It’s been a busy week in the news, if readers will forgive me an understatement. We’ve had the U.S. election, of course, and all that it will mean for Canada. Overnight, there was a shocking attack on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam by what appears to have been an organized mob. Wars in the Middle East and Europe grind on. In a story that was largely overlooked given all the above, there are also signs that Russian intelligence has stepped up its operations against the West and is now targeting commercial aircraft bound for North America. It’s a lot to take in. It’s the grimmest overall state of the world that I’ve ever seen in my life. And it seems to be getting worse.
My columns at TVO Today focus, generally, on Ontario politics and policy, with occasional jaunts into municipal and federal affairs. There isn’t a neat thesis or collection of data points that can be snappily shrunk down into an article that takes all these global issues, and more, and turns them into an easily digestible thousand words or so of “And here’s what it all means for Ontario (or Canada or your local hometown)!” The world is a big and complex place, and there isn’t always a lot that we’re going to be able to do about what’s happening beyond our borders. Sometimes we just need to cope as best we can with what we see.
But it’s time — and, frankly, long past time — for our governments to start taking these and other issues seriously and responding deliberately, rather than reactively. And I really don’t see any evidence that they are or even that they would be capable of doing so if they wanted to.
There was a small example of this Thursday that I think speaks to the point. The federal government has announced a cabinet committee that will be managing U.S.-Canada relations during the second term of Donald Trump. It’s a reannouncement, really, as a similar committee operated during the first Trump term. It’s been stood back up. And, well, sure. Okay. Fair enough. I don’t see any harm in this. But when you consider how exhausted this government is, how slowly it responds to new threats, how it struggles to bring actions in line with rhetoric and stated goals, how it has spent recent months consumed by internal turmoil, and how likely it is to soon be defeated... gosh. There seems to be a ceiling on the likely effectiveness of such a group, no?
But there’s the thing. It’s something! I don’t think it’s much of something or likely to be useful, but it’s a recognition of changing circumstances, and it’s shockingly alone. I am absolutely damning it with faint praise, but it’s the only thing I really can praise, even faintly. Is no one else at any level of government thinking about our long-held assumptions and how we’ll have to adjust them if we’re wrong?
Let’s just look at Ontario. What will Trump’s proposed tariffs mean for our economy, particularly the auto sector, which relies on the cross-border transfers, on a just-in-time basis, of a huge array of parts? What about our agriculture and food sectors? We grow a lot of food, but we don’t process a lot of it — will the cost of processed food spike, erasing some of the benefits of easing inflation? What about steel and natural resources?
Or here’s a fun one. What about electric vehicles? The Canadian government and the Ontario and Quebec provincial governments have been investing heavily — tens of billions! — in bringing an EV industry to this country. That includes the manufacturing of EV vehicles and the batteries that power them, plus the natural resources needed to supply both those manufacturing industries. Is Trump going to pivot America away from EVs or even just slow the process down a bit? What would that mean for our spending plans? What should it mean?
I don’t know. I honestly don’t. That’s a question beyond my ability to answer, and I confess I thought to ask it only because I have a very smart friend who is much more closely involved in that sector than I am, and they raised it with me on a phone call. Hey, thanks! So that’s one example, but I have to assume there are about a billion versions of that question being asked, and I’m not sure there’s really anyone inside our governments being tasked with answering them.
What does this country need to do to prepare itself geopolitically, particularly on the trade and military fronts? What does this province need to do on the energy fronts, the manufacturing fronts, and, frankly, on the public-safety fronts? Are we going to see security incidents like we just saw in Amsterdam or more of what we’ve already seen right here at home, including just recently, with sectarian violence outside a Hindu temple?
I’m not panicked, and I’m not asking for panic. I am asking, though, whether we are taking these issues seriously enough — or really considering them at all. It’s not good enough to take some already exhausted cabinet ministers in an already failing federal government and assign them all some additional homework. That’s just not a serious response to a series of serious situations. We need to realize that the world is changing and start trying to actively manage those changes.
We should have started years ago, but we didn’t. So the next best time to start is right now. Today. And I don’t just mean “say it’s a challenge or an emergency or a threat.” I mean act like you mean it.
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