We are not treated well, as you know, by Canada. Canada is subsidized to the tune of about $200 billion a year, plus other things. They don鈥檛 essentially have a military. They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It鈥檚 all fine, but they鈥檝e got to pay for that. It鈥檚 very unfair. I have so many great friends. One of them is the Great One, Wayne Gretzky.
On January 7, one day after Justin Trudeau announced his plan to resign as prime minster, Donald Trump, then two weeks out from his second inauguration, spoke to reporters in Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, and accidentally set the tone for the coming Canadian election campaign.
The president-elect was in an expansive mood that day. He took questions for more than 40 minutes. He promised to take back the Panama Canal. He talked about the 鈥淚njustice Department鈥 and 鈥渃rooked judges鈥 and how America used to have 鈥渘o wars.鈥 But the one subject he kept coming back to, again and again, was Canada: how his northern neighbour was ripping off America and how serious he was about turning it into the 51st state.
I said, 鈥楻un for prime minister! ... It鈥檒l take two seconds!鈥 but he said, 鈥榃ell, am I going to run for prime minister or governor? You tell me.鈥 I said, 鈥業 don鈥檛 know. Let鈥檚 make it governor; I like it better.鈥
There used to be a saying about Trump: you have to take him seriously, not literally. He talks big, but he doesn鈥檛 mean it, not all of it. He doesn鈥檛 really want Greenland. He won鈥檛 put a vaccine denier in charge of American public health. He wouldn鈥檛 crush the economy of his largest trading partner just for kicks.
But something seemed different that day. Trump appeared serious. He was even coherent, by his standards. The campaign was over. He didn鈥檛 have to convince anyone anymore. He wasn鈥檛 ranting about anyone eating any dogs. He was just telling everyone literally how it was going to be.
And we鈥檙e going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada because Canada, they come through Canada, too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers, record numbers. So we鈥檙e going to make up for that by putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada, substantial tariffs. And we want to get along with everybody, but it takes two to tango.
Nine days after Trump鈥檚 address, Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, announced he was running to replace Trudeau. Two months later, he won the Liberal leadership on the first ballot, with over 85 per cent of the vote.
In his victory speech, Carney made it clear he had no plans to run a conventional election campaign. He wasn鈥檛 going to compete against the Conservative Party or the NDP. He was going to fight instead against someone whose name would not, or at least should not, ever be on a Canadian ballot.
鈥淭here鈥檚 someone who鈥檚 trying to weaken our economy,鈥 Carney said: 鈥淒onald Trump.鈥 He stopped, then said his name again: 鈥淒onald Trump.鈥
Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security.
The 2025 federal election will be remembered, when the books are written, as the Donald Trump campaign. For the first time in more than 150 years, the president of the United States was publicly and literally threatening Canada鈥檚 sovereignty.
For Carney and the Liberals, that existential menace has been a boon. Dead in the polls last year, the party rose again through the winter by pitching Carney as the anti-Trump, a serious and sober grown-up who could guide Canada through these troubled years.
Here鈥檚 the problem with Canada. I have so many friends up there. I love the Canadian people; they鈥檙e great. But we鈥檙e spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it. We鈥檙e spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada.
On a cold day in mid-April, Carney strode on stage in a concert hall in a converted industrial zone in Hamilton. He looked and sounded like someone who was winning and knew it. He was all smiles, campaigning in the heart of what has traditionally been one of the safest NDP seats in the country.
The venue was over capacity, with hundreds of people still lined up outside in the blowing snow. Carney, who is no natural in a crowd, seemed unusually relaxed, laughing and shaking hands and telling jokes onstage.
Carney wasn鈥檛 asking the audience for their vote that day. He was asking for a 鈥渟trong mandate鈥 鈥 not just a victory, but an overwhelming one, the kind that would drive the NDP out of places like Hamilton Centre, where the party had never lost, and deliver the Liberals a majority for the first time since 2015.
We don鈥檛 need their cars. You know, they make 20 per cent of our cars. We don鈥檛 need that. I鈥檇 rather make them in Detroit. We don鈥檛 need the cars; we don鈥檛 need their lumber.
Carney didn鈥檛 waste any time getting to the heart of his pitch. 鈥淲ho here is ready to help the Liberal Party win the most consequential election in our lifetime?鈥 he asked the crowd, moments into his address. 鈥淚t鈥檚 consequential for a number of reasons,鈥 he continued. 鈥淭he first is obvious.鈥
At that point, Carney did something strange. He said the name 鈥 鈥淧resident Trump鈥 鈥 then he tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders and almost seemed to roll his eyes. 鈥淧resident Trump,鈥 he said again, like a comedian hammering the punchline a second time. And at that, the audience began to boo. 鈥淵eah, I鈥檓 afraid I have to talk about him,鈥 Carney went on. 鈥淚 have to talk about him!鈥 He was laughing now, and the audience joined in, mixing boos with their laughter.
