american politics

All day yesterday (actually, the day before yesterday in this blog’s time zone now), the world’s (or at least the Western World’s, or at least the North American) airwaves were full of retrospectives about September 11th, 2001 … 25 years ago.

In case you were under a rock that day, this was the day on which the United States of America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Just under 3000 died that day (including Canadians and many other nationalities), and thousands of others have died since. Apparently, Howard Lutnick’s brother died that day. One can only assume that he must have believed the ludicrous and unproven assertion that the hijackers entered the United States via the Canadian border, as he clearly has a hate on for Canada, which he manifests through his support of donald trump’s juvenile tariffs on Canadian goods, and his trolling. One can only wonder why; there is no logical reason.

Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien gave an excellent speech in Gander. He may have been talking generally, but he certainly made some pointed references to the current troubles between Canada and the United States in front of the very unpopular American ambassador, Pete Hoekstra. If Hoekstra had been listening and paying attention, he might have actually understood what Chrétien was saying to him and his boss, but subtlety is lost on Americans.

Anyway, it is not lost on me, as someone who was alive and in the aviation business in 2001 when this happened. I wasn’t flight crew, at that time, but my then-wife worked for Canadian Airlines at the time, and a friend of mine (who would later run for council in the City of Richmond, the city in which Vancouver International Airport is located, was involved with finding sleeping accommodations for the American travellers whose planes were denied entry to the United States, and who were stuck in Vancouver as a result. As it turns out, we didn’t have any space in our house at the time, but many others found beds.

But the point is, between Vancouver and Gander, and in many places in between, Canadians helped out our American friends on those terrible days, without pause for thought. And I know that, even today, while trump thinks of every which way to criticise Canada and blame us for all the troubles in his own country, we would do the same again, even knowing that. Because we also know that trump is unbalanced and only in power temporarily, and any thinking “principal officers of the executive departments” would invoke their 25th Amendment to their Constitution and remove him from power if they were, as I said about their ambassador, “listening and paying attention”, but only about half the citizens of the United States are lucid enough to understand the dangers into which trump puts them, and himself. So yes, we will again help our American friends if they need us in an hour of need, but we’ll only do so grudgingly, keeping in mind that since the last time, we have been mightily slighted.

That’s what you should think about, trump, as you burn every bridge to which you have access. And that’s what you should think about, Americans, as you go to the polls this November.