‘A madness in the air.’ Trump’s threats unleash patriotic wave in Canada

FREDERICTON — McGill University undergrad Daniel Miksha made a significant decision over the weekend.

After hearing the news that U.S. President Donald Trump planned to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian exports, Miksha shelved his plans to apply to Boston University, Yale and Harvard for graduate studies.

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“I feel like the social and political climate in Canada is far better than what I’m seeing in the United States,” the fourth-year philosophy student said in an interview Tuesday. “If I can make a choice about where I’m going to spend probably many years of my life in grad school and afterwards, I would prefer to stay here.”

His gesture was one example of what observers say has been a growing wave of patriotic sentiment among Canadians since Trump took office and ratcheted up his anti-Canadian rhetoric, repeatedly saying the nation should become the 51st American state. Online, people are sharing lists of products made in Canada and posting about cancelling trips to the United States. Pro-Canadian, anti-Trump memes are flooding social media. And at professional hockey and basketball games on the weekend, the American national anthem was booed.

“If you look at people booing the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events, circulating information about how to boycott American-made products, generally, voicing their frustration at the Trump administration, it’s pretty unmistakable that there’s been a rise in patriotic sentiment,” said Edward Schatz, political science professor at the University of Toronto. And although Trump agreed Monday to a month-long tariff reprieve after discussions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Schatz does not expect the patriotic flame to die away.

The Calgary-born Miksha celebrates Canada Day and marks Remembrance Day. Although he has always felt a “quiet pride” in being Canadian, he said he has never been given to overt displays of patriotism. But after hearing Trump’s attacks, he has decided not only to forego American universities but also to buy Canadian whenever possible.

“With the 51st state statement, I find that profoundly insulting,” Miksha said. “Canada has a unique cultural history and a unique heritage … we have things like universal health care, which I think is a great triumph of Canadian society.”

A Leger online poll that surveyed 1,520 Canadians between Dec. 6 and 9, found just 13 per cent wanted Canada to become part of the United States, compared with 82 per cent who rejected the notion.

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said Monday that Trump’s threats have brought a “beautiful” Maple Leaf surge, with people actively looking for ways they can celebrate Canadian producers and products. “I think that comes alongside a bit of an anti-American sentiment,” she said, “a frustration that our closest neighbour and trading partner has decided to treat us this way.”

Bradley Miller, associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia, said the “stew of things” that Canadians have had to deal with in recent weeks has brought patriotic feelings, tinged with anger at the Trump administration, to the forefront.

Rightly or wrongly, he said, Canadians feel like they’ve held up their end of the bargain reached when the countries signed their 1988 free trade agreement. Now they feel taken advantage of.

“Things that we thought that we could count on are being thrown into question, and we’re left trying to anticipate where President Trump’s moods and his sense of political advantage will take us next,” Miller said. “There’s madness in the air.”

In a speech Saturday night after Trump had signed an executive order saying tariffs would take effect Tuesday, Trudeau invoked the resilience of “Team Canada,” called on Canadians to stand united and asked everyone to do their bit.

“It’s rally around the leader time,” said Stewart Prest, political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia. “There is a saying that politics ends at the water’s edge — that there’s a sense of a need to pull together and represent the country with the united front .… We have seen any number of examples of that now.”

He noted that patriotic sentiment is not uniform, and there are pockets of the country where strong undercurrents of right-wing populism make a politician like Trump appealing. “Some of this is economic, but some of it is undoubtedly a function of political culture and ideological affinity,” Prest said.

Trump’s threats of tariffs or annexation play out differently depending on whether someone is working in the oil sector, fisheries or finances, said the University of Toronto’s Schatz. And being Canadian means something different to those living in Ontario, Quebec, B.C. or Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Maybe it’s less to do with different provinces and more to do with different kinds of livelihoods,” he said. “But everywhere, what you’ve seen is a shift in that direction of ‘Aha! We’re all Canadians. We’re going to disagree, even loudly sometimes, over the best way to counter these kinds of threats. But we’re all in this together.'”

Carmen Celestini, religious studies lecturer at the University of Waterloo, said Trump’s on-again, off-again threats are likely to leave emotional scars on Canadians.

“His sort of carpet bombing of executive orders, and it’s almost like he’s tried to economically annex a NATO country, and that is problematic. People are on edge. I don’t think that fear will go away easily,” she said.

“It’s like this dark cloud looming over us, because where does one threat end and when does another one begin with this 51st state situation?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press