Deep Dive with Shawn

Never America's 51st State: The Trump Effect on Canadian Politics (w/ Dr. Andre Lecours)

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When Canada's snap election was called for April 28th, few could have predicted how dramatically the political landscape would shift. What started as a predictable contest with Conservatives comfortably ahead has transformed into a national referendum on sovereignty and resilience in the face of unprecedented threats from south of the border.

Donald Trump's sudden targeting of Canada with punishing tariffs and provocative statements about making Canada "the 51st state" has upended conventional political wisdom. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative challenger Pierre Poilievre now find themselves battling over who can best protect Canadian interests against an increasingly hostile neighbor.

In this episode, Dr. André Lecours, professor at the University of Ottawa and expert on Canadian nationalism, joins the pod to discuss how Trump has become "the single most important person" in Canada's election. We delve into the difficult position of Canada's Conservative Party, which historically sympathized with Republicans but now faces a Republican president attacking Canada directly. Can a party that once emulated Trump's style now effectively oppose him?

Dr. Lecours offers unique insights into Canada's democratic safeguards – from its parliamentary system to its decentralized federalism – that provide resilience against democratic backsliding. We examine how Canadian provinces are responding to Trump's tariffs, whether Canadians distinguish between the US government and American people, and the long-term implications for North America and the global order.

As Canada faces a dramatically changed political landscape, the election outcome will determine whether it pursues greater self-sufficiency, diversifies international partnerships, or finds a new way to manage its vital but volatile relationship with the United States. Whatever Canada decides, the comfortable assumptions that have guided its foreign policy for generations are being fundamentally reassessed.

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Dr. Lecours:

MAGA and Trumpism, if you will, interestingly, has placed the Conservative Canada in a very difficult position, and it's really the Conservative Party of Canada that needs rethinking, because part of its base has been sympathetic to President Trump, but now President Trump is attacking Canada. So what is the Conservative Party of Canada to do? It cannot, of course, keep supporting Trump openly and wholeheartedly. Obviously, at the same time, it needs to be a little more nuanced in its criticism of the Trump administration.

Shawn:

Welcome to Deep Dive with me, s C Fettig. On April 28th, canadians will head to the polls in a snap election called by their new Prime Minister, mark Carney, who's facing off against Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. This election comes at a critical time for Canada, with the country grappling with unprecedented challenges to its sovereignty and economic stability, thanks to a Trump effect. President Trump's recent tariff threats and provocative statements about Canada becoming the 51st state have injected a sense of urgency into the Canadian campaign. These developments have reshaped the political landscape, dominated campaign discourse and shifted the focus from domestic issues to questions of a national sovereignty and economic resilience. The specter of Trump's tariffs, which took effect on April 2nd, hangs over the election like a dark cloud. Both Carney and Poilievre are positioning themselves as best equipped to stand up to Trump and protect Canadian interests. Although Poilievre has been referred to as the Trump of Canada, often himself highlighting many temperament and policy similarities, a comparison he's recently tried to distance himself from, and the Liberals have tried to tie him to.

Shawn:

In many ways, this Canadian election is much more about the United States than it is about Canada. So my guest today is Dr André Lecours, professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, where he holds the Forum of Federations, and University of Ottawa Research Chair on Comparative Federalism. He's also a former president of the Canadian Political Science Association and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a leading expert on Canadian nationalism, secession and federalism. We discuss Trump, these upcoming Canadian elections, how Canada can protect its own democracy when its largest trading partner, the US, is starting to look like a very real threat, and how Canada can realign itself with more stable allies.

Shawn:

All right, if you like this episode or any episode, please give it a like, share and follow on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please feel free to email me at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom. Let's do a deep dive. Dr LaCour, thanks for being here. How are you? I'm very well. How are you, s? I'm, all things considered, I'm doing. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Lecours:

How are you? I'm very well. How are you, Shawn?

Shawn:

I'm, all things considered, I'm doing all right, all right. So it kind of feels like we're living in some type of a fever dream, maybe a nightmare, right now. In a matter of like two months, trump has managed to maybe permanently destroy one of the strongest and most enduring alliances in the world between the US and Canada, and all signs suggest it will only get worse over time. Among other things, trump has threatened to make Canada the 51st state and has ignited a trade war that will probably cause severe pain on both sides of the border. And then, amidst all of that, canada is holding federal elections, so maybe we should start there. How do you think Trump is influencing your elections right now?

