Tag Archives: character

Commentary, Photography

If You Want Peace …

35 Comments

This opinion piece originally appeared in The Globe and Mail. I believe it’s an incredibly germane article that should be read and considered by all Canadians, especially before we go to the polls on April 28. There are eleven important links throughout the piece; I hope you have the time to go through them.

If You Want Peace, Prepare for War – an Ancient Lesson Canada Must Remember
   
THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published March 21, 2025

Thomas Homer-Dixon is executive director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University and professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo.

Photo illustration: The Globe and Mail

Si vis pacem, para bellum.
If you want peace, prepare a for war. This ancient Roman aphorism is starkly relevant to Canada’s situation today, no matter how contrary it seems to our national culture.

U.S. President Donald Trump believes that the treaty that demarcates the Canada-U.S. border is invalid and that the boundary should be moved. Put simply, he wants to take our land. And the risk of that happening is higher if we pretend it doesn’t exist.

There are people who want to believe that Mr. Trump’s annexation talk is just a tactic to get us to make bigger trade concessions. The tariffs aren’t intended to make annexation easier, they say, but are instead part of a strategy to restructure the U.S. economy, reduce the country’s deficit and lower taxes.

Similarly, until a couple of weeks ago, any suggestion that the United States would use military force against Canada was derided as ridiculous. And anyway, commentators argued, Canada can’t be militarily defended, because our population is strung out in a thin line along America’s northern border.


But those perspectives are shifting fast.


Earlier this week, the renowned Yale historian Timothy Snyder (and visiting professor at the University of Toronto) wrote that “war with Canada is what Trump seems to have in mind.” He highlighted Mr. Trump’s “strangely Putinist” fiction that Canada isn’t real – that we’re not economically viable, that most of us want to join the U.S., and that the border is artificial. The assertion that Canada isn’t real is the kind of lie, Dr. Snyder said, that “imperialists tell themselves before beginning doomed wars of aggression.” It’s preparation “not just for trade war but for war itself.”


Other scholars are now seriously addressing the possibility of war. Aisha Ahmad, a Canadian specialist in failed states, recently argued that an invasion of Canada would “trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States.” And last week the military historian Elliot Cohen published an assessment of past U.S. attempts to conquer Canada, with a reminder to the Trump administration that they produced “dismal results.”


You’re likely shaking your head by now. This can’t be possible! But Mr. Trump’s modus operandi is to turn craziness into reality. We need to stop shaking our heads at his craziness and see the new reality he’s creating.

Mr. Trump isn’t just “a quasi-fascist,” said Jonathan Leader Maynard of King’s College University in London in a message to me a few days ago, “but an absolute fantasist who treats things as true because he fantasizes about them. Canada as the 51st state, Gaza as a hotel resort, tariffs making the economy boom, splitting Russia off from China – all these ideas are fantasies. But given free rein, he might pursue any or all of them.”


If one observes Mr. Trump carefully, one can see his tell – an unintended hint of his subconscious fantasy about geopolitics. It’s there in the school-room map on a stand beside his desk in the Oval Office, emblazoned with “Gulf of America.” And it’s there again in his comments on March 13, when he talked about the “beautiful formation of Canada and the United States.”


“It would be one of the great states anywhere,” he said. “This would be the most incredible country visually.”


Mr. Trump is playing the board game Risk, and the main players are the U.S., Russia and China. A nation’s power equates to its visible expanse of territory across a cartoon-like world map. All countries are ineluctably locked into a planet-spanning winner-take-all conflict. And to prevail, the United States needs to absorb Canada (and to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal) not just to Make America Great, but to achieve “hemispheric control,” in Steve Bannon’s eager locution.


Mr. Trump’s board-game imaginings may be fantastic, but they’re creating, day by day, a stark, hard reality: The rules-based international order that originated with the 17th century jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius – and on which the principle of territorial sovereignty is based – is unravelling. Emerging in its place is something akin to Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature – a world governed by brute force and the will of the strongest.

