An Australia of the North

As we watch poor old Uncle Sam decline into full-blown dementia, Canadians understand that things in the neighbourhood are going to get ugly. Our once trusted friend has gone weird on us. At first we may even have been a bit frightened, but now we’ve got our elbows up and are ready to take the fight into the American end zone. This one we’re going to win in regular time.

Many of us were terrified that an amputation of American trade would tip us into a deep financial depression and leave us all significantly poorer. Collectively we feel much like a spouse in an abusive relationship, knowing it has to end, but fearful of the unknown.

So, let’s play a “let’s pretend” game. Imagine for a moment that the “longest undefended border in the world” is actually an ocean, that the United States is not just on the other side of an invisible line, but days or weeks away by ocean-going freighter. Think of Canada as an island, separated from Asia by the Pacific, from Russia by the Arctic, from Europe by the Atlantic, and from the US by the “49th Parallel Ocean”. Let’s think about how this exporting country could possibly survive if our trucks and trains are replaced by container ships and tankers.

As it turns out, there is an almost exact parallel – Australia. “The Lucky Country” shares our colonial history, and modeled its federal parliamentary democracy on ours, following closely in our footsteps as we both tiptoed from colonies to first-world nations.

Australia is remarkably similar to Canada, slightly smaller in population and land mass, but not by much. Like us, their wealth relies mostly on agriculture and resource extraction, and like us, they have a smart and highly educated work force able to go toe to toe with anyone in the world. They, too, enjoy high levels of subsidized education, medical care, and a lively democracy. Much like us, most of their population lives in an urbanized fringe, with millions of square kilometres of barren and hostile “wasteland”. They have their own idiom and their own cultural scene, far less integrated with Americana. On the surface it’s not hard to distinguish an Australian from a Canadian, but below the surface, we’re very similar. They are a perfect model for what we could look like if we treat Uncle Sam like he’s on the other side of an ocean.

With decades of smart industrial policy coupled with a highly educated workforce, Australia is at the leading edge of technological, medical, and military progress. The world over, Australia is taken seriously. Regretfully, Canada has spent most of the last decade goofing off, and we’ve fallen back in the race on nearly every front. But now that we have fresh and serious leadership, that’s about to change, “bigly”.

Given the treachery of Donald Trump toward his faithful northern neighbour and steadfast ally, it’s time for us to think of the border as an ocean, and to emulate the Australians. Aggressively seek out new alliances and trade deals. Focus on our internal expertise and foster local ingenuity. Celebrate and leverage our unique strengths, strengths of our smart and resilient people, strengths born of a battle against a hostile environment where we all have to carry one another to survive.

Can we pull this off? In comparison to the Australians, we have more land mass, more natural resources, much, much more fresh water, more hydropower, the world’s highest percentage of population with post-secondary education, two of the world’s most important languages, and much shorter routes to Europe, South America and Africa. Can we pull this off? You bet we can.

We can and must become a kind of Australie du Nord.