Dr. Lecours:

Well, he's been the single most important person in these elections. You know, if we go back six months, we had a federal liberal government led by Prime Minister Trudeau, who seemed to be on its way out very clearly. So the projection then was a conservative majority government to happen at the next federal elections. And nobody, including me, gave the Liberal Party of Canada any chance to form the next federal government in Canada. Why? Because of a variety of reasons the impopularity of Prime Minister Trudeau. We have, I think it's fair to say, a housing crisis here.

Dr. Lecours:

The federal, the liberal government is 10 years old, so it's a little bit, you know, long in the tooth.

Dr. Lecours:

So there was a clear projection for a conservative federal government in Canada, first as a candidate in the last, you know, few months and weeks of the US has since now implemented somewhat, we would say, as policy economy, because of the integrated nature of the economies of the United States and Canada, linked to free trade agreements reaching back to the 1980s.

Dr. Lecours:

So there's many jobs and levels of economic growth at stake with tariff policies.

Dr. Lecours:

And then, of course, came the reference to Canada as the 51st state of the United States Federation, which were first presented by Canadian politicians as a joke when Prime Minister Trudeau went to Mar-a-Lago with some of his ministers to meet with the then President-designate Trump.

Dr. Lecours:

The then president-designate Trump, but repeated such references since have led Canadian politicians to articulate very clearly to Canadians that this reference is in fact not a joke and that this is what President Trump wants. So, in that context, the Canadian federal election, which was, you know, most likely going to be run on issues of, on domestic issues right Housing, you know, cost of living policies, the carbon tax, for example are now fought mostly over the future of the relationship with the United States between the two main party leaders, mark Carney, the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the current prime minister, and Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who, between these broader spectrum of Canada's trade policy, if you will, and international alliances, so this is where we're at, and it's very unusual in Canada to have an election that's focused and whose ballot question is of an international nature.

Dr. Lecours:

hasn't happened really since 1988 when the then-conservative government under Prime Minister Mulroney made the free trade with the United States really the ballot question. So we're in that position right now and interestingly the changes in circumstances have provided a major advantage to the Liberal Party of Canada because for all kinds of reasons Canadians right now tend to see the current government which again we thought was long in the tube, with a new prime minister for sure to be the best option for managing the relationship with President Trump and the United States.

Shawn:

So there is this dynamic that you're touching on a little bit, as it relates to how other parties, both domestic to the United States but also international, respond or benefit from a Trump presidency. So in the United States, you know, all signs suggest that Democrats will benefit from a Trump presidency because there will be such a massive backlash, and I think we're seeing that kind of playing out. You know you mentioned the Liberal Party benefiting in Canada to some degree from the Trump presidency. We're also seeing some of that happening in Europe, some European countries as well. But it brings up an interesting question which is, at the same time, democrats aren't actually in the United States really presenting an alternative vision for the future of the United States. But it feels like this might be short lived, in that the support for the liberal parties is more of an anti Trump reaction than it is support for any policies, and I wonder if that has a short you know short timeframe in which liberal parties or progressives need to actually identify some type of a workable agenda.

Dr. Lecours:

Yeah, well, first of all, I mean the term liberal, you know, in politics outside the United States means something quite different than in the US, right, you know, liberalism in the US is someone who's, you know, left of center, social democrat, if you will. The Liberal Party of Canada is a different type of political animal. Right, it's the party that's governed Canada the most. It really alternates between center-left and center-right, but this is in the Canadian context, right. So center right in the Canadian context is probably still on the left in the US. So that's the first thing to say there. The second thing is that, well, really, right now, a month is all the Liberal Party of Canada needs in terms of the Trump effect on the country right, of the Trump effect on the country right, because the elections are in less than a month, and if the liberals can form a majority government after these elections, well, it would be the most spectacular comeback in Canadian political history, let's just put it that way. And with a majority government, of course, then they can implement whatever agenda they want, pretty much, and that agenda will be about, you know, making Canada more self-reliant. I think Prime Minister Carney has been clear on that. He has said that the United States is no longer a reliable ally, that Canada needs to be more self-reliant and that it needs to find other reliable allies. And when he became prime minister a couple of weeks ago, the first thing he did was go to France and go to the United Kingdom. So I think that was highly symbolical of what I think his government, were it to be formed again after the next elections, would want to do so.

