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Trump brings Canadian Liberals back from the dead
Mark Carney laid out his case for governing Canada on Saturday during a friendly interview with former Tony Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell and short-lived Trump spokesman Anthony Scaramucci on "The Rest Is Politics" podcast.
Carney is likely to become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada on March 9 and then take over from Justin Trudeau for two weeks before calling an election in which he must convince Canadians that he, not Pierre Poilievre, is the right person to handle President Donald Trump.
He is taking a harder line than the Conservative leader.
“What had been our closest friend and ally now is just our neighbor,” he said. “The Americans are just our neighbor. It’s geography as opposed to kinship.”
In a flag-festooned rally in Ottawa on the same day, Poilievre struck a different tone. He said Canada “will bear any burden and pay any price to protect our sovereignty and independence” — while also extending an olive branch.
“We’ve always loved you as neighbors and friends. There is no country with whom we would rather share a border — the longest undefended border in the world.”
Not a professional politician
Poilievre is not free to take as hard a line as Carney because about half of his party’s supporters approve of Trump, and his approach to politics is influenced by the MAGA movement.
Carney attacked Poilievre for that in the podcast.
“Do you really believe in these elements of Canada, or have you been mouthing MAGA talking points with a Canadian twist for the past three years, and don’t buy into them and wouldn’t protect them?”
Campbell, a savvy political messenger, gave him some friendly advice.
“I think if you are a full-time experienced politician, you left that hanging, Mark,” he said. “I’d have gone straight for the jugular. You were setting it up and then you pulled your punch.”
“You’re right,” Carney said with a grimace and a smile. “Fair enough.”
Campbell, who wants Carney to win, is right. Carney is not a “full-time experienced politician.” He doesn’t know how to land a punch. Poilievre, in contrast, has an unerring instinct for his opponent’s weaknesses, and never misses an opening.
No longer a slam dunk
The election ahead was supposed to be a slam dunk. Poilievre has been leading in the polls for three years, usually by double digits. The 9-year-old Trudeau government had wandered to the left of the mainstream, leaving Canadians fed up with the cost of living, a housing crisis, mismanaged immigration, and an activist, woke approach to social issues.
All the pieces were lined up for a massive Conservative election victory until Trump started threatening to annex Canada. In the fallout, the unpopular Trudeau was forced to resign, and Carney — who had been biding his time on the sidelines — stepped forward.
The former governor of central banks in Canada and the UK, Carney has unparalleled economic and crisis-management credentials. Canadians have taken notice. He is raising money and filling halls. The one issue where the Liberals have a brand advantage — managing the relationship with the Americans — is now likely to dominate political debate.
New challenge for Poilievre
Poilievre is still ahead in the polls, but the Liberals have surged. A poll last week from Leger, Canada’s best-rated pollster, found that the electorate would be evenly divided when Carney is leader.
The result was not a complete shock to Leger because a poll the week before found Quebec’s leaderless provincial Liberals surging at the expense of nationalist Quebec parties, says Leger Vice President Sébastien Dallaire.
“There clearly is a generalized Donald Trump effect, so the voters are galvanizing, trying to show national unity against what’s happening in the United States, against Donald Trump more specifically, and parties whose brands are more aligned with defending national unity are certainly benefiting from this.”
Poilievre had planned for the election of 2025 to be a referendum against Trudeau and the carbon tax, but Trudeau is headed for the exit and Carney has promised to kill the consumer carbon tax.
The parties are converging on policies as Liberals discard unpopular Trudeau-era positions and wrap themselves in the flag after a decade in which they held more ambiguous feelings. Poilievrecan complain about their death-bed conversion, but voters are focused on the future, so he has to thread the needle, backing his country against American threats while also not sanctioning the Liberals’ response.
“You want to be heard, but you don’t want to be seen to be a bit tone-deaf or out of touch with what’s happening,” says Dallaire. “So that’s the big, big challenge for Pierre Poilievre right now. And it goes a little bit against his style of politics as well, to find that softer tone a little bit.”
Trump, who seems to despise Trudeau, has thrown the Liberal Party a lifeline — and increased the possibility that the United States will face an unfriendly new government on its northern border this spring.
Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue speaks to reporters after the release of the final report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Jan. 28, 2025.
Foreign interference report delivers mixed bag
“There are legitimate concerns about parliamentarians potentially having problematic relationships with foreign officials, exercising poor judgment, behaving naively, and perhaps displaying questionable ethics,” writes Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who nonetheless found no treason or conspiracy.
She did find, however, that foreign interference, including the spread of mis- and disinformation, is a “major risk to Canadian democracy” that must be addressed. She writes that “information manipulation” is, in fact, “the single biggest risk to” democracy in Canada.
The report includes a slew of recommendations (51 in fact) for combating foreign interference, including better information-sharing protocols, smoother cooperation across orders of government, that party leaders get top-secret security clearance soon after becoming leader – something Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has refused to do – and tighter rules for leadership elections to limit votes to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.The Trump circus comes to Canada
Donald Trump hadn’t even settled into office before his presidency dominated politics — not only in the United States but also in Canada. His threat of across-the-board tariffs of 25% and musings about conquering the country with which the US shares the world’s longest undefended border startled politicians north of the 49th parallel — as well as journalists, industry leaders, and just about everyone else paying attention.
Trump’s tariffs are still set to kick in on Saturday, Feb. 1, and last week, aboard Air Force One, the president revisited his idea of Canada becoming part of the republic, calling it “a country that should be a state.” Trump claimed that if Canada were to join the US, it would have better health care, lower taxes, and “no military problems.”
The scale at which Trump’s agenda and musings have reshaped politics in Canada is, as the president himself might put it, huge. The president has turned the Canadian political landscape into a circus, affecting everything from the Liberal leadership race and the campaigns for the soon-expected federal election to the just-launched Ontario election and the trajectory of public policy.
“Given that managing relations with the US and keeping the border open to the free flow of goods are Canada’s primary national interests,” says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, “there’s little doubt that the specter of Trump is going to haunt Canadian politics — both federal and provincial — for the foreseeable future.”
“Upcoming elections in Ontario as well as federally will, in all likelihood, be framed in terms of Canada’s policy response to the Trump administration,” he adds, “including potential tariffs (which, if they don’t arrive on February 1, are almost inevitable at some point later this year or next).”
Indeed, the Trump circus is already underway.
Everyone is running against Trump
The governing Liberal Party is holding a leadership race to replace outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the winner will become prime minister in March. That race is already, first and foremost, about Trump. The former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland is running — and promising a summit of nations targeted by Trump, including Canada, the European Union, Mexico, Denmark, and Panama if she wins. The goal of the summit would be to “coordinate a joint response to challenges to our sovereignty and our economies,” she says. Freeland also promises dollar-for-dollar tariffs to match Trump’s duties, casting herself as the tough-on-Trump candidate.
Freeland’s chief rival, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, is setting himself in the same anti-Trump crusader mold, but with a side of seasoned crisis manager to boot. Carney, who is also running on retaliatory tariffs, says the Trump tariffs would “demand the most serious trade response in our history.” He’s promising to stand up Canada against threats from Trump — a requirement now for any politician in the country — and pitching himself as the person best suited to negotiate with the infamously mercurial Trump.
Whoever succeeds Trudeau will continue to campaign for the federal election, where they’ll take on Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, the odds-on favorite to win that election. But the federal contest will almost certainly be about Trump and who’s best suited to lead the country against him. A recent poll found nearly 80% of Canadians want an immediate election so that whichever party wins will have public support for hitting back against Trump’s tariff threat, while 82% support retaliatory duties.
Conservatives caught in an awkward position
The anti-Trump fervor is leaving Conservatives who once supported Trump in an awkward position, including Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who called an early election this week in Canada’s most populous province. With the election call, Ford cited Trump’s threats and the need to “outlive and outlast” his administration. Ford recently received praise for sporting a “Canada is not for sale” hat, and his snap election — with his party campaigning under the slogan “Protect Ontario” — is focused on securing a “strong mandate” to deal with tariff fallout, which could cost the province over 450,000 jobs.
