Here we are getting ready to celebrate our 150th birthday. That’s old for a person, but young for a country. As we get ready to party we discover our mother, the U.K., and our always supportive uncle, the U.S., have become dysfunctional.
First Britain votes to exit the European Union with Brexit, then the U.S. makes Donald J. Trump president. To top that off Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May calls an election she had no reason to call. She had a solid majority and years to go in her mandate. She was ahead in the polls and called an election anyway and watched her lead dissipate and her majority shrink to minority status.
In the U.S. a man who had no electoral experience, and no military experience, has become the leader of the world’s biggest military complex and leader of the most powerful democracy in the world.
Donald Trump is a man Vanity Fair describes as a serial bankrupt who failed in the casino business, where people go to lose their money.
He’s a man author Graydon Carter describes as someone for whom truth is an inconvenient concept.
The U.S. president can’t seem to control himself on Twitter, but has the nuclear codes at hand.
So with all this in mind, it was interesting to see our Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland acknowledging the importance of the U.S. in the past but clearly responding to the Trump presidency by saying Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes requires the backing of hard power.
She went on to say “no longer can Canada depend on the U.S. to provide a collective umbrella, while Ottawa skimps on the defence budget.”
Now the proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan followed Freeland’s speech with promises of substantial spending on the military, promises of more soldiers, ships, and planes. Those commitments don’t come until after an election in 2019. They will also probably mean even deeper deficit budgets.
Still, as we prepare for our birthday party, we look at both the U.K. and U.S. as nations going through instability we’ve never even imagined.
The U.S. president took America out of the global climate initiative in Paris that until now only Syria and Nicaragua had refused to sign!
That put him at odds with several U.S. states and big city mayors who want to be part of making this a cleaner and safer planet.
So while Britain and the United States will take years to come to grips with their big issues, Canada is looking more stable and more secure.
Our prime minister is growing in the job, and remains popular, while the Conservative opposition has elected Andrew Scheer, a young man who appears to be mature, and likeable and grounded. The NDP has yet to elect a new leader, but all signs point to a three-party parliament that shows no sign of becoming unstable any time soon.
So with our celebrations about to begin, we seem to be one of the most stable nations on earth to face the challenges ahead. Climate change appears to be one of the most challenging issues.
How to deploy a military that’s been promised more money, and people and equipment is another.
Surely bringing First Nations out of Third World living conditions should become a national priority. We are facing a time of tremendous change. Disrupting times it’s often referred to.
Our traditional media sources are under great stress. Finding media sources we can trust and media that’s well enough funded to do the job of helping us understand the changes taking place is a real dilemma.
Adapting education to prepare our kids for a new world that is changing faster than most of us could have imagined is essential.
Having a stable national government seems a blessing when we look at the nations we have traditionally grown from and with, but we need leadership and vision to take us to our 200th birthday and continue to grow and prosper in ways that saw us come to 150. Happy birthday Canada!
Bill Good is a veteran broadcaster currently heard daily on News 1130. @billgood_news
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