Kathy Gannon at the Kabul airport in 2022 with Associated Press driver Mohammad Abdullah/Courtesy Kathy Gannon

By Kathy Gannon

July 17, 2025

On the frontlines of conflict, where I have spent much of my career, regardless of the war I was covering or with which side I was speaking, being Canadian has been an advantage. Our nationality carries little baggage.  Having never been a superpower, we’ve had less power to abuse. We’re generally seen by the belligerents who make war zones war zones as non-threatening.

I recall one meeting with Nasser al-Bahri, Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard. I had tracked him down to learn more about bin Laden’s last and youngest wife, who was from Yemen .

I had been to al-Bahri’s home in the capital of Saana before, but this time, other bin Laden acolytes were also there, looking sullen and less than pleased to see me.

Al-Bahri quickly ushered me into a separate room and went back to the group of men who, I discovered later were fugitives from a  prison break the night before in the capital. From my diwan on the floor, I could hear al Bahri telling his visitors I was Canadian. It seemed to calm them.

Being Canadian in war zones has always meant more to me than just not being American, although that has served me well on more than one occasion. It is true that it did not stop the bullets that killed my close friend and colleague Anja Niedringhaus, a German national, and nearly killed me in 2014, but on that occasion, the shooter did not stop to ask, seemingly satisfied simply with the fact that we were foreigners.

Long before I ventured overseas to report on other countries, it seemed necessary to first know my own country better. I spent 15 years honing my skills at newspapers across Central and Western Canada, forever sorry to have missed working in the Maritimes, though perhaps there is still time.

My first job was at my hometown newspaper in Timmins the Northern Ontario mining town that once boasted more bars per capita than anywhere else in Canada. It was also once Canada’s largest city by area, though much of it is bush.

As fate would have it, both me and Roy Thomson, who would later be known as media mogul Lord Thomson of Fleet, began our careers in Timmins. The Timmins Daily Press, which gave me my first job, was the first of dozens of newspapers Thomson would purchase. It would be the foundation of his media empire.

While Lord Thomson went on to earn a knighthood and amass great wealth, I moved to Prince Albert in Saskatchewan. I worked at the Prince Albert Herald, the Kelowna Courier in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley as city editor, and the Lethbridge Herald in Alberta, before moving overseas.

During those years, I came to know John Diefenbaker. It was in Prince Albert, during his last election campaign as an MP. He would tear up when he spoke of his wife Olive’s passing. He took to calling me “Sunshine” during what became regular visits to the hotel where he was staying. I would  listen to him talk at length about what he saw as his greatest accomplishments, not for a story, but because he was alone and always seemed a little lonely and I got to talk Canadian history from the very person who made it.

Being Canadian in war zones has always meant more to me than just not being American, although that has served me well on more than one occasion.

I received a letter from Diefenbaker the day after his death, mailed during his final days. In it, he wrote about the Mackenzie Valley Highway, part of his 1950s-initiated Roads to Resources Program to open up access to the North’s oil and mineral resources.

I dined with Tommy Douglas, also in Prince Albert, during a whistle stop by the NDP icon and founder of our universal health care system. I spent hours listening to him, feeling such gratitude for the opportunity. Douglas spoke at length about the “why?” of his vision; a Canada where we all have access to the same health care, because, as he explained it, the poorest among us need the richest among us to fight and ensure that the one system we all use is the best it can be.

Tommy Douglas said he believed a society is only as strong as its weakest link, and strengthening the weakest among us makes us all stronger, an idea that has forever stayed with me.

Perhaps it is the memory of those encounters, conversations and shared history that explains why Donald Trump’s talk of Canada as the 51st state struck me as simply absurd. Definitely disrespectful, but also absurd.

For me, the very fabric of Canada differs from America, even though I don’t ignore our history of colonialist and racist policies toward our Indigenous population, its generational impact and multitude of unsettled grievances. That, too, is part of our fabric, and I guess our tendency to deny our present-day responsibilities for that past is one thing we do share with our southern neighbour.

As distasteful as it is, the disrespect Trump has shown Canada as he seeks to diminish our sovereignty is neither unique to him nor to Western countries. What is unique is that this time, the disrespect is being directed by one Western country towards another.

Most of my career has been spent in countries that are rarely judged for their successes, even as they have had  many, but always for their failures. They are often addressed with disrespect and a sense of superiority by Western countries, particularly, but not exclusively, the United States.

Ultimatums and demands have long been the go-to language when talking to countries considered “Third World”, a term which unto itself is demeaning and suggests one is lesser than the other. Replacing it with “developing  nations” changes nothing and still implies one is lesser than the other.

Following the US-led coalition’s invasion of Afghanistan, a conflict I know well, Afghans felt their ideas and contributions were rarely listened to, and even more rarely assigned importance. From the US building massive military infrastructure over the informed advice of local commanders to foreign troops, including Canadian, flattening villages to build roads connecting bases rather than taking longer routes advocated by villagers.

But I like to think Trump’s disrespect for Canada can be a catalyst to rethinking our own attitudes and recommitting to a genuine respect for other nations and people, regardless of where they might be situated in our world. I’ve always thought, or certainly wanted to believe, that showing respect is a value woven into our Canadian fabric.

Kathy Gannon covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for The Associated Press for 34 years. She authored the book I is for Infidel. You can read her regular posts on Substack.