Ford, who once said his support of Trump was “unwavering,” is promising to retaliate against American tariffs, including a threat to halt stateside energy exports worth billions. He’s been leading the anti-Trump charge among Canada’s premiers, and his former praise for the president is now a distant memory, making him a bit of a political contortionist.
He’s not alone.
Poilievre, who’s been cast as pro-Trump and Trumpian himself, is talking of a “Canada first” policy and promising to “hit hard” against the US if Trump goes ahead with tariffs. Poilievre recently declared that Canada can “buy elsewhere to maximize the impact on Americans and minimize the impact on Canadians,” as he argued for the country’s need to build self-reliance. Whatever ideological camaraderie Poilievre might share with Trump, the national interest comes first in politics.
Trump dominates Canadian policymaking too
The Trump administration is already shaping Canadian policy on trade, defense, immigration and the border, climate change, energy, and more, initiating a scramble to adapt quickly. Before Trump took office, Canada was working to change its border policy, and the Trudeau government quickly moved to adopt new border security measures, including drones and helicopters in the face of Trump’s tariff threats. All this comes as Canada expects a sharp rise in the number of asylum-seekers in response to Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an end to birthright citizenship, mass deportations, and suspension of the US refugee assistance program.
There’s now talk of the vulnerability of Canada’s north-south energy corridors, which have become the only show in town. Poilievre is raising the need for Canada to be able to move more of its oil and gas east to west — perhaps using the once-proposed Energy East pipeline, which never came to fruition. That would amount to a new trade and energy strategy for the country — and represent a major shift.
As Trump moves to abandon US initiatives on climate change, such as participating in the Paris Climate Accord, ending new wind power development, exploiting oil and gas deposits in protected areas, and declaring war on energy regulations, industry standards may adjust away from more climate-friendly expectations, thereby impacting Canada’s standards as well.
How long will Canada rally around the flag?
Canada’s Trump focus — and anxiety — is also producing a rally-around-the-flag effect, with a growing sense of patriotism and rejection of all that 51st-state talk. Canadians are gearing up for tough months and years ahead, with governments in Ottawa and around the country already working on relief programs to mitigate the potential damage caused by Trump’s tariffs.
Trump’s threats have even managed to mostly unite the country’s fractious premiers and prime minister in a more or less “Team Canada” approach, though Alberta Premier Danielle Smithand Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe are holdouts who oppose retaliatory tariffs. Still, that leaves 10 of 13 provinces and territories working together, which is a good rate for Canada.
But with roughly 80% of Canadian trade going to the US, the strong cultural and personal connections, a shared border, and deeply integrated defense policies, Canada will be hit hard by any fight with its neighbor — especially a prolonged one, which this could be.
Canada stands — like the US itself — to become exhausted by the endless focus on Trump and guessing at what his latest plans signify. In short, the Trump circus is just getting started, which means Canadian politicians must get used to walking the tightrope.
The McGill University campus.
HARD NUMBERS: Foreign no-shows in Canadian schools, Ontario makes a big call to doctors, Dastardly dye dies in US, Gringo companies send toxic waste south
100: Meanwhile, the government of Ontario is looking to have 100 foreign-trained doctors licensed to practice in high-need communities such as Sudbury, Goderich, and Huntsville. This comes after the province missed its initial target of 50 by the end of 2024. The program aims to address shortages in primary care physicians as older doctors retire and population growth continues.
3: This isn’t only a hard number, it’s a red number. Red 3, to be precise, is a food coloring that is being banned in the US, food safety regulators announced Wednesday. The bright red petroleum-based dye — used in candies, soft drinks, pills, baked goods, and, famously, maraschino cherries — has been found to cause cancer in lab animals. The move is a victory for consumer protection groups that have sought the dye’s death for decades. Food producers have two years to replace it in their products, and pharma companies get an extra year beyond that.
200,000: US companies sent some 200,000 tons of toxic waste to a single processing plant in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2022. Researchers recently found extremely high levels of neurotoxins in the soil surrounding the Zinc Nacional plant, which treats the dust generated from recycling metal junk — such as cars, electronics, and appliances — and turns it into fertilizers and other products. Lead contamination levels alone in homes near the plant were found to be more than 60 times higher than what the US considers safe.Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to reporters, announcing he intends to step down as Liberal Party leader, from his Rideau Cottage residence in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Jan. 6, 2025.
