Canada Is Not For Sale

by John Delach

When you joke about serious subjects, there is always the chance that what you say in jest can come back to bite you in the ass. It may not happen as soon as you say it, it may not happen tomorrow, or it may not happen until years later. The tragedy is it can happen.

During the 1980s and 1990s my old firm, Marsh &McLennan, had annual meetings for their Managing Directors (MD’s) at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. This is a luxury resort where golf is king, but if golf is not to your liking, other activities include tennis, horseback riding, hiking, their world class Sulphur Baths, massages and a world class regiment of beauty treatments.

For anyone who is fascinated by the secrets and intrigue of our Federal Government, the Greenbrier is home to a decommissioned Congressional fall-out shelter that is located beneath one of the hotel wings that is now open for tours.

Food and drink are plentiful and varied from BBQs to five course extravaganzas. Before I first saw the Greenbrier, I was at another MD Conference held at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. Over drinks, one of my friends said, “You know, John, nice as this is, I hope to get to the Greenbrier one day and have our firm pay for it.” He got his wish.

One of the interesting oddities about the resort is they have a number of cabins along the road leading up to the main building each that could accommodate six people. One trip, I found myself walking up this road late in the afternoon past the cabin where six chaps from Canada were staying. I knew it was their cabin; a Maple leaf flag gave their presence away.

A loud voice stopped me in my tracks. Anthony Tomkinson, their unofficial leader took me on. ”You know, Delach, the trouble with you F-en Yanks is that you think that Canada is the 51st F-en State.”

“No, Anthony, Canada is not the 51st F-en State, Israel is the 51st F-en State. Canada is the 52nd F-en state.”

Needless to say, I had a beer with them before heading back to my room to get ready for dinner. I had made a good point or so I thought with no harm done.

More than twenty-five years later, my words came home to roost. Here was the second coming of Donald J. Trump seemingly at war with anybody and everybody; friend or foe to correct all real or imagined things others had done to him. Canada was one of them.

The only good news was Tomkinson had passed several years ago, not because of lots of booze, but rather because of lots of his brand of unfiltered cigarettes. Still, I felt badly and wanted to make it up to Anthony and his mates.

I found my answer in a sports story about a fan being ejected from a Toronto Blue Jays game for wearing a baseball cap that read: “Canada Is Not For Sale.” (Fortunately, the Blue Jays backed off and invited this chap to attend another game while wearing his hat.)

I ordered my hat via Amazon and I was told I had to pay a surcharge of $2.75 to pay any possible tariff. For other reasons that I don’t understand,  Amazon advised me that I might not receive my new hat until May, but it actually arrived on April 13th.

I have worn my hat in public several times without receiving a single comment. This is not a good thing. I am sorry to say the lack of comments is not due to agreement with my message. Rather, it is due to our lack of interest as to how Trump’s tariffs will affect Canada. I am not surprised by this. Americans tend to ignore Canada and Canadiens and take them for granted. Sad, but true.  

Oy vey, Trump’s brave new world is quite confusing and self-serving. Sorry, Mr. President, this old Goldwater conservative has decided that you are a self-serving egoist with the concentration of a flea. And yet, you are the forty-seventh President of the United States of America.

May God have mercy on us all:   

I am an old man named after my father,

My wife is another child who’s grown old,

If dreams were thunder and lightning was desire,

This old place would have burned down a long time ago.

 Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery,

Make me a portrait of an old rodeo,

Just give me something that I can hold onto,

To believe in this living is such a hard way to go.

With thanks to John Prine