2025-06-05

 Published in the Winnipeg Free Press

5 June 2025

© Calvin J. Brown 2025

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Changing the channel

CALVIN BROWN

IF stress and anger shorten one’s life, U.S. President Donald Trump has reduced mine significantly. His appalling antics over the past months and years sometimes have even driven me to avoid the daily news. I suppose that’s akin to putting my head in the sand. If I’m not aware of it, I won’t worry about it. But that approach hasn’t worked, so I’ve decided to try something different.

I’m going to think about the positive effects Trump might be having on Canada. My plan is to no longer agonize over his economic assault, the risks of crossing our southern border, and his threats to annex us into the American nightmare.

So, here I go, thinking positive thoughts: Because of Trump… Some Canadian sectors might see benefits. Industry conventions might move northward so attendees can avoid the States. The “Buy Canada” trend could help local businesses. Local tourism might benefit as Canadians stay close to home and international vacationers avoid our neighbour.

Our ability to recruit medical practitioners, research scientists, and others could experience a notable boost. Maybe we’ll even start producing our own beverage cans.

We might significantly improve our military capabilities. There might, finally, be sufficient popular support and political courage to move our defence forces from being well intentioned to impressively capable. 

We’re already planning to diversify our international trade. Being so thoroughly dependent on the U.S. for commercial goods has never been wise. Neither has our reliance on the States as our primary supplier of military gear.

An especially satisfying improvement could come from enabling more interprovincial trade. That change could be a direct result of our Trump-induced, increased national unity.

If that unity morphs into a shared vision of Canada’s future, perhaps some positive national projects could move ahead. Among my favourites would be a national energy grid that facilitates the development and cross-Canada sharing of our abundant power- generation capabilities. Of course, that grid must favour and promote clean energy sources.

Given our national expertise and natural resources, we might collectively develop crucial industries that the world needs to combat climate change. We could learn to grow more of our own food, thereby avoiding the pollution-intensive transportation needed to import it. We could mine rare-earth minerals, use our energy resources to produce hydrogen fuel, and use oil industry expertise and equipment to develop large-scale geothermal projects. We could produce and use our own electric car. We already produce electric buses, but we could expand that dramatically. We could ramp up our own solar and wind power- generation industries. As climate-change pressure mounts, we might even revive our nuclear-power capabilities. And there could be more.

History has shown that in times of exceptional stress, a country’s determination can foster amazing innovation. It happened in the Second World War. It happened when the Americans were worried by Soviet technology and raced toward landing on the moon. It’s happening now as Ukraine creatively adapts drone technology to protect itself from Russia.

In Canada, necessity could become the mother of invention. New industries might emerge that are currently difficult to foresee.

I’ll add one more benefit. Watching Trump’s rise to power and his subsequent actions might be educational. People in Canada, in the United States, and elsewhere might finally be realizing what a right-wing, populist government can become. They might also be learning how much truth matters and how dangerous a fact-challenged politician can be. However, those thoughts might be stretching my optimism a bit far.

For the positive changes to occur, a big challenge will be to sustain our national unity and motivation. That might require a creative and continual promotional campaign. It will certainly require sharing the benefits equitably across Canada.

It might even need a system of proportional representation for electing our parliamentary representatives. That’s so a minority of voters could no longer get majority control of Parliament — as is readily permitted by our frustrating, first-past-the-post system — and potentially impede the progress craved by most Canadians.

Donald Trump’s erratic, irrational behaviour could be providing the impetus we need to free our country from its precarious attachment to the United States and to make our own bold moves forward. Enduring the angst and seizing the opportunity will require impressively effective leadership and our collective determination. A healthy dose of optimism could be important, too.

Calvin Brown writes from his home in the RM of St. Andrews.