Is Trump cracking Canada?

Donald Trump's trade war with Canada has renamed lakes, threatened to make Canada the 51st state, and slapped tariffs on everything from steel to snowmobiles. The surprising part is what it's doing to the country itself. Quebec, home to Canada's oldest and fiercest separatist movement, has been hit hardest by the tariffs, and yet, support for leaving Canada has dropped to its lowest level in decades. Meanwhile in oil-rich Alberta, largely spared by Trump's tariffs and booming from high oil prices, a once-fringe separatist movement is gaining ground, with a referendum on leaving Canada looming in October. As far as Trump is concerned, he doesn't care where the cracks appear…as long as Canada eventually caves in. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app https://radio.abc.net.au/help/apps. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:32Speaker 01

  Find that's business with Alan Kohler on the ABC Business Daily Feed on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:38Matt Bevan?

  This podcast was produced on the lands of the Uwabikal and Gadigal people. You might have heard the news recently that the whole world has changed.

• 0:48Speaker 04

  The United Nations has voted to adopt a new world map that aims to show continents in their true proportions.

• 0:55Matt Bevan?

  Okay, so the world stayed the same, but the map you're used to looking at, it's been redrawn because it made things closer to the poles look bigger than they really are.

• 1:05Speaker 04

  Several African countries spearheaded the motion aimed at a more accurate representation of continental land masses than the current Maketa maps that we're used to.

• 1:15Matt Bevan?

  One interesting thing about this UN world map is what's written in the bottom corner. It says, "The boundaries and names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations." Basically, don't get mad at us if we named something in a way that you don't agree with. See, it turns out there's no actual international body that decides what geographical features are called. Each country gets to decide. I've got a big collection of old atlases here, sent in by some of you, and they are a perfect representation of this.

• 1:58Matt Bevan?

  For example, this 19th century British atlas is covered in things named after British monarchs when the locals called them something else entirely. This 1936 atlas from Nazi Germany labels all former German territories and colonies as being within the former border of the German Reich. Even a modern Australian atlas does this, labelling our large territorial claims in Antarctica, which most other countries don't recognise. Recently, Donald Trump has taken to renaming things mainly out of petty spite.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately to Lake America.

• 2:44Matt Bevan?

  Depending on where you are in the world, the body of water separating New York from the Canadian province of Ontario is now called one of two different names. This is part of an escalating dispute between Canada and the US. It kicked off when Donald Trump threatened to absorb Canada into the United States unless they sign up to more favourable trade policies.

• 3:08Speaker 05

  What I'd like to see, Canada become our 51st state.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  It's not for sale, won't be for sale, ever. President Trump accused Canada of wanting the benefits of being a US state without being one.

• 3:20Matt Bevan?

  There have already been serious effects of this trade war beyond the renaming of lakes.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Why does it feel like Mark Carney is going to war?

• 3:28Speaker 06

  Because we're attacked. You're at war when you get attacked, we got attacked.

• 3:31Matt Bevan?

  The number of Canadians visiting the US has plummeted by more than 20%. The proportion of Canadian exports going to the US has reached its lowest level in modern history, apart from the pandemic. Canadian consumption of American booze has dropped off a cliff.

• 3:49Speaker 07

  Canada has responded with its own tariffs and some provinces have banned the sale of American alcohol.

• 3:55Matt Bevan?

  Observing the situation from the outside, it kind of looks like all Canadians are united against Trump's policies. Elbows up!

• 4:06Speaker 06

  Elbows up time, we will never kiss the gangster's ring. There will always be a Canada. All right, elbows up.

• 4:13Speaker 07

  Elbows up. Canadian celebrities like Mike Myers have adopted the elbows up slogan, an ice hockey term that refers to dishing out punishment to opponents.

• 4:23Matt Bevan?

  And it's not just Shrek that's getting involved. Everybody seems to be backing the Prime Minister, Mark Carney.