Dr. Lecours:

You know MAGA and Trumpism, if you will, interestingly, has placed the Conservative Canada in a very difficult position, and it's really the Conservative Party of Canada that needs rethinking, because part of its base has been sympathetic to President Trump, but now President Trump is attacking Canada.

Dr. Lecours:

So what is the Conservative Party of Canada to do? It cannot, of course, keep supporting Trump openly and wholeheartedly. Obviously, at the same time, it needs to be a little more nuanced in its criticism of the Trump administration, and so the conservatives here have had a hard time walking this line. They've attempted, in fact, to run the type of electoral campaign that they had planned to all along against Justin Trudeau, who's gone, against the carbon tax, which Prime Minister Carney said he was going to abolish, against all of these things that are no longer there, because the dynamic with the Trump administration is difficult with the Conservative Party of Canada. It's hard to know what to say that the liberals aren't already saying, especially considering that, as I said, part of its base, especially in a couple of Western provinces, then there you know, alberta and Saskatchewan has some sympathy for the Trump administration. I guess what I'm saying is it's actually the Conservative Party of Canada that the Trump administration is forcing into a redefinition of sorts, and that's highly surprising at first sight.

Shawn:

There's another knock-on effect of Trumpism and the MAGA movement in the global order that I think is worth paying some attention to.

Shawn:

So Trump's argument is that you know he's making America great again and that this posturing and this approach that he's taking, especially with our allies, is actually all in pursuit of making the United States stronger on the global stage. And yet what I fear, and what I think is more likely to happen, is that the global order could very much shift as a result of Trumpism, however, that that global order will realign itself in a way that excludes the United States, which I think will be painful for the world because of the somewhat hegemonic role that the United States plays on the global stage, but that ultimately, we've already passed a Rubicon in which other countries are going to have to wrestle with or maybe are beginning to realize that the United States is not a trustworthy and good actor on the global stage. I wonder if you think that's potentially true. But also, what do you think Canada's role would or could be in a realignment or restructuring of the global order?

Dr. Lecours:

Yeah, well, I think that conclusion certainly is the one that's been reached by Canadian politicians, right that Canada, of course, has a middle power exercising almost exclusively. Of course, soft power has benefited from an international order based on norms, and the idea here is that that order is gone right, that we're entering into something new, and especially for Canada. What that means, of course, is that there's new concerns about not only the economic relations with the US, but also security. It's no secret that Canada is heavily dependent on the United States for its security, and President Trump has made it abundantly clear that that's kind of essentially a benefit that Canada could now only enjoy if it were to become the 51st state, just like it could only enjoy the absence of it were to become the 51st state, just like it could only enjoy the absence of tariffs if it became the 51st state. So I think that's the new reality.

Dr. Lecours:

Now, what can Canada do? Again, in the immediate term, what we're going to see is most likely is an increase in defense spending. So, again, this idea of becoming more self-reliant, which is something that had never been important in Canadian politics, because and there President Trump is right because both Canadian politicians, canadian citizens, always felt that, as a member of NATO and a neighbor of the United States, if Canada were to be attacked, it would be defended by the US. Now, this is highly uncertain. So there needs to be some more self-reliance on the one hand and on the other hand, there needs to be, you know, a search for security partners and you know candidates here are not obvious, right, because of geography, essentially. So I think, in the context of this search, canada is going to look to strengthen its ties with European Union countries as well as the United Kingdom. But you know, at the end of the day, s, I think Canada is prisoner, to a large extent, of its geography.

Dr. Lecours:

This relationship, from a Canadian perspective, with the United States is unavoidable. We share this longest border in the world, the economy is highly integrated, the security apparatus is also highly integrated, the intelligence apparatus is integrated, and while the US can survive without huge problems most likely certainly with small problems, I think, but probably without huge problems when all these kind of partnerships disintegrate, this is not the case for Canada. So, you know, while Canadian politicians are looking for more self-reliance and more reliable partners, I think it's also crucial that they look to maybe not salvage, but to yeah, in a sense, salvage the United States with their relationship with the US. Right, they need to look to restructure it to make it work in a different way, and Prime Minister Carney has said this many times we're not going back to how things were, but we need, canada needs to go towards something that will work in terms of the relationship with the US. I mean Canada can't just pretend that the United States isn't there. United States isn't there. I mean that's not a feasible or likely or desirable option for Canada.

