The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Canada's Most Decorated Soldier on a War with America

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

You might think all this talk of the United States taking over Canada is unique to the era of Trump. However, the fact is, someone wrote about this very scenario more than half a century ago in two bestselling books. The first was called Ultimatum and the second Exxoneration, and they told the story of a voracious America trying to take over resource-rich Canada. The author followed that up with a third installment in the series in 2007 and he is with us tonight. He is Richard Rohmer, World War II veteran, Canada's most decorated soldier, and author of more than 30 books.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The first was called Ultimatum, and the second Exoneration, and they told the story of a voracious America trying to take over resource-rich Canada. The author followed that up with a third installment in the series in 2007, and he is with us tonight. He is Richard Romer, World War II veteran, Canada's most decorated soldier,

and the author of more than 30 books. Lieutenant General Romer just celebrated his 101st birthday in January, and we are delighted to welcome you back to TVO. Always nice to be here and in your presence. Amen to that, sir. Let us start with this. What made you think, more than 50 years ago, that this kind of conflict between the United States

and Canada could be possible? I suppose if I look back on it, I can't answer the question for you, because it all sort of came together. The things that I was doing in my practice of law at that time, I had a great involvement with the Americans. I had a great involvement with people in northern Canada. And a whole bunch of things were happening.

One of the things that was happening, there was a great deal of natural gas and crude oil being found in the high Arctic that hadn't been there before. So I was interested in the pipelines that were being put together. And I wound up at a Newford quite often dealing with the people there in the situation. But when it came to the business of writing, I was new with the game.

I had chaired the Royal Commission on Book Publishing in Ontario, and I knew who all the publishers were. And so I had a storyline that I thought I should develop, and I started to talk to some publishers about doing that. But when you did it and you explained what the plot would be, America invading Canada to take our resources, did any of them come back at you and say, this is too fanciful, it's not believable?

No, they didn't do that at all. They were a little stunned by the proposition. But the reality was that I could feel the whole situation. I knew there was a lot of demand from the United States to run things for us, whether we liked it or not. That has not changed in the 50 years. And so when I got to put the plot together for Alta Minim. It was a big focus on the high north, the Unuvik area,

the Arctic islands, which I knew quite a bit about at that point. I was still purchasing the law, so I was able to fold some legal questions into it. And I was watching very carefully what was happening in Parliament. And so when it came time to put it all together, I had the prime minister leading the party of the day

in the House of Commons and handling the whole question from his point of view. And on the other side, I had the president of the United States, who was a mean SOB and he decided that he was going to take over Canada. Take over Canada. He's going to actually say you are now American citizens and I've got a great section in the book where he makes a little speech like that was right on the money. So when Trump said yeah we want to annex Canada as a 51st state and have

your prime minister become our 51st governor, how did that sit with you? Well, it's happened to me over from an effectional point of view, but it doesn't sit with me at all in terms of, I'm a Canadian. I fought my time during the war at 135 missions as a reconnaissance pilot getting shot at all the time and I've paid my dues and I'm a Canadian top and bottom. And so in the book you'll find two definite stories running parallel. The Americans, how they're looking at us, and the Canadians, how they're looking at us from the viewpoint of the Prime Minister and the viewpoint of the President. And they are the two leading characters in those books.

So tell me this. In Ultimatum, how well does our fictitious prime minister stand up to the bully boy president? He stands up very well, as a matter of fact. And at the same time, you have to read the book to find out what ultimately happened. That's the problem. But it was a book that surprised me in terms of the way it did turn out in the end result. And it's exactly what's happening today.

The Americans are Americans right now. They're getting everybody in Europe mad at them. The vice presidents of the United States is over telling the Germans and the French, everybody what they should be doing, making terrible speeches. They're out of their minds. But that's what the Americans are right now. They've got this man who's the president.

He's an articulate, highly intelligent fellow with a great memory. And when he talks, it just keeps rolling out. He thinks about everything as he's speaking it, whether it makes sense or not. He makes sense with it. And he's in big danger for Canada, in my opinion, as a nation.

And he's already landing on the Europeans in a way that's unbelievably dumb. Let me ask you about that. Why is it, or perhaps you can help us make sense of the fact, that the current President of the United States can't really get along with his fellow Democratic country leaders, but he gets along quite well with authoritarians and dictators all over the world. Explain that. It's because he speaks to them. He considers himself to be superior to them intellectually, brain wise, and he can put together a proposition to put to the French or the Germans, and that's exactly what he's doing.

