RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2025. So far the height of the Canadian mainstream media response to Donald Trump’s latest absurd remarks on the Canadian future must be this past Saturday, January 11, 2025 op-ed in the Globe and Mail by Jean Chrétien, 20th prime minister of Canada, 1993–2003. (And a Canadian also celebrating his 91st birthday on January 11, 2025.)

The final “full letter” (to the Globe as it were, or even to all Canadians as readers of what at least used to call itself Canada’s National Newspaper) was soon enough made available online, even to those among us who do not subscribe to the Globe and Mail.

This full letter is a rather long piece by former PM Chrétien (1095 words on my count). Yet as one might expect it is equally a collection of somewhat folksy but pithy wise remarks on assorted subjects related to the future of Canada (and the United States next door of course).

On the over-arching main subject M. Chrétien just says, early on : “Of course, it’s about the totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our sovereignty from Donald Trump.”

(1) Some progress on two very clear and simple messages

The former (Liberal) Canadian tough-guy prime minister — “Le petit gars de Shawinigan” — went on : “I have two very clear and simple messages … To Donald Trump, from one old man to another: Wake up! What makes you think that Canadians would ever give up the greatest country in the world? And make no mistake, that’s what we are.”

Somewhat further along Jean Chrétien turned to : ”We built a nation on the most rugged and difficult terrain imaginable, and we did it against all odds. We may seem easygoing and gentle, but make no mistake: we are determined and tough … And that brings me to my second message—to all our leaders, federal and provincial, and to those who aspire to lead our country: Start showing that determination and tenacity.”

At this point in the about-to-ufold next four years of Democracy in America (and parliamentary democracy in Canada … diverse democracy in Australia, Barbados, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, and on and on etc), I think these two messages broadly summarize the current Canadian state of what former PM Chrétien has dubbed “the totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our sovereignty from Donald Trump.”

Having observed (on TV) the latest First Ministers meeting in Ottawa and the resulting Team Canada approach to the not-so-great Trump Tariff Threat (even allowing for the extreme regionalist position of Danielle Smith in Alberta) has given me some sense that at least some kind of constructive beginning on M. Chrétien’s second very clear and simple message has now been made as well.

(2) “History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors” (in one of which which Donald Trump mistakenly boosts Canada)

Whatever else, an actually surprising nine out of 10 provinces — the same super-majority that voted the Constitution Act, 1982 into the real world — have jumped on board the Team Canada approach to whatever the Trump Tariff Threat might mean in practice. And a recent opinion poll confirms that nine out of 10 Canadians do not want to join the United States in any case. (Another recent poll suggests a somewhat more complex same broad answer ; but there remains solid polling evidence for the 9 out of 10 boast!)

Danielle Smith is also not the only political leader in Alberta. On social media new Alberta NDP leader (and former Calgary mayor|) Naheed Nenshi is singing a different more Team-Canada Alberta tune. Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and then Governor of the Bank of England, launced his Canadian federal Liberal leadership campaign this past week in the Edmonton, Alberta where he grew up. The other major candidate for the Liberal leadership after Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Chrystia Freeland, is a “daughter of Alberta” whose parents still reside in “Wild Rose Country.”

There are, I certainly agree, all kinds of things wrong with Canada and its response so far to the current bout of the 47th US president’s mindless (and obsolete) right-wing American imperialism. At the same time, I wonder whether what former PM Chrétien has dubbed “the totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our sovereignty from Donald Trump” may have the ultimate deep impact of giving our Canadian identity as an independent UN member state an upward boost we weren’t quite expecting.

It wouldn’t be the first time that an aspiring (and not always successful) imperial actor had an ultimate impact on events more or less the exact opposite of what he or she claimed to intend up front. Or as Mr. Eliot from St. Louis, Missouri explained back in 1920, just after the First World War : “History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors / And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, / Guides us by vanities.”