Where Is Canada's Voice?

I am old enough to have seen much, and I am certainly a realist when it comes to politics. As Bismarck said,  it is "the art of the possible." That being said, I cannot shake the feeling that Canada should be doing much more in its responses to Donald Trump's genocidal insanity.

I begin with the premise that there will always be something that will set off the unhinged president, be it a television ad critical of tariff weapons, an exercise of foreign policy independence (Mr. Carney's trip to China), or the mere fact of trying to open a new bridge to Detroit. (The latter is in the news today, as Trump demands 50% ownership of the new Gordie Howe Bridge.

There is no appeasing a madman. And yet Canada continues with very, very muted responses to the mad king's outrages, perhaps still under the delusion that diplomacy has a chance. Two egregious examples demand immediate rectification. 

The first involves Kimberly Prost, a Canadian who sits as a judge on the International Criminal Court. She, along with others, was sanctioned by the U.S.in August of last year. 

The State Department says Judge Kimberly Prost, of Canada, was sanctioned for ruling to authorize the ICC's investigation into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the court "a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel" and said the U.S. has remained steadfast in its opposition to the ICC's "illegitimate judicial overreach."

An article today discusses what those sanctions mean for Prost. 

Her credit cards stopped working. A bank transfer to newlyweds in the U.K. has been stuck in limbo for months. She can’t travel to the U.S. — she was even disinvited from virtually attending a recent international law conference in New York.

And in a dystopian turn that could be pulled from a Ray Bradbury novel, her smart speaker no longer responds after Amazon cut off access: “Suddenly, Alexa wouldn’t talk to me.”

Prost is unbowed by these sanctions.

“These measures are completely futile because they certainly do not impact the way we do our jobs,” she said. “We continue with our work, we carry on, and we solely focus on objective and independent analysis of the evidence before us to reach our decisions.”

Compounding this grave injustice is the silence the Canadian government has chosen as its 'strategy' (although Anita Anand claims she raised the issue privately with American secretary of state Marco Rubio). 

Bob Rae, our former ambassador to the UN, was more forceful last summer, that is, until his wrists were slapped:

“The U.S. attack on the International Criminal Court and its judges is disgraceful,” Rae tweeted the day Prost was sanctioned. “Judge Kim Prost are [sic] carrying out their public duties. Attacks on them by Russia, Israel and the U.S. are intended to weaken and intimidate the international legal system.”

Rae, who left his ambassadorial post in November, quickly deleted the tweet. Government communications obtained by the Star, and first reported by online publication The Maple, suggest he was instructed to. “Getting my wings clipped,” Rae messaged a colleague that day. 

Who, or what, is served by such cowardice?

The second, even deadlier example is Trump's genocidal sanctions on Cuba, a country we have visited every year (except during the pandemic) since 2010. Trump, as you are likely aware, has threatened reprisal tariffs against any country that sends oil to that country. People will die as a result of this illegal edict, and it has devastated Cuba's tourism industry, one that relies heavily upon Canadian tourism for foreign currency.  Consequently, Air Canada has ceased flights to the island, as Havana warns it will no longer be able to refuel flights owing to the fuel shortage wrought by the embargo.

Personally, having much experience of a warm and gracious people both on and off the resorts, I feel terrible that the island is being condemned to such an unjust fate. Canada has always considered itself a friend to Cuba, having joint ventures there involving such fields as mining, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, etc. And yet again, absolute silence.

I understand that Canada is not about to start shipping oil to Cuba, but the very least it could do, in consultation and collaboration with Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is to speak out in the name of decency and sanity. Her country had been sending oil to the island, but has since stopped in the face of Trump's derangement. She, however, has at least spoken out to a degree about the situation.

Sheinbaum said at a public event in the northern state of Sonora that she did not discuss Cuban affairs in a phone conversation with Trump on Thursday. She added that her government seeks to “ diplomatically solve everything related to the oil shipments (to Cuba) for humanitarian reasons.”

Canada's silence on these issues is inexcusable. It is well and good to talk about national pride, but in order to cultivate and support it, our country must do much more than cower in the face of Trump's threats. 

A Tonic For The Times

A friend sent me this video. If you watch it in its entirety, I think you will find it a stirring reminder of some of the things that make Canada such a special place, a place we should all be grateful for and proud to call our home.

How's that as a tonic fpr the times that currently plague us?

The Cowardly Racist

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, and a book that I highly recommend, especially to Americans who deny their country's innate racism,  is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson. The book tells the history of the migration of over six million Blacks from the Jim Crow south that took place from WW1 to 1970. While revolving primarily around three people, whose stories she renders in heartfelt detail, it is a stark reminder of the terrible prejudice, injustices, abuses and murders Black people have faced for so many years, realities that did not end with their emancipation.