He sent his vice president over to tell people all kinds of terrible things, that they're dumb. And they shouldn't be doing this and that, and the other thing, who is he? He knows everything. The man is a completely self-centered egotist, and he's got a brilliant memory and a great vocabulary. If you watch him on television, and when he's got a brilliant memory and a great vocabulary. If you watch him on

television and when he's in a crowd he can out talk anybody, he can listen to a question and he'll have an answer for it right off the bat. He's an amazing guy. Now of course in your book which you wrote as fiction, America has its designs on our natural resources because this was in the 1970s, there were OPEC oil shocks, the price of gas was going through the roof, it was a different time in that regard. Do you have any reason to believe that there is an actual plan on the books in the American military to take over our resources by

force if they determine it's necessary. I would not be surprised if the I would be surprised if such a plan does not exist. I think they've come to the point now with this leadership that the generals behind locked doors are sorting out all kinds of plans to execute in the event the decision is made by the president to take over Canada. I have no doubt about that at all the way things are going at the moment. And what would we do if they did that? There's not much we could do. We don't have a force. Our military force, which I know something about,

is always next to nothing because of the way it's been treated by governments. We are not able to fight them off. Although I have a plan that I would use if I were in that position. All ears. All ears. All ears. All right.

I would do simply the same sort of thing that I did with the book. I would allow the Americans to come in with their airplanes and their fighters and all of their equipment and potentially take over the airports and travel systems and then pull the rug on them by force. We would shoot at them and catch them. In the book, I get them defeated by our Canadian Reserve Air Force.

And the Americans take their big airplanes and fighters and go home because we have defeated them. Now, that's fiction. But the reality is, I don't see us being able to do much at all because the American concept of Canada is really next to zip. We're not anything that they have to be concerned about.

But when you wrote this book 50 plus years ago, these series of books 50 plus years ago, did you ever in your wildest imagination think this could really happen someday? Of course. Of course, I did in my wildest imagination. That's why I was able to write the book. But the reality, I still don't think it will happen.

But I know it can happen. And as the days go along and Trump is opening his mouth and his brain as frequently as he is, he will tuck himself into doing something which is going to be irrevocable and can very easily happen. I don't know how we would really reply to it. Maybe I should write another book to find out what... Well you have written another book, and we'll get to that in a moment here, because you're

over 30 now, aren't you? Oh, yes. Over 30. Okay. Let me ask you about NATO. Article 5 of the NATO Charter says that an attack upon one is an attack upon all. If the United States were to attack a fellow NATO member, is that to suggest that the rest of the NATO countries ought to come to the defense of that country that's been attacked?

According to the written part of it, yes. But to the real part of it, the United States would just run over everybody and say, we're the strongest one in the world, and if you want to be sure of what we're doing, we'll talk about it, but don't waste my time. We're going to go on and we're just telling Canada that you belong to us, you're our citizens, you should be very pleased that we give you the citizenship, and behave yourselves and shut up and go home. Something like that. You've been around for a few years. One or two. Just a few.

Can you recall a time in your life when the fervor of anti-Americanism in Canada was as intense as it is right now? I mean, we see it in this Four Nations face-off hockey tournament where the Star Spangled Banner is being booed, there's a lot of anti-Americanism in the country. Have you seen it worse?

No, I think it's as strong as it is now and it's going to get stronger because people who are here, we're a country made up of people who are immigrating. We've got immigrants by the tens and hundreds of thousands. They know nothing about our background, but they come in and become Canadians. And I think that the feeling of Canadians across the board, wherever they come from, it can be very strong.

Because if they think that they're being unfairly treated, which is the operative, they're being unfairly treated, which is the operative Boston Board unfairly treated, which is what we would expect of the Americans the way they're going now, they will resent it very much. Even if they already lived here and been citizens for a couple of years, we're Canadians. We don't need this kind of stuff. I think that there's going to be an increasingly feeling in this country of respect for Canada itself, but the people who live here now. You got to hand it to Trump.

One thing he has done is unify Canadians like no one else has been able to do. That's correct. You've seen this. Sure. And he's doing the same thing in Europe now. Can you imagine Trump telling the French and the Germans, sending his vice president over there to tell them what they're doing? They're dumb people. Unbelievable. Well, let me ask you about that, because you, I'm guessing you have seen every president

since Franklin Roosevelt speak. You know, you have known them. You have seen them do their thing. I've met many of them. And you've met many of them. How does Trump compare to all of those that you have seen? Well, it's very hard to compare him to any one of them. He's by himself in terms of who he is.

