Opinion long as Trump declined to play fair in the free trade talks. Stephen Harper was one of the most pro-American prime ministers Canada has ever had. But when he was asked at a conference what he’d do if he were in Prime Minister Carney’s shoes, he said that he’d rather see Canada impoverished than annexed by the United States, suggesting that there’s no price he wouldn’t pay to subsidize and support Canadian businesses against the unfair tariffs they were facing. Having said that, while the public has reacted favourably to tough-talking politicians north of the border, they’ve also cut Carney a great deal of slack when he’s backed off the bellicosity. Where Premier Ford has likened Trump to a bully in the schoolyard whom you need to stand up to when he threatens to steal your lunch money, Carney has backed down on several tactics designed to push back against the president, such as the digital services tax, and divvying up the revenues from the newly opened Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor and Detroit (despite Canada paying 100 per cent of the cost of building the thing). Furthermore, as I write this, we haven’t seen anything remotely as tough-talking from Carney against Trump as his speech in Davos, Switzerland in January, in which he called for middle powers everywhere to rise up against the world’s hegemonic powers and create new alliances. And yet, Carney has not (yet) paid a political price for these attempts to accommodate Trump. Perhaps it’s because, every now and then, he rolls up his sleeves and pokes the bear, such as when he withdrew invitations from all American VIPs to attend the official opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge. That played well at home. Of course, what’s so sad about the state of relations between Canada and the U.S. is that, once upon a time, we were mostly the same people. America may have just celebrated the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence. But it’s also worth remembering that in 1776, as the U.S. was taking this bold step forward, thousands of Americans loyal to the British Crown were abandoning this nascent country for points north. The United Empire Loyalists came to British North America (technically, we weren’t yet Canada, the independent country) and had a mostly positive influence on building the harsher half of this continent. While reconciliation with Indigenous people is still a massive work in progress, the northern half of North America abolished slavery nearly seven decades before the Americans did, and it didn’t take half a million casualties in a civil war to get it done. Yes, we have had our flare-ups in the relationship from time to time since the War of 1812. President Richard Nixon once privately referred to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau as “that asshole.” President John F. Kennedy, after a meeting with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, said: “I don’t want to see that boring son of a bitch ever again.” But in the main, our countries have achieved some wonderful things together, led by heads of government who cared deeply about the relationship. I well remember former president Ronald Reagan rebuffing his staff’s recommendations in the 1980s to do nothing about the acid rain, which was caused by American pollution and was killing Canadian lakes and tourism. Why did Reagan do that? “Because Brian (Mulroney) needs it,” was all that the president said. Wish as we might, those days are clearly not coming back as long as Trump is president. When one sees how abysmally he treats his allies in his own government, we can’t be surprised to discover how little he cares about good relations between his country and ours. One of the biggest questions to which Canadians need an answer now is: is this the new normal for us? Or might the end of Trump usher in a saner future? No one knows whether our relations are best described as being on a pendulum about to swing back to some kind of normalcy, or on a continuum, inexorably taking us in an increasingly negative direction. It’s all so sad. But the optimist in me wants to continue to hope that, through millions of continuing positive interactions between Americans and Canadians, we can figure out a way through this awful time. We have so much in common. We like visiting each other’s countries. We care about each other. Notwithstanding who the president is. with Steve Paikin CSANews | FALL 2026 | 17
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