The unravelling process will take time. An assault on Canadian territory won’t happen soon, not this year, nor likely the next. But if we choose to remain weak, here’s how things could go before the end of Mr. Trump’s term, especially if domestic unrest and dysfunction further radicalize his regime, encouraging it to try to distract attention by picking fights with outsiders.


Mr. Trump will steadily escalate his demands on Canada, tying them to progressively broader political and territorial grievances. He’ll also increasingly question our country’s basic legitimacy as a sovereign nation, as he’s already started to do. A flood of lies from his associates, cabinet members, and the MAGA-verse will paint us as, at best, an irresponsible neighbour that’s not protecting America’s northern flank, or, at worst, an outright security threat, because at any moment we can restrict access to the energy, potash, water and other critical resources the United States needs.


Once we’re framed as an enemy, intelligence and military co-operation (for instance, under NORAD) will end. And at that point – with the U.S. military’s senior ranks purged of resistance and Trump loyalists in place – demands for territorial concessions, explicitly backed by the threat of military force, will be a simple next step. They’ll likely start with something small – an adjustment to the border in the Great Lakes, for instance – as a test of our will. But they won’t end there.


What’s the probability of this kind of scenario? Ten per cent, 5 per cent, or 1 per cent? No one can say for sure. But it’s certainly not zero. And given the existential cost to Canada, we’d be stupid not to take it seriously. In game-theory terms, we need to pursue a strategy of “minimax regret” – to minimize, as best we can, the possibility of worst-case outcomes.

This means, first, recognizing that channelling Neville Chamberlain won’t work. Mr. Trump knows what he wants – our territory – and he’s out to get it. There’s no happy middle ground that can be reached through appeasement. He’ll take our concessions and demand more.

And it means, second, that we need to move to a wartime footing in all respects – economically, socially, politically and (perhaps hardest for us to accept) militarily.


The doubters who say Canada can’t be defended are wrong. Canada can indeed prepare effectively to resist U.S. military force. Scandinavian countries have developed elaborate and popular plans for homeland defence against a massive external threat. We can do the same, starting now by standing up a national civil defence corp, a capacity that would also equip us to better deal with all disasters, natural and human caused.


Already, Canadians in every walk of life are discussing privately how they’re prepared to protect our homeland. True, in any violent contest between Canada and the U.S., we can’t possibly win in a conventional sense. But we can ensure in advance that an authoritarian, imperialist U.S. regime knows the cost will be high enough to make it far less likely to attack in the first place.


The stronger we are, the lower the risks. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Commentary, Photography

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

84 Comments

The saying “may you live in interesting times” is playing out not only on our collective Canadian doorstep but inside our homes and lives in the most intimate ways, unfortunately. The “interesting times” I’m referring to are, of course, the continuing verbal and threatened financial and annexation attacks against us from our southern neighbour and its leader, Donald Trump.

So here I am again, less than a month later writing about the political developments that have occurred to the south of us over the last few days; I first wrote of this situation here.

Since November, 2024, we have had to listen to falsehood after egregious falsehood cascade from Mr Trump in a constant torrent. Here are some of the more appalling ones, with direct statements from Trump in quotation marks followed by my factual rebuttals.

Falsehood: “The fentanyl coming from Canada is massive.” Reality: in 2024, 19.5 kg (43 lbs) of fentanyl coming from Canada was seized by U.S. border control. In the meantime, 9500 kg (21,100 lbs) was intercepted coming from Mexico.

Falsehood: “Stop the invasion!” Reality: in 2024, 198,929 people who were attempting to cross illegally from Canada to the U.S. were detained by American border officials. Meanwhile, 2.4 million people crossed illegally from Mexico.

Falsehood: “The U.S. is subsidising Canada to the tune of $100 billion” [as time has gone on, Mr Trump has changed this number to $200 billion, $250 billion and $300 billion. As far as I can tell, he just makes up a number and says it]. Fact: the trade deficit is 45 billion, caused by oil and gas shipments to the U.S. as part of the CUSMA free trade agreement that Mr Trump himself insisted on, orchestrated and then proclaimed at the time of signing in 2018 as “a truly extraordinary agreement for the United States, Canada, and Mexico.”

