I have great respect for Timothy Snyder and have read his books with great interest. He is welcome in Canada and I am glad he has chosen my alma mater, the University of Toronto as his new academic home. I hope he stays here and embraces Canada as a permanent home for his family rather than a temporary refuge.

It is difficult for those born and raised in the US, regardless of their politics, to see the world through the eyes of other peoples. Snyder does this better than most. But even those in the US who claim to be Canada’s strongest friends and find Trump’s antics appalling cannot seem to face the deeper cancer in their body politic. It is far easier to focus on Trump and his cohort of gangsters as a one-time anomaly rather than as an inevitable eruption of the will to power that has been inherent in the US for 250 years!

For Canadians, the US faith in “manifest destiny” has been a Damocles Sword hanging over us for centuries, since before the war of 1812. Every generation it seems to re-emerge, as some opportunistic politician revives the vision of an enlarged United States stretching from Mexico to the arctic. In this sense, the latest Trump derangement is nothing new. Any examination of successive maps of the USA from 1776 to the present makes this drive for expansion clear.

What is different in the current situation Is the lack of any political stability that would constrain an out of control presidency. Indeed there is a substantial establishment which, after planning for at least fifty years, has taken total power and has made its plans very clear: in both the most recent National Security Strategy as well as Project 25. Canada, and Greenland are specific targets that the US deems necessary to control for its own security. And that control is not envisaged as a partnership, but something between outright annexation (“51st state” or a satellite state relationship. For Canadians, this is intolerable!

Canada has emerged as a global leader of the middle powers, but not through choice. The decision to defend our sovereignty was inevitable. People in the US will find it difficult to understand why the majority of Canadians would willingly undergo extreme suffering rather than join the US. This upsets their deeply held belief that they are the envy of the world. If they begin to understand this they will indeed have a clearer perception of their own country and perhaps gain some humility!

And strangely, the resistance by Canada to both the Trump regime and the more fundamental US will to power may be our most important gift to the United States, in its 250th anniversary. Canada’s action provides a reality check: support beyond words, with dollars and real sacrifice, in the struggle to restore democracy to our damaged neighbour!