Dave Gratton is a strong man. A very strong man. A competitive powerlifter and professional fitness trainer, Dave works out and trains, much more intently than I do, at the same gym I’ve been using during my stay here in Owen Sound, Ontario.
Dave is also a self-described conservative and as you’re about to learn, in Canada the term ‘conservative’ bears little resemblance to what most Americans think of when we think of a conservative.
Voluntarily spending the winter in Canada I get an awful lot of quizzical looks and questions about my judgement. That said, almost as soon as I’ve reassured people I’m not really in need of counseling or therapy, I’m almost always immediately beset with questions about the race for the presidency going on back in the states.
Regardless of their own personal political convictions, most Canadians, being a polite people, struggle to voice their astonishment at how their southern cousins go about picking candidates to stand for the most important job in the land.
The phrase, “you can’t be serious,” gets bandied about quite a bit.
A life-long progressive-slash-liberal-slash-Democrat myself, I’m aware that most of my friends on either side of the boarder share my views. Additionally, last fall, after nine years of Stephen Harper’s conservative government, Canadians swept the Liberal Party into power making Justin Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister. All of which meant I needed to seek out a conservative point of view to round out this article.
Fortunately, Owen Sound, where I’m wintering, is still a bastion of Canadian conservatism.
“Does he (Donald Trump) really think he can do the job or is it just his ego?” Dave said one day during a break between sets at Velocity Sports Performance & Fitness, echoing sentiments I’d heard from many of his fellow Ontarians.
Realizing there was no quick, short answer to this question, I suggested we meet later for coffee and asked Dave if he’d be willing to let me share his thoughts as part of my ongoing life in Canada series of stories. He agreed.
Over coffee and scones, actually I had the scone he had a protein bar, I asked Dave, as a Canadian Conservative, what he thought of American conservatism.
“American conservatives seem to have an unwillingness to move,” he began. “We [Canadian conservatives] are not so typically stubborn where it’s a my-way-or-the-highway type thing (like American Conservatives).”
Returning to Trump, I asked how he and other Conservatives view Trump’s candidacy.
“He wants to recapture a dream of what America once was.
“Why do Americans think he can do the job when basically in his own life he’s failed to do the job?
“He’s not very highly thought of outside of the United States. And, his record alone on treating women is not good.”
And if he is elected President, I asked, what do you see for America?
“More war,” he quickly responded, along with, “more terrorist attacks, fracturing relations with other nations; that’s clearly not working.”
Ever a thoughtful Canadian, Dave went on to reassure me that Canadians are very fond of all their US cousins and that it’s only the behavior of some us that truly mystifies them.
“We have racists and kooks,” he said. “Too many Americans are stuck in a mentality of we’re number one screw everybody else….”
I asked Dave what his biggest gripe about the US was.
“The healthcare system,” he said adding that he doesn’t feel we do a very good job of taking care of our own people.
“Healthcare is absolutely the right of every human being on this earth….”
He goes on to say that there’s no reason for such a basic human right to be part of a for-profit, market-based system “that poor people can’t access and only wealthy people can.”
Returning to the elections, Dave told me he welcomes those Americans disaffected by the results of the coming elections. “I don’t see any American, with a Trump election, that would be harmful. Probably the [kind] of people we need.”
And if Secretary Clinton or Senator Sanders wins, well let’s just say Dave doesn’t think American conservatives would feel much at home in the Great White North.
“We seem to have an ability here in Canada to disagree with one another and still care about each other.”
Of all the presidential candidates running, or who have run, who does this supporter of the previous Conservative Harper government feel would make the best next President of the United States?
“Hillary Clinton. She’s by far the most qualified.”
UPDATE: During the April 14, Canadian Powerlifting Federation meet in Guelph, Ontario Dave Gratton set a new CPF record by completing a 337.4 KG/744 LB squat.
