Canada needs to wean itself off its relationship with the United States. Here’s how

If you’d like to rationalize this week’s events, there’s a stanza in Neil Peart’s Tom Sawyer that might work for you:

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren’t permanent –
But change is

“Changes aren’t permanent – But change is.” We know this intuitively to be true. It was only a few weeks ago that the Liberal government approved — with Liberal Economic Policy Advisor Mark Carney’s presumed consent — the American takeover of Hamilton’s Stelco (see prior post “Jagmeet Singh, you need an issue voters can rally behind and I have just the thing” Sept 8-24) — Ottawa didn’t even wait to see how the tariff drama played out. To quote Logan Roy: “These are not serious people.”

In the background, both Joe Biden and U.S. President Donald Trump said they’d block Japan’s Nippon Steel from buying publicly-listed U.S. Steel Corp. (NYSE:X). Steel being a strategic sector and all.

Whoops.

Trump may see tariffs as a source of revenue, and it’s worth noting that he’s not honouring the very free trade agreement (USMCA) that bears his signature. All I can think, though, is how we brought this on ourselves. In 2021, Canada elected a government that prioritized everything except what actually matters to the vast majority of Canadians.

Trudeau et al were warned of these border security issues well before Trump started polling ahead of Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris:

i) If being in Canada illegally were an actual crime under the Criminal Code, it’d be easier to deport the types of people that Trump is concerned about. Like the Chilean crime gang that robbed a friend’s home in the northern part of Toronto a few weeks ago. In the case where you’ve intentionally overstayed your Visitor’s Visa, we wouldn’t have to worry about bail terms nor an expensive hearing — they’d just be put on a plane. The added benefit is that lower “overcrowding” in our detention centres means that local criminals wouldn’t get a reduced sentence due to pre-trial overcrowding in our jails — this isn’t complicated! From Oct. ‘24: https://thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/being-in-canada-illegally-should-be-treated-like-a-crime-being-poor-or-mentally-ill/article_36ce1372-8b03-11ef-9313-af0d44364dda.html…)

ii) Trudeau made some diplomatic hay [in 2016] by removing the Harper government’s visa requirement for visitors from Mexico. Despite a 70-fold surge in Mexican asylum claims, the Liberals waited until 2024 to reverse themselves. A “majority of claims were abandoned or rejected,” and that single Liberal flip-flop cost Canadian taxpayers $600 million a year for health care and shelter costs. From Aug. ‘24: https://thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/liberals-go-hog-wild-on-immigration-hoping-to-secure-victory-in-2029-and-beyond/article_3c45d4f6-5eef-11ef-8b20-0b49efb52c23.html…

iii) The Liberals (since reversed) allowed any visitor visa applicant to “no longer have to prove they have sufficient funds to stay in Canada or demonstrate they will leave the country when their visas expire.” From Aug. ‘24: https://thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/liberals-go-hog-wild-on-immigration-hoping-to-secure-victory-in-2029-and-beyond/article_3c45d4f6-5eef-11ef-8b20-0b49efb52c23.html… They knowingly encouraged illegal work in either Canada (for $1.74/hour) or the USA.

iv) The Liberals increased the size of the public service by more than 40 per cent since 2014, yet there were 37,326 active immigration arrest warrants outstanding in 2023, according to CBSA, including 306 individuals deemed “a danger to the Canadian public.” All at large in Canada. 484 people on the U.S. CBP “terror watchlist” were “encountered” by American officers at the U.S.-Canada border in 2023; the number of encounters rose 55% versus 2022; the figures for the U.S.-Mexican border are “significantly lower.” From August ‘24: https://thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/some-easy-steps-on-terror-front/article_dc5ddf1a-5404-11ef-b2f8-671499f7539f.html…

v) It took the Trudeau gov't 1,500 days to weigh Iran’s downing of UIA Flight 752, not to mention the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) overt backing of global terror groups, before finally agreeing to designate the IRGC as terrorists. It took Trudeau less than 30 days following the start of the 2022 Trucker Convoy protest to seize more than 200 bank accounts (a decision a federal court later deemed to be overreach). From June ‘24: https://thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/why-do-the-liberals-find-the-easy-parts-so-difficult/article_bf2d653e-3305-11ef-aa21-139c155813b4.html…

There are thousands of people better positioned than I to identify detailed threats to North American security; the above was just some of the low hanging fruit. I have to assume that they did, but were ignored in Ottawa. Trump noticed. Elections have consequences, and our new uncertainty forces Canadian business owners to invest a greater proportion of their capital in the U.S. market.

This increases the need for "mitigation" here at home, paid for by corporate and personal tax dollars that just disappeared south. The White House may see tariffs as a source of revenue, but the Liberal government loaded the bullets in Trump's gun.

If you want to see how this week’s Star column ends, buy a print copy, use your Apple News, or subscribe to The Star online via my special discount code: www.thestar.com/informed:

Canadians may be shocked by the dramatic change in our relationship with the U.S., but the new White House administration is right to complain that Ottawa wasn’t remotely interested in border security prior to President Donald Trump’s return to power.

According to a new report by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, the number of Canadian organized crime groups manufacturing drugs such as fentanyl has nearly doubled, from 51 in 2023 to 99 in 2024.

We can’t fault Trump for the fact that it’s been almost five years since the auditor general criticized the Liberals for having lost track of 34,700 foreign nationals facing deportation, including convicted criminals. The number of outstanding immigration arrest warrants hit 37,326 in 2023, as I railed about here last summer.

The expectation that Trump would be satiated by the two new RCMP helicopters Ottawa just leased is, given the border’s 8,891-kilometre length, laughable.

One bright spot is our 19-year contribution to America’s drug interdiction strategy. Hopefully someone has told Trump that the Royal Canadian Navy just sent another new offshore patrol ship to the Caribbean in search of drug smugglers. Also on board is a U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment, making this one of several joint anti-narcotic missions planned for 2025.

Last Fall, similar teams nabbed C$60 million of cocaine off the shores of Acapulco, Mexico. It’s not fentanyl, but the Canadian military has helped prevent 123,000 kilograms of cocaine — with a street value of $12.2 billion, at today’s prices — from reaching the shores of our two nations over this collaboration’s lifetime.

Trump may have nothing but disdain for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but this unnecessary economic bun fight must spur Canada to wean itself off its unreliable relationship with America, especially in the following sectors.

Autos: whether U.S. automakers move their remaining Ontario production stateside, Canada must capitalize on the dozens of free trade agreements signed by Stephen Harper’s government. Take Korea: Hyundai’s Canadian sales just hit a record high, and we could induce them to join Honda and Toyota and finally set up a Canadian assembly plant. Canada is in the market for 12 new patrol submarines, and Korean shipyards are a viable option.

The added bonus is that we’d immediately hit NATO’s 2 per cent target.

To read the rest of the piece, hit the link.

MRM

(this post is an Opinion Piece)