SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — With all the on-again, off-again steel tariff craziness we've witnessed in recent days, what has the head of Algoma Steel's largest collective bargaining group been thinking about?
After more than two decades heading United Steelworkers Local 2251, Mike Da Prat is well-known around Sault Ste. Marie.
Amid this week's Trump tariff chaos, Da Prat's thoughts have turned to something that happened when he was just a child: the founding of the bi-national North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in 1958.
NORAD's responsibilities include detecting, validating and warning the United States president and Canada's prime minister of any attacks against North America by aircraft, missiles or space vehicles.
It maintains fighter jets on continuous alert to thwart aerial attacks by intercepting or engaging them.
Da Prat is also thinking about U.S. President Donald Trump's depiction of Canada as some kind of freeloader on American military strength.
"Don't forget: We basically protect Canada," Trump told a news conference in Florida earlier this year.
"You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security," Trump said.
"But here's the problem with Canada. So many friends up there; I love the Canadian people. They're great, but we're spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it. We're spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. We lose in trade deficits."
Da Prat doesn't see it that way at all.
"You know, they keep saying that we fall under the umbrella of their protection. But let's be absolutely clear: In the '60s, we would never have been a target for a nuclear attack because we don't have nuclear capability yet.
"We agreed to go along with NORAD. What really is NORAD? It's an early detection system for the protection of America, it says.
"But the reality is that interception of any rockets coming over the polar cap would have been intercepted over Canada.
"Well, let's put it this way: NORAD was supposed to protect North America from missiles coming from Russia over the polar cap. OK, there was no reason for a missile to land up in Canada because there were no targets.
"Yet, if missiles were detected by NORAD, they would have had to be intercepted. Where would they have been intercepted? Over Canada. Was that OK?
"What Trump is saying, is that we were always taking advantage of the United States. And the partnership actually is that Canada supported the United States.
"In what major conflict did America ever protect Canada? Zero.
"But Canada was in Korea, right? Canada was over in Iraq and Afghanistan, right? So where is all this advantage that we're allegedly taking from them?
"We've always been a good ally, and the alleged benefits they claim we had weren't benefits. It was us supporting them.
"If any missiles would have needed interception, they wouldn't have been intercepted over New York or over Washington. It would have been over the Northwest Territories."
So what should Canada be doing about the Trumpian trade tariffs?
Da Prat is thinking we need to align ourselves with China.
"My view is this: We got into conflicts with China because we were supporting the United States. United States has a partnership with China . . . What we need to do is we need to approach China on our own and develop joint projects with them. They need our lumber.
"They [the Americans] don't want our lumber. According to [Trump], they don't need it. OK. Well, let's give it all to China then, and let's develop trading partnerships with China."
Since May 2003, Da Prat's been president of the union and currently represents 2,131 hourly rated workers.
Da Prat started at the steel mill in 1967 as a labourer in the coupling shop.
Except for a two-year hiatus in the early 1970s, he's been around the local steel operations continuously since then.
Da Prat is known as a fierce defender of his union membership.
Since 2016, he and his staff have filed more than 8,000 grievances against the company.
— David Helwig was the founding editor of Village Media and works out of its flagship publication, SooToday.