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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 battle with the US by merging to grow to be 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 shouldn’t be the primary individual 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 someday our nation will merely disappear — both damaged aside or swallowed up.
Because the celebrated Canadian creator Mordecai Richler as soon as put it: “Nobody is quite sure what [Canadian] culture is, what distinguishes it from the British or American ones, or, indeed, if we even have a national culture at all.”
What Richler calls a “crucial embarrassment” could also be one purpose why some Canadians are unconcerned on the thought of being absorbed by their southern neighbour. Whereas a current ballot by Abacus Knowledge confirmed that almost all of individuals had been against becoming a member of the US, there have been noticeable cracks. Amongst these 45 and older, 80 per cent had been towards the thought. For these aged 18 to 29, nonetheless, 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 just lately 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 nations, 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 grow to be merely a “branch-plant satellite”, depending on the US, is undoubtedly extra true at present.
The nation’s uncooked merchandise — crude oil and lumber — are despatched south throughout the border in better 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 beneath Pierre Trudeau’s assertive overseas coverage — throughout which he shaped a friendship with Fidel Castro whereas being overtly essential of American President Richard Nixon.
It’s attainable that Trump’s commerce offensive and his suggestion that the US might use financial drive towards Canada will do the identical factor at present. Canadians — ever nervous that nothing apart from clichés (maple syrup, ice hockey) bind us collectively — could also be at the beginning of a resurgence in nationalism.
Thus far, Canada has introduced restricted “countermeasures” to Trump’s steep new tariffs, ought to they be carried out after the 30-day reprieve introduced on Monday. A 25 per cent surcharge can be utilized to C$155bn (US$107bn) value of imported US items. However a long time of ever-tighter financial and political intertwinement between the 2 nations 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 “split us apart”.
He has additionally famous that Canadians outline their nationwide id partially as “not Americans”. The unwieldy alliance between the francophones of Quebec and the anglophone loyalists that shaped Canada in 1867 was based mostly on the identical thought.
Being in the beginning “not America” has contributed to Canada’s perennial existential angst. Now, nonetheless, it might assist to unite us in a extra optimistic nationwide id.
As a Canadian residing overseas, at any time when my accent is mistaken for American (on a regular basis), the response to my correction is often an apology and recognition from the opposite individual that they could have brought about offence.
Internationally, we Canadians are identified to be good and well mannered however the specter of a pricey commerce battle has made many really feel uncharacteristically offended. Nonetheless, because the Canadian creator and artist Douglas Coupland as soon as famous: “People like Canada . . . we’re not after more territory.”
