Blazingcatfur

Back when the Western Standard was a print magazine published by Ezra Levant, its preeminent columnist was Mark Steyn. Even then, more than twenty years ago, Steyn recognized that Pierre Trudeau had so fundamentally transformed Canada in a bad way that he referred to the country as “Trudeaupia.” It wasn’t really Canada anymore.

(Incognito)

The British band The Clash famously asked “Should I Stay or Should I Go” in its 1982 hit song. That was two years after Quebecers were asked a far wordier question about independence.

How a question is phrased — and what response options are offered — can have a massive impact on a study’s results.

Canadians, and especially all English-speaking Canadians, have lived all their lives intermittently explaining to themselves why Canada should be an independent country and not part of the United States. Apart from the many abrasions of his public personality, the greatest grievance in Canada against U.S. President Donald Trump is that he explicitly stated the same question. Like most Americans, Trump thinks all foreigners wish to be American, and like most foreigners familiar with Canada, he fails to find any significant difference between English-speaking Canadians and Americans from northern states of the U.S. This question arose when former prime minister Justin Trudeau told him that Canada’s economy would “collapse” if subjected to sizable American tariff increases. To Trump, it was perfectly logical, and more a flattering than an insulting question, given that Canada had not paid its way in national self-defence for decades, to ask why it did not take the logical step to eliminate any question of tariffs or any worry about national defence and simply join the United States.