Canada is our greatest friend

I love Canada.   

As a kid, I spent most summers in Pointe Au Baril, Ontario, on Georgian Bay.   It is a beautiful area, and the people we met there were all great — people from our home state of Ohio, from Toronto, from Hamilton, from Thunder Bay.  I learned to love peameal bacon, Crispy Crunch candy bars, and malt vinegar on fries.  We listened to CKLW and CHUM. During those summers, I also visited Sudbury, Barrie, Toronto, Windsor, Sarnia, Kitchener, Sault Ste Marie, Parry Sound, Port Severn, Barrie, Killarney, Tobermory, Niagara Falls, and more.  I learned to drive a boat, navigate, change a shear pin, set a minnow trap, water ski, build a campfire, clean and cook a fish, change the mantle on a propane lamp.  We saw bears, moose, beavers, porcupines, mink, raccoons, and rattlesnakes.  We removed porcupine quills from dogs, several times.  We fished for perch, bass, pike, and pickerel.  I became an expert at driving a boat in the dead of night.  I earned my junior and senior lifesaving certificates.  We sailed, skied, canoed, portaged.   We swam for miles from island to island.   It was a fantastic experience.

As an adult, I often traveled to Canada on business.  I spent a huge chunk of time in St Catherines, in Waterloo, in London.  We traveled to Montreal and Quebec for vacation.  We visited Halifax.  Later in life, when we moved to the West Coast, we got to know Vancouver, Victoria, Whistler, Banff, and some of the less well-known parts of Vancouver Island.  Beautiful country, beautiful cities, great people.

I have friends in Canada.  Friends from Canada.   Friends who have moved to Canada.  I do not believe or accept that Canada has been “very abusive of the United States.”  Our nations have been friends for centuries.  We should be building bridges to Canada, not tearing them down.  Treating Canada this way is an embarrassment.  I spoke with a Canadian friend today who said that he hopes this is all posturing and bluster and that if Europeans can bridge their differences to form a tariff-free zone, we should certainly be able to achieve this in North America.  

Here’s hoping we have a leader someday who works towards a positive future with our neighbors.