Northerners talk Trump win
Worry expressed over normalization of bigotry;
industry boost could positively affect economy
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, November 11, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has prompted reflection on potential impacts on the North, especially regarding social progress.
On Tuesday, voters in the United States elected Donald Trump, shown speaking at a rally in March, as their next president. - photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore |
Lyda Fuller, executive director of the Yellowknife YWCA, said Trump's treatment of women is appalling and not what the organization that runs a domestic violence shelter wants any girls or woman to be subjected to.
Trump was caught on a 2005 recording bragging about using his star power to commit sexual assault. He dismissed it as "locker room talk."
"He has represented himself as a xenophobic, racist and misogynist man who attains power and privilege with little or no intention of using these to improve the well-being of people whom he perceives as different and therefore undeserving," she stated in an e-mail to Yellowknifer.
Yellowknife Centre MLA Julie Green said she's "very disappointed" that people didn't awake Wednesday to a female president-elect who could be a role model for other women.
She said the territory has struggled to get women into elected office and had hoped a female presidency would prompt more women to put their names on ballots.
While Green said Trump didn't entice people to commit harmful acts against women, he didn't reject it.
"I feel that makes all of us a little less safe," Green said.
Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, an adjunct professor of public policy at Carleton University, said his actions and statements may normalize what had been unacceptable behavior and speech. She referred back to how she had a lot of political conversations with her two children as they listened to the campaign news about issues like cheating, lying, sexual assault, bullying and questionable business deals, indicating he's had a broad reach.
"It absolutely will have an effect. However much that might be reviled by most reasonable people, it is now within the realm of possibility," she said.
Kam Lake MLA Kieron Testart said he knows young people who are LGBTQ, indigenous, or people of colour who are worried.
"For the past 20 years, we've won many battles to bring a more progressive and equal society and they just saw those policies repudiated by the American public and I think that does have a really chilling effect on many people who not too long ago could not be free to love who they want to love and be who they want to be," Testart said.
Both Irlbacher-Fox and Testart pointed to Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Kellie Leitch, who said Trump's win sends an "exciting message" to Canada.
Candidate Trump offered sparse policy details but did make statements on trade and climate that, if carried out, would be bound to impact Canada.
He has said he intends to back America out of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Act as well.
One aspect likely to directly impact the territory is his view on man-made climate change, which in 2012 he called a Chinese hoax.
The territory is already warming at a rate four to five times faster than global averages, resulting in melting permafrost, longer and dryer summers and more intense forest fire seasons.
Trump vowed to back out of the 2015 Paris climate accord he called "bad for business" and urged TransCanada Corporation to again seek approval to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta through the Midwestern U.S. His stance toward oil and gas extraction could boost the industry in Canada, though current low prices make further exploration and development in this part of Canada unlikely.
Irlbacher-Fox said his plans for infrastructure spending and rebuilding domestic industry may boost mining in Canada.
"It could be positive for the Northern economy - and I can't believe I'm saying that," she said.
Robert C. McLeod, the territory's deputy premier, said Canada and the North will wait to see how Trump actually deals with trade and climate issues once in office.
"We'll have to see how he intends on dealing with that," McLeod said about the Paris agreement.
"It's going to make for some interesting times. Our hope is he would honour commitments that were made by the previous administration."