Shawn:

So one of the things that worries me, if we're looking into the future here under a Trump presidency and I think this is directly out of a Trump playbook is that he likes to rattle the sabers and then, when people react, he frames that as a sign of aggression and then justifies whatever further action he plans to take. And so, in the context of Canada, my fear is that as Canada invests more money in its defense, as Canada builds stronger alliances across the Atlantic that is all as a result of some of the threats and actions taken by Donald Trump that Trump will then turn around and say that those actions that Canada is taking are actually proactive security threats to the United States and then use that as some type of a pretext for whatever he plans to do next. I wonder if you think that I'm being histrionic in thinking that, or if you think there might be some substance to that.

Dr. Lecours:

No, I think you're. I think you are taking it a little bit too far. So I mean, we've already seen those kind of accusations from President Trump. You know he's called Canada like a nasty country to deal with many, many times, which of course came as a shock for Canadians, because Canadians certainly don't think of themselves as nasty. And you know, my sense on the Trump presidency is that you know at some point this strange kind of obsession with Canada will fade and that other things around the world will capture President Trump's attention more than Canada and, like I said, the extent to which Canada can find new partners and can really become self-reliant is limited and can really become self-reliant is limited.

Dr. Lecours:

So I cannot see the type of move on the part of Canada that would create, you know, the type of backlash that you described in the US and even in the Trump administration here politically, here in Canada. I think it's important that you know our leaders share this message, that you know we can't go back to the relationship that once was. In all likelihood and some people think it's possible, right, I mean, I guess it all depends if MAGA is here to stay or not. I mean we can come back on that. If MAGA is here to stay or not, I mean we can come back on that and you know, is President Trump first of all, I guess, is he going to stay for an attempted third term? You know, is he going to? If and when he leaves, will MAGA remain and perhaps JD Vance or someone else close to President Trump become president, in which case we could have this type of fractured relationship endure.

Dr. Lecours:

But there's also a chance, of course, that there's a change in administration in the US in four years and, while this might not trigger a return to the relationship that once was, it might take the relationship between two countries in a different place than where it's now. So I think there is still room for change and I think overall, of course, that's the preferable option for Canadians right To have in the US not only a neighbor, but a partner, an ally, a friend because I think most Canadians have thought historically of Americans as their friends to have that type of relationship with the US.

Shawn:

So one of the superpowers I think that Trump has, and the way that he's been able to amass so much influence and power in the United States and then, I suppose, by extension, on the global stage, is that he's found the vulnerabilities within American politics domestically and also within American social and cultural life that he's been able to exploit, weaknesses that he's been able to exploit, I guess, somewhat deftly, in retrospect, to presidential ends.

Shawn:

Every country has its own vulnerabilities in its structure and also within its society and its cultural life. Canada is no exception to this. So Canada does have a federal structure that is designed to accommodate some regional identities and I'm thinking specifically of Quebec that have been a source of internal tension for a while. So we've talked a little bit about how the Trump presidency, at least in the short term, could be going a long way to firming up Canadian unity. But I'm concerned about the opposite If Trump is providing, in a way, almost like a roadmap for any politician that's interested in exploiting vulnerabilities within their own system, if he's providing a roadmap to perhaps Canadian politicians or Canadian leaders or Canadian figures that are also interested in power and could learn from Trump how to exploit those vulnerabilities and what that might look like.

