Canadian nationalism is surging as Donald Trump threatens the country with tariffs and annexation through “economic force.” Struggles over free trade and talk about Canada becoming the 51st state aren’t new; in fact, the history of US-Canada trade conflicts and worries about Canadian sovereignty go back more than a century. But this time, things may be different.
To understand the roots of Canadian nationalism and both the parallels and differences between past and present US-Canada battles, GZERO’s David Moscrop spoke with historian Asa McKercher, Steven K. Hudson Research Chair in Canada-US relations at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
David Moscrop: Since Donald Trump started talking about making Canada the 51st state and threatening tariffs, there’s been a surge in Canadian nationalism – as if the country became a nation of flag-wavers overnight. Are there other times in Canadian history when an external force or event has produced a nationalist wave?
Asa McKercher: The previous instances where free trade has been an issue have spurred a lot of this kind of nationalism. The 1911 election, very famously, was about free trade. The Wilfrid Laurier government had signed a free trade agreement with President William Howard Taft, and this led to a huge nationalist panic among Canadians – an anti-American nationalist panic driven by worry that the Laurier government was going to sell us out, that they were annexationists. That wasn’t helped by the fact that the incoming speaker of the House of Representatives, a guy named Champ Clark, made a statement after the treaty passed through Congress but got held up in the Canadian Parliament. He basically said he couldn’t wait for the stars and stripes to fly over British North America. That stirred a lot of nationalist, anti-American sentiment. The Laurier liberals were portrayed as sellouts.
Also, the free trade election of 1988 stirred up a lot of passions. Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives were portrayed as American sellouts. There’s a Liberal attack ad that you’ve probably seen of a Canadian and an American diplomat meeting in a shadowy area, and the American diplomat is scratching out the border between Canada and the United States. Prime Minister John Turner talked about Mulroney becoming governor of the 51st state.
So we’ve seen that kind of nationalism during elections before. What’s interesting about this moment is it’s the pro-free-trade side that is full of nationalism in its wings as opposed to the anti-free-trade side of those other two elections.
Why have we seen that inversion? During the 1980s battle over free trade, the concern among many nationalists was that free trade with the US would be the death of Canadian sovereignty, the death of Canadian culture, the death of Canadian economic prosperity — that Canada’s future depended on resisting free trade. Now, most of the nationalist sentiment seems to be spent on preserving free trade.
We took a bet on free trade. We defended free trade against the thickening of the border after 9/11. We defended free trade in the USMCA negotiations. We made ourselves way more dependent on America. In 1988, the US counted for roughly three-quarters, or more depending on the year, of our trade. But the trade volume in 1988 was $100 billion a year across the border. Now it’s almost a trillion. So the extent of dependence makes that inversion happen. So we had a less continentally reliant economy in 1988, and now our economy is totally reliant on continental trade.
Do you think Trump’s aggressive approach will generate another round of deep Canadian introspection and assessments of what makes the country different from the United States?
I think so. We’re already seeing an uptick in nationalism. But people have also long said we are too focused on America. Take health care, for example. We have big problems in our health care system. Maybe we shouldn’t mimic the American health care system, but maybe we should look at other countries with a social welfare system that might have better health care. But we’re so focused on America as our twin that sometimes we look at them as a focal point for comparison to our peril.
Is the wave of Canadian nationalism we’re seeing deep and stable? Will there be a persistent solidarity there that can carry the country through the tough times that may be ahead? Or do you think it’s superficial — or, worse, a potential source of division?
I mean, we couldn’t wear masks for three years without ripping each other apart — not even three years. So I don’t know what will happen if the tariffs go through … and we see real job losses, we see real industries impacted, particularly on a regional basis, and maybe we see some carve-outs. If autoworkers face a 100% tariff, as Trump is talking about, we could see some real anger in Southern Ontario. But if there are exceptions, where Alberta oil only gets a 10% tariff – which I think would bring it mostly up to market prices, since it gets a subsidized price – people in Ontario might say, “Well, maybe we should put an export tax on that. Maybe we should cut off oil exports.” And that may be the makings of some big challenges to national unity.
I would like to think that this rally-around-the-flag effect is real. I think we’re seeing a reflection of that in the reviving Liberal fortunes in the polls federally. But I don’t know, once the rubber hits the road, once the tariffs actually go through, and once we potentially have hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work or shifts cut or hours cut back, then yikes, I don’t know what will happen.
But I think the smart leader would be the one who can focus that anger, if it happens, on the external person who’s doing this — it’s a single person who’s doing this — in the White House.
Thinking about that single person and the conflict between Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau, who are not fans of one another, we’ve seen clashes between presidents and prime ministers before: Lyndon Johnson and Lester Pearson, Richard Nixon and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, George W. Bush and Jean Chrétien. Does personal or policy conflict between a prime minister and president generate domestic support for a PM?
Certainly in a few of those cases, yes. If we can remember back to 2003, there were a lot of people rallying behind the Liberals and the Chrétien government. There were also people like Wayne Gretzky, Don Cherry, Ontario Premier Ernie Eves, Stephen Harper, and Stockwell Day who blasted Chrétien for not taking part in the Iraq War, but there were also people rallying to his side. But I would think if we were to look, the corporate media was pretty critical of Chrétien for not reigning in those people calling Bush a moron and such. So, there is a desire to support a prime minister, but not always.
For instance, in the 1960s, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker fell out with President John F. Kennedy over nuclear weapons and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the Liberals won the next election. Why did people vote for the Liberals? Well, there were a number of issues. The Diefenbaker government was pretty out of wind by that point, and the Liberals were talking about dealing with Quebec and social programs, but the Americans pushed Diefenbaker around, and Canadian voters had a favorable view of Kennedy.
What makes this time so different is just how mendacious Donald Trump is. It’s not just the tariff issue. It’s not just the border or the 51st state comment. It’s the belittling, the calling Justin Trudeau “governor” incessantly. It would be one thing if Trump and Trudeau simply disagreed, if Trump said, “Let’s have more defense spending or action to combat fentanyl trafficking.” But the fact that he’s trying to bring about the ruination of our country and talking about annexation — it raises national hackles and makes people excuse the prime minister’s pretty bad handling of a lot of files.
Sometimes we look to history for a precedent or perhaps even a playbook, something we can follow to navigate the moment. Does that exist this time around, or is the Trump threat unprecedented?
We haven’t really faced a hostile American president in over a hundred years. Nixon wanted to impose tariffs, but he withdrew them eventually and actually said, “Isn’t this what you guys wanted?” So, we haven’t really faced a hostile president in a long time, and I think that’s what makes this different. And Trump is also hostile to democratic countries around the world, so we’re not on our own in that sense.
In terms of a playbook, we’ll see if the Team Canada approach works. We’ll see if it works when tariffs go through and we place our own tariffs. And we can lobby members of Congress or the state governors and say, “We’re bringing mutual economic ruination upon us. Can you bring pressure on the White House?” Maybe that will work.
But I’m almost tempted to think we should abandon the Team Canada approach and maybe find, I don’t know, whatever diplomats we have dealing with Saudi Arabia or Turkey, diplomats dealing with authoritarian governments. They might be better situated to deal with a Trump administration if we deal with them on the same level that we deal with authoritarian countries. That may be the playbook we need to dust off instead.
