Conservative leaders are failing Trump's tariff test

“Elbows up.” That was the message Mike Myers sent to fellow Canadians at the end of last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, and it’s already resonating across the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s delivery of his long-threatened tariffs. It was the perfect hockey-oriented counterpoint to Wayne Gretzky’s repeated displays of cowardice, and a reminder of how Canadians ought to respond to America’s unprovoked attack on our economy and sovereignty. 

Most of Canada’s politicians understood the assignment here. Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau certainly did, delivering a speech that reminded Americans of our affection for their country — and our determination to stand up for ourselves in spite of it. BC Premier David Eby was even more forceful in his own remarks as he promised the immediate removal from the province’s liquor stores of products from red states. “We understand who is attacking us,” he said. “We understand where this is coming from. We want to send a message particularly to those governors, to those congresspeople.”

Conservative leaders also got in on the act. Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston described Trump as a “short-sighted man who wields his power just for the sake of it.” And Doug Ford, who for all of his many failings has read this one correctly for a while now, suggested he might even shut off the electricity his province sends to the United States. “I will use every tool in our toolbox to send a message to President Trump that this is the wrong thing to do,” he told CNN in an interview. “The president needs to be stopped. Simple as that.”

If only it were. The pro-appeasement forces within Canada’s conservative community have done the bare minimum to indicate their displeasure with Trump’s tariffs, but they don’t seem like they’ve actually changed their mind. Last weekend, for example, the editorial board at the Toronto Sun — which just happens to be owned by a Trump-friendly U.S. hedge fund — blamed Justin Trudeau for Donald Trump’s decision to launch what the Wall Street Journal has described as the “dumbest trade war.” 

And when it was finally launched, leaders like Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith completely missed the moment. After a few harsh words for Trump, Poilievre immediately pivoted to his pre-existing political script, blaming Justin Trudeau for everything from rising home prices to longer lines at food banks. He even suggested that the best way to mitigate the damage done by Trump’s tariffs was — you guessed it — tax cuts. “The obvious place to start is to get rid of the Liberal carbon tax,” he said. Of course it is, Pierre. 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the de-facto leader of Canada’s pro-appeasement caucus, also managed to briefly criticize the president she’d spent so much time and energy trying to impress of late. Her statement, posted to social media late Tuesday morning, made an effort to appear patriotic, even while it suggested that “now is the time for us to unite as a province and a country” as though it hasn’t been that time for months now. 

But Smith made no mention of the retaliatory measures at her disposal, most notably the curtailment of oil production in Alberta — and reduction in oil exports to the United States. It included the very peculiar assertion that Alberta is “caught in the middle of a tariff war,” which seems to suggest it’s somehow not a direct party to it and perhaps even itself a victim of Ottawa as much as Washington. And, like Poilievre, Smith immediately pivoted to her pre-existing desire to build more pipelines and increase Canada’s oil and gas production. 

If Poilievre and Smith were taking this as seriously as they should, they’d be doing more than confirming their biases and riding their hobby horses. A genuinely robust response from Alberta — one the Conservative Party of Canada could help support — would begin with the rejection of Trump’s apparent desire to see the Keystone XL pipeline built, since that would only increase Canada’s dependence on the United States and the trade deficit that Trump supposedly cares about. It would involve the threat of curtailing Alberta’s oil production, just as Rachel Notley’s NDP government did in late 2018 to narrow the discount on Alberta’s oil. And it would include a stated willingness to support a federal export tax to bring the effective tariff on Canadian oil and gas shipments up to the level of its other major exports. 

Some humility might be in order, too. Smith and Poilievre have both consistently pretended that the Trump administration’s concerns about fentanyl were being made in good faith rather than as the obvious pretext they needed to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and apply his long-coveted tariffs. Indeed, as the Globe and Mail’s Nathan VanderKlippe reported, Canada’s border security officials haven’t been given any border-specific requests or requirements by the Americans that could get the tariffs lifted. It was always a fig leaf for their real desires. 

The most important issue now is what those desires actually are. Is this just about Trump indulging in his well-documented economic illiteracy around tariffs and trying to recreate the American economy of the late 19th century, or is it about weakening Canada to the point where it would be open to his repeated musings around annexation? If it’s the latter, and that seems increasingly (and terrifyingly) possible, how would appeasement-curious Conservatives like Poilievre and Smith suggest we respond? 

This is a real test of their leadership — and their commitment to their country. They both know that a sizable minority of their own supporters would sooner support Trump than Canada here, and that their respective parties have a habit of tossing out leaders who run afoul of the base. Back in October, a Leger poll found that 42 per cent of CPC voters thought a Trump victory would be good for Canada. I’m willing to bet that a substantial majority of that 42 per cent still does, and that the figure is even higher among UCP supporters in Alberta. 

Will they finally join the rest of us in defending Canada against this unprovoked and unjustified attack, or will they continue to dump water in their political wine in an effort to avoid upsetting their pro-Trump supporters? It’s clear now that their attempts at appeasing Trump himself haven’t worked. It’s fair to wonder if their desire to appease the pro-Trump element in their midst will be equally unsuccessful — and self-defeating.