President Donald Trump has given Canadian politicians across the spectrum a fight they don’t want, but from which they can’t back down. This has created creating an unusual wave of national unity in the fractious country.
“The president has created a unique phenomenon, and even provinces who don’t usually agree are working together,” said Ravi Kahlon, minister of housing for British Columbia and house leader for the province’s ruling left-of-center New Democratic Party (NDP).
While neighboring Alberta — home to the oil sands — is run by what is probably Canada most right-of-center government, the province’s residents “are among the strongest, most patriotic Canadians,” Kahlon said in an interview last week. “When Trump threatened to make Canada the 51st state, they turned on this.”
“People in Canada are fed up — this isn’t a a reflection of where Canadians are with Americans, it’s aimed squarely at President Trump,” Kahlon said. “If Canada is in this situation, what chance does any other country have?”
A new prime minister
Kahlon spoke before the federal Liberal party picked Mark Carney to be its new leader, and by extension the country’s next prime minister. Kahlon said he didn’t have thoughts on the choice, but that he wants the next federal election — due within months — to yield a prime minister who will stand firm against Trump.
This desire is widely held, and has so far benefited the Liberals, who have taken a polling league over the opposition Conservatives for the first time in about four years. Party leader Pierre Poilievre must battle public perceptions that he’s ideologically too close to Trump. He’s already declared he’s “not MAGA.”
A pivot is possible: The Progressive Conservative government of Premier Doug Ford of Ontario won reelection last month after he flipped from public Trump fan to an anti-tariff warrior who barred American-made alcoholic beverages from from province-owned liquor stores.
‘A serious threat’
“People in Canada see this [talk of annexation] as a serious threat, which got even realer when we saw the U.S. side with Russia over Ukraine,” Kahlon said. While some people initially took Trump’s comments about Canada becoming the 51st state as a joke, his constant repetition means Canadians are no longer laughing, Kahlon said.
British Columbia is particularly sensitive to an extended trade war, with 65% to 70% of its exports going to the U.S. and other provinces are in similar situations, Kahlon said.
The province has introduced legislation that would allow it to impose tolls on American trucks crossing the province from Washington state to Alaska, part of a wider push by federal and provincial governments to consider non-tariff forms of retaliation. British Columbia earlier banned alcohol from states won by Trump from province-owned liquor stores.
Tariff retaliation
Canada’s staged retaliation is still in place, despite Trump having delayed the imposition of most tariffs until next month, with national leaders still actively considering the possibility of imposing export duties to raise the price of energy sent south. Some American oil refineries rely on Canadian feedstock.
Kahlon would rather it didn’t come to that. “We didn’t wan’t to be in this situation,” he said. “We need to resolve this issue and move on to important problems that we need to address together.”
