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Source: National Post (Opinions)

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump

Last year, both Mark Carney and Doug Ford campaigned on being the best candidate to take on U.S. President Donald Trump, but until the prime minister abruptly walked away from trade talks on Friday, only Ontario’s premier had the spine to stand up to the bully next door. His suggestions for how to deal with the current crisis should not be dismissed.

Scrolling through Trump’s Truth Social feed this week is like drunkenly stumbling through an alternate universe. One will find talk of his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea,” alongside ad hominem attacks against Ford (“the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford”); photos of him and Kim putting on their best dictator faces with maps showing Lake Ontario renamed “Lake America.”

Clearly, Ontario’s sometimes boisterous leader has gotten under the president’s skin. But while the war of words between Queen’s Park and the White House won’t move the needle on trade, Ford’s proposed retaliatory measures almost certainly will.

Ford said on Monday that following the imposition of 50 per cent tariffs on $29 billion worth of Canadian goods, “nothing should be off the table,” including taxing or limiting the export of oil, electricity and critical minerals. This is a strategy that’s been employed before and has succeeded in getting the Trump administration’s attention.

In early 2025, in response to the first round of tariffs, Ford instituted a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exports to the U.S. The premier eventually backed down after Trump threatened additional tariffs and the administration invited him to a meeting in Washington, D.C., which Ford saw as an “olive branch.”

That was a miscalculation on Ford’s part, as a similar trade war that Trump precipitated with China around the same time was blunted due to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s refusal to cave to American pressure. Not only did China respond to Trump’s initial 10 per cent tariff by escalating its own levies on U.S. goods to a high of 125 per cent , it placed export restrictions on a bunch of rare earth elements , which American industry relies on.

Trump responded by de-escalating the trade war, and has been walking on eggshells around President Xi ever since. Even his latest round of sanctions against Iran, which the administration dubbed “Economic D-Day,” noticeably excluded major measures directed at China, despite its Communist government single-handedly keeping Iran’s terrorist regime afloat by buying most of its oil.

Trump claims that “we don’t need Canada,” but this — like his made up stat that Canada does “95 per cent of their business with the U.S., with us, the exact opposite” — is BS. The U.S. relies on Canada for half its aluminum , which is essential for producing cars, appliances and other goods.

America also imports around four-million barrels of Canadian oil a day. In 2024, Canada accounted for 62 per cent of U.S. crude imports, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Not only does this help fuel the American economy, it is purchased at a steep discount compared to European Brent and American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude.

At the very least, raising the cost of Western Canadian Select oil so it cannot be purchased by Americans for less than the WTI spot price would serve to put inflationary pressure on U.S. consumers, while providing little incentive for customers to seek alternate suppliers in the short term.

More than 20 U.S. states also rely on Canadian electricity, importing $3.3 billion worth last year alone. While some, like New York and Washington, are blue states that are already opposed to Trump’s policies, some, such as Michigan, are swing states with a number of tight races in the upcoming midterm elections. Others, including North Dakota, voted for Trump in 2024 and have Republican governors.

The reality is that there are two primary means of forcing the administration to back down from its trade war: legal measures, such as court cases or legislative changes, and political pressure.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated some of Trump’s tariffs, but the administration keeps finding novel legal means of achieving its ends. While Canada should support any challenges to the current tariffs in any way it can, they will take time to wind through the courts and there is no guarantee of success.

Likewise, while Congress could take back its sole constitutional authority to “ lay and collect ” tariffs, Democrats are unlikely to make enough gains in the midterms for such efforts to succeed, especially given their preoccupation with hating capitalists and Jews.

But public pressure can go a long way, and many American voters are furious that Trump has been unable to make good on his promise to curb Biden-era inflation, largely due to his tariffs and war with Iran. Increasing the price of energy, electricity and other commodities will further fuel inflation, putting pressure not only on the president, but also on his fellow Republicans and business leaders to do something about it.

This, I might add, is also why the Ford government’s Ronald Reagan ad was so effective at raising the ire of the administration: it served to remind Republicans that they used to be the party of free trade, which is a net benefit to the entire country.

Such measures will, of course, come at a cost to Canadians. Our failure to build pipelines to the coast and LNG export terminals means there’s largely nowhere for Canadian energy to go other than south, and we may quickly run out of storage space if we decide to hang onto our reserves. Likewise, imposing export taxes on raw materials and import taxes on finished goods that aren’t produced at home will raise the cost of living for Canadians.

But it also opens new opportunities for Canadian provinces to buy domestic energy supplies and businesses to find new suppliers and export opportunities elsewhere. Either way, the hope should be that any retaliatory measures are short-lived, lasting only as long as the Americans continue to violate our free-trade agreement.

