The shut relationship between People and Canadians has lengthy been the envy of different international locations. We share the longest undefended border on the planet and have loved the fruits of a partnership benefiting each international locations for over 150 years.
Ours is a bond solid in battle. We stormed the seashores at Normandy collectively on D-Day, combating to liberate Europe from fascism. For generations, our troopers have died, cried and celebrated victory beside one another.
Collectively, we now have regarded to the celebrities and seen U.S. area shuttle missions supported by the Canadarm — a robust image of our longstanding collaboration on science and know-how.
In your darkest moments, Canadians have been by your facet.
After the assault on Pearl Harbor, we labored collectively to construct the Alaska Freeway, which was crucial to connecting the mainland United States to northern army outposts in the course of the conflict. On the day of the Sept. 11 atrocities, Canadians welcomed stranded Americans into their properties. And within the months that adopted, we joined the combat towards terrorism in Afghanistan.
Canadians know that it doesn’t matter what some politicians say, our American neighbors can be there for us in our time of want, too. As a result of we’re not simply good buddies. In lots of instances, we’re household.
President Donald Trump’s ongoing risk of tariffs towards Canada can solely be described as an train in mutually assured destruction.
We’ve seen this film earlier than.
In 1930, the U.S. Congress handed a punishing tariff regulation. Loyal buying and selling companions, together with Canada, retaliated. American imports and exports dropped two-thirds. When the regulation first handed, unemployment within the U.S. was at 8%. Two years later, 3 times as many People had been out of labor, turning a melancholy into the Nice Despair.
A commerce conflict right now can be simply as devastating for households on each side of our border. Canada has what the US wants if you wish to obtain the president’s said aim of a brand new golden age.
One instance of many is the Teck smelter in Path, in southern British Columbia, which offers crucial minerals required for night time imaginative and prescient goggles and digital gadgets. China has restricted entry to these minerals and is now not exporting them to the US. When you don’t get it from Teck’s operations in British Columbia and also you don’t get it from China, you don’t get it.
People additionally depend on low costs our buying and selling relationship makes doable.
Tariffs on high of softwood lumber duties improve the price of wooden on your properties. A tax on our meals exports solely means costlier groceries on the checkout for working households in your nation. Vitality and electrical energy payments will rise at a time when folks can least afford them.
Tens of millions of jobs and billions of {dollars} in funding are needlessly being put in danger.
Canada is a proud and impartial nation. We’re happy with how we handle one another and our neighbors. Our B.C. firefighters had been there for the folks of Los Angeles as wildfires threatened whole communities.
There may be a lot we admire about our southern neighbor. Whereas Canadians usually are not concerned about changing into the 51st state, we do wish to get again to working collectively on areas of shared concern.
Too many individuals in each our international locations have misplaced family members to the fentanyl disaster. Similar to People, our hearts are stuffed with rage on the predators who transfer the precursor chemical compounds from China into our international locations. So, let’s carry our high regulation enforcement officers collectively and go after transnational legal organizations.
Historical past tells us that in a world of uncertainty and instability, Canada and the US are stronger collectively.
There are large alternatives forward for shared financial progress for our international locations. As a substitute of waging a commerce conflict nobody will win, we needs to be collaborating to unlock the potential of our continent — to create jobs with larger paychecks and the wealth wanted to make everybody higher off.
We will prosper facet by facet if we respect our variations and work collectively in a spirit of mutual belief and cooperation. The best way we People and Canadians at all times have.
