The Atlantic’s David Frum and The Gazette’s Karen Valihora sat down before a sold-out house at The Regent Theatre last week for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of play between Canada and the United States. Topics canvassed the failure of a new Canada – U.S. “trade deal” to emerge after months of negotiations, and PM Mark Carney’s efforts to move toward new trade and security alliances with the EU and UK; the state of NATO with an unreliable U.S., but a host of other countries promising to fill the breach; and the enduring role of newspapers in holding power to account, most recently on display in the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Epstein Files — and what is looking like a White House cover up.

While Ms. Valihora wondered whether it were possible for Canada to shift away from the U.S. to new trade and security arrangements, Mr. Frum thought Canada should play the long game: a declining U.S. economy would soon bring some pressure to tariff negotiations. 

In response to the question, “how long can this go on, how long can this lawlessness and brutality be endured?” Mr. Frum offered the following reflection:

“There have been long, dark moments in American history before. Those of us who came of age intellectually in the 1970s and 1980s had a story we told ourselves about the United States and about democracies generally, which is: things at a certain point were fairly dark and oppressive, but there’s been these steps toward enlightenment, and it’s always three steps forward. Sometimes it’s a half step back, but it’s three steps forward and rights are extended, the ambit of humanity is extended, participation is extended, prosperity extended. It is an onward and upward story, and you can even date it from whenever you want—1776, onward and upward.

“But if you were there at the time, you didn’t know how the story was going to go. Maybe it was not three steps forward, one step back. It was three steps forward, one step back, and that’s it. We’re back. So we can’t predict, we cannot know the future. We can’t make statements about the future.

“We can make statements about our responsibilities, our duties, our commitments, our beliefs, our principles, and we can act on those. And statements about the world are estimates at best, guesses at worst, complete fantasies at even worse. But statements about your own self, those you can reach into and find, ‘okay, this is who I am. This is what I believe, this is what I will do, this is what I’m bound to do, this is what I will try to do.’ You can make those statements.”  

The event, which raised just over $22,500, was a fundraiser for the Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation in service of the new hospital. Proceeds will go to financing a mammography machine.

A complete recording of the talk is available here.