Magical thinking | The Press

Faced with the avalanche of dire analyzes commenting on Donald Trump’s victory, we can understand that some Canadians were looking for a buoy, a ray of sunshine, anything to distract them from the imminent return of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Listening only to her courage, the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, took on the role of “reassurance-in-chief”. Clumsily borrowing an expression reminding us of years of hell, M^me Freeland tried to calm things down by saying “everything is going to be okay.” Prime Minister Trudeau’s office – in a similar effort to appease – publicized the content of the interview he had with President Trump last week. The exchanges were said to have been “warm” and “courteous” and Mr. Trump even praised Pierre Elliott Trudeau when the Prime Minister reminded him that his father had also experienced a triumphant return.

Knowing the Trudeau government’s series of failures with Trump 1.0, it takes blind confidence (or a Liberal Party of Canada membership card) to think for 30 seconds that we are in good hands.

I bet Sam Pollock, legendary general manager of the Montreal Canadiens, was “warm” when he called his peers to discuss trades.

And he probably praised the entire family of Charles Finley, of the California Golden Seals, when he passed on Ernie Hicke in May 1970 for the first pick in the 1971 draft (Guy Lafleur). The naivety still exuded by Mr. Trudeau and his entourage makes us fear the worst.

The examples of incompetence between 2016 and 2020 are numerous and I dread the idea of ​​declining them. Largely because the same team is still in place in Canada — one that has never been able to interpret the signals or identify the right influencers.

When Mr. Trump began his first campaign for the presidency in June 2015, we will remember the angry tone reserved for Mexico. He was going to build a wall between the two countries to prevent Mexicans from expatriating their thugs to the United States — he even suggested that several Mexican immigrants were rapists. Today, a similar statement would not surprise anyone. But nine years ago, she shocked the entire political class.

During the Republican primaries and the 2016 presidential election, there was a lot of talk about this wall and Mexico. When Mr. Trump threatened to renegotiate the terms of the free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, he was mainly targeting Mexico — he had barely talked about Canada during the campaign. But Mr. Trudeau, recklessly, chose to publicly join forces with the Mexicans to form a united front against Mr. Trump, at the same time espousing an adage little known to the general public (the enemy of my best friend is also my friend…).

Suddenly seeing two targets rather than one, President Trump salivated.

What followed was a series of mirages and flashy gestures designed to give Canadians the impression that the Trudeau government was in complete control. Starting with the firing of Stéphane Dion at Foreign Affairs on January 10, 2017, a few days before Mr. Trump moved into the White House. There were fears that Mr. Dion, a cerebral politician with 20 years on the job, was bad casting for dealing with the Trump clan. He then succeeds M^me Freeland, a political rookie from the left wing of the party.

In a high-profile outing a few months later, Mr. Trudeau invited Ivanka Trump to the premiere of a Broadway play. It was hinted that acting was not the only topic on the agenda. And Mr. Trudeau even recruited Brian Mulroney, the architect of free trade between Canada and the United States, in the hope of making President Trump listen to reason. At times, we thought we were on the set of The man who whispered in the ears of horses.

The free trade agreement was renegotiated and the federal Liberals asked us to believe that they were skillful negotiators.

But the decline for Canada was substantial, particularly with regard to supply management, where American dairy products obtained significant access rights.

We must hope that in the short term, Canada remains far down on Mr. Trump’s list of priorities. To my knowledge, apart from this threat to impose 10% duties on all products imported into the United States, there is no particular dispute with Canada.

Canadians will go to the polls by next October and the issue of Canadian-American relations is likely to be debated. If voters choose to return Mr. Trudeau to power, that is their right. But in the very likely event that they choose another path, it would be helpful if Mr. Trudeau and his team did not make moves that would harm a new government. Let’s remain warm and courteous, but let’s avoid toga effects.

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