Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives to the EU-Canada leaders meeting at the European Council building, in Brussels, on Feb. 12.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Not long after I moved to Italy a decade and a half ago, I struck up a conversation with a Roman woman – I forget her occupation, but think she was a lawyer – that went from friendly to shockingly amusing in a couple of minutes. She told me she had always wanted to visit Canada “to see all the kangaroos,” assuming that the beasts lived in our wide open Prairies, as they do in the open spaces of Australia.
I burst into laughter, then realized she was serious and felt bad about embarrassing her. I should not have been surprised. Often, being Canadian in Europe is like being the Invisible Man. No one knows much about Canada; worse, few Europeans seem to care about its existence.
Scroll forward to today, the second era of Donald Trump, and the non-interest in Canada remains the same, or worse. Few European leaders seem worried about Canada’s fate even as Mr. Trump refers to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the “governor” of Canada, the soon-to-be 51st state, and clobbers its economy with tariffs.
Mr. Trump also wants to buy Greenland. European leaders were quick to defend the interests of that country, an autonomous territory of Denmark with a population of 57,000. But Canada, a G7, NATO and British Commonwealth member with a population of more than 40 million? Forget it. Barely a peep – and the few peeps that did emerge were indirect. A couple of weeks ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said “the principle of border integrity applies to every nation,” but did not specifically mention Canada.
To be sure, Canada’s own disappearing act in Europe is in good part its own fault. Its economic, military and cultural presence on the continent has been in steady decline for decades. No wonder European leaders need to be prodded now and again to remember that Canada is more than poutine and maple syrup and the grubby oil sands.
Take the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. During the Cold War years, Canadian forces – having played a major role in the defeat of Nazi Germany, the liberation of Netherlands and the invasion of fascist southern Italy – had a significant presence in Western Europe. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Royal Canadian Air Force maintained several squadrons of CF-104 Starfighter jets in West Germany in nuclear strike and reconnaissance roles.
Today, Canada’s role in NATO is minor. It is one of only eight of the alliance’s 32 member countries that has failed to meet the minimum defence spending threshold of 2 per cent of GDP (the last figure was 1.37 per cent) and has no plan to get there before 2032. Mr. Trump, who calls NATO a rip-off for the United States, wants members to lift their defence spending to 5 per cent – an impossibility for Canada.
Canada has missed many opportunities to bump up its presence in Europe. A few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, Mr. Scholz went to Canada practically begging for supplies of liquefied natural gas to keep the lights on in Germany as Russian gas supplies went short, then almost disappeared. But Canada simply didn’t have the LNG infrastructure to deliver gas across the Atlantic, and it still doesn’t. The upshot? The LNG market in Germany and other energy-short parts of northern Europe are now dominated by American gas companies.
On a few occasions, Canadian leaders won no points with their European Union counterparts. The one that stands out in recent years was Mr. Trudeau’s berating of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the G7 summit in 2023 for her country’s LGBTQ rights, or lack thereof. Ms. Meloni, one of the most popular and powerful leaders in Europe, was not amused. It is unimaginable that she, one of only two foreign leaders invited to Mr. Trump’s inauguration last month (the other was Argentine President Javier Milei), will rush to Canada’s defence as Mr. Trump threatens Canadian sovereignty.
Other big-name European leaders are smart enough to know that siding with Canada could earn the wrath of Mr. Trump and backfire on them. Mr. Scholz faces an election on Feb. 23 that could wreck his career and has better things to worry about. France is in political chaos: President Emmanuel Macron lost three prime ministers in 2024. His centrist political agenda is unravelling fast. Canada is equally far from his mind.
That leaves Britain. King Charles III has said boo about Canada’s predicaments. British monarchs do have a long-standing tradition of political neutrality. But still, you think he would at least deliver a reassuring nod to his Canadian subjects as Mr. Trump demands Canada’s capitulation. So much for being a member of the Commonwealth, with the king (or queen) as your head of state. In this case, it counts for nothing.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer seems equally reluctant to take a pro-Canada stand. Britain looks lonely on the planet and doesn’t want to become even more so. It bolted from the EU and cannot afford to alienate the Trump White House by slamming the President for assaulting Canada.
As Mr. Trump browbeats Canada, it looks to be on its own. And Canada has a distinct lack of aircraft carriers (it had one until 1970) and nuclear submarines to browbeat him back. Canadians are used to being liked, even loved, wherever they go. Not this time. In the new Trump era, it’s every country for itself.