I heard the other day that some friends of friends of mine who live in Cornwall have stopped crossing the border. Well, I said. The folks down there have always nurtured a strong sense of their own identity, and perhaps kept themselves a little apart. They have their own language after all. But no. Not the Cornwall neighbouring Devon. But another Cornwall, in Ontario. I checked it out. It lies on the St. Lawrence River, more or less equidistant from Ottawa and Montreal. The good people of Cornwall have been accustomed to cross a bridge over the river, into the USA, perhaps simply to buy some groceries.
Apparently, no longer. They are boycotting American goods.
President Trump, having already suggested that Canada become the 51st state, and having slapped 50% tariffs on many Canadian goods imported to the US, has now decreed that Lake Ontario be renamed Lake America, and he has directed US federal agencies to adopt this nomenclature. I think he did this, after the style of King George III, by executive order. Doug Ford, the Ontario Premier, wearing a Team Canada football shirt, has unveiled a sign on a huge billboard near Grimsby (the other Grimsby, near Niagara Falls), Ontario. Lake Ontario. Now and Always. Aujourd’hui et toujours. I wonder what the Canadian Head of State, King Charles, makes of it all.
Wab Kinew, premier of Manitoba, has compared Trump to an ageing rock band trying to revive a hit from 50 years ago, that particular hit being the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, qua the Gulf of America. It’s a little sad. “Not his best work.” More bluntly, a distinguished Canadian historian has called Trump a moron.
What exactly is a moron?
Chambers: moron n a somewhat feeble-minded person; a former category of mental impairment, describing a person with an IQ of 50 – 69, ie one who remains throughout his life at the mental age of eight to twelve. {Gr moros foolish}
Well, I dare say Trump is no Einstein, but then again, who is? But clearly he is not a moron. He’s actually rather wily. He plays to his support base. I think it is a tactical error for political opponents of Trump to call him a moron, or to think of him as being a moron. It’s a mistake to underestimate him. He may not be an intellectual giant, but he is formidable in his own way. He knows how to manage, perhaps how to manipulate a crowd. In 2016, Hillary Clinton made the tactical error of casting Trump’s entire support base as moronic. That went well.
I visited Ontario in 1982. Gosh, who was the US President then? Ronald Reagan. If he was a successful president, perhaps it was partly because he was comfortable in his own skin, and always looked as if he was enjoying himself. He was a very good after-dinner speaker, and could tell brilliant jokes. He made useful acquaintance with Thatcher, and Gorbachev. Now we think of that time, geopolitically, as a golden age. No doubt seen through rose-tinted spectacles.
Back in 1982, I hired a car in New York, and drove upstate, entering Canada through Thousand Island Country. Very beautiful. I drove round Lake Ontario, anticlock, and I remember stopping in Bellville, east of Toronto, and staying with an evangelical pastor who invited me to attend his church one Sunday. But I was unwell, and throwing up. (Sometimes I think I should write a vomiter’s travelogue; it would circumvent the globe.) I have a notion that the evangelical pastor thought I was exhibiting a profound aversion and revulsion at the thought of attending kirk, as if I were some emissary of the devil out of a horror movie like Omen Damien 3. Probably just my imagination. Of the rest of the trip, I remember of course Niagara Falls, and the lovely Niagara on the Lake.
Back on the road, I re-entered the US via Buffalo, and I remember on the Canadian side of the border a douanier asked me, in a perplexed manner, “Why do you want to go down there?” Many years later I encountered the same bewilderment at Faro Airport in Portugal, when I hired a car to drive into Spain. It’s a kind of passive aggressive attitude of the small neighbour having to put up with the big one.
Of course, the President has his eye not only on Canada, but also on Greenland. Iceland too, has been nervous, though apparently not sufficiently nervous as to rejoin the EU. Historically, they broke away from Denmark, so maybe a return to Europe seems regressive. When I think of Canada and Greenland and Iceland, I think of my father who flew in the RAF’s Coastal Command, looking for Atlantic U-boats from a base in Prince Edward Island, and who flew an aircraft from Ontario back to war-torn Europe via Bluie West One in Greenland, on to Reykjavik, thence to Prestwick. So I feel a certain affinity, and sympathy, for Canada.
The significance of Trump is not yet clear. Does he represent, geopolitically, a blip, or a sea-change? The mid-terms may give us a clue in November. I believe our new Prime Minister is due shortly to visit the White House, and that should prove an interesting interaction. Will he attempt to cultivate the so-called Special Relationship? Perhaps he should attend the Oval Office in his trademark black T-shirt, and then the press corps can deride him for his dress code. I will never forget President Zelenskyy’s reception in the Oval Office. It left an indelible impression. It told us all we need to know about the current administration.
I think Mr Burnham should be polite, but firm. He can limber up, at PMQs in Westminster on Wednesday. He can hone his debating skills with Kemi Badenoch, who I don’t imagine will be pulling any punches. Across the Pond, Stateside, he should speak truth to power. He might garner some tips from the current Leader of the Free World, Mark Carney.
jamescalumcampbell 