Once again, Canada is in an emergency. The situation is dire. This will be a difficult time. Canadians are going to suffer enormously. This is because we are at war. We will need to band together and fight back against this unforeseen threat.
This, at least, is what our elected officials have been telling us after Canada began retaliating in the trade war with the US. The same message has been repeated in various ways by leaders across the political spectrum, from Canada’s newly anointed prime minister, the Liberal Party’s Mark Carney, to his main rival, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.
Kory Teneycke, Ontario premier Doug Ford’s campaign director, hammered home the message earlier this month:
‘We are in a time of war. It may not be a shooting war, but it’s an economic war. It’s a trade war, and those are as big a threat to your sovereignty as the other kind.’
A tariff war with the US does indeed pose a significant threat to the Canadian economy. But this was not a surprise attack, and retaliation is not the answer.
Despite what our political leaders have said, the tariffs were very much expected. Trump had long been signalling his intent to use them as a means to pursue America’s national interest. In the case of Canada, this meant using tariffs to force the government to stop the inward flow of fentanyl and illegal immigration across the US’s northern border.
But instead of dealing with the border issues, then prime minister Justin Trudeau had other things on his mind. Come January, support for the ruling Liberal Party had collapsed, and Trudeau was facing a no-confidence vote, which would have ousted him and forced an election. Rather than allow democracy to take its course, Trudeau announced he intended to resign, then prorogued parliament. The resulting suspension of all parliamentary proceedings not only allowed Trudeau’s Liberals to avoid a General Election, but also gave them time to select a replacement and gin up a plan to regain power.
Last week, the Liberals announced that Carney, a banker who has never been elected to parliament, had won the Liberal leadership race and would therefore become Canada’s new prime minister. The leadership race was no race at all – there was never any doubt that Carney was the chosen one.
And now, thanks to the trade war with the US, the Liberal Party has ‘an emergency’ that might allow it to revive its shattered fortunes. All the pieces are in place – a new leader, a new message and, above all, a new enemy.
The government’s response to Trump’s tariffs – a 25 per cent tax on US imports into Canada – may be bad for the economy, but the Liberals clearly hope it will be good for their poll ratings. Indeed, on the back of its retaliatory tariffs, the Canadian government has busily tried to refocus public anger away from itself and towards a new enemy, exploiting the trade war for faux-patriotic purposes.
And it appears to be working. Canadians have rallied behind the government in its ‘war’ against the Bad Orange Man, bravely refusing to purchase American booze, shaming their friends for vacationing in America and booing during the US national anthem at National Hockey League games. Support for the Liberal Party has apparently surged.
Exploiting an emergency to secure political power is hardly a new idea. In 2021, Trudeau called a snap election in the middle of Covid. He knew a majority of Canadians saw the Liberal Party’s approach to the pandemic as overwhelmingly good. Most Canadians seemed happy with the billions of dollars in aid being doled out to keep them content and fed while they were ordered to stay at home. A majority supported lockdowns to ‘stop the spread’ long after the virus had ceased to pose a threat. Supposedly, there was no other choice given it was an emergency.
Trudeau clearly assumed his authoritarian, war-like approach to the pandemic would generate a healthy election victory. And while he didn’t win the majority he had probably hoped for, he did manage to form another minority government.
Back then, Trudeau’s government talked of the ‘battle’ against Covid. Public announcements and reports talked of the ‘harsh winter’ and ‘dark months ahead’. But they would insist that ‘we can get through this, if we work together’.
The rhetoric emanating from the government today in response to the trade war is similar. The Liberal Party is talking of fighting for all Canadians and getting through ‘this’ together. And so, thanks to the decision to prorogue parliament and engage in an unwinnable tariff war with the world’s biggest economic power, Canadians are being denied the election they were due. They are being held hostage by a government that doesn’t want to leave, and that is worsening Canada-US relations in the process.
Whether we like it or not, Trump has the upper hand here. And yes he may be unpredictable. But the best course of action would be to sit down at the table and make a deal, instead of issuing retaliatory threats.
That does not seem to be happening. Even Conservative leader Poilievre has been calling on the government ‘to immediately bring in retaliatory tariffs to respond to this unjust act’.
In British Columbia, premier David Eby has gone further. He has announced a new bill, eerily similar to certain Covid-era legislation, including a provision to allow his province to bypass the legislature in order to ‘temporarily modify the application or effect of British Columbia laws and regulations’. This ‘emergency legislation’, as Eby calls it, effectively authorises the British Columbia government to do whatever it wants. And it justifies these powers on account of ‘the unpredictable nature of the Trump presidency and its potential impact on British Columbians’.
At times it can seem as if we’re being presented with Covid 2.0 – except that this time, the virus is Trump. As the government positions itself as the saviour of the people, while imposing measures that will cause great economic harm to ordinary citizens, my hope is that Canadians will resist. The government shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it again.
Meghan Murphy is a Canadian writer and the host of The Same Drugs podcast.
