Premier David Eby shows support for Canada in the face of U.S. tariffs at the inner harbour in Victoria on Tuesday. Instead of reacting to Donald's Trumps escalating tactics, Canada should focus on building up from within.Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press
At a border crossing in B.C. on Tuesday, Premier David Eby showcased one of the more embarrassing side effects of the ongoing trade war with the United States. After a performance by a rapper named OGR-Scintilla, who performs parodies of pop songs using Canadian-themed lyrics, the B.C. Premier took to the podium wearing a red-and-black plaid jacket, which he dubbed “the single most Canadian piece of clothing” he owns.
Mr. Eby then unveiled new welcome signs that would be erected at U.S.-Canada border crossings, signs that read: “Welcome to British Columbia, Canada. Strong, proud and will NEVER be the 51st state. Sorry!”
“This is a uniquely Canadian message,” Mr. Eby declared, to cheers from the flag-waving crowd. “It’s confident, good humour and unmistakably clear.”
The stated message might indeed be clear, but the message tacitly conveyed by all of this – the cheesy rapping, the Salmo dinner jacket, the superfluous “sorry!” on our border signs – is far less dignified. It’s cringe Canadiana, an embarrassing parade of the most superficial Canadian tropes, which we might think projects confidence, but actually conveys the opposite.
The appropriate response to U.S. President Donald Trump renaming Lake Ontario is to laugh in his face, and then to continue on with the important work of governing a serious country that is not making enemies of all of its former allies. It is not to spend $25,000 of taxpayers’ money on a giant Lake Ontario sign, as Ontario Premier Doug Ford did, which essentially functions as a massive billboard showcasing how Mr. Trump has gotten under our skin. It is a reaction – not a response. And bullies love a reaction.
Stop taking Trump’s ‘Lake America’ bait. Focus on what really matters
Premiers Ford and Eby have adopted this type of cringe Canadiana because it’s easy: it signals loyalty, costs relatively little, and provides that instant dopamine hit that, for example, sitting around a table for a week and standardizing safety codes and licensing requirements across all provinces does not (that’s a hint, premiers). Regular Canadians have also demonstrated their willingness to make relatively painless sacrifices by buying Canadian when possible, and by making pilgrimages to Costa Rica instead of Florida for the winter. But recent data reveal that Canadians are far less interested in fighting if and when the financial effects are more personally significant.
In standing up to Mr. Trump, we should not turn ourselves into a cheap caricature of what it means to be Canadian.Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press
This week, policy organization Build Canada released the results of a survey asking Canadians how they feel about Ottawa’s response to U.S. economic aggression. It found that Canadians overwhelmingly supported (75 per cent) holding firm against the U.S. and not making concessions, but it also found that that support weakens dramatically when Canadians are asked about specific personal costs. For example, just 15 per cent supported holding firm if it meant higher taxes, and only 6 per cent supported holding firm if it risks household job loss.
These results are not particularly surprising; standing up to Mr. Trump is fun and easy when it means wearing checkered coats and buying local strawberries. It is less fun when it affects retirement savings or amounts to thousands more owed in annual taxes.
Opinion: The whole world is watching as Canada stands up to Trump
The good news is that some of the most important work of responding to U.S. economic coercion is happening quietly, behind the scenes. On Wednesday, Ottawa published a regulatory change in the Gazette that removed certain energy projects from federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA) oversight. What that means is that projects that are already subject to the Canadian Energy Regulator Act (CERA) or provincial environmental assessments will no longer be subject to the IAA, which streamlines regulatory approval, meaning things will get built faster. This is exactly the type of response Canada should have to Mr. Trump’s escalating tactics: continue to forge new trade relationships, lure the best and brightest to Canada, create incentives for businesses to grow and stay in Canada, and remove regulatory red tape. For an economy like Canada’s, which will never match that of the U.S. in size, lashing out will never be as effective as building up from within.
Canada must obviously defend against American economic attacks where appropriate. We should correct the lies. But we should also ignore the ridiculous. If Mr. Trump wants to post his AI-generated fantasies and scribble all over his map with a magic marker, we should let him. Maybe he’ll get distracted by his colouring, or perhaps we can preoccupy him by letting him know that there’s a tributary in the U.S. called the Canadian River. But there’s no reason for us to stoop to his level, or to turn ourselves into a cheap caricature of what it means to be Canadian. It’s ineffective, and also, kind of embarrassing. We can let the U.S. have a monopoly on that.