Canada’s Trial By Fire – OpEd

“Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.” — Winston Churchill

The 2024 election of Donald Trump as the American President for the next four years signals momentous shifts in the political and economic situation in North America. Few in this country have analyzed what it really means, probably out of a fear and loathing mentality of ‘what is coming next’. 

It is here that one has to take a step back from the economic and political rhetoric and double talk about tariffs to obtain a more accurate perspective on where the present developments, of which tariffs both general and targeted, are going to take us. This conversation is different from the dissection of decisions made by the Trump administration.

From the Canadian perspective, things could not be worse. Or could they? Our Prime Minister has resigned amidst dreadful polling numbers. His political party, the Liberals, remain in power in a minority government but in several weeks, a new interim leader will be chosen and most likely Canada will go to the polls in March. Not a great time to trigger a commercial war with an unstable and grumpy American president.

In the absence of any noteworthy sustainable federal leadership or stewardship, and in the shadow of looming steel and aluminum tariffs, and others of a more general order, the provinces and territories have decided to move into the leadership void. Many observers disagree with this sharing of the public spotlight since it is thought that such a strategy would splinter the consensus and elan of a Team Canada approach. No one seems to have understood that the 10 provinces and 3 territories are like a Hydra with competing interests and strategies. Their messages may well be different based on economic interests but they can create a chaos of their own if Trump decides to try to parlay with each one of them.

For example, Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith, who flew to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago before his arrival at the White House in January 2025, represents an attempt to break ranks with the other Canadian Premiers to secure a ‘carve out’ on tariffs for Alberta. She will be sorely disappointed. 

There are those, like François Legault, Québec’s Premier, who wants to renegotiate the tripartite economic accord between Mexico, USA and Canada as soon as possible. Others, like Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford, happily put on his Captain Canada hat leading the charge against the unfair tariffs and threatening a retaliatory tax on American goods. All good for Ford’s re-election campaign now in full swing just in time to capitalize on the Trump miscues and the upsurge in the ardent defenders of Canadian nationalism. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, the Canadian political class is coming to the unhappy conclusion that America is no longer its economic friend. To think that this conclusion will not spill over into the political arena is pure folly. Already, Canada is being rocked by a surge in nationalistic fervor never before seen in my lifetime. Although boycotts, retaliatory tariffs, restrictive measures, limiting border crossings and the return of Florida snowbirds, changing travel plans to the south and other efforts to reduce reliance on America are underway, how useful can they really be given the population and market imbalance between Canada and the USA? Some believe that the nationalist bubble will fizzle out once commercial negotiations are complete. Or, in worst case scenario, when Trump leaves the White House.

The point is that the Trump-inspired trade war will never cease as long as he and or one of his MAGA colleagues is in the President’s chair. The avowed goal of Donald Trump and his cohorts is to cripple the Canadian economy, weaken its political class further and make it more reliant on America for its economic prosperity, military security and international well-being.

To be plain, one has to decide, based on the economic and political evidence, that this is either an embryonic commercial war or a negotiation. Given the tenors of the new White House administration, it cannot be both. 

This author is of the view that we are in the former, not the latter. It may be useful to present a smoke screen to have some believe the reverse but Canadians have to prepare themselves for a lower standard of living while businesses will have to actually diversify their markets to include Europe and Asia. The past and present paralysis of the Canadian political and commercial class is partly to blame for the present crisis.

At first, the Trumpists argued that Canada and Mexico were not doing enough about the ravages of fentanyl. The amounts flowing from Canada are minute but the Americans insisted that the Canadians spend some more money to increase border security.

It was a false move and the Canadian government ate it up thinking that perhaps Trump would suspend the tariffs. Little is said about the prodigious flow of guns and drugs from the United States into Canada. This also represents a lever in border issues that can be used by an alert and opportunistic political class in Canada. Fear of the bully in Washington has sent the Canadian political class running for cover. 

Talk is now rife of building new oil and gas pipelines to assist the Americans in remaining prosperous while others want. Trump’s desire would burst asunder the Canadian union and Québec would separate over the pipeline issue. A pipeline debate would raise climate change concerns again and Canada’s pledge to reduce carbon gas in the atmosphere, test the constitutional mettle of both provincial and federal actors in the courts and the court of public opinion while exacerbating the tension between the two traditional solitudes – Québec versus the rest of Canada. Either way, Trump gets his way.

After years of creeping Manifest Destiny inspired by the ideology of continental liberalism, Canada’s future is in doubt. It is not only a question of resisting the commercial tariffs and surviving. It is how Canada will resist – together as a team or like the Hydra with each province advancing its own interests, at its own pace and its own fashion? One would do well to measure the nationalist reflex to raise the flag and bluster. 

One thing is certain. There is no going back to sleepy hollow. The wake-up call has sounded. How we react and resist will determine the nature of our northern experiment, an experiment that began out of a fear of becoming and living like an American in 1867.