Canada must come to its own rescue

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This article was published 03/03/2025 (388 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

— Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, speaking of the U.S.-Canada relationship

The past few months have been both illuminating and infuriating.

The international order has been beset by a vexing American president who has, within only a few short weeks of taking back the White House, completely upended the fortunes and livelihoods of his own country while simultaneously drawing much of the Western world into political and economic turmoil.

Friday’s disgraceful display in the Oval Office and the shabby treatment layered upon Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was only the latest chapter in the downward spiral of American hegemony.

But it was perhaps the most damning indictment thus far of an America that is quickly ceding the moral high ground and forgetting who its friends are. And as the government of the United States further isolates itself, the world is more dangerous because of it.

In the middle of it all stands Canada, which now finds itself in a moment of crisis on more than a few fronts. Not only have we become one of Donald Trump’s favourite public targets with all his “51st state” rhetoric, he seems intent on destroying a peaceful and fruitful relationship that has served our two nations for more than a century.

Unless by some miracle the U.S. president reverses course – yet again – the Trump administration is ready to slap Canadian imports into the United States with tariffs of up to 25 per cent. Perhaps more, perhaps less. You never know… the amount may depend upon how his golf game went the night before.

Whatever the amount, it will have an enormously destructive effect on the economies of both our nations, as will similarly imposed tariffs on Mexico. Economists are already warning that the United States is barrelling headlong into a massive recession, one that will have global consequences.

The elephant seems to have lost its mind, and we’re the mouse in the way of its feet.

No amount of flag waving, anthem booing or anti-American virtue signalling will change the fact that Canada is facing an existential threat from a southern neighbour whose moral character and global allegiances have changed. That’s true at least as far as the Trump administration is concerned, even as the president’s closest advisor, Peter Navarro, threatens to redraw the Canadian border.

We also face harsh criticism from at least a few Canadians within our own borders – provincial and federal politicians, international business people and national journalists alike – who feel that Trump and Elon Musk’s still-unofficial Department of Government Efficiency would be a welcome asset north of the 49th Parallel.

While I can’t argue against the existence of wasteful government spending — it most certainly does exist — what is happening in the United States is nothing short of pure mayhem; mass firings of forestry personnel, workers who maintain America’s nuclear weapons, and hundreds of technicians and engineers in the Federal Aviation Administration — the same people who maintain safety standards for domestic international air travel coming in and out of the United States.

And as Washington D.C.-based NPR reported last week, the widespread upheaval at federal health agencies in the first month of the Trump administration comes at a time when the U.S. faces infectious disease threats on multiple fronts, including the ongoing spread of bird flu around the country and a ballooning measles outbreak in the southwest.

DOGE is not something we should let loose upon our country. Nor is Elon Musk’s ignorance of government operations a road map to a stronger nation.

So what’s a nation to do?

The answer is simple … all that we can.

We need to strengthen and renew alliances with those Western nations that still hold fast to the ideals that have guided our foreign policy since the end of the Second World War.

We are now the target of greedy international players that do not have our best interests at heart. As such, we need to broaden our economic partnerships beyond the United States to blunt the impact of any Trump-imposed economic downturn, while making better use of the talent and innovation that we already have within this country.

And we need to realize that for the first time in Canada’s existence, there may be no one coming to our rescue should we fail. The British Empire is but a memory, America is no longer our steadfast friend and Europe will now have its hands full backing Ukraine against Putin’s Russia.

We need to stand up for ourselves and our allies, and be prepared for a fight.

» Matt Goerzen, editor