Why does it take a tariff threat from the president of the United States to force Canada to stop the trafficking of illegal migrants and drugs across our borders? Why does it take a tariff threat to force Canada to get serious about eliminating inter-provincial trade barriers and building pipelines? Why does it take prodding from the U.S. to get Canada to think more seriously about strengthening its military and addressing the urgent need for Arctic security? And most importantly, why on earth should Canadians allow the policies of a U.S. president to define who should be their next prime minster?
Not long ago, our lame duck prime minister, his would-be successors and much of the mainstream media seemed to be strong believers that our next prime minister should be a “progressive” who’s committed to climate change mitigation, carbon taxes, pipeline prohibitions and a woke social agenda. Then, suddenly, not in response to Canadians but in response to U.S. President Donald Trump, all seem to have made a 180-degree turn. Now they boldly proclaim that Canada’s next leader must be a reactionary — reacting to Trump’s tariff agenda with a hastily concocted package of counter-tariffs and fanning the flames of anti-Americanism to return a heretofore discredited Liberal party to office.
At the moment, Liberal leadership front-runner Mark Carney is of course being hailed by the unthinking as the reactionary of choice. But not all the cards are on the table: not the yet-to-be-announced negotiating team and long-term strategy of the official Opposition to address the tariff challenge; not the internal pressures on Trump and the U.S. Congress when Trump’s populist constituents, who were promised actions to decrease their cost of living, suddenly discover it increasing as a result of tariffs; and not the election campaign, which will test the sincerity of the deathbed conversion of the Liberal party to policies they’ve denounced for the past decade.
The questions posed above are ones that those of us who love Canada should be pondering. And although the answers to them are complex, the logical conclusion is that the Liberals are merely acting out of political expediency. For the last nine years, Canadian public opinion, and Canada itself at the national level, has been led and shaped by the wrong people with the wrong prescriptions for our national and personal well-being. Their emerging plan to retain power by presenting themselves as the leaders of the “Save Canada from Trump” campaign — the very Canada they themselves have misled and misgoverned — must be vigorously and widely resisted with a “Save Canada for Canadians” alternative.
In particular, what must be repudiated is the callous idea that the only way to revitalize the faith that Canadians have in their own country — the only way to get them to wave and salute their own flag — is to prod them with a threat from a U.S. president. The first real chance to do this will be in the next federal election, an election that ought to put Canada on a new course, with new leadership, supported not by a disingenuous appeal to anti-American sentiment, but by a deep and lasting surge of genuine Canadian patriotism.
National Post
Preston Manning, a former Alberta MP and federal Opposition leader, founded the Reform Party of Canada.