On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Donald Trump was softening up Canada by attacking our economy ahead of an attempt to annex the country.
Let that sit for a moment.
Because it’s easy to miss the significance of the statement. We live in an era of exaggeration, and a moment of frenetic happenings. But the prime minister of Canada has said that the global hegemon is attacking this country economically in the hopes of later annexing it. To put it mildly, the stakes right now are high, and our leaders must rise to meet the challenges these stakes imply.
At least one premier understands the assignment. After Trudeau spoke, Ontario Premier Doug Ford held his own press conference in Toronto. “I want to inflict as much pain as we possibly can until we get to a deal,” Ford said.
He laid out a plan to hit the United States hard in response to Trump’s attack on Canada’s economy and sovereignty. You could write a book about Ford’s failures. Some people have. But his approach to dealing with the Trump regime is spot on.
Ford’s plan, at least the initial phases of it, includes support for federal retaliatory tariffs in what he called the “first round of retaliation.” The premier has directed the LCBO, the province’s monopolist wholesaler of alcohol and one of the largest purchasers of beer, wine, cider, and spirits in the world, to pull American booze off its retail store shelves and to halt sales to other retailers, including bars and restaurants. As Ford highlighted, that’s $1 billion worth of product a year from 35 states, dried up more or less overnight.
No single province can take on the Trump administration on its own, but Ontario is the most populous province in the country and home to the largest economy in Canada — and it’s got a government that fits its scale. Ford is banning U.S.-based companies from bidding on government procurement, which, he noted, is worth $30 billion a year all told, with the potential for another $200 billion upcoming as part of provincial infrastructure growth. That move will cost the Yankees tens of billions of dollars, Ford said, as he urged municipalities to do the same. Coupled with the LCBO directive and Ford’s cancellation of a $100 million contract with Trump-toady Elon Musk’s Starlink to provide rural internet access in the province, the lost revenues start to add up. You know what they say, a billion here, a billion there, and soon you’re talking about real money.
Bullies like Trump only understand the language of power. You can’t smile or handshake your way out of their attacks. You’ve got to sock them in the kisser. Ford says he’s “ready to escalate” his response, promising a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exported to the US — to millions of homes — if tariffs don’t come off right away. He’s also threatening to halt electricity imports all together in April if Trump ramps up tariffs even further, as promised.
If that’s not enough, Ford is considering, and urging other premiers to consider, taxes or export controls on critical minerals, which the U.S. desperately needs to build and maintain products that range from cell phones to fighter jets. He mentioned high-grade nickel, of which Ontario provides half of what the U.S. needs, and potash, which is essential for fertilizing crops. “Without potash down there,” Ford said, “they don’t have a farming system.” People who can’t afford to feed themselves? Well, that’s how you get revolutions. Ask the French.
We’re just in the early days of the tariff crisis. The other side of the retaliation coin is domestic support measures, which Ford has promised with efforts reminiscent of the pandemic, but the details of which he’s yet to specify. A comprehensive and just response will require rigorous support for individuals and businesses, especially for the poor or those otherwise struggling. In the past, Ford has failed on this front, so there’s reason to be nervous. But if he can build a support agenda to match his attack plan, then he’ll have done the province a great service indeed.
“The coming days and weeks will be hard,” Ford said on Tuesday. Yes, yes they will. These times will test our resolve. That resolve has been tested in the past, to mixed results. For instance, just think of the pandemic, during which we showed unity and solidarity, until we didn’t. But the coming days and weeks — or months, even years — can be made more bearable and given more purpose with aggressive, bold plans to hit back against Donald Trump and the U.S. while supporting Canadians and building an economy that is less reliant on an increasingly unreliable, and unhinged, global hegemon. To his immense credit, Doug Ford has taken a big step in that direction. Good for him, and good for us.
Comments
Way to go, Doug! It seems Danny Smith is starting to see the light now.
I’m no fan of Doug Ford. Bike lanes, Greenbelt, Ontario Science Centre, Austrian-owned spa, Endangered Species Act, Conservation Authorities… he and I are in utter and complete disagreement on all these topics and more. But we can agree on this one. No giving in to bullies. No obedience in advance ( hear that, Danielle Smith?) Donald Trump is a Russian asset. He wants to destroy Canada. He wants to annex Canada. That sounds unbelievable (almost as unbelievable as me agreeing on anything with Doug Ford) but we would be wise to tally up the mounting evidence and act accordingly. Oh, and above all: let’s never, never never vote for Poilievre. He’s way too agreeable with Trump and his buddies. Tally up the evidence. Thanks, David Moscrop. Excellent article.
