What I know about international trade disputes wouldn’t fill a Tim’s jelly donut. My understanding of comparative advantage is that it’s probably better to have one than not. And I suspect that, if I knew anything about countervailing duties, I might still be married.
But I know a bully when I see one.
And so I’m less interested in the tariffs that caused the Canada-U.S. trade negotiations to collapse last week than in some of the other things the Americans apparently wanted from us.
Canada was prepared to give things up. Mark Carney says we offered to remove retaliatory tariffs if the U.S. substantially reduced theirs. We would encourage provinces to put American liquor and wine back on their shelves. And something about administrative changes involving dairy imports while preserving supply management. Frankly, he already had me at booze.
In other words — or word — negotiating.
But the U.S. also wanted concessions affecting Canada’s French-language and cultural protections, and restrictions on Canada’s freedom to negotiate trade agreements with other countries.
That’s not haggling over tariffs. That’s telling us what we’re allowed to do in our own house.
And giving in to a bully doesn’t usually satisfy him. It just tells him that bullying works. I’m still shaking my head over the fact that, after Trump threatened tariffs over the supposed alarming flow of fentanyl across our border — an amount that barely rivalled the out-of-date scrips in my own medicine cabinet — Canada actually appointed a “ fentanyl czar. ”
But the man deserves some credit. Donald Trump may yet be remembered as the greatest Canadian nation-builder of the 21st century.
Take French-language rights.
My French is terrible. When I speak it with francophones, they instinctively look down for the subtitles. On bilingual product labels, I invariably read the English, only occasionally glancing at the French to remind myself how much I enjoy the idea of potatoes being apples of the earth.
But tell me Quebec can’t protect French because you find it inconvenient, and I suddenly find myself willing to fight for a language I can barely speak. “Pas si vite, mon ami,” I want to say. “Those are my brothers and sisters you’re talking about.”
Another confession: I’ve always struggled a little with what being Canadian means.
What, after all, do I have in common with a fisherman in Labrador, a francophone in Quebec, a Nêhiyawak woman in Saskatchewan, an Alberta oil worker or someone in British Columbia, whatever it is they do out there? Brag about their orchids in January?
Maybe Canada is just an unusually large, slightly dysfunctional family. By which I mean a family.
We argue. Alberta gets mad at Ottawa. Quebec gets mad at Ottawa. Ottawa gets mad at Ontario. Everyone gets mad about equalization. Toronto is largely unaware that the rest of us exist.
But there is a rule in families: I can complain about my brother all I want. You can’t.
This dynamic may help to explain the remarkable coalition that formed after Carney walked away from Washington.
Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford backed him. So did Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew. Saskatchewan Party’s Scott Moe supported the retaliatory tariffs. Premiers who normally couldn’t agree on what day of the week it was suddenly found themselves on the same side.
And Canadians largely agreed. A post-breakup Angus Reid poll found 76 per cent of Canadians thought Canada was right to walk away against just 13 per cent who thought it was wrong. Even two-thirds of Albertans and Saskatchewan residents backed the decision.
Meanwhile, 62 per cent of Canadians lent their support to Canada’s counter-tariffs. It’s as though we largely set aside our differences and said “Oh, for Christ’s sake, now we have to be Canadians.”
There’s something quintessentially Canadian about that. Our patriotism generally doesn’t involve beating our chests, chanting our country’s name or believing God personally stitched our flag. Any exceptionalism we possess is tempered by the suspicion that claiming to be exceptional would be showing off, and then we’d have to apologize for it.
It seems we’re most certain we’re a country when someone from outside suggests we’re not much of one.
Donald Trump has been remarkably helpful in this regard.
And the gift keeps on giving.
After repeatedly suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state, Trump this week proposed renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
That would at least make the old HOMES mnemonic I was taught as a youngster to remember the Great Lakes more appropriate.
Superior. Huron. America. Michigan. Erie.
SHAME.
Now, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hasn’t joined all the cheering, instead suggesting that Carney hightail it back to D.C. to continue negotiating.
We shouldn’t simply dismiss her for it. Alberta is holding a vote in October to decide if it should hold a separation referendum. In the meantime, Smith is performing a balancing act: She says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada, but is careful not to alienate the alienated.
Besides, she has a point. Trade wars have casualties. Businesses will suffer. People could lose their jobs. According to the same Angus Reid poll , 13 per cent of Canadian workers are “very” concerned about losing their jobs, while an additional 25 per cent expressed some level of anxiety.
Standing up to someone bigger than you doesn’t necessarily make you bigger. Being right doesn’t mean you’ll win.
Canada could lose a serious trade war with an American economy vastly larger than ours. And perhaps, when the economic pain becomes real, we’ll discover that national resolve was easier in theory.
But there comes a point when avoiding the punch costs more than taking it.
For all the things this dysfunctional family argues about, we seem to agree on something pretty fundamental: We get to decide what Canada is.
And this: We may need America. But we don’t belong to it.
Take control of your search results. Make the Ottawa Citizen a preferred source on Google and see verified local reporting first.
