The U.S. dollar closed Friday at $1.48 Canadian — a bitter predictor of the economic chaos to come in the country I don’t recognize anymore.
When President Donald Trump announced 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian imports starting Tuesday, I realized our feckless leaders had played right into his hands.
It’s not as if our Liberal government — at the moment limping to stay relevant — hadn’t been warned to deal with the flow of illegal migrants and fentanyl through our border to the United States.
Or at least show that they took the issue seriously — not just for Trump’s sake but for those of us who see the escalating drug and illegal migrant issues on our city streets.
But whether ego, incompetence, willful tone-deafness or a refusal to concede there is a problem, or all of the above, led them to double down and refuse to negotiate, they have hung Canadians out to dry.
It’s United States retailers and manufacturers who will be paying the whopping tariffs — kind of like an import duty.
That will have the effect, of course, of stopping them from buying Canadian goods altogether and likely finding other cheaper sources.
And apart from the free flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants from Canada to the U.S., I can understand that a president who campaigned on Making America Great Again might want to keep jobs and goods in the U.S.
It makes perfect sense to those of us who think using common sense rather than emotion or faux Canadian patriotism our politicians have whipped up in easily manipulated Canadians like they did with COVID masking and social distancing.
(Same tactics, different day).
But getting back to the fentanyl and migrant crisis, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what is playing out on the streets of Toronto and other large cities.
The progressives can’t pretend on the one hand there is no flow of fentanyl across our borders and continually shriek about the opioid crisis and the need for safe injection sites on the other.
As for the illegal migrants/asylum seekers, all we have to do is take a look at the protests that have played out on the streets of Toronto, Mississauga and Montreal since Oct. 7, 2023.
We have no clue how many of these hateful, intimidating terrorist sympathizers, who hide their faces with keffiyehs, are not Canadian citizens because our politicians and the police have given most of them a free pass.
To add tremendous insult to injury, Trudeau’s pal, immigration minister Marc Miller, recently celebrated the arrival of nearly 5,000 Gazan families to Canada. He also announced each adult will get $3,000 and each child $1,500 to get them started.
We have no clue whether they’ve been properly vetted and we sure can’t trust the Canadian government when they say they have been.
Think of this: no other country will take the Gazans, not even neighbouring Egypt. Polls have consistently said the majority of Palestinians living in Gaza support Hamas.
It is amazing to me that the Trudeau government is allowing potential Jew haters into our country.
And those who continue to prop up the Liberals deny we have a problem.
Not only did our alleged leaders deny the very real issues with fentanyl and illegal migrants but they thought they could call Trump’s bluff.
All they had to do was acknowledge there may be a problem and show they’re working to correct it.
The little frat boys — and I include Ontario Premier Doug Ford in this — thought they could fight back.
Here’s where ego and power come in.
They decided to play political games and fight Big Bad Trump to cling on to power.
Ford called a snap election this past week and is running around asking people to give him a strong mandate to protect Ontario jobs against the tariffs.
He must think we’re all stupid.
He had a strong mandate and instead of buckling down and dealing with the tariffs, he’ll lose a month to political gamesmanship.
As for Trudeau, the trust fund baby seems to be hoping he can install Trudeau 2.0, Mark Carney, in Parliament and drag out an election until 2026 — a desperate bid to preserve Liberal power.
Meanwhile, while he claims to still be PM, he has done nothing aside from one little trip down Mar-a-Lago to ease the pain of Canadians.
He prorogued Parliament and refuses to call it back to deal with the tariff issue.
He even somewhat joyfully told the media in the past few days that Canadians will suffer hard times — in addition to the hard times we’ve already experienced during his nine years in power.
On Saturday when Trump confirmed the tariffs, he took a day off.
It’s a slap in the face to those of us who have worked hard all our lives.
But sadly, far too many Canadians passively allow this to happen.
They’ve been asleep at the switch.
We’ll see when prices start escalating.
Perhaps they’ll finally wake up.