All this! plus no Starlink. Watching leon using it to pull Ukraine s access is a control option way too far. Lets get rid of it across the country, so sorry for folks with no other access. Time to build our own. Now.
Good job here Doug. Please keep it up. You might come to enjoy boring old good works better than boring old money.
Maybe Doug can build a space laser and use the Starlink satellites for target practice. That would clear up the space that Musk was allowed to clutter with his useless crap.
Ukraine's already got eplacement access through Europe, or soon will. It was one of the topics discussed in the recent meetings there.
Not a major fan of Doug Ford given his shady record of accomplishment, corruption, and secret deals. But takes one shyster to beat another and that makes Doug the best choice in Ontario to tackle President Orange Sphincter. Danielle Smith could learn a lot from Ford on how to tackle the Orange Sphincter.
At the federal level, Singh and Poilievre are just not up to the task and only see Mark Carney as the man to tackle the Orange Sphincter. Poilievre is too agreeable and likely to cave, no real world experience either, and Singh, he is just off on another planet all together.
Poilievre might well be playing on the same team as Trump.
As an Albertan, I’d take Doug Ford in a second over Stormy Danielle. I don’t trust that Alberta’s premier wouldn’t throw Alberta and the country under the bus if it suited her political ambitions. I’m still not aware of any meaningful response to Trumps tariffs in Alberta, other than Smith being “disappointed”. That’s gotta hurt, America!
I don’t understand why there aren’t daily demonstrations in front of the Alberta legislature protesting this ship of fools we have for a provincial cabinet.
If you got him, you wouldn't like it. Voice of experience, here!
Agree with this, including with the concern for whether Ford will actually support people (not just the businesses) affected. He wasn’t good at that during Covid, has an ideological reluctance to use public resources for the public good, and isn’t very good at follow through. So I shall wait and see…and hope. Maybe the leopard can change his spots.
Way to go Doug Ford. This is the classiest act so far when it comes to Premiers and it is actually quite endearing. I've always thought Trudeau loves this country and the people and it is now obviously Doug Ford loves this country. Thank you Ford and Trudeau. Bravo.
A few comments, first on the text and then on some of the premises, but before beginning, apologies for a long response.
"Trudeau warned that Donald Trump was softening up Canada by attacking our economy ahead of an attempt to annex the country."
It's not even Trump. It's his puppet-masters. It is entirely credible that Trump is a Putin asset: not an agent, an asset. He possesses qualities ideal for his role ... and not for the other. Trump was elected because of Russian-initiated propaganda -- and then the useful idiots picked up the clarion and added tweaks to fit their ill-informed views -- believing they had an inside track on the truth circuit -- bolstered with all manner of "alternative facts" and silly conclusions that don't stand up to any kind of examination at all -- but what made them powerful is the initial kernel of actual fact that all the rest was built around till it formed an independent eco-system devoid of reality -- and once that stage is reached, almost anything goes.
If you want to point to a grand master in the whole affair, consider the case of a former statesman, Harper. He ain't playin' on the side of the angels.
"Ford is banning U.S.-based companies from bidding on government procurement"
All the better to serve his favorite funder cronies. But it's hardly an original idea: Toronto Mayor Chow beat him out of the blocks by a long shot.
"Ford’s cancellation of a $100 million contract with Trump-toady Elon Musk’s Starlink"
That was nothing but an act of Musk toady-ism. Neither my attention span nor my memory memory are what they used to be, but somehow or other they still sometimes seem to out-perform those possessed by many who should have better command of the facts.
That contract was let without any call for tender, long after Musk showed his true colors by shutting down Ukraine's access in Crimea in a crucial situation. His excuse was that he had to because otherwise, he'd be influencing the outcome. Say wot? Say "Putin toady" and be done with it. It's hardly as though Musk hadn't visited Putin after the war had started. No one asked why, or what business he might have had talking to a declared enemy. It couldn't be to do business, because Russia was under sanction, and American businesses had left the country. More or less, anyway. It wasn't safe for them, but it was for Musk, apparently.
