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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.
Donald Trump’s declaration that Canada might keep away from a commerce struggle with the US by merging to develop into the “Cherished 51st State” has resurfaced the nation’s long-running existential disaster.
Though the suggestion was batted apart by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump just isn’t the primary particular person to query Canada’s sovereignty. A perceived lack of cultural id and divisions between east and west, French and English audio system, have led many Canadians to imagine that at some point our nation will merely disappear — both damaged aside or swallowed up.
Because the celebrated Canadian creator Mordecai Richler once put it: “No one is kind of positive what [Canadian] tradition is, what distinguishes it from the British or American ones, or, certainly, if we also have a nationwide tradition in any respect.”
What Richler calls a “essential embarrassment” could also be one cause why some Canadians are unconcerned on the concept of being absorbed by their southern neighbour. Whereas a recent poll by Abacus Information confirmed that almost all of individuals have been against becoming a member of the US, there have been noticeable cracks. Amongst these 45 and older, 80 per cent have been towards the thought. For these aged 18 to 29, nevertheless, the quantity was solely 54 per cent — with 26 per cent open to exploring a union.
Not all political leaders in Canada settle for the necessity for heavy-handed retaliation to Trump’s actions both. Danielle Smith of Alberta, house of Canada’s tar sands crude oil, refused to countenance halting exports of Canadian crude to the US as potential leverage in commerce negotiations.
Smith was not too long ago pictured alongside Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian businessman who brokered their assembly, has referred to as for nearer financial union between the 2 international locations, suggesting that Canada might drop its loonie and undertake the US greenback.
Half a century in the past, the Canadian political thinker George Grant lamented that Canada had ceased to be a sovereign nation, after strain from the US authorities helped doom the populist premiership of John Diefenbaker, hastening the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Canada.
Grant’s competition that Canada had develop into merely a “branch-plant satellite tv for pc”, depending on the US, is undoubtedly extra true right this moment.
The nation’s uncooked merchandise — crude oil and lumber — are despatched south throughout the border in larger quantity to be refined or completed. Exports to the US, which comprise roughly three-quarters of complete Canadian exports, quantity to roughly a fifth of GDP. US exports to Canada, in contrast, add as much as about 1.5 per cent of GDP.
However Grant’s lament impressed a renaissance of Canadian nationalism that reached a peak within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties below Pierre Trudeau’s assertive international coverage — throughout which he fashioned a friendship with Fidel Castro whereas being overtly essential of American President Richard Nixon.
It’s doable that Trump’s commerce offensive and his suggestion that the US might use financial drive towards Canada will do the identical factor right this moment. Canadians — ever apprehensive that nothing in addition to clichés (maple syrup, ice hockey) bind us collectively — could also be at the beginning of a resurgence in nationalism.
To date, Canada has introduced restricted “countermeasures” to Trump’s steep new tariffs, ought to they be applied after the 30-day reprieve introduced on Monday. A 25 per cent surcharge will likely be utilized to C$155bn (US$107bn) worth of imported US goods. However a long time of ever-tighter financial and political intertwinement between the 2 international locations have been ruptured.
Final weekend, Canadian sports activities followers booed the US nationwide anthem and American alcohol was faraway from retailer cabinets. In a sombre speech, Trudeau stated that Trump’s tariffs had “cut up us aside”.
He has additionally famous that Canadians outline their nationwide id partially as “not Individuals”. The unwieldy alliance between the francophones of Quebec and the anglophone loyalists that fashioned Canada in 1867 was based mostly on the identical concept.
Being firstly “not America” has contributed to Canada’s perennial existential angst. Now, nevertheless, it might assist to unite us in a extra optimistic nationwide id.
As a Canadian dwelling overseas, each time my accent is mistaken for American (on a regular basis), the response to my correction is often an apology and recognition from the opposite person who they may have prompted offence.
Internationally, we Canadians are identified to be good and well mannered however the specter of a expensive commerce struggle has made many really feel uncharacteristically offended. Nonetheless, because the Canadian creator and artist Douglas Coupland as soon as famous: “Individuals like Canada . . . we’re not after extra territory.”
