They’re not under his rule and don’t think his policies will have much of an effect on them, but that doesn’t mean the people of Washington, Ont., don’t have strong opinions about the new most powerful man in Washington D.C.
“I wish to heck we could get somebody up here like that,” Chuck Lanto said Friday.
“I think he’s going to clean the country up.”
Lanto was talking, of course, about Donald Trump, who was installed Friday as the 45th president of the United States.
That happened nearly 800 kilometres away from Lanto’s home – but because his small village near the Oxford County/Waterloo Region border shares a name with the American capital, some people there felt a sort of kinship with the events unfolding in the other Washington.
Others, like Glenn Irwin, weren’t as interested.
Irwin said that he tuned out from the “circus”-like atmosphere around the presidential election.
“Politics … has gone down the tubes. There really is no respect in the running of politics anymore,” he said.
“I’m glad I’m not living in the States, that’s for sure.”
Glenn Koch, who was in an antique shop on Friday, said that he was “a little bit uneasy” about the direction the United States, given that Trump “hasn’t got the greatest reputation.”
Still, when asked to rate the new president on a scale of 1 to 100, Koch gave him a score in the 60s.
“I’m hoping he will apply his business ethics to running a country,” he said.
Irwin was less enthusiastic.
“I doubt the scale goes low enough,” he responded, before begrudgingly offering a rating of 0.1.
There was one opinion that was shared by all Washington, Ont. residents approached by CTV News on Friday: None of them expect the new president to have a significant impact on their lives.
With reporting by Leena Latafat
