I understand why, as a you feel this way, but I don’t believe it. The oligarchs behind Trump understand that an actual invasion of Canada would be an endless costly quagmire. What they are doing is manipulation of stock markets for, as you note, massive profit - without all the fuss of war and mass destruction
Now, the fact that dipshit might actually start a war can’t be discounted, but it’s not the plan for them.
I would say ten percent of Canadians support Trump, but his recent tariff policies might have decreased this. I see a MAGA hat or pro-Trump clothing or bumper sticker once a week. Most supporters are more demure outside of their bubbles, expressing their views after the third beer, since it is not always a popular position.
Perhaps, but even if they believe that, they won’t be the ones paying for it so why should they care? The taxpayer will foot the bill.
My MAGA-Republican, classist, subtly racist (anti-African-American, Jamaicans are different), anti-immigrant immigrant, money-obsessed, black Jamaican former co-worker would probably have gotten along great with your family. Y’know if their different respective species of racism didn’t get in the way.
One of the sadder revelations of my life as I have slowly shed my former youthful optimism about people, has been that oppression does not recognize oppression and self-deception is bottomless. That there are actually quite a number of these people is really rather depressing.
An article discussing Canadian concerns.
Ah yes. The Mango Maosolini.
Do you have a brief summary? That’s paywalled.
I can’t/haven’t read the article, however, during my 32 years in the RCN, I and my colleagues were always extremely frustrated by our federal government’s and population’s absolute disinterest, at best, and disdain, at worst, for national defence. The prevailing belief seemed to be that we were all paranoid, borderline conspiracy theorists participating in some sort of grand job creation scheme with expensive toys. A lot of mismanagement happened as a result.
The RCN, for example, actually had an aircraft carrier, HMCS BONAVENTURE, which completed a midlife refit in 1967. Three years later, in l970, the Canadian government had her decommissioned.
In the '90s, the then-liberal government used the defence budget as a giant pot of cash from which to reduce the federal deficit. As well, a “force reduction program” (FRP) was implemented which devolved into a fairly un-surgical personnel reduction scheme which did significant damage to the required rank-to-rank ratios in the various occupations, the result being most occupations being “top-heavy” (too many senior ranks on the cusp of retirement and not enough junior ranks to backfill and train, with a resultant loss of corporate knowledge and expertise).
One appalling and notable example was the Battle of Medak Pocket (Operation Medak Pocket - Wikipedia) in Croatia in 1993. It was the result of a peacekeeping operation in which Canadian soldiers (and some French, if I recall correctly; the actual commander was a French general, who was fed up with UN operations losing credibility, consequently ordering the Canadian battle group to hold their position) were positioned between Serb and Croat forces. The result was that the Canadians were engaged in a 20-ish hour firefight with Croatians who had ethnically cleansed several villages.
It should have been a moment of glory for the CAF, having been engaged in battle in an effort to protect a civilian population. Instead, because of a variety of political reasons, the government buried it and almost no one knew about it until 1995. The Canadian combatants did not get official recognition until the early 2000s.
Another example is the term “Canadian Armed Forces”. For the longest time the word “Armed” was not in our name. I left the military in 2011 and at that time we were the “Canadian Forces” (CF).
In the late '90s, the Canadian Armed Forces (CF) had a significant cost of living crisis, with a Senate Committee discussing such things as lower ranks needing to go to food banks and things of that nature.
It wasn’t until 9/11 and the subsequent deployment of CF troops to Afghanistan, and our then Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Rick Hillier, who was an extremely personable and proud booster of the CF, that the Canadian public actually visibly supported us. But even then, we were forced to deploy with Canadian light utility vehicles (VW/Bombardier Iltises (basically a descendant of the Kubelwagen and the VW Thing)) without any blast protection: we gradually had to escalate levels of protection, driven by roadside bomb casualties.
Our troops were also initially deployed to the desert-like environment of Afghanistan in dark green camouflage, as procurement in the CAF is always done in a convoluted, overly complex, get the cheapest stuff possible while satisfying the largest number of special interest groups and regions, methodology.
And it has been this way throughout my career.
So, it’s very possible that some very knowledgeable and astute Trump advisor knows all this and knows just how undefended Canada is. We would never be able to defend ourselves against a country like the US, but we should be able to inflict enough pain to make them think twice - but we truly can’t, unless we have been harbouring a secret stock of nuclear weapons somewhere.
Some may think that @RickJay is an alarmist but, if Trump was able to maintain focus on tariffs against us, we could be sufficiently destabilized at some point to the extent that an armed invasion would be really easy.
A brief excerpt of The Economist article:
Wayne Eyre, who retired as Canada’s top general in 2024, says his country no longer has “a benign superpower to the south”. “For far too long we’ve had a case of strategic apathy, bordering on strategic negligence,” he says. “Hopefully now this is a call to strategic action.”
