Canada’s premiers have been spirited in their reactions to president-elect Donald Trump’s existential threat of hitting Canada with 25-per-cent tariffs. Their provocative comments have rubbed some the wrong way, but they shouldn’t be dismissed as unhelpful. Given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political struggles, and the fact that conservative premiers are at least Republican-adjacent, Canadians should hope they play an outsized role in talks with the incoming administration.
It goes beyond Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s contention that the provinces are stepping in to fill a leadership void caused by Ottawa’s inaction on border security, or various premiers’ vows to do more border patrols.
It’s the way Danielle Smith and Doug Ford communicate: Even if they don’t speak exactly like Donald Trump – nobody does – they speak a dialect. Is the incoming United States president likely to listen to the dulcet management consultant tones of the federal Liberals? Or someone like Mr. Ford, who often evokes the visceral, in a manner similar to Mr. Trump? The examples are endless, but the Ontario Premier’s recent description that the threat of tariffs are “like a family member stabbing you right in the heart” is a good one.
A New Yorker piece by Joshua Rothman after the U.S. election last month laid out this language dynamic: “Democrats preach while Republicans riff; Democrats stick to their messages while Republicans let loose with whatever comes into their heads.”
He added that in the Democratic world, people speak defensively, mindful of the concern that their words might come back to haunt them. Republicans, on the other hand, speak offensively, with the aim of making things happen and with less care around what was said in the past. “Each side hates the way the other talks. To Republicans, Democrats seem rehearsed and wooden, trapped by orthodoxy, teacherly in a condescending way. To Democrats, Republicans seem scattershot, unserious, unhinged.”
This is true, to a lesser extent, in Canada as well: Just replace the word Democrats with progressives, and Republicans with the word conservative.
When it comes to our economic sectors, there is strength amongst the premiers, too. Mr. Ford has his connections in the auto sector, and Ms. Smith understands the energy file like no other premier.
You might disagree with Ms. Smith’s devotion to fossil fuels, and lament her lack of a climate plan. But she actually grasps the forces that drive rising global demand for oil and natural gas, and knows what refineries in the Midwest and Gulf Coast gobble up Canadian crude in ever-increasing amounts. This makes a difference when talking to leaders in energy producing and processing states, from Texas to Pennsylvania.
And it will make a difference to the people Mr. Trump surrounds himself with as well. On Friday night, when the Prime Minister met with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago resort, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum was also present. Mr. Burgum is Mr. Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department, and to lead a council to establish American “energy dominance.”
Alberta’s Premier already has a working relationship with Mr. Burgum, and she also signed on to a key energy pact, the Governors’ Coalition for Energy Security, with 14 mostly red American states last month.
That’s not to say there haven’t been missteps. The Alberta Premier’s social-media post after Mr. Trump announced his pledge for the 25-per-cent tariffs noted that Alberta’s energy exports to the U.S. are delivered through pipelines that don’t “contribute to these illegal activities at the border.” That suggested other sectors of the economy, or other parts of the country, are somehow the problem. And Mr. Ford shouldn’t have been the first to throw Mexico under the bus, although others soon followed, by speaking about abandoning the trilateral North American trade agreement.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is considered a potential successor to Mr. Trudeau, appears to understand the importance of the premiers. On CBC last week, he made clear the Prime Minister doesn’t control what they say, even as he emphasized that Mr. Ford and others want to work together, especially in speaking to governors they have worked with. “If premiers with relationships in the United States want to work with the Government of Canada … we’re encouraged by that.”
There is also the fact that premiers such as Ms. Smith, Mr. Ford and Mr. Legault are likely to be in positions of power much longer than Mr. Trudeau, who looks increasingly desperate to hold on, resorting to measures such as his clunky two-month GST holiday.
There should be a Team Canada approach to stave off Mr. Trump’s tariffs, yes. But Canada is a big, economically diverse country with a Liberal Prime Minister in his political twilight. A team approach does not equal homogeneity, and that’s a good thing.