The following is a response to Gerry Warner’s column last week, as submitted by Gerry.

By John Wright

Op-Ed Commentary

Hi Gerry. I read your words with great interest.

This is indeed a time of high anxiety for both the Americans who didn’t support Trump’s election, and for most of Canada as well. I think that if our government has a strategy in place or indeed if the provincial governments have strategies in place regarding the threatened tariffs, there’s very little else that needs to be said at this point.

One would hope that our people have a strong response in the works, and divulging the details at the present time would be counter-productive. Historically tariff wars never end well for any of the countries involved; this one won’t be any different.

So much of Trump is bluster. He is the schoolyard bully who fulminates and threatens constantly, especially  towards what he sees as the weaker kids. From my experience the only way to deal with the schoolyard bully is to push back. Attempts to negotiate or ameliorate the situation is simply seen as weakness by the kind of personality Trump has. Remember, he was schooled by Roy Cohn, (Roy Cohn was an American lawyer and prosecutor known for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the “Red Scare” of the early 1950s) who advised him that if anybody tries to push him around he should push back 10 times harder.

Kind of a simple-minded approach but one which I think Trump has taken seriously all his adult life.  And one that Canada may need to take to heart!

I think we should wait until the other shoe falls before announcing our response and again, I’m pretty confident that our governments have some sort of plans in place regarding the threatened tariffs.

The rest – annexation of Canada, acquisition of Greenland, taking back the Panama Canal, attacking Mexico – is simply part of Trump’s attempt to bully his way to some sort of dominance over his neighbours. The US has bullied its neighbours for over 200 years – Trump is simply saying the quiet parts out loud.

Maybe the only positive thing that will come out of all this is that when faced with an external threat, this country tends to come together. There will be some Canadians who are supportive of political connections with the United States (hello Danielle Smith), but for the most part I think we define ourselves by being different from our neighbours south of the border, secure in our identity,  and resistant to external threats.

So there may be a silver lining in all this. We may again assert ourselves as a united country.

So, let the arrogant son-of-a-bitch posture to his heart’s content; we will stand our ground together with Panama, Greenland, Denmark and Mexico. We need to prepare to take a note from Roy Cohn’s playbook and punch back 10 times as hard. If we’re not prepared to do this, the bully will not back off.

– John Wright is a retired teacher and educational administrator who has taught at several schools in B.C. and the Yukon.

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