All of which brings me to state the obvious: Donald Trump is a blatant, unapologetic racist who uses his Executive bully box to cultivate and inflame, not heal, the deep divisions within his country. The latest of many instances of Trump's vile nature is perhaps one of his most shocking - the depiction of the Obamas as apes. It is a depiction for which, typical of his cowardly nature, he offers no apology, 

Donald Trump said on Friday evening, after a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes had been posted to his social media account and then deleted, that he had directed aides to post the offensive video but that he hadn’t seen that portion of the clip and he refused to apologize for it.

The clip appeared during one of the 79-year-old US president’s increasingly frequent late-night posting sprees to his Truth Social account, and shows the laughing faces of the former president and first lady superimposed on the bodies of primates in a jungle setting, bobbing to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

Trump accepts no responsibility for this loud dog whistle sure to appeal to his MAGAT followers.

Although the White House initially defended the video in a statement from the press secretary, the video was later deleted and reporters were told that it had been posted, without the president’s knowledge, by an aide.

What led to the deletion? Apparently, a rare instance of a few Republicans showing a soupcon of spine as they joined with Democrats to condemn the deeply offensive post.

Tim Scott, a South Carolina senator, the only Black Republican in the US Senate and a former contender for the party’s presidential nomination , posted on X: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”

Earlier, Mike Lawler, the Republican congressman from New York, had posted: “The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive – whether intentional or a mistake – and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”

That spine was notably absent from Senate and Congressional leadership, however.

Neither of the top two Republicans in Congress, Thune and Mike Johnson, the House speaker, offered comment, prompting Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and the Senate minority leader, to post on X: “Racist. Vile. Abhorrent. This is dangerous and degrades our country – where are Senate Republicans?

In the Wizard of Oz, the cowardly lion finally found his courage. In this reality, however, neither the cowardly Trump nor his most ardent supporters have any desire to find theirs. 

 

 

 

 

Can We Show Some Spine?

The images emanating from the U.S. are something most of us never thought we would see. Masked government gunmen in the streets, tearing people out of their vehicles, demanding to see their papers, using battering rams to enter homes, and murdering people protesting their fascist ways. Such scenes must challenge even the most experienced denialist.

As a nation, we do not fall into that latter category, and yet there is a conspicuous absence of condemnation, even 'diplomatic' censure, from our government. While I realize it is always a fraught experience to deal with a fascist madman, surely it is time for our political representatives to show some spine.

That is indeed the opinion of Manitoba's premiere, Wab Kinew, one he expressed during the first ministers meeting last week.

Kinew says when he talks to his fellow Manitobans, they tell him how disturbed they are to watch the scenes from Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, which has resulted in two deaths and rolling, often violent confrontations between citizens and agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.)

“I felt compelled at the table, just given how much I’ve heard about this from Manitobans,” Kinew told reporters after the meeting ended.

Kinew said he has called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and asked what he can do to help. Walz and other people in the midst of the turmoil have told Kinew they want people — yes, Canadians — to speak out against what they’re witnessing.

The premier is on side with that request and is hoping other political leaders are too.

Unfortunately, silence seems to be the strategy of most of the political class. 

... neither Mark Carney nor the other premiers made any statements about Minnesota. Kinew, who understands that they have to present a careful, united front in the face of Trump, especially with regard to trade, nonetheless hinted at some regret for the silence.

Kinew realizes what is at stake, especially with the CUSMA review pending, but he seems to have a moral clarity others are lacking. 

... we also have to call a spade a spade. We also have to look clearly into some things that are happening right next to us that are very unjust, and be able to say that we are going to continue being a voice of moral clarity that’s important for us as Canadians, so that we can hold our head high no matter what happens in our trade relationships with other countries.”

Heather McPherson, currently running for the leadership of the federal NDP, is also very concerned.

She wrote a letter to Carney this week, calling for sanctions on any Canadian connections to ICE, whether that is business or government, and the closure of ICE offices in this country. The ICE website lists five of them here: in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

“What Canadians are seeing south of the border, in Minnesota and beyond, is terrifying. The Trump administration’s abuses have no limits,” McPherson wrote in her letter. 

Now the pragmatist will say, "Keep your head down and carry on." Indeed, Trump has instilled deep fear in much of the world owing to his unhinged and brutal assault on what we once considered collective values. But perhaps the timid should keep in mind one basic fact: our traditional behaviour of creeping quietly around the elephant is no longer a viable strategy. With the mad king, one thing or another will always arouse his baleful, idish impulses. Confronting those impulses in a united way, as Europe did in his mad quest for Greenland, may be the only way to ultimately survive him.  