Dr. Lecours:

Right? Well, so I mean, essentially, what you're asking is, what are the odds of, you know, canada going down the slope of democratic backsliding, which is the question that I guess I get most often? I mean, of course, it's not impossible, but I would say that Canada has a few safeguards that the United States probably doesn't have. One is the parliamentary system actually. So we're in the middle of elections, we just discussed it. We're going to vote for a parliament. So in a parliamentary system such as Canada's citizens don't vote for a parliament, so in a parliamentary system such as Canada's citizens don't vote for a government, we vote for a parliament and then parliament chooses government, which means that government requires the confidence of, here in Canada, the House of Commons, to govern, which means also that when this confidence is withdrawn, the government falls. So essentially, what I'm saying here is that you know, it's much easier in Canada to get rid of a government than it is in the United States to get rid of an administration, right, I mean, we know that in the US, in a presidential system, yes, you have mechanisms of impeachment, but that's really like a judiciary, like a legal procedure that can be triggered only for treasons and such crimes, whereas in Canada. It's simply about confidence, right. If government loses the confidence of the House of Commons, it falls, the House of Commons it falls. So you know, you could expect that if a Canadian government were to try to do some of the things that President Trump is currently doing or attempted to do, that it might lose the confidence of the House of Commons, despite mechanisms of party disciplines and the like. So I think that's a really really important distinction and not to get too political science-y here, but there's a long literature in political science suggesting that parliamentary systems are actually better for democracy than presidential systems. So I think that's really important.

Dr. Lecours:

Then you mentioned that Canada is a federal state, as is the United States, of course, so there's a commonality there. But the Canadian Federation is much more decentralized than the American Federation. We have constitutionally and politically more powerful provinces, facilitated by the fact that in Canada, political parties are not vertically integrated. So you know, if we were to have a conservative government, for example, at the federal level, it's really not a given that it could count on the support of conservative parties at the provincial level has instructed his members of the Legislative Assembly to not actively campaign or support the Conservative Party of Canada. So this is a very different structure in Canada in terms of the federal arrangement Powerful provinces which are their own kind of forum of democratic legitimacy and accountability which could fight more effectively against, you know, a federal government that would see us going down the road of democratic backsliding right.

Dr. Lecours:

I would add to that a couple of more things courts. So I think courts are being tested now right in the United States in terms of their capacity to uphold the rule of law. Courts in Canada are much less politicized, much less divided ideologically than in the United States. And I think, if you look at the top, the Supreme Court of Canada has great legitimacy, right. I mean, we don't have this kind of view that oh, there's some conservative and some liberal judges in the Supreme Court of Canada, we don't do these readings or we can't do them. So I think there's a better chance that court judgments, say, against a federal government, government in Canada, would be accepted as completely legitimate than when these judgments are rendered by US courts against the Trump administration.

Dr. Lecours:

And I'll finish by this very basic observation, sociological. You mentioned Quebec. So Canada's long had this French-English cleavage right. So Canada's long had this French-English cleavage right which in contemporary politics is often called the kind of Quebec rest of Canada cleavage, and, as you said, there's been a strong secessionist movement in Quebec. Quebec's had two referendums on independence, so there's something here for the Canadian political class to constantly manage.

Dr. Lecours:

And so really, the number one task of a Canadian prime minister and a Canadian government is to make sure the country survives, and that's certainly not the case in the US, but that is the case in Canada, the case in Canada. So populist politics in Canada, or even, you know, more to the point, kind of democratic backsliding, could be seen as something threatening to the integrity of the country and therefore something that a federal government and the prime minister needs to be very careful with. You know, I think it's pretty clear that no Canadian prime minister wants to be very careful with. You know, I think it's pretty clear that no Canadian prime minister wants to be the one that triggered or oversaw the disintegration of the country. So the Canadian political class has to exercise a degree of prudence. That is not necessary. You know, in most other countries, including in the United States, countries that whose continued existence is really not in peril.

Shawn:

So you mentioned Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and I guess I want to pose my next question in the context of some of the stuff that he's been saying. So he's taken a very bullish approach to the United.

Shawn:

States. Yeah, and I think perhaps you know, premiers in Canada might have a little bit more influence in international politics as it relates to Canada than do governors, at least with a relationship to the United States. So Ford has taken this posture of inflicting as much pain as possible on the United States where he can, in response to Trump's tariffs specifically. And in the United States there's kind of a tradition that governors of states can't really or shouldn't engage in the international arena and especially not run counter to the national position on issues. And there is a very real potential that Doug Ford could get out a bit ahead of himself, or at least a bit ahead of the national government or the federal government in Canada. And I wonder if this is a typical thing or if you have the same concerns at all.

