President-elect Donald Trump takes the stage to address supporters at his rally, at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 6.Brian Snyder/Reuters
For anyone who hoped Tuesday’s presidential election would serve as a rebuke to Donald Trump, the result is shocking. Instead of kicking Mr. Trump to history’s curb, American voters put him back in office with a vengeance.
He won the electoral college easily and, as of this writing, was on the way to becoming the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since 2004. It is a resounding comeback for Mr. Trump. And it’s a democratic one. The American people have spoken, and the conventions of democracy require us to accept their verdict.
What matters now for Canadians is how our governments respond to the threats the president-elect poses to this country. They exist on multiple fronts; some are existential.
An immediate one has to be immigration. Mr. Trump’s monstrous campaign promise to forcibly deport 12 million undocumented immigrants will no doubt prompt some of them to head to Canada. They might well do that before Mr. Trump takes office in January.
Canada saw a similar situation after Mr. Trump was elected in 2016, when thousands of Haitians living in the U.S. who were threatened with deportation entered Canada at an illegal crossing point at Roxham Road in Quebec.
Ottawa has since amended the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. so that border guards can send back all refugee claimants coming from the U.S., no matter where they cross. But the pressure on Ottawa to manage a sudden influx of refugee claimants will nonetheless be immense, and it will exacerbate existing immigration issues. The government must prepare for that now.
The longer term threat to Canada will be economic. Mr. Trump’s vow to put tariffs as high as 20 per cent on every good imported into the U.S. would hurt America’s economy. But it would destroy Canada’s. More than 70 per cent of Canada’s exports go to the U.S.; the government needs to start working now on getting inside Mr. Trump’s tariff wall.
There is little doubt Mr. Trump will be carving out exemptions. The Trudeau government has to get Canada on that list the same way it minimized Mr. Trump’s demand to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2017 – by marshalling the governors of northern states, premiers and Canadian business leaders to press their case as a united front. (And keep that list handy for the 2026 review of the continental trade pact.)
The threats to Canada’s economy don’t stop at tariffs. Mr. Trump has said he wants to cut corporate taxes to 15 per cent in order to make the U.S. more attractive to investment. His ability to do so will depend on whether the Republicans control Congress, but a failure by Ottawa to match Mr. Trump’s measures will hurt competitiveness.
In order to be prepared, Ottawa and the provinces need to get their fiscal houses in order. Any government burdened by reckless overspending next year could be hamstrung by Mr. Trump’s chaotic economic policies.
Defence is another issue that needs immediate attention. Mr. Trump has long expressed sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, antipathy for NATO and apathy about the illegal invasion of Ukraine. If there was ever a moment for Ottawa to start rebuilding the Armed Forces in earnest, starting with an increase of defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP, it is now. Otherwise, Canada will abandon its western allies when it most needs to show solidarity with them.
And then there is democracy itself. American voters have given Mr. Trump a mandate to politicize the civil service and the Department of Justice, to surround himself with sycophantic enablers, and to punish his political enemies.
If the world’s most powerful democracy lets Mr. Trump undo its founding principles, it will be a terrible blow to the values and system that have made Canada one of the world’s most successful and safe countries.
This, then, is the moment for political leaders in Canada to stand up in defence of democracy and its norms and conventions. And not just in Canada, but in countries around the world, Ukraine included.
Mr. Trump’s election to a second term has put the free world, Canada included, in a crunch. Ottawa needs to recognize that fact – and take action, quickly.