“Buy Local” signs at a grocery store in Victoria, British Columbia, last week.Credit: Bloomberg
Vern and Joanna said many “snowbirds” – Canadians who flee south during winter, typically to Florida, Arizona or California – were selling their holiday homes.
Greig Mordue, an associate professor of public policy at McMaster University in Ontario, was reluctant to go down to his Florida property.
“I have a place about 10 minutes down the road from Mar-a-Lago, and I’m not there at the moment,” he said. “Maybe I’ll take a pass this year.”
The patriotic surge is a potent elixir for Canadian politicians, who are barrelling towards an election that could be called at any moment. Trudeau, the Liberal prime minister for nearly 10 years, has pledged to resign, and polls point to a decisive Conservative victory.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre delivered a defiant campaign speech in Ottawa at the weekend, standing in front of a podium that said: “Canada First/Canada D’Abord.”
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre at a Canada First rally in Ottawa on February 15.Credit: Bloomberg
Borrowing a quote from the country’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, he said Canada must not be “a tributary to American laws, American railways, American bondage and American tolls”.
“Sometimes it does take a threat to remind us what we have, what we could lose, and what we could become,” he said. “The unjustified threats of tariffs and 51st statehood, of Donald Trump, have united our people to defend the country we love.”
If the US wanted to declare an economic war – to “turn a loyal friend into a resentful neighbour” – that’s what it would get, Poilievre said. He voted to retaliate with full force and leverage Canada’s bounty of natural gas, oil, water, uranium and other critical minerals.
And he riffed on Canada’s renowned politeness to deliver a stern warning: “We are slow to anger and quick to forgive, but never confuse our kindness with weakness … Let me be clear: we will never be the 51st state.
“We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country,” he added, in a nod to a line from former US President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address.
Booing the US national anthem at sports matches is a sure sign Canadians have been provoked out of their customary civility. The Americans are upset (“We obviously don’t like it,” defender Zach Werenski said at the Montreal game), and many Canadians have reservations too. But plenty think the anthem is now fair game.
“Booing is your patriotic duty right now,” wrote sports columnist Cathal Kelly in The Globe and Mail. “It’s not very Canadian, and that’s the point. We’ve let this whole polite northerner shtick exist for too long.”
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Publish date : 2025-02-17 04:30:00
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