"For much of our country’s history, relations between Canada and the United States have been less than intimate, and yet our country grew and prospered.
Despite all the drama over what U.S. President Donald Trump says or does, Canada and the United States are likely to continue to trade with each other and to cooperate in collective security where there is mutual interest, despite new tariff barriers and other obstructions.
Such was Canada’s relationship with the United States in the decades before free trade and continental integration.
Our future might resemble that past.
The Americans have challenged Canadian independence more than once.
Canada has always successfully resisted.
During the American Revolution in 1775, British forces repulsed an American invasion of Quebec.
The Americans tried, and failed, to annex Canada in the War of 1812.
In the 1840s, American expansionists claimed their country’s Manifest Destiny entitled them to much of what is now British Columbia.
“Fifty-Four Forty or Fight” was the slogan, referring to a boundary they wanted to set at 54 degrees and 40 minutes latitude.
The current border between B.C. and the State of Washington was not completely settled until 1872.
Confederation in 1867 was a response to annexationist sentiments within both Canada and the United States.
The United States imposed stiff tariffs in 1890, with some Americans hoping it would force Canada into annexation, but Prime Minister John A. Macdonald responded with counter tariffs and Canada increased trade with Great Britain.
In the 1890s, the federal government aggressively recruited immigrants, many of them from Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe, to settle Prairie lands that were at risk of being taken over by American settlers.
The Canadian government loudly protested when Britain accepted American claims while settling the 1903 Alaska boundary dispute.
In the postwar years, Canada was an integral member of a new, U.S.-led multilateral environment that included the United Nations, NATO and NORAD and other institutions that are collectively known as the rules-based international order.
Canada cooperated with the United States in building the St. Lawrence Seaway, and in continental defence.
Prime Minister Pearson negotiated Auto Pact of 1965 with the administration of President Lyndon Johnson.
Then came the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement of 1988 and the North American free trade agreement of 1993 involving Canada, the United States and Mexico, which established continental economic integration.
Trade among the three partners more than tripled in the following years. NAFTA created the world’s largest free-trading zone and spurred the move toward globalized free trade.
Mr. Trump thinks all that was a mistake.
He has imposed a new tariff wall and vows to use “economic force” to annex Canada as a 51st state.
Most Canadians are determined to resist annexation.
But at least in the medium term, this country must accept that globalization and continental integration are waning.
Canada is likely to return to an era in which we share a continent with the United States, trade with each other, and maintain a wary friendship with our very large neighbour, even as we are subjected to some form of American tariff wall.
Canada has had such a relationship with the United States for much of this country’s history.
Canadians got by just fine then and will likely get by fine in the future.
In any case, it appears we have no choice."
