A spate of recent articles in the United States have been speculating about how America will change if Donald Trump is re-elected in 2024. But there will be adverse changes in store for Canada, too.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Diane Francis: Donald Trump would be bad for Canada (but not as bad as Trudeau) Back to video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

For decades, the U.S. and Canada have been among each other’s biggest investors, suppliers and customers. But eight years of the Trudeau government has weakened Canada economically, turning it essentially into an autonomous economic region of the United States.

We still have a separate political system, which is, like California and New England, more socially liberal than most American states. But Canada is more dependent on its neighbour than ever before, because the Trudeau government has not shored up the country’s strength, economically or militarily. This has dramatically reduced our geopolitical importance.

What this means is that if a nationalistic and autocratic Trump wins next year, Canada will be merely a supplicant without heft. Trump will likely try to pull out of NATO, even though Congress just passed legislation to prevent this.

If forced to stay in, Trump will demand that Canada meets its spending commitments to the security alliance of two per cent of GDP. Trudeau has stated this will never happen and Ottawa now spends only 1.38 per cent of GDP on defence.

We can also expect Trump to insist that Canada pull its weight in NORAD, the continent’s collective defence arrangement. If Trudeau balks, Washington will send an invoice.

A Trump regime would likely also require Canada to clean up its act in terms of intelligence gathering. The lengthy criminal proceedings against Cameron Ortis, a former high-ranking intelligence official with the RCMP, recently ended and revealed to our allies that Canada has been a security risk for years.

He was convicted of leaking intelligence to criminals and was reportedly about to share data with a foreign power, likely China. He put the security of Canada and its allies at risk, tarnishing this country’s reputation in intelligence circles.

In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the New York Times that Canada was the world’s first “postnational state,” and then set out to make that happen. His neglect of the country’s military and economy has undermined what sovereignty Canada had before he was elected.

The Canadian Armed Forces have a minimalist presence in the Arctic, even as Russia is spending vast fortunes to assert its militaristic dominance in the Far North. President Trump would likely station U.S. troops there, or build military bases and attempt to force Canada to foot the bill.

Canada also has more coastline than any country in the world, but has a Navy with a handful of ships and four old submarines, only one of which has been at sea since 2021. Canada’s military forces are demoralized, short-handed and ignored by Trudeau’s government.

Last year, the Trudeau government spent $17.7 billion on management consultants to help run the place, which is equivalent to about two-thirds of the 2023-24 defence budget.

The Trudeau government has also knee-capped wealth creation by overtaxing and hobbling resource development with unnecessary red tape and regulation. This has driven up costs and resulted in large-scale disinvestment in resource development.

Canadian capital has left. Investments by Canadians into the U.S. soared from US$323.21 billion (C$433 billion) in 2015 to US$589.29 billion in 2022. By contrast, American investment in Canada has only increased slightly, from US$361.95 billion in 2015, to US$438.77 billion in 2022. The result is that the U.S. has outpaced Canada and will continue to do so.

Trudeau’s excessive immigration levels are another drag on the economy because they have contributed to exorbitant housing costs and strained health-care systems. What the Liberals and NDP don’t comprehend is that when lots of people suddenly come, and cannot pull their weight economically, the size of the economic “pie” doesn’t increase proportionately, but is divided among more people.

The bottom line is that a Trump presidency would not be good news for Canada, but not nearly as bad Trudeau winning another election.

Financial Post

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the business news you need to know — add financialpost.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters financialpost.com.