For all the money and privilege he was handed by his parents, Donald Trump’s most valuable inheritance might be his instinctive ability to detect and expose weakness in others. He’s used it to devastating effect on any number of political foes in his own country, from former opponents like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to his own vice-president, JD Vance. Now, with his threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian exports on his first day back in office, he’s exposing the weakness of Conservatives north of the border as well.
The last time Trump came for Canada, savvy countermeasures targeted the constituencies of key allies, like a tariff on bourbon that struck at Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. But this time, rather than aligning behind a “Team Canada” strategy to deal with the threat, Canada’s Conservative premiers and politicians have rushed to the nearest media platform to pledge their fealty to Trump. And if they have to sacrifice the country’s best interests in order to protect the oil and gas industry and harm their political opponents? Well, just watch them.
Trump’s tariff threat was premised on the idea that “drugs, in particular fentanyl,” and “illegal aliens” are entering the U.S. via Canada. Rather than pushing back, the Conservatives piled on. Alberta premier Danielle Smith opened the bidding last night with a social media post declaring that the Trump administration “has valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border.” True to form, she blamed the Trudeau government for everything, suggesting that it needed to “work with the incoming administration to resolve these issues immediately.”
Former CPC leader Erin O’Toole raised the ante in his own social media offering by suggesting that “first, we should offer to help finance the Keystone XL pipeline.” Ontario premier Doug Ford offered his own take on obsequiousness by placing an American flag in the background of his presser on the tariffs. As Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne asked rhetorically, “Why not put a white flag up while you’re at it?”
Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, decided this was yet another opportunity to advance his pre-existing policy priorities and blame the federal government for everything bad happening in the country. Our economy, he said, “is teetering on the brink of collapse,” and we need to come to terms with our “unprecedented weakness.” As far as negotiating strategies go, this is a new one.
But Poilievre isn’t actually interested in negotiating successfully with the Trump administration right now. He’s far more invested in weaponizing the negotiations against his Liberal opponents. “Justin Trudeau must put partisanship aside,” he said in a hilarious moment of unintentional irony, “not just for Team Canada, but for the sake of our people, and fully reverse his liberalization of drugs. Ban them, prosecute those who traffic against them, secure our borders against the illegal importation of fentanyl ingredients.”
Never mind, for the moment, that his statement acknowledges that said ingredients are, in fact, illegal, or that the Trudeau government hasn’t decriminalized fentanyl. Reversing the so-called liberalization of drugs — which, presumably, also includes its legalization of marijuana — would do exactly nothing about the volumes of fentanyl being moved across the US border. And, of course, the Trump administration just nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the role of Health and Human Services secretary, someone who just happens to be a big proponent of liberalizing the treatment of marijuana and psychedelics.
But this was far from the only bias Poilievre wanted to re-confirm. When pressed about the need for a united front on this issue, he decided it would be better to talk about the importance of the oil and gas sector. “What we actually need to do is stand up for our economy by axing taxes, unleashing free enterprise, and having a massive boom in our energy and resource production.”
If anything, this is a plan to piss off the Trump administration — and Trump in particular. He has been clear about his interest in increasing American oil and gas production in pursuit of both energy independence and “energy dominance”. A massive boom in Canada’s oil and gas output would directly threaten both of those things, along with harming the American oil and gas industry that donated so heavily to Trump’s campaign. It’s almost like he hasn’t thought this position through fully.
Then again, that’s the essence of Poilievre’s approach to politics: shoot first, aim second. His decision to opt for noisy point-scoring over quiet diplomacy is yet another reminder for the Liberal government that this round of negotiations with the Trump administration won’t be the same as the first. They cannot, and should not, expect the sort of cross-partisan unity that defined their attempts to save NAFTA from the Trump team’s paranoid mercantilism.
“I only care about Canada,” Poilievre said during his scrum. “I want to put Canada first.” If only that were true of both him and his fellow Conservatives. Instead, it seems like they’ve decided it’s every man and woman for themselves, especially if it means they can advance their pre-existing agendas around energy and climate change. If there’s one silver lining here it’s in Trump’s ability to serve as a mirror of others, one that exposes the depth and content of their character. We’d do well to take a hard look at what it’s saying about the people who want to lead us.
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