‘It does spill over, as a border city’: Sarnia, Ont. mayor is closely watching U.S. election

Americans, and the world, will likely have to wait at least a few days to find out who the next president of the United States will be — a wait that is unsurprising, but still nerve-wracking for some of those closely watching the race in Ontario.

Among them is Mike Bradley, the mayor of the City of Sarnia, which sits directly across from Port Huron, Mich.

“We’re so close. I mean, I sound like Sarah Palin, but I’m looking out my window right now at downtown Port Huron,” he told Global News on Wednesday morning, expressing concern over the potential for civil unrest.

“It’s just the whole climate bothers me a great deal as someone who’s been in public office for quite some time, is that ‘What is this doing to the soul of America?’ And it does spill over, you know, as a border city. We’re watching this. You know, we’re watching the TV in Detroit where they’re boarding up all the stores because of the concern.”

While neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden has been declared the winner yet, Trump is falsely asserting that “surprise ballot dumps” are behind the shifting projections in several swing states key to determining the outcome of the U.S. election. Also on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign launched lawsuits in both Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Gena Brumitt, chair of the London, Ont., region’s chapter of Democrats Abroad Canada who voted out of Virginia, expressed frustration over Trump’s comments.

“On one hand, you’ve got Joe Biden. He’s been sensibly saying we have to wait until the votes are counted. And then you have Trump saying, ‘Let’s shut it, it’s ridiculous that we’re still counting votes’ and he wants the Supreme Court to decide it,” she said.

“Well, guess what? Americans are voting and their votes need to be counted. That’s the whole purpose of this election. And he didn’t mind it four years ago when it took them a long time for votes to be counted.”

Matt Lebo, the chair of Western University’s political science department told Global News that court cases were expected, from both sides.

“It might be that Biden looks at states that he narrowly lost and questions ballots that weren’t counted and wants those ballots to be counted and reviewed, and that would go through the courts. Donald Trump will try to make the case that states are counting past Election Day and he’d like that to stop where states have accepted mail-in ballots or ballots in different modes of delivery that he would like to not be counted.”

He believes courts would be hesitant to make decisions that could flip the results of the election, “but that really is possible.” As a result, Lebo argues that the narrative over the next day or two is “really important.”

“If the networks start talking about, ‘Well, Joe Biden’s over 270 electoral votes, he’s going to be the next president.’ Then it becomes that much harder for Donald Trump to win those battles in public opinion and have Supreme Court justices who want to reverse that.”

Lebo added that Canada is “best off when there’s stability in the United States.”

“And there certainly won’t be for the next few days and maybe the next couple of months,” he said.

As the final results are tabulated, the most pressing concern for Bradley going forward is the status of the border.

“Ontario has had, I think, about 3,000 deaths from COVID. Michigan, which is smaller, has had over 7,000, close to 8,000,” he said.

“The real big key issue for us as a border city and for all Canadians is: when will the border reopen and who in the administration and which administration will be pushing that? Trump has already said we should be reopening it. And that is of real concern to us, that we could open our border and then have to deal with all these COVID cases that we can’t control coming across our bridges and through our tunnels.”

5:01 U.S. election: What does the election uncertainty mean for Canada?

— with files from Global News’ Sean Boynton and Amanda Connolly.