This post is for my Canadian brethren, and only for them. If you’re not Canadian, do not read; I’m about to get political-like.
It’s impossible to not have the Canadian and American relationship on top of the mind lately,
Never would I have imagined that in my lifetime, where the US/Canada partnership was a monolith of co-operation:
- The largest undefended border on the planet
- Deepest Bi-lateral trading in the world, with 2.5 billion in goods and services crossing the border daily
- Integrated Supply chains and joint industries
- The only binational command in the world (NORAD)
This has worked for so long because of mutual trust and shared democratic values, without losing individual sovereignty-
Never would I have imagined that we’d be on the verge of losing it all.
It was something I’ve always taken for granted, where going to the states was the same as going to another province.
But here we are today.
And before you start with “it’s just Trump, it’ll go back to normal after him”-
It’s not just Trump. It’s the entire political machine that’s behind him, governors, senators and congress people, that looks at Canada and says ‘what’ve you guys got to offer?’. When you look at things through a transactional lens, concepts like trust and respect don’t tend to move the needle.
So what do we do? How does Canada react when it’s being economically attacked by a neighbour once known as the leader of the free world?
It’s time for Elbows Up.
To some extent, Carney is already doing this, by investing heavily at home and diversifying our exports. This takes time, granted, and I’ve no doubt we’re going to experience some real short term pain here. But we need to get out of the ‘America is our only client’ way of thinking. We cannot base 75% of our exports on a man who can’t be trusted; who’ll slap a tax on his own people because he doesn’t like that Reagan disagreed with him.
There’s a whole world out there, we have a ton to offer and we need to re-introduce them to the great north.
More than that though, we need to stop trying to placate the bad man. Yes, other countries got slightly less shitty deals by kissing the ring, but that’s not a sustainable approach. We need to fight tariffs with tariffs and endure the short-term pain for that long-term gain.
Give a bully your lunch once, and he’ll come for it again.
Kick a bully in the gnads… well, he might think twice next time.
On a personal level, and from someone who used to visit the US 20-30 times a year: not going to see my American friends is deeply regretful but that short-term pain isn’t just financial. I won’t be taking my children to a country that’s attacking us, or where masked men roam the streets with impunity.
I’m sure I’ll have some more thoughts on this over the next couple of weeks/months, but I wanted to at least jot some of them down while they were twirling around in my head.
And to my American buds, who despite my earlier request to not read this, know that we know it’s your elected officials who’ve gone off the deep end; your Canadian brothers and sisters love you. ***
***Excluding Florida
-sohmer
