Oh Canada - Who would have thought?

CANADA/US

In the woods near Wild Bear Lodge in quieter times. Photo by Kim Reczek.

Who would have thought that in this newsletter which - let's be honest - is heavily tilted towards war, conflict and argy-bargy, I would one day be writing about my adopted homeland Canada.

And the subject would not be glorious mountain vistas, endless spruce forests or even grizzly bears - for more on those see my wilderness newsletter The Grizzly Bear Diaries - but the possibility the country might face an existential threat.

But here we are in Trump 2.0, and the notion that Canada might be subsumed by its elephantine neighbour is no longer just a poor-taste joke, but a very real fear concentrating minds in this peaceful and reasonable nation of 40-odd million.

For those of you who don't know me: a little background.

I was born in London, grew up in the British Home Counties, and then spent the next 15 years working for the Daily Telegraph as a war and foreign correspondent in the Balkans, Middle East and Afghanistan.

During my last few years I was Moscow correspondent for the paper, tasked with covering Russia, Ukraine, the fighting in Chechnya and two infamous terrorist attacks - one at the Nord Ost theatre in Moscow, and another at a school in Beslan, southern Russia.

I had always had a soft spot for Canada, learned to fly small planes there, and sometimes made camping trips in the summer. But after Beslan, Canada's allure shone bright and was eventually too much to resist.

There were no crowds, no wars, and little conflict, unless it was over logging quotas or on the ice at a hockey match.

And so, 20 years ago, I hung up my pen and my flak jacket and set out to become a New World wilderness dweller. With my Estonian-born wife Kristin we slowly built up a small business guiding those who wanted to see wild grizzly bears.

Tragically Kristin died in 2020, but Wild Bear Lodge is once again a happy and thriving place. Each year we take in between 100 and 200 souls who want to spend time among Canada's megafauna.

And, each year - between stints in Budapest, London and Ukraine - it is to the lodge, tucked away in a valley that has changed little since the last Ice Age, that I retreat to get away from conflict and drama.

Canada, for its part, has lived up to its promise. It has been a by-word for stability and peace.

Until now. In the last few weeks that has all changed as Donald Trump casts his glowering and expansionist gaze towards some of the least-populated and most mineral-rich areas on earth.

At one level Trump’s aggression has taken the form of an unprovoked trade war.

The details have been erratic. Trump first imposed tariffs on Canada shortly after coming to office, and then paused them. Then he reimposed some tariffs. Then he made a carve-out for the car industry. (Detroit-made vehicles are, in effect, a joint production between Canada and the US).

And then, and this time he says they will stay, he slapped 25 percent tariffs on Canadian aluminium and steel (90 percent of Canadian steel goes to the US.)

On April 2nd Trump says he will impose more tariffs on Canada, while sneering that if the country opts to become the US's 51st state it can still avoid them.

Meanwhile opinion polls suggest that 91 percent of Canadians do not want to be American.

Canada, like most of the rest of the world, doesn't know what to do with Trump. Back down, and he just seems to bully you more. Stand up to him, and he throws the immense heft of US economic and political power at you.

Of course, for Canada a drawn-out trade war with the US would hurt immensely. As much as 80 percent of its exports head south across the border. It would certainly mean a recession and could even bring economic depression.

Such a war would hurt the US too. But those who have suggested that Trump is only using the threat of tariffs to get what he wants and will eventually withdraw them have so far been confounded.

And at this perilous moment the good ship Canada is also changing captains.

After a leadership contest to replace the unpopular Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney, the former head of the Bank of England, has taken over the helm of the Canadian Liberal Party and become prime minister.

If that weren't enough, a Canadian election is now looming.

For Carney, who is fighting off a challenge from the Conservatives, that means that even as he navigates the choppy water of the US-Canada relationship, standing up to Trump will inevitably have to be part of his schtick.

For Pierre Poilievre, an irascible populist and leader of the Conservative Party, who is in some ways Canada's Trump Lite, the new US president is, ironically, bad news. Until recently he was 25 points ahead in the polls.

Now, as Canadians rally around the flag, he has seen his lead evaporate.

Trump, then, has lost the goodwill of a country that, for all its penchant for whining about its neighbour, had deeply integrated itself with the US. It has also revivified a centre-left party that was on the ropes.

Now the ties - economic, cultural and political - are beginning to fray.

In recent weeks Canadian hockey fans have taken to booing US teams and many are boycotting American bourbon and Californian wines.

One travel agent in Ottawa told a British reporter that fully half of Canadians who had booked holidays in the US this year have cancelled.

To underline the sea change Carney is the first Canadian prime minister in living memory to head across the Atlantic before crossing the southern border.

He has made no secret of the fact that he will be seeking to build bridges with Europe even as he publicly mulls cancelling a hefty order for advanced American-made F35 fighter jets.

Canada may now be destined for the economic doldrums - it is still too early to say exactly how the row will play out. But either way it is unlikely to trust its southern neighbour in the same way again.

When Carney won the Liberal Party's nomination earlier this month, he used a hockey analogy to sum up Canada's willingness to fight back against the US.

“We didn't ask for this fight,” he said. “But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.”

As a relative newcomer to the Great White North I have sometimes struggled with hockey lingo. I have also been amazed at how hockey brings out the inner thug in otherwise peaceful and reasonable Canadians.

But the showdown between the US and Canada is showing no sign of ending soon. Fighting talk may be just the beginning of it.