Given that the U.S. carries much larger deficits with a number of other countries, this complaint seems to be another of Mr Trump’s red herrings. Furthermore, and I can’t emphasise this enough, the U.S. is NOT subsidising Canada. In order to push his agenda, Mr Trump deliberately ignores the meaning of the word subsidy, which is a grant or gift of money. A trade deficit is not a subsidy.

Falsehood: “Canada doesn’t even allow U.S. Banks to open or do business there. What’s that all about?” Fact: American banks have been operating in Canada for many years. Citibank, Amexbank and J.P. Morgan Bank are all examples. These banks are required to operate under Canadian banking rules, a system that protected Canadian banks during the 2008-09 financial crisis when 166 American banks failed.

Falsehood: “Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st state.” Fact: Nothing could be further from the truth. Poll after poll shows that Canadians overwhelmingly want their sovereignty.

Falsehood: “If they become the 51st state, the tariffs go away.” Fact: This comment is not only reprehensible blackmail but is also senseless. That nugget may be coming out of Mr Trump’s mouth and showing up in writing, but he would never allow it, even if it were something we would accept. No, his intent, if he can, is to turn us into a voiceless, spineless colony, fit only for what we – and our resources – can do for him and his wealthy cronies. Mr Trump is known for his vengefulness, and he would surely punish us as much as possible.

But in this muddle of Mr Trump’s deceitful pomposity is a bigger worry, and that’s the lies we are telling ourselves. Unlike Trump’s, however, ours are lies of denial, of shock, of fear. 51st state? That’s just a joke. It’s in bad taste, but it’s a joke. The border and tariffs? He’s not serious. It’s just bluster. It’s a negotiating tactic. He’s not going to do tariffs, for sure. He would hurt his own people too much. Besides, we know how to do this. We handled him last time. We got this.

The truth is that we need to grow up and recognise Trump’s behaviour for what it is. This time he’s a very different animal. He’s experienced. He has been planning for four years and has for the most part installed in government a bunch of stooges whose only qualification is unwavering loyalty and an ability to do whatever they’re told; certainly thinking is not a requirement. This time, he has a very definite if peculiar agenda. That’s why he’s repeatedly telling these falsehoods. Say something enough and those around you will start to believe it just through sheer repetition. And through this behaviour he will also create lots of support for whatever action he decides to take against us.

I have heard it said in some quarters that Mr Trump’s tariffs against us – and likely Mexico as well – are enclosed inside a Trojan Horse, and I agree. All of the bombast around how we have to fix the border – we have now spent more than a billion dollars on appeasing him over these so-called issues and there will be more – or face tariffs, is, as I have suspected from the beginning, nothing but a distraction from his real purpose. To me, his clear agenda has always been to try to cripple our economy, to break us, to force us to dance to his tune. To play the puppet master and take enjoyment from our discomfort and fear. To generate lots of breathless attention on his leadership prowess.

To put it bluntly, Mr Trump is likely going to try to force us to our knees by economically corralling us into some sort of terrified acceptance of him as our “leader.”

In the 11th hour, Mr Trump, continuing to enjoy his role as puppet master, paused the tariffs. There was a collective sigh of relief all over the country, but I could also hear the whining and complacency returning: can’t we go back to normal? I just want things the way they were. But there’s another saying that we need to remember: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

We have been explicitly warned. There are certain things we have that Mr Trump wants, and and he will continue to try to get them. So whether or not we have to deal with tariffs, it’s incumbent on us to insist that our elected officials take appropriate actions to protect us from ever having to experience this again.

In other words, it’s high time that we go our own way, disentangling ourselves from the U.S, taking down interprovincial trade barriers, expanding our markets, buying local, and never, never making a so-called free trade agreement with the U.S. ever again.

