O CANADA! May 2, 2025

Does eating breakfast make me a Benedict Arnold?

I’ve always considered myself a loyal American. When I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army after being graduated from Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, I swore to protect and defend the Constitution. I maintain that oath.

Now, am I aiding and abetting a foreign nation?

Well, Canada doesn’t strike me as all that foreign. It sits on our northern border. The majority of Canadians speak English as their native language (Quebecers speak French—and English). True, Canadians spell some words differently, like colour (with a “u”) versus color. And they don’t go to the bathroom. They go to the washroom. Small differences.

Carolyn and I greatly enjoyed our three Canadian trips: Vancouver Island, including Victoria, and the city of Vancouver; Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay, to see polar bears (we did, up close and personal); and Niagara Falls, with the more spectacular views from the Canadian side.

What exactly have I done wrong? 

First, I rooted for Mark Carney to be elected Canada’s prime minister, which he was. Carney refuses to knuckle under to Donald Trump in the matter of tariffs. He’s prepared Canadians for rough times and will not let Canada be absorbed as the U.S.A.’s fifty-first state.

Second, I support Canada in the tariff war by buying my usual breakfast cereals. I enjoy both Barbara’s Original Oat Crunch and Quaker Oatmeal Squares with brown sugar. Barbara’s was founded in Petaluma, California, just north of San Francisco, and maintains offices there and in Sacramento. But Barbara’s is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of—gasp!—Weetabix Ltd., a British company.

Quaker was founded in Ohio and is headquartered in Chicago. It’s owned by PepsiCo, the American food giant headquartered north of New York City, which does business around the world.

My sin: Both cereals are made in Canada. Says so on the packages. But they’re owned by companies that employ Americans. Yet one of those companies sends profits across the pond.

Confusing? Fuhgeddaboudit! Today, business is done on a global scale. And let’s be honest: Carolyn and I are hardly the only Americans to consumes foodstuffs or buy other products with international connections. Nor are we the only Americans to continue buying those products, as long as tariffs don’t make Canada’s and other nations’ goods prohibitively expensive. We’ll willingly pay more for my cereals and for Carolyn’s John McCann Steel Cut Oatmeal from Ireland. 

In return, we hope that Canadians and people in other countries will buy their favorite American products, as long as the tariffs their nations impose in return don’t make them unaffordable.

Still, we’re realists. Most Americans and many people worldwide will find their budgets harder to maintain. Their quality of life may take a hit. 

Yet better ways exist to make adjustments in internation trade and avoid a potential recession. They require government leaders to take rational approaches to economic challenges, use data and sound judgment rather than institute tariffs based on “my intuition.”

O Canada! Your national anthem pledges your loyalty to your native land without expressing aggression towards any other country. I fully believe that your anthem’s lyrics reflect the spirit most Canadians share: “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”

O Canada! This loyal American wishes thee well!

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