Removed as greatly exceeded fair use
What you’re describing is the Swiss “porcupine” defensive philosophy; you can invade them, but it’s going to be horrifically costly.
Canada is going to be absolutely steamrolled; conventionally we have no defensive capability of any significance. What army we do have isn’t even deployed for this scenario, doesn’t train for it, and almost certainly doesn’t have a plan, because it’s an armed forces that is designed, planned and deployed to fight in Europe and the Atlantic with our allies. Right now, it is quite literally the case that we are much better prepared to defend Latvia.
And the folks on social media babbling about how Canadian soldiers are worth 50 Americans, about how we burned down the White House in 1814 (which, by the way, we didn’t) about how the Geneva Conventions were written because Canadians were too vicious (also a lie) are legion. Canadians really have no idea how unprepared we are for this. We are not a porcupine, we’re a mouse.
Of COURSE the Americans know this.
Hear hear! I’m not even sure that our politicians truly grasp this, although they may be desperately trying to avoid inflaming things as we can’t actually defend ourselves militarily.
Given that, I really have no clue as to what we can do to prevent, deter, or even mitigate the range of threats of which the US is fully capable.
All of the “elbows up” and “Canada strong” slogans are great until…
Moderating: That excerpt exceeds fair use by a sizable amount. Also lacks a link or at minimum citation to the article. I’m going to delete the bulk of it.
Is it too late for Canada? The amount of changes that need to happen seem completely insurmountable. The ability to protect ourselves, the self sufficiency, the dismantling of the inter-provincial trade barriers, protecting our natural resources - it all seems like it can’t really be fixed and needs to start from the bottom up. Like countries do after a war…
I fully believe America is unfixable. They’re too far gone to come back to what they once were. Maybe after a war, they can start over.
Anybody I say this to thinks I’m overreacting but I believe we are already in WWIII.
This New England citizen sadly agrees with you.
I believe that it is. The Wayne Eyre article posted by @Dr_Paprika quotes a CAF strength of 63000-ish. It’s important to recognize that, of those 63,000-ish, a signifcant population comprises “purple” occupations, that is, support occupations such as personnel administration clerks, finance clerks, admin officers, Dental Officers, Nursing Officers, Medical Officers, Training Development Officers (which I was when I retired) and a many more. So those are not 63000 pure warfighters such as Naval Warfare Officers (which I was before becoming a TDO), pilots, infantry and infantry officers, Naval Electronic Sensor Operators etc. But in terms of “boots on the ground” with assault rifles who have been trained and are experienced in ground warfare tactics - a very small number indeed.
Our numbers in defence have, for a very long time, caused much frustration, concern and angst in the NATO and US world. It’s my belief that Trump (and/or his ilk) may be pissed off at us for freeloading (which we’ve done to an extent) and may also look down upon us so much that the insults and threats are just fun for them and possibly a warning of future action.
I remember perhaps ten years ago discussing with a colleague our sovereignty in the arctic and how we’ll probably lose our arctic sometime in the near future.
I could see Chinese warships, in the guise of “humanitarian” work, anchoring near some of our arctic outposts and supplying free or very cheap food and plentiful clean water for the indigenous (Inuit) residents. Those residents have substantially overpriced groceries as well as many other things, because of shipping costs. At any rate, there would be very little that we could do about it.
I concur. And if the US withdraws sufficiently from Europe, they (Europe) will probably arm up substantially. I’ve even heard a number of different pundits suggesting that the nations that can, will, as quickly as possible, become nuclear states. Additionally, this could result in direct conflict between EU and Russia, against Trump’s wishes. How will that play out?
With political courage, we could significantly increase the cost of the invasion. There’s two elements to this:
Point 1 requires significant outlay of cash on rushing in weapons and then deploying our forces - including callup of reserves to defend Ottawa, the bridges and available border crossings in Ontario and Quebec, and maybe Halifax, Esqimalt, and arguably Montreal. I realize that leaves open basically the entire country, but we cannot defend everything, and a swift strike at Ottawa is ABOSLUTELY what they will do, because even the USA cannot attack everything. Decapitating the government and murdering Carney and his cabinet are key for them, in the hopes the rest of the country will accept a fait accompli. Make doing that hurt.
Inevitably we will transition into Point 2 if the invasion happens. That requires ensuring our troops are, as swiftly as possible but especially those in parts of Canada I did not note as being defended above, trained in insurgency warfare and ordered to melt away into the cities and back to their homes with weapons, ammo, and munitions. They and as many civilians volunteers as possible must be given the tools and chains of command they need to conduct a resistance campaign of unrelenting violence, and part of that must be infiltrating many people into the USA to conduct bombings and killings there.
