‘What do you think of Doug Ford’s commercial featuring Reagon 40 years ago dissing tariffs. The ad used footage from the former president decrying American protectionism, saying such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. Ford used the ad to criticize U.S. tariffs, angering Trump who called it a fraud and a hostile act and vowed to end trade talks with Canada and increase tariffs by 10%.’

Camp didn’t hesitate and said without any cynicism. ‘The ad worked and reached over 50 million people during the world series games between the Blue Jays and the Dodgers. Not only that, the ad is justified. If anybody is hostile and a fraud then you know who I’m talking about.’

‘But isn’t poking the bear a bit risky. We all know the bear could lash out as he did,’ I said. You think this was a smart play?’ 

‘Smarter than defecating on your own people while wearing a crown. I always knew he couldn’t hold his shit together.’

‘What are we supposed to do? Just roll over and play dead? He is intent on crippling Canada’s economy because we didn’t like his imperial brainfart of adding Canada to the US. He also doesn’t seem to care that many businesses in border-towns from Upstate New York to Washington are hurting because of the lack of Canadians travelling south. Most of those affected live in democratic states and counties so he is gleefully punishing them. He’d much rather help out his autocratic buddy Miley in Argentina who he is propping up with $ 20 billion dollars.’

‘Our car industry is collapsing, our steel, aluminium and lumber industries are reeling in the heavy crosswind the tariffs are creating and since we’re so reliant on our integrated economies, with the US being ten times the size of Canada, we have to take it all and do nothing?’

‘Are you saying we should impose counter-tariffs on anything that we import from the US? We stopped most of the booze and wine coming north and maybe we can do the same with fruit and produce, entertainment and cars. Right now, I would probably buy a Chinese electric car before I’d buy an American model.’

‘We are at a moral, financial and economic crossroad and maybe we need to take the hard road and cancel subscriptions, sell off equities and boycott anything coming from the US. Not as a government policy. That would backfire but as a movement, a grassroots effort, the people’s choice,’ I said.

‘You mean sort of like a silent revolution? A quiet uprising of the masses?’

‘Exactly. I for one am done with the US and do not understand how 70 million people cannot mount an opposition to the current regime that rules with impunity and according to Steve Bannon with divine providence. Trump is now also a cult leader as well as an autocrat and kleptocrat. It’s no secret. He is proud of it.’

‘Maybe there will be a new wave of Trump-dodgers, sort of like the draft-dodgers of the sixties and seventies who fled a nation at war in Indochina. I hear that there are already nurses and doctors heading north. Let’s receive them with open arms.’

‘The relationship between our two nations will never be the same as it was before Covid when cross-border traffic was almost effortless. A driver’s license was sufficient. Now they require photos and fingerprints, practically visas for anybody staying longer than 30 days. It’s easier to enter Mexico or any country in Europe than the USA.’

‘Let me swap your empties but just keep talking,’ Vicky said, dressed in a Blue Jay’s jersey and hat. 

‘What about those Jays,’ Camp said. ‘Made me into baseball fan overnight.’