HANNAFORD: Call an election now!

It is time for an election.On 20th January, the Government of Canada will go nose-to-nose with the incoming Trump administration over the president-elect’s announcement that both Canada and Mexico will face a 25% tariff on their exports to the US.The problem is that here in Canada, and especially in Alberta, we don’t trust the leadership of the federal government to do the job.For it is the negligence of the Trudeau Liberals that allows President-elect Trump to plausibly connect his proposed tariff with non-commercial considerations — illegal immigration from Canada to the US, and the north-south flow of deadly drugs.The casual reader might suppose that was more Mexico’s problem than Canada’s. But while the Mexicans have much to answer for, not so. As Premier Smith commented today, “the incoming US administration has valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border.”.Smith says incoming Trump administration has realistic concerns about Canada-US border.How valid? Well, it may not be on the scale of illegal immigration on the US southern border. Nevertheless it is nothing for Canada to be proud of, that the US Customs and Border Patrol apprehended more than 19,000 people from 97 countries, in one 200-mile stretch of the border along the boundary of New York state. Of those apprehended, more than 300 were suspected terrorists. As for the other 5,025 miles, CBP agents recorded nearly 199,000 encounters this year.As for the drug trade, the US Department of Justice claims Asian traffickers, outlaw motorcycle gangs and Indo-Canadian drug traffickers “transport significant quantities of high-potency marijuana and MDMA (ecstasy) into the United States across the US-Canada border.”The Government of Canada might well protest that it’s doing the best it can. And it would be foolish to suppose that tackling illegal cross-border activity whether it be drugs or people, is easy.But Canadians are also well aware that difficult or easy, their federal government doesn’t much care about what it doesn’t see as important. That includes illegal immigration. As the government itself admits, we let them in and let them go. According to documents released earlier this summer, there may be as many as 500,000 illegals wandering around Canada who we have simply lost track of..Memo reveals Canada faces 500,000 undocumented foreigners.So while Trump is undoubtedly following his own ‘Art of the Deal’ playbook and opening negotiations with a small-yield nuclear attack, he actually does have a point. Perhaps we should even be thanking him for raising it… half a million illegals not accounted for? Shouldn’t that alone be an election issue?Meanwhile, coming back to the need for an election soon, perhaps Mr. Trudeau isn’t the right person to carry this forward anyway. Polls suggest Canadians generally have a low opinion of him; based on a 2017 encounter during which Trudeau mocked him behind his back, Donald Trump considers him a duplicitous dweeb. (“Two-faced” was the precise diagnosis.)Further, leaving aside any personal feelings he may yet be nurturing, Trump also knows Trudeau is over. In October next year — at the latest — indications are that his time as prime minister will be up, his party reduced to a few dozen MPs and that he may not even retain his own seat. There’s really no reason to take him seriously.In Washington’s transactional world, it all comes down to one thing; if you want me to do something for you, what can you do for me?In Trudeau’s case, the answer is that Chrystia Freeland can talk all she likes about a Team Canada approach, and the premiers can meet and tut-tut and tell each other about how much they hate the Orange Man, but it’s actually up to the Government of Canada to get serious about the things Trump has raised — illegal immigration and the drug trade.Frankly, Canadians wouldn’t mind if they did.What won’t work is futile emotionalism such as that of Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford… that this was ‘no way to treat an old ally.’It’s a pity, but they don’t care. Trump has said what he cares about and Canada’s problem is that the Trudeau Liberals don’t care about those things nearly enough. They have no plan, as Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre won’t stop reminding them — and it shows.So for what it’s worth, here’s the Hannaford scenario from hell. The day Trump comes to office, he will introduce the tariffs, but to give us time to do something about it, put them on a time delay.The problem will be that ‘doing something’ means doing something about illegal immigration into the US and the importation of illegal drugs. And when the prime minister of what he thinks is a post-national country with a post-national concept of what a border means, runs into a president who’s highly nationalistic and has a point to prove, he’s not going to want to do what it takes.Sadly for him, his old trick of talking a good game and doing less than enough, won’t work with Trump, who will merely be enraged and activate his tariffs.This is the time for the NDP, the Bloc and the Conservatives to vote as one, get the Liberals out and install somebody who has a better chance of… well, hate to sound partisan but, a better chance of “bringing it home?”

HANNAFORD: Call an election now!

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