Canada’s brewing disquiet

Canada is in a MAGA world of trouble.

The nation’s “dearest” and “closest” friend has declared a debilitating trade war by imposing stiff tariffs on most goods being imported into the home of unfettered capitalism – the United States of America.

The impulsive man-child who treats America’s signature and most lucrative bilateral relationship like a yo-yo, is, of course, mercurial, Make-America-Great-Again, baseball-cap-wearing US President Donald Trump.

Threats and uncertainty are the defining features of Trump’s belligerent foreign policy which fatally undercuts the jejune suggestion that he, unlike his trigger-happy predecessors, is the “peace now” candidate.

Compounding the palpable anxiety hovering over Canada like a heavy shroud is the fact that, at this crucial moment, the world’s second-largest country is being led by what amounts to a caretaker government with a lame-duck prime minister at the soon-to-be-expired helm.

That is not the ideal place for a usually sedate nation of more than 40 million to be in while it wrestles with a strutting, china-shattering bully acting out south of the 49th parallel.

But true to self-absorbed history and haughty form, the governing Liberal Party is consumed by a leadership race that will pick a successor to the ditched-in-the-scrap-yard-like-a-spent-used-car – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

As the harried contest to replace Trudeau by March 9 takes quick shape, it seems to me, at least, that the Liberals are looking for a political saviour in all the wrong places.

As a general writing rule, I try to avoid making sweeping generalisations about a big place made up of lots of different people.