It may have taken him more than a year, but Pierre Poilievre has finally come up with an answer to US President Donald Trump. In his ongoing attempt to pivot away from the pompous petulance that had defined his brand of politics, the Conservative leader tried something other than attacking the government. Instead, he proposed a solution to the trade war with Trump’s America: nostalgia. 

Poilievre’s proposal, one he laid out at a press conference in Windsor last week, revolves around restoring the terms of a deal struck between Canada and the United States more than 60 years ago: “For every car produced in Canada, the same manufacturer would get to sell a car in Canada duty-free from a CUSMA partner on a dollar-for-dollar basis similar to the 1965 Canada–US Auto Pact,” Poilievre proposed. 

Under Poilievre’s back-to-the-future vision, the restoration of tariff-free trade with the United States would restore Canadian auto production to two million vehicles per year from its current level of 1.2 million — or, as Poilievre put it, “doubling production.” Here’s the problem (beyond the generous math, that is): the Trump administration has repeatedly stated it has no interest in tariff-free trade with Canada. Instead, it has reaffirmed its intent to destroy Canada’s auto sector. “I want to build the cars here, not in Canada. We used to build cars in Canada. Now … the Canadians are moving here to build cars,” Trump said.

Poilievre is pretending that the United States is still the same country he was dealing with as a government minister in 2015, when it did things like honour trade agreements and negotiate respectfully with its allies. Poilievre believes — or needs to believe — that this version of the United States can still be summoned with the right incantation. It’s a big part of why he’s popping up in places like Detroit and Houston and meeting with American political leaders who might remind Canadians of the time when our relationship was in a better place. “I’ll leave the negotiating up to our government,” he said in a recent video, “but we can leverage the goodwill and shared interests with the American people.”

Letting aside the doe-eyed naiveté of depending on the “goodwill” of the only American who counts here, Canadians do not seem to share Poilievre’s optimism even regarding the country writ large. A recent Nanos poll asked Canadians if they agreed with the statement that “the United States is a trustworthy ally of Canada,” and nearly half disagreed, with another 26.9 per cent saying they somewhat disagreed. Only 9.2 per cent agreed. “These are probably the worst numbers in any era where polling was done,” pollster Nik Nanos told the Globe and Mail.  

Oh, but it gets worse — for Poilievre and our relationship with the United States. According to a recent poll for Politico, 57 per cent of Canadians now think it’s better to depend on China than Trump’s America. Only 23 per cent would rather trust Trump than Xi. I’d be willing to bet that if you polled that particular 23 per cent, the overwhelming majority — and I mean overwhelming — also support the Conservative Party of Canada. 

I don’t want to be uncharitable here. Poilievre gets points for trying to propose a solution, even if it relies on a version of the United States that Trump has deliberately set out to kill. But he still couldn’t resist the temptation to take a swipe at the prime minister in the process. “Mark Carney is presenting a fantasy and dangerous illusion that we can replace auto sales to the US with EVs overseas,” Poilievre said. 

I’d suggest the real fantasy and dangerous illusion here is Poilievre’s pollyanna perspective on the United States. This is almost certainly motivated by the split within his party, which is more or less equally divided between those who support Trump and those who don’t. But the rest of the country is under no such illusion — or delusion — about America. Poilievre’s insistence on thinking the best of Americans while that country continues to do its worst isn’t likely to help him get out of the hole he’s in right now. 

Neither will his attack on the prime minister’s efforts to diversify our trade relationship and reduce our reliance on the United States. No, we can’t change our geography, but we can respond to the imperatives it creates for us. Canada’s auto sector has been the victim of American policymaking for years now, and that’s unlikely to change — especially as US automakers become even more divorced from broader global trends around electrification. At some point, we have to make a choice: either we embrace that change or get left behind by it. 

As it happens, Chinese automaker BYD has already said it’s studying the Canadian market for “a wholly owned manufacturing plant,” and has even signaled interest in buying a legacy automaker. There are other Chinese EV makers who would, I’m sure, be interested in entering the Canadian market, even if they couldn’t export those vehicles to the United States. If Canada has any intention of trying to compete in the broader automotive market, we almost have to embrace the companies that are now leading it. 

One thing should be clear by now, though: betting on America’s better angels winning out is a losing proposition for Canadians. That’s especially true for the politicians who want to lead them. At some point, Poilievre will figure this out. The only question is how far behind in the polls he is by then — and whether he still has a job as the leader of the official opposition.

© National Observer