I honestly can't believe we're still talking about this.
It makes me laugh, even if it shouldn't. A serious country shouldn't allow an ally to so blatantly disrespect it through offhand comments and a social media post in the middle of the night that reached millions and millions of people.
But here we are.
It's outrageous on so many levels I don't even know where to start.
There's the fact that our Prime Minister is in such a ridiculously weak position among voters and with the incoming U.S. president that he can't outright call out a ludicrous statement such as Canada becoming a 51st state and Trudeau being "governor."
Even if he thinks it's a joke, to not stand up to childish, bullying and ridiculous nonsense shows how terrifyingly weak our government's negotiating power is with the incoming U.S. administration. This is a tactic, and before he has even started, Trump showed that he owns our Prime Minister.
If Canada was more united – if the current federal government had more support from premiers and the provinces, perhaps Trump wouldn't have felt so emboldened at this moment.
Yet, we have Premier Danielle Smith announcing southern border security measures and seemingly bowing down to Trump's every wish before he even takes office. It's all a means to an end for the Alberta Government, to try and secure some sort of energy deal with the U.S. so oil production can remain the centre piece of the province's economy.
On a recent U.S. trip, Premier Smith said that she could not find any state allies who were willing to stand up to Trump and push back against the incoming tariffs.
"I'm not expecting them to do our work for us," Smith said in a recent CTV interview.
Even the province says they've had an eye on upgrading security since 2023, the province still believes that if they can prove they've at least done something at the border, they'll be exempt from the tariffs.
I applaud Smith for taking the tariff threat seriously, even if I don't think "securing" our southern board for $29 million or more will make a lick of difference in making Alberta or the U.S. "more secure".
I'm not sure if you've been Alberta's southern border, but it's not exactly a crime hotbed.
I once camped at Boundary Bay in Waterton National Park, about a 6-kilometre hike from the townsite. You can literally walk over the border, stand on both sides– but the only real danger there is the deer that are habituated to humans and come right up to your campsite. There's no border guards patrolling the woods or lake, but there's also no massive flow of drugs or illegal immigrants either. There's hardly anyone around.
This is one small anecdotal example, but captures the silliness of this non-issue. It's laughable.
And, of course, there's the 13 per cent of Canadians who think that Canada SHOULD join the U.S. I suggest those 13 per cent of people just pack up and leave, rather than keep this discourse going with the other 87 per cent of us. If you think Alberta is getting a raw deal from Canada now, wait until, as a province, we have less bargaining power than Iowa.
To a certain extent, it's a brilliant PR tactic from Trump. It distracts from the real issues and the fact that he's going to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and cripple parts of his own economy. And doing so creates an enemy that the American people can rally behind, but also an unserious, laughing stock of an ally who won't fight back even on something so small.
Trump is erratic and unreasonable, but he admires bravado for some weird reason and is obsessed with good-looking people. Our Prime Minister needs to summon a little courage and fight fire with fire, to show that Canada is a more serious country than Trump is giving it credit for.
Byron Hackett is the Managing Editor of the Red Deer Advocate and a Regional Editor for Black Press Media.