Trudeau steps down, and a leadership race kicks off
On Monday morning, Jan. 6, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed reporters on the stairs of Rideau Cottage, his official residence in Ottawa, to announce his resignation. He began by stating that “Parliament has been paralyzed for months. This morning, I advised the governor general that we need a new session of Parliament. The House is prorogued until March 24.”
This means that instead of returning on Jan. 27, as previously scheduled, the Canadian legislature will not sit for another two months. This prevents the opposition from presenting a non-confidence motion to topple the government, as it had threatened to do.
“I intend to resign as party leader and prime minister after the party selects its next leader in a robust, competitive nationwide process,” Trudeau explained. “Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process.”
The move obliges Trudeau’s party to hold a rapid-fire leadership race to choose a new leader – the winner of which will face voters in an election that must be held no later than Oct. 20, 2025. This makes it difficult for the party to bring in outside candidates and instead favors current cabinet members, whom Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wasted no time attacking.
What Poilievre really wants is an immediate election. His party is currently ahead by 25% in the polls, and he has every interest in going to voters before the Liberals have the chance to improve their fortunes.
Trudeau, meanwhile, blamed caucus infighting for his decision. “If I continue to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in the next election.” At the time of his resignation, 59% of Liberal Party supporters, as well as three of his four national caucuses, said he should resign. He also threw shade at former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, saying that he had hoped she would take on one of “the most important files in my government” but that “she chose otherwise.”
We’ll be watching to see which candidates arise as possible contenders to replace Trudeau in the weeks ahead. Possible names include Freeland, cabinet colleagues Dominic LeBlanc, Francois-Philippe Champagne, and Mélanie Joly, as well as former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and former BC Premier Christy Clark.Six issues that will shape US-Canada relations in 2025
In December, Justin Trudeauwarned that dealing with President-elect Donald Trump would be “a little more challenging” than last time around.
With Trump threatening massive tariffs that would hit Canada hard, taking aim at the country’s anemic defense spending, criticizing its border policy, eyeing its fresh water, and more, 2025 will indeed be a rocky time for US-Canada relations. But Trudeau might not be around for much of it. Down in the polls and facing calls from a majority of his caucus to resign, Trudeau is mulling his future and could resign any day.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievreis heavily favored to win the upcoming federal election, which would make Trump his challenge – a challenge Canadians, in fact, prefer the Conservative leader take on over his Liberal opponent.
Whoever leads Canada in the months to come, these are the top US-Canada issues they’ll be focused on:
1. Trade and tariffs
Trade between the US and Canada is worth over $900 billion a year, so the exchange of goods and services will be a top issue regardless of who’s in office. But Trump’s threat to levy a 25% tariff on imports has taken it to another level. The tariffs would raise prices in the US and hit Canadian industry, particularly the energy, automotive, and manufacturing sectors, with added costs. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce predicts the tariffs, and Canadian retaliation, would cost Canada roughly CA$78 billion – 2.6% of its GDP – a year and lead to recession. Canadian exports to the US would plummet, says the Chamber, with a predicted 60% drop in the mining and quarrying industries, 39% in m0tor vehicles, and 27% in metals – which would be costly for both countries. Ontario, the country’s most populous province and home to its auto sector, would be hit especially hard – which is why Premier Doug Ford is threatening to stop energy exports to the US if Trump proceeds with his plan.
The economic harm to Canada would be exacerbated by the fact that Ottawa would likely respond with its own retaliatory duties. The Trudeau government is working to secure an exemption from the policy for Canada but hasn’t managed to yet. But energy experts say they expect the tariffs won’t apply to Canadian oil either way.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says Trump’s tariff threat is real but also part of the incoming president’s strategy. He’s trying to gain concessions on issues of concern, including border security and the (very limited) flow of fentanyl from north to south, and the US trade deficit with Canada ahead of the looming renegotiation of the USMCA.
Thompson notes that Canada is in a weak bargaining position given that it’s utterly dependent on its trade relationship with the US, “and for that reason, doesn’t have a lot of cards to play.” He also expects that even if Canada does secure an exemption on tariffs, Trump will be prepared to threaten them again in the future as leverage in any given negotiation.
