful) imperial actor had an ultimate impact on events more or less the exact opposite of what he or she claimed to intend up front. Or as Mr. Eliot from St. Louis, Missouri explained back in 1920, just after the First World War : “History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors / And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, / Guides us by vanities.”

GREG BARNS SC. HOBART, MELBOURNE, BRISBANE, PERTH, AUSTRALIA. MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2025. Not for the first time the political landscapes in Australia and Canada are worthy of comparison. This year both nations are holding elections and the opposition parties, the Conservatives in Canada and the Liberals in Australia, are led by right wing populists. The incumbent centre left governments in both nations are under siege, albeit the Australian Labor Party (ALP) led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has only been in office 3 years, unlike the Liberals in Canada who have been in power since the autumn of 2015 and last week lost their leader Justin Trudeau.

Another point of difference is that the polls in Canada show that the Conservative’s Pierre Poilievre is likely to win in a landslide ; his counterpart in Australia Peter Dutton would, at best, form a minority government.

When I refer to this not being the first time a neat comparison can be made between the political landscape of both nations, I refer to the political strategy used by the Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper two decades ago which was a carbon copy of that used with devastating effect by Australia’s John Howard. Mr Howard, Prime Minister from 1996 to 2007, ran a divisive strategy of appealing to ‘ordinary Australians’ or ‘battlers’ as he called them, as opposed to liberal ‘elites’. To Canadian readers this language will sound familiar given it was adopted by Mr Harper when he was Prime Minister from 2006 to 2015.

Plus ca change. Mr Dutton, last weekend, set out his stall and outlined his ‘vision’ for Australia. It was peppered with references to attacking ‘wokeness’, a homage to his working class upbringing (he was a police officer before entering politics) and therefore his capacity to identify with Australians who are struggling to make ends meet because of the rise in the cost of living in the post covid world and migration.

There is also a Trumpian note in the Dutton rhetoric given the Liberal’s traditional alliance with big business. As David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, wrote last year, “Dutton’s declaration earlier this year that the Liberal Party is “not the party of big business” but “the friend of the worker” marks a notable rhetorical shift, even if there is reason to doubt the substance behind it.”

One would be forgiven for thinking that Mr Dutton’s advisers are cutting and pasting Mr Poilievre’s strategy, or vice versa on this issue. Ginny Roth, a Conservative strategist wrote recently that Mr Poilievre’s “overall tone he has adopted towards big business” is hostile. “Rather, he claimed that if he becomes prime minister his “daily obsession” will be to advance the interests of the “working-class” people of this country”, Roth observed.

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ASHOK CHARLES. THUNDER BAY, TORONTO, SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 2025. I am the Executive Director of Republic Now — a non-partisan organization launched in 2013, to press for the replacement of the British monarch, as Canada’s head of state, by a democratically selected Canadian.

Early this year we were heartened by New Brunswick MP René Arseneault’s private member’s bill, which would have made the 1867 constitutional requirement for newly elected Members of Parliament to swear an oath of allegiance to King Charles III optional.

Mr. Arseneault’s Bill C-347 proposed that Members of Parliament and Senators be able to pledge to carry out their duties “in the best interest of Canada while upholding its constitution” rather than, or in addition to, taking the (medieval and colonial) oath of monarchical fealty.

Months before this past April, when the bill was debated and voted on in the House of Commons, Republic Now sent a message to every MP and Senator urging them to support it.

Our message referenced a 2023 Abacus Data poll which revealed that “2 in 3 Canadians would vote to eliminate the monarchy in Canada,” and that only 18% view King Charles positively, while 33% hold a negative view.

As such, we argued, a commitment of conscientious public service in the MP’s oath of office would be greatly preferable to an oath of fealty to a king that the majority of Canadians do not want as their head of state in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, Bill C-347 was defeated, 197 to 113. Collectively, our elected representatives insisted that a monarchical oath of fealty, dating from the 16th century, is preferable to a pledge of service to Canada, and a commitment to uphold our constitution.