 

Amerika's Terrible Trajectory

We are away right now, having escaped the terrible weather currently pummeling Ontario. The internet is not working well here, so I don't think my graphic will appear, but you can see all of the relevant images here, part of a disturbing story about ICE.

y now, you will have heard of ICE's latest killing this one 37-year-old Alex Pretti. That it was murder there can be little doubt. A CBC article sheds light on why this lawlessness of law enforcement is taking place. In a word, it is who ICE is recruiting. It is all in the language and imagery being used, all of which appeal to the far-right supremacists that infect Amerika.

"I would describe it as oddly very familiar as someone who has been looking at the white nationalist and neo-Nazi movement for nearly a decade now," said Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a non-profit that monitors right-wing extremism. 

"It's disturbing to see that coming from a government agency."

On Aug 11, 2025, ICE posted an image on its socials of Uncle Sam at a crossroads. It included the tag line "Which way, American man?" [Please see above link]

...  the phrase itself is taken from the title of a 700-page antisemitic nonfiction book written by William Gayley Simpson and published by a neo-Nazi press in the late 1970s. 

The book has long been a favourite among white supremacists.

It all follows part of a troubling pattern that caters to the racist president and his acolytes, and ecnhoes Amerika's essential racism.

In October, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, posted an image of George Washington on horseback with the URL to the ICE recruitment page. This time the tag line read "America for Americans."

It’s a slogan that was used in a xenophobic speech by President Theodore Rosevelt in 1916, before being picked up by the Ku Klux Klan, according to America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Harvard history professor Erika Lee.

 Not long after, DHS borrowed imagery from the popular video game Halo, writing "destroy the flood" atop an armed vehicle. 

In the world of the video game, the flood refers to a parasitic alien lifeform. It’s also reminiscent of the language far-right groups use to describe non-white immigrants, according to Gais.

Most recently, in the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, ICE put out a recruitment post emblazoned with the line "We’ll have our home again."

Apparently, ICE's recruitment strategy is 'paying off'.

ICE says it received around 220,000 applications during its recruitment drive last year, and hired 12,000 new officers, more than doubling the size of its force.

 A Proud Boys chapter reposted the "We’ll have our home again" ad next to a picture of a literal dog whistle, adding the line "message received."

Another chapter also reposted the ad, commenting "Hahah. If you know, you know."

While the Department of Homeland Security denies such allegations, it is clear that the Gestapo-like tactics currently afflicting Minnesota and other states are indicative of a mindset that respects only brute force, intimidation tactics, and terror. To challenge those 'values' enrages the agents.

Only Americans themselves can change this terrible trajectory.

Please note that if you make a comment and it doesn't appear here, it is du to a cranky internet, not a cranky blog writer.

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Carney's Words Reverberate

I only have time for a short post, so I offer this point. While one hopes Mark Carney's words lead to lasting changes in international relations, one thing is certain. Many people are talking about it and even offering ways in which the Americans can be brought to heel. Two letter-writers demonstrate this:

Well, well, Prime Minister Mark Carney broke the internet. It’s not exactly on the scale of Taylor Swift but it’s so satisfying to see many political commentators, journalists and ordinary Canadians shower him with praise. Carney’s speech is well-structured and direct. It’s smart that he takes complex ideas and renders them in language that the ordinary person can understand and be convinced of. I think it is particularly smart of him to admit that Canada is a “middle power.” We are for sure not a superpower like the U.S., but if this middle power forms a strong alliance with the other middle powers of the world, our impact may exceed that of a superpower. I am extremely doubtful that Pierre Poilievre will be able to write or deliver a speech similarly powerful and substantial. Thank you prime minister, we are so proud of you.

 Gloria Fung, Unionville, ON 

How middle powers could impact the U.S. economy

As of November 2025, the top five holders of U.S. Treasury Securities were, in billions of U.S. dollars: Japan, $1,203; U.K. $889; China, $683; Belgium, $481; and Canada, $472. All others held $4,920.

NATO countries, including France; $378, Norway; $219, and Germany; $110, hold a total of at least $2,549 which is more than one quarter of all foreign held U.S. Treasury Securities.

There is already a trend for foreigners to reduce their already large U.S. Treasury holdings due to low-yield and increasing risk. If NATO countries, along with some non-NATO others, sold off their U.S. Treasury Securities in a co-ordinated response to aggressive action against Greenland, the risk of financing the increasing U.S. budget deficit would decrease incentive for foreigners to finance additional U.S. government borrowing.

The resulting higher U.S. interest rates and reduced government spending would have a major disruptive impact on the U.S. economy.

Mike Priaro, Calgary, AB 

One can only hope that the momentum continues.

And since Trump is so fond of A.I., here is a video posted by a social media wag:

A Masterful Speech

 One cannot help but be impressed and inspired by Mark Carney's speech at Davos. I encourage you, if you have the time, to listen to it in its entirety. No matter what critics may say, in my view Carney is the right man to be

representing Canada at this perilous time.