The reality is

 The reality is that we prefer to trade with the United States; we prefer to help our American neighbours when they need our help. We have a lot of natural resources and for various reasons the Americans decided to buy them (they are close after all and easy to obtain with a minimum of preparation - they do not have to strip their beautiful natural parks in order to have lumber; we have it in great surplus and the same with oil and lots of other items that we sell). It has been a symbiotic relationship for a long time. I do try to buy Canadian or American at all times for the most part but it is not always easy. Through the years we have never stopped the sale of companies in Canada to American companies (which is  the biggest problem here; as soon as a company becomes marketable and an excellent investment they get bought up and I believe in free enterprise; you cannot force people to stay in business when they have an offer they do not want to refuse!) although PM Harper did step in a few times to halt sales but generally to countries outside of North America as I recall vaguely much to his credit. Or we would provide incentives to the Canadian Company to keep them Canadian but that doesn't always work. For sure, our greatest problem is being able to create many industries but the desire to maintain them diminishes as the profits grow and people would rather just retire to Florida (it is cold here although I enjoy winter)! But if we merge ever closer economically as Premier Doug Ford has suggested so that the border effectively disappears then I think we would be a powerful union north of Mexico working together to manage the continent but maintaining our own governments because they are slightly different (we are still a Democratic Monarchy with King Charles III as our Head of State represented by our Governor General on a regular day to day basis). Since the United States and the UK are also strong allies I do not see that as a problem; we are more of a problem because of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms which I actually was never in favour of and continue in that state; it needs revision to protect us. We need to be more in line with the United States as to how we deal with terrorism so that we are once again part of the Five Eyes.

But it was a wake up call for me Oct 7 2023 when supposedly Palestinian Canadians decided that they could cheer on our streets as they marched up and down when Hamas attacked Israel. I think they should have all been kicked out of  Canada personally or at least charged with a hate crime (it is after all the law) - that was so disgusting. But it uncovered something else; within our institutions our children were being taught lies about the Palestinians and in their error tried to support them. There was no constructive reasoning at all; they simply were fed a bunch of lies and they accepted them without review or research. Any teacher teaching such information should have been fired. It was a dreadful happening of which I hope we never see a repeat. These types of things always bring back to my mind the images of the Concentration Camps on the Newsreels at the shows when I was a child just at the end of the war and into the early 1950s. Although it still stuns me as I recall them in my mind, I now think it was not such a bad thing to let children be aware of the dreadful things that were and are done in this world. It made me defensive of people's right to exist and be left alone. Which has resulted in my many posts supporting Israel and Ukraine through these past couple of years. One thing I know for sure President Trump will always protect Israel. 

But I agree with Premier Danielle Smith; it is a wait and see time. We need to listen more and not react so quickly. I was glad to hear Minister Blair say that we would be up to 2% GDP for our military in two years; I would love to hear that it would be sooner but it does take time I do realize that. 

Back to writing my books.