• 4:29Speaker 06

  Vast majority of Canadians, including half of those who support the opposition Conservative Party, think he made the right call.

• 4:35Matt Bevan?

  Few leaders in the world owe their political success to Donald Trump as much as Mark Carney does. There's no doubt that opposition to Trump is making a lot of Canadians seem way more Canadian. But the thing is, Canada is a more complicated country than most people give it credit for. And the fight with the US is playing out very differently, depending on which province you look at. In fact, in two Canadian provinces, sizeable proportions of the population are in campaign mode, talking about leaving the Confederation.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  In October, Albertans will get the opportunity to either vote to stay in Canada or hold another binding referendum to leave.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  But when you ask people whether they would vote yes or no to a referendum for Quebec to become a country, that's a whole different question.

• 5:32Matt Bevan?

  Alberta and Quebec could not be more different in terms of their economy and culture, but the way that the trade war is playing out in each shows just how much the Trump era is changing Canada.

• 5:44Speaker 07

  With this added layer brought in by Donald Trump, it's completely upended the campaign.

• 5:50Matt Bevan?

  I'm Matt Bevan and this is If You're Listening.

• 6:04Matt Bevan?

  A lot of stuff got invented during World War Two. Britain developed the bouncing dam buster bomb and the Bailey Bridge. Germany developed ballistic missiles. Canada, well, Canada did this.

• 6:17Speaker 07

  A valuable addition to Johnny Canucks' issue of rolling stock is the snowmobile. A 95-volt power engine makes going easy even over the most difficult ground.

• 6:27Matt Bevan?

  The snowmobile was designed by Joseph Armand Bombardier, an inventor from the town of Valcourt, Quebec. This sort of thing had always obsessed him. From a young age, Bombardier had been trying to design a motorised dog sled, something that could skip across the snow-covered roads and fields of Canada.

• 6:48Matt Bevan?

  Then, in the 1930s, his two-year-old son died of appendicitis because Bombardier could not get him to the nearest hospital in time due to heavy snow blocking all the roads. After that, he devoted himself to building car and bus-sized vehicles that could have got his son there safely. By the time World War Two broke out, he'd invented the B12, so-called because it had 12 seats.

• 7:15Speaker 07

  In Canada, production lines have been busy and training has been in progress for possible flurries in northern Italy or western Germany.

• 7:22Matt Bevan?

  With its pair of skis up front and caterpillar tracks up the back, it could fang across snowfields at a surprisingly high speed. After the war, Bombardier got back to work on the thing that he'd been trying to invent since he was 15, the motorised dog sled. He called it the Ski Dog.

• 7:42Speaker 07

  Easy to lift, easy to start. It's the easy snowmobile.

• 7:47Matt Bevan?

  With a cool name, too. But someone made a typo in the original brochure for the Ski Dog, swapping the G for an O, and it stuck. The compact a land from Skidoo. Pretty soon, skidoo's became basically the coolest thing you could possibly own if you were from somewhere cold. Easy to move, our lightest. Easy to own, our lowest priced. When you look at all the facts, Skidoo has more going for you. They became wildly popular in the 60s and 70s. This is the year that the Skidoo snowmobile will go beyond anything you've ever imagined. Find someone who looks at you the way these Canadians look at their skidoo's.

• 8:25Speaker 07

  The world's number one selling snowmobile, now the world's number one way.

• 8:31Matt Bevan?

  Go do it. Bombardier was selling hundreds of thousands of these a year, but they weren't done. Bombardier followed it up by finding a way to make the snowmobile work on water that wasn't frozen.

• 8:47Speaker 07

  Until now, only one species commanded the water with such speed, agility and style.

• 8:53Matt Bevan?

  They invented the jet ski and called it the Sea Doo.

• 9:04Matt Bevan?

  Pretty rad stuff. Bombardier was an incredibly successful company and it ran everything from Quebec. And crucially, they did all of their business, apart from their rad advertising, in French.

• 9:20Matt Bevan?

