FOR NEARLY A YEAR, Canadians have been discussing the danger posed by the United States. The anxiety shows up everywhere—online forums, polling questions, and in the unusually blunt asides from officials. This is good. We need to get in the habit of having hard conversations about who threatens us, the extent of that threat, and what we can and must do if we are to survive as an independent country.
For CANADA, the diagnosis of the US administration is not academic. It is the difference between managing a relationship with a flawed but crucial ally and planning a campaign of resistance against a powerful neighbour no longer reliably constrained by its domestic institutions.
Unfortunately, we see signs of deference everywhere.
Congress has effectively abandoned its role in holding the president to account. It has failed to uphold its power of the purse on things like international development assistance, bowing to the administration’s decision to simply not spend the money. The loss of that funding has already led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition. It has failed to uphold congressional power to declare war, ignoring military actions in the Caribbean that culminated in the unlawful capture of Venezuela’s authoritarian president. It declined to act when the administration sidestepped the Senate’s confirmation power by allowing Elon Musk to wield cabinet-level authority without ever being confirmed. Congress has also largely demurred in defence of its power to regulate import tariffs. It is, in effect, a presidential lapdog.
I’ve always bought up this sort of thing; but I’ve had to rethink it… not thar its wrong, but the executive orders that this (and many other presidents) sign which starts massive changes that don’t go through Congress completely short circuit the process. Even if they eventually get overturned, it’s typically way too late to go back to what was. It’s a short cut to get things done that isn’t popular and wouldn’t have passed as a bill.
Much like destroying the east wing, you can’t ever get things back you lost. People lose jobs, land gets torn up, foreign trust gets destroyed… it so much easier to sign an executive order, make a change that destroys that which took decades to build and then have it overturned. Then you say “well, congress has that power not the president” but it’s too late.