Anthem for Canada’s Boo Birds

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As Rodney Dangerfield used to quip, “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” True to form, in the recent Canada-USA game in Montreal, three fights broke out within nine seconds. With prime minister Justin Trudeau looking on, fans booed the “The Star Spangled Banner,” the American national anthem. This was blamed on Trump’s tariffs, but it traces back to “the disastrous legacy of Pierre Trudeau,” as described by David Frum.

“Pierre Trudeau opted not to serve in World War II, although of age and in good health,” recalls Frum, who is too kind. During the Nazi-Soviet Pact, after France fell to the Nazis, Trudeau urged French Canadians to defy conscription for military service. After the war, Trudeau “traveled to Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union to participate in regime-sponsored propaganda activities.”

Stalin retained control of Eastern Europe and revived traditional Russian anti-Semitism, branding Jews “rootless cosmopolitans.” So it took a special kind of person to collaborate with Stalin’s totalitarian regime. As Frum notes, Trudeau also “wrote in praise of Mao’s murderous regime in China” and “lavishly admired Fidel Castro,” the first Stalinist to seize power in the Americas.

Pierre Trudeau never championed the cause of a single Cuban dissident, and when brave Poles defied their pro-Soviet masters Trudeau said, “hopefully the military regime will be able to keep Solidarity from excessive demands.” The full account of his duty for the Communists would make an interesting read but in 1989 the fledgling Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) destroyed the dossier on Pierre Trudeau. And as Frum explains, the prime minister “tried to reorient Canada away from the great democratic alliance.”

Pierre Trudeau regarded the United States as the major threat to peace and Canada’s national identity. That spawned the virulent anti-Americanism that dominates Canada’s ruling class. Prime ministers Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper “invested their energies cleaning up the wreckage left by Pierre Trudeau,” a “bad man and disastrous prime minister.” And then came Justin Trudeau, a lot like Pierre.

“There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China,” Justin said in 2013. “Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.” Under Justin Trudeau, as Canada’s Fraser Institute showed last year, “the median employment earnings of workers were lower in every Canadian province than in every U.S. state.” That was before Trump raised the prospect of tariffs, which are really a bargaining chip.

As Victor Davis Hanson notes, the Trudeau government that has “so far refused to police its side of an open and increasingly dangerous border,” levels asymmetrical tariffs on US products, and refuses to keep its NATO promise to spend a paltry two percent of GDP on defense. The USA is NATO’s major contributor but Canadians boo America’s national anthem at hockey games. Contrary to what people might think, the hockey fights are also instructive. On ice, the combatants must hold each other up, and that has been the experience of Canada and the USA.

From September 1939 to December 1941, when Pierre Trudeau declined to serve, some 9,500 Americans made their way to Canada to join the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and take up the fight against Nazi Germany. Of the 800 of the Americans killed in action, 449 have their names inscribed in the Bomber Command Museum of Canada. After Pearl Harbor, when the United States joined the conflict, 1759 American RCAF fliers transferred to US forces while 5,000 chose to complete their service with the RCAF.

Canadians and Americans also served together in the First Special Service Force (FSSF), which swept the Nazis from Monte La Difensa and other strongholds. The Canadians and Americans also fought at Anzio and helped liberate Rome, freeing the Allied forces to move north. Without the RCAF and FSSF, the Allies don’t win.

Canada and the USA need to form a new special service force against crime, Chinese imperialism, and Islamic terrorism. That won’t happen under Justin Trudeau, like Pierre a “bad man and disastrous prime minister,” which is also too kind. On Justin’s watch, Canada’s WWII vets see signs of the National Socialist regime they fought against so bravely.

On September 22, 2023, the Canadian parliament hailed Yaroslav Hunka, who served with the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for his service.” In 2024 anti-Semitism is surging across Canada and Canadians boo their closest ally. Meanwhile, in other ways the nations are drawing closer together.

The newest link between Canada and the USA is the Gordie Howe International Bridge, named after Canadian hockey great Gordie Howe, who starred with the Detroit Red Wings. The Pont International Gordie Howe connecting Detroit with Windsor, Ontario, is slated to open this fall. By then Canada may have leadership capable of more plus brillants exploits. As Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.