“This is not a one-and-done,” Thompson says. “I think this is a mode of operations that will repeat several times for the next four years over a variety of issues.”
2. A (metaphorical?) border wall
Trump has made border security central to his tariff threat, arguing that the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants across the border poses a public safety threat to the US. Canada is already developing a border security plan to respond to Trump’s concerns. It’s also scrambling to prepare for a possible rise in asylum claims – which will exacerbate the current backlog – and irregular border crossings if Trump goes ahead with his plan for mass deportations.
Canada was already revising its immigration policy before Trump won, but it may introduce further restrictions – and continue to toughen its rhetoric – in the coming months. After Trump’s win, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said “not everyone is welcome” to go to Canada, emphasizing that his government was ready to work with the Trump administration on border security. At the same time, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Canada was sticking to its new immigration plan, which would see fewer newcomers admitted to the country.
The Trudeau government reduced its immigration targets in October and cut the number of international students it welcomes. Its border security plan includes CA$1.3 billion in spending around five pillars that include a commitment to “detecting and disrupting the fentanyl trade” and “minimizing unnecessary border volumes,” including an end to flagpoling – or allowing temporary residents to leave the country (typically to the US) and return immediately to access immigration services at the border. But that may not be enough.
Thompson says leaders of the current government are “overestimating their ability to manage what is coming.” He notes future demands from Trump could include “tighter screening of regular immigrants into Canada. That means that much like with tariffs, the Canadian government may end up managing cascading demands from Trump, so no single promise or plan will likely be sufficient to placate the incoming US president.
3. Defense spending and securing the Arctic
US administrations, including Biden’s, have pressured Canada to increase its defense spending and hit NATO’s 2% of GDP target for years. In April, the Trudeau government outlined a plan to boost spending, focused in large part on building armed forces capacity in the Arctic. The new initiatives total roughly CA$81 billion over two decades and will push the country toward 1.76% of GDP by 2030. In December, the government announced a further adjustment to its Arctic presence, which will include more air and naval equipment, and a renewed cooperation strategy in the region with the US in the face of Russian and Chinese regional interests.
So far, Trump administration officials and other Republicans seem unimpressed with Canada’s defense plan. Former Trump ambassador to Canada, Kelly Craft, said the country could “do better.” That means spending more – and faster – especially since Trump has reportedly considered asking NATO allies to spend a whopping 5% of GDP on defense spending. He’s also threatened to leave countries that fail to spend more to fend for themselves against foreign aggression.
Philippe Lagassé, associate professor and Barton Chair at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, says Canada could raise military spending by increasing pay, boosting operations expenditures, and contracting more for services. He says procurement of military hardware would take longer. But in the face of financial constraints, such new spending would require raising taxes, growing the deficit, cutting other programs, or some combination of the three – which could prove a challenge for the current government or its eventual replacement.
Arctic defense may prove to be a smoother issue. “The US has been trying to get Canada to do more in the region for a while,” Lagassé says, “and we've responded to that. I don’t see that as a point of tension.”
“If anything,” he adds, “the US will be glad if we just get our act together because their sovereignty considerations up there are less than ours, and they have capabilities up there that we don’t, but they do want us to actually get our act together around it.”
So, while Canada may feel the pressure on defense spending – and may need to come up with a faster, heftier plan to placate Trump, it can always point to progress in the Arctic and is likely to do so.
4. Water, water everywhere?
In September, Trump floated an idea to solve California’s drought problems: import water from British Columbia. As Trump put it, the province has “a very large faucet” that, once turned, could supply drought-stricken US states with fresh water. Experts point out that Canada doesn’t, in fact, have water to spare, and Canada can’t just turn on a “faucet” to divert water to the US.
The water Trump referred to, coming from the Columbia River, is already spoken for, in part through an existing treaty between the US and Canada – the Columbia River Treaty, which sets out rules governing flood controls, dams, and hydroelectric power generation.
That arrangement is in the process of being modernized to account for new developments, including climate change. The Biden administration and the Trudeau government recently reached an agreement in principle after years of work that began during the first Trump administration. But this time around, should Trump decide to maintain an interest in water flows north to south, the terms of the treaty could – like free trade – come back up for negotiation, with the faucet on the table.
