Dear Pres­i­dent Trump; Your rants and threats to impose 50 per­cent tar­iffs over smoke from our wild­fires blow­ing into the U.S. have, as we Cana­di­ans say, seri­ous­ly cheesed us off. So I feel com­pelled to live up to our stereo­type and say Sor­ry, eh?

 We should have tak­en note, rather than umbrage, at your asser­tion that: “Cana­da has refused to engage in Basic For­est Man­age­ment and Debris Removal.”
There is debate and crit­i­cism here over for­est man­age­ment. We are learn­ing and chang­ing our ways, but lack the capac­i­ty of a sta­ble genius and forestry expert like yourself.
We failed to recog­nise the effi­ca­cy of your obser­va­tion that Cal­i­for­nia would not have suf­fered dev­as­tat­ing fires if they’d raked their forests on an annu­al basis, Sor­ry, eh?
If every Cana­di­an over the age of twelve, helped by all those alleged­ly ille­gal /undocumented migrants ICE wants to deport, had start­ed rak­ing last week, we could, with luck, have got­ten the job done before the sun burns out.
Cov­er­ing 1.3‑billion acres, Canada’s bore­al forests are com­pa­ra­ble in size to the entire Unit­ed States. They are the largest intact ecosys­tems on Earth, much of it acces­si­ble only by float plane or canoe.
But that sounds like brag­ging, and superla­tives are only sup­posed to apply to the land of MAGA. Again, Sor­ry, eh?
Nor should we have tak­en offence at the remon­stra­tion by four Michi­gan Repub­li­can mem­bers of Con­gress that: “Sov­er­eign­ty comes with respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­vent a fore­see­able dis­as­ter from cross­ing into anoth­er country’s air­space has not been met.”
I hope we don’t appear to be churl­ish neigh­bours by point­ing out that the U.S. is the world’s sec­ond high­est emit­ter of green­house gasses,  after Chi­na. Of course we urge you to earn your right­ful spot as gold medal­ist as soon as possible.
Mean­while, Sor­ry, eh?
If. as you insist, the claims by the fake news media and lead­ing cli­mate change sci­en­tists that the increas­ing fre­quen­cy and feroc­i­ty of wild­fires is direct­ly relat­ed to glob­al warm­ing is a hoax, and does not apply in Canada’s case any­way, then Sor­ry, eh?.
Per­haps you could help us pro­tect your coun­try from being, as you so suc­cinct­ly put it, “unnec­es­sar­i­ly invad­ed by filthy, pol­lut­ed, and unhealthy air, the qual­i­ty of which is dan­ger­ous, and total­ly unac­cept­able”, and do to the weath­er what you threat­ened to do to Iran, and bomb it back to the Stone Age.
If that comes across as a stereo­typ­i­cal Cana­di­an pas­sive aggres­sive way of call­ing you an idiot, Sor­ry, eh?.

                          AND THAT’S NOT ALL

We’ve also appar­ent­ly been nas­ti­er than is our much-loved self (and world-wide) image.
Speak­ing in the Oval Office recent­ly, you not­ed that Cana­da has been “very, very tough” on the U.S. for years, and took the trou­ble to point out: “They (we Cana­di­ans) need us to sur­vive. With­out us, there’s no way they can survive.”
Oh, and thank you,Your Trump­ness, for tak­ing a moment dur­ing the World Cup to inform Prime Min­is­ter Mark Car­ney that Cana­da needs to stop wild­fires and “pay us  (the U.S.) some dam­ages or something…”
Ontario Pre­mier Doug Ford, our (decaf­feinat­ed) equiv­a­lent of your shoot-from-the-hip-flake style of diplo­ma­cy, railed that if you go through with the 50 per­cent tar­iff thing, we should cut off the mas­sive amount of ener­gy Cana­da sells to the U.S. “We are an ener­gy pow­er­house:.” Ford boast­ed, “and we could dis­man­tle the U.S. if we want­ed to,”
Even if that were true, we’re far too neigh­bourly to ever do so, But it has to be admit­ted, the idea does strike a vis­cer­al chord. Sor­ry. eh?
Mr Car­ney, on the  oth­er hand, has been respond­ing with calm and rea­son, anoth­er of our many short­com­ings over which you have every rea­son to be angry. It’s not your fault we elect­ed a leader who’s more artic­u­late, eru­dite, edu­cat­ed and respect­ed on the world stage than you.
In  a recent Pew poll, only 35 per­cent (down from 83 per­cent in 2022) of those sur­veyed in Cana­da describe the Unit­ed States as a reli­able part­ner, which is on a par with your approval rat­ings at home.
I guess that means you might was well dis­re­mem­ber your fan­ta­sy of us becom­ing your 51^st state. Sorry,eh?
Per­haps as com­pen­sa­tion you could demand that the Cana­di­ans whose homes and even entire com­mu­ni­ties are now part of that inva­sion of smoke, thank you for the good neigh­bour advice and dearth of help you’ve offered, and say Sor­ry, eh?
And then, of course, pay tariffs.
Both of those are about as unlike­ly to hap­pen as anoth­er for­est fire nev­er being start­ed by light­en­ing, with resul­tant smoke com­ing your way.
Yours sin­cere­ly, Sor­ry, eh?
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