I will make my posi­tion plain. I am a Cana­di­an, not an Amer­i­can, but like all Cana­di­ans I must pay close atten­tion to the pol­i­tics of the coun­try that bor­ders mine for 8,891 kilo­me­tres (5,525 miles), has ten times our pop­u­la­tion, with which we have (by far) the largest-scale trad­ing rela­tion­ship in the world, and with which we share a con­sid­er­able degree of our cul­ture. Our economies are so inter­twined that every polit­i­cal deci­sion that occurs in the U.S. imme­di­ate­ly and some­times pro­found­ly influ­ences our life. I have at times lived in the U.S., and have many friends there, as do most Cana­di­ans. But we are not Amer­i­cans, and some­times all has not been well between us. When the Unit­ed States entered its dis­as­trous war in Viet­nam, and we were pres­sured to join in with that deba­cle, a major­i­ty of Cana­di­ans were opposed to it, and we stayed out of it. When, sub­se­quent­ly, many young Amer­i­cans resist­ed the slav­ery of con­scrip­tion, and the cor­rup­tion of the war, we wel­comed them as hon­ourable refugees, just as we had wel­comed refugees from slav­ery in the 19th cen­tu­ry. They were the true Amer­i­can patri­ots, and we respect­ed them.

One of those great moral divi­sions is upon us. The Unit­ed States has accom­plished many great and noble things, but in recent times, it has reached its low­est moral ebb in a hun­dred years. The upcom­ing elec­tion in the Unit­ed States is cru­cial to both our coun­tries. If the Repub­li­can Par­ty wins, then the U.S. is washed up as a coun­try, every decent prin­ci­ple it has fought for will be defeat­ed, degrad­ed and destroyed. This is a pro­found threat to my coun­try, which I love. Read more »