  And that was significant because speaking French is a very important part of Quebec's cultural identity.

• 9:26Speaker 06

  Although small pockets of French speakers exist throughout North America, by far the largest population resides in Quebec.

• 9:33Matt Bevan?

  And for centuries, the Francophone Quebecois have felt threatened.

• 9:37Speaker 06

  Yet Quebec is surrounded not only by English Canada, but by the largest and most influential English-speaking country in this realm, the United States.

• 9:45Matt Bevan?

  And yet, while Quebec was majority French-speaking, the business elite of its largest city was not.

• 9:52Speaker 06

  Historically, it was Montreal's English-speaking minority who held the economic power in the province. Although this community was only one-quarter the population of Montreal, the language used in business and commerce and on many public signs was English.

• 10:08Matt Bevan?

  In the 1970s, a concerted effort was made to change that. The government outlawed English-language signs in the streets.

• 10:15Speaker 07

  They passed legislation which made unilingual English signs forbidden. And in their place, they established the sign law, which meant that only French-language signs could appear on the streetscape.

• 10:27Matt Bevan?

  But this decision wasn't popular with everyone.

• 10:30Speaker 06

  Because of these laws, many English-speaking companies like this one, Sun Life, began to leave in droves. Overall, nearly 20% of the English population left Quebec in the early 70s and 80s.

• 10:42Matt Bevan?

  Chasing some of your largest businesses out of town is an interesting economic strategy, but this wasn't really about economics. The majority government at the time, under the Parti Quebecois, or PQ, didn't just want French signs. They wanted Quebec out of Canada altogether. They were an explicitly separatist party. But separatism didn't have majority support among the voters. A lot of them worried that Quebec's economy just wasn't up to it, wasn't able to be totally independent from the rest of Canada. Two referendums were held on Quebec independence and both failed, at least in part, because a lot of French speakers thought the economic effects would be too painful.

• 11:27Matt Bevan?

  So the Parti Quebecois set about proving them wrong. They invested heavily in French-speaking companies. They encouraged Quebec citizens to do the same, creating a group of companies known as the Fleurons, basically flagship companies. And surprisingly, it worked.

• 11:49Matt Bevan?

  By the end of the 20th century, Quebec was home to a group of massive French-speaking companies that were globally dominant in their sector. Alcan in the aluminium industry, SNC Lavalin in engineering, CAE in flight simulators, CGI in the IT industry, and Cirque du Soleil in the, I don't know, circus industry? Bombardier was by then an enormous multinational company, and they weren't just building ski and sea doos. They were the world's biggest manufacturer of passenger trains.

• 12:23Speaker 07

  Whatever your passenger rail requirements, Bombardier has a solution.

• 12:28Matt Bevan?

  And also...

• 12:29Speaker 06

  Since entering the aerospace industry in 1986, Bombardier has grown to become the world's third-largest supplier of civil aircraft.

• 12:40Matt Bevan?

  Unfortunately, they didn't call them rail doos or air doos, but all of this success was an enormous point of pride for Quebec. They were showing that Quebecois companies could not just compete but dominate in competitive global industries and do it all in French. But you might have noticed their rank there. Bombardier was the...

• 13:01Speaker 06

  ...world's third-largest supplier of civil aircraft.

• 13:05Matt Bevan?

  The big dogs were Europe's Airbus and America's Boeing, who were basically a duopoly when it came to airliners. They made big jets and Bombardier made little ones. But then Bombardier decided to try and move in on the big dog's turf.

• 13:22Speaker 07

  The C Series is a new technology platform designed for the 100 to 150-seat market segment.

• 13:28Matt Bevan?

  Now, a new plane that seats 100 to 150 people doesn't sound that exciting, but in terms of the global aviation industry, it was a huge deal. Canada's Bombardier is going up against the two aircraft giants. It wants to grab a slice of the profitable, smaller jet sector. It's the biggest plane ever conceived and assembled in Canada. This is a truly historic moment. This was the first serious attempt in nearly 30 years to challenge the airliner duopoly. The last company that tried it went bankrupt, and now this plucky little snowmobile company from Valcourt, Quebec, was gonna give it a go.

