In October 1988, the Liberal Party started running an election ad in French about a free trade deal with the United States: “There’s just one line that’s getting in the way” of an agreement, the ad declared. Then, a hand appeared and erased the border between Canada and the United States.
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Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives shrugged. Turner was spent force, they reckoned. The election was in the bag. Mulroney was going to win again.
On Oct. 25, the English-language leaders’ debate took place at CJOH in Ottawa. There were no fireworks for most of it. And then, in the last few minutes of the debate, the discussion turned to the free trade deal.
Turner wheeled on Mulroney, jabbing a finger at him: “We gave away our energy. We gave away our investment. We sold out our supply management and agriculture. And we have left hundreds of thousands of workers vulnerable because of the social programs involved. I happen to believe you have sold us out.”
Mulroney grew red in the face. He sputtered and tried to interrupt. Turner was contemptuous: “[The] ability of this country to remain as an independent nation, that is lost forever and that is the issue of this election, sir.” He said the word “sir” like it was a curse.
Turner went on: “We built a country East and West and North. We built it on an infrastructure that deliberately resisted the continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years we’ve done that. With one signature of a pen, you’ve reversed that, thrown us into the North-South influence of the United States and will reduce us, I am sure, to a colony of the United States.”
The impact was immediate. Within 48 hours, 72% of Canadians said Turner won the debate. Internal polls, broadcaster Steve Paikin wrote in his excellent Turner biography, showed Mulroney was in big trouble — as many as 70 Tory seats were now in jeopardy, and potentially his Parliamentary majority, too. Frantic, the Conservatives started running ads calling Turner a liar and showing a hand re-drawing the border. The Tories’ ad guru said they were only saved by “bombing the bridge” on Turner’s credibility.
Which brings us to today, and Donald Trump. Who, according to his social media postings, is already regarding us as “a colony of the United States,” as Turner memorably put it, so many years ago.
Early Tuesday morning, Trump posted this on his Truth Social platform: “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT”
The “DJT” means Trump personally wrote his statement. A few days earlier, he was a bit more oblique, and posted an AI-generated picture of himself under the words: “Oh, Canada!” In it, he is facing a mountain range – one he possibly thought was in the Canadian Rockies, but which is actually the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Confronted with all this, Trump’s fans in Canada shrugged. He’s just joking, they said, which is what they always say when Trump says something stupid.
Earlier, Trudeau hustled down to Mar-a-Lago to talk Trump out of 25% tariffs he promised to slap on everything we export to America. At dinner, Trump again talked about annexing Canada. Word of that leaked. He was just joking, Trudeau’s circle insisted.
Look, Trump may indeed be joking about this annex Canada stuff. Who knows.
What we do know, however — and as Turner demonstrated back in 1988 —is that Canadians don’t want to become Americans. We like the American people (mostly), we like the shopping (sometimes), and we like the weather (down South). But Canadians of all shapes and sizes — east and west, young and old, right and left — don’t want to be Americans.
Pollara did a poll on it in July. About 40% of Canadians view the U.S. in a negative light, Pollara found — and 75% of us don’t like, or really don’t like, Trump. Another poll from 2023, by Research Co., found that about 80% of Canadians oppose — in many cases, intensely — joining the United States. That’s consistent with polls by Leger and others, going back decades.
Could Trudeau benefit from all this nonsense? Maybe. Perhaps. Turner — considered dead man walking in 1988 — certainly did.
Time for Pierre Poilievre to step up to a microphone, somewhere, and say that — under his watch — that border ain’t disappearing anytime soon.