He Came, He Saw, He Bailed On The G7 Again

Veni, vidi, vamooski.

Above: Not somewhere in Wyoming. (Screengrab)

One of the more memorable lines from the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain came near the end from conflicted cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), who told his long-term secret romantic partner Ennis Del Mar (the late Heath Ledger): “I wish I knew how to quit you.” The civilized world looks at America’s relationship with its serial abuser in much the same way and wish y’all could figure out a way to say goodbye to the supervillain too.

Sorry to drag the ground-breaking love story into this but there’s a certain poetic justice that the one corner of Canada we’ve made an exception to allow the convicted felon to visit happens to be the same neck of the Rockies where Ang Lee’s queer classic was filmed.

Not that Trump is likely to have seen it, not unlike his favorite musical Les Misérables he’s clearly unfamiliar with, but God only knows how many closeted Christian MAGA men have pummelled their junk watching the two Hollywood action heroes throw down on each other over the past two decades.

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While Canada declined to give a pass to the movie’s lower-billed Randy Quaid, a Trump supporter with a criminal record who was deported back to the USA after a bananapants “starwhackers” asylum claim several years ago, it didn’t come as any great surprise Prime Minister Mark Carney wouldn’t ask the 47th President of the United States to instead attend the G7 summit meeting in Kananaskis via Zoom.

As yours truly wrote last June when a prison cell or self-exile in a Russian dacha seemed likelier final destinations than the Oval Office:

It’s pretty much a given Canada would make an exception if he somehow manages to crime his way back into the White House, especially if Peewee Poilievre is running the show by then, although felons aren’t normally considered until at least five years after serving their sentence, at which point they can apply for a “certificate of rehabilitation.” But the feds can allow in whoever they want, especially for diplomatic reasons, and the Canada Border Services Agency say decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

There wasn’t nearly the same level of protest at the G7 in the same remote Alberta location as there was back in 2002, when Russia was given the OK to join (oops) and a different Republican president was building the case for war against a distant Islamic nation that doesn’t pose a direct threat. This is partly due to Canadians figuring correctly he’s going to skedaddle early like last time, when the dotard left the 2018 G7 summit in Quebec in a snit to spend some quality time with North Korean bae Kim Jong Un in Singapore instead.

Why even bother to make protest plans when you know taco’s gonna taco amirite? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as they don’t actually say much in Alberta.

It’s worth noting revved-up Edmonton Oilers fans also didn’t boo the American anthem at what turned out to be the final home game of the season last week either. Canadians know how much decent Americans are hurting right now; we’re watching the same footage of ICE’s masked Uvalde shooter wannabes make do for now with kidnapping brown people and don’t want to rub it in.

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The whole Elbows Up thing is on an indefinite low simmer anyway, and it would’ve been weird to throw a big No Kings protest when we have an actual king although things might’ve gone very differently if the Oilers were facing Wayne Gretzky’s LA Kings instead of the damn Florida Panthers again.

King Charles Reminds Everyone Who's The Boss (Of Canada)

Trump’s short visit to K-Country went disastrously, of course. You’ve might’ve seen video of Carney interrupting his stream of grievances at a press conference, including former PM Justin Trudeau somehow conspiring with Obama to punish poor Putin even though he wasn’t actually in power when the G8 downsized due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to exercise my role as G7 chair,” said Carney, politely but firmly shutting down the tantrum.

We may never know if the plan all along was to leave early just to show the world he has more important things to do like watch TV or play golf rather than hang out with fellow world leaders even though Carney had invited some mostly unwanted guests such as Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bonesaw and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — whom Trudeau accused of greenlighting the assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on home soil two years ago — in part to help make Trump feel more at ease.

Or if handlers pushed him on a plane because of the obvious mental and physical decline in front of peers.

Italian PM Georgia Meloni could be rolling her eyes for a different reason entirely!

Or even if Israeli butcher Benjamin Netanyahu chose the moment to bomb Iran specifically because he knew Dear Leader would be vulnerable after a string of public humiliations and might finally be manipulated into using America’s special bunker-busting big guns to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities just to feel like he’s on Team Tough Guy again.

Oh, you might have heard that happened last night.

But at least the leaders of several democracies got to mingle in person to gear up for our shitty new world order where the only superpower has gone off the deep end. Hopefully there were some illicit hook-ups!

[Radio-Canada / Blue Sky]