None of this is optimal. If I had my way, Canada would remove all trade barriers on its allies and invite the Americans to join in on a new era of global free trade. But one cannot win a fight without throwing a punch. Trump started this trade war and it’s up to us to show him that any perceived benefits are not worth the costs.

National Post
jkline@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/accessd

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Signs displayed at the 2017 Al-Quds Day anti-Israel protest.

In a recent Globe & Mail op-ed , members of the Jewish Faculty Network (JFN) assert that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, that Jewishness is an exclusively religious identity that has nothing to do with statehood and that the debate between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews has been going strong for 100 years. Their assertions are made without the benefit of reference to recent anonymous peer-reviewed survey research or anything more than a distorted understanding of modern Jewish history.

A 2026 survey of a representative sample 626 Canadian Jewish adults found that 92 per cent of Canadian Jews support the existence of a Jewish state in Israel. They therefore fit the standard definition of “Zionist.” Eighty-six per cent of Canadian Jews think that supporting Israel is an important or essential part of their Jewish identity. Jewish statehood is thus a core element of Jewish identity for the overwhelming majority of Jews in Canada — and also, of course, for Jews in Israel (where about one-half of the world’s Jewish population resides) and elsewhere.

In contrast, just 60 per cent of Canadian Jews consider attending synagogue an important or essential part of Jewish identity; 59 per cent say the same about observing Jewish religious law.

All these findings are in line with results from a 2024 survey of 414 Canadian Jews and a 2018 survey of 2,335 Canadian who identify as Jewish by religion or ethnicity.

Members of the JFN are therefore wrong to claim that being Jewish is only a matter of religion and not a matter of statehood. Moreover, just as it is antisemitic to discriminate against Jews based on their religion, I believe it is antisemitic to erase support for the existence of a Jewish state as a core part of Jewish identify.

Some Jews are anti-Zionists. They deny the need for the existence of a Jewish state. In Canada, a 2025 survey of 332 Jewish Canadians found that 1 per cent of Canadian Jews at the time regarded themselves as anti-Zionists, while the most recent 2026 survey of 625 Canadian Jews cited earlier puts the number at 5 per cent. The proportion of Jews who deny the need for Jewish statehood is thus tiny.

The representatives of the JFN correctly note that Reform Judaism in mid-19th century Germany held that Jewishness is exclusively a religious category. However, a century later, in the early 1940s, Reform Judaism officially endorsed the need for a Jewish state as the extent of the Holocaust became apparent.

Similarly, the members of the JFN cite the Jewish Labour Bund of Poland and Lithuania as a large and vigorous opponent of Zionism since its founding in 1897. This is an exaggeration . Most Bundists were killed in the Holocaust and many of those who survived became Zionists in the face of the Holocaust. In fact, Tel Aviv became one of the centers of Bundism after the Second World War.

It should not surprise us that the JFN has written an op-ed arguing that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism. In the principles section of their website, they state that they oppose the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism which was accepted by Canada in 2019. It includes non-legally binding illustrative examples of what might constitute antisemitism, including, “D enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

Notably, the JFN’s “principles” page on their website lacks any mention of the horrific attacks on October 7, and their press release page includes only two entries, one opposing the IHRA definition and one about “anti-Palestinian racism.”

Many Jewish Zionists, including me, are highly critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and its conduct in the Israel-Hamas war. However, for reasons I’ve indicated, I regard the small coterie of Jewish anti-Zionists as misguided.

Robert Brym is an emeritus professor of sociology and Jewish studies at University of Toronto.

National Post

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People at the Sturgeon County Centre in Morinville, Alta., protest Meta’s plans to build a $13-billion data centre north of Edmonton on Aug. 2.

One of the most pressing questions facing the Canadian public right now is one that most people will have never been asked before, which is: are we techno-optimists?

The answer to that question will influence a number of ballot-box issues in upcoming elections related to artificial intelligence and the data centres that support its expansion. It will also determine whether Canada embraces the coming tidal wave of change brought about by AI enough to have some control over its direction and share in its spoils, or if we are simply battered about by the forces of AI.

While it’s been around for a while, the phrase “techno-optimist” was popularized by Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen a few years ago to describe those who believe that the future is friendly and that technological progress will be a force for good.

It doesn’t mean you ignore legitimate concerns. AI pioneers and executives themselves warn about the potential for catastrophe if things go off the rails. But the techno-optimist believes that these are obstacles to overcome, not reasons to reject the future.

Currently, the Canadian public is on the fence about this progress. And we’re at risk of turning against it.

