Labour unions and social movements are pushing for a third wave of progressive nationalism, rooted in Canada’s post-war history, as a response to US trade aggression and corporate integration. Photo courtesy Unifor.

As the first session of Canada’s 45th Parliament is set to open in mid-September, there is a growing clamor for Mark Carney’s Liberal government to come out fighting in the trade and investment war with the United States.

From Ontario Premier Doug Ford to a group of 70 cultural and academic leaders including former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and author Margaret Atwood urging Carney to defend the country’s “digital sovereignty” and protect privacy from overreach of the government’s Strong Borders Act, the message is the same: toughen up and stop appeasing the Americans.

The sternest language came from the labour movement. “I wasn’t happy,” Unifor National President Lana Payne told her union’s national convention in the last week of August about Carney’s decision to revoke Canada’s retaliatory counter tariffs on a range of American products. Payne reminded Carney he was elected “on the promise of a fight back and a defence of critical sectors… That was not only strategic it is what we expect of you—you don’t win by conceding.”

Payne went further and slammed corporate Canada’s “appeasement” policies to get any deal possible with the US. “Governments don’t have the plan we need to protect Canadian jobs and defend cored industries—not yet. We need a bold vision: a true, multi-sector, job-creating, made-in-Canada industrial strategy.”

In contrast, business and Western Conservative premiers welcomed Carney’s step-downs on the digital services tax and the countervailing tariffs. After 40 years of deep integration with the US on every front from trade to economic policy, foreign affairs, defence, technology and culture, appeasement from the top of the business class could be expected. Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, spelled it out. “How are we going to review and renew the USMCA?” Hyder asked, arguing that “find[ing] a way forward” in its negotiations with the US is more important for Canada than the tariffs.

Veterans of the anti-free trade movement are not surprised either by the desperate attempt to salvage the special relationship with the US. Maude Barlow, past chairperson of the Council of Canadians and a leader in the anti-free trade and -globalization movement has seen it before:

For Carney’s government, the Liberal Party, and for Canadian labour and social movements, “elbows up” is a rendezvous with a defining feature of Canadian political economy. From John Diefenbaker to Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney, Canadian independence and national policy have been central to the character and potential of Canada. Canada’s dependent relationship with the US after the Second World War has been a constant and pervasive foreign influence and constraint on social progress. As such, it has also been a fulcrum of Canadian politics and policy recognized by a long analytical tradition across the progressive spectrum, from red Tories to the socialist left, leading distinct waves of progressive nationalism that shaped Canada’s social movements.

With some important exceptions, labour and the Canadian left in 2025 are late to the analysis and action. While Canadians spontaneously rallied behind the elbows up movement, boycotting US goods and travel, there have been only a few visible initiatives. Unifor’s Protect Canadian Jobs campaign,........

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