Today, I marked my 25th anniversary in the United States.
For those who might be unfamiliar with the details, I was born and raised in Canada to a Canadian mother and an American father. Thus, I had a claim to U.S. citizenship which I have exercised.
Although I chose to celebrate this milestone with a quiet dinner at a Jewish restaurant in Somerville, I am filled with mixed emotions.
I am content with my day-to-day living. I feel at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a way I never did when I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario or when I attended university in Ottawa, Ontario. I also strongly prefer Boston and Cambridge to New York and Atlanta. This is where I wish to spend the rest of my days for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, things have become considerably worse. I abhor what President Trump is doing to this country with regard to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, the hollowing out of the federal government while abandoning any pretense of competence, attacks on our independent institutions within civil society, our abandonment of Ukraine and our NATO allies in favor of Russia and other dictatorships. Like millions of Americans, I fear for the very existence of our democracy. When it comes our allies, I am naturally appalled at Trump and members of his administrations contemptuous and disdainful behavior towards my home and native land.
Since returning to the White House just over two months ago, Trump has imposed harsh tariffs against Canada and repeatedly referred to his northern neighbor as the 51st state. So too has DHS Secretary Kristi Noem who, during a January visit to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House which is situated on the Quebec-Vermont border, repeatedly leapt back and forth between Canada and the U.S. As she did so, Noem would utter "U.S.A. Number #1," while on the American side and then uttered "51st state".
To add insult to injury, effective this week, Canadians will no longer have access to the main entrance of the Haskell Free Library which is situated on the U.S. side forcing them to make "costly and unnecessary infrastructure overhauls." The U.S. Custom and Border Protection Service issued a statement claiming the changes were necessary to protect Americans from "drug traffickers and smugglers." When people think of the Haskell Free Library, I can assure you that drug traffickers and smugglers do not come to mind.
Of course, this move has nothing to do with drug traffickers and smugglers. The Haskell Library was built as a symbol of friendship between Canada and the United States, and the Trump Administration has made it clear they no longer want Canada's friendship. The Trump Administration seeks from Canada only its land and its servitude.
When President Trump told Laura Ingraham last week that "Canada is meant to be our 51st state", I had to wonder what he meant.
Is Trump relitigating the Treaty of Ghent which ended the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Britain? Of course, at this time, Canada was part of the British Empire. This is quite plausible because according to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a phone conversation between them in January 2025 Trump told him that he "did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary.”
If this is the case, there were only 18 states when the war concluded in 1814. By the time Canada gained its independence from Britain in 1867, that total had more than doubled to 37.
And how exactly could Canada be a single state? In 1867, Canada had four provinces - Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Today, Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. In the unlikely event, Canada ever became part of the U.S., it would add between 10 to 13 new states. That is, unless, Trump intends to give Canada the same status as Guam.
In all honesty, I'm probably overthinking all of it. Trump also told Ingraham, "Canada was meant to be the 51st state because we subsidize Canada by $200 billion a year." The U.S. does no such thing. As often happens with Trump, he pulled that figure out of his enormous rectal cavity.
Pierre Trudeau (Justin's father) who served as Canada's Prime Minister for 15 years said of the United States in 1969 while visiting President Nixon in Washington, "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."
Needless to say, the elephant currently occupying the White House is neither friendly nor even-tempered.
To be sure, there have been occasions when Canadians feel ignored or overlooked by the United States such as when former President George W. Bush neglected to thank Canada during his special joint address to Congress in September 2001 following the 9/11 attacks. More than 250 commercial flights were diverted to Canada, including 38 flights to the small town of Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador.
At the time, the office of then Prime Minister Jean Chretien issued a statement denying Bush had snubbed Canada. However, years later, former Bush speechwriter David Frum (himself a Canadian) disclosed that Bush as well as fellow speechwriter Michael Gerson had simply forgot Canada.
These days, I'm sure there are a lot of Canadians who just wish Trump would forget about Canada the way Bush did.
Alas, the reality is that Canada is very much on Trump's mind. In this respect, I am glad new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a point of visiting Gander in one of his first campaign stops to remind everyone what a friend Canada has been to the United States.
Since Trump has now seen fit to add a 25% tariff on all cars coming into the U.S., voters might very well reward new Carney with a Liberal majority government come April 28th. This would be much to the consternation of the Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party which has seen a 20-point lead in the polls evaporate due to Trump's tariff actions and annexation rhetoric.
For his part, Poilievre has tried to seize on remarks in Trump's interview in which he claimed he'd prefer a Liberal government to a Tory government claiming that he would be tougher on Trump than Carney. But given how Poilievre has modeled himself after Trump and ascended to party leadership during the infamous 2022 Canadian trucker convoy this might prove to be a hard sell. In a recent poll, when Canadians were asked which leader would "roll over and accept whatever Trump demands" they chose Poilievre over Carney by more than a 2-to-1 margin. This is one poll which Poilievre can ill-afford to lead.
Whatever the results, here is what I worry about on a personal level. In the event relations between Canada and the United States deteriorate even further, I can foresee the possibility of President Trump seeing fit to strip dual citizens like me of our American citizenship and deport us regardless of its constitutionality. If ICE is prepared to detain American citizens, Canadian citizens and people with valid student visas then why wouldn't they go after dual American-Canadian citizens at Trump's insistence?
Then there is a possibility that Trump could see fit to escalate a trade war into an actual war and drop bombs on Ottawa or perhaps the Haskell Free Library and Opera House while he is at it. I still have family in Canada and am concerned for their well-being.
Or Trump, who has the temperament of a petulant child, might get bored with Canada, forget us and move onto something else.
While the latter would be the most desirable option, the damage Trump has done to U.S. relations with Canada would still be done and not easily repaired.
As things stand now, I will continue to live my life in America for better or for worse with knowledge that things are very likely to become much, much worse.
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