The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Canada Wants a Fight It Can’t Afford

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Canada’s growing confrontation with the United States is about much more than just tariffs. Trade imbalances, Chinese goods entering the American market through Canada, taxes on U.S. companies, and Mark Carney’s political strategy have pushed relations with Washington to a new low. At the same time, Canada faces weak economic growth, enormous immigration pressures, separatist movements in Alberta and Quebec, and continued dependence on the United States for its defense. Picking a fight with America will not solve those problems. Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://www.JoinADF.com/HANSON or text HANSON to 83848 to sign ADF’s petition to protect female sports. Add your name to the declaration and side with truth and fairness! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. The point I'm making is Canada rightly assumes that they're next to the United States, and no one is going to invade Canada, and no one is going to shoot a missile at Ottawa or British Columbia without the United States knocking it down. We all know that, but yet it will not pay its fair share. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. We're in another spat with our northern neighbor Canada, kind of a psychodrama. Again, we were at the penult stage of a new trade agreement, just expanding on the prior trade agreements,

when at the last moment Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled out, and he cited that there were unfair demands that adjudicated whether Canada as a sovereign nation could trade as it wished and import and export as it wished. And then he said there was cultural appropriations that we were demanding certain curtailments of the full expression of Quebec culture. We like to have good relations with Canada. We speak the same language. We come out of the same original font from the English-speaking world in England. We remember the great relations we had with Prime Minister Mulroney during the Bush administration.

I think Stephen Harper, who was the model of a prime minister between 2006 and 2015, was the acme of Canadian-American relations. But right now, Donald Trump got very angry, and he said he was going to rename Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes, Lake America. I don't think that's going to hold just because 60% of the water acreage of the five great states rest in Canada, like Ontario itself, I think is 55% Canada. And it's been Ontario for a long time. But it's symbolic of the anger that's building. Carney was not quite honest in what he said to the Canadian people.

First of all, Canada runs a chronic $50 billion surplus. Sometimes it goes up to $70, sometimes it approaches $100, but it's pretty much solid in that territory of $50 to $70, no matter what happens. And under this administration, it knew that the United States wanted symmetrical trade, roughly, you know, $10 or $15 billion either way. So that was the original and remaining issue. The other thing that was very, I think, disingenuous by Carney, who, by the way, has told his European Union friends,

he has no relations to speak of with the Trump administration, in particular in America in general. But it only affects 5% of all trade. 95% of trade is unaffected. And why were we trying to, to get this deal and why did Canada suddenly back out? Well, there was a political reason and there was an issue reason. The issue was we were saying that like Mexico used to do,

you bring in dumped below market price Chinese products and you send them over here as Mexico did with cars, appliances, technology. It got stuff from China cheap without tariffs, and then it assembled it below the cost of production, basically in the United States, by using this secondhand or this runaround, wrap-around, whatever you want to call it from China. Canada does the same thing. They import cheap aluminum and steel from their Chinese partners. They put it into products like automobile, trucks, and they send it to us,

and we say, that's not really your product. You're using materials from our chief rival, which we have sanctioned, and you're abating and abetting them. I mean, it didn't do Carney any, you know, it didn't do him any favors when he has said before that he wanted a new relations with China, basically the expense of ours. The other thing about the Canadian sovereignty, culture, civilization, and the French language was completely bogus. basically our social media companies and sales companies, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, you name them, Google. They wanted to slap on a 5% tax, I should say a surcharge on all of their revenues in Canada on the idea that they were impinging on the cultural integrity of Canada.

It was just a way to shake down our companies and get money. And we don't do it to Canada. We don't do it to other countries. We expect them not to do to us. There was also a political reason. Why now there are two plebiscites among the provinces of Canada. One is in Alberta and one is Quebec. And for different reasons, they're very angry at the central government.

