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If American tariffs turn Canada into a land of ghost towns, “who you gonna call?”Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd, of course!On the edge of a cliff, forced to close down his famous Crystal Head Vodka brand and potentially laying off hundreds of employees in Newfoundland and Toronto, the legendary Canadian entertainment star is urging President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney to come to his farm in South Frontenac, near Kingston, and work out a deal before this economic crisis becomes too late to fix.And, if an agreement can be made, he has vowed he and his pal Jim Belushi will come to the White House and do a Blues Brothers show!Just call it the Ghostbuster Summit with some Blues Brothers diplomacy mixed in to try to find a truce in the United States and Canada tariff war.“I would put the president up in my writing tower. That’s very secure,” the Order of Canada recipient Aykroyd told the Toronto Sun over the phone from his farm. “I would put the prime minister in the ghost room in the farmhouse.”
Time for Carney and Trump to meet and talk alone
While partly in jest, always whimsical and intelligent Aykroyd said that, as a comedy player, he respects Trump’s art of the “quip” and Carney’s wit, and feels it’s time to peel back the politics and try to have one last attempt to avert what will be economic strife for both sides. Don’t escalate it further. De-escalate it.“I have room to land ten helicopters,” he teased, adding he would encourage the bureaucrats to stay away and just the two leaders to sit down together to work out a tariff deal and put this troubling trade war behind both countries.I love this idea. Leave it to Aykroyd to bring some camaraderie to the table. He could even offer to ride on Bombardier SeaDoos or a trip on Loughborough Lake Boat Tours down to Creekside Bar and Grill in Battersea for a Canadian beer or over for some fresh scones and coffee at the equally popular Limestone Organic Creamery — places I know Aykroyd frequents since I have seen him there myself.And if that works out, head up to see “beautiful Ottawa,” where Aykroyd would take for a ride along the Gatineau Parkway on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River that his late-great dad Peter, as chief engineer for the National Capital Commission, was supervisor of construction between 1953 and 1961.Aykroyd said while he doesn’t always agree with everything any leader does, he respects both Trump and Carney as people.“Carney is brilliant,” said Aykroyd. “He ran the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.”And Trump “is one of the greatest deal makers of our time,” and having met him in New York before he was president, he found him to be “very friendly” and someone “who listens.”
‘Sit down and work it out’
Like he did in his fantastic interview this week with Jim Sciutto on CNN, and with his conversation with the
Sun, what Aykroyd is trying to do is to get the two sides off the war footing and look for both common ground and common sense.“Tariffs at 50%” is too punitive and “out of heat and passion,” while “10, 12 or 15%” is more realistic and workable.“Let’s set aside the bravado” and “sit down in my old log cabin and work it out,” said Aykroyd.Aykroyd is the perfect person to do it. He’s a Canadian and American icon who always believed political opponents can laugh together when the politics is done for the day.“I love driving down to MAGA country to visit warehouses with my partner Davey (Dave Brown) and we have a great time,” he said. “We love the people. We had Ontario licence plates” and experienced nothing but love “and no hostility.”Saying he will “really miss” driving south with Brown to promote Crystal Head and seeing “all the friends and relationships we have all across the U.S.” His overall theme for appearing on CNN was not to weigh into the politics to find a solution.“I just want us to be friends again,” said Ayrkoyd. “I love both countries.”
Hard negotiations are fine. A deal is better
And the commerce interruption this tariff war is creating is hurting people on both sides of the border.“I think that 50% tariff is punitive, but this is hard negotiations,” said Aykroyd. “Prime Minister Carney is coming back with equally hard positions because this is what hard negotiations are. But somewhere in there is a solution because … these men are strong and smart and they’re not going to back down. That’s why they have to come together and look each other in the eye and say, ‘What is reasonable here? What can we work out here so that everybody’s happy and walks away and the aims and goals of each side are at least partially achieved.”If this doesn’t happen, Aykroyd said he fears, many Canadian companies will go out of business – including his own he started two decades ago and which has become known worldwide.“We are okay through Christmas because we got product into the distribution chain before this all blew up, but there will be a major red-light crisis by January 1,” said Aykroyd.Just like that, the much-coveted crystal skull bottles with the beloved no-additive premium vodka inside could be a thing of the past.“We manufacture in Newfoundland and we’re based in Toronto we go worldwide, but our primary source of revenue is United States and if this is enforced it we’re going to have to shut down,” said Aykroyd. “I can’t run it as a loss leader. It doesn’t make sense for business. If the 50% tariff stays in place, I don’t think we have much of a chance.”On CNN, the actor famous for playing Dr. Ray Stantz and Elwood Blues, as well as playing president William Haney in the movie
My Fellow Americans and presidents Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon on Saturday Night Live, has offered up his farm in South Frontenac to host the meeting and promised to bring the Blue Brothers to perform and cases of vodka to Trump’s new White House East Wing ballroom if they can make a deal.“Well, it’s a fantasy obviously, but sure, we would lay on a show that would blow the minds of all the Washington people both Democrat and Republican,” teased Aykroyd. “As you know, you’ve seen us; everybody walks away from a Blues Brothers concert, happy.”And happiness and getting people laughing has been Aykroyd’s life work. Saying he will and has had drinks with Democrats or Republicans or Conservatives, Liberals or NDP, he feels it’s imperative people need to not suit up politically but think about what can be done with people rowing the business boat together.
Canada and U.S. have more in common than anywhere else
“The U.S. and Canada will always have their sovereignty, separately, but the overriding sovereignty, that sort of governs this all, is the cultural sovereignty, what we all share,” Aykroyd told CNN.“We watch the same movies, listen to the same music, same television, same media. We eat the same food. We speak the same language for business. Canadians love to go and see the American teams play Toronto to Cleveland or to Buffalo and we play on their ice; they play on ours and fields, you know? So really, when you look at it from the perspective of the overall cultural sovereignty, which governs both countries, borders are meaningless.”But when the two sides are divided, it could be catastrophic. Aykroyd wants to bring the two leaders together so things can boom and have a trading relationship that would be the envy of the world.“I think it’s possible to have a deal here sooner than later because the president doesn’t want to hurt American consumers, retailers, distributors and manufacturers,” Aykroyd tells me. “Neither does Carney want the same thing to happen to Canadian companies, where we’re letting people off, so I really think a lot of it is passion and bravado that’s brought us to this point of contention, but it’s really possible to solve it, and it has to be solved where everybody can walk away from the table and say, ‘Okay, I didn’t get all we wanted, but at least we’re satisfied and business and commerce goes on.’”The Ghostbusters were able to save New York, so why not do the same for North America?
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