Remember all those falsehoods I listed? Does any one of us really think that there won’t be more? Lots more? And that like the so-called border problems, they will all have moving targets at their core that depend on Mr Trump’s puppet master whims or whatever deceitful and/or bizarre pronouncements that fall out of his mouth? Let’s not forget, even though Mr Trump constantly presents himself as some sort of genius businessman who thinks “outside the box” he’s probably the only business owner on the face of the planet who has gone bankrupt operating a casino.

And additionally, when we see the underlings such as Howard Lutnick, Mr Trump’s choice for head of the commerce department, who during a press conference shouted that we Canadians need to “respect” the United States, we know without a doubt that we are truly finished with any sort of nation-to-nation relationship.

Many of us have friends and family in the U.S. and those personal relationships shouldn’t change, but as a national entity, the United States is no longer an ally, friend or even an acquaintance. For all practical intents and purposes, we’re adversaries, and should common sense prevail causing Mr Trump to withdraw the financial losses he plans to inflict on us and his own citizens, going forward we should be extremely dubious of any kind of trade agreement. And respect? That’s earned, not bestowed.

For the most part, we Canadians are easy-going, live-and-let-live people, probably too much so. But threaten our sovereignty and we will get our backs up. In short, Mr Trump has mistaken our kindness for weakness, thereby exposing what he really thinks of us. Not all relationships, even exceptional ones, have an indefinite shelf life, and it’s clear to me that that is what has now transpired. When you declare economic war on your so-called “best friend and ally,” then it’s time to move on.

Commentary, Photography

Thanks But No Thanks

87 Comments

This isn’t at all a political blog and I’ve certainly never wanted it to be controversial, either, but in light of recent developments around the possibility of being “economically forced” into becoming “the 51st state,” I feel that I have to stand up for my country. I know that many Americans do not agree with president-elect Trump’s pronouncements about annexing Canada; nevertheless, here we are. Such a threat requires a response.

First of all, we Canadians are not grateful for the “offer” of statehood as a number of U.S. politicians, pundits, show hosts and various others have said that we should be. We are, in fact, very insulted by the notion, just as Americans would be if another country decided that they should be forced into some sort of unwanted union.

To support this view, Mr. Trump has asserted on his social media platform that “many people in Canada LOVE [Trump’s emphasis] being the 51st state” worded as if we had already joined the U.S. That is simply and factually very inaccurate. The vast majority of Canadians like, value and want our independence, sovereignty, and self-determination.

Supposedly, the U.S. is “subsidising” Canada through an “unfair” trade imbalance and if we want to continue this position, we should become a state. Again, this is factually inaccurate. The trade balances completely once our oil and gas shipments are taken into account, which Mr. Trump is neglecting to include. It’s particularly worth noting that Mr. Trump specifically signed off on this trade agreement during his last tenure.

The U.S. is categorically not “subsidising” Canada. And that extends to our military, as well. There are no U.S. troops stationed on Canadian soil in order to defend us. We are more than capable of defending ourselves, and we do have that history.

There seems to be some astonishment that we don’t want this “union.” The people who feel that way should stop to consider. We are a sovereign, independent nation with a long history of doing things our way and of defending our right to do things our way. We like and want that. Internally, we may disagree; we may argue and face division. But in the end we have a precious commodity: our right to disagree and argue and face division and through that process, to come around to our own path, a path that represents us, our culture and our values.

We are not perfect, and Mr Trump has flagged issues that he feels we need to address such as illegal border crossings. The U.S. is not perfect either, and we have issues such as the flow of illegal guns into our country. There is no reason why these issues can’t be solved cooperatively; why would there be a need for threats of annexation? Or is that the whole point?

Being forced into becoming a part of the U.S. fundamentally flies in the face of the American philosophy of self-determination. The fact that those who are advocating this approach are also failing to see this discrepancy is incredibly disturbing. Self-determination is okay as long as we do what the United States tells us to do? Or otherwise we’ll be forced?

