By GEOFF EARLE, DEPUTY U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR IN CALGARY, CANADA
The two teams battling on the ice at the East Calgary Twin Arenas are checking each other with ferocity – with slots in a successful Canadian youth league on the line in a country where hockey is king.
But in a region that will soon host President Donald Trump and other G7 leaders, hockey parents and other locals are bracing for another face-off – this one involving a volatile U.S. president who vows to make Canada the 51st State.
‘I think if it was reversed, we would probably have a war on our hands, because the Americans would not put up with it,’ said Curtis Reynard, 47, electrical contractor whose 17-year-old son played goalie for the first of two games Saturday.
Reynard, a conservative, takes Trump’s threat seriously, as the president prepares to set foot on Canadian soil for the first time since saying it was ‘meant to be’ the 51st U.S. State.
‘I don’t think he’s playing around. I think he has intent around it. I think I think he’s smart enough to know that we need them more than they need us, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes,’ he told the Daily Mail.
He has two hopes for the summit. For the ‘circus to end’ – and for other leaders including PM Mark Carney to find a way to work around the U.S. president.
‘The only way to defuse Trump is not give him any energy. Allow him to do his rhetoric and his steam and just ignore him. Move on. Have your conversations with all of them about trade deals,’ he advised.
Calgary and the oil-rich province of Alberta are known as the ‘Texas of Canada,’ and if there is a MAGA-stronghold north of the border, this is it.
Renee Sonen, whose 16-year old son is seeking a spot in the Cowichan Capitals youth league, called Trump’s tariffs ‘crazy’
But even people who identify with the conservative party here have grave concerns about Trump’s trade threats – and are fear the real estate baron is intent on an acquiring their homeland. Some worry Trump’s tariffs are a means to an unwanted end.
‘I think those are crazy,’ said Renee Sonen, whose 16-year old son absorbed a body blow on the ice as young men in green and orange jerseys battled before scouts, prompting a gasp from his mother.
She said ‘definitely didn’t care’ for Trump’s repeated talk about absorbing Canada.
But she wondered whether the threats helped her country by forcing it to reexamine some outdated policies and focus on internal trade.
‘The U.S. has always been such a strong market, so when it got taken away, we had to get creative,’ she said.
No one here has been able to completely avoid Trump’s idea, raised after he secured the White House in the November elections. Many have calculated how it might affect their own bottom line, if it is indeed serious.
‘The only reason I’m hesitant doing a 51st state type thing is because I don’t want to have to go to privatized health care,’ said Jill, 40, who came to the arena to host a birthday for her 10-year-old hockey loving son, not ruling out the idea.
Electrical contractor Curtis Reynard (l) said ‘we would probably have a war on our hands’ if Canada had issued similar rhetoric about absorbing the U.S.
Calgary and Alberta are known as the ‘Texas of Canada,’ but that hasn’t stopped people from sharing grave concerns about his trade policy and comments on making Canada the 51st U.S. state
Dave Alle of Calgary has manufactured parts for his vintage Canada-made Fargo. He says Trump’s steel tariffs are hurting his own bottom line
‘Canada has been the US biggest trading partner for God knows how many years, and we’re the best of friends of the Americans,’ said Bill Lambe
The Canadians gathered Saturday while Trump hosted a military parade for the U.S. Army
She has family in the States, and worries about what would happen to her safety if Canada joined a country known for its gun violence. ‘Canada, because it is friendly and it is welcoming, we feel safe here. Whereas that’s not quite the case in a lot of states,’ she said.
Trump’s indignant blast that ‘we don’t need anything from Canada’ including its cars struck a chord in a country that has been closely linked to the U.S. economically for generations.
Over at the Wings & Wheels classic car event at the Hangar Flight Museum in Calgary, Canadians came to a Father’s Day weekend event marvel at some relics of American – and Canadian – engineering.
Inside a hangar is a model of an admired Canadian jet that got scrapped in favor of U.S.-made fighters in the 1960s. Outside on display near an aging Royal Canadian Air Force plane made in the U.S. are some of the Detroit’s greatest muscle cars.
‘Canada has been the U.S. biggest trading partner for God knows how many years, and we’re the best of friends of the Americans,’ said Bill Lambe, 85, a retired communications worker who stops to admire a 1956 white and powder blue Pontiac.
He said Trump thinks he doesn’t need anything from Canada. ‘But it’s really interwoven to trade between Canada and the U.S. I don’t think it’s going to do the Americans any good.’
Trump’s tariffs and threats have led to security concerns. ‘We need allies. But America is an unreliable one right now,’ fretted Rob Malach, a retired professor who owns a 1979 Corvette but is sizing up a classic 1974 Plymouth Duster.
‘They can’t ignore his tariffs, but they can personally ignore him,’ he said of other G7 leaders.
Malach was infuriated by the parade honoring the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army that was underway in Washington on Trump’s 79th birthday.
‘Who’s your model? Putin? Kim Jong-un?… I mean, yeah, throw me a parade with a bunch of tanks? I can’t believe somebody with the attitude of a 13-year-old is running what used to be the leader of the free world. It’s sad.’
Not far away, Dave Alle of Calgary is displaying his immaculate 1941 pickup – and it doesn’t come from Detroit. Alle has one of the few remaining Fargo vehicles made during World War II in Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Motown.
Alle works in the steel construction industry, and retooled some of the car parts himself. He finds the tariffs Trump imposed on Canadian steel maddening, and says it is hurting his bottom line.
John Gray says he is foregoing a road trip with his son to a U.S. car show. ‘It’s just the taste,’ he said
The Fargo was manufactured in Canada during World War II. Opponents of Trump’s tariffs have pointed to complex supply chains across the border
Calgary locals gathered to see classic cars and visit an aviation museum on Father’s Day weekend
‘It’s unreal what it’s doing to our industry. To keep businesses – you just can’t plan.’ He called it all ‘quite upsetting.’
‘I think as Canadians, we should take it seriously,’ he said, adding that they ‘just need to stand up to it.’
John Gray and his wife Sue are camped out by what some car buffs would call a pinnacle of American industrial engineering: a candy red 1964 Corvette.
Gray says he hopes Trump’s threats prompt Canadians to ‘wake up’ and diversify their industry. ‘Business is business, but love is bull****,’ he said, describing the bilateral relationship in terms of spoiled romance. Now, he brings up how Hitler came to power democratically.
‘It’s happening in the States and he’s not good for the world,’ he said.
A retired oil industry worker, Gray has a brother down in Texas, and used to take road trips with his son to car shows south of the border.
Now, he’s ‘not going across. Not for the foreseeable future.’
‘When we were down there, my son and I, I can’t say I met anybody that I wouldn’t want to meet again. The people down there – they were friendly as hell. We had a great time. And it probably still would be. But it’s just the taste, I guess you could say that. It’s a shame.’
