CALGARY, Alberta – I hadn’t even gotten off the plane in Calgary before two young men, coming home from a church mission trip, were asking me what was going on with President Donald Trump’s aggressive, on again, off again, tariffs on our neighbor to the north.
‘I like Trump,’ one of them told me, ‘but I don’t understand why he is doing this to Canadians.’
What struck me is that he didn’t ask why Trump was doing this to Canada, or the soon-to-be-replaced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but rather, to Canadians.
After talking to them, and more Canadians around Calgary on Saturday, I started to get the sense that even if Trump thinks the tariffs are strictly business, the denizens of the Great White North are clearly taking it personally.
Signs on the way into town urged Canadians to boycott American goods. Above one store was a somewhat confusing sign that read, ‘Our orange Cheetos don’t impose tariffs,’ and even as Canada’s Liberal Party moves to name a new prime minister this week, the tariffs are the thing on the top of everyone’s mind.
Calgary has an active and fun nightlife. On a pedestrian-only stretch of 8th Ave SW, under the shadow of the famous tower, restaurants abound and the sound of the Flames vs Canadiens hockey game spilled from bars out onto the street.
The James Joyce Restaurant and Pub is a classic Irish joint. Under the sign it says, ‘since 1882,’ not because the bar is that old, but because that is the year of the great novelist’s birth, a subtle play on words he would have enjoyed. Once inside, I found more ire.
Kelly is in his 60s and retired. He likes the place because it has no TVs, and when he realized I was American, I didn’t have to bring up the tariffs, he did, ‘Nothing Trump is doing seems rational,’ he told me.
Kelly also said that the ‘trade war,’ as it is called up here, had sparked a resurgence of nationalism in Canada, noting the recent hockey games against America. ‘We have our elbows up now,’ he said.
I asked if this situation was hurting conservative politicians, specifically Pierre Poillievre, who will run for prime minister for the Conservative Party. He looked skywards, shook his head a bit and said, ‘Oh yeah, a lot. It’s a problem.’
Here in the conservative province of Alberta, Kelly did not seem happy about it.
Later in the evening, I met David O’Brien, who immigrated to Calgary about a decade ago from Ireland. ‘You have to understand,’ he said in a lilting brogue, ‘the cost of living here is out of control. That’s why so many people hate Trudeau, but it also makes the tariffs even more scary.’
He said that Canada has become incredibly politically divided of late, but the tariffs and Trump’s teasing about it becoming the 51st state have created a kind of national unity. ‘There are a few I know that talk about joining America, but I think they know it’s not real, it’s more about the sad state of affairs in Canada,’ he said.
For its part, the state-controlled Canadian news media is all in on bashing Trump and his tariffs, and it is absolutely pervasive. Imagine a country in which basically every news channel is MSNBC and you get pretty close to the situation in Canada.
One thing that is important to understand is that in the U.S., or ‘down south,’ as they call it here, the Canada tariffs are at the back of the newspaper and in the D block of the news shows. After all we have the Ukraine war, Trump’s battle with the bureaucracy, and our own economic worries to contend with.
In Canada, these tariffs are the only story penetrating the news cycle, and what Americans see as little more than a tough trade negotiation, many Canadians see as an unexpected betrayal from a nation they have always held among their closest allies.
So far, from what I can tell, the confusion and frustration over the tariff situation in Canada has not turned to anger, at least not towards the American people. But the strain on the relationship is palpable and quite evident.
Not just the next four years of Trump’s presidency, but even the next four months could fundamentally change the relationship between our two countries, which share everything from trade, to a language, to sports leagues.
Whether this change to U.S. and Canadian relations turns out to be positive remains to be seen, but the mood in Canada today is not very optimistic.