Boycott US V2.0

 February 2025

Canada Responds to tRump's Tariffs V1.0

The damage done to goodwill between our two countries will be hard to repair.

When Delusional Donnie has another tantrum in 30 days. We will BE READY !!!! 

What felon47 did was nothing short of a slap in the face. 

He backed off as he (was told) what a disaster a trade war would be. 

Listen to this song by Sean Panting  - Panting Under Pressure: These T-A-R-I-F-F-S are totally absurd.

Regardless of his "30 day delay for implementing tariffs" we are sticking with our plans to stop buying American products and more non-American items.

Canadian national identity is rooted in diversity and a sense of belonging and Trump, ironically, appears to be reinforcing these values by reminding Canadians of what sets them apart from Americans.

We may be considered "polite" but we will not take this sitting down. 

A dozen radical responses to Trump’s economic warfare that go beyond Canadian counter-tariffs from the Canadian Labour Institute.

Trump’s tariff threats have also intensified calls for Canada to reduce economic reliance on the U.S. Blayne Haggart from Brock University takes a historical look back at the Third Option — a strategy that was proposed over 50 years ago to expand Canadian trade beyond the American market.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the upcoming Canada-U.S. Economic Summit, bringing together leaders in business, trade, public policy, and organized labour to galvanize investment, grow our economy, and diversify Canada’s export markets. 

UPDATE this is taking place NOW in Toronto.

Canada is the ninth-largest economy in the world. We have world-class talent, critical minerals, natural resources, a dynamic tech ecosystem, and an ambition to grow. The Canada-U.S. Economic Summit is our ambition in action – the next stride in fully unlocking our economic growth.

The Canadian government, Canadian businesses, Canadian organized labour, Canadian civil society, and tens of millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast are aligned and united with the same mission – building a stronger Canada, with more jobs, bigger paycheques, and long-term prosperity.

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce, along with other Canadian chambers is renewing its call for premiers to quick dismantle inter-provincial trade barriers -- which they say is effectively a 21 per cent tariff. 

An American Apologizes to Canadians

TRAVEL

Some more thoughts since last post:

Canadians catching cruise ships from LA or Florida.
Canadian cottage owners in US states along the border.

Golfers who flock to North and South Carolina for week long spring trips

Spring Break and Mardi Gras 

I'll bet that Disney will soon be offering "Canadian dollar at par" tickets to entice visitors.

US travellers to Alaska - we should impose/increase border crossing fee.

JANUARY

We entered the States on January 9 with our non-American car.

We did not eat at any American chain restaurants except for one Cracker Barrel. How I love Cracker Barrel!

We drank one coke and it was Mexican

In Palm Springs we mainly ate Mexican and only in local (not chain) restaurants. We did the same with pizza.

Groceries

Beer MEXICO

Blueberries PERU

Fruits and vegetables MEXICO

Meat from Costco was not as good as at home. The steaks were tough. The chicken thighs were also tough and not well butchered.

Wine California - from now on it will be AUSTRALIA or ONTARIO

I didn't buy these eggs I spotted in PS

We did eat crab legs from CANADA

FEBRUARY

Fun post from Paisley, ON (Sunday February 2nd, 2025) to check out the snow drifts.

Grew to this!

Let me finish with this from a Canadian former politician.

Under Trump, the rules of the game have completely changed

ADRIENNE CLARKSON

CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

(Adrienne Clarkson was Canada’s 26th governor-general and co-founder of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. This text is adapted from her Massey College speech last month for the Clarkson Laureateships.)

Let’s face it: the rules of the game have changed. The election of Donald Trump means we are now in a world whose rules we never imagined could be broken so quickly and so arbitrarily. When I watch the Rorschach blobs of orange and yellow that signify the image of the current President of the United States, I diagnose him with logorrhea – he cannot start talking without continuing to talk – and talk – and talk. The moment he sees a microphone, he has to talk. On inauguration day, this 78-year-old man continued nonstop, from microphone to microphone, with his incoherent ramblings.

At times, I see hope in his condition because he obviously doesn’t know what he’s saying most of the time. However, the people who he has put in power and who are interpreting his instructions are very frightening. He has been democratically given the authority to try anything. He can call the Prime Minister of Denmark and try to buy Greenland. He can rename the Gulf of Mexico and announce that he will take back the Panama Canal.

We watch Mr. Trump’s breakneck hurtling down the airless passage of monomania. We cannot escape it without cutting ourselves off from the reality of everything that is around us.

Sometimes listening to Mr. Trump reminds you of your funny old uncle Bert who you go to visit with your mother twice a year at his retirement home. He raves on about “those people they let in” whenever he’s not complaining about how the scrambled eggs are overcooked. But this person is not uncle Bert – he is the President of the United States, the most powerful country in the world. We cannot pretend that everything is normal. We should not hope that this too will pass.

The second term of Donald Trump means that we in Canada have to be even more watchful, careful and clever in our reactions to his actions. We have to overcome our disbelief and suspend our feelings. It has really happened.

Recently visiting the University of Tübingen in Germany, I learned that in 1931 they fired their only Jewish professor – two years before Hitler came to power. A combination of disbelief and passivity make a dangerous cocktail in the face of unscrupulous domination. We must beware of what Timothy Snyder warns of in his book On Tyranny. It is called “anticipatory obedience” or “vorauseilender Gehorsam” in German. Hitler and the Nazis benefited from it. It is a resonant and depressing fact that most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given in times like these, in moments of historical apprehension.

So, what are we to do as Canadians in our professions and our personal lives? The most important factor is that we are all Canadians and we have to behave like Canadians. We all have to brush up on our history and realize that we live in one of the oldest continuous democracies. John Ralston Saul, who wrote the biography of Robert Baldwin and the reformers of 1848 in Upper Canada, has been saying this for a long time, but it is necessary to keep emphasizing it. Because it is true. We have had in our history no civil war, no rewriting of the Constitution. We have had a continuous democracy since 1848. We must treasure that. We must protect it.

What we have to do is to continue to believe in the project that is Canada, and which has despite so many difficulties and challenges remained the Canada that we know: bilingual, based on the Magna Carta, and parliamentary democracy. A Canada that has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a Canada that is bilingual in French and English. These are things that do not need to be changed; these are things that are valuable; these are things that make us Canadian.

We are going to be constantly challenged and threatened. We must continue doing things for others. We must continue to be a welcoming nation. We must continue our path of reconciliation with Indigenous people. We must continue these things because we know that’s the right thing to do. We must continue to do them because it makes us more human to do them. Canadians can only try to mitigate whatever evils there are in the world, even if they come from our closest neighbour with whom we share an unguarded border.

We must always remember the words of the great reformer Joseph Howe who, in 1835, posed the most important Canadian questions: “What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?”