Andrew Phillips: 9/11 represented Canada-U.S. relations at their best. Can they survive Donald Trump? - Toronto Star

When the U.S. ambassador speaks, will Canadians cheer or boo? 

The Canadian and United States flags were lowered to half mast at a commemorative ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the U.S., in Gander, N.L., on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002. While Gander has been a symbol of U.S.-Canada relations, it now marks out the deep divisions between the two countries, writes Andrew Phillips. 

Andrew Phillips is a Toronto-based staff columnist for the Star’s Opinion page. Reach him via email: aphillips@thestar.ca

Donald Trump’s assault on Canada has opened a great wound between this country and the United States, and the most tender spot must certainly be found in Gander, Newfoundland.

Especially on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks when the people of Gander famously opened their homes and hearts to thousands of stranded air travellers, most of them American.

They’re holding a big ceremony there to commemorate the event and in the walk-up to that the talk has been mostly about generosity, kindness and celebrating the importance of what the mayor of Gander, Percy Farwell, calls the “fundamental decent treatment of people.”

But the talk is also about betrayal and disbelief that a relationship marked by such warm human ties could so suddenly turn ice-cold. The New York Times sent a reporter to take the temperature in Gander and he reported this week that people there are talking about the “hurt” that comes when people you embraced not so long ago turn their backs on you — or worse, stab you in the front.

The big controversy is about the U.S. ambassador, Pete Hoekstra. He’s scheduled to speak in Gander and a lot of people are angry he was invited at all. Will he be booed, or just met with an awkward silence? Either way, what a tragic turnabout.

Gander and the anniversary of 9/11 is a good moment to ponder the tension between head and heart in the breakdown of relations between Canada and the United States.

There are still people — a dwindling number, I’d say — who insist the focus should be on facts and say feelings are just a distraction. Often they urge us to distinguish between what they refer to as “the signal and the noise” in what comes out of the U.S., particularly out of Trump’s mouth.

What they mean by this annoying cliché is that we shouldn’t get distracted by the “noise” — stuff like Trump scrawling “Lake America” over a map of Lake Ontario — and pay attention to the “signal,” presumably the really important message obscured by that inessential fluff.

The problem is that at a certain point the noise becomes the signal, or a very big part of it, especially when the noise is so loud and repeated so often that you can ignore it no longer. We’ve long passed that point.

One of those who insists the U.S.-Canada dispute is (or should be) all about the head rather than the heart is Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer. He gave an interview to the Financial Times the other day and studiously downplayed the importance of what the U.S. is doing to Canada.

The latest Trump tariffs would affect only five per cent of imports from Canada, he said, calling that “a rounding error.” For Canadians like Mark Carney to talk about “war,” even a trade war, Greer went on, is “a little unhinged.”

Now, Greer is no dummy and I realize he’s trying to sell Americans on the notion that Trump hasn’t lost the plot on Canada and it’s Carney who’s flying off the handle and “whipping up” hysteria in this country for political purposes.

So it’s quite possible that even Greer realizes the rift between Canada and the U.S. has gone far beyond matters of the head, like those complex tariff rules we’re forced to read about these days, and entered the more difficult realm of the heart.

That’s inevitable, to some extent, in all disputes. What for Greer and the Americans is a trivial “rounding error” could be something much bigger seen from the Canadian end of the telescope: billions in lost productivity and thousands of jobs.

But even something so important can eventually be worked out, if there’s a base level of good will and trust in each other’s motives. By now Trump has so poisoned the waters (as Greer must know but can’t say out loud) that those are entirely lacking.

So we’re dealing now with matters of the heart, with feelings as much as facts. Which is not to imply they are less important. Not at all: there’s a wisdom in paying attention to what you feel in your heart, in big matters as well as smaller ones.

That’s always true. The ceremony in Gander will just make it clear that’s where we are between Canada and its former friend.

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Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details

Andrew Phillips is a Toronto-based staff columnist for the Star’s Opinion page. Reach him via email: aphillips@thestar.ca