Dr. Lecours:

Yeah, so they have been controversial. The premier Ford's actions? Right, because, well, in part we've been in the middle of political uncertainty at the federal level. Prime Minister Trudeau announces his resignation, then he left, then Mark Carney became prime minister, chosen by the Liberal Party of Canada as new leader, therefore becoming prime minister but not being, you know, elected. And now we're in the middle of an election campaign. So there was somewhat of a political void which, I think, a premier Ford, whose new government just comes out of a provincial election in Ontario, the largest province in the country, running on defending Ontario's interests in the context of, you know, the United States tariff policies. So Premier Fortran has a lot of legitimacy in his province. Now, to what extent can he? Can he take this abroad Again?

Dr. Lecours:

has been a matter of some controversy because, you know, the question was was he undermining the federal government? Was he doing this with the blessing of the federal government? As someone who could be like more aggressive, but then he was a little bit kind of chaotic, right, he announced a surcharge on electricity export to New York, michigan and Minnesota. Then, when President Trump said, oh, that would lead to, you know, an additional 25% tariffs on everything coming from Canada and Premier Ford backtrack. So it's a little bit. It's been a little bit confusing.

Dr. Lecours:

Now you're right that Canadian provinces have typically gone abroad more than US states, at least least in a more overtly political way. That's something that in the political science literature is called paradiplomacy, right, parallel diplomacy and in some cases, mostly with respect to Quebec, sometimes taking positions that were not, you know, really federal positions, were not government of Canada positions. But again, that's a Canadian reality. We have powerful provinces which, for now, are quite united. Actually, it's something hard to do in Canada because provinces have different economies, different sociologies and so on and so forth. But now there's been a real kind of rally around the flag effect, if you will, that you find amongst provincial leadership and Canadians in general, for that matter, which means that the Canadian response to President Trump's tariffs and other insinuations has come from a variety of political actors right, most importantly the government of Canada, of course the federal government, but also provincial premiers.

Dr. Lecours:

So I think that's the profoundly federal nature of Canada here coming through in response to this crisis.

Shawn:

This is going to be a pretty broad question, so I'll leave it to you to determine how you want to respond. But, given kind of your experience and your research and your work, how would you advise Canada to, I suppose, navigate this situation right now as successfully as possible?

Dr. Lecours:

I think it's you know hope for the best but prepare for the worst, right.

Dr. Lecours:

So I think you do prepare as if this relationship with the US will never be the way it once was. I think you do prepare as if this relationship with the US will never be the way it once was. I think you do have to do that. You do have to encourage Canadians to buy Canadians buy Canadian products right, which politicians have been doing. You do have to, I think, design an industrial policy that doesn't take free trade for granted right, policy that doesn't take free trade for granted right. Everything that Canadian governments have done over the last several decades has been in the context of free trade right. I mean free trade because it was viewed by economists as being mutually beneficial, still is viewed that way, except for, I guess, the few economists that advise President Trump. Free trade was seen as something that would not be questioned by any, certainly by any advanced, industrialized kind of liberal, democratic, market oriented states. But now it is, and so I think Canadian governments, both federal and in the provinces, have to kind of see beyond this free trade paradigm, not to revert back to protectionism, of course, but to find different partners, again difficult because of the geography and a host of other factors, but I think that's something that they have to do. But at the same time, as I've said, the relationship with the US is necessary. It's unavoidable and necessary.

Dr. Lecours:

I think there needs to be some patching up to do, even starting with the Trump administration here that's going to be in place for the next several years. Canadian politicians have to. So Canadian politicians have to yeah, quote unquote be strong. So presumably you can't let tariffs be imposed by your neighbor without imposing tariffs of your own right. It's hard politically to just let tariffs be and not impose your own. So I think that's part of what needs to be done here your own. So I think that that's part of what needs to be done here. But at the same time, there needs to be a conversation on how this relationship goes forward here.

Dr. Lecours:

I think the change in prime ministership is helping Canada and whether Mr Carney or Mr Poilievre is prime minister in a month, I think that person and his government needs to make sure that there can be some type of workable relationship with the United States Workable economically workable, politically, workable with respect to security. I don't quite know how this is done, frankly, because, as you know, it's difficult to deal with the Trump administration. I think Canadian politicians and interest groups and different voices have stressed how beneficial for both countries this relationship is, and I think that needs to continue to be done. And, of course, you know we're small and the United States is big, so at the end of the day we're in a way not at the mercy, but we certainly don't control everything, if most that's going on. So, in short, I think, becoming more self-reliant, finding reliable partners, but also finding ways to make the relationship with the United States work, even though it could look different than how it's looked in the past.

