About two-thirds of readers answering a recent online poll say that Canada should stand up to Donald Trump.
For an incoming U.S. president, Trump has paid an unusual amount of attention to Canada, though as always it's hard to tell the difference between bluff, bluster and an actual policy announcement.
In late November, Trump threatened Canada with a 25 per cent tariff unless they cracked down on migrants and fentanyl crossing the border southwards, though both issues seem fairly small-scale in the big picture.
That prompted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to go to Trump's base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida to mend fences. The meeting seemed to go well, though the news cycle was dominated by Trump's quip that Canada could solve its trade problems with the U.S. by ... joining the U.S.
This was treated as more or less unserious. (As Tristan Hopper pointed out in the National Post, " ... any U.S. president or Congress approving the annexation of Canada would do so in the knowledge that they were likely ushering in at least a generation of unchecked Democratic dominance."
Trump then followed up the next day with an AI-generated image (above) of himself on a mountaintop, holding a Canadian flag, which presumably people can interpret any way they choose.
Still, Canada faces a period of having to figure out how to approach Trump: more accommodating, or, more like Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, who responded with a counterblast:
"Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country," she wrote. "We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours."
“We negotiate as equals, there is no subordination here, because we are a great nation,” Sheinbaum said.
Women were more willing to be confrontational:
There was a mild connection to income, with lower-income readers more inclined to be confrontational:
There was very little difference based on age:
There was a very wide spread based on federal voting intention:
Which was reflected in a left-right spectrum:
A history of union membership correlates with a willingness to stand up to Trump:
And the most dramatic correlation, not surprisingly, has to do with views of the U.S. election itself.