• 14:09Speaker 07

  The industry's first new medium-haul airliner to come off the drawing board in decades.

• 14:14Matt Bevan?

  It wouldn't be easy. Designing a brand-new type of plane costs billions of dollars in research and development.

• 14:21Speaker 07

  It poured $3.5 billion into developing the CS-100 over 10 years.

• 14:29Matt Bevan?

  By 2013, they were ready to show their work.

• 14:38Speaker 07

  Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Mirabelle and to this Bombardier C Series aircraft programme update.

• 14:44Matt Bevan?

  At their facility outside Montreal, a big curtain was raised to reveal the engineers looking tough with their arms crossed and the C Series prototype. So what do you think? What do the guys think of that? It all seemed very exciting, but they were already years behind schedule and bleeding money fast. By 2015, the C Series programme had put the entire company on the verge of bankruptcy. They were slashing jobs and begging for government assistance to try and stay afloat.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  For months now, we have known that Bombardier has needed an emergency cash infusion, and today, that rescue money arrived in the form of a $1 billion cheque from the Quebec government.

• 15:28Matt Bevan?

  Quebec was desperate to keep Bombardier running. Several of the other French-speaking flagship companies had collapsed or been bought out. The Quebec government took a 49% stake in the programme, justifying it by saying that they saw the possibility of it paying off massively. They considered that it's risky, but it might be very profitable. And just a few months later, that bet seemed to have paid off, with Delta Airlines, one of the world's largest airlines, putting in a massive order for C Series jets.

• 15:59Speaker 07

  Welcoming Delta Airlines to the C Series family of operators is a watershed moment of our game-changing aircraft programme.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  The deal is valued at nearly $6 billion US, according to the list price.

• 16:13Matt Bevan?

  Locking down Delta as a client was a massive win for Bombardier, but unfortunately, it also aroused the interest of one of the big dogs. In 2017, the American big dog Boeing called up the US government to complain, and the newly-elected Trump administration decided to help them out.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  The American decision to slap nearly 220% duties on Bombardier C Series passenger jets sold last year to Delta came after Bombardier's competitor, Boeing, complained the Canadian aerospace giant sold its products at a discount because of government subsidies.

• 16:48Matt Bevan?

  A 220% tariff on Bombardier's jets being sold to Delta was definitely enough to sink the deal. The Canadians were furious.

• 16:57Speaker 06

  Obviously, we're disappointed by the decision, and I will continue to fight hard for good Canadian jobs.

• 17:03Speaker 05

  When Justin Trudeau says to Boeing, "We're not buying any of your damn planes as long as this fight is going," we say, "Congratulations, Prime Minister, right here with you today."

• 17:12Matt Bevan?

  The tariffs were only in place for a few months before they were thrown out by a US federal agency, but the damage was done. Delivering the Delta contract was basically impossible financially for them. It would have driven Bombardier into bankruptcy. To avoid that, Bombardier needed help funding the production, so they sold a controlling stake in the C Series plane to the French big dog Airbus for $1. The two companies would split the losses and then hopefully share in the revenue once the planes were delivered. Airbus then proceeded to rename the plane, the Airbus A220, and manufacture Delta's order in Alabama.

• 17:59Matt Bevan?

  Despite the sale, Bombardier basically fell to pieces. They'd been hit so hard financially that they had to sell off all of their other divisions: ski doos, sea doos, and all their other doos, retaining only their private jet factory. The interesting thing about this is Quebecers, by and large, didn't blame the Trump administration for this collapse. Bombardier executives had been caught a few months earlier giving themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses, and the C Series's budget problems were very well-known. The Bombardier bosses copped most of the blame. A flagship company being dismantled by an American tariff was embarrassing, rather than something to be angry at America about.

• 18:44Matt Bevan?

