“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

When I was a dumb young kid growing up in the West Kootenay my parents would occasionally take us to Spokane, the nearest “big city” to our modest bungalow near Trail.

In those pre-1960 days, Trail boasted the largest lead/zinc smelter in the world and paid for it with dark clouds of toxic smoke hanging almost permanently over the city; dead pine trees covering the bare mountain slopes and a steady stream of gray sewer sludge running directly into the previously pristine Columbia River below.

No, the smelter wasn’t pretty but it provided decent salaries to thousands of workers and spent billions to clean itself up and Trail became a progressive city of gardens and flowers today. Still, it was nice to get away from the dirt and smoke for a while and this we regularly did driving to Spokane in Dad’s rusty old Chev truck which he had converted to a camper of sorts.

We camped in Riverside State Park, a bucolic campground on the northwest side of Spokane nestled under giant Ponderosa Pine trees that provided welcome shade to the numerous campers below. Arriving in Dad’s home-made camping outfit, we probably looked a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies. But it didn’t matter. Our American campmates we’re as friendly as only Americans can be and everyone got along fine.

Now my father was a high school graduate and was well-read by the standards of the day and a strong unionist too. He loved to engage others in political discussions and could give as good as he got, which wasn’t always easy in those conservative times dominated by the right-wing views of  Senator Joe McCarthy and his fire-brand  anti-communism.

At this point in my life, I was far too young to understand the exigencies of politics and much more interested in the romantic cowboy culture of the West. My heroes were the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Davy Crockett et al. At one point, I even wore a Davy Crockett coonskin cap – please ignore the 1950’s racism here – and ate my lunch from a Davy Crockett lunch box I carried to school. Canadian political heroes like Louis Riel, Tommy Douglas and Pierre Trudeau didn’t come along until later. Much later.

Be that as it may, I also recall another topic that came up regularly at night when Canadians and Americans would gather around the warm campfire to visit and get to know each other. Unless you’re of a certain age, you probably won’t remember this but they would discuss whether the world’s longest and friendliest border should be eliminated and two proud nations united into one much larger and friendly land.

I kid you not.

Today that seems like eons ago but that was the zeitgeist back then unlike the fraught situation today where the situation is so incendiary it’s triggered a wildfire tariff war between the two uber countries thanks to the delusions of US President Donald Trump who foolishly thinks tariffs will enrich the richest country on earth when in fact they will blast a hole in the American economy the likes of which has never been seen before and devastate Canada, too.

Until now, Trump has prevailed in the financial maelstrom he’s unleashed but the tide may be turning in what the Wall Street Journal called “the dumbest trade war in history.” The stock market is crashing, business leaders screaming and Trump has even been getting blowback from his own Republican supporters who are starting to realize both sides suffer in a trade war and questioning Trump’s sanity. But will the MAGA Man listen?

Not likely in my opinion. “Winning” a tariff war is about as likely as landing a rocket ship on Mars as Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk is so obsessed with doing. Obsessions cause people to do strange things such as Adam did when he accepted a poisoned apple from Eve. Trump may have made millions from his book “The Art of the Deal” but a tariff war may be the silver bullet that brings him down at last.

And none too soon.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who would dearly like to see Trump, Musk and J.D. Vance get what they so richly deserve.

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