A wave of anti-AI populism has flared up across the United States, with hundreds of municipalities banning data centres and over a dozen proposed state-wide bans. The trend has moved up here in recent months, with protests and calls for bans in some Canadian cities.

Mississauga, Ont., has just enacted a one year moratorium on data centres as incumbent politicians who were previously in favour of them now trip over themselves to say who is more opposed to the facilities as they seek re-election in the October municipal election.

It’s beyond the scope of this column to break down all the concerns about them — and the rebuttals by data centre advocates — but the claims include that the facilities use too much energy, too much water, will be intrusive and noisy and cost the taxpayer in the form of subsidies, handouts and increased energy rates.

Some of these complaints are fearmongering, some are legitimate and can be addressed. And address them we should, because there are costs to missing out on welcoming such mega-projects.

Canada is at risk of repeating the mistakes we made in letting our oil and gas sector be vilified, setting us back by more than a decade in developing key projects and enjoying their economic benefits.

What we have now is primarily a communications problem. The public is exposed to plenty of arguments against data centres. But they’re not encountering many arguments in support of them.

There is an entire subculture of Silicon Valley podcasts that present compelling and optimistic visions of the future of AI and its infrastructure. But they remain a subculture and aren’t filtering down into public consciousness to sway broader opinion.

Because politics is downstream from culture, what the average voter thinks about an issue heavily influences policy. A politician who supported something one day can pivot the next to chase the mood of the electorate, as the Mississauga example shows.

One of the most detailed and spirited defences of data centre expansion in Canada hasn’t come from an AI company or tech podcast, but from the province of Alberta.

Premier Danielle Smith’s government recently launched an online explainer that breaks down what data centres are, how they will and won’t be constructed, along with facts and data to tackle residents’ concerns.

“AI could add US$15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, and every dollar of it will flow through a data centre somewhere,” the explainer notes. “Refusing to build them would not make AI go away. It would just mean the jobs, taxes and investment land somewhere else, while Albertans keep using digital services powered by someone else’s economy.”

The highly readable document presents the province’s policy journey as heavy-lifting that can now be copied by others: “Some (jurisdictions) let data centres connect faster than new power could be built, and household bills rose. Some handed out billions in tax breaks,” the explainer adds. “Alberta spent two years studying those mistakes and wrote rules to prevent them.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also sees it this way, recently calling opponents to data centres “misinformed.” Ford’s government has just launched its own data centre policy framework that follows Alberta’s path.

The federal Liberal government’s national AI strategy also aims to seize the moment in data centre creation. However, it’s written more for stakeholders and industry than the regular reader.

Canada is at an important crossroads: The feds and large provinces are supportive of data centres. But polling shows the public is divided. And opposition is strongest at the municipal level, where local politicians are pressured to say no to future projects. Which way will we go?

Let’s go the techno-optimist route and embrace the future. To be successful at that, AI advocates need to get louder and recognize they are within a window of opportunity that can be hijacked by noisy opposition if they don’t move fast.

National Post
anthony@furey.ca

Anthony Furey is a former journalist and past Toronto mayoral candidate who now works in corporate consulting.

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House on August 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.

I find it hard to come to a different conclusion than I did on Saturday that Prime Minister Mark Carney made the right choice by walking away from trade negotiations with the United States. The demand that Canada align its trade policy with the U.S., while still facing harsh tariffs, is an obvious non-starter. Even so, the Liberals have been twisting themselves into knots to prove that they are every bit as self-obsessed and petty as they have always been.

Consider the fact that among the major reasons Canada walked away from the deal was over American demands that we scrap policies that force U.S.-owned streaming services to prioritize Canadian, including French-language, content and to contribute to the production of said content. (If there was another issue related to the French language at play, it hasn’t yet come out.)

Displaying the hyperbole that can only be mustered by a Liberal prime minister who’s dependent on Quebec for his majority, Carney exaggerated that demand as “threats to French language and culture” on Saturday. Then, on Monday, speaking in French, the prime minister added, “Here in Quebec, here in Canada, these are rights. So there is an enormous gap between our perspective and the U.S. perspective.”

Of course the Americans want Canada to get rid of those policies. Canadian content, or CanCon, has become shorthand for bland, inoffensive productions that are of little interest to anyone, let alone Canadians themselves. If it was worth producing, the government wouldn’t need to force Netflix or Amazon to fund it, or to alter their algorithms to promote it.

The Liberal party’s commitment to controlling the internet is just as obnoxious as its commitment to any number of ill-advised ideas, such as the party’s almost religious devotion to the supply management system of tariffs and quotas for eggs, poultry and dairy, which is another irritant for the Americans.