  Besides, the government definitely was subsidising Bombardier, exactly like Boeing said, they were guilty as charged. But that was back then, in the normal times. Now, in what we on this show like to call the jungle times, the situation is quite different.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  But very importantly, tomorrow tariffs, 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico, and that'll start, so they're gonna have to have a tariff. So what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States.

• 19:19Matt Bevan?

  In Trump's second term, his tariffs on Canadian imports have triggered a total realignment of Canadian politics. Canadians, at this basketball game in Toronto, were not holding back about the star Spangled Banner.

• 19:37Speaker 07

  Before Donald Trump talked of taking over Canada and slapped it with tariffs, the opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poliev was riding high in the polls.

• 19:47Matt Bevan?

  But the ruling Liberal Party successfully painted Poliev as being aligned with Trump.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  I have to tell you, speaking for myself, parial playground insults from the maple syrup mega, don't bother me. Yes.

• 20:02Matt Bevan?

  And painted their new leader Mark Carney as being someone who could stand up to the US president.

• 20:08Speaker 06

  Donald Trump wants to break us so America can own us. President Trump has betrayed Canada. He's betrayed Canada.

• 20:18Matt Bevan?

  In Quebec, Carney's Liberal Party achieved their best election result in decades. Trump's tariffs seemed to have been specifically designed to infuriate Quebecers, targeting some of their main exports like aluminium and steel.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  We visited a steel plant close to Montreal, where before the tariffs, they'd been exporting 90% of their products to the US.

• 20:41Matt Bevan?

  More than a year on from the election, support for Carney in Quebec remained in the high 60s, stratospherically high for a national leader. But Trump wasn't done.

• 20:52Speaker 06

  President Trump, just a little bit ago, putting out this statement on Truth Social saying, no more selling Bombardier in the United States, their products aren't good enough.

• 21:02Matt Bevan?

  Trump pointed out that half of Bombardier's revenue comes from selling private jets to Americans, but...

• 21:08Speaker 06

  That era is over. If they want our market, they must build here and stop treating America like a piggy bank.

• 21:15Matt Bevan?

  Trump wants to prevent Bombardier selling planes into America, which would almost certainly destroy what's left of the company.

• 21:22Speaker 06

  Buy American, fly on American airliners, enjoy American liquor and beverages, sail on Lake America. America first.

• 21:32Matt Bevan?

  Bombardier pointed out that it already employs more than 3,000 Americans and works with thousands of American suppliers. They're also building spy planes for the US Army at a factory in Kansas. Trump either doesn't know that or doesn't care. In the midst of this, Quebec is holding a provincial election. They vote on the 5th of October. The Parti Quebecois, which has for years promised to hold another referendum on Quebec independence if they're elected, has been forced to say that they will not do it while Trump is still in office.

• 22:06Speaker 07

  Trump's tenure at the White House is not an ideal period to think about our future.

• 22:13Matt Bevan?

  The harder Trump pushes, the angrier Quebecers are getting, and interestingly, the more they see themselves as being part of Canada.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  Support for separatism has gone down to its lowest levels in decades.

• 22:25Matt Bevan?

  You'd think that this is how all Canadians would react. An attack by the US president would make them all feel more connected to each other. But that's not entirely the case. 3,000 kilometres to the west of Quebec, the people of Alberta are experiencing the Trump presidency very differently.

• 22:42Speaker 07

  A surveying party taps the Alberta subsoil to chart the underground makeup and determine the location of oil deposits.

• 22:50Matt Bevan?

  In the 20th century, while the province of Quebec was building up a manufacturing industry, Alberta was digging for oil.

• 22:57Speaker 07

  With more and more gasoline needed to turn the wheels of empire trade, Canada is playing her part in high-pressure production of the Alberta oil boom.

• 23:06Matt Bevan?

  While Bombardier was starting production on snow buses, the people of Alberta were getting around on horses.

