Among my earliest memories are of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his faithful wonder dog “Yukon King.” Sgt. Preston was a Canadian Northwest Mounted Policeman, and true to the “Mounty” stereotype, he was the classic hero who always “got his man.”
I listened to Sgt. Preston and the “Challenge of the Yukon” on the radio before we had television reception north of Missoula. In my mind’s eye I could see Sgt. Preston and his dogsled team as the crackling radio broadcast his famous call, “On King! On, you huskies!” Since those early years, Canada has always been an important part of my life.
As kids, my daughters faithfully followed the television series “Avonlea” and devoured all of the works of Lucy Maud Montgomery. I enjoyed watching “Avonlea” with them and became attached to the Canadian families on Prince Edward Island (PEI). My oldest daughter fulfilled a childhood dream of visiting PEI and seeing firsthand what she had so vividly imaged through Anne of Green Gables and all the related Montgomery works. Just like me, my daughters’ love of Canada found its roots in the stories of our childhoods.
Like most of you reading this, we have traveled in Canada often. We took family vacations to Vancouver to see the spectacular Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. We visited the big cities of Calgary and Edmonton and took in a football match between their two powerhouse CFL teams. We traveled over the Alcan Highway marveling at the wonders of nature and the friendliness of the people we met along the way. We enjoyed the historic sites (and fantastic visitor’s centers) at the World Heritage Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and the Frank Slide Interpretive Center. We’ve loved visiting the Prince of Wales Hotel and Waterton National Park on many special occasions. We have driven into Canada through remote border crossing like the now closed Trail Creek Port of Entry on the Flathead North Fork Road and through less remote crossing like those at Roosville and Babb. Always, we’ve been greeted by the friendships of our neighbors to the north.
The border between the U.S. and Canada may be the longest one between any two countries on earth, but it has never been fortified. Canada has always been a totally reliable friend to the United States; we’ve always had one another’s backs.
In more modern times Canada and the United States have had a few potential problems working out transboundary environmental problems, but we have virtually always worked them out through mediation in the International Joint Commission which was created in 1909 by a largely mutual trust arrangement called the Boundary Waters Treaty. We work with Canadians, and they work with us. And it pretty much always works. Canada and the United States have long enjoyed the very model of an amicable relationship.
So, I am completely at a loss to understand why the current U.S. leadership is deliberately trying to wreck that relationship. Why is our current leader purposely insulting their national pride and attempting to damage their economy?
As we continue to follow our “might makes right” foreign policy, we weaken the world (Prime Minister Carney was right) and in so doing we weaken ourselves as the “City on the Hill.”
At this most fragile time in our relationship with Canada, it falls to all of us to individually and collectively renew our efforts to be the good and proud Americans we once were. We can start by respecting the good and proud Canadians that are our true friends right next door.
Bob Brown is a former Republican Montana Secretary of State and State Senate President.