8 Foot Box

Dear America, To President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and the Americans sitting across the negotiating table from our government: I'm writing this from Canada with a request I never thought I would make of another country. Please help us. Not our government. Us. The Canadian people. Please help us understand what is happening to our own country. Our relationship with the United States is deteriorating. Our economy is hurting. Canadian and American families are worried about jobs, businesses, mortgages and the country we're going to hand our children. Yet through one of the most consequential trade disputes of our lifetime, ordinary Canadians are being left in the dark about what is actually happening. We hear statements and vague explanations from our government. What we don't get to see or hear is what actually happened at the table. Increasingly, Canadians are learning more about negotiations involving our own country by watching non-subsidized taxpayer funded American news and American officials. Think about how extraordinary that is. Our media isn't working for us. Canadians are looking across the border to understand what our own government is doing. So today, I'm asking you to look back across that border at us. Please don't leave Canadians in the dark. You have the perfect opportunity to shine the light on the truth and help Canadians to see it. If you made Canada an offer, show us. If our government rejected something, show us. If Canada made demands that prevented an agreement, show us those too. Because we simply cannot trust what our own government and media is telling us. Give us the timeline. Give us the documents. Give us whatever can legally be made public. Then please do something unmistakably American... Put it in front of the people. Buy the television ads. Buy the newspaper ads. Buy the digital ads. Build a website containing the documents and put the address everywhere. Run a commercial during the hockey game if that's what it takes. Ontario Premier Doug Ford bought advertising in your country because he wanted Americans to hear Ontario's message directly. Please return the favour. Buy the ads in our country. Television, radio, social media...all of it. Do it for Canadians who deserve to know what is being done in their name. Americans understand something deeply that shouldn't stop mattering when you reach the 49th parallel: a government should answer to its people. And people cannot hold their government accountable when they aren't given the information necessary to do it. That is where we need your help. For generations, Canadians and Americans have been neighbours in a way that goes far beyond politics. Our families live on both sides of that border. We trade together. We build things together. We defend this continent together. Our governments can fight. Our people don't have to become enemies. So I'm asking you sincerely, and with more humility than Canadians are generally comfortable showing: Please help your neighbours. We aren't asking you to interfere in our politics. We aren't asking for money or special treatment. We're asking you to turn on the light. Give ordinary Canadians access to the information you already have. Speak directly to us. Trust us with the facts. There was a time when Canada would never have needed another country to help its citizens understand what their own government was doing. It pains me to admit that today, some of us believe we do. And of all the countries in the world, there is only one I would think to ask. America. Our neighbour. Our friend. The country that has stood beside us through wars, disasters, terrorism, recessions and generations of shared history. We're standing on the other side of that border now asking you for something remarkably small that could make an enormous difference. Please show Canadians what happened. • Put the documents in our hands. • Buy the ads. • Tell us what our own government will not. Because right now, your Canadian neighbours need some help. And we're asking America not to look away. @POTUS @DonaldTrump @jamiesongreer @JDVance @howardlutnick @bennyjohnson