U.S. President Donald Trump made one of the most serious errors of his presidency in picking a fight with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford over an ad highlighting former President Ronald Reagan’s opposition to the use of tariffs.

As Trump always does when confronted by views in the free press which he opposes, he dismissed the ad as “fake.”

As a result of the ad, Trump suspended trade talks with Canada and imposed an across-the-board additional tariff of ten per cent on this country.

This writer has told the story before about Lupin, the now aging, yellow labrador known for her amazing ability to understand the English language.

When we walk on the Cemetery trail, I almost always have her on her leash and carry poop bags so she can do her business on the trail conforming to all local bylaws.

On this occasion I rushed out of the house, probably because I have been neglecting my domestic duties due to, you guessed it, my devotion to the now World Series-bound Toronto Blue Jays.

My dear spouse doesn’t care to watch the Jays on the Tube, and I care for them in such an enthusiastic way I can’t fully explain.

My only experience in playing baseball was as a pre-Little League catcher at the small Court House field in Saint Andrews, N.B.   My friend, the late Michael Kohler, was our team’s main pitcher, and I had to scramble to catch his “submarine” balls.

I played and really enjoyed, much more, playing hockey, particularly on our neighborhood hockey pond.

But I digress.

On that fateful day, as I drove in the car with Lupin, or Lupee as I often call her, I had forgotten everything except my hiking boots and Lupee’s favorite banana treats, one piece to entice her into the car and another piece for the end of the walk.

​The Against the Flow blog writers see the handsome, but nasty, Blue Jays every day around our bird feeder.

The statuesque blue and white bird has an inhospitable, squawky call. No one would mistake a Blue Jay for a sweet little “song bird” like a warbler, a chick-a-dee or a gold finch.

In the spring nesting season, the Blue Jays are the aggressive marauders attacking the nests of smaller birds and making off with their fledglings.

Compared to their avian namesakes, the Toronto Blue Jays have been acting, if you excuse the cross-metaphor, like pussy cats.

Compared to their series with the thundering giants, the New York Yankees, when they played so well, the Blue Jays’ bats have gone silent.  Where are the sluggers like Vladdy Guerrero Jr. and George Springer now, when the team and this whole country need them?

Springer did hit the first pitch he faced for a home run in game two against the Seattle Mariners, but then his bat fell silent. Guerrero looked frustrated and a bit lost. In past games he had been the heart of the team at bat, in his impressive fielding at first base, and in his dynamic base running.

By comparison the Seattle Mariners have looked quietly confident and very strong in both games against the Jays, out-scoring Toronto 13-4 thus far.

The Jays have made mistakes. For example, in their earlier series they celebrated, including Manager John Schneider, long and hard with champagne and all the protective ski masks they needed for their eyes.

It was as if they had won the whole enchilada, the World Series. Schneider was photographed looking fairly wasted, like a teenager, out on the town for his/her first big bash.

It would have been better if Schneider had set a better example for his players and assigned them extra batting practice and urged them to get down to business.

The lesser lights on the team have been carrying a big load. Prime among them has been Ernie Clement who has been terrific in all of the team’s post season baseball. Nathan Lukes has also been fantastic, getting timely hits, and recently, shrugging off a painful ball strike on his knee cap.

Alexandro Kirk has been great as catcher, and at the plate as a steady hitter. Daulton Varsho has been masterful at the bat, and sterling in the field except for one misplayed long ball in Tuesday’s game.

The team’s bullpen has also been stalwart, and these pitchers need to keep up their good work.

Another turning point for the team was in letting their very talented rookie pitcher, Trey Lesavage sound off about how his family had been mistreated on social media. His father, especially, had been exuberant about his son’s terrific performance in his game against the Yankees, when he had struck out 11 batters.

Social media is often unfair, but it would have been better if the team had cautioned Lesavage that he is in the big leagues now and there was no point in losing concentration with a strong public defence at that moment. Lesavage struck out four but was less impressive on Tuesday. 
The baseball Jays can do it. They have tons of talent. What they need now is focus and fire in their bellies on the base paths, in the field and at the plate. They need to show as much aggression and fire as their avian contemporaries.

Meanwhile, as we speak, the Blue Jays of the avian world have taken over our birdfeeder, chasing away the smaller birds. The larger Jay of a pair has put pay to the smaller one. Such is the way of life in the natural world.

Our ball-playing friends need to take notice! They need to roar back for game three in Seattle Wednesday night.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was all smiles, approval-seeking and almost giggly in his latest meeting in the White House with U.S. President Donald Trump, but unlike his demeanour at that meeting, the previous week Carney sounded a note of honesty and sincerity in speaking at the National Truth and Reconciliation Day observances.

Incongruously wearing a Truth and Reconciliation Day tee shirt under his banker’s suit, Prime Minister spoke eloquently and meaningfully the previous week on that somber day. He has not always done so well in his dealings with First Nations peoples.

He had previously forged ahead in his statement for the government’s advancement of projects of “National Importance”.

In doing so, he did not discuss his ideas for a plan with First Nations. Instead, he broke the cardinal rule of relations with First Nations: “Discuss and consult first and work with, before finalizing a plan.”

Speaking to the large gathering for National Truth and Reconciliation Day, Carney drew applause when he recalled the painting on 11 wooden panels by indigenous artist Luke Parnell, which depicts first, a vibrant cultural scene, which then is literally white-washed over in the middle panels, and then in the final series of panels a  full view as a spirit of reconciliation is gradually taking hold.

The other day, this writer had conversations with two friends, one was with a learned American who argued that the methods of Donald Trump closely follow those seen over the centuries with monarchs in England, where power was closely held and administered, enemies were eliminated, and not much could be done to bring about significant change.

The other conversation was with a worldly-wise Canadian who happens to see Trump as a very bright leader whose hold on power and delivery of an agenda for the USA and the rest of the world must, in some way, be admired.

This writer’s view of the American President is that he presents a danger to the world, and in past blog columns has likened Trump to dictators throughout history, even Adolf Hitler.

The two conversations left me frustrated. Should leaders such as Hitler or Joseph Stalin be praised simply because they were intelligent?

Should leaders and politicians not be judged on a normative basis, that is, do they work for the common good and leave the world in a better place? The answer for Hitler and Stalin is a definite “no”.

By 1936, there were an estimated five million prisoners in Stalin’s forced labour camps in the Soviet Union. Estimates of the deaths in the Gulag ranged from 1.2 million to 1.7 million.

In his effort to “purify” Nazi Germany, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust. With his unprecedented military might, Hitler went on to defeat many of his neighbours, killing many millions. Total deaths in World War Two, 1939-45, totalled 70-85 million people.

At this point, Donald Trump is not in the frightening league of Hitler and Stalin.