• 23:12Speaker 07

  Shopping on horseback, in scenes reminiscent of Gold Rush days, are an everyday occurrence to these pioneers of 1945.

• 23:19Matt Bevan?

  Alberta's much less like an English-speaking Quebec as it is a frozen Texas. They wear trademark white cowboy hats, they have wildly popular annual rodeos, they elect almost exclusively Conservative governments, and they pump oil and gas out of the ground into pipes. The vast majority of those pipes go into the United States. In fact, three-quarters of Alberta's daily oil production goes to the US. Alberta also has a longstanding separatist movement, with a referendum vote coming up soon.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  In October, Albertans will get the opportunity to either vote to stay in Canada or hold another binding referendum to leave.

• 24:06Matt Bevan?

  Their gripe isn't primarily about language or culture, it's about money.

• 24:11Speaker 07

  We're looking at just about over a $30 billion outflow of economic activity from Alberta to the Confederation for which we don't get anything back. So you feel like Albertans are getting ripped off, basically? Albertans aren't exercising their sovereignty, and it's costing them billions of dollars.

• 24:30Matt Bevan?

  And while Trump's tariffs have been crushing Quebec's economy, Alberta's oil is a special case. Their oil exports have been exempted. So as Quebec's economy sputters, Alberta's is roaring ahead, particularly as oil prices have surged during the Iran War. So those separatists, the ones who want out of Canada, they're feeling pretty friendly towards their neighbours to the south.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  Alberta separatists sparked controversy earlier this year by meeting with US State Department officials.

• 25:03Matt Bevan?

  The US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant decided to throw a bit of oil on the fire.

• 25:08Speaker 07

  I think we should let them come down into the US, and Alberta's a natural partner for the US.

• 25:16Matt Bevan?

  The Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is a former right-wing radio host. She's not a separatist herself, but she announced the referendum to try and call the separatists' bluff, much like the UK Prime Minister David Cameron tried to do with a Brexit referendum.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Once a fringe movement, support for separatism has grown. Some polls show around 30% of the population backs the move to break away. That still wouldn't get it over the line, but separatists believe anyone who's confident this referendum will fail could be in for a Brexit-style shock.

• 25:49Matt Bevan?

  It's worth looking clearly at what Donald Trump is doing here. He doesn't really care what Lake Ontario is called, or whether Bombardier sells planes in America. He's just putting pressure on Canada, hoping they'll agree to terms on a trade deal that benefits his America-first ideology. He's done this by metaphorically, putting a big old snow bus onto a frozen lake with thinning ice. He's loading it up with weight, hoping it will cause enough cracks in the ice to make Canada panic and agree to a deal.

• 26:30Matt Bevan?

  The surprising part is where the cracks are forming. They're not in Quebec, which is where you'd look for them. Quebec with a decades-old separatist movement, with government-subsidised francophone industries and a fierce ideological streak, that's surely going to be the thinnest ice. But if anything, that ice is getting thicker, solidifying out of hate for a common enemy, elbows up. It's the thickest parts of the ice, oil-rich Alberta, which is showing the cracks. Trump doesn't care, though. As long as the cracks are spreading, the tariffs are doing their job.

• 27:11Matt Bevan?

  He also has no incentive to stop, which is why most Canadians, even the Quebecois separatists, are counting the days until the end of his term. This episode was written by me, Matt Bevan. Supervising producers are Jess O'Callaghan and Cara Jensen-McKinnon. It's produced by Adair Shepherd. We really don't talk about Canada enough on this show. While researching this episode, we came across a bunch of really interesting side quest stories about Canada that aren't really relevant to this tariff story at all, but are fascinating nonetheless. We'll look into a couple of them next week.

• 27:53Matt Bevan?

  A special thanks this week to the people who sent in old atlases, including Ally, Brett, Dennis, Mary Anne, Elizabeth, Daryl and Sally. They are beautiful. We're definitely going to do more with them, too. This is really just a taste of the fascinating things we've found inside these atlases. I'll catch you on Tuesday.