Besides the fact that Canada has a lot of problems, number one, Alberta's energy rich and has enough money to stand as its own and it's more pro-American usually than the other provinces. and two, it can't fully extract its natural oil and natural gas and rare minerals except because of strict Canadian environmental laws and other reasons that the other province restrict pipelines to their territory, etc. The other is the age-old problem with Quebec is that French nationalism, so there's always a separatist movement and it's getting closer and closer to being reified.

The other thing is we're coming up to the U.S. midterms, and Carney knows that there are close elections in Wisconsin, in Maine, and in Michigan, and if he can trash Donald Trump and appeal to the Democratic Party. And he hired a high-ranking former Hillary Clinton employee as one of his major advisors. He is trying to be the victim and show how oppressive the United States is and help similarly-minded left-of-finding. center politicians and movements in the United States. There's another problem, and that is Canada's problem is not our problem. In the last 10 years of all the major Western economies, Canada is the lowest. It's only had 1.1 GDP growth. That's just baffling because it's so rich in natural resources.

Another thing to remember is Canada has much more immigrants than we do as a percentage of its population. We have an all-time high at 16 percent, 55 million. They have, right now Canada has about 26 or 27 percent of its population is immigrants. And when you add second generation immigrants, about 7 million, and you add visa holders who are not Canadian citizens but residents, you're getting close to 45% of the population was not born in Canada or is their parents were not born in Canada. And when you add that with a very sluggish economy and people coming from largely Asia, India, China, and the Latin American countries, they have a lot of very poor people in dire need of social services in a stagnant economy

that cannot support it. Then you add in that for the last 20 years, it has not met any of its requirements for NATO rearmament. It's just this year it may or may not, depending how you calibrate the expense, make its 2%. Last year it may have done it. A lot of the money that they claim they spent on weaponry

may have been on infrastructure, retirement, salaries, etc. But the point I'm making is Canada rightly assumes that they're next to the United States, and no one is going to invade Canada, and no one is going to shoot a missile at Ottawa or British Columbia without the United States knocking it down. We all know that, but yet it will not pay its fair share. And this is a country that had a substantial presence in World War II. I think it was the fourth greatest Navy in the world at the time.

So there are other problems that make it very insecure. And when you look at the entire Canadian culture, it is more now European than North American. About 5 to 7 percent, depending on what year we look at, but the numbers are increasing. Are youth anisized? They believe, and they have now green-lighted euthanasia all over Canada. So about 17 to 18,000 people a year die. That is completely foreign to the American experience. Add it all up.

You've got a weak economy. You've got an inability or unwillingness to meet its defense responsibilities. It's got a terrible problem of massive immigration where it cannot assimilate, acculturate, or integrate newcomers into the traditional Canadian cultural and civilizational protocol and experience. It's right next to a U.S. powerhouse, and you've got a left center government with midterm and provincial elections coming up, and the result is it wants to seize, if I could use that leftist word, seize on two issues that are pretty irrelevant. All it has to do is say if we bring in cheap, below cost, Chinese, communist, aluminum, and steel, then you can tariff. and we're not going to tariff you because you're smothering French culture in Canada.

Come on, we're not going to charge you 5% on your companies that do that. There are private entities. They're free to do whatever they want. They offer a product. You're not forced to use it. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Female athletes are being forced to compete against biological males,

sometimes without their consent or even their knowledge. In Washington, high school's sophomore, Callie Keeler was sexually assaulted on the wrestling map during a tournament. Only afterward did she learn her opponent was a boy who identifies as a girl. With the help of Alliance defending freedom, Callie is bravely suing the state over a policy that not only allows males to compete in girls' high school sports, but doesn't require schools to disclose that information to female athletes or their parents. Don't let schools put gender ideology over the safety of girls in sports.

Your support today can help fight for Callie and other athletes like her. And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF will be doubled by a special matching grant. Well funds last. Text Hanson to 83848 or go to join ADF.com slash Hanson to have your gift doubled. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansan.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.