Canada will never voluntarily join the U.S. With all due respect, we don’t want to be American. It’s that simple. And on that note, and since Mr. Trump was elected on a platform of addressing issues such as inflation and a number of other internal matters, I suggest that he turn his attention to those, and leave us to deal with ours.

In the past, we two nations have cooperated extremely well. One sobering example is 9/11. There were all those Americans on all those aircraft who were required to land here and were looked after as sisters and brothers in need who had been horribly attacked.

More recently, we are providing help to the state of California as it battles those terrible fires. The governor asked that we send our military firefighting units and they, as well as many civilian firefighters have either arrived or will be shortly.

These are the things you do for a good neighbour and we do them gladly. We shouldn’t lose sight of all this goodwill and respect, built up over generations, that our two nations have worked hard to achieve. It’s a precious thing that’s far easier to destroy than to build.

Photography

Reblog: Doctrine, Doorways & Details

12 January 2025 – First, “D” for the Everything, Everywhere Doctrine, which has set its targets for 2025: Greenland, Canada, Panama. It is beyond …

Doctrine, Doorways & Details

An interesting post from Penny at Walking Woman about American expansionism, interesting doorways and other details. Please click the link above to read the rest.

Commentary, musings, nature, Photography

The Strong Person

25 Comments

This post is brought to you by Melanie’s Share Your World and Ursula’s response to it. Please take a look at their blogs. They are thoughtful, interesting and stimulating bloggers who think outside the box. 🙂

Melanie’s question is: Am I a strong person character-wise?

What does “strong” mean? To me, it means being assertive, standing up for those you love when they can’t do that for themselves, being able to think independently, having integrity.

Having defined what “strong” is though, I have to say that sometimes I have been a strong person, and at other times, I have been a weak person.

Sometimes, I’m just a sort of muddy person.

Perhaps people need to be weak in order to understand how to be strong. If you’re uncomfortable because of the choices you’re making, then maybe you need to examine them. Recognising weaknesses means that you know what strong is (or isn’t)?

Is there a little interior voice telling you to pick something else, do something else, be something else?

I’ve learned to listen to my interior voice. It hasn’t let me down yet. I have let it down lots of times though because I haven’t listened to it. Without question, I usually know the right path, but sometimes I don’t take it, and this was more evident when I was younger.

Is that an excuse? I was younger and didn’t know better, blah, blah, blah.

Well, it is and it isn’t. I had impulse control issues when I was younger and even now to some extent, but I often knew that I was making a poor choice … I just thought that I could make the outcome be different. The hubris of youth? Well, not when you’re getting up there in age …

Here in northern Canada where I work, indigenous people believe in the “capable” person, not the strong person. They find the idea of a strong person to be a western concept that leaves other qualities (and therefore many people) out. Qualities that are important and needed, but not necessarily very heroic or romantic.

Are you capable of living in the north?

It’s spherical thinking, not continuum thinking, and I believe it gets at the idea that sometimes we are strong, and sometimes we’re not. It’s the notion that we’re able to do certain things, to make contributions, but we’re not able to do all things, or heroic things.

I love the idea of “capable.” That there are many things I can do and can contribute, but that I can’t contribute everything nor should I be expected to.

I haven’t really answered Melanie’s question in any definitive sort of way, but I’ve thought about it and I’m thinking about it still.

What do you think? Are you a strong person? A capable person?

Narcissism - One Woman's True Story of Marriage to a Narcissist

You’re So Vain; You Probably Think This Song Is About You

6 Comments

Why (Carly Simon song)
Why (Carly Simon song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Carly Simon probably never imagined that this song would grow to represent the narcissists of the world, even though it’s clear that she was dealing with one of her own. Its irony stands as a paean over the adversity and pain wrought by those whose only concern is themselves, who lead you down a path of false trust and love so that they have you before they reveal themselves.

I’ve already discussed how they feel completely empty except for the negative emotions they have about themselves and that they are compelled to drop on others. I believe that the narcissist I was married to was also gay, and that this compounded his self-hatred and his intense feelings of shame.