Shawn:

One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot lately is it's easy to, I suppose, look retrospectively and cast dispersions and to criticize, but I do wonder if we're living through a period of time right now in global history in which we could take a very important lesson, and that is that, in building our alliances and relationships and developing our trade deals, et cetera, that we and by we I mean the global community and individual nation states take much more seriously the potential that any one actor with too much power cannot be relied upon solely built out of something like trust. And I do feel like what's happened is that the United States, that a lot of trust was given to the goodwill of the United States government in the past that allowed it to amass so much power and influence that to disentangle that is going to be very painful for the entire world.

Dr. Lecours:

Yeah, I think you're right. I think there was always the image, certainly from Canada. I mean, you know, I don't want to speak for any other country and I know the view of the United States from elsewhere in the world can be radically different, but it's clear that from Canada, the United States was always this benevolent power. At the same time, I think Canadians have always understood also that, as former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said, you know, when you sleep with an elephant, when the elephant sneezes, you're. You know I'm paraphrasing here, but you're going to feel it. Right, the elephant moves, you're going to feel it. The elephant sneezes, you're going to catch a cold.

Dr. Lecours:

You know again, we're in a sense quote unquote prisoner of our geography. So that's why I think it's so disturbing for Canadians and Canadian politicians to see the United States change its perspective right on the world, seemingly stopping to see economic and security relationships and partnerships as win-win, but rather as deals or bargains where one mostly wins while the other mostly loses. I think in President Trump's world it's a zero-sum game world, or it's almost a winner-takes-all world, and I think that's a major change for the partners of the United States, this view that, you know, relationships are not mutually beneficial for the Trump administration right that it either wins or it loses. So that has all kinds of implications for world security and prosperity, and especially for smaller powers like Canada.

Shawn:

And especially for smaller powers like Canada, which neighbor the US and are really really kind of sensitive to anything that happens there. Speaking of being neighbors, so I live in Seattle, right, and we have typically taken weekend trips up to Vancouver, victoria, almost like once a month, and we have not since Trump has taken office. In part, the reason is because I feel like I'm starting to realize what it must have felt like, or it must feel like, to be Russian or maybe Israeli in certain areas of the world these days, and I am, I'm not going to lie I'm a little worried that we're going to get an aggressive response if we cross the border, that people will not be happy to see us, and I guess I wonder what your sense is, if Canadians are looking at this as a US government issue or if they are extending this to the American people.

Dr. Lecours:

That's a good question. I don't think I've seen like polling data on that, but I think, anecdotally, I would say that it's Canadians are able to distinguish between the US government and Americans, and that's something that Premier Ford has done really well. I think. You know like he's been very present on US media, as you know, he said repeatedly that he loves Americans media. As you know, he said repeatedly that he loves Americans but that he disagrees with the current administration. So you know, again, that's something that has changed.

Dr. Lecours:

You might know that many Canadians have decided to, you know, not travel to the United States for the foreseeable future. I don't know how it's going from the United States to Canada. I really do not think that Americans need to worry about a rude reception by Canadians because, again, as I said, I think Canadians are making the distinction between the policy and approach of their federal government and what Americans think. But you know, maybe I'm wrong here. I'm not going on any kind of survey data and I haven't extensively questioned my compatriots on this issue questioned my compatriots on this issue, but my strong sense is that, to put it simply, you could most likely travel to Vancouver and Victoria and feel quite comfortable, even, you know, announcing you are American, but perhaps you'll just have to actually do the trip and let me know how it goes.

Shawn:

Okay, final question Are you ready for it?

Dr. Lecours:

Yeah.

Shawn:

What's something interesting you've been reading, watching, listening to or doing lately, and it doesn't have to be related to this topic, but it can be.

Dr. Lecours:

Well, I think it's going to be, because it's this electoral campaign, S right.