Three additional things are key:
First, you need to evacuate enough of the government abroad to a friendly state that they can set up a government in absentia. (So you need a country willing to host that; hopefully the UK or France, though the UK government’s cowardice on this file isn’t presently encouraging.) Having a constitutionally valid authority supervising the resistance makes a lot of difference; they can arrange financial and material support, set rules of engagement, condemn those who go too far to ensure Canada remains the good guy, serve as Canada’s mouthpiece to the world, specify which quislings and war criminals should next be assassinated, etc… Also you’re saving those people from being murdered or sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Secondly, in crash-buying military stuff, we need to think very differently about this threat. People are talking about how we should cancel the F-35 and buy some other plane, like the Gripen or Rafale. In fact, right now, we should buy no planes at all. Jet fighters are a waste of time and money. It doesn’t matter if we could magically make a hundred Gripens appear at our airbases tomorrow; the USA has thousands of aircraft and the bases at Cold Lake and Bagotville will be levelled within a few hours of the start of the war. We could have 200 of them, won’t make a difference; stopping their air force is impossible. Similarly, our navy should really just flee to a friendly port; they won’t last long, and the USA can’t allow them to exist. Save them for later. Spend that money on small arms, bombs and explosives, MANPADS, small anti tank weapons, and other small scale implements of guerrilla war. Expend money on manipulating records, fake IDs, hacking, and the like to get trained people into the USA.
Third, I’m hearing talk about how the Canadian military and resistance fighters should flee to the hills! We have treacherous terrain, right? That’s a preposterous idea. Utterly insane. They can hide in the cities. In Edmonton or Sherbrooke, a guy who’s part of the resistance looks like everyone else going about his business. Four people getting together to discuss what to do next is no more noteworthy than if they were getting together to play euchre. People organizing and moving around in the hills, THAT’s suspicious.
Better still is if they aren’t in Edmonton or Sherbrooke… but Fort Worth or Syracuse.
Where this resistance will be very different from Afghanistan or Iraq is that there is no friendly place for Americans. See, in Afghanistan, there were whole territories and demographics that, for good reason, WANTED the Allies there. The Northern Alliance was on our side. Entire religious and cultural groups were objectively better off with us there, and they controlled areas. Iraq was the same; some groups and areas were pro-coalition, some anti.
But in Canada, there is no pro-American demographic, religion, or area. Literally the most pro-USA areas are Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the opposition to this is at least six or seven to one (and will be much worse after the war starts.) There is no religious separation between pro and anti-American. Both French and English will hate them and thirst for blood. The Americans will be surrounded by enemies everywhere and will have no friendly ground at all. There is no need to hide in the hills; everywhere is the same.
Obviously a Canadian terrorist!!!
It’s a bit difficult to keep up with the stream of blather, babble and bloviating but IIRC recently 45/47 put out his view that any country which ran a trade surplus with the US is “ripping America off” and consequently punitive tariffs would be applied to redress.
The corollary being that in the ideal MAGA world the US would be running a surplus with every trading partner … and similarly ripping them off.
That seems an economic mantra even beyond mercantilism. It’s racketeering.
I am running a substantial trade surplus with my employer. I thought they were getting value for money … maybe I’m just ripping them off?
Conversely my barista, well patently that bastard is ripping me off and I need to apply a tariff at the point of entry on my coffee purchases.
Also explains why this 45/47 guy has constantly/consistently stiffed his suppliers.
Yes the Americans can steamroll Canada’s military. If I was to do it, I’d capture parliament and take control of the bases. A short 2 day largely bloodless exercise. Then I’d make the announcement that Canada is now the US with all the benefits thereof. Canadian dollar at par, exchange your loonies in by x date. Keep your healthcare, go to work as normal. No more tariffs.
So, uh, who’s in this underground blowing themselves and random Americans up? Certainly not the recent immigrants to Canada who likely only came to Canada because they couldn’t get into the US. Now they are Americans (or at least they are until ICE packages them up).
It’s one thing to fight against Russia who will enforce major changes on the way you live and will be putting people up against the wall if they object, but another when effectively nothing would change except the possibility of a higher standard of living.
So, in our post national state, who do you think is fighting and more importantly, why? You can potentially make a case for Quebec, but anyone else in Canada is just a cultural reflection of someone in the US. Essentially we are the same.
This is beyond ludicrous.
First, you’re ignoring that in this scenario the US is a fascist dictatorship. Because if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have invaded Canada in the first place. So it wouldn’t be “continue life as usual,” unless you think life in a fascist dictatorship is no different from life in a liberal democracy. Which is lunacy.
And the terms imposed on Canada would not be the sunshine and puppy dogs you imagine. We wouldn’t be exchanging loonies for greenbacks at par. How on earth would you imagine that would happen? The exchange rate would collapse and we’d be lucky to get 25 cents on the dollar. Healthcare? We wouldn’t have self-governance. We’d be dictated to from Washington by Trumpists, who are renowned for their love of socialized medicine. We might get to vote in meaningless, rigged elections, I guess.
You gotta let us all in on where you purchase your cannabis products, because they have clearly got the good stuff.