It was nearly 4PM on a rainy but still warm Friday in Halifax.

Too late in the day, and in the week, for a “good news” media statement from either government or business. They like to drop those near the start of the week so the government or company can “dine out” on the good news all week. 

But yesterday, suddenly the Toronto Star bleated out what really happened at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Korea.  At the banquet with seven other world leaders, PM Mark Carney apologized directly to President Trump not once, but three times, for the anti-tariff ad that the Ontario government ran in the last week or two.  

 

We know that Trump is prone to exaggeration.  Okay.  So let’s say Carney apologized only two times.  That’s two times too many, most Canadians would say.  

Then Trump, lately king of the morality police, told the media,

“I like him a lot but you know what they [Carney] did was wrong… .  He apologised for what they did with the commercial, because it was a false commercial.”

According to Trump, it was “fraudulent” and “foreign interference” was at play. He made no secret that he relished Carney apologizing to him personally,  

“And he did apologize and I appreciated it.  We had a great dinner… with other countries… and  I think we  have a very good relationship.” 

What? Oh well what’s a little more fake news between allies?  Trump insists that’s what Carney who is “very nice” got outrageously wrong. 

According to Trump, nearly 40 years ago his Republican predecessor, Ronald Reagan,  never supported free trade.  Yet Reagan’s statement in the Ontario ad shows he clearly did not favour tariffs.  

In an April 1987 radio broadcast, Reagan said that when he became US president, he decided “to spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity.”

On CBC radio’s Frontburner, US historian and author Rick Perlstein commented that, “Ronald Reagan did believe it [about free trade].  99% of responsible economists believe it.”

“As President Trump made clear on Truth Social, further talks are a futile effort if Canada can’t be serious.”

Kush Desai, White House spokesman

Of course Canadians realize our PM is in a spot of trouble – within a year or two hundreds of thousands of Canadians will lose their jobs.  It’s already happening in Ontario where over the 2025 summer alone, more than 38,000 jobs disappeared.   Across Canada, over the summer there was a drop in 66,000 jobs.  That does not count recent news of more than 1100 job losses at the Stellantis auto plant in Brampton.  This is on top of the 3,000 laid off at the same plant back in Dec. 2023; they will not be recalled.  In Oshawa, GM will lay off 2,000 workers  when it cancels one of three assembly shifts in January 2026.  Ingersoll, Ont. will see the GM-CAMI assembly plant closed — throwing 1000 plus workers out of their jobs.

Then there are are the 50,000 postal workers across the nation to consider.  Within two years many will be forced to look for new jobs that pay “union wages” – or at least a Living Wage.   

Nevertheless, Carney’s three apologies are a weak effort to turn Trump’s tariff edicts around. The apologies will have no effect on Trump, a bully and narcissist.  In fact as of 1 November, Trump claimed due to “National Security purposes” he had to impose a 25% tariff on the import of our medium and heavy-duty trucks and their parts to the US.  In addition, he imposed a 10% tariff on buses and bus-parts made in Canada.    

At least one well-known Liberal is opposed to courting Trump.  Former prime minister Jean Chrétien noted today on CBC radio’s The House, that he does  “not look forward” to ever meeting Trump.  To illustrate his distaste for sucking up to the Americans, Chrétien claims he famously told former president Bill Clinton that he didn’t want to get too close to him, because it was not a good look –after all “you have to show your colour.”

But that’s all out the window. Both Carney and Poilievre want to keep company with Trump. Apologists for Carney across Canada ask what else he could do? How should he treat Trump? Is begging the answer? Carney uses the rhetoric of Canada charting its own course– but of course all he looks to are megaprojects, pipelines, and increasing our military “preparedness” so we do our duty as NATO members. The problem is upping our military expenditures to $150 billion every year will keep Canada as a toadie of the US and its fracturing orbit. What’s more, of the $150 billion $107 billion (or 3.5% of our GDP) is earmarked to purchase weapons, arms and major equipment for war. Even Carney admits at least 75% of the $107 billion will go to US arms manufacturers.

All of which is to say, we Canadians are still basically hewers of wood and drawers of water— for the US empire.

Art at the top: illustrates the meaning of hewers of wood and drawers of water (Joshua 9:21) from this site.