The conversations that I have had with my counsellor and the reading I have done inform me that growing up with some kind of shame is pretty normal. My interpretation is that unless we feel shame, we will be unable to regulate unacceptable behaviours and internalize a notion of what empathy is and how it functions. Like most things in life, shame is good for us in small doses. Let it get out of control, however, and it becomes a serious impediment that, in the case of the narcissist, can lead to self-hatred and what I call instability of character. In other words, they don’t know who they are.

In “As Gertrude Stein Said, ‘There’s No There There,'”  I discussed how the narcissist will exploit anything that provides an advantage, that they will “become” anything in order to get ahead or to be seen in a flattering light. They also do this so that they can “manufacture” a character. If they are at a party and the small talk turns to food dislikes, they will invent a dislike just so that they will fit in, so that they will have something to say and can have the spotlight focussed on them, even if they have never really thought about it before. Thereafter, for this particular group of people, the narcissist will  insist on a dislike of pomegranates, with accompanying dramatic and illustrated story, such as snorting pomegranate seeds through his nose while driving full-tilt down the highway. Piece by piece, then, the narcissist will concoct what he or she sees as “character.”

The problem with this and where the instability starts to come in is two-fold. First, it starts to become difficult to keep track of “who” you are when there are numerous groups, and perhaps sub-groups, of people. And what about these groups mingling with each other? If the lady from your quilting class suddenly starts also attending your wine-tasting class, then things might get dicey. Yikes! She knows that pomegranate story … or maybe it was that other story, the one about being slung into prison in Angola, left there to rot and stuck listening to that drip, drip, drip on the stone cold floor while great brutes of cockroaches scuttled around looking for a place to build a new bedroom.

Well, the narcissist has an answer for this – one of these classes is going to get the boot. And for good measure, she may never talk to the quilting lady again because that lady has introduced fear into the narcissist’s life and has to be blamed, punished and excised. The fact is that unless the narcissist has settled on a group of “reliable” stories that are told and re-told, none of which are likely to be true, mind you, he or she will compartmentalize.

In other words, no one group of people in the narcissist’s life can mingle with another. There just might be too great an exchange of information, and the narcissist’s construct as a superior and special being might be found out. People might learn that he’s, well, that he’s just ordinary! One of the great ironies about this scenario that the narcissist is just too self-absorbed to get is that unless he forces it, he likely will not be the center of attention; people might have other things to talk about besides him.

It’s also interesting to note that despite the fears that narcissists have of being found out, they can be completely blase if they are found out. They will quickly invent an explanatory lie that on the surface sounds plausible, but on closer examination reveals major faults. They may laugh at you or be aggressively confrontational as  diversionary tactics. They may also just stare and not respond at all, leaving the recipients to believe that there’s something wrong with them. I experienced all of these responses from my former narcissist husband.

The second part of this instability is the narcissist’s profound misunderstanding that having a collection of dramatic/heroic/tragic stories to tell does not constitute character, nor does “acquiring” someone else’s belief system. They absolutely fail to get that the development of a set of principles and beliefs requires years of honing, of examining, of molding and of casting off, and that it is fluid and responsive over time. It is as if they see a shelf of labelled characteristics from which they can choose, like deciding on an outfit for the day. As in Alice in Wonderland, “drink me” comes with a set of  literal and surface results that for the narcissist, are completely “predictable”. “This is what I am” – today.

But underneath all this bullshit is shame. Shame because they believe that everyone else is better than them. Self-hatred because they are incapable of getting past the shame. Makes you want to feel sorry for them, doesn’t it? Don’t. Because if they remember what it was that made them hate themselves and feel ashamed, its reality is only a dim memory – likely it’s been replaced with a story. They may not even recognize that the hate and the shame exist, and if they do, they will certainly deny it. All they know is a frenetic need to fill up that vast nothingness, that vanity, by stealing the very being, the very core, of those who are unfortunate enough to come into contact with them.