Whatever one thinks of U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions, particularly on trade, the critics of the Carney government who point to how it has handled the bilateral relationship with the U.S. are, it must be said, absolutely right. The Liberals always seem to prioritize the interests of the party over the country, unless it is something that affects Quebec, while leaving other regions (read: Alberta) neglected.

As the New York Times reported on Tuesday, Carney and Trump had discussed resurrecting the “Keystone XL” north-south pipeline, now known as the “Prairie Connector.” But, according to the Times, the Liberals did not view the pipeline, which would be a boon to Alberta, and which Trump wants, as a trade win for Canada, but rather as a concession to the Americans.

Carney said, the Times summarized, that “for the right deal on tariffs, Canada would consider bringing its side of the pipeline back to life.” Ultimately, “A Canadian official said that the trade deal on offer was not good enough to make the pipeline make sense.”

If the report is accurate, it’s strange that a government viewed increasing tariff-free exports of a key Canadian resource as a concession, rather than a goal. Except the Liberals have spent the past decade trying to strangle the Alberta-based energy industry.

The Liberals have clearly benefited politically from conflict with Trump, creating legitimate skepticism about why Canada walked away from trade negotiations. Take Carney’s behaviour over the past year, with him wildly over-promising on his ability to achieve a deal with the U.S, and variously presenting himself as the Trump whisperer, or leader of the anti-Trump resistance.

He fashioned himself as the only candidate capable of reaching a deal with the U.S., while also being the right person to lead the world’s middle powers, if you believe the tripe in his Davos speech. He at once promises to work with Trump, while seeking to usurp him, all out in the open, and all at once.

This approach has been particularly popular among Canadians over 65 and those who work in the public service, while doing very little to improve Canada’s economic position. This country is still saddled with onerous taxation and regulatory regimes, and as blessed as we are with natural resources, getting the infrastructure in place to extract and ship them to market is nearly impossible.

The government rides anti-Trump vibes to high poll numbers, while much of the country stagnates.

However, regardless of how poorly conceived our cultural and regulatory policies are, and how unserious the prime minster’s actions have been, the government has every right to behave this way, and to implement every transparently terrible policy it wishes.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that the Liberals should be free of consequences. In fact, if this was merely a regular trade deal being negotiated with the Americans, and the Canadians were behaving this way, it should have been the U.S. side that walked way, but these aren’t normal negotiations, with normal concessions being offered and received.

Even if Trump has good reason to want to have a say over who Canada can sign a trade deal with, or over our cultural and regulatory policies, his administration offered virtually nothing in return. Not only would it maintain high tariffs on Canadian imports, it reserved the right, according to media reports, to unilaterally change its trade policy towards Canada at any time.

And all of this was happening while CUSMA is still in effect and supposedly up for renegotiation. The outcome of these talks would merely be a prelude to those negotiations, and would mean entering them after already making massive concessions.

So no, despite the government’s obnoxiousness, Canada is not more to blame for this mess than the United States. Trump has been busy launching tariffs against the entire world, turning friendly countries all over the place into rivals. If the president wanted to get Canada, Europe and its East Asian allies to align against China, for instance, economic aggression was the wrong approach.

Unfortunately, Trump’s attitude towards his supposed allies has permitted the Liberal Party of Canada, at virtually no cost to itself, to embrace all its worst instincts.

National Post

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Just when it seemed like a trade deal was close at hand, the Canada-U.S. trade relationship has taken a sharp turn for the worse. The new, higher U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods have come into effect, and Canada has officially confirmed the retaliatory tariffs that will come into effect on Sept. 8. So what will all of this mean for the Canadian economy? And is our retaliation worth the cost that it will impose on our economy? The National Post’s Rob Breakenridge speaks with Trevor Tombe, professor of economics at the University of Calgary and director of fiscal and economic policy at the School of Public Policy, about the economic consequences of this escalating trade war. As Tombe outlines, tariffs are essentially a tax, meaning Canadian consumers and businesses will bear much of the cost of Ottawa’s retaliation. The same, though, is true of the aggressive American tariffs. We’ll take a closer look at what the fallout from this trade war could look like, as well as the sort of tax reform the Carney government could deploy to mitigate the damage, while still boosting Canada’s competitiveness and productivity.

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Even with the new tariffs, a U.S. wine drinker can get a bottle of wine from a B.C. winery for less than the same bottle sells in Ontario and Quebec.

With news that Canadian wine producers are being hit with 50 per cent U.S. tariffs, the immediate reaction of B.C.’s Lightning Rock Winery was to note that the tariffs are still not as high as the markup they face when selling within Canada.

