Trump: divide and conquer Canada?
Radio-Canada headlines a seemingly minor comment from Donald Trump at the Pope’s funeral: Quebec, Canada? We’ll make a deal!, spoken to Martine Biron, Quebec’s international relations minister.
Just watch him. Trump knows, or someone is telling him, that all he has to do to break up Canada is make special deals with Quebec and Alberta. And he just may be able to do it.
Joey 10:03 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
So far he seems to be having the opposite effect, but OK.
Kate 10:15 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
So far.
Blork 10:50 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
And anyone who thinks that Quebec will be more “independent” and the French language more secure when Quebec is under the yoke of MAGA (or even a more benign version of the U.S.) has another thing coming.
Nicholas 11:09 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
Alberta, maybe, but I agree with Blork: Quebec is not ever choosing to become part of the US: laïcité, language, special deals. And the US could offer some beneficial trade deal if Quebec became independent, but who would trust that?
Ephraim 12:02 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
Quebec will never agree. Not unless the US changes it’s constitution and has some VERY specific guarantees including language and it’s own pension fund. I can’t see the US agreeing to anything where English isn’t supreme.
Robert H 12:22 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
All right, sure Joey, Canada is experiencing a unity bump, an unintended byproduct of President Trump’s reflexive blustering. But as Kate suggests, this is not the norm. How long will this upswell of One Canada Coast to Coast last before it inevitably fades back to the default setting of mutual interregional loathing that typically characterizes the nation’s political life? The Prairies, especially Alberta, despise Quebec, B.C is all about the Pacific Rim, Ontario’s too busy being the economic engine to bother with ROC, and the Maritimes? Remember them? All of these antipathies exert a centrifugal force that makes one wonder why Canada hasn’t already disintegrated.
But Quebec, true to form, is pursuing its own agenda. Martine Biron is wise not to make too much of the Deal-Maker In Chief’s comment but she’s very smart about being prepared. I didn’t know about “la doctrine PGL,” but that makes sense as a manifestation of Quebec’s impulse of autonomy. Could it be that some indépendantistes see Trump as an unwitting ally? Emphasis on unwitting, because like Blork, I think they should best beware: the U.S. President that frees you from the yoke of your Ottawa overseers is the same person who will declare French to be a nonmonetary free trade barrier. In that policy dispute, it’s not the United States that will yield.
Kate 15:13 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
Would Quebec be capable of cutting off its nose to spite Canada?
What do you think?
Blork 15:14 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
I don’t think Quebec would ever choose that deliberately, but I worry about being seduced only to wake up next morning and realize we’ve made a huge mistake. As in, I can see the US tempting Quebec with some great sounding deals that encourages the separatist movement because it seems to add legitimacy to independence and economic empowerment, etc. and the day after Quebec separates the MAGA shows up and says “Look at me… I am the captain now.”
Joey 15:37 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
I think the Alberta separatist threat is a real problem, and that if Trump were shrewder he could really exploit it. I don’t think he’s interested in anything other than annexing all of North America. I don’t see any province willingly leaving Canada to join the US, for lots of reasons, including the fact that it’s really hard to do. I think an attempted US annexation of Canada is more likely (but still very very unlikely).
My point was simply that Trump has effectively short-circuited Quebec’s separatist movement, just as it was getting going again. The Liberals won the election because Quebec nationalists voted for them! This story, more than anything, feels like a Quebec politician trying to make herself look important.
Also, and I say this is a person who loves to live here, what exactly do we offer the US? Majority non-English aging population with a persistent educational attainment problem, maxed-out natural resources, most unionized workforce in the continent, and a huge infrastructure deficit. I guess we make a lot of aluminum…
I’m also very skeptical that having a bunch of diplomats running around will make one iota’s worth of difference to a lazy, demented president whose agenda is set by whatever’s on TV.
And what, exactly, could the US (under Trump!) offer us?
Robert H 17:10 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
I think there are some (not including myself) who feel this has already happened considering the shockwaves of the 1970s (domestic terrorism, language mandates, the exodus of anglophones and corporate headquarters, Montreal’s subsequent eclipse by Toronto, the first referendum). But, relative to sovereignty, I don’t believe that ultimately, the sentiment exists among Québécois to step over the line and reject Canada for milk and honey tales of how wonderful their lives in an independent nation would be.
I think they would respond to such suasion with unambiguous, basic questions: “What exactly will improve about my life? What will change? What will we use for money? Will we have armed forces? Will we be governed better? Will I be able to afford a home, get medical care, have a beyond-subsistence income? What will I have to give up? Will somebody fix the damned roads?” There’s a limit to what Quebec’s citizenry will sacrifice even if they are told that it will be good for the survival of their culture. As a matter of fact, I believe most Canadians, as exasperated as they are with each other, would prefer to squabble within the confederation as it stands, than break apart or join the seductive colossus to the south.
There is just enough of a shred of unity and pride that’s about something more than pragmatism.
bob 19:01 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
Why do people waste time thinking and talking about this nonsense?
Kate 19:38 on 2025-05-05 Permalink
It’s the timeline we’re on, bob.
Ian 07:44 on 2025-05-06 Permalink
While I do have sympathies for Canadian Republicanism, it’s worth noting that at the time of the Lower Canada Rebellion les Patriotes sought support form the Americans for their own “Canadian Revolution” and there was a lot of talk of ridding North America of the British and uniting Canada and the United States, ie, adding Canda to the American Confederacy.
The whole joining the US angle of les Patriotes is usually glossed over by Quebec nationalists, but it’s a fact. It’s not for nothing that Louis-Joseph Papineau ran away to New York after the rebellion failed.