Most Americans don’t understand why Canadians are so angry about Trump’s actions, and his talks of annexation.
I think hockey illustrates it well. Back in 2014, the singer who sang the American anthem’s mic failed at a hockey game. Canadians finished the song:
Just recently, fans at a Montreal game booed the anthem.
Here’s the thing: Ordinary Canadians thought that America was Canada’s friend.They really believed this.
Thus, hearing Trump’s threats, and seeing how many Americans back them, and how Americans deride and insult Canada, they feel betrayed.
The opposition to joining the US is in super-majority territory: over 80 percent. Canadians like being Canadian and think our society and form of government is better than America’s. They know Americans think the opposite, but it never occurred to most of them that America would try and force Canada to give up its sovereignty, or economically attack Cnanda.
Of course this is foolishness. America has never had friends and never will. It’s an antagonistic nation of bullies, and they have a long record of invading and bullying other nations. But ordinary Canadians, like ordinary people everywhere, don’t really think such issues through. Americans are a lot like Canadians and Canadians consume a ton of American media and tended to identify with America.
Personally, I’ve always been worried that America would turn on Canada, and since the ’90s I’ve been pushing for Canadian policy to recognize that. So, if we can avoid an invasion, I’m somewhat pleased that Trump has torn off the mask and shown the barbarian beneath. Even if the political elite is still in denial, it pushes us towards understanding the world more realistically. There is only one country that can credibly threaten Canada, and it’s been that way for as long as Canada has existed. Hell, since before Canada was formed.
Oh, and Americans: America doesn’t protect us from anybody but America. For Canada, NATO is and always has been nothing but an American protection racket. A proper Canadian military wouldn’t be an expeditionary force designed to help American overseas wars; we would lend naval and air support, with a lot of icebreakers, and an army primarily trained for insurgency to defend the only country in the world which has ever been a threat to us.
But I agree. Canada should spend a lot more on its military. We just shouldn’t spend it on US tech, as Canadians have begun to recognize:
Defence experts warn that The United States controls many of the key systems onboard Canada’s new warships, allowing the Americans to hold this country hostage over future upgrades or even the provision of spare parts.Taxpayers are spending as much as $80 billion on a new fleet of Canadian Surface Combatants to be constructed at Irving Shipbuilding. The heart of each of the warships is the command management system, which controls weapons, radars and other intelligence-gathering equipment.
Originally that high-tech system was supposed to be Canadian-made and under the full control of the Canadian government.
But that was switched out for a made-in-the-U.S. technology called Aegis, allowing the Americans full control and oversight of the supply of parts, modifications or future upgrades, industry officials confirm.
“This is what happens when you exclude Canadian companies: You find yourself potentially being held hostage,” explained Alan Williams, the former procurement chief at the Department of National Defence. “We don’t control the (combat management) system; the Americans do. Who knows what they are going to demand from us?”
Other Canadian defence industry officials acknowledged the same concerns — they asked not to be named as they did not want to jeopardize ongoing contracts with the federal government.
You don’t make your military dependent on the good will of the country that is the primary threat,and you get what you pay for.
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