By Ray Rivers
August 28th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Democratic Party candidate for president Kamala Harris lived in Montreal and attended school there for 5 years in the late seventies. Had she applied for citizenship she most likely would have been eligible, since Canadian citizenship requires only three years residency over a five year period. But she didn’t.
And interestingly, her Canadian connection was pretty well hidden despite the various recitations of her upbringing at the recent Democratic National Convention (DNC). In fact I can’t recall her even mentioning the great white north in her acceptance speech. That probably says it all for those Canadians wondering/hoping if she’d be ‘Canada’s president’ as well.
Harris’ choice for the VP slot, Tim Walz, is the governor of the neighbouring dairy state of Minnesota. He is considered a friend of Canada and was welcomed as such by Mr. Ford when Walz visited Toronto earlier this year. But coming from a dairy producing state in the union, Mr. Walz is just as much a threat. Notwithstanding that Canada is already Minnesota’s largest largest export customer, they’re still gunning to break up our dairy market so they can dump even more cheap cheese, butter and milk into our stores.
As a US senator during the Trump years Harris, had voted against the renewed NAFTA (USMCA), in part because she felt it had failed to sufficiently address climate change. That may have had a lot to do with then president Trump being the climate denier-in-chief. Still, the Trudeau Liberals would have been on-side with her complaints, despite wanting to conclude this important trade deal – which they did to Canada’s advantage.
Doug Ford with then Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz. Ford has a Minnesota license plate – he gave the Governor a football. So at least they will take each others phone calls.
USMCA is set for renewal in 2026. One could speculate that were both she and Mr. Trudeau to win their upcoming elections, there could be some serious two-amigo/amiga bilateral cooperation with regard to global warming initiatives. But while current polling slightly favours Harris, Mr. Trudeau’s party is polling in the toilet – destined to see the Libs out on the street, rather than in the House of Commons.
Canada’s own national climate denier-in-chief would probably be most comfortable with a Donald Trump victory. He could assume a position in Trump’s back pocket as his ideological sidekick. And the two would be heard across the land chanting ‘drill-baby-drill’. So we should expect no tender moments between a president Harris and a PM Poilievre, unless Canada’s Conservative leader gets a heart transplant.
Recently the Biden/Harris leadership has been pushing a harder line regarding Canada’s failure to meet its NATO military spending requirements until possibly 2032. There can be no soft spot for any nation which thinks it can ride on the military coattails of others. And that won’t change regardless of who becomes the president and who becomes Canada’s next PM.
Softwood lumber trading has always been an issue between Canada and the United States.
The Biden/ Harris government has recently nearly doubled import duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports into the US. A president Harris is unlikely to backtrack on that decision to which she was a party – whether she had once lived in Montreal or not. And so much for that USMCA.
There are policy wonks in the democratic party who would love to see selective ‘green’ tariffs on dirty imports from dirty nations. That is a problematic philosophy since cleaner/low carbon has been found to be economically less costly than conventional production in many cases. Sanctions or outright bans might be easier. And as far as Canada goes, only coal is dirtier than the oil from the oil-sands products we export to the USA.
Mr. Trump’s proposed blanket 10% tariff on all imports into the US would be very disruptive for Canada. To be given exemption, Canadians would be forced to grovel and probably give up some existing trade advantages. Or this might result in the end of NAFTA, to the delight of Canadian nationalists and America protectionists, including Mr. Trump.
In the end it would be naive to think that a president Harris would show a ‘soft spot’ for Canada, even if she truly possessed one. The best Canadians could hope for is some continued cordiality from Washington. Given her demeanour, she would clearly be a more congenial partner for Canada regardless of the outcome of our own 2025 federal election. And for a Canadian that is about all the ‘soft spot’ we should expect to see from Kamala Harris.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Kamala and Canada – Soft Spot for Canada
The answer is NO. So far I have not heard Kamala utter the word Canada nor refer to her time here. On the XL pipeline, Biden/Harris seem to have had a more balanced approach to carbon use and the green transition than does the fanatical Trudeau approach. Kamala stated on CNN last night that she will NOT ban fracking and we know why. Nineteen (19) electoral college votes in Pennsylvania. The XL pipeline cancellation was the administrations sacrificial lamb and Joe is from Scranton PA.
It was her administration that killed the XL pipeline that would have been a cash cow for Canada.
Remember she is from California the biggest producer of Dairy far.
No matter what, she is head and shoulders above that bombastic, self serving fool. He is totally unworthy of the office.
Ray,
I think your analysis of the Kamala/Canada future relationship is reasonable. No s touchy soft feelings from her teen years in Canada, but she would at least be cordial.