He's not like any one of them. One of my favorites was the, I've met some good American presidents who I liked very much and had met. But this man is all by himself. He's just unique. If you were in a room with him, let's say there were a set of circumstances

where you had a chance to meet him and give him a piece of your thinking on how he's handling Canada, what would you tell him? I'd tell him he has to stand back, look at what Canada is, what Canada can do for his nation economically, and what Canada has done in the past, war-wise and battle-wise. And we are not a threat to him. And we are supplying so much of the raw material

he's using, particularly the metals. He should just stand back and say that we'll trade, we'll step up our trade relationship with Canada on a friendly basis, never mind the hard stuff. I'd probably try that for size. Okay. I want to just, in our remaining moments here, do something else with you, which is to say, one of the highlights for me of going to the November 11th Remembrance Day services at Queens Park every year

is to hear you speak, because you go and you speak on behalf of the troops. And in fact, we've got a few pictures here. Sheldon, why don't you roll these in. Here is you arriving with, that's your aide de camp, Rick from the Canadian Forces. You're arriving for the November 11th ceremony. This is the past November 11th at Queens Park.

There you are with, I think that's Laura Smith, who's a member of parliament, responsible for Veterans Affairs at Queens Park, a conservative member from Thornhill, at least in the previous parliament. And there you are again. Look at all that chest full of medals you've got there, General. I think you are the most decorated soldier in Canadian history. You missed a few years of attending that ceremony from bad health, but you were back last November for the first time in a little

while, and I wonder what that was like for you. Well, it was like, this, what was I called the Premier. It's a friend of mine, and I said, Premier, it's time that I spoke again with you at Queensborough, I built the Veterans Wall there, it took me six years to do it, but you got it built for me And I'll the previous guys got that built in Ferris, but I dealt with them

Yes, I know with each of them, but he is the current prayer. They all were supportive of it yes, the McGinty government got it done. Yeah, we've got it done and The McGinty government got it done. Yeah, we got it done. And so in my last speech, that's when I said to the premier who was standing here, there's one thing I want to fix. The back wall of the wall is blank. And when people drive into Queens Park,

they see this blank wall. I want you, premier, to put a sign on the back that says, Vetson's Memorial Wall. And you said this in your speech in front of everybody there. Absolutely. And he smiled while you were giving him Gucci double hockey sticks. He said he knows what he should do.

Is he going to get it done? It's right on the verge of being done. We'll have a big ceremony in relation to it. Okay, Sheldon let's get a shot of this. If you thought the general at 101 was finished writing books you were wrong, this is the book he has been working on for the last year or so. It's called Canada's Arctic, Moscow's Next Ukraine. What is this story about? The story is about the attempt to begin with of the Russians to move in on our territory to the north. They take over one or two of our islands in the Arctic

and we come to the point where we by force send in our best troops by air, regular force and reserve. And instead of having a big battle, they talked about what could be done by way of a grand. And so the book deals with all the things that we have to negotiate with the Russians and all the other people involved with the high Arctic and all the assets that are there. And so... I get very concerned about what's going on in your mind. Fifty years ago you got the Americans invading us, now you've got the Russians invading us.

Who's next? Oh, I think the Russians are the biggest concern. There's only room think the Russians are the biggest concern. There's only room for the Russians now. OK, last question. You're 101. How are you doing? I keep breathing.

Breathing is the essential part of life. I don't move the way I used to move at all, but I have all kinds of things. I'm going to be over in Holland for May the 5th. You know, I do remember you're telling me a story not too long ago about how when you were a little kid, you looked up in the sky and you saw a plane flying overhead, and at that moment you decided you wanted to be a pilot. And I wonder how different your life might have been if when you looked up in the sky

and didn't see anything, if you didn't see that plane, how different your life might have turned out. Well, you could only speculate on that. But the reality is my relationship with airplanes began in a park across the street. My father was working at Dunlop building tires. He was a young, great athlete and he moved from Hamilton over to Buffalo and I was born just before, well, while we were living there. You were born in Hamilton.

Hamilton. My mother went back to Deliveroo and so I was born a Queen Anne Herkimer in Hamilton. But the reality was, when I saw that airplane, I can still see it. And I don't know what kind it was, but I wanted to be a pilot. And by the time I was 19, I was flying the Mustangs through all kinds of flak, which is anti-aircraft work. And finding I caught Rommel and took him out. You called in the raid on Rommel.

I did not. Nearly got him killed. Yeah, yeah. Rommel and there was one other one. another one but all these things have a start when you're about 19 you go and do it and well I've had a long very fortunate life meeting people like you who turn up at these ceremonies from time to time when I'm gonna speak I don't know what I'm gonna say but you think it's okay you're the only guy who shows up without a text.

I mean, everybody else goes there with a speech written out, and you get up there and you just wing it on November 11th, and you're the only one who gets applause, and you always give the best speech. All right, thank you. I accept that. So, have a great time in Holland in May, and I will see you next November 11th at Queens Park, if not before. I'll look for you there.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Lieutenant General Richard Romer, thanks so much and great to see you again. Thanks for being here.