If Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic nominee for US President, her success or failure could have profound implications for Canada.
Harris spent her most formative years … as a teenager … living in Montreal.
Her mother worked as a cancer researcher at the Jewish General Hospital and Harris attended Westmount High School on the city’s West side (my neck of the woods … I attended West Hill High).
West End neighbourhoods were largely English-speaking … first, a mixture of Protestants, Catholics and Jews of European backgrounds, but as time progressed and immigration grew, home to increasing numbers of other cultures as well.
Westmount High, where Kamala graduated in 1981, was reportedly about 60% white; 40% black at that time.
There was still not a lot of social inter-mixing, but most of the neighbours were educated, well employed, with small “l” and capital “L” liberal leanings, and got along quite well.
And this was Canada: where full public health care was well entrenched in the public psyche; where learning/using a second language (French) was normal; where support for civil rights (race, religion, sexuality) was widespread; where humanistic social values were embraced; and, where no one (except criminals and cops) ever thought of owning a gun.
““She got educated in her earliest years through a Canadian lens and that was bound to have rubbed off,” Bruce Heyman, a former ambassador to Canada under President Barack Obama, was quoted in a 2020 New York Times article.
Exactly.
(You can read the entire article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/world/canada/kamala-harris-montreal.html.)
Stories back at that time said Harris missed her American “home” country the eleven years she was in Montreal … but knowingly, or unknowingly, her time/life in Canada no doubt helped formulate the progressive, social rights activist who is now likely to become the Democratic nominee for US President.
If Harris wins, it would seem to me she would find a lot more in common with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government’s point of view/agenda on economic, social, climate change and global issues than with Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative agenda.
So that raises questions: with the US election on Nov. 5th … and the Canadian vote not until a year later, October 2025 … could a year of Harris in power and another four-year Democratic administration in the US actually breathe life back into Trudeau’s re-election chances?
Or would a Trump/Republican victory help Polievre lock up a victory here?
Canadians always pay a good deal of attention to elections down south … whether Presidential or not … but never have the US results held such important potential implications for Canada as well!
Harv Oberfeld
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