Look, we know 16th century poetry isn’t for everyone, but sometimes English class – historical literature – is best suited to help us understand what’s happening.
Often attributed to Shakespeare, the title of this post is a line from Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion that famously (poignantly) underscores how small lies and manipulations can easily multiply, adding up to big danger. And whether we’re talking a 16th century love triangle/land grab or a 21st century trade war/Canadian constitutional crisis, the line holds true: “O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
Overstating the week that was? Well, you be the judge. (Fair warning: this is going to get complicated.)
As you know by now, next week promises to be one of the most consequential in Canadian history. US President Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Monday and has pledged to immediately impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports to the United States. And if he follows through on his threat? It will devastate the Canadian economy – and maybe America’s.
Now, tariffs are not well understood by most (including, arguably, President-elect Trump), so you might want to brush up on the subject here.
But next week is for tariffs. The week that was? It was a scene-setter for not only what’s to come, but why.
Let’s start here: the (apparent) collapse of the so-called Team Canada approach to Trump’s tariff threat.
(You might recall Lesson Two – the Canadian context and how our natural history has shaped our views and debates. It’s a good primer for what’s discussed in the linked article above. But in case you missed it…)
Alberta and Ontario have very different histories and very different geographies. This has shaped both the culture and the economy of each region – and it continues to colour today’s debates, including the positions of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Alberta, geographically and politically outside the orbit of federal politics, has long felt like an outsider – a province that has had to fight for everything it has. That’s the regional perception. It’s also fact.
Moreover, Alberta’s fighting spirit – its ability to carve out an oil and gas economy from boggy boreal forest in the northeast corner of the province – has brought incredible prosperity to all of Canada. And, at times, Alberta has delivered Canadian prosperity at the expense of, well, Albertans. (This bit of Canadian history goes a long way towards explaining the visceral hatred for the Trudeau name in Alberta. Yes, Trudeau the Younger’s last name probably is why he was able to win is so many Canadian regions, but his last name also set him up for failure in Alberta long before he actually failed in the province’s eyes.)
Now here’s the flip side:
With economic opportunity, Alberta also gave the nation an unpaid environmental bill. And even though Alberta’s share of the global climate crisis is very much up for debate, what’s not up for discussion is that climate change will impact all Canadians – most especially Canadians living outside of Alberta and on the country’s three coasts.
Though we have yet to fully understand the consequences of what crossing the 1.5°C threshold means – as we did this past year – the Los Angeles fires are providing another dramatic example of how climate change will impact so many facets of life, including the economy. Indeed, the underlying driver of the LA fires is similar to BC’s recent cycle of fires, landslides, and floods that has disrupted supply chains, hurt efforts to tackle inflation, and cost the country billions.
On both counts, we’re not talking obscure history. Tangible, current events – Trudeau’s prorogation and policy fights with Alberta; the LA fires and ongoing environmental problems – are colouring how our country is reacting to the very black-and-white threat of Trump’s tariff threat.
Now, you might counter by saying Doug Ford is hardly a champion of climate action. And maybe so. But he’s unequivocally stated climate change is a threat. And he certainly believes a solution to the issue might be found in Ontario’s geography – the critical minerals that he wants to mine in the province’s ring of fire.
You don’t think Ford’s desire to use every tool in the tool box – putting retaliatory export tariffs on oil and gas exports to America – to fight Trump isn’t being influenced by Ontario’s politics and geography? Of course it is.
Equally, Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith is both seeing red at the possibility of Canada using Alberta’s oil and gas sector to retaliate against America and seeing red meat she can use with her supporters. After all, the province’s politics and geography dictate that her base is spoiling for a fight with a Trudeau and easterners over an issue like this one.
And therein lies the problem: all the little lies and manipulations and omissions are very much tangling our national web of unity.
You see, it’s one thing for Doug Ford to wear a hat proclaiming Canada isn’t for sale. It’s another thing for Ford to omit that his positions are easier to take because they will hurt but not destroy his province. Of course, that’s in part because Ontario is more economically diverse than Alberta – a built in advantage thanks the province’s proximity to power and population, both Canadian and American. (The latter point also being instructive when trying to understand why Trump’s threats are so existential to Ontario.)
For Smith and Alberta, the Trump tariff threat is just another front in an ongoing battle to keep the oil and gas sector healthy and thriving. The province, unlike Ontario, is not as economically diversified and while short-term politics have played a role in this reality (pro-oil and gas policies will always yield short term political gains in Alberta), it’s also a by-product of Alberta’s geography (nowhere close to power and population centres – Canadian or American). That, in turn, makes Smith’s position much easier to take, especially when historical grievances are factored into the (political) calculation.
Or maybe you agree with Ford and Team Canada.
And maybe your position is hardened because of your historical – or present day – context. Fair enough, we suppose.
But what isn’t fair? Not being open to seeing the other side, while also stoking the flames of the opposition.
And we’ve seen a lot of that recently.
Love or hate Trudeau, you need to recognize that his positions – from COVID vaccine mandates to virtue signalling policies like the “just transition” to last week’s prorogation – have constantly and needlessly polarized the country, driving a wedge between Canada and Alberta.