5. Critical minerals. It’s in the name
The US and Canada share several other areas of cooperation and competition, but one is of immediate interest that could incentivize working together. Both countries are spending big on critical mineral development, including co-investments in a development in Yukon.
Critical minerals are central to cellular phones, the electric vehicle industry – in which both the US and Canada are investing heavily – and national defense. So whatever other tensions shape US-Canada relations, cooperation on critical minerals will remain a shared goal, especially as the two countries look to rival Chinese and Russian interests in related sectors.
6. Setting limits on Big Tech
Both countries are also taking on big tech giants, such as Google, through anti-monopoly investigations lawsuits. Still, the US is pushing Canada to drop its 3% digital services tax on big tech companies, including Google’s parent company Alphabet. The Biden administration requested a dispute resolution process for the tax, claiming it unfairly targets big US tech firms. The Trump administration is likely to press the issue, too, which may leave the policy as a pawn in one set of negotiations – say, over tariffs – or another.
Does Canada have any leverage to rely on? Canada has some cards to play against Trump, but it’s not clear who’ll be playing them. The Trudeau government, down roughly 25 points in the polls, is not long for this world – and Trudeau himself may resign any day. The country is due for an election by the fall, but it could come much earlier.
Regardless of who’s in power, however, they’ll likely deploy the playbook from the last time Canada had to manage its relationship with Trump. That means working contacts in states, particularly border states in which the Republicans have an interest in winning or currently govern and contacts in Washington. Then, they work the message about Canadian, and shared, interests up to Trump. There’s also the threats of retaliatory tariffs and halting certain trade, like Ford’s threat to cut off energy to border states.
Together, pulling these levers may yield some results, but Canada is in for tough negotiations and is unlikely to emerge from them unscathed.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the federal Liberal caucus holiday party, the day after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unexpectedly resigned, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Dec. 17, 2024.
Chances of Trudeau staying as PM drop quickly
After Finance Minister Chrystia Freelandresigned in mid-December, Trudeau was said to be considering quitting. Since then, his Atlantic and Quebec caucuses – groups of members of Parliament from regions or provinces – have said he should go, which means the majority of Liberal members of Parliament are calling on him to quit. Trudeau’s former principal secretary – and Eurasia Group vice chairman – Gerald Buttsthinks Trudeau is less likely to stay on after the Freeland departure as his grip on power loosens.
“Mr. Trudeau was unlikely to lead the Liberal Party into the next election and is now much less likely to do so,” he writes. “That election will probably come sooner rather than later, and the odds of it producing a Conservative majority government are materially greater than they were before the events of 16 December.”
Before Christmas, Trudeau canceled all of his year-end press interviews save for one with comedian Mark Critch. A few days later, Trudeau was mocked and harassed while on vacation skiing in British Columbia.
The Liberals are down roughly 20 points in the polls, and the Conservatives are preparing a vote of non-confidence against the government through a committee backdoor trick by way of the standing committee on public accounts, which they control. The New Democratic Party has said it will vote non-confidence but hasn’t specified whether it’ll vote with the Conservatives if they proceed with their current plan, or wait to come up with their own. Whatever happens next, the days of Trudeau’s government appear to be numbered.Canada accused of being an unreliable ally in the Middle East
Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly told the United Nations General Assembly on Monday that Ottawa supports the creation of a Palestinian state and will officially recognize such an entity “at the time most conducive to building a lasting peace and not necessarily as the last step of a negotiated process.”
For more than 70 years, Canada and the United States have been in lockstep on policy in the Middle East. But Canada has been indicating for some time that it is preparing to join countries like Spain, Norway, and Ireland in unilaterally recognizing Palestinian statehood.
Despite pressures from within the Democratic caucus, that is not the position of the Biden administration. President Joe Biden has said he believes a Palestinian state should be realized through direct negotiations between the parties, not through unilateral recognition.
An early 20th-century Canadian cabinet minister, Sir Clifford Sifton, once said the main business of Canadian foreign policy is to remain friendly with the Americans while preserving the country’s self-respect.
