Since the return of the Trump Administration in 2025, Canadians have been forced into an uncomfortable position. Where our governments have played complimentary roles in the past, the U.S. Administration chose to make us an adversary instead. Not that we’re special in that regard— they’ve chosen to make enemies of every ally they had— but it did hit us harder.
We don’t just share a border with the U.S., we share a history that predates the border itself. I’m not going to say that we did it better, but when those in the U.S. pushed Canada before, it wasn’t just the British and the French who defended our border, it was Indigenous Peoples as well. That is, at least, a point of pride in a history our Canadian ancestors were part of, together.
When talks broke down between Canada and the U.S. on trade last week, there were two responses; one of blame and one of resolve.
Our shared history has always shaped how we respond when the U.S. pushes us and this moment is no different.
Changing winds
The Trump Administration is a strange thing. Somehow, it is made up entirely of people who think respect can be commanded without being earned, and expected without being offered.
I’d never given much thought to the role Canada played with the U.S. until the RCMP detained Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in 2018, after an arrest warrant was issued for her in New York that August. The U.S. and Canada have long shared agreements in law enforcement but this one was on the level of international incident.
In retrospect, Canada likely did the right thing (for international diplomacy) by not extraditing the Chinese national to the U.S. but the action itself was not without consequences.
It also wasn’t the first time Canada put its own reputation on the line for our friends and allies in the U.S.. Even if I didn’t include the many Canadians who fought overseas, many of us likely discovered through Hollywood that Canadian diplomats were integral to assisting U.S. diplomats out of Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis, as seen on the big screen in the movie “Argo”. I would like to think Canadian diplomats would have assisted diplomats of any nationality during a similar event but it’s entirely possible that it was “personal”. Canada and the U.S. has long had a fairly good relationship, and (I hope) more than just me can trace an ancestor who crossed the border into Canada but doesn’t seem to exist in any records before they did.
Despite our shared history, that relationship didn’t always exist.
The War of 1812 fended off U.S. expansionism into Canada. The War of Independence in the U.S. saw the 49th parallel act as the proverbial “line in the sand” by welcoming those who remained loyal to the British Empire. As Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said early Tuesday, that motivation of not wanting to be part of the U.S. is in Canada’s DNA; it was the catalyst.
With that being said, that institutional memory is longer— and more readily acknowledged— in eastern Canada.
It seemed like a good idea at the time
Albertans who haven’t internalized every U.S.-centric depiction of law and politics were astounded by Danielle Smith’s 2022 admission that she thought she would have the same powers as Premier that a U.S. state Governor enjoyed. It was just one of many red flags that preceded her visit to Mar-a-Lago in 2024, and attendance at the inauguration ceremony and subsequent republican celebrations in 2025.
While I don’t have any sympathy for what I regularly suspect are the Premier’s divided loyalties, I had my own deeply embarrassing moment recently that caused me great discomfort and reminded me that some misconceptions are handed down to us.
