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In May, I reoriented my algorithms to flood me with Canadian content, turned on push notifications from The Globe and Mail, and temporarily moved my family north of the border.
For months, Donald Trump had been casually threatening to annex Canada and turn it into a state, adding insult to the injury of the trade war he was waging on the country. One prime minister resigned amid Trump’s bullying, and another was elected because voters thought he could stand up to him. In the ordinarily placid provinces, feelings of bewilderment, anxiety, and offense hardened into a defiant resolve against the United States. “Elbows up,” went the nation’s new hockey-inspired mantra. As a Montreal journalist told me, Americans were preoccupied with “12 different crises.” In Canada, this was the crisis.
In This Issue
You Have No Idea How Furious the Canadians Are
Anti-American resistance was visible as soon as I landed. At a news kiosk at Toronto Pearson International Airport, the cover of Maclean’s, the de facto national magazine, teased “20 Reasons to Eat Canadian.” Inside was a letter from the editor about canceling a vacation to Cape Cod. This was mild compared with the cover of its next issue, “The New Nationalism,” which contained articles about “Why Canada Will Never Be an American State,” “How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Tariffs,” and “Fear and Loathing in a Canadian Border Town.”