The 2023 Abacus Data poll, referenced in our initial message to parliamentarians, probed public sentiment in regards to the monarchy and King Charles, and did not specifically address the parliamentary oath of office. After the defeat of Bill C-347 Republic Now commissioned a new poll, from the same firm, which did cover the oath.

Completed in October 2024, this survey suggests that a resounding majority of Canadians want their elected representatives to pledge allegiance to Canada rather than Charles Windsor across the sea.

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COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2024. Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker nicely summarized one key but strange political event of 2024 in the USA :

“The Weird New Normal of Donald Trump in 2024 … Radical revisionism is a strong contender for the theme of this disruptive year, in which some unique property of political alchemy managed to transform a defeated and disgraced ex-President into a perfectly electable Republican candidate.”

For our part here we are just providing links to our top 10 counterweights stories from the year now ending, in chronological order. And we are relying on the titles of our top 10 pieces to suggest what they were (and still are) all about :

(1) Is the “free and democratic society” riding on the outcome of more than 60 elections around the global village in 2024? … Jan 5th, 2024.

(2) Who is supposed to be running the Government of Canada — the federal government elected by the Canadian people or 10 provincial premiers ?? … Mar 14th, 2024

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RANDALL WHITE, ONTARIO TONITE, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024. Before setting all such things aside for extended New Year’s celebrations, I had just wanted to say a few quick words about recent statistics that suggest “Canadians sense of pride plummets to lowest level in decades.”

(And this was happening for some time before the latest insults of the second US president elect, who as one of his several secret talents probably does almost viscerally sense such things, like blood in the water).

The statistics involved have been tidily summarized in a recent blogTO piece, which concluded with “What are your thoughts on the decline in Canadian pride?

But … suddenly … yesterday Canadian federal politics was almost overwhelmed by the altogether unexpected resignation of finance minister (and deputy PM) Chrystia Freeland, on the very day she was to have introduced the 2024 Fall Economic Statement in the House.

(1) Resignation of Justin Trudeau ????

I certainly agree that this Monday, Monday’s events raise the question of PM Justin Trudeau’s future in a very immediate way.

Note, eg, these headlines from the CBC News website : “Trudeau’s government in crisis” ; “Freeland — the minister with the mile-wide mandate — leaves a massive hole in cabinet” ; “Trudeau faces frustrated MPs after Freeland’s shock resignation” ; “Trudeau government in turmoil after Freeland resignation” ; “Freeland’s unexpected departure sparks reactions from all sides” ; “Freeland’s departure an indictment of Trudeau’s treatment of women, former MP says.”

And then the CTV News headlines just carried on with the story : “Trudeau considering his options as leader after Freeland quits cabinet, sources say” ; “’We’re not united’: Liberal caucus meets, as PM Trudeau faces fresh calls to resign in light of Freeland’s departure” ; “’Eventful day,’ Trudeau says after Chrystia Freeland quits cabinet, LeBlanc tapped to replace her” ; “Feds deliver fall economic statement with $61.9B deficit for 2023-24, amid political turmoil” ; “Ford says premiers must stand united against Trump tariff threat amid ‘uncertain’ times in Ottawa” ; “Is Chrystia Freeland readying a Liberal leadership bid?”

All this has done at least two things for my own immediate view of Canadian federal politics. First, I think it’s much less likely that the Trudeau Liberal minority government will now make it all the way to the October 2025 fixed-date election. We could be voting much earlier in the new year. Second, I also now think there’s a considerably greater chance that Justin Trudeau will not be leading the Liberals in the next election, whenever it comes. (And, somewhat ironically, if a new federal Liberal leader must be chosen, logistically that just might bring the next election closer to October 2025 as well.

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RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO . THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2024. According to Wkipedia : “The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer that depicts the failures of the US diplomatic corps in Southeast Asia.” It ”has remained continuously in print and is one of the most influential American political novels.”

For many and probably most of us who live in the most northern part of North America, President-elect Donald Trump’s recent joke or otherwise to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that, to avoid palpably insane US tariffs, “Canada could become the 51st state” of the Union marked the re-appearance of the Ugly American species in the US capital (er, well, Mar-a-Lago at least).