As detailed on the winery’s website, Lightning Rock is hit with a 75 per cent markup in sales to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).

In a Monday Substack post by National Post columnist John Ivison, Lightning Rock owner Ron Kubek said that while the new tariffs have devastated his U.S. sales, it’s ironically still cheaper for an American to buy his rosés than a customer in central Canada.

Even with the new tariffs, a U.S. wine drinker can obtain Lightning Rock wines for $30 a bottle, while interprovincial markups mean that the same bottle sells for $38.17 in Ontario’s LCBO and $43.66 at La Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ).

It’s been more than a year of official pledges to slash Canada’s interprovincial trade barriers as a response to the U.S. trade war. As Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged after the official breakdown of U.S. trade negotiations on Sunday, his government will “tear down the barriers that have divided our economy for generations.”

And yet, liquor continues to be the most conspicuous symbol of how many of those barriers remain in place.

According to official Government of Canada estimates, the Canadian economy loses up to $200 billion each year due to a latticework of interprovincial barriers that make it difficult to “buy, sell, and transport goods and services across the country.”

According to a recent report by the Toronto Board of Trade , alcohol is “one of the most well-known and visible examples” of these barriers.

In fact, provincially controlled liquor stores often have wider selections of foreign liquors than out-of-province liquors.

“It’s easier to get a bottle of wine from Chile than it is (to get one) from British Columbia,” Matthew Holmes, a representative with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told Global News in January 2025 , right at the beginning of the current trade war.

Nevertheless, official attempts to reduce internal trade barriers have repeatedly failed to liberalize alcohol sales.

In November, a meeting of Canada’s first ministers in Yellowknife struck the Canadian Mutual Recognition Agreement on the Sale of Goods, a concord billed as an “unparalleled agreement” to increase interprovincial trade.

However, the agreement explicitly excluded “alcoholic beverages” from consideration.

Then, just last month, another meeting of Canadian premiers — this time in Charlottetown — actually did come to an agreement on interprovincial liquor sales.

“In the face of President Trump’s latest tariffs, it’s more important than ever that Team Canada work together to build a more united, resilient and self-reliant Canadian economy,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford in a statement.

But the agreement the premiers presented contained no timeline for implementation and covered only the relatively boutique sector of “direct to consumer” alcohol sales. It had no effect on retail sales; the means by which most Canadians buy beer, wine and spirits.

The agreement also specified that none of it was “legally binding.”

“This Agreement sets out the understanding of the Parties with respect to their cooperation and does not create any legal obligations or enforceable rights,” reads a clause.

“All the agreement says is that we say we’re going to do it at some point,” wine lawyer Mark Hicken said in comments published by Business in Vancouver. “There’s no timeframe at all for when they’re actually going to do it.”

What’s more, the agreement gave provinces a wide berth to levy new taxes and fees on direct-to-consumer alcohol sales — all of which would technically qualify as new interprovincial trade barriers.

As Kubek, of Lightning Rock Winery, wrote in a critique of the agreement published in the Edmonton Journal, it left the door open to new layers of “liquor board markups, fees, registrations, reporting requirements and administrative barriers on Canadian products sold to Canadian consumers.”

“The premiers removed the roadblock. Then they protected the toll booths,” he wrote.

And even this limited agreement on liberalized alcohol sales couldn’t garner unanimous support. The government of Quebec refused to sign it, as did the territories.

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An oil well in a field seen along Highway 22, known as the Cowboy Trail, between Cochrane and Cremona, in Alberta, Canada on May 22, 2025.

I love Canadian oil and gas. And potash and canola, copper and nickel, and pretty much all of our resources. I love them because I see them as tools to achieve the things that matter to Canada and Canadians: jobs, revenues, foreign investment and infrastructure, of course. But also influence and soft power. Means by which we can make new trading partners, be useful to our allies, and mitigate the ability of our adversaries to weaponize energy, minerals and food.

President Trump has done the service of making other Canadians see our energy and resources in the same light. We now collectively recognize it as a source of power and leverage, our front foot in an increasingly turbulent and fraught world. This comes just in time for a commodity cycle upswing, the generational ebb and flow of commodity prices, when we will be able to realize great value from our resource endowment.

It is therefore a cruel twist of fate that my fellow Canadians’ inclination for belatedly exercising this power is by taxing and restricting the sales of these resources to our biggest customer. I think this fundamentally misunderstands the value of our resources for Canadians, and it is past time to think about it in a more sophisticated way.

Commodities are raw materials, generally energy, mineral or agricultural products. They are basic, interchangeable items that global buyers choose based on the lowest price. Because transportation comprises a big portion of the cost, proximity to buyers is useful.

