Canada

“Celebration? What celebration? It feels more like a funeral” – the damning words of a former senior Nato figure to describe this week’s ceremonies marking Victory in Europe Day.

The top-level diplomat who spent years at the transatlantic defence alliance asked not to be named in order to speak freely, but why so nihilistic? VE Day was a joint Allied triumph over Nazi Germany; over hatred, dictatorship, the Third Reich’s territorial expansionism and heinous crimes against humanity.

So much blood was spilled achieving that victory. Some 51 million Allied soldiers and civilians died during World War Two, united in a pursuit to rid the world of the scourge of Nazism.

You can hate Trump all you wish, that doesn’t make him wrong for calling out entitled NATO partners who expect America to carry the brunt of defence costs.

The rebuilding of post-war western Europe is dismissed as mere US self interest. That’s Euro gratitude for ya.

Despite the knee-jerk anti-Americanism that taints Canadian mythology it is inevitable that we will be grateful for our Southern neighbor again.

I recently noted that even struggling New Mexico, the only U.S. state to end the last four decades less economically free than it began, is still more prosperous than most Canadian provinces. That’s largely a result of Canada losing ground in terms of wealth relative to its southern neighbor after decades of hand-in-hand growth. But Canada’s provinces outstrip almost all states in at least one area.

There are few entities that embody the close, fraternal ties between the US and Canada quite like the Saginaw Spirit junior ice hockey team.

In a place whose fortunes have been more down than up in recent decades, the Dow Event Center hockey arena in Saginaw, Michigan, comes alive with more than 5,000 fans once these young stars take to the ice. A huge banner depicting the players adorns the main street into the city.

Nearly all the players, aged 16 to 20, come from Canada, and stay with local Saginaw families during the regular playing season, which runs from September to April.

There is an old adage that in politics as in life timing is everything. That is why pundits often talk about such things as the importance of “momentum” and the necessity of not “peaking too early.” In March 2012 when President Obama was running for his second term he got caught on a hot mic in Seoul, South Korea asking then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to reassure Vladimir Putin, “After my election I have more flexibility.… On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.… This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”

Reality is absolutely downstream from fiction. Did the creators of South Park predict the future in their 1999 comedy film? I think we’re all suddenly realizing that prognostication is easy – Simply imagine the most absurd scenario possible and eventually it’s going to come true because we’re living in clown world.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump, in a new interview, was circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution.

He also said he does not think military force will be needed to make Canada the “51st state” and played down the possibility he would look to run for a third term in the White House.

The comments in a wide-ranging, and at moments combative, interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” came as the Republican president’s efforts to quickly enact his agenda face sharper headwinds with Americans just as his second administration crossed the 100-day mark, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump on Meet the Press:
Says he’ll talk 51st State with Mark Carney
Say he won’t need military force to annex Canada

Wait a second

I thought Trump respected Canada’s sovereignty?
That’s what Carney told us before the election

Get your popcorn ready.
pic.twitter.com/iTE65nmjXK

— Marc Nixon (@MarcNixon24) May 4, 2025

“America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country”, declared Mark Carney in his victory speech, after Canada’s general election this week delivered his Liberal Party a plurality of seats in parliament. “These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us”, Carney continued, promising that Trump’s oft-repeated plans to absorb Canada as America’s 51st state are “never, ever going to happen”.

Trump’s apparent designs on Canada, which appeared to begin with a social media post calling Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau “governor Trudeau”, weighed heavily on the country’s election. The Conservatives still polled their best results since the 1980s, and Carney will have to lead a minority government, but the spectacle of a foreign leader looming so decisively over the elections of a major democracy is Ruritanian to the point of comedy.

The Nerve!

Some of the United States’ Vietnam War opponents found refuge in Canada. Fifty years after the end of the war, they’re still worried about the future.

The presidential pardon signed by Jimmy Carter in 1977 was a sweeping invitation to thousands of Americans to come home and help heal a nation torn apart by the Vietnam War. Those who had left for Canada to avoid the draft had wanted no part of the conflict, which killed about 60,000 Americans.

Canada had offered a refuge. It did not support the war and was willing to welcome, with few questions asked, those crossing the border.

Many war resisters, or draft dodgers as they were often called by others, were not interested in returning when Mr. Carter made his amnesty offer. Their decisions had come with high costs: ruptured family ties, broken friendships and, often, shame. While some hailed those who went to Canada as principled, others considered them cowardly.