The spectre of another Trump presidency looms as Trudeau's cabinet gathers to start a new year
The prime minister says his government is prepared — but is that even possible?
In August 2016, when the current government was less than a year old, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet gathered at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont. for a two-day retreat. The ministers bunked in the student dorms. The big story of the week concerned a $1,700 bill for car service incurred by Jane Philpott, health minister at the time.
Among their special guests were Michael Barber, the British guru behind "deliverology," and David MacNaughton, the experienced Liberal adviser who was serving as Canada's ambassador to the United States.
"All of the smart people in Washington were saying the Democrats were going to win the House, the Republicans would retain the Senate and Hillary Clinton would win the election," MacNaughton later told me. "And I qualified it by saying, 'All of the smart people in Washington have been consistently wrong for 18 months, so don't count on it.'"
At that point, national polls gave Clinton a six-point lead over her Republican rival. But the government needed to be prepared for every eventuality, MacNaughton told the ministers.
Three months later, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.
As Trudeau's ministers gather in Montreal for meetings this week, the possibility of a Trump presidency haunts Canada again. If anything, it seems even more plausible now than it did in 2016 — even after Trump incited a violent attack on the United States Capitol in 2021, even after he was indicted on 91 felony charges. Recent polls show President Joe Biden and Trump running roughly even.
The Liberal cabinet likely will spend most of its time discussing purely domestic matters during its two days in Trudeau's hometown — "building more homes" and "helping the middle class get ahead" will be topics of discussion, according to the official announcement. But ministers "will also discuss Canada's relationship with the United States ahead of this fall's presidential election."
Kirsten Hillman, MacNaughton's successor as ambassador, will be in Montreal to speak with the cabinet. She will be joined for a panel discussion by Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association; Laura Dawson, executive director of the Future Borders Coalition; and Marc-Andre Blanchard, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations and now executive vice-president at CDPQ Global.
Whatever insight or counsel they might provide, there's a lot to think — and worry — about.
The sequel might be more explosive than the original
During Trump's four years in office between 2017 and 2021, the American president was something like a constant source of concern for the Canadian government. That was particularly true during the year and a half when Trump forced Canada and Mexico to renegotiate NAFTA.
That negotiation — and the threat it posed to the Canadian economy — prompted a massive diplomatic effort. Canadian officials fanned out to rally friends and find allies in American political and business circles. If that campaign met with some success, it still consumed great amounts of time and energy — and ended not in celebration but in relief.
And then there was everything else. The American withdrawal from the Paris climate accords The blow-up at the G7. The aluminum and steel tariffs. The tweets. The regular and repeated demands to comment on whatever new outrage or controversy was making news in the United States.
The Trump agenda in a second term likely would be even more dramatic. He could withdraw from the NATO military alliance, end American support for Ukraine and start new trade wars.
"We could expect, right off the bat, that 10 per cent universal tariff that Trump intends to impose, not just on other countries but on Canada as well," Dawson told CBC Radio's The House this weekend.
And of course, there's the profound threat Trump poses to American democracy.
"One thing that Canadian politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are going to have to grapple with is, what does it mean to live next to a neighbour whose head of government and head of state is not just engaging in fascist, or borderline fascist, rhetoric, but is taking the policy steps to back it up?" Rob Goodman, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and a former congressional staffer, told The House.
With a few exceptions, Trudeau and his ministers were highly restrained in what they said — and didn't say — about Trump, both when he was a candidate in 2016 and when he was president. The possibility of provoking a fight with real consequences for Canadians and the economy seemed to be constantly top-of-mind for the prime minister.
Trudeau might be at least somewhat more willing to speak now. He has acknowledged being concerned about what a Trump presidency might mean for the global fight against climate change. He has also spoken about the choice Americans are facing — a choice he has opted to compare to the one Canadians will face in the next federal election.
Trudeau's Liberals have not shied away from comparing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to Trump. The phrase "MAGA Conservatives" recently entered the Liberal lexicon.
Perhaps that's undiplomatic. But Poilievre, an unabashed populist, shouldn't be surprised that Liberals are trying to draw such comparisons.
Canadians will be watching
When given the hypothetical choice, Canadians vastly prefer Biden to Trump — a poll released this week by Abacus Data found that 66 per cent of respondents favoured the Democratic incumbent, compared to 34 per cent for the likely Republican candidate.
There is a significant split along party lines. While more than 80 per cent of Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois voters favour Biden, 57 per cent of Conservative voters prefer Trump.
(Perhaps surprisingly, Abacus finds that support for Trump is somewhat higher than the average among younger Canadians — a result that lines up with Pollara's recent finding that younger Canadians feel less negatively toward Trump.)
Canadians' understandings of the stakes are somewhat mixed. Sixty-four per cent of respondents to a survey by the Angus Reid Institute agreed that "U.S. democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump." But only 32 per cent of respondents to Abacus said the election would have a "major impact" on Canada.
According to Abacus, 28 per cent of Canadians are following the presidential election "quite" or "very" closely. Another 43 per cent were following it "a little." Those numbers will surely grow over the next 10 months. American politics might be one of the world's most popular spectator sports, but in Canada it often seems to subsume even public interest in our own politics.
But ultimately, Canadians and their leaders can only watch and wonder, and try to prepare for all eventualities.
Trudeau said this week that his government will be ready for whatever decision Americans make this year — and no Canadian government can afford to appear unready or unable to manage the Canada-U.S. relationship. In addition to focusing cabinet's attention, Hillman's appearance might be about showing and telling Canadians that the government is getting ready.
But Thomas Juneau, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, suggested to Politico this week that it might not be possible to be completely prepared for what comes next.
"Politically, I understand why he would say that, but Canada is not ready," said Juneau, who has identified "democratic backsliding" in the United States as a security threat for Canada.
"Nobody can be ready because it would be so unpredictable."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
