Trump questions render Trudeau speechless for 21 seconds

JMACUSA wrote:

“I pretty much despise Canadians. They’re one of just two countries fortunate enough to share a border with The United States and yet they look down their noses at us constantly. But God Almighty when they need quality medical care and fast do they come straight here.”

“And for over 70 years they’ve been living under the protection of the most powerful military in the world. If they had Latin America on their southern border and not the US would they be singing a different tune.”

I agree with your sentiments but would point out that not everyone in Canada holds those views and that Canadians who travel to the U.S. for work or holiday time are more likely than most to be pro-American or at least more knowledgeable about the challenges faced with the southern border.

I’m looking into some sort of organizational decal we can put on our vehicles if we drive into the U.S. to send a message that we are (as individuals) pro-Trump, but then I would fear vandalism from your own extensive TDS crowd, maybe put on the decal once past Portland.

Part of the attitude here is based on ignorance too, your federal system is different from ours and people might not realize how large a responsibility state governors and big city mayors have for the violent protests going unchecked. Trump’s role in it gets a lot of attention but maybe the spotlight should be on ten or fifteen other mansions and not the White House.

I could add to that Canada has nothing equivalent to the National Guard, in riot situations the choice is simply the police beefed up, or the army. So the federal government would get involved at an earlier stage, as one reader pointed out in 1970 with the War Measures Act (which included a fairly extensive operation against separatist sympathizers in Quebec). The abrogation of civil liberties here in 1970 was on a scale that I don’t think has been witnessed in the U.S. in modern times, whether one agrees with the objective or not, it was somewhat similar to the McCarthy era (and here again I am only comparing events, not philosophies).

If President Trump did in mirror image everything that Pierre Trudeau did in 1970, he would be facing a full-blown constitutional crisis and a media firestorm. Some might say he should, but consequences would include things like a roundup of pro-violence politicians and journalists as he saw them on an individual basis, not as any judge might warrant from the bench. Critics said after the fact that Trudeau used the War Measures Act to exact retribution on political adversaries in Quebec (he being a strong federalist, and they being separatist or provincial autonomy advocates, and clearly there’s quite a spectrum of positions not all of them that connected to separatist violence).

And as one reader points out, the Quebec violence was fairly muted compared to these riots, it included the kidnapping of a federalist Quebec politician and a British consul in Montreal (the ambassador would be in Ottawa), but beyond that it was mostly about blowing up mailboxes and attacking symbols of the federal government.

Returning to Trudeau’s silence, the Canadian media analysis is more or less this — he wanted to say more direct critical things, but held off thinking of what he could say without triggering a strong Trump response which can lead to economic consequences. I tend to think the silence was a genuine moment of confusion, Trudeau press conferences (which happen daily due to the pandemic) tend to be rather scripted affairs since the media here are bribed to be pro-Liberal, but this question was clearly not expected.

It’s worth revisiting the question, because it was complex and needed some thought, it was along these lines, “what is your response to events south of the border, and if you say nothing, what are we to make of that?”

So two different questions, knowing Justin he was probably thinking about part two, what does it say if I don’t answer? In some ways, he didn’t answer. The words probably sound like harsh criticism to you, but given what many progressive Canadians have always been saying, they rank as evasion rather than criticism in our spectrum of possible answers.

Thank you for your reply. I have been to You Tube and have seen more than enough videos of smug, and arrogantly condescending attitudes of Canadians towards We The People of The United States largely because we don’t have ‘’free health care’’.

The barely concealed sub text is that we’re veritable savages because we don’t and yet as I have stated when they need quality health care and fast they come here.

My daughter-in-laws parents did. She’s from Calgary. When her step father needed a triple by pass they would have had to wait six months to get on a waiting list and then it would have been about a years wait after that. They have a home outside of Prescott , Arizona that they come to for part of the year . They came down here and got it all done in two weeks.

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