Toronto – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carny On Monday, he regretted the loss friendship of Canada with the United States while visiting the city that protected thousands of passengers from US airlines stranded after the attacks of September 11.
The visit of Carney to Gander, Newfoundland, the second day of a national electoral campaign is in the context of a Commercial war and sovereignty threats Of the president of the United States, Donald Trump. Trump’s almost daily attacks against Canada’s sovereignty have left the Canadians feeling betrayed.
“In this crisis caused by the president of the United States and those that are allowing it, we regret a lost friendship,” said Carney. “In Gander, the Canadians did extraordinary things for the Americans when they needed it. Now we need to do extraordinary things for ourselves.”
Glance He opened his arms Almost 6,600 airline passengers deviated there when the United States government closed airspace during September 11.
In a matter of a few hours, the population of the city of 10,000 in 2001 was overwhelmed by 38 traveler planes, however, the locals went to work in their kitchens and cleaned free rooms to offer space and food to the newcomers.
When more than 200 flights were diverted to Canada after the attacks on the United States, the Canadians moved the traffic of Toronto and Montreal to the east coast.
Dark gander and little used to relive their glory days as a stoppot for transatlantic aviation before possible long distance flights were made. Built in 1938 in advance of the next World War, it had the longest track in the world, and on September 11 it was the second busiest, receiving 38 flights to Halifax, the 47 of Nueva Scotia.
The flight crews quickly filled Gander hotels, so the passengers were taken to schools, firefighters and churches. The Canadian army flew by 5,000 cribs. Donadas donated blankets, coffee machines, barbecue grills. Unable to recover their luggage, the passengers became dependent on the kindness of the strangers, and it was in the form of clothing, showers, toys, telephone banks to call home for free, a sand that became a giant refrigerator with donated foods.
Once all airplanes landed or returned to Europe, Gander air traffic controllers changed meals at meals in the building without stopping for three days.
“More than 6,000 passengers. During the night, the city’s population almost doubled,” Carney said during a speech against residents. “You showed friendship to the people who were afraid. In a crisis, you showed your character. When people needed help, you gave it.”
On Monday, Carney visited the house of Beulah Cooper, who opened his house and consoled many, including Dennis and Hannah O’Rourke, an elderly couple whose fireman from New York, Kevin, disappeared in the World Trade Center and then confirmed that he died there.
The O’Rourkes were still friends with Cooper much later and Gander again, saying that they felt eternally in debt.
Now, Cooper says she feels betrayed by America, although she is still a friend of Hannah O’Rourke, whose husband died. She also feels bad for her American friends.
“There are too many bad words so that I say by phone about what I think of Trump,” Cooper said. “Canada was the best ally they had.”
Carney pointed out that the story of that day became a legend, immortalized in the manufacture of Canadian Broadway Hit musical “come from away”.
Carney said that Canadians have always been next to the Americans, either during the Hostage crisis of Iran, or more recently during the Forest Fire of California or in Afghanistan, where Canada lost 158 members of the Armed Forces and seven civilians.
Trump has declared a commercial war In its northern neighbor and continues to ask Canada to become the state 51, a position that has enraged Canadians. The US president has threatened economic coercion in his threats to annexation and suggested that the border is a fictitious line.
Trump put 25% tariffs on the steel and aluminum of Canada and threatens radical tariffs in all Canadian products, as well as all the commercial partners of the United States, on April 2.
Carney said that Canadians overcome the shock of betrayal, but now they have to take care of themselves. He said that Canadians and Americans have been traditionally as brothers.
“But that has changed. And we were the ones who made the change. Unfortunately, the actions of President Trump have put that relationship under greater tension today than at any time in our historical history,” said Carney.
Carney, at the beginning of an election campaign five weeks before the vote on April 28, said he is not looking for friendship of the Americans. “I’m just looking for respect at this time,” he said.
The new prime minister, jury on March 14, has not yet received a phone call with Trump and suggested that this might not happen until after the elections. “I am available for a call. But you know that we are going to talk about our terms as a sovereign country, not like what we pretend,” said Carney.
He said that Americans are making a “fundamental error” in the commercial war.
“They think they will weaken us. They think they can own us with frankness, that is what they think,” he said. “We are going to strengthen ourselves. We are going to wait for this. They will come to the table and we will negotiate a lot for the Canadians.”
