Could Donald Trump be good for Canada? The reflexive answer is no. The U.S. president-elect is threatening to impose a 25 per cent tariff on our exports. He promises to deport millions of illegal migrants, many of whom may run to our border. He mocks Canada as the 51st state — a threat that is no joke. Just this week he mused about retaking the Panama Canal and buying Greenland. If he fully embraces Manifest Destiny, all North America becomes fair game.
But Trump is also forcing Canadians to do something else: rediscover patriotism. And he may have just done it in time.
For a decade, we have been living in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “postnational” state. “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Trudeau famously told the New York Times in 2015. “There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.”
Trudeau probably thought he was being profound, but he failed to grasp two things. First, those values are not shared by everyone. Second, on their own, they are not enough.
Values need to be rooted in history. In Canada’s case that includes exploration, conquest, and overcoming the adversities of a vast, harsh landscape. But when you constantly denigrate that history as colonial, genocidal, and environmentally destructive, you contradict yourself.
How could such a state be open, respectful or compassionate? What is there, then, to be proud of? Deconstruct a nation, and it does not hold. Instead, it becomes vulnerable.
Trudeau’s predecessor understood this. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to turn the tide by celebrating Canada’s military history but met resistance. His plans for celebrating the Battle of 1812, in which Canada defeated the Americans, were criticized for being too jingoistic and expensive. A nation of peacekeepers, presumably, should not glorify war.
But Harper was prescient. He didn’t act because he saw Trump coming, but because he saw Trump’s foes, the “progressive” coalition of left-leaning post-nationalists, leading Canada down a dangerous path. Compassion was important, but so was patriotism, including honouring our history. Get the balance wrong, and you undermine national security.
In the leaders’ debate on foreign policy in the 2015 election, Harper asked Trudeau, “Why would we not revoke the citizenship of people convicted of terrorist offences against this country?”
“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Trudeau replied. “And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.”
At the time, voters cheered Trudeau’s response. Flash forward to 2024, and it’s hard to imagine anyone giving his answer.
The world is a mess, and Canada is too. We have no common values, no red lines that cannot be crossed. Instead, our country has become ground zero for foreign grievances and interference. Synagogues and Jewish schools are shot up and firebombed by Hamas sympathizers. The Indian government stands accused of plotting an assassination in British Columbia. Sikhs beat up Hindus in the parking lot of their temple in Mississauga. The Chinese government runs police stations in Canada to terrorize its diaspora. And so on, and so on.
We are not alone in this, of course: other western democracies are witnessing appalling acts of terror, including just last week at the German Christmas market in Magdeburg. National security is becoming job one as nations from Poland to Taiwan bolster their defences to deter potential invasions by the oligarchs next door. And now, unthinkably, Canada could be facing that same threat, from our southern neighbour.
But there is hope. A Leger poll taken after Trump’s first “51st state” comment found that only 13 per cent of Canadians say that they would like Canada to become the 51st American state, while 82 per cent do not like the idea. The question now is: what would we do about it? If an American army marched on our border, would we take up arms, like the Ukrainians did when Moscow invaded? What would we be fighting for? What makes us Canadian?
These are the questions we must answer in 2025 — before Trump gets more ideas.
Postmedia Network
Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.