Canada is an amazing country. Geographically it bears a strong resemblance to Siberia, having a huge area of boreal forest that gives way first to tundra, then to expanses of frozen wilderness that get tougher the further north you go. Both places have a wealth of natural resources and they share a pioneer culture that comes with a heritage of problematic relationships with the original occupants of the land. Siberia was conquered by Russian invaders and, once it was incorporated into the Tsarist empire, indigenous rights were highly restricted. Canada’s invaders were British and French, and their approach to the original inhabitants was much the same.
Natural resources and democracy
Where Canada and Siberia differ sharply is in the success with which they have coped with the challenges they face.
Canada has become one of the most successful economies on the planet, and a largely open society that values free speech and diversity. It has a strong lobby fighting to preserve the integrity of its environment.
Siberia has become dominated by oligarchs intent on stripping every last asset out of the wrecked ground as quickly and cheaply as possible. A place that was once famous for its prisons and its forced exiles is now pockmarked by ugly mines and wrecked ground around inefficient drilling rigs. Swathes of slow-to-regenerate forest have been stripped of timber with limited attempts to replace trees and manage the consequences.
There are, of course, plenty of mining companies in Canada who push the environment to the limit and would love to strip every last resource out of the land without worrying about anything other than the bottom line. Government controls over what those companies do remain seriously inadequate. But the exploiters face strong opposition, and efforts to buy-off officials and subvert regulations can be exposed by a relatively free press and challenged by activists. The legal system may be stacked in favour of those who can afford expensive lawyers, but it is a long way from being completely under the control of the wishes of the rich and powerful.
Putin’s Russia and Siberia
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia things work very differently. Those who wish to extract resources are at liberty to do so provided they have the right connections, pay the right bribes to the right people and never question the functioning of a regime which is financed by its share of the profits. Anyone who seeks to expose the consequences of a cynical short-term focus on an extraction economy is not at liberty to do so. They risk losing their career, long jail sentences and ultimately death in one of those still-functioning Siberian prisons.
For all its faults and its shortcomings, democracy makes a dramatic difference to the health of a society. In Putin’s Russia, the rule of oligarchs has enriched a small elite who enjoy the wealth obtained by their corruption in obscene displays of bad taste in palaces containing gold toilet seats. Canadian citizens are free to challenge their own exploiters and to fight to protect their wonderful natural environment.
‘Drill, baby, drill’ in the US bodes ill for Canada
Now all that is at risk. Donald Trump has hungry eyes on natural resources. Not content with aiming to seize control of Greenland in direct contradiction of international law, he has declared his intent to make Canada the 51st state of the US.
Some regard this as an empty, boastful ambition. Yet there is a consistent thread in Trump’s thinking. He admires Putin as a genius. He has declared his intent to go all out to extract every natural resource the US has to offer, regardless of the environmental consequences or longstanding protections. He wants to ‘drill baby drill’, and wherever he spots the chance to grab hold of natural resources he homes in on the opportunity – and not just in America.
The key issue Trump keeps returning to in negotiations over any Ukrainian peace deal is how much of its resources he can grab control of. His tactics are crude and simple. Profit is everything. Ego is all important. All that matters is the size of your bank balance or the military strength of a nation. He is aiming to strike the same deal with the US people that Putin has struck with significant parts of Russian society. Keep a high proportion of the population on side with a heavy dose of propaganda about making the country great, while allowing a small elite to pocket the profits.
It is in this context that the tariffs on Canadian goods need to be viewed. They are not an aberration or an accidental quirk of policy. They are a deliberate attempt to destabilise the economy of a country that currently operates on very different principles to Trump’s version of the USA.
Canada still has a largely free press, a high proportion of honest politicians, and a functioning independent legal system that can challenge even the most powerful citizens. Trump sees that as a threat, and Canada’s resources as merely a missed opportunity for enriching those who support his focus on profit at all costs. He wants to bully the country into such a difficult position that it opens its doors to aggressive exploiters who care nothing about the environment.
Other countries join forces to fight US tariffs
In such circumstances you would expect every decent politician in a free society to be standing firmly alongside Canada and helping it fight off the tariffs. To their credit, many in the EU are doing exactly that and are working together to retaliate with tariffs of their own which painfully target the interests of key supporters of Trump’s policies. Britain is not. Keir Starmer is limiting himself to a few mild observations of concern. Even the imposition of tariffs on British steel is not being responded to with firmness. Starmer has merely said that it might become necessary to retaliate at some stage.
Instead of standing firmly alongside a longstanding ally that shares our core values, Britain is on track to host one of the most shameful events of its history. The King of Canada has been told by the British government to open the doors of his palaces to a president of the US who has made direct threats to that country’s sovereignty. A country that has supported Britain in every important conflict is about to be betrayed in its hour of need. The leader of a country that has launched an unprovoked economic attack on Canada is to be provided with television coverage that will be aired across the US as evidence that the British are staunch allies of Trump.
Let’s invite the Canadian PM instead
In such circumstances the only reasonable course of action open to British people is to use the freedoms we still enjoy to make it clear that the bulk of this nation stands with Canada and not with Trump. If Starmer refuses to cancel this utterly shameful visit then it is down to us to make it clear on the streets and across social media that this is not what we want from the leader of our country.
We have a long and proud tradition of standing up to dangerously deluded individuals who want to dominate the world. The best way to preserve and enhance those values is to cancel the state visit of a man who has openly advocated cleansing Gaza of Palestinians and invite, in his place, the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney. Perhaps it could be arranged to send Trump on a long state visit to Siberia instead.
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