While most Americans quite understandably are preoccupied with politics at home, there is restlessness in America’s backyards both south and north.

Canada is more or less taken for granted by Americans as a generally calm and orderly country, a close ally and a reliable partner in world affairs.

But beneath the surface, Canada is a troubled country, and the present Liberal government to a large extent deliberately has distanced Canada from the United States on matters relating to economy and national security that under the Conservative government of the former Prime Minister Stephen Harper were more or less in harmony with America.

The present Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by its posturing fatally undermined Nafta this past summer. The refusal to consider seriously President Trump’s reasoning for renegotiating Nafta eventually led to its demise and the launch of a new agreement, which the Trump administration negotiated bilaterally with Mexico at first, leaving the Canadian government to literally hustle in the last hour to get on board.

Americans might wonder what took hold of the Canadian government to put in jeopardy Canada’s most important relationship – the one with the United States. On the surface it makes no sense, unless we start probing into the mindset of Justin Trudeau and his Liberal party bent upon making Canada a laboratory of the globalist agenda of unelected UN bureaucrats and the filthy rich among the crowd that ritually gathers annually in Davos, Switzerland.

Justin Trudeau’s embrace of globalism might well be explained in part as a filial rebellion against the more openly Pan-Canadian nationalism of his father Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who was Canada’s prime minister during the 1970s and early 1980s.

In October 1970 Canadians woke up to what became known as the October Crisis. An armed terrorist group, the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ), had kidnapped Pierre Laporte, Quebec’s deputy premier, and James Cross, a British diplomat.

It was a moment that put to test the mettle of Canada’s political leaders.

Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, invoked the War Measures Act. Members of the FLQ were flushed out by the military assisting Quebec’s police force, James Cross was released by his kidnappers, while Pierre Laporte was found murdered. 

Pierre Trudeau’s action received wide support across the country. Almost a half-century later what stands out in his response to domestic terrorism was the display of steel in the handling of the crisis when the country demanded it.

Trudeau the elder demonstrated toughness when sorely needed assuring Canadians that no civilized government would appease terrorists of any stripe, at any time, anywhere. It was the same toughness in display during the 1980 referendum debate with Rene Levesque, Premier of Quebec, over the question of the province leaving or remaining in the Canadian federation.

When asked by journalists in October 1970 after the invocation of the War Measures Act on how far he would go, Pierre Trudeau defiantly replied, “Watch me.” That defiance and steel and intellect were on display again when needed. He stood with the “No” side in the referendum and defeated Levesque’s bid for Quebec sovereignty.

To vote for the Liberals in the Pierre Trudeau years was not inconsistent with being a proud Canadian nationalist. I could not vote in the 1974 election, as I had yet to acquire my citizenship; in the 1979 and 1980 elections I voted Liberal in support of Pierre Trudeau given his leadership against the impending threat of Quebec separatism and what it could mean for Canada. I believe a majority of Canadians who voted for Liberals in the 1980 election did so for similar reason.

Soon after the 2015 election Justin Trudeau was interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times. He told Guy Lawson, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” He concluded saying that Canada is “the first postnational state.” The ideological distance between father and son and the political consequences that follow could not have been more dramatically framed than in Justin Trudeau’s words.

For Justin Trudeau and his Liberals, Canada needs to be an open border global sanctuary country. It is also illustrated by the public shame Justin Trudeau’s Liberals feel over Canada’s past, and the unending apology offered to those claiming victimhood due to that “shameful” past.

Pierre Trudeau felt and responded differently in respect to Canada’s past. In his debates with Levesque there were no apology for any wrongs, perceived or otherwise, done to Quebec by English Canada. Pierre Trudeau knew in the deepest sense that the past needed to be assessed in the context of the past, and how a country make amends for the wrongs of the past is not by offering cringing apologies but making certain that lessons have been learned and that such wrongs are not repeated in the present and the future.

Now imagine Justin Trudeau handling an October-type crisis. But one needs hardly to imagine such a scenario, since there is plentiful evidence.

Evidence ranges from Justin’s gifting $10 million of taxpayer money to Omar Khadr, an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist, and pandering to that large segment of Muslims in Canada supportive of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and related organizations. The Liberal government recently handed $23 million of taxpayer money to the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), which is affiliated with the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that maintains deep connections with the MB and its Shariah-promoting agenda.

Evidence exists in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal majority support in parliament for the phony motion M-103 on the phony issue of “Islamophobia” to censor legitimate discussions on Islam or Islamism, and the real threat of jihadi terrorism in Canada. There is the recent doling out of $50 million of taxpayer money to the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the bogus notion that such support advances “peace” the PA seeks, while it wages an unending war against Israel and agrees with Saudi Arabia against Canada over human rights issues in the Kingdom.

Justin Trudeau’s policy of welcoming back home Canadians who joined ISIS and travelled to the Middle East on a jihadi junket is deeply offensive to most Canadians. Now he is set to sign the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration at an intergovernmental gathering in Marrakech, Morocco, on December 10-11, 2018. Global Compact is an agreement in the making of a borderless world administered by the UN that Justin Trudeau agrees with given his embrace of globalism.

This is where Canada has arrived within a generation of father and son elected as heads of government of a G-7 country. Americans need to be more informed of political developments on its northern borders and how they may likely be affected.

Salim Mansur teaches in Western University in London, and is the author of The Qur’an Problem and Islamism (2017).