Donald Trump’s repeated musings about Canada becoming part of the United States have — unsurprisingly — raised hackles in Ottawa.
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell,” shot back Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while the Finance Minister Dominic Le Blanc noted, “The joke is over.” Opposition leaders are similarly irked, with Conservative Pierre Poilievre asserting “Canada will never be the 51st state” and New Democrat Jagmeet Singh telling the incoming president to “cut the crap.”
Yet the U.S. president-elect keeps pushing Canada’s buttons. He has suggested the highly integrated economies and trading relationship between the two countries is overrated, and has claimed a trade imbalance means U.S. is subsidizing its northern neighbour’s economy.
In doing this, Trump has highlighted a persistent concern raised by some on this side of the border: namely, that Canada’s national sovereignty is jeopardized by being too closely tied to the United States.
This isn’t a new concern — in fact, it will be familiar to anyone who remembers when Canada first eyed a free-trade deal with the U.S. back in the 1980s, long before Trump’s influence extended beyond the Manhattan real estate sector.
The road to free trade
During Pierre Trudeau’s final years as prime minister, the wheels were set in motion for Canada to consider pursuing a free trade deal with the U.S.
The country had been hit by a recession in the early 1980s, and in 1982, a Royal Commission was set up, led by Donald Macdonald, a former Liberal cabinet minister. Among its goals were to examine the future prospects and challenges for Canada’s economy.
When the commission’s report came back in 1985, it endorsed seeing Canada seek a path forward on free trade with the U.S. — with an eye to building improved and secure access to the American market, but nonetheless noting that “denial of that access is an ever-present threat.”
The Macdonald report supported seeing Canada pursue a free-trade deal with the U.S.
Then-prime minister Brian Mulroney, whose Progressive Conservatives had swept to power at the expense of the Liberals a year earlier, was intrigued by what the commission had found.
“There’s a degree of hard work that’s evident there and accomplishment and some very interesting ideas that are going to have to be carefully examined,” Mulroney said.
Some business leaders were enthused at the prospect of a future free trade deal, while labour groups had strong concerns — including about job losses that could occur.
Not all politicians were on board either.
“If we move towards a free trade arrangement with the United States, I think the political consequences are very clear,” said Bob Rae, then the leader of the New Democrats in Ontario.
“Don’t ask people who are elected provincially or federally to do a great job in managing the economy because all those decisions are going to be made in New York and Chicago and Washington and we are going to simply become a client of the United States.”
Reporter Mike Duffy explains how the deal came together at the last minute.
Nonetheless, Ottawa entered into negotiations with Washington. A proposed deal was reached in October 1987, and the free-trade agreement was signed by Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in January 1988.
But free trade wasn’t coming into force just yet.
Liberal Leader John Turner signalled his party would not make it easy for the government to implement what he called “the sale of Canada act.”
“We intend to fight across the country, we intend to fight in Parliament,” Turner said. “We intend to fight it every inch of the way.”
New Democrat Leader Ed Broadbent argued there had not been “an open and honest debate” on the full details of what free trade would entail.
Margaret Thatcher’s take
The broad discussion of the free trade debate even saw Margaret Thatcher weigh in, when the British prime minister visited Canada in June 1988.
In 1988, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Canada and made some headlines with her remarks about free trade when addressing MPs in Ottawa.
“You need have no fear that Canada’s national personality will be in any way diminished [in pursuing a free-trade deal],” said Thatcher.
Her unsolicited commentary to Parliament would see the country’s opposition leaders call out the so-called Iron Lady for intruding into domestic politics.
“She interfered in our national debate on an issue that is likely to dominate the next general election in this country,” Turner said later that day.
“We are no longer a colony of Great Britain and we don’t want to become a colony of the United States,” he added.
The NDP’s Broadbent questioned whether Thatcher had the right to “come here and meddle in Canadian affairs.”
Turner urged Mulroney to call an election to give Canadians a chance to weigh in on the issue. When the election was called at the start of October, Mulroney said free trade would be the centrepiece of the campaign that would send Canadians to the polls the following month.
Free trade and national sovereignty
The Liberals and the New Democrats quickly pushed for a televised debate that would be solely devoted to the issue. But the Progressive Conservatives were cool to the idea.
Broadbent suggested Mulroney understood that “the more Canadians know about the trade deal that he has negotiated with the United States, the more they become unhappy with it.”
In 1988, the Liberals and New Democrats wanted to have a televised debate focused solely on the issue of free trade. The PCs were cool to the idea.
The divisive topic was indeed part of the debate clashes to come among the leaders — including concerns about how the agreement could impact Canada’s national sovereignty.
Turner argued that a shift to free trade would limit Canada’s ability to manoeuvre from under U.S. control.
“I happen to believe that you’ve sold us out,” Turner said to Mulroney during the English-language debate on Oct. 25, 1988.
In Mulroney’s response, he denied the accusation and said his Liberal opponent did “not have a monopoly on patriotism.”
A report by Don Newman and Wendy Mesley on the leaders’ debate with Brian Mulroney, John Turner and Ed Broadbent. Aired Oct. 25, 1988 on CBC’s The National.
Mulroney’s Tories would return to power — again with a commanding majority, but with less seats than before.
The 1988 election would be the last that Mulroney, Turner and Broadbent would lead their respective parties.
Turner died in September 2020. Both Broadbent and Mulroney passed away in 2024. The pitched battle over free trade was part of their legacy as federal leaders.
The original free trade agreement between Canada and the United States came into effect on the first day of 1989.
Five years later, it was superceded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Then in April 2020, NAFTA was replaced by CUSMA — the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade — which was negotiated at the behest of Trump during his first term in the White House.
Following his re-election in November, Trump served notice that he would slap a 25 per cent tariff on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico. That threat, along with his subsequent “51st state” remarks have been viewed by some as signalling his intent in renegotiating CUSMA.
On New Year’s Eve in 1988, CBC reports on the free-trade deal that will come into effect the next day.
