COLUMN: Think Again – Pro-Canadian shouldn’t mean anti-American

President Donald Trump just imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum and may soon place similar tariffs on all other products entering the United States.

These tariffs will devastate our economy. In fact, they may throw us into a recession. It’s imperative we do everything we can to stop these tariffs from happening.

However, it’s interesting to see so many Liberal and NDP politicians suddenly beating the drum of Canadian patriotism. These are the same politicians who, until just a couple weeks ago, often referred to our country as “so-called” Canada and denounced it as a genocidal state.

Now, I am all in favour of Canadian patriotism; I just want it to be genuine. If you love Canada, then be proud of our history and defend our institutions. While we should not ignore our past mistakes, we need to recognize the many good things our country has done over the years.

As a case in point, it’s time we stopped denigrating our first prime minister. Yes, John A. Macdonald was an imperfect man whose words and deeds fall short of 21st century standards (as did those of virtually every 19th century politician). Nevertheless, Macdonald successfully bridged the divide between British Protestants and French Catholics and convinced representatives from these colonies that they would be stronger united than apart.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has gotten so used to dumping on Canada over the years that he doesn’t know how to offer a coherent defense of our country. During a CNN interview last month, Trudeau said that Canadians are proud to be Canadian but then added, “One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, well, we’re not American.”

That is a truly pathetic way of describing our national identity. If our defining characteristic is that we aren’t American, then we don’t have much of an identity at all. I doubt that Americans, or people in any other country for that matter, identify themselves primarily as “not Canadian.”

It seems to me that many of the newfound Canadian patriots in Liberal and NDP circles are more anti-American than pro-Canadian. To put it another way, do they love our country because they hate Donald Trump, or do they love our country for what it truly is? These are two very different things.

As a Canadian, I value the richness of our country’s history. We should be proud of our outsized contributions during the two World Wars, the successful completion of a national railroad in 1885, the many times our country stood up for human rights around the world, and the significant technological inventions developed right here in Canada.

It’s understandable that Canadians are angry at how we are being treated by President Trump. Canada is not the 51st state, nor will we ever become the 51st state. We are a proud independent nation, and we have no interest in becoming Americans. This isn’t because we are anti-American, but because we are pro-Canadian.

While we must respond in kind to any tariffs that Trump imposes on our country, it’s important to keep a proper perspective. The last thing we should do is retreat into a reflexive anti-Americanism that does little more than provoke further action against us.

Hopefully, politicians who only recently joined the pro-Canadian bandwagon come to the realization that you can’t denigrate our country as a genocidal state one minute and then proudly wave our flag the next minute. You either support our country or you don’t.

Pro-Canadian shouldn’t mean anti-American. Let’s support our country because we love our country, not because we hate Donald Trump.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.