What if – Some Speculative Riffs on Canada – US

Patrick Gossage • April 7, 2025

Trump has upended decades of globalization and efforts to have freer trade among nations worldwide, slamming dozens of “friendly countries" with major tariffs of goods destined for the US. Canadian goods under the USMCA are exempted, but hugely damaging tariffs on Canada-made cars, aluminum and steel remain.

The hope that a new, civilized, even polite White House attitude to Canada, and their dropping references to us as the 51st state, might bode well for negotiations following the results of the federal election. In any case, in this chaotic situation a whole new raft of speculations are fair game.


For instance, what if the much touted new comprehensive economic and security agreement with Canada could be worked out with the US? Including a free trade in automobiles and the taking down of other tariffs? Not impossible - obviously costly in terms of a likely requirement to substantially increase defense spending (already being considered by both major parties). Limits imposed on US imports of dairy products have not been met – so we may be able to retain these controls - a major US irritant. We may have to swallow others. A noisy reaction to rising prices, and the predicted Democratic re-control of Congress after the 2026 midterms may usher in a more normal White House and make it easier to re-establish more positive and cordial relations with the US overall. What a dream!


The obverse of this is that Carney – assuming he wins- will not swallow the concessions Trump requires to take off tariffs and restore auto free trade. This roadblock would hit weeks into May when the full effects of auto tariffs and other tariffs throw Canada into a recession and effectively destroy our 100-year-old auto industry. The dollar tumbles further. Our patriotism is wearing thin, and Carney’s promise of a Canada strong will be slow in coming. The promise to find alternate export markets is not bearing fruit. Ford threatens to cut his electrical exports to the US. Alberta is urged to slow oil delivery. Huge unemployment. A pall hangs over the nation. Are we really at a dead end?


A third “what if” involves a real coalition of like-minded nations against Trump’s tariffs and threats against sovereign nations. This could take the form of major international meeting of heads of state with unanimous resolutions. It might involve the UN, and obviously the World Trade Organization, whose very reason for existence as a promoter of reducing barriers to trade is threatened. Interestingly, China’s President Xi recently gathered an impressive list of global CEO’s to discuss protecting supply chains and reacting to US tariffs. High-level international business diplomacy will undoubtedly be activated against Trump’s international tariffs. Canada is president of the G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, on June 17. Can they avoid isolating Trump in his demolition of the international trading order? Could be an important moment. Could it lead to a Trump backdown?


Canada could have an important role to play in the leaderships of an international movement even before the G7. It might just be effective after the midterms, could even lead to Trump’s becoming the laughingstock of the international community. An energized Europe, with a population bigger than the US, is key. A real Dream On? Maybe not.


There is a bit of sunshine for us in the huge 54-per-cent tariff being placed on Chinese imports to the US, as these goods will continue to enter Canada at a much lower rate. This means that Canadian Tire, for so much of its stock, and electronics stores like Best Buy will still sell much cheaper goods than available in the US. This is likely to create a boom in cross- border shopping in Canada for Americans.


Finally, and already visible in early signs, Congress may just start to fulfill its constitutional duty as a check to executive power. Again, particularly after the midterms, or even before. The dictatorial and authoritarian bent of the Trump administration is starting to arouse the basic fair-minded citizens of the US. Huge demonstrations in early April in all States may just be the beginning. Seeing students being arrested by black-hooded ICE agents, not charged and incarcerated with no due process to be deported is a blot on US democracy. US Congress people still rely on the popular vote of citizens who may distrust traditional media but still watch TV. They will also see prices of everyday goods going up. No new car this year.


As David Brooks wrote in the New York Times: “People will be outraged by the useless economic pain they (the tariffs) are causing and, more subtly, revolted by the cowardly values they represent.” And the fallacy of Trump’s actions is well expressed by Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: “The president…is a careless person, smashing up things and creatures and leaving others, eventually, to clean up the mess that he has made.” American citizens are noticing this.


These historic days are just the start. A revolution is underway defining a new and dangerous role for the US in a world order he seems determined to destroy. Canada is no longer alone in baring the brunt of his disdain and economic warfare. There are dozens of nations considering how their economies will be damaged and how the world order is threatened. There will be strength in numbers.


Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
More Posts