Canada has been fortunate to be very close to the large American market, and the U.S. has been fortunate to be close to a significant resource producer. This mutually beneficial trade has underpinned North America’s competitiveness and stability for two centuries.

Trump has come along and disrupted this, to the detriment of both countries. But while many sectors are feeling economic pain, Trump’s actions at home and abroad have also been beneficial for Canada. Over half of our exports are commodities, and just about everything has seen a meaningful price increase since Trump came into office.

Oil is up because the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted; gold is up due to geopolitical fears and loss of confidence in the American dollar. Those are Canada’s top two exports, and without producing another barrel or ounce, their price increases would have led Canada’s trade balance into surplus.

But because of those high prices, we will be producing many more barrels and ounces. We’ve attracted more investment to build mines and pipelines and grow production, and have diversified the customers wanting to buy those goods.

While gold and oil are our biggest commodities by revenue, this same story is playing out in copper, potash, nickel, uranium, aluminum and more. The Toronto Stock Exchange has seen world leading gains because it is heavily weighted towards mining and energy stocks. Canada has seen a significant uptick in major projects proposed and financed. We are building more ports, LNG terminals, dams, gas plants, and transmission lines because there is growing demand for these things.

Trump has given Canada one more gift: while commodities are generally interchangeable in the global marketplace, the new chaotic and turbulent geopolitical era is conferring a security premium to reliable and trustworthy suppliers. Many nations no longer want to depend on fertilizer, uranium and grain from Russia; oil and natural gas from the Middle East; or critical minerals from China. Everyone is in a trade war of one kind or another with the United States.

As a major resource exporter, every commodity cycle upswing is a generational opportunity for Canada. But this one is a once-in-a-century opportunity because most nations want to buy less from our main competitors, and more from us. This chaotic cycle will act as a ladder for Canada to not only build infrastructure and increase revenues, but also alliances and capabilities.

Some people want to take this moment to fantasize about potash or energy export taxes and oil production curtailment. They are willing to inflict pain on Canada’s producers, reduce our exports revenues, and jeopardize our reputation as a reliable trading partner to experience some short-lived schadenfreude.

The stakes and the prize are so much bigger. Canada has an opportunity to shine if we choose ambition over pettiness. Let’s focus on the good we can do for ourselves. Debating the harm we can inflict on others is a tendency about as alien to the Canadian character as you can get.

Heather Exner-Pirot is the Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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Following the breakdown in U.S.-Canada trade negotiations over the weekend, Prime Minister Mark Carney is now saying that Canada has no plans to reopen talks with Washington, and is prepared to continue the trade war right up until the end of U.S. President Donald Trump’s term in 2029. But there is a chance that the current trade conflict could outlast even Trump.

Watch the video or read the transcript below to learn more.

Despite the U.S. and Canada coming very, very close to a concord on trade, it fell apart at the 11th hour.

The result? 50 per cent tariffs on more than $28 billion worth of Canadian exports. And Canada pledging dollar-for-dollar retaliation.

Now, there is still reason to believe this might be temporary. Both sides get hurt in a trade war. Canada more so, obviously, just given our relative size as compared to the U.S. market.

But the American public has never really been on board with the Trump administration’s trade war on Canada. And this means that in an America that is already pretty incensed about affordability, a whole bunch of random things are set to become unreasonably expensive.

As just one example: Canada is famously a major supplier of left-handed golfing gear. Well, all that stuff’s getting hit with the 50 per cent tariff.

But, the White House has a lot on its plate. So what if they just … don’t return Canada’s calls about trade ever again?

That’s what Prime Minister Mark Carney seems to be banking on.

In his public comments after the talks fell apart, he said his plan now is to subsidize affected industries … possibly until Trump is no longer president.

Said Carney, “we will support these businesses for as long as it takes, in other words, beyond the life of this U.S. administration.”

That might be bluster, but it’s not like Carney is feeling any political consequences from this tack. And even if all the current tariffs remain, the macroeconomic effect is probably going to be minimal. Only about five per cent of our exports are getting hit with that big 50 per cent tariff.

It’s r uinous for some of those five per cent. As one example, sculptures and paintings are getting hit with the 50 per cent tariff. So if you’re a sculptor with a lot of American clients, this is devastating.

But the pain is still slight enough, on an economy-wide basis, that most Canadians won’t notice.

So the worst -case scenario is that the status quo keeps going for another three years. And the really, really worst-case scenario is that this doesn’t become an issue that magically dissipates at the end of the Trump Administration.