That friendship has been tested in recent times.
Last December, Canada voted in favor of a cease-fire in Gaza that did not condemn, or even mention, Hamas. The US voted against the resolution.
For two decades, Canada has voted against UN resolutions that it felt unfairly sought to isolate Israel. Yet in May, it abstained on one that proposed to upgrade Palestine’s rights at the UN to a level short of full membership. Again, the US was one of only nine countries that voted against it.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has criticized his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to a future two-state solution – a frustration shared by the Biden administration. But Canada has gone a step further by saying that the peace process cannot indefinitely delay the creation of a Palestinian state.
Tensions were heightened in August when Joly announced new restrictions on the sale of defense equipment to Israel, suspending 30 export permits and blocking a deal to sell Quebec-made munitions to the US that were intended for Israel.
The move drew the ire of Netanyahu, who said it was unfortunate Joly took the steps she did as anti-Israel riots were taking place in Canadian cities.
It also attracted the attention of Sen. James Risch, the ranking member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. “It is disappointing to see our allies make domestic political decisions intended to hamstring our shared ally, Israel,” he wrote on X.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group, and a former policy analyst at Canada’s Global Affairs department, said Risch’s comments reflect a “habitual disappointment” about Canadian foreign policy in Washington.
“By now, expectations are so low that it is hard to be disappointed by anything. People have come to the conclusion that Canadian foreign policy is about grandstanding and domestic politics, rather than national interests,” he said.
Risch was one of 23 bipartisan senators who wrote to Trudeau before the prime minister traveled to Washington for NATO’s summit in July saying they were “concerned and profoundly disappointed that Canada’s most recent (military spending) projection indicated it will not reach the 2 percent commitment this decade.”
At the summit, Canada’s ambassador in Washington, Kristen Hillman, said there remains “a strong recognition that Canada is a steadfast ally in all aspects.” But that rosy view was not reflected in the comments made by US policymakers. House Speaker Mike Johnson described Canada’s promise to get to 1.76% of GDP on defense spending by 2030 as “shameful.” “Talk about riding on American coattails,” he said.
Even Biden’s extremely discreet ambassador in Ottawa, David Cohen, referred to Canada as “the outlier” in the alliance.
Eurasia Group’s Thompson agreed with Risch’s assessment that domestic politics are at the root of a shift in foreign policy that moves away from traditional support for Israel and does not view security spending as a priority.
He said the debate in the ruling Liberal Party is similar to the one playing out in the Democratic Party in the US – but is at a more advanced stage because it has the blessing of the leader, Trudeau.
He noted the base of support for the Liberals has moved from ridings with large Jewish populations in Toronto and Montreal to ridings with large Muslim populations in the suburbs of both big cities. Trudeau has tried to walk a fine line between both communities, often failing to please either of them.
His Liberals are trailing the Conservatives by around 20 points in most polls, and the opposition party leader, Pierre Poilievre, is pushing for a general election.
The Liberals are relying on the support of the left-leaning New Democratic Party and separatist Bloc Québecois to keep them in power. Both of those parties are highly critical of Israel and strongly supportive of a Palestinian state.
A debate in the Canadian House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on the recognition of a Palestinian state last week reflected the realignment of foreign policy. The committee voted in favor of a short study, after which a recommendation to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state will likely be made to the government. The Liberals on the committee voted alongside the NDP and the Bloc, arguing that for a two-state solution, you need two states.
The Conservative foreign affairs critic, Michael Chong, said that unilateral recognition would break with the long-standing position of the successive Canadian governments and would isolate Canada from its allies, including the US.
“To veer from that path rewards violence and authoritarianism,” he said.
The committee vote has not yet drawn a response from Washington.
That does not surprise Derek Burney, a veteran Canadian diplomat who served as Ottawa’s ambassador in Washington from 1989 to 1993.
He said Canada’s view has become inconsequential to its allies. “I’ve never seen a time when we were more irrelevant than we are now. We are nowhere on the global scene. We are nowhere in Washington because we have nothing to contribute or to support what the Americans are trying to do,” he said.
“Nobody knows what we stand for, or stand against. We don’t count. It’s a sad fact of life.”