Canada First?

On responding to a national crisis while staying true to ourselves

In the weeks since U.S. president Donald Trump made his first tariff threats against Canada, our prime minister and leader of the official opposition have both invoked ‘Canada First’ to galvanize Canadians against this looming danger.

For Trudeau it was tactical – an attempt to rebuke Alberta premier Danielle Smith for not signing on to a joint plan, backed by all other premiers and Ottawa, to slap countervailing tariffs on Canadian exports to the US, including oil. (Unsurprisingly, Smith’s position proved to be broadly in line with the views of Albertans.)

For Poilievre it was a bigger pivot – a full-throated pledge to “restore the promise of Canada” with a Canada First Plan to impose dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on U.S. products; return this revenue to affected workers and businesses; re-energize Canada’s natural resource and manufacturing sectors; complete our economic union by erasing interprovincial barriers; and rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces.

Photo: La presse canadienne/Ethan Cairns

In this move there are echoes of the original Canada First movement started by five new friends – four lawyers, all writers, all born in Canada or Nova Scotia before 1841. In April 1848 they met for drinks in today’s Cháteau Lafayette, Ottawa’s oldest tavern, which first appeared on York street in 1849 as Grant’s Hotel, named for owner Francis Grant, but by 1868 was Salmon’s Hotel.