How do we Ensure Canada is Important to Americans

Patrick Gossage • February 7, 2025

I was Canada’s PR guy at our Washington Embassy during the Reagan years. In doing my rounds with media and influential think tanks, I soon realized the frightening lack of knowledge that even well-educated Americans had of Canada. We also knew that Canada was well behind countries like Sweden in profile in the capital of the world. Our ambassador - Alan Gotlieb - was determined to change that. Our first strategy for putting Canada on the map was to host parties at the Gotlieb residence which would be must-attends by the elite of Washington.

By having cool dinners honouring famous Canadians like the late Peter Jennings, Norman Jewison, and Donald Sutherland we attracted senior White House staff, Cabinet Secretaries and even members of Congress. I made sure the parties were covered in the social pages of the Washington Post and voila - we were the talk of the town. We were on the map and Gotlieb was soon writing op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.


It worked – a classic PR strategy of using celebrities to attract attention. It is amazing to me that classic media relations and marketing play almost no role in Canada’s need to reach the hearts and minds of Americans.


In this daunting situation of threatened Trump tariffs, this role is largely being fulfilled by the provinces and by the leading candidates to replace Trudeau. Ontario ads are ubiquitous on CNN, and Chrystia Freeland has had a good interview with Dana Bash on CNN as well as a strong interview on Bloomberg. Her views have appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Her rival candidate, Mark Carney, has been on late night TV, on FOX news and in the Economist. The Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford has done several US TV shows.


It's ironic that these players are reaching out to Americans and the active existing Liberal government under Justin Trudeau is not. Why is he not giving interviews to major US media and making better use of his social media outlets? Why is the government not investing in hard-hitting factual TV ads about the integrated North American manufacturing and energy sectors and the value of the two-way trade? And the fact, much promoted by Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs that tariffs mean higher prices for US consumers when Trump promised to reduce them.

This pitch should be garnering widespread US media coverage.


The Trump gang pays far more attention to public opinion than in what the established business elites, or even Democrats think of the new regime. We could make a determined effort to influence it.


But we need to speak in one voice to Americans. Regional self- interests, especially from Alberta, cloud our messaging. Most Canadians know that the only way to impress a bully like Trump is to show strength. Slowly the gang of provinces and the federal government are buying this playbook.

Canadians are coming together with new nationalistic fervour to fight the threat of Trump wanting to make us the 51st state. This has produced an impressive and reassuring rise in patriotic sentiment everywhere. If only the US media could be convinced to pay attention to this growing movement among us normally calm restrained citizens. Again, a classic PR challenge which could be tackled and easily achieved. The New York Times has staff here, who have already covered our plans to tackle the fentanyl crisis.


Making fun of this unCanadian phenomenon which manifests itself in a “buy Canadian” movement has produced some hilarious comedy. A recent This Hour has 22 Minutes skit sees Mark Critch abusing a shopper for nor buying Canadian ketchup even cheezies. “We are in a trade war” you traitor!


The humour in the 51 st state scenario was well exploited by US late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel: “But let’s just imagine for a second that somehow… (that) Canada does become a state. Do they think it would be a red state? There are forty-one million people living in Canada. They’re about the same number we have in California. California has fifty-four electoral votes. If Canada also had fifty-four electoral votes, forget MAGA — our next president will be a kindhearted lesbian moose. “I’m trying to say, I’m for it. Save us, Canada — you’re our only hope.” Obviously,

he sees a residue of pro-Canadian sentiment in America. We should be exploiting it!


Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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