The history of Canada-U.S. trade going all the way back to the 19th century has been a roller coaster of protectionism, free trade and then protectionism again.

The situation that Canada has known for the last 30 years — free trade with the United States — is the exception, rather than the norm.

And how soon we forget that when the North American Free Trade Agreement first became law in 1994, its chief opponents were not right-wingers like Trump, it was protectionist left-wingers. The same kind of protectionist left wing that’s having a bit of a moment in the U.S.

So maybe this is a temporary trade war with the Americans until we can get back to broad, tariff-free trade again.

Or, maybe, after a couple years of this, we’ll find that U.S. governments — no matter what their political orientation — are actually kind of fine with a reality in which Canadian fishing rods, diamonds, paintings and sculptures, among other things, are mostly not seen in U.S. stores anymore.

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Canada on August 25, 2026, announced counter-tariffs on US goods ranging between 15 percent and 50 per cent, intensifying the trade war between the historically close allies.

Welcome to Trade Wars, the reality show that pits the mighty United States of America against the mouse that roared, aka Canada. How’s everyone feeling today? “Kiss my ass!” yells Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “Flunky! I will rename Lake Ontario Lake America, ” claps back U.S. President Donald Trump. Insert laugh track, cut to a commercial for a Ford F-150 pickup, and check out the ratings — 76 per cent of Canadians agree with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to quit the talks. Everyone’s watching — what a hit.

But this isn’t a triumph. And it isn’t fiction. It’s a real dispute, with real life consequences for millions of people. It represents the sad demise of over 50 years of economic integration, starting with the Canada–United States Automotive Products Agreement of 1965, through free trade deals signed in 1988, 1992 and 2018, which have seen both countries prosper through increased trade and economic activity. All of which Trump calls a “rip-off,” even though he was at the table doing the last deal.

So now, it’s elbows up — and out. Canada is seeking new trading partners, inking 20 agreements in the last year alone. Our trade with the U.S. has dropped from 76 to 68 per cent of total trade since 2024, and will no doubt decline further with the imposition of matching tariffs on $26 billion of U.S. imports, including steel, agricultural equipment, appliances.

We’ve come full circle, back to the 1960s, when philosopher George Grant lamented that Canada had become a “branch plant economy,” of the United States. He blamed the Liberal party for surrendering to “continentalism,” whereby American companies were buying out Canadian businesses or opening their own here, effectively making us a U.S. subsidiary.

Grant had witnessed the failure of populist Progressive Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker to diversify 15 per cent of Canada’s trade to Great Britain in 1957, followed by the subsequent Liberal government of Lester B. Pearson signing the Auto Pact and embracing closer economic ties with the United States. The pendulum then swung back in the 1970s, when Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau tried to trade more with Europe and created the Foreign Investment Review Agency, designed to prevent takeovers but criticized for stifling investment.

Diefenbaker and Trudeau failed to drag Canada out of America’s orbit, in part because during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, Washington was our friend, not foe. Today, things are different, but Trump is, increasingly, an Emperor who has no clothes

For the American president has a major weakness: underestimating his adversaries’ resilience. This is on full display in that murderous regime of Iran, where his war has now dragged into its seventh month. And it is on display in erstwhile best buddy Canada, where rather than roll over and accept unacceptable trade terms, we walked away and basically gave America the finger.

Some analysts say those terms — attacks on the French language, curbing our ability to trade with other nations, and continuing to tariff pickup trucks at a higher rate — may have been a deliberate poison pill, inserted at the 11th hour by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to scupper the deal and make political trouble for Carney. Whether true or not, the reality is that we were treated badly, and the prime minister was right to say enough is enough. You don’t turn on an ally whose people have fought and died alongside you, whose cheap oil has powered your industry for 100 years, and whose people have cultivated ties of friendship with you for generations.

As the insults fly and the temperature mounts, Carney has emerged as the only reasonable actor in this drama. It’s one that all the world is now watching — and could script their own sequels dealing with America.

Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.

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MONTREAL - Pro-Palestinian protesters harass people leaving Montreal's city hall after the vote against a motion for the city to declare Israel a genocidal apartheid state and cut ties with the city passed only after having these elements removed from it on Monday evening. Terry Newman. National Post

MONTREAL — In early June, Projet Montréal filed a motion calling on the city to suspend institutional ties with Israel and refer to it as an “apartheid state” and a committer of “genocide.” On Monday night, sanity prevailed. The motion passed, but as a watered-down version with those features removed. Pro-Palestinian protesters outside were less than pleased and directed their aggression at those leaving the building, myself included.

