The election of Donald Trump has the risk of upending Canada’s historic friendship with the United States. As Pierre Poilievre said the “unprovoked attack on Canada’s economy” could “turn a loyal friend into a resentful neighbour”.
Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach, speaking on leadership, told a 1970 audience of business executives in Ohio that our test is “whether man confuses the growth of wealth and power with the growth of spirit and character … In this struggle there are no spectators, only players”.
Canada needs to understand how to best play the game against the U.S. as we defend not only our sovereignty, but our values. There will be a price to be paid, but this is also an opportunity.
In the short term, U.S. tariffs and trade barriers may lead to economic hardship and belt-tightening. But it would also force us to change the way we operate as a country, making us both more efficient and resilient. As Canadians, we have to change the inefficient way we have been governed without losing our moral compass.
Trump only respects leaders who show toughness and can stand up to his bullying. He has little respect for Trudeau, and is unlikely to see either Mark Carney or Chrystia Freeland in a positive light. Some people have criticized Pierre Poilievre as being too much of a bulldog, but isn’t that exactly the quality we need in a leader who has to vigorously fight to defend the threat to our sovereignty and our values?
We can feel good about booing the U.S. national anthem, but it doesn’t accomplish anything and isn’t how Canada operates. We need to neither cheer nor boo and focus our energy on playing the game to the best of our ability and winning where we can.
It is very likely that within the next few weeks a federal election will be called. For a brief period, we are likely to have Mark Carney as our first ever unelected Prime Minister, someone who doesn’t have to disclose his previous financial interests, or the role that he played in advising the Trudeau government on its carbon tax and failed economic policy. He is intelligent and accomplished, but is he our man for the times? Does he have a team up to the task?
One of our greatest negotiating cards is the fact that the U.S. needs to import over 4 million barrels of oil from us per day with few alternatives. Venezuela, touted as an alternative, only produces about 1 million barrels per day with little ability for its old infrastructure to greatly expand production in the near term. We need a leader and a team who can work with Alberta to leverage this asset. That will certainly not be Steven Guilbeault, our minister of the environment and climate and his party which has consistently dismissed Alberta while enjoying its tax revenue.
We need to declare a national emergency to facilitate the permitting of energy production and construction of transportation options to deliver energy to non-US markets. Will this be done by the team that managed the Trans Mountain pipeline extension and turned a $4.5 billion budget into an exorbitant $34 billion costly final price because of unnecessary delays and ineffective management.
We need a government that has the internal capability to not need to spend $11 million on consultants who gave us great programs such as ArriveCan. We need to grow our economy by promoting business development and job creation, not stifle it with red tape and excessive regulation. Public service levels have ballooned in the last nine years and currently cost over $60 billion — cuts need to be made that won’t reduce important service levels. All government spending needs to be targeted to deal with current risks and future needs.
Justin Trudeau’s answer to any problem appears to be throwing money we don’t have at it, and valuing form and posturing over substance. In April 2024, he raised the carbon tax. Just before Christmas, no doubt as a pre-election gimmick, he gave away $6.3 billion in tax breaks and rebates instead of keeping our powder dry to spend it supporting challenged sectors of our economy. He raised the capital gains tax causing innovators and start ups, essential for our future growth to flee the country.
If Mark Carney didn’t agree with these plans, where was his voice of dissent? Chrystia Freeland only dissented when she got wind that she was going to be demoted. We need a government that can support critical industries hurt by potential tariffs with funds that come from reining in too large government and excessive spending, rather than simply by more damaging taxation and unlimited deficits that fuel our already high costs of debt service.
We need to decrease U.S. imports, particularly in replacing the $32 billion in agricultural imports with other friendlier suppliers, even if there is a higher price to be paid. We need to expand new markets for our mineral and forestry products as well. We need to increase our defence spending and focus on our northern border. We likely will need to buy submarines capable of travelling under the ice from Germany, a country who we refused to help when they were desperate for liquid natural gas imports from Canada, causing them to turn to Qatar.
Will our moral compass be directed by Mélanie Joly, who, as our foreign minister, has yet to effectively speak out against Hamas and antisemitism, seemingly due to concerns she might upset the demographics of her riding?
No government and no prime minister will be perfect or have a crystal ball to anticipate all that needs to be done to navigate the hoops we will have to jump through. We do, however, know who is unlikely to have the strong team capable of being up to the task. History of failure by our current weak team should teach us a damning lesson.
We need to remind our former best friend and ally that we can be either a good friend or a formidable adversary. That strong message is best sent by a very experienced, if sometimes argumentative, politician rather than an long-résuméd, but elite banker.
National Post