Plenty of contentious issues. See above. Canada is not innocent. But not the least of these issues is "let the USA handle our defense." "We don't need an army or navy but can skewer them whenever we want." I'm thinking of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division which took Juno Beach on D-Day. The mentality of Canada at that time was totally different.
And here is a comment totally off topic - "Mentality." Military capability can be equated to logistics, manufacturing capacity, engineering, power generation, conscription, organization, technology development, etc. But most of all it has to do with a mentality - can you envisage having to go to war? Western Europe after the fall of the Wall cannot. Neither can Canada. They all absconded and deferred to us (with sneering condescension - while sheltering under a nuclear umbrella funded by US taxpayers).
Can this continue? If Putin decides to claim Baffin Island, what will Canada do? Ukraine learned the hard way. Kuwait as well. Taiwan may be in the cross hairs. But Canada is secure in its delusion and the USA is now the bad guy.
Personally I like "Lake Ohio" But you understand that is a bargaining tactic right out of Queen's NYC? I once had to attend a course in "bargaining." - not like I hadn't haggled for carpets and guns - and one of the principles, whether bargaining on the price of socks or real estate is to say - "We aren't on the same planet". .and make some outrageous counter offer - but never ever get mad and walk away. (This is sort of like the old: "So you don't want to sleep with me? Is that for just tonight?")
Gene, I feel like I'm one of the few Canadians who understands this......that we have left our defense to the Americans which enabled us to spend our tax dollars in other, much more useless ways. I like that Trump is calling the country (and Europe) to task on this subject. I find the attitude of many Canadians, particularly in the East, that they are somehow superior to Americans and look down on them, is downright disgusting. This sense of superiority is not a new thing.....it's not a Trump thing. It goes back at least to the 1960s and has been pushed by the arts, media, university and civil service crowd. You know, the ones who don't need to make a payroll or worry about losing their jobs.
And as someone who spent a lot of my career in sale and marketing, Trump's behavior is very familiar to me. In a way that it just is not for so many others on both sides of the border.
I think Carney purposely screwed the deal in order to gain electoral popularity up here, especially in Quebec, Ontario and BC.
But this passing off of our defense to the US was done with the full and complicit knowledge of the American government. The American government, the Trump government, signed the trade deals that had been in place. Those deals were hailed as "great for America" by Americans when they were signed. What you seem to forget or excuse completely is the complicitness of America in the stupid situation we all now find ourselves in.
