Canada Walked Away From Trump’s Deal. Good.

I woke up this morning to the news that Canada and the United States had failed to reach a trade agreement.

And you know what?

I’m okay with that.

In fact, I fully support Prime Minister Mark Carney and our Canadian negotiating team for walking away.

I would much rather see Canada walk away from a bad deal than sign one simply so Donald Trump can announce that he got another country to bend to his demands.

There is no prize for signing a bad trade deal.

A trade agreement is supposed to benefit both countries.

That’s why you negotiate.

Canada isn’t going to get everything it wants.

The United States isn’t going to get everything it wants.

There has to be compromise.

That’s how negotiations work.

The problem is, compromise has to come from both sides.

From everything we’re hearing about these latest negotiations, Canada was prepared to compromise.

We were prepared to make concessions.

We were prepared to find common ground.

The United States apparently wasn’t prepared to move far enough.

Instead, we got more demands.

More tariffs. More threats. More conditions.

Eventually you have to say: enough.

There are some things Canada simply cannot negotiate away.

Our sovereignty is one of them.

Canada has every right to develop trade relationships with countries other than the United States.

We have every right to determine our own economic policies, our own agricultural policies, our own food standards and our own trading relationships around the world.

The United States is our largest trading partner.

It is not our economic landlord.

That’s an important distinction.

Then there’s supply management and dairy.

We’ve been arguing about this with the Americans for years. Canada already provides American dairy producers with tariff-free access through established quotas.

Those quotas have historically not always been completely filled.

So I find it rather difficult to accept the argument that Canada’s dairy system is somehow shutting American farmers out of our market.

Then we get into something even more fundamental.

Language.

Apparently the United States wanted concessions involving French-language requirements and packaging rules in Quebec.

Sorry.

That’s not a trade concession.

That’s Canada.

French isn’t some inconvenient regulation we can erase from a package because Washington doesn’t like it.

French is one of Canada’s two official languages.

Quebec has its own laws protecting the French language and culture, and whatever Canadians may debate among ourselves about those laws, they’re Canadian decisions.

They aren’t bargaining chips in Washington.

The same applies to our food standards.

Canada has the right to decide what agricultural products enter this country and under what conditions.

American producers operate under American regulations.

Canadian producers operate under Canadian regulations.

Those standards don’t have to be identical.

If Canada has different rules involving hormones, pesticides, additives, labelling or food production, then those are Canadian decisions made under Canadian law.

We’re a country.

That’s what countries do.

There is another issue here that, for me, may be even bigger than tariffs or dairy quotas.

Trust.

How do you negotiate a long-term trade agreement with an administration when you’re no longer confident that the agreement will still mean the same thing tomorrow?

We’ve watched Donald Trump impose tariffs, threaten tariffs, postpone tariffs, change deadlines, announce agreements and then change the terms.

At some point, a signature on a piece of paper has to mean something.

A deal isn’t a deal if one side can wake up tomorrow morning and decide it doesn’t like the deal anymore.

That’s not negotiating.

That’s leverage.

That’s bullying.

And Canada cannot build its economic future around the mood of one American president.

There was a time when Canada could negotiate with the United States knowing that, once an agreement was signed, both countries would generally honour it.

We might disagree.

We might challenge one another through established dispute mechanisms.

We might renegotiate portions of an agreement.

That’s normal.

What’s happening now isn’t normal.

We’re being asked to negotiate while tariffs are being used as a threat hanging over the table.

Give us what we want, or we’ll hit you with another tariff.

Well, eventually Canada has to be willing to call that bluff.

Apparently, last night, we did.

Does that mean this is going to be painless?

Of course not.

There will be consequences.

Canadian businesses will be hurt.

American businesses will be hurt.

Consumers on both sides of the border will pay more for some products.

Nobody wins a trade war.

I don’t celebrate that.

What I do celebrate is a Canadian government finally recognizing that there are circumstances where no deal is better than a bad deal.

Prime Minister Carney summed it up rather well this morning:

“The Americans asked too much and offered too little.”

That’s the issue in one sentence.

Canada went to Washington looking for a mutually beneficial agreement.

We didn’t get one.

So we walked away.

Good.

Now we continue doing what Canada should have been doing much more aggressively for decades:

building new markets,

strengthening trade relationships with Europe and Asia,

removing barriers within Canada

and reducing our overwhelming economic dependence on the United States.

America will always be our neighbour.

Hopefully, someday, it will once again be the predictable and trusted economic partner that Canadians grew accustomed to.

Right now, under Donald Trump, it isn’t.

That’s unfortunate.

It’s also reality.

So today, I stand firmly behind our Canadian negotiating team and behind Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Not because I want a trade war.

I don’t.

Not because I dislike Americans.

I don’t.

And certainly not because I believe Canada can simply ignore the enormous importance of the American market.

We can’t.

I support them because there comes a point where a country has to decide what it is prepared to trade away in order to get a deal.

Our sovereignty?

No.

Our ability to trade with the rest of the world?

No.

Our language and culture?

No.

Our right to establish Canadian standards and Canadian laws?

No.

Those aren’t negotiating positions.

Those are the things that make us a country.

So if the choice is between signing a deal that compromises those principles or walking away from the table?

Then pick up the briefcase.

Come home.

And we’ll figure out what comes next.

We’re Canadian.

We’ve done that before.

That’s my North of Opinion today – what are your thoughts. I welcome your comments below.