Trump's tariffs could fuel a bigger problem: Alberta separatism

If Albertans were offered a choice between suffering through a recession with Canada or possibly succeeding on their own, which do you think they'd choose?

Ahead of Donald Trump’s upcoming return to the White House, and his demand for enhanced border security to avoid tariffs that would throw Canada into a recession, Danielle Smith is taking an approach I’m deeply familiar with: what is in my power to avoid the outcome I don’t want?

While I sympathize all too easily with the desire to address the issue single-handedly, this specific problem involves the entire country and would likely be better tackled collaboratively for two reasons; first, Smith is acting on the information we have been given, which is Trump’s demands.

We are merely guessing that meeting those demands will give us the outcome we want.

To be fair, he said as much, but politicians say a lot of things and no one knows better than Danielle Smith that leaving out the important things is part of the play.

We don’t know if he wants to put tariffs on everything coming into the U.S. for another reason, or if he proposed a legitimate remedy that he will accept to avoid the tariffs. If it’s the former, meeting the demand will not change the outcome.

Unfortunately, Trump as all-powerful president rather than businessman with something to lose (or gain, as the second term offers no incentive for re-election) strikes me as someone who likes to watch people scramble to meet his demands more than he wants them to actually succeed at doing so.

I don’t doubt for a second that he gets pleasure from watching the chaos his social media posts inspire. Seeing the panic, getting the headlines, receiving calls from the Mexican President and the Canadian Prime Minister — who also flies down last minute to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago — gives him the attention and affirms his power in a way that four years of “likes” and “reTruths” could not.

The scramble says “I’m back!”

He’s playing with his toys, and they’re playing the way he wants them to, which is no doubt pleasing to him in the short term. Nothing gives me any confidence he won’t require another boost at his swearing in ceremony by following through on the threat that got him so much attention to begin with.

Second, if the remedy can actually avoid tariffs, Smith jumping so high to meet demands to protect the border for America may not a problem for the country’s “richest province” assuredly, but a challenge for those without the means; which could further complicate the process in the long run.

This is the part that I doubt Smith would give much consideration to because she’s focused on doing what she thinks is necessary for her own success.

One obvious potential outcome is that Trump ties Alberta’s success to the rest of the country’s — which would be completely reasonable because Alberta is not actually a sovereign state.

Send in the clowns

Trump’s tariffs would be bad for Canada, and Alberta. Economist Trevor Tombe already did the math and 10 per cent tariffs would have been damaging, but 25 per cent tariffs will cause a recession, period.

From the Alberta-first perspective, the best-case scenario would be if Trump were to exempt our products based on our effort to meet his demands for increased border security alone.

This outcome requires Trump to actually want increased border security at someone else’s expense more than he wants to apply tariffs; a premise I have only accepted as possibly true.

Obviously, the other option is “possibly false”, and this is because of “MAGA politics”.

You’ve probably seen the memes; “remember when a middle class family could own a house, and a car, and go on family vacations, all on a single income?”

The small print will tell you that it still wasn’t attainable for everyone, but it’s a pleasant enough thought if you can see yourself in the white family where father wears a suit and tie and mother wears an apron while their dutiful children flash their worry-free smiles.

Trump sold a vision straight out of 1950’s middle class America.

Incoming Vice President JD Vance posted this on X. It’s creepy, and weird, but it’s layered on top of the desire people have to be part of the idyllic American family in Norman Rockwell’s Thankful in all things painting.

As Jared Wesley said at the Henry Marshall Tory Lecture, if we don’t understand why people support someone like Trump, at some point we have to be willing to find out.

It didn’t matter that Trump has had more wives than most people have children. Or that he paid a pornographic movie star to have sex with him. Or that he’s about as Christian as the average rock. He sold the vision that slightly more than half of Americans want, and he appears to be willing to try and give it to them.

Political analyst David Frum outlined last week how the tariffs provide a solution that Trump cannot get from Canada or Mexico providing more border security for the U.S. at our own expense: a chance “to rebalance the sexual economy of the United States”.

Understanding MAGA politics is understanding it as ‘sexual politics’; the role of men in the United States. Social conservatives talk about redomiciling production — they’re not interested in redomiciling film production, or advertising, or software — they want to redomicile the kind of production that increases the value of male labour; to rebalance the sexual economy of the United States.

Back in the olden days, it was always true that women had more formal schooling than than men; more women finished high school or went to college. What happened in 1958 is that she would finish high school, and he might not, but he could get a good union job and she would be a secretary, clerical or retail job. He would still earn more than her. So, even if he was ‘no bargain’ from an emotional point of view, a sexual bargain would be struck because he could provide, and she needed him.

What we imagine is men are on the assembly line, earning a unionized wage that is artificially inflated through scarcity, and it makes those men more valuable as marriage partners.

I think a lot of MAGA is about restoring the scarcity value of male labour and depressing the value of female labour to right the balance between the sexes and get the, highly ideological, kind of families they want.

David Frum, The Hub, November 29, 2024

If Frum is correct, there is no solution that Canada, or its premiers, can provide that will result in Trump getting the outcome he wants because it’s not only about border security; it’s about returning America to the “good old days” when men got good paying jobs because they were men, and women needed men.

To a lot of people, it’s an ideal that makes voting for all the worst things you can say about Donald J. Trump worthwhile.

If Donald Trump is trying to recreate an America that he believes is attainable through tariffs, there is nothing Mexico and Canada, or Danielle Smith can do.

However, that very real possibility creates an entirely different problem for us in Canada, and Alberta: increased separatist sentiment.

Some Albertans will find the advantage

Jared Wesley and Lisa Young noted in a 2022 article that Alberta’s separatist movement, small though it has been historically, is primarily focused on economic and fiscal issues — and no better justification could present itself than being subject to the whims of a deluded old man who, rightly or wrongly, sees ending free trade as the solution for American men.

In today’s gaping knowledge hole that is easily filled with simple explanations that feel right, there would be no reason for Smith and the separatists she’s enabled to rely on the fact that there was no way for Alberta to get an exemption from Trump; they could simply claim that Trump’s tariffs are Canada’s failing and posit that we must seriously consider separating for our own economic benefit.

Unlike former-Premier Jason Kenney, Danielle Smith is not a federalist. The reason she’s acting as though she can make all the decisions regarding a national problem is because she believes Alberta is important enough to the U.S. on its own, and it’s likely the justification she’s giving herself for not being part of the “Team Canada” approach. I’d argue her infatuation with, and affinity for anything Americana also plays a role.

Remember; Danielle Smith’s future is not tied to Alberta or Canada. She and her husband made the decision in 2021 to purchase a property in Panama for their retirement; running for Premier was an opportunity that presented itself after the fact, but did not change their plans. When she’s done as premier, she’s gone. Any mess she leaves behind will be our problem, not hers. While I make fun of her faux libertarianism regularly, there is one part of that ideology that I believe she has never wavered on: not caring if, or how, her actions impact others.

The worst-case scenario for those of us with something to lose would be Smith using the completely foreseeable broad application of tariffs on the country as a whole to begin actively pushing for Alberta to separate from Canada.

It’s an easy argument to make to the general Alberta public if, after she does everything Trump asked, the province’s fortunes are still tied to Canada’s; a highly plausible outcome if Trump’s tariffs are meant to force companies back to the U.S. in order to sell their goods competitively.

Her position as premier is similar to Trump’s last stab at the presidency; they get all the fun of FA and never have to worry about FO.

Women of ABpoli is a reader-powered publication. Thanks to everyone who reads, shares, and becomes a free subscriber. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to keep this content available for everyone.