By Liz Rowley
The federal and provincial governments claim they are fighting for “Canadian sovereignty” in the face of Trump’s threats, but it sure isn’t clear that they are standing up for working people.
All parties support US demands for Canada to more than double military spending to $80 million by 2032. All parties support US demands to militarize the border, and divert billions of dollars from the public purse to do it, on the spurious assertion that vast numbers of illegal immigrants and drugs are pouring into the US from Canada. All parties promise to apply equivalent tariffs on US goods, but they don’t have any plans to support the tens of thousands of workers who will be laid off or lose their jobs as a result.
Further, it appears that almost all parties support implementing “free trade” across Canada, which means eliminating “provincial trade barriers” and the power to make them. These barriers are actually regulations which protect workers’ health and safety, food safety and drug safety. They regulate healthcare, education and employment standards, and protect local markets and products from corporate competition that would destroy them.
It’s pretty telling that, within moments of Trump proposing tariffs, all the forces of capitalism in Canada – from the Business Council of Canada to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business to the CD Howe Institute to the Globe and Mail – started banging the drum about getting rid of provincial regulations. Their goal is to level the country for corporations to have a free hand – to hell with those who live and work here. Doesn’t sound too much like sovereignty, does it?
Trump also says Canada’s supply management system – which governs the production of milk, eggs, poultry and other food items – is an unfair provincial trade barrier that has to go. Same for public ownership of land growing softwood lumber. Ditto for French language requirements for goods and services in Quebec. These all affect millions of working people, but where’s the outcry from Team Canada?
We need to think about sovereignty from a people’s perspective, instead of from a corporate one. This means ending the current trade, political and military relationship in which the US dominates and Canada obeys. This means speaking up against the US attacks on the sovereignty of other countries and nations including Palestine, Mexico, Panama, Greenland, Venezuela and Cuba.
And this definitely means speaking up for the sovereignty and equality of nations within Canada. Indigenous nations, Quebec and Acadia all experience national oppression within this country, albeit in different ways and with different histories. Respect for sovereignty means forging unity on the basis of equality within a voluntary partnership.
In the face of Trump’s threats, working people need to press the government to withdraw from USMCA, NATO and NORAD, and institute independent trade, industrial and foreign policies that are based on full employment, climate justice, peace and disarmament.
Governments need to update provincial trade regulations to strengthen workers’ health and safety, and the safety of food and other goods transported into and across Canada, rather than promoting a “free trade” regime inside the country that will only benefit big corporations.
Working people, especially in English-speaking Canada, must force Ottawa to respect the national rights of Quebec and Acadia including to language and education, and the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples including to the land.
Sovereignty from a people’s perspective means rejecting corporate rule, from a foreign power but also from within Canada, and building independent democratic institutions that can defeat the drive to war and reaction, and to put the needs of people and the planet before corporate power and profits.
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