Saskatchewan’s chance to lead while Alberta throws a tantrum
By Sheri Monk
Guest Columnist
A friend of mine is a tattoo artist. When Trump’s rhetoric about making us the 51st state escalated, I asked him to let me know if he received any “Made in Canada” tattoo requests. Sure enough, within about a week, the requests began. Clearly, these people believe strongly in their Canadian identity—enough that they wanted to do something more permanent than boycotting the orange man and orange citrus fruit.
Over the years, pundits have long mused that Canada’s identity is simply that we aren’t American. And while they may not be entirely wrong, they’ve certainly oversimplified the matter. To really analyze what that means, we must look at what we think of America’s values and why we haven’t wanted to share that identity.
A disclaimer—my best friend is American. I have spent a lot of time in that country. As Edward Abbey would say, I am a desert rat. The Great Plains and the American Southwest are the landscapes that speak to my heart. The idea of being cut off from the lush Sonoran Desert or the understated Chihuahuan Desert invokes a sense of loss and grief. In other words, like most Canadians, I am not inherently anti-American.
In the past, why didn’t we want to be confused for Americans? Well, in contrast to Canadians, they were pretty arrogant and boastful. They tended to be centrist and ignorant of the world around them. They were late to the very wars that actually mattered to democracy and freedom - despite claiming to be the global headquarters of both. (But at least they showed up.) They’ve been historically hyperbolic, exaggerating their importance and victories while downplaying their weaknesses and defeats. Their foreign policy has long been cloaked in the same fabric of false freedom they’re now hanging by. In the past, we were able to overlook this in the same way we tolerate a boorish, demanding uncle at the Thanksgiving supper table who won’t wear hearing aids and dominates the conversation. (Canadian Thanksgiving, of course.)
Today’s United States feels more malignant, but maybe they were always on this path. Maybe they were at stage one and at some point, their ignorance and arrogance metastasized. Maybe this is the path humanity will be on forever—the same endless cycle that repeats with different names, nations, and nemeses. Nonetheless, we have a front-row seat for a show very few of us wanted to see—the separation of church and state unifying behind a corporate iron curtain.
If Canada is able to negotiate a trade agreement with the U.S., what then? Do we simply carry on as though nothing has happened? Do we happily peddle our wares and dismiss our concerns about their crumbling democracy or the ease with which they turned against us? What of our own ethics and morals? Do we have any? Do they have a price tag? Is that price in U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, or Alberta rubles?
What about China? Economists and business leaders want to mend fences with the Red Dragon. We’ve long accepted they’re a fickle trading partner that will leverage fake trade disputes on a whim if it suits them. They also have a terrible human rights record, and it was recently learned they executed four Canadians on drug charges. Yes, there is a FAFO argument to be made here, but is this a bed partner we really want to seduce?
So what are our values? Do we believe in freedom? Freedom of what, exactly? It may be a good time to brush up on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—a little check-in to see if all those freedoms and rights still resonate with you.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that for the majority of us, yes, we still value freedom and rights as they’re defined in the Charter. If that’s the case, we need to think about how we conduct business and who we conduct it with. Sure, maybe right now we are scrambling to stave off economic disaster, and we simply don’t have the luxury of walking away from potential deals. I don’t want to lose my job or my home any more than anyone else does. But we do need to figure out our values and whether we care to carry those values into trade negotiations.
Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Premier Danielle Smith last week, and her post was dripping with the same escalatory language we’ve come to expect from the current American administration. It was loaded with the thinly veiled threat of separation and allowed no room for diplomacy, negotiation, complexity, or nuance. Its black-and-white, elementary-school approach will appeal to people with black-and-white, elementary-school thinking. In uncertain times, it can be incredibly appealing to cling to anyone or anything that expresses certainty with confidence—but that doesn’t make it right.
Saskatchewan has an opportunity right now to be the reasonable middle that bridges Alberta with the rest of Canada. Long dismissed by many as flat, inconsequential, and boring, Saskatchewan could be our shining star on the national stage. Advancing conversations around national pipelines without the eye-rolling victim mentality that Alberta loves to wear could be a good start. Strong on economics and (fair) trade while sitting on a mountain of potash at the epicentre of Canada’s breadbasket is a good place to be when you want to win friends and influence people.
Right now, Saskatchewan is eyed as the eager younger sibling to Alberta, in the same way Alberta is seen as desperate to hang out with Uncle Sam at American Thanksgiving. Saskatchewan could be the wise old owl providing a port in the storm of a Canadian identity crisis. Average Canadians may be expressing their geopolitical anxiety in the grocery store aisle, but as a nation, we have a lot more to decide than which can of soup to buy.