“ready to escalate” his response, promising a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exported to the US — to millions of homes — if tariffs don’t come off right away."
Let's be totally clear that the US is paying less for that electricity than it costs to produce it, while Ontarians pay more for it even on overnight time-of-use rates.
"He’s also threatening to halt electricity imports all together in April if Trump ramps up tariffs even further, as promised."
Imports, or exports???
And did he for a moment consider in any of his aborted calculus that in many instances he is punishing "friend states" ... those that never voted for him in the first place, and that are doing their damnedest to stop the monstrosity that we and they both face.
Why treat all states the same? It's not The US As A Whole, as A-hole causing the trouble. It's one party, and actually a minority of the US voters, who put him in place, and most of them were unwitting recipients of propaganda initiated from Outside.
We ought not to be complacent: a huge proportion of our own populace is also in the True Believer Camp.
Don't be fooled by Poilievre, or Ford. They are both fans of self-service, both lie every time they open their mouths, and both have used lying attack ads on the internet. No similarities to anyone or anything there, huh?
"People who can’t afford to feed themselves? Well, that’s how you get revolutions. Ask the French."
You mean back in the 18th C? Probably more relevant to starvation is the lot of Ukrainians under Stalin, who died at home, in the woods searching hopelessly for roots or bark left to eat, or drowned in swamps trying to escape, or in cities on the sidewalk, no longer strong enough to take a single step further.
It takes a voice of someone who has never experienced hunger, who never ate dogfood because pensions weren't sufficient (Harper, Mulroney & Co and in between, Martin), or didn't eat for several days at the end of the month because there wasn't enough for both children and adults, to justify hunger with the prospect of revolution. Please don't do that again. Just please don't.
It's not as though in Ford's Toronto there aren't homeless people dying of exposure on the street in winter, and living in a perpetual state of hunger because of lack of sufficient food and the high energy demands of maintaining body temperature in weather extremes.
"rigorous support for individuals and businesses, especially for the poor or those otherwise struggling."
And thank you, thank you, thank you, for including mention of the poor, and those who struggle and were struggling before Covid and greed-flation kicked in full force. I'm sick unto death of all the talk about "middle class families (with children)" needing more and more support, including the same families that can afford to fly away with their kids for March break, and who perhaps might consider selling their subsidized electric vehicles, like poor people have to sell whatever they have -- because they're, you know, "all in it together."
We live in such silos of experience and information that there *is* no "all of us together." It's only "everyone like me, together."
We do know that at least one federal Liberal leadership hopeful seems to "get it" -- not from exercising brain power or following a policy train-of-thought through to its logical outcomes, but because a premier told her: and she is to be commended for listening and hearing, and using a debate platform to promote his message. Not that talk isn't cheap. But sometimes it's important to utter the words, because there is no other way for what they mean to break through the silo walls.
“'The coming days and weeks will be hard,' Ford said"
Hard for whom, Ford? The past days and weeks -- and years and years -- have been hard for a lot of people, for whom Ford has had no sympathy whatsoever, and whose lot he seems to see no reason to address.
"just think of the pandemic, during which we showed unity and solidarity, until we didn’t."
I'm not sure where the unity and solidarity was, except the same unity and solidarity that existed before the pandemic. There were still those who thought they were the only ones who counted. There were still the cliques of "just like me" support. But for those who most needed it? They were pretty much still on their own. I have one of, if not the best of all daughters in the world, so I wasn't.
Now: as far as this knee-jerk BS around pipelines, and rings-of-fire goes: get a grip!! The planet is still burning: Ford's own province is still alternately flooding and burning, as is most of Canada. And don't forget we wouldn't have been in this mess to begin with, if Ford hadn't decided when he was first elected to do his best to level all the climate gains that had been made under the Liberals. Who (don't forget) without consultation and without any mandate, sold off to friends, at bargain-basement prices, Ontario's prime electricity-producing infrastructure that wasn't theirs to sell: it was public property.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/12/18/analysis/energy-us-ontario-…
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/03/04/opinion/politicians-pipelin…
The trouble with punching a bigger bully is that it's not likely to end in a favorable result.
In the end, the whole exercise is all about moving assets up the wealth chain, letting the have-nothings die, pushing the havelittle's into being have-nothings, and as a remedy, simply fostering procreation amongst the grasping middle.
(And you'd be surprised how far up the income/wealth percentiles live those who believe themselves to be "in the middle.")
