CALGARY, Alberta – I hadn’t even gotten off the plane in Calgary before two young men, coming home from a church mission trip, were asking me what was going on with President Donald Trump’s aggressive, on again, off again, tariffs on our neighbor to the north.
‘I like Trump,’ one of them told me, ‘but I don’t understand why he is doing this to Canadians.’
What struck me is that he didn’t ask why Trump was doing this to Canada, or the soon-to-be-replaced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but rather, to Canadians.
After talking to them, and more Canadians around Calgary on Saturday, I started to get the sense that even if Trump thinks the tariffs are strictly business, the denizens of the Great White North are clearly taking it personally.
Signs on the way into town urged Canadians to boycott American goods. Above one store was a somewhat confusing sign that read, ‘Our orange Cheetos don’t impose tariffs,’ and even as Canada’s Liberal Party moves to name a new prime minister this week, the tariffs are the thing on the top of everyone’s mind.
Calgary has an active and fun nightlife. On a pedestrian-only stretch of 8th Ave SW, under the shadow of the famous tower, restaurants abound and the sound of the Flames vs Canadiens hockey game spilled from bars out onto the street.
The James Joyce Restaurant and Pub is a classic Irish joint. Under the sign it says, ‘since 1882,’ not because the bar is that old, but because that is the year of the great novelist’s birth, a subtle play on words he would have enjoyed. Once inside, I found more ire.
Kelly is in his 60s and retired. He likes the place because it has no TVs, and when he realized I was American, I didn’t have to bring up the tariffs, he did, ‘Nothing Trump is doing seems rational,’ he told me.
Kelly also said that the ‘trade war,’ as it is called up here, had sparked a resurgence of nationalism in Canada, noting the recent hockey games against America. ‘We have our elbows up now,’ he said.
