Image: Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew
Ever since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, Canada has been facing an existential challenge of the highest order. From Trump’s sneering references to Justin Trudeau as Canada’s governor to his repeated mantra about Canada becoming a 51st American state to the wrecking ball he has taken to the Canadian auto industry and forest sector, we have been facing a barrage of hostility from a neighbour we had grown to take for granted. For sure, there had been various irritants in Canada-U.S. relations over the years and significant divergences with respect to our foreign policies on a range of issues – Cuba, the Vietnam war and the Iraq war to name but three. But for long, we celebrated the longest unarmed frontier in the world and the generally friendly relationship and close alliance that had developed between our two countries.
No longer true with the present incumbent in the White House. Mark Carney won the April federal election for one reason and one reason only. His opponent, Pierre Poilievre, and the party he led were seen as too close to the Trump brand of politics for our collective liking. Carney, by contrast, seemed to offer the prospect of beginning to move away from our excessive dependence on the United States, forging closer trade relationships with European and other countries and focusing on strengthening our internal bonds, faced as we were with a much more adversarial neighbour.
Ordinary Canadians happily followed along. We have seen increasing numbers of Canadians boycotting American goods, refusing to travel to the United States and voicing their indignation through grassroots movements like Elbows Up. For once, Quebec and the rest of Canada seemed aligned, with rivals of yesteryear like Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper singing from the same songbook.
But the last six months has also seen the development of a deep fissure where Alberta, in particular, is concerned. Its Premier, Danielle Smith, and the party she heads, the United Conservative Party, have been a consistent outlier from the rest of Canada. She has pressed for minimal retaliation against American tariffs and for the weakening of Canadian environmental standards, while championing new pipelines to transport Alberta gas and oil to the Pacific. She has taken to invoking the notwithstanding clause on a range of issues, from an Alberta teachers’ strike to the status of transgender youth, in ways that significantly weaken the Charter of Rights. And she has toyed with the idea of holding an eventual referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada should the province’s overall demands not be met.
In doing so, she speaks to the base of her own party, which in a number of respects is much more closely aligned with the values of Trump’s MAGA movement than are most Canadians. The same is largely true for Scott Moe and the Saskatchewan Party government he heads, though he has been less flamboyant in his public stances than Smith.
It may be worth recalling that in the early 20th century Alberta had a large influx of settlers from the United States. This helped impart more of a populist style to the province’s politics, reinforced through successive stages in Alberta’s political history. It is perhaps no surprise that a province which once had Bible Bill Aberhart at its helm now has Danielle Smith as its Premier.
Needless to say, not everyone in Alberta or Saskatchewan hews to the political right. The cities in both provinces generally lean more toward the centre-left of the political spectrum. Yet when it comes to electoral politics, both provinces return solid Conservative majorities federally, election after election.
The two other western provinces, however, are following a different course. Both at the moment have NDP governments, Manitoba with a Premier of Métis origin. British Columbia – where Greenpeace was born – is home to what is probably the strongest environmental movement in Canada. A BC Liberal government introduced the first broad-based revenue-neutral carbon tax in North America in 2008. Elizabeth May has been a Green MP from BC since 2011.
There has been strong opposition from the current BC government and First Nations to the North Coast pipeline proposed by Alberta, for fear of the environmental damage tanker traffic could pose to the north coast of the province – though BC is prepared, as a concession to Alberta, to allow an increase in the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline terminating in the Lower Mainland
To be sure, many in BC, especially in the province’s interior, are of a ruggedly individualistic frame of mind. Just as Alberta and Saskatchewan are politically divided, so is BC or, for that matter, Manitoba. But with two provincial governments leaning to the centre-left and two to the right, the least one can say is that the west as a whole is divided into two.
Where does this leave us when it comes to dealing with the Trump menace? At one level, with a new national unity problem, with Alberta superseding Quebec as the one threatening to potentially go its own way. This may explain why the Carney government is treading very carefully in trying to appease Alberta when it comes to its pipeline demands.
But the need to rethink our carbon-based energy model, given the reality of global warming, is not about to vanish. The Carney government will have to find a way of balancing the need for new export markets for Alberta-based oil and gas with fostering alternative energy sources on a mega scale, if it is to make Canada a credible energy superpower. And in the process, it needs to ensure that our collective standing up to the ogre next door does not lead us into a competitive race to the bottom, when it comes to environmental policies for the future.
