What a Donald Trump presidency means for Canada
CTV
The most striking thing about walking the floor of the Republican National Convention (RNC) is seeing just how much this is Donald Trump's party, CTV News' Vassy Kapelos says.
The most striking thing about walking the floor of the Republican National Convention (RNC) is seeing just how much this is Donald Trump’s party.
You can read about how that’s the case, you can listen to pundits say it — but to see it up close is something different. There is no ideology the 56,000 people here subscribe to, they don’t even describe themselves as conservatives.
They are "patriots," they tell me at length — and they are convinced Donald Trump is the sole politician who is willing to "fight" for them. That's the exact language they use over and over again when you ask why they’re at the RNC; why they support Trump — he is the guy who will "fight for us," is what they tell me over and over again.
So what does that mean for Canada?
It’s a question Canadian politicians and their delegates are consumed with, but there are few certain answers. Not only was Canada’s Ambassador to the United States Kirsten Hillman here for the duration of the convention, so too were Ontario’s representative to D.C., David Patterson, and Alberta’s point person in Washington, James Rajotte.
“They are venues where we have a large concentration of political elected officials, also their policy advisors and and their strategists,” Hillman told me on the first day of the convention about why she was here.
And there are dozens of meetings and sessions that she, Patterson and Rajotte took part in to plead Canada’s case, facing the prospect of a Trump win — which seems more likely now that it did even a month ago.
