Wanderings – Brilliant moves needed

People who are in the wrong, and know they are in the wrong, hate having it pointed out to them. To take that one step further, a bully who knows they are doing wrong hates having it pointed out to everyone else that he is doing wrong. That is what happened last week with Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s anti-tariff Ronald Reagan ad airing all over U.S. TV.

Ontario paid upwards of $75 million to air the 1987 words of former United States president Ronald Reagan — a speech about the errors of protectionist tariffs — in an extended middle-digit ad. The ad aired during the first two World Series games. And once current president Donald Trump had another late-night social media tantrum about the ad, it was talked about again across all the major U.S. news networks and shows.

Those reports debunked Trump’s claim that the Reagan speech was faked — it was not fake. For U.S. Republicans, it must have been jolting to hear the words of their original messiah, Reagan, say tariffs are bad, while their false idol, Trump, says the opposite.

The move was brilliant. Getting Trump to react made the ad a news piece, and therefore had it play in more markets for free, garnering more attention.

Honestly, though, how much attention do Trump and Co. really need anymore? If it is not clear yet, Canada will not get a fair — or even close to fair — trade deal with the current occupant of what is left of the White House. Donald Trump is a huckster who bankrupted business after business in the U.S. before he became president. That is why our attention should turn away from the toddler-in-chief and inward towards our own government.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to table his first budget next week and, from the advance indications in the press, it is not going to be pleasant for most Canadians.

In a speech at the University of Ottawa on October 22, Carney spoke of the things his government has already done, and said that the changes to “transform the economy” will mean there will be some “sacrifices.” That word is, by far, the most alarming out of all the words in that 30-minute speech — specifically: who, and by how much?

Canada’s economic woes are well-documented — as are the housing, education, health care, and jobs issues the country is facing. From the looks of it, since the 2008 recession, we’ve already been sacrificing. The middle class has been middled out. The gulf between the haves and have-nots has widened, not shrunk. It is safe to say that unless you’ve had a well-paying job for more than 10 years, bought your home more than 10 years ago, or decided to have a really small family, economically and overall, there are more people worse off than better off. That leads to the question of this sacrifice that Carney speaks of.

Those on the mid-to-lower wage-earning scale have already made sacrifices. When watching next week’s budget, look to see who exactly is going to be called on to make this latest round.

Just as Republicans have been lulled into a Trumpian haze, so too have Canada’s Liberal Party members. Many within the party fail to grasp that Carney’s election win was not an endorsement of the party or his leadership, but a rebuke of the Conservatives and their leader. That is to their — and Carney’s — peril. Winning because you are the less bad option is not a win. Still, they should seize that opportunity while they can.

Looking for Canadians to make sacrifices for a future that is five or 10 years away is all well and good, but those same Canadians have to be able to survive and prosper between now and that future. Instead of favouring the bold, we need some brilliant moves to move forward.

This column was originally published in the October 29, 2025 print edition of the Morrisburg Leader.