Canada is under existential stress that will make or break us

Betrayed. Angry. And above all, anxious. That’s the general feeling among Canadians this week as the U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods kicked in.

A good friend of mine, a usually unflappable high-placed business person, woke up to a panic attack Monday morning. Another friend’s blood pressure spiked and has been put on medication until it calms down. Yet another friend found herself in tears when the house next to her was knocked down for redevelopment. There was nothing special about the house, and she later acknowledged it was the state of the world making her feel as though “everything is being wrecked.”

Like me, literally everyone I’ve talked to over the past few weeks has had some 4 a.m. sleepless ruminations about our powerful friend turned world enemy. These are not unreasonable fears.

There are enormous economic concerns, of course. The prospect of thousands of jobs lost and a massive recession is reason enough for worry.

On Thursday, Trump paused some of the tariffs, promising to bring them back in April if his unclear and ever-changing demands aren’t met — a partial reprieve that somehow manages to breed even more uncertainty and economic turmoil.

But the possibility that this could be much more than a trade war — the prospect that what U.S. President Donald Trump actually wants is to expand his territory with a takeover of Canada — is ramping up stress to a new level. Our prime minister is not ruling it out.

At the moment, anger is pulling us together. It feels like those early days in the pandemic when neighbours banged pots and pans to applaud health officials and posted signs in the windows saying “Be Kind.”

But I worry our current consensus, once the full economic effect of the tariffs take hold, will crumble and backfire just as the buy-in for pandemic safety measures did. Mandatory pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates ultimately did more to divide Canadians than all past squabbles over taxes, trade or foreign policy put together.

We saw it with the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” an ugly protest that shut down an Ottawa neighbourhood for three weeks. We saw it with death threats against RCMP officers policing the borders. And we’ve seen it playing out in our political dynamic. 

The popularity of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who hobnobbed with the convoy protestors, soared in the years following the pandemic. Canada’s convoy protest was a far cry from the assault on Capitol Hill following Trump’s loss in 2021. But the undercurrent of anger, loss of faith in government, and mistrust of science among Poilievre supporters mirrors those of Americans who voted Trump back in for a second term. And now, here we are with an American president using on-again, off-again tariff threats to sow divisiveness among his closest trading partners, and potentially Canada’s provinces. This is a pivotal moment where infighting could threaten our existence as a nation.

Canada is a huge country made up of provinces with radically different interests. Ontario is a manufacturing hub that stands to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, many in the automotive industry, because of the tariffs. Alberta depends on oil exports and will resist any efforts to use their resource as a bargaining chip. If a deal can not be struck with Trump on the tariffs and the trade war escalates, it’s hard to see how oil, our most lucrative export, can be left out of the equation.

When people lose jobs, income and security, they lose hope and look for someone to blame. Right now, Canadians are pointing the finger at Trump. But that could easily turn and Trump’s selective tariff carveouts could provide the divide-and-conquer strategy that leads us to blame each other.

There is a better way. With resolve, we can stand shoulder-to-shoulder and resist Trump’s attempts to further divide us. There are some positive signs. Poilievre’s combative, dismissive style seems to be wearing thin and polls suggest Canadians are now leaning toward the Liberals led by Mark Carney, who is seen as a leader who can bargain with Trump and unite the country rather than exploit the fissures already dividing us.

Impromptu boycotts against U.S. food and manufactured goods are picking up steam and Canadians are cancelling travel plans south of the border. The Canadian flag, co-opted by the convoy supporters as a symbol of protest, is flying in huge numbers on homes, vehicles, and businesses. Its message has shifted. Now it feels again like a symbol of solidarity, pride in Canada and our resolve to keep our country intact.