Before the vote, the pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside Montreal city hall chanting phrases such as, “ Viva, viva, intifada. Long live the intifada ,” Israel are terrorists, Soroya (the mayor) is complicit ” and “ Israel are terrorists, Montreal is complicit .”

Also present outside city hall before the council meeting began at 1 p.m. were members of Independent Jewish Voices , a small group that only concerns itself with the Palestinian cause, along with some communists waving flags that read , “From the river to the sea,” and “We are all Palestinians.”

Members of the public flooded into the chamber outside the council meeting. Among them were friends of Alex Look, a 33-year-old Montrealer who was murdered by Hamas on October 7. They wore stickers with Look’s face as a reminder of the brutal, Hamas-apologist ideology masquerading as a human rights movement at the city’s gates.

At 7 p.m., members of the public were invited to ask questions. Adrian Leroux, a pro-Palestinian activist, called for the city to “immediately suspend ties with the rogue state of Israel,” which he referred to as an “apartheid regime.” At one point, he said that Israel “endangers Jewish communities in Canada by live-streaming a genocide in their name.” He then asked Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada if she saw that it had become “politically impossible” for her to not pass the motion .

Montreal city council has a rule allowing the chair to limit the number of questions that can be asked about the same issue to three, and at times on Monday evening, the chair of the council meeting, Ensemble Montréal’s Chantal Rossi, interpreted broad issues relating to the protesters outside as being part of the motion, so the speakers were cut off and unable to ask their questions.

For example, Alyssa Yuffe wanted to bring up that the group Montreal Apartheid was using the Montreal logo, which is the city’s intellectual property.

At one point, Ayrik Armani, an Iranian, told the council that he had been a political prisoner in Iran, and had witnessed firsthand how “extremism, intolerance and division can gradually undermine the society,” and that he now sees “troubling patterns emerging here in Montreal.” Armani told the council that he repeatedly sees individuals at demonstrations who support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which he pointed out is a listed terrorist entity in Canada.

Armani told the council that some of these same groups are now advocating for Montreal to cut ties with Israel, and that Iranians are “deeply concerned that this rhetoric and political pressure could further undermine Montreal’s security, social cohesion and the sense of safety for its residents.” Armani asked why the city isn’t doing more about individuals who are demonstrating in support of the regime. At this point, Armani was cut off and told that this question was about the motion.

Arlene Yuffe wanted to discuss what she referred to as “Quebec historical and cultural patrimony.” She told the council that, “Individuals from Montreal4Palestine climbed scaffolding and took a photo in front of Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, a major church, and they threw smoke bombs.” She was told that her question would not be answered.

Yet Yuffe was absolutely correct. Montreal4Palestine did this, and proudly posted evidence of it on its Instagram page. But she was cut off, as if her concerns about this group were part of the motion being debated that evening. Montreal 4Palestine is the same group that has held mass Muslim prayers in front of Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica, which many felt were acts of intimidation.

Shortly before 10 p.m., the council voted on the amended version of the motion, which passed 54-6. The pro-Palestinian protesters outside were not pleased. Upon exiting the building, myself and others, including council members, were subjected to harassment, despite the large police presence.

The first thing I heard upon exiting city hall was the chant, “End the Zionist occupation.” Then, a stream of protesters, some wearing keffiyehs — the same garment Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the terrorist murderer of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, wore , a fact most Canadians appear to have memory-holed — started screaming the phrase, “Shame on you!”

One pushed my camera, which I was holding up in front of me for my protection, with her hand. Another, holding a flag, yelled at me several times, “Did you get your paycheque?” Walking away, we heard them shouting, “You can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” They were still there, yelling , 20 minutes later when I was being driven home.

It has become fashionable for activist groups and political parties to try to pressure local municipal councils to pass motions and create policies on matters outside of their jurisdiction, like international affairs. Montreal is no stranger to this.

In 1987, then-mayor Jean Doré declared Montreal “apartheid-free,” and was able to get legislative powers allowing the city to discriminate against companies that had investments in South Africa when it practised apartheid.

Apartheid South Africa and Israel are clearly different, but beyond that, the issues of foreign countries should not be the business of far-off city councils, precisely because they do not generally understand the details and nuances.

If the original motion had passed, pressuring the city to cut ties with Israel despite the fact that Israel is not an apartheid state and has not been found guilty of genocide, who knows how this would have manifested in terms of policies and harassment towards Jewish businesses connected to Israel.

Thankfully, the city council of Montreal overwhelmingly chose to vote for the peace and cohesion of its communities instead of a motion designed to misinform and drive a wedge between the city’s Jewish community and everyone else, which would, no doubt, be used to intimidate and harass them.

National Post

X: @terrynewman

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