U.S.’s bad behaviour towards Canada is a lesson for the world
TORONTO—There is nothing wrong with Prime Minister Mark Carney making frequent trips to Europe. The Europeans are clearly as alarmed about the state of things as we are. I think we should be showing a little more love and attention to some of our allies and partners in other regions of the world—especially the Asian democracies—but overall, you won’t hear me criticizing the prime minister for going to Europe.
But I do think we ought to be properly calibrating our expectations. The Europeans aren’t going to save us. Right now, we are an asset to them largely because we are keeping the Americans distracted. Our torment is Europe’s self-interest.
Canada needs to be realistic about what we can count on from our allies and what we can’t. I think there is a real opportunity to expand co-operation on trade and defence. Canadian and European interests align there. But what else are the Europeans going to do? Nothing. I can’t even think of something I could ask them to do.
Maybe there are some diplomatic initiatives we could partner on? But right now, neither Canada nor Europe has much hard power to back that up with, which is kind of the problem, right? There might also be some ways that we could co-operate to reduce our dependence on American technology platforms or financial services. Things like that are definitely worth exploring and quickly. To the extent that we can get our own infrastructure problems sorted out, we should obviously sell the Europeans as much Canadian product and as many Canadian services as they can afford.
But still, we’re going to have to make our peace with the fact that we are on our own. Our allies can help us. But they will only help us to the extent that doing so does not conflict with their own interests. A big interest of theirs is staying off of United States President Donald Trump’s radar.
But we can make them watch.
That’s why I’m so pleased to see the prime minister and other Canadian officials making frequent trips to Europe. Through secure channels, private briefings, and conversations—as well as public statements by Canadian officials at whatever fora where we can finagle an invitation—we should be telling the entire world exactly what is happening with us and the Americans.
We should especially make a point of impressing upon them that what the Americans would do to us, they would do to them, and they could easily be next.
It’s hard to have much faith in America these days. One of the bizarre things about the current moment is that it’s increasingly hard even to have faith that the U.S. administration will act in their own self-interest, however narrowly they define it. A great deal of what America is doing these days is quite obviously self-destructive.
But I still try to cling to some residual hope that, at some point, the White House and the MAGA types the president has surrounded himself with will start to realize that flailing at Canada is not a good look for them.
This won’t happen quickly, alas. There is clearly a segment of the president’s voter base that dislikes our country and seems to enjoy his hostility toward us. It is what it is.
But there are still plenty of Americans—and I assume this will include some who are close to the president—who will care if world opinion turns sharply against America, if only because it’s bad for business.
And that is one of our points of leverage.
We cannot stop the Americans from doing what they are doing and what they will do next. But we can make damn sure that the entire world sees them doing it, including parts of the world where a great many Americans have interests of their own.
It’s not the best strategy, I know. I’m effectively proposing that we go out of our way to livestream our own flogging. I would have much preferred to avoid the flogging altogether.
But we didn’t, and we can’t. So let’s make sure the whole world witnesses it. And if that means sending Carney back and forth across the Atlantic like a yo-yo, I can live with that.
Matt Gurney is a Toronto-based journalist. He is co-editor of The Line (ReadTheLine.ca), an online magazine. He can be reached at matt@readtheline.ca.
The Hill Times