There is a great comfort food restaurant in Ottawa’s Byward Market called Chez Lucien. Ed Broadbent liked to go there and always maintained that Lucien—its namesake—was an old communist whose commitment to equality was reflected in that restaurant’s crowd-pleasing and immortally unchanged menu.
I was there recently in good company, and we were musing about the following: Can any good for Canada come from Donald Trump’s election?
A good question—a better one than the more obvious ones being asked these days on the political Left all around the world.
Here is one answer, and four consequences for Canada.
The election of Trump gives Canada and the rest of the democratic world an important opportunity (whether we like it or not) to reduce our unhealthy collective addiction to the United States.
America wants to go back to normal. That means no longer being the world’s only policeman and only expeditionary force (“end the forever wars”). That means returning to its vocation as a mercantile republic whose economic and political relationships with others are unsentimental and purely transactional (“America first”), as they were for most of its history.
So what does it mean for Canada to reduce our addiction to the United States?
First, it means we need to get serious about defence. Not to placate Trump, the last of our concerns. But to secure our seat in the democratic world—as we’ve done throughout our history (we’re the North Americans who fought in 1914 and in 1939). Unbeknownst to most Canadians, Canada has committed through NATO to help lead the defence of the Baltic republics. Given the new Trump-Putin world we’re in, these seem likely to become frontline nations (apparently, 24 hours after Trump assumes office). To fulfil that commitment much must be done, and fast. If we don’t, we risk not having a friend or ally in the world.
Second, it means we need a better economic plan than ripping and shipping raw resources to an American market that is apparently about to be “protected” with comprehensive tariffs. Having been an economic colony of Britain, we happily and comfortably became one of America. But America is getting out of the empire business. Canada may finally be faced with the challenges of becoming a developed post-industrial economy, with world markets and not just continental ones—fast. We’re going to need those friends in the democratic world.
Third—and this is not a good thing—we are going to need to carefully think through what we will do in the face of a potentially gigantic migrant crisis on our southern border. Up until now, almost uniquely in the world, we have been able to pose and preen as an immigration-friendly country, while actually running one of the most mercilessly selective immigration policies in the democratic world. If Trump is serious about his core election commitment, where will the United States’s millions of exploited stateless workers run to?
Finally, we are going to have to re-create a village square to talk all of this through. Most of Canada’s community newspapers have been reduced to fishwrap by their current owners. Our private television networks want to become resellers for American streaming apps. Our tone-deaf public broadcaster has lost its TV audience in English Canada. A constellation of new entrants (like The Hub!) are trying to fill the gap. We need to do something extremely smart about our public square, and fast.
Oh, and another thing. In addition to all of this, a Parti Québécois provincial government and a third ethnic separatism referendum seem on the way in Quebec…
In 2015, the Trudeau government was elected, and ended up having to focus almost exclusively on two all-consuming crises it wasn’t expecting—the first Trump administration’s threat to NAFTA, and then the COVID epidemic.
In 2025 we may find ourselves with a new federal government that will also be kidding itself that it can focus on its pet slogans and obsessions. Instead, I’d say there’s a good chance it will be consumed by the issues discussed above, some of the biggest challenges Canada has ever faced. Some good could come of them—after we try all the easier alternatives first (like being Trump’s best little buddy), as we might be kidding ourselves we’ll do.
