A Lament for Canadian Nationalism
Many Canadians and Americans have wondered why Donald Trump is threatening a trade war with the U.S’s closest ally—but we only need to listen to him to understand. The tariff threats are his means, but Trump’s goal is clearly to increase American influence in the world. He has said as much, waxing in his inauguration speech about the U.S.’s “manifest destiny” to expand: he wants to take back the Panama Canal, secure Greenland for American national interests and make Canada the 51st state.
This expansionism may seem like a surprising break from Trump’s past isolationism, but it’s perfectly in keeping with his politics. Above all else he’s a nationalist, and his nationalism revolves around a set of ideas about who are “real” Americans and what threatens them. This was the central theme of his 2016 campaign and his first term, which were anchored by defences of white American identity. He attacked immigrants and Muslims as threats and advocated building a literal wall around the U.S. In 2020, he shifted his attacks to the “radical” left as a threat to the nation. And now he’s layering on economic nationalism, with tariffs and the desire for more territory.
Trump is reshaping North American relations, damaging the nearly century-long consensus that removing trade barriers is a path toward mutual prosperity. His threats are only the most recent signal that the world has shifted. There have been calls to replace the U.S. with the EU as a Canadian trading partner, but nationalists are on the march there, too, in France, Germany, Italy and elsewhere. Attempts to find new markets in the Indo-Pacific have taken a hit, in part because India is led by its own nationalist strongman. And building trade with China has become radioactive in Canada following the horrific saga of the two Michaels.
This is why our response to Trump’s threats must be about more than placating him. It requires a reinvigorated nationalism of our own, expressed in how we think about Canada and in our national policy. The problem is that we’ve largely forgotten what a shared Canadian nationalism can look like—what it means to be Canadian, and how it can give us a common purpose.
People often remark that Canada has no real national identity. That we are simply not American, or that we are so fragmented by regional identities that we have no shared sense of being one community, willing to sacrifice for one another. This was what George Grant feared in his famous book Lament for a Nation, in which he mourned how his conservative vision of Canada—with Anglo-Saxon and Protestant identity at the centre—was being ripped apart by the gravity of our American neighbours. But this view of Canada misses the complexity of our identity. We have always been a country of competing nationalisms, with groups in conflict over what the country is and could become. We have also always found a way to reconcile these competing worldviews.
Quebec nationalism, ironically the most prominent form of nationalism in Canada, is probably the clearest example. While it has nearly led to the breakup of the country, we’ve come to a hard-fought arrangement that recognizes Quebec’s unique status within Canada. More recently, premiers Danielle Smith in Alberta and Scott Moe in Saskatchewan have asserted their provincial “sovereignty.” Canada is also coming to terms with its legacy as a colonial state, based on conquest over territory it shares with Indigenous nations. And of course, there is also the view that Canada has become a “post-national” state—one increasingly based on migration from diverse source countries, that doesn’t privilege archaic ideas like nationality.
We’ve managed all these different threads, but something has also been lost: an anchoring vision of Canada as a single political community, accompanied by a strong suite of federal policies that reinforce this identity. Canadians may have a hard time even calling this “nationalism”—the word conjures up connotations of regressive and dangerous ideas, particularly the atrocities of the Second World War. But nationalism has been a powerful force for progress in our own history.
In the early days of Canada, nationalist visions drove policy. The flagship “national policy” built the railroad, increased immigration and (coincidently) raised tariffs on trade to strengthen and diversify the Canadian economy. In the 1950s and ’60s, nationalist ideals drove a set of policies many see as core to our identity. The image of Canada as a peacekeeping nation comes to mind, which originated (also coincidently) from Lester Pearson organizing a UN mission to solve a crisis about taking over a canal. In this same period, the belief in a common social safety net led to the expansion of universal health care and national programs like the Canada Pension Plan. The last real torchbearer of this form of nationalism was Pierre Trudeau in the early 1980s. His vision of Canada as one bilingual, multicultural country motivated his government’s policy, and ultimately led to the the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The pillars of our country rest on a foundation of nationalism laid by these efforts. These policies haven’t come without cost—at times great costs for those seen as standing in the way of nation-building, particularly Indigenous peoples. But we can learn from that history, making amends for past wrongs while tapping into the power of a shared vision for our country.
And yet over the past four decades this kind of nationalism has faded into the background as divisive arguments about what it means to be Canadian have risen to the forefront of our politics. The one positive of Trump’s tariff threat is that it has re-stoked a need for nationalism. Call it what you will: patriotism, pride, or anger. The signs are everywhere. We’ve seen what sociologists like to call a “collective effervescence” (the spontaneous breakout of shared sentiment) like booing the U.S. national anthem, and we’ve also seen politicians, like Ontario Premier Doug Ford, declaring that “country comes first” over provincial and party allegiances.
Today we need this power. It can provide a sense of security in the face of aggression from the south and in the shifting world order. But even moreso it can fuel a common purpose, a willingness to sacrifice and commitment to reorient our federation. It can help us finally solve longstanding problems, like creating the momentum to remove interprovincial trade barriers, invest in our military, commit to a transition toward a green economy and overcome regional feuding to build cross-Canada infrastructure, and get natural resources to markets in the east and west.
On another level, a confident Canadian nationalism can be the motivation for grand changes that cut across regional and partisan lines. There are many ideas that we have long avoided because we think they require too much political capital—big, transformative efforts like fixing Canada’s federal fiscal framework, realigning what the federal, provincial and municipal governments are responsible for and how they pay for it. A moment like this is when we are all primed to listen.
It is fortuitous, then, that we are on the cusp of a federal election. Perhaps our federal leaders can show us if they and their parties have a vision not only to deal with the U.S., but to channel this sentiment to enact real changes to position Canada to succeed in the 21st century. While political scientists like me avoid making predictions at all costs, I’d wager that whichever leader can articulate a clear policy agenda based around a strong form of Canadian nationalism will come out on top.
We do, of course, need to be careful. People sometimes think that to promote Canadian nationalism is to argue that other forms of identity must be subservient. That we must choose between being Québécois or Canadian, for example. That nationalism demands newcomers must assimilate. Or that Canadian pride cannot be reconciled with recognizing treaty relations with Indigenous peoples, and finding a way to live together on the same territory.
These are all false dichotomies. People can hold multiple ideas and identities at the same time. The entire project of Canada, what has allowed it to endure, is a commitment to finding common ground that can reconcile them. Over the last few years we have set aside the power and perspective of a Canadian nationalism. We should rekindle it now to help us navigate these dark times.
Robert Schertzer is an associate professor at the University of Toronto.