This past Monday, eg, a young lady from the United States called Tara Bull raised the question “Would you support Canada becoming the 51st US State?” on X (Twitter). On Tuesday “Made In Canada” (from Canada of course) replied : “I will speak for every Canadian, NO!”

Just today (at 8 this morning) the Angus Reid Institute posted the results of a very quick poll of some 3,000 Canadians. All told, when asked “how do you believe the Canadian government should approach Trump’s threat of tariffs,” 49% answered “Play hardball — even if the tariffs come, Canada shouldn’t let itself be bullied.” Another 33% said “Try to negotiate with Trump for a lower tariff.” And then 10% were prepared to “Concede and do whatever the US demands to avoid the tariff.” (While 9% answered “Not sure/Can’t say.”)

“Donald Trump is not raising some new Ugly American principle here”

The Angus Reid poll also revealed some striking differences in Canadian attitudes among those with a different “Federal Vote Intention” in the next Canadian election. Among Conservative party voters only 32% answered “Play hardball … Canada shouldn’t let itself be bullied.” But among Liberals this play-hardball number rose to 63%, and among New Democrats it moved up one point more to 64%. (Even among Bloc Québécois voters hardball players stood at 55%.)

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RANDALL WHITE, CANADA’S CAPITAL FROM 4 ½ HOURS WEST. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2024. [UPDATED NOVEMBER 30, DECEMBER 3 : See below]. Even a close observer cannot see much of the Canadian House of Commons from the capital city of Ontario (which like both the province and the country at large boasts an Indigenous North American name).

At the same time, you can read what people who in one way or another watch the Parliament of Canada for a living write. If you have great patience you can also watch both the elected House and unelected Senate of Canada on TV, via the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) or online at cpac.ca (or still more recently at Parliament’s own ParlVU).

I often enough have patience for the former — the latter only once in a while. Having lately spent a half hour watching the House on TV I have been reminded as well why I seldom follow this at best lame public entertainment — and unrivaled bad political joke at worst.

Most recently, in Canada’s federal parliamentary democracy, headquartered in semi-cosmopolitan Ottawa (once a mere “last lumber village before the North Pole”), the bad joke has become the new normal. Consider these recent headlines :

“Parliament ‘ground to a halt’ over Conservative allegations of Liberal corruption.” Laura Osman and Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press. October 3, 2024.

“Why has Parliament’s work been paralyzed for more than a week? Standoff over documents related to failed clean tech fund has brought normal business to a halt.” John Paul Tasker CBC News. October 9, 2024.

“No clear end in sight as House of Commons gridlock approaches 2-month mark. MPs have been debating a privilege motion since late September, putting other House business on hold.” Darren Major, CBC News. November 19, 2024.

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RANDALL WHITE, ONTARIO TONITE, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2024. Before leaving Remembrance Day 2024 altogether I want to underline one heretofore unique event on the theme this year in Canada’s most populous province.

On Thursday, November 7, 2024 Sol Mamakwa, Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for the also somewhat unique far northwestern electoral district of Kiiwetinoong, rose in the Assembly to commemorate “Indigenous Veterans Day [November 8]. To all Indigenous veterans, and those currently serving, thank you for your contributions and sacrifice.”

When posting a video clip of his commemoration the next day (the actual Indigenous Veterans Day) Mr. Mamakwa explained : “Yesterday I spoke to honour Indigenous veterans in Kiiwetinoong and in other places … Meegwetch for watching.”

Sol Mamakwa himself is “a member of the Kingfisher Lake First Nation and speaks Oji-Cree as a first language.” He is as well a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party.

His short bio on Wikipedia further explains that he was “one of three MPPs of Indigenous heritage elected in 2018, alongside ONDP colleagues Suze Morrison and Guy Bourgouin.”

Mr. Mamakwa was similarly “the second person of full First Nations descent elected to the assembly after Peter North in 1990.” On May 28, 2024, he “became the first person to give a speech in an Indigenous language in the Ontario Legislature.” And : “As of August 11, 2024, he serves as the Deputy Leader of the Official Opposition and critic for Indigenous and Treaty Relations as well as for Northern Development.”

