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But this week he was back, injecting himself into the final days of our federal election campaign. Asked in the Oval Office about auto tariffs on Canada, Trump hesitated for a moment, acknowledging that he really shouldn’t interfere in another country’s election. But then he was off.

The auto tariffs could go up, he said. Or maybe not. He dredged up his old canard about the U.S. “subsidizing” Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year – a claim that has been debunked over and over. He didn’t actually repeat his “51st state” taunt, but he might as well have. If Canada didn’t trade with U.S., “as (Justin) Trudeau told me, they would cease to exist – which is true, certainly, as a country…. But I have to be honest, as a state it works great.” And on and on.

There was a sense, until that moment late on Wednesday afternoon, that the Trump factor in this election was fading. That because he wasn’t shoving himself in Canadians’ faces every day the threat to our prosperity and sovereignty didn’t seem so urgent.

As a result, went the thinking, voters could focus on other things – like the dismal record of the late Trudeau years and whether the Carney Party of Canada (a.k.a. the Liberals) deserves a fourth term in office. The Conservatives were gaining ground in the polls. Maybe this election wasn’t quite the slam-dunk it seemed to be. At the very least, perhaps the majority mandate the Liberals appeared to be heading for was in doubt.

But now Trump is back, leaving no doubt that his obsession with Canada is still very much alive and whoever emerges as PM next week will be facing a threat like no other Canadian leader has faced in modern times.

Frankly, it’s good that Trump stuck his nose back in. Canadians need to stay angry at the American betrayal, because that’s what it is. There’s a natural temptation to hope the threat will fade and we can go back to something like business as usual. But it’s not going to happen, and if we need frequent reminders of that to keep up our determination to do the hard things that will be necessary to resist, then so be it.

That’s true no matter which party you support. But there’s no getting away from the partisan overtones, days before an election. Obviously, Trump’s outburst helps Carney right now because most voters (the polls say) see him as the best leader to fight back against Trump.

So it’s no surprise that other parties are eager to downplay the whole thing or suggest as Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois did on Thursday that it’s suspicious how the 51st state idea comes up just as the Liberals fade a bit in the Quebec polls. As if Trump could be summoned up by the Liberals to goose their support at the last minute. If you believe that…

There’s a subplot to all this, sparked by that Trump did bring up the 51st state during his one and only phone call with Carney on March 28. The suggestion is that Carney wasn’t straight with voters because he didn’t mention that, instead saying Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty.”

On Thursday but denied he hadn’t been truthful. You can argue both sides of this, but to me it’s hardly surprising that the official “read-out” of a conversation between leaders didn’t go into the most contentious details. Welcome to the world of diplomacy.

The important thing is that Trump is back, reaffirming his desire to undermine Canada and turn it into an appendage of the United States. For any Canadian voters who thought that was no longer a thing, it’s a useful dash of cold water.