It was almost as if, in that moment, Carney recognized his luck. He was a rookie politician leading a floundering party. And instead of running on the Liberal record, he was getting to campaign against Donald Trump, the boogeyman under Canada鈥檚 bed.
They should be a state. That鈥檚 what I told Trudeau when he came down.
Before Trump stepped to the podium that day in January, before he doubled down on the 51st-state threat and hammered home his plan to hammer Canada with crippling tariffs, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was, by near-universal consensus among the Canadian pundit and political classes, the next prime minister of this country.
He had a 25-point lead in the polls. He had destroyed Trudeau and wrecked the benign and hapless NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh. He was far from beloved, even in his own party, but he looked unbeatable 鈥 a political force with an uncanny knack for clearing the board of anything and anyone in his way.
By the time the campaign started in late March, it was clear to everyone, except perhaps to Poilievre himself, that things had changed. For the first week of the election, he seemed to want to pretend that Trump didn鈥檛 exist at all. It was as if he were running to be president of the three little pigs on a platform of better slop: That鈥檚 wonderful, sir, but what about the wolf?
We have massive fields of lumber. We don鈥檛 need their lumber. 鈥 We don鈥檛 need anything they have. We don鈥檛 need their dairy products; we have more than they have. We don鈥檛 need anything.
At his first major rally of the campaign, in suburban Toronto, Poilievre never mentioned Trump in English. He said his name only once in French, according to Scott Stinson, who covered the event for the Star. When Conservative insiders started panicking in the press, Poilievre pivoted, but only sort of.
On April 2, less than four weeks from election day, Poilievre addressed a crowd of Conservatives in downtown Toronto. Looking back on the speech now, it stands out for surprising reasons. Poilievre dedicated the first 12 minutes of his address to Trump, but he did so in a strangely measured way
He may be the most naturally gifted attack dog in the history of Canadian politics. No one has ever done derision better, or vitriol. But on Trump, Poilievre was almost passive; he literally quoted the Christian Serenity Prayer: 鈥淕od help me to accept the things I cannot change.鈥
I said that to, as I called him, Governor Trudeau, I said, 鈥楲isten, what would happen if we didn鈥檛 subsidize you, if we didn鈥檛鈥 鈥 because we give them a lot of money. We help them 鈥 as an example, we鈥檙e buying icebreakers, and Canada wants to join us in the buying of icebreakers. I said, 鈥榃e don鈥檛 really want to have a partner on the buying of icebreakers.鈥
Poilievre is a remarkably disciplined speaker. He can hit the same lines in the same order in two languages over and again. But at one point during the Q-and-A that followed his speech, he seemed to slip closer to something real.
鈥淚f you want to know what I鈥檒l do,鈥 he said, in response to a question from the 海角社区官网Sun, 鈥渋t鈥檚 what I鈥檝e been saying for the last 10 years. It hasn鈥檛 changed. I have said exactly the same thing for the last 10 years, and it turns out that the things we must do to counter Donald Trump are all the things I said we should be doing before even he threatened the tariffs.鈥
We don鈥檛 need their cars, and we don鈥檛 need the other products. We don鈥檛 need their milk. We鈥檝e got a lot of milk; we鈥檝e got a lot of everything, and we don鈥檛 need any of it.
If Poilievre does lose, I think that moment will demonstrate why. He revealed, with those words, a fundamental failure of political imagination. The world changed when Trump was re-elected. It changed again, for Canada, when he threatened and then imposed a series of crippling tariffs. It changed forever on January 7, when Trump delivered the address quoted throughout this piece and made it crystal clear he wasn鈥檛 joking about turning this country into the 51st state.
Poilievre never campaigned as if any of that was real. He didn鈥檛 ignore it. But he didn鈥檛 internalize it either. He never seemed to grasp the magnitude of the change.
The president of the United States is undoing the world order that has kept Canada safe, that made Canada rich. And Poilievre鈥檚 answer wasn鈥檛 to attack Trump; it was to brag to Canadians that he, Pierre Poilievre, had been right about everything all along.
So, I said to (Trudeau), 鈥榃ell, why are we doing it?鈥 He said, 鈥業 don鈥檛 really know.鈥 He was unable to answer the question, but I can answer it. We鈥檙e doing it because of habit, and we鈥檙e doing it because we like our neighbours, and we鈥檝e been good neighbours. But we can鈥檛 do it forever.
This was the Donald Trump Election in Canada. In the end, that was the only thing it could have been. Whoever wins Monday will have to deal first and foremost with Canada鈥檚 place in Trump鈥檚 world. There will be no good choices, no happy compromises. After all the 鈥渆lbows up鈥 nationalism has faded, the new prime minister will be left with a country full of frightened people expecting simple answers that won鈥檛 be there. If it is Carney, I wonder if, in a few weeks鈥 time, when the raw hurt has dimmed and the cameras have gone away, Poilievre will admit to himself, if only to himself, that he鈥檚 grateful he didn鈥檛 win.
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