It may be still more intriguing that Sol Mamakwa sits for a riding in the somewhat mysterious far north of Ontario, where there are no highways or railways and life has in some respects more in common with Northern Ontario 400 years ago than with Southern Ontario today.

The riding (electoral district) of Kiiwetinoong for which Mr. Mamakwa sits was created by the Kathleen Wynne Liberal government in 2017, to give the province at least one present-day political division where “two-thirds of residents are Indigenous.”

In the midst of the many crazy sides of Doug Ford’s right-wing conservative Government of Ontario today — complete with incessantly applauding trained seals in the Legislative Assembly — Sol Mamakwa often enough lends some high-minded distinction to Ontario politics.

And now that includes the modern patriotic commemorations surrounding Remembrance Day in Canada, its diverse First Nations and Indigenous geography, its most populous province of Ontario, and the full breadth of modern Ontario’s vast geography, all the way to the shores of Hudson Bay. (And the Hudson Bay Lowlands that just may be somewhat transformed by climate change in the 21 st century!)

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK,TORONTO. FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 8, 2024. Like others I am altogether surprised by the Trump Republican victory in the 2024 US election.

Over the past few weeks, however, I can claim to have written at least one arguably prescient sentence on the subject : “I also can’t help wondering if America is quite ready to start singing Beyoncé’s new song, at the precipice of an incredible shift” (posted on October 26 : see below).

The election has now shown clearly enough that America is not quite ready to sing Beyoncé’s new song — and elect as president a class-act California woman born in the USA to middle-class Asian-African immigrant parents .

Like others again, I wanted to believe that America was ready to take this bold step forward. I still think it some day will be. (Just as it finally did elect Barack Obama for two straight terms.) And the states of the Union in which I could most agreeably live today are those won by Kamala Harris in 2024 — from New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia in the east, eg, to Colorado, California, and Oregon in the west.

Meanwhile Andrew Coyne has wisely stressed : “She got 48 per cent of the vote — more than Donald Trump got in 2016 or George Bush in 2000, both of whom were elected president.”

This suggests something like the UK 2016 Brexit vote, where in round numbers 52% voted Yes and 48% voted No. Now, some eight years later : “As of May 2024, 55 percent of people in Great Britain thought that it was wrong to leave the European Union, compared with 31 percent who thought it was the right decision.”

It seems that the initial 52% estimate in 2024 in the USA will/may finally be much closer to 50%. But all this could nonetheless be one signpost on the road to wherever Donald Trump and the sometimes deranged forces he seems to represent will try to take Democracy in America over the next four years.

The Red Surprise election of 2024 (insofar as it actually exists beyond mere political rhetoric) will arguably enough prove to be the peak of the Trumpian Triumph — as it tracks the 2016 referendum’s 52% Pro-Brexit in the UK to its subsequent fall to less than a third of the various peoples of the UK today.

Of course this kind of analogy has its limits. Another side of what strikes me as the inevitable fate of the Trumpian ordeal ahead has been nicely captured by the caption across a photo of a red MAGA baseball hat, posted at 8:25 PM (ET) on Nov 7 by Justice Horn :

“The Bible predicted that Christians would follow a false prophet and that they would wear his mark on their foreheads … Revelation 13:16–17.” The apocalypse that the far-right prophets at the bottom of the calculated Trumpian ethos anticipate is real and will happen, that is to say. But in the end they will be on the losing side, with their false prophet gone.

So it is written. So it will be. (Though to actually read verses 16 and 17 of chapter 13 in the Book of Revelation mostly reminds me why reading this concluding book of the Bible seriously for the first time convinced me that, in my late teens or possibly very early 20s, I had to leave the otherwise good Baptist church in which I had been baptized as an adult at the age of 12, along with friends in my Sunday school class.)

One thing I have finally learned from these and many other sources over my increasing years now is that in all the great American movies the good guys win in the end. And in the rugged saga of Democracy in America that began in the early 19th century the progressives are always the good guys — and even the most truly American Americans in the opinion of many whose views also cannot be denied. (At least as we see such things up here, north of the North American Great Lakes.)

RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO . MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2024. UPDATED WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 (SEE BELOW). There is much progressive excitement about the results of a regional poll that shows Harris ahead of Trump in Iowa! No one seems to think she will actually take “ruby red” Iowa Tuesday. But if she comes much closer than anyone thought possible in this part of the mom-and-apple-pie Midwest, what does that mean for the big picture?

I’ve also seen arguments on even Elon Musk’s Twitter/X that the polls still showing an extremely close race are overestimating Trump and underestimating Harris. Just to see this kind of thing, however, is to be seized by the thought that it may be quite delusional to imagine the real-world political divide between Trump’s Old America and Kamala’s New America can be so quickly breeched.

The deep question seems to focus on whether Kamala Harris really has started to mobilize the very broad anti-Trump US constitutionalist coalition that stretches from AOC on the left to Liz Cheney on the right — a new America that agrees on the broad parameters of how governments should do what they do, while continuing to disagree on just what they should do.

If this kind of very big-tent governing coalition is what finally does win with surprising electoral strength on November 5 it will make for a less narrowly political kind of government in Washington, DC. Somewhat ironically, a much narrower Harris victory (now the most objectively likely result?) will be more progressively pure .

Then there certainly does seem to remain a quite serious prospect that the American people (as defined by the obsolete and anti-democratic electoral college, etc) will in 2024 just be crazy enough to elect the anti-constitutionalist Donald Trump to a second term in office, by some equally narrow margin.

My feeling right now is let’s not worry much about that prospect until we actually come to it if we do. (Well .. in our particular case here, north of the northern border, the ”we” is strictly symbolic or metaphorical, for the time being at least … until the next Canadian federal election sometime next year!) But this is of course easier advice to give than to follow. And then virtually everyone I’ve talked with over the past few days has urged that it may be quite a while after November 5 before we finally know who won and who lost just what …

Meanwhile, to keep the ball rolling, here is a quotation from the irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead, who started in Huntsville, Alabama in 1902 and ended in New York City in 1968 : “No one can ever be like me… Hell, even I have trouble doing it.”

UPDATE NOV 6, 1:30 AM ET : Whatever else, it is now altogether certain that there is no happy surprise blowing in the wind of Democracy in America. The very broad anti-Trump US constitutionalist coalition that stretches from AOC on the left to Liz Cheney on the right just does not have a big enough mass base in the real world of American electoral politics 2024.

There is arguably still some hope for a much narrower Harris victory when all the votes from the most poignant battleground states are counted — tomorrow or sooner and so forth. (See update on the update 2:30 AM below : this prospect has now effectively vanished. ) But right now this does not at all still seem the most objectively likely result. As I at least go to bed Donald Trump is leading in both the electoral college and the popular vote. The Republicans now have a majority in the Senate. And even progressive commentators on TV are projecting that this time it will be more like 2016 than 2020. At some point after or even when (?) I get up in the morning Donald Trump will likely enough be President of the United States once again — no matter how much I pray.

I have been most struck by an 11:18 PM Nov 5 tweet/post from the journalist Aaron Rupar : “If Trump wins, there will be efforts to blame Russian interference or the Harris campaign or Biden, etc. That’s all fair. But we need to be clear eyed that a huge swath of America likes what Trump is selling. Transphobia. Mass deportation. That’s what he ran on. And here we are.”

At this exact point it’s still “If Trump wins”. But I certainly have lost all confidence that he won’t win. I’m still not quite ready to start thinking as if he actually has won. But I think I may very soon have to cross this bridge. Along with the rest of the global village that has no faith in Trump’s America — even as I altogether agree with Aaron Rupar’s need to be clear-eyed about the huge swath of the electorate that “likes what Trump is selling”!

update on the update 2:30 AM : As it happens I haven’t quite gone to bed yet. And Trump now has 266 of the 270 electoral votes he needs. He is addressing the universe on TV as I write here. As if he will be President again, which now seems virtually certain! God only knows just what the future holds for America …