To rally the nation – to really rally all of the nation – to respond to the Trump tariff threat, a clean slate was needed. And while it’s coming in the form of a new prime minister and, eventually, a federal election, it won’t be coming by Monday, when the tariffs might be enacted. The prime minister had multiple opportunities to step aside immediately for the good of the nation, but he didn’t. That’s on Trudeau.
In the same context, it’s not a great look for Premier Ford to play to an inherit Canada-first mentality that is Ontario’s luxury given the province’s proximity to power and institutionalized economic advantages.
And then there is Alberta.
Does Danielle Smith really care about Canada? It certainly doesn’t seem that way, short-circuiting national-efforts by lobbying President-elect Trump directly, with the support of a business leader who has openly called for Canada to become America’s 51st state. Indeed, Smith’s desire to put Alberta above the rest of the nation plays into a long-running narrative about the province.
The reputation isn’t often deserved, but when your pitch for unity in a time of crisis is to build more pipelines that a neighbouring province already rejected? It’s a bit tone def. And maybe more pipelines would have already happened if Alberta was forthright about the impacts of climate change, rather than fighting and demonizing the positions of other Canadians, repeatedly. And maybe all of that would have been an easier pill to swallow for non-Albertan Canadians if Alberta had pitched more oil and gas while also strengthening protections for, say, biodiversity. But Alberta, while pushing new pipelines, is also pushing new coal strip mining and open season on threatened species like wolverines, wolf killing competitions, and a quasi-grizzly bear hunt.
As we’ve said over and over, when there is no room for the other side in the set of solutions on offer, it’s hard to find an ally when it really matters. Like when the oil and gas industry is a suggested shield in a trade war.
Interestingly, this point brings us full circle.
How so? Well, check out today’s Globe and Mail.
To understand the rise of Donald Trump and his populist politics, underscored by his threat to provoke a global trade war and takeover Canada by economic force, it’s important to dig into why voters have embraced his ideology.
There are many reasons, of course, but the Globe interestingly highlighted American communities that flipped from backing Obama (in 2008 and 2012) to backing Trump (in 2016 and 2024).
One such community? Grays Harbor in Washington State.
40 years after the US government took action to protect the highly endangered spotted owl by curtailing clear-cut logging in and around the county, locals still blame the initiative for destroying their economy and creating the conditions that have allowed the opioid crisis to take hold.
Of course, the value of saving the spotted owl – saving biodiversity – will rarely stack up against the here-and-now pocketbook and crime issues that drive electoral politics. But when the efforts to protect the spotted owl – biodiversity – have also failed? Eek. This is the danger of stop-gap, half-hearted measures that create politically expedient compromises, but ultimately fail all involved.
And the Globe’s example isn’t unique.
Whether it’s wolf reintroductions in Montana or Colorado, or coal mining legislation in Kentucky and West Virginia, well-intended, scientifically-rigorous, often environmentally-focused policy initiatives are at the heart of the electoral anger that is driving the anti-elite, pro-populism wave.
Trump has tapped into that anger – the feeling that many rural resource-dependent communities have been denied the opportunity to join the middle class because of environmental policies like climate action or endangered species protection or old-growth logging limitations – and his success is allowing for the tariff threat to materialize.
Ironically, a similar sentiment in Canada – anger towards environmental policies that seemingly hurt one region or province – is at the heart of our crumbling unified approach to Trump’s threats.
In other words, how issues at the intersection of people and nature have been handled across decades have sown the seeds of mistrust that not only threaten our economy and our environment, but maybe our country as well.
Could all of this have been avoided?
Hindsight is always 20/20, but we argue yes.
What if we had taken the time, 40 years ago, to have had the hard conversations? What if we were honest about the impossibility of having our cake and eating it too? What if, for example, we had debated then the questions we posed to you in Chapter Three of your inquiry media stories?
We don’t know, of course, but because the conversations would have been messy – and because society as a whole rewards policy-makers who are risk-adverse – we decided to kick the can down the road.
But now we’re out of road. The bill is due.
Worse still? We’ve retreated within our own communication echo chambers and, as we discussed in Lesson Nine, we no longer can recognize reasonableness. We have walled-off our ability to see the bigger picture and accurately judge the political centre for all people, not just what’s centrist for those within our community. (If you’re confused, refer to our fun doodles in Lesson Nine for a visual of what we’re talking about!)
And if we’ve lost the power and place to convene important – if hard – conversations about the clashing of regions and histories and injustices (economic and cultural) and current realities (environmental and economic)? Well, that’s not good news.
It’s why Canada’s reaction to the tariff threat could kick-off a constitutional crisis.
It’s why Trump’s tariffs could be a threat to our national sovereignty.
And it’s why division in a time of crisis could have far-reaching consequences – for people, for nature, for democracy.
Maybe you think we’re being hyperbolic.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
It’s why 16th century poetry can help us understand the week that was. And it’s why this story on 20th century history should warn us against being complacent of the danger that might still be ahead.