HOW TO SAVE CANADA

We're going to have to work hard and fast - to avoid becoming Trump's fifty-first state

- BY WESLEY WARK ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN MORGAN

THE O'HAGAN ESSAY ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS

THE UNITED STATES embassy in Ottawa is a long, low, stone-faced hulk of a building. To some, it looks like an attack submarine; others have likened it to an aircraft carrier. It spreads its dismal bulk down Sussex Drive; from its windows, you can see the East Block of Parliament. Nearby is a monument to Canadian peacekeepers. Just a little further afield is the famous Louise Bourgeois sculpture of a gigantic spider that guards the entrance to the National Gallery of Canada. This architectural trio seems suddenly perfect for our times. A menacing US war machine and a monstrous spider. Caught between: a handful of well-meaning Canadian peacekeepers in uniform looking out on a vanished past.

Canadians, with a cherished mythology as the world's peacekeepers, are going to have to get used to a radically new outlook on national security and defence, one that pivots toward an unprecedented threat to our sovereignty. This threat is no longer confined to some distant set of authoritarian states but now comes from our closest neighbour and longtime friend. The United States president, Donald Trump, and his top advisers have repeatedly made annexationist and imperial threats against Canada, with the stated endgame of turning the country into the "fifty-first state." Trump aides have advised Canadian officials, including visiting "Team Canada" premiers and territorial leaders, that the president means what he says.