Dr. Lecours:

I mean Right, I mean it's, it's, it's mesmerizing up here because, as I said, we've never had the potential for since 1988, an international issue or an international actor right, president Trump feature in the federal election campaign. I mean, president Trump is the single most important person in the current election, I think it's fair to say. And so all kinds of strange things are happening. Right, the Liberal Party is gaining steam. The New Democratic Party, which is our small social democratic party here, is collapsing because people on the left, I guess, want to make sure that they don't have a conservative government, so they're going to support the Liberals, which are a bit more centrist than the New Democratic Party. But if you're even clearly on the left, maybe that's the strategic thing to do. The Bloc Québécois, which is a Quebec-only party that supports the independence of the province and operates at the federal level is also trying to find a way to, you know, articulate the Korean discourse.

Dr. Lecours:

So it needs to kind of be not overly undermined, this kind of be not overly undermine this kind of Canadian front, but at the same time explain that there's particular and peculiar Quebec interests there that are at play in these negotiations that can only be defended by a Quebec-only party. So and that part is, you know, as a Quebecer myself is really interesting because, you know, I think there's a, there's a structural challenge coming here for the Quebec independence movement, which is that, you know, in the 95 referendum, for example, which yielded almost a majority in favor of independence, you know, the counter argument by supporters of independence against those who said that the province would be left economically worse by independence was to say well, that's OK, we have free trade, we're just going to keep trading with the Americans, right, we don't need to trade with with Canada, we'll just we'll just, you know, keep on going with our north south economic relations, economic relations.

Dr. Lecours:

And of course that argument seems to be gone now, which I think places, you know, supporters and promoters of independence in a more difficult discursive situation. So you see, there's a lot to follow in Canadian politics and society, and this is beyond politics we're into kind of society and what Canadians buy when they go to the grocery store and so on and so forth. There's so much to follow as a result of the last US presidential election. So it's again. It's crazy to think the extent to which that, you know, american politics and the last presidential election is impacting virtually all dimensions of Canadian politics and society.

Shawn:

I mean it is fascinating this kind of Trump effect on Canadian politics and you can track almost right around March 1, cpc was up nationally like 10, 12, 13 points, and then it started to shift and now it looks like LPC is up about anywhere between four to eight.

Dr. Lecours:

That's right. And unfortunately for Monsieur Poilievre, you know the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada he in the past has sounded a lot like Donald Trump, right? He has criticized experts, criticized the media. He's criticized the World Economic Forum. He supported that kind of convoy, blockade, slash, occupation here in Ottawa, where I am in the capital, just like Donald Trump and Fox News did. And now the Liberal Party of Canada, ryan and the Capitol, just like, you know, donald Trump and Fox News did.

Dr. Lecours:

And now the Liberal Party of Canada actually is running some very effective ads against him, where they show a clip of him for five seconds saying something and then Donald Trump saying the same thing, and they repeat on many different topics. And the message, of course, is you know, pierre Poiliev is just like Donald Trump and Donald Trump is attacking Canada. Therefore, why would you vote for a party led by Pierre Poiliev? So, so, yes, the Trump effect. I think that's that's the right term and that's it's just been massive. It's almost like I'm going to use some of President Trump's favorite words here. It's been unlike anything we've seen before. It's been exceptional. It's incredible to see how Canadian politics is being transformed by what's happened in the United States.

Shawn:

Dr LaCour, thanks for taking the time.

Dr. Lecours:

I really appreciate it you're welcome, it was a pleasure.

Shawn:

It's clear that the 2025 Canadian election is going to be unlike any other in recent memory. The interplay between domestic politics and international pressures has created a uniquely charged atmosphere as the Trump effect upends what seems like a foregone conclusion to these April elections in Canada, where, up until very recently, the Conservatives were overwhelmingly expected to sweep. It may be that the more Conservative control that Trump wields in the United States, the better Liberal parties do in other countries, with the first bellwether being Canada. Whether Canada emerges from this election with a renewed sense of national identity or faces further challenges to its sovereignty remains to be seen. What's certain, though, is that the outcome will have far-reaching consequences, not just for Canada, but for North American relations and the global order as a whole. All right, check back next week for another episode of Deep Dive Chat. Soon, folks, thank you, thank you.

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Shawn C. Fettig

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