The Response
Once our closest ally, the United States has turned on us. The specter of crippling tariffs looms over the border. Our neighbour, our friend, with whom we have fought and shed blood side by side in two world wars, and whose citizens we have saved from terrorists, is now calling into question our very existence as a country. How insulting.
I am the son of a decorated WWII pilot and an intensely proud Canadian. I am beginning to take this personally. What can we do? We must re-think and re-calibrate our independence. What it means for us to be a country. We must aim for greater self-sufficiency.
Since our birth as a nation, we have been unable to resist the advantages of being America’s closest neighbour. The temptation has been too great. Dependence has been so comfortable, and convenient, that we have been willing to sacrifice even our dignity and our identity. As a country, we never really reached adulthood. The time has come to correct that.
But there is more. Russian and Chinese aggression around the world, added to our recently broken alliance with the Americans, forces us to take national defense more seriously than we have since WWII. It can no longer be an afterthought. We must re-arm. We need to see more Canadians in uniform. We want them carrying or operating Canadian manufactured hardware. Investors, this message is for you: it is time to revive the Canadian defense technology industry and diminish our reliance on others.
The threat of tariffs is not the only reason to worry, nationally, about our next meal. War in other countries brings on shortages. This, in turn, awakens the beast called inflation. For example, war prevents Ukraine from exporting its precious fertilizer. Our farmers then produce less, or spend more. In our grocery stores, the prices of our favourite items go up. The baskets we push to the check-out line become emptier, and the bags we carry home, lighter.
Are we ready to grow our own food? Because soon, drought and global warming will force our traditional suppliers to tell us they no longer can. For Canada, food independence is now an imperative.
We have to be ready for the next pandemic. We cannot risk a shortage of vaccines or medical equipment. A wise policy would provide for their stockpiling. And of course, manufacture. But let’s go further: become a global health research and policy leader with an eye to preventing the next pandemic and fighting the as-yet-unborn bacteria and viruses.
Our current shortage of doctors and nurses leaves Canadians dangerously exposed each year during flu season. Imagine the next unstoppable virus. Provinces, universities, this message is for you: our medical and nursing schools must start graduating larger numbers of health professionals. Soon, very soon. Let us not forget that Covid took the lives of tens of thousands of Canadians.
We act as if oil will last forever. It will not. The global shift to other, renewable sources of energy is a matter of when, not if. If we are caught unprepared, western Canadian oil towns will become ghost towns. Eastern Canada, and indeed the whole country, will see its transportation systems grind to a halt, industry shut down and many homes freeze on cold winter nights. The moment to move toward self-sufficiency is now. Developing new, abundant, clean and cheap sources of energy right here in Canada is not a matter of choice, or strategy. It is one of survival.
Our economy is, in reality, one of leveraged dependence. Abundant natural resources and a rich customer next door, who is also our biggest investor, have allowed us to be complacent and lazy. Time to wake up. We need to build a real economy. We need to shake off our dependence on resource extraction and, leveraging the ideas of our greatest scientific minds inside and outside of academe, invent, innovate and build products for the global future. We ought to build on the example of Research in Motion and give meaning to Made in Canada.
When it comes to trade, we are mired embarrassingly in the past. It is easier to export from Quebec to Maine than to New Brunswick. Obviously, the very first step on the road to real economic self-sufficiency is to depend more on ourselves, less on others. And so, the time has come to make the dream of the Fathers of Confederation come true. In fact, it is long overdue. We need to create an authentic domestic market in this country, where Canadians sell to Canadians, barrier-free.
We also need to acquire new foreign markets. Diversify: if we can no longer sell here, then we will sell there. As our customer base becomes wider, we will be less dependent on the one rich, entitled, overly-demanding customer who feels he can bully his way to a lower price, or bluster his way out of a signed and sealed deal.
The recent, shocking and disloyal tearing-up of the USMCA (formerly the North American Free Trade Agreement) has taught us something in spades. We must be selective. Choose partners whose word is their bond. Who respect their trade commitments.
Some of our greatest treasures are also tremendous vulnerabilities. World powers covet our water, our minerals, our electricity and our oil. Their greed, and appetites, will translate into pressure and, for some, temptation. In the name of national security, we will need a powerful legislative wall to protect what is ours.
One final note on geography. We have to own the Northwest Passage. We already do, of course. But now, we have to use its potential. Global warming has opened it up to unprecedented maritime traffic. In a sense, it is our Panama Canal. It now becomes a transportation hub for us to develop, a pilar for Arctic modernization, and a source of revenue, as the world’s commercial fleets will require servicing in polar waters.
We need to ensure a greater Canadian presence on the world stage. Where the U.S retreats, we ought to advance. In all possible fields: international diplomacy, third world aid, scientific research, technological development, world health initiatives and human rights. There is so much work to be done.
Can we do all these things alone? Of course not. Nor should we. But we can make an intelligent, muscular contribution. And, most of all, we can set the example. This has long been Canada’s legacy: the middle power which, in terms of contribution and effect, acts like a larger one.
And so, we want the world to know where we stand, and with whom. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, we salute you. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, we are your friend and partner. In fact, we have much to discuss you both.
Most of all, we stand firm and strong for ourselves. We have been an independent nation for over a century and a half. And independent we shall remain.