Like Trump is a “useful idiot” in Putin world?
I meant Trump voters. It appears that Trump is fully compromised, and expecting to be rewarded if he's a good boy. How different is the situation now from 8 years ago.
Check out:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-5-2025
Who knows about his enablers in all the places they are to be found, elected or otherwise.
Some stand to gain; some stand to lose if they don't hop to and heel. And like last time around, some are probably scared to say Boo.
The one kind of government procurement that doesn't even inconvenience civilians to cut, is military. (Sorry, troops...but don't worry, I think you're in for a lot more money.)
The F-35 cut is beyond obvious. Hit them in the pride. They do not make movies about their soybeans. They make movies about their awesome fighter jets. And it's $88B all in one announcement. Throw in AEGIS and a few others to round it up to $100B, in one announcement.
The really wonderful, in-my-fantasies kick in the balls that could be delivered in that speech would be to then say you are cancelling with relief, because Trump is right - it was all pay-for-protection to start with. That Canada was forced to shut down its own military industries and buy deliberately overpriced American weapons. That the F-35 uncancelation had been from furious lobbying by the Biden administration. But if America is no longer a reliable trade partner, if America is no longer a reliable ally that will protect our borders from others, then there's no need to go on buying from the $600-toilet-seat boys.
That would totally burn bridges, of course. Nobody says that kind of truth. But Trump started burning bridges; a truly courageous blow would be to show him what scorched earth looks like.
...with apologies for metaphor abuse in the last paragraph.
And, actually, not to ride my hobby-horse, you can stay off the "Trump is right, the weapons prices were payola" topic. Just go on a bit about the sheer price of all their systems, the 40-year-old American-based criticisms of profit runups that were dramatized with $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats. And that the war in Ukraine was completely changing the nature of war, America's offerings may no longer meet our needs.
...that would be about as devastating ('you aren't cool anymore') and stay off the really harsh 'payola' topic.
Weren't the F-35's were substantially paid for when ordered? I'd want to assess the downsides to cancellation, and the possible downsides to buying from a US company before deciding.
With US "loyalty" in question, Canada should be substantially improving its military capacity. Not long ago, I'd have thought I'd never say that. If the point is to not buy American, where should Canada seek similar equipment? Not EU, probably: they're busy beefing up production for their own use.
The current administration is unlikely to have the degree of power it does now in less than two years, when the "half-term" elections are held.
And the leader might not last as long as people think: some of his recent activity is clearly not part of his official duties, and is at the same time criminal in nature. The actual finding of SCOTUS was not what many media outlets reported. Also, cases don't have to be brought in a federal court.
Not to mention that he might wind up caught between the devil and the deep blue sea; what with political vs. financial dealings on the shady side possibly setting up conflicts between or amongst the various players.
Criminey! I knew so much less about the US judicial, electoral and governance systems just a couple of short years ago. And for that matter, about US domestic history.
By now, I'd rather it go back to the "old days," where it was about simply understanding the broadstrokes of the judicial system ins and outs there.
Push come to shove, neither the US nor Canada have ever in my lifetime been what we were taught they were.
And as far as trade deals goes, the US has a rather long history of (sorry) trumping up reasons to embargo Canadian product, taking it to the already-stacked dispute resolution body, and then using the penalty they inevitably are given as a starting point from which to negotiate the damages they'll actually pay out.
And Canada accepts that this is the kind of treatment they're likely to get. Why else would they set about diligently doing the US's border work for them. Because they're big and powerful, presumably. Trudeau the Elder said to I think it was Nixon, when I was still a teenager, "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." I read somewhere once (the image appealed to me in light of the Trudeau quote) that a mouse can enter an elephant's trunk, and without having any intention to do so, suffocate it. But elephants also do that "big sneeze" move, as when spraying water they've "inhaled." I've no idea what the physiological mechanism is, though ... and am left just with the juxtaposition of the quote and the image.
Good of Ford to remove US products from the LCBO shelves, but I did not see any Canadian products filling the now empty shelves!
Concerning electricity, does Ontario send any to the states where automobile factories are? It would be nice if Ford cut that supply!
I read a while ago about Mexico producing native corn whisky; it might be a suitable replacement, but I've no idea how it would compare to bourbon. And IIRC, it was being produced in small batches, so might be pricey.