There are many candidates for his worst moments. Black faced dancing, stuffing socks in his pants, and Indian dress-up were not enough. Announcing that Canada was a meaningless post-national state fell short of the mark. Lecturing senior world leaders on diversity and proper thoughts was not sufficient for him. A decade of policy misfires, nope.
He had worse to do.
The meeting with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago offered a stage for his final and worst moment. An error in judgment so large it looms over everything else.
The President discussed his long-standing desire to impose tariffs on Canada and other nations. Trudeau’s reply, “That will crush the Canadian economy.”
An answer that President Trump later described as “surprising.”
Our feckless Prime Minister confirmed whatever thoughts and theories the President had about Canada being utterly dependent on the United States. The President had at least a mild conviction that Canada profited unfairly from a trade account imbalance. Our Prime Minister erased any doubts he might have had on these points. Our Prime Minister blurted out that a tariff would crush the Canadian economy. Not hurt it, crush it.
From his lips to the President’s ears, Canada was economically dependent on the U.S. in an existential sense.
This set the stage for the next Presidential thought: Canada should be the 51st state.
He already knew that we could not defend ourselves militarily, now he had confirmation that we could not survive economically. To allow Canada to join the United States would be a favour. To describe Canada as the 51st state is only a natural and effortless extension of our Prime Minister’s confession and admission of economic helplessness.
If confessing that a tariff would crush us was not bad enough, this was followed when he came home. He described the tariffs as “an existential threat.” Not a problem. But a nation-ending threat.
And Mark Carney, our new Prime Minister, proved that this was never an existential threat. In his first interview, he acknowledged that it would take some time to sort things out. We would have time to come to new terms with the President. We changed from “elbows up” retaliatory tariffs to “thumbs up” and started negotiating a new deal. All confirmed with a friendly meeting with the President. Two bro’s meeting for a chat. No existential threat here.
In his meeting with Mr. Carney, he caught up with most Canadians and Danielle Smith. Canada, for the majority of us, is much stronger than our former Prime Minister believes. We are the true north, strong and free. The tariffs were a problem, not a death sentence.