Is Trump the greatest Canadian nation-builder of the 21st century?

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But there is a rule in families: I can complain about my brother all I want. You can’t.

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This dynamic may help to explain the remarkable coalition that formed after Carney walked away from Washington.

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Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford backed him. So did Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew. Saskatchewan Party’s Scott Moe supported the retaliatory tariffs. Premiers who normally couldn’t agree on what day of the week it was suddenly found themselves on the same side.

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And Canadians largely agreed. A post-breakup Angus Reid poll found 76 per cent of Canadians thought Canada was right to walk away against just 13 per cent who thought it was wrong. Even two-thirds of Albertans and Saskatchewan residents backed the decision.

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Meanwhile, 62 per cent of Canadians lent their support to Canada’s counter-tariffs. It’s as though we largely set aside our differences and said “Oh, for Christ’s sake, now we have to be Canadians.”

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U.S. President Donald Trump at event in the Rose Garden of the White House on Aug. 24. Photo by Win McNamee /Getty Images

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There’s something quintessentially Canadian about that. Our patriotism generally doesn’t involve beating our chests, chanting our country’s name or believing God personally stitched our flag. Any exceptionalism we possess is tempered by the suspicion that claiming to be exceptional would be showing off, and then we’d have to apologize for it.

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It seems we’re most certain we’re a country when someone from outside suggests we’re not much of one.

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Donald Trump has been remarkably helpful in this regard.

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And the gift keeps on giving.

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After repeatedly suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state, Trump this week proposed renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.”

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That would at least make the old HOMES mnemonic I was taught as a youngster to remember the Great Lakes more appropriate.

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Superior. Huron. America. Michigan. Erie.

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SHAME.

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Now, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hasn’t joined all the cheering, instead suggesting that Carney hightail it back to D.C. to continue negotiating.

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We shouldn’t simply dismiss her for it. Alberta is holding a vote in October to decide if it should hold a separation referendum. In the meantime, Smith is performing a balancing act: She says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada, but is careful not to alienate the alienated.

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Besides, she has a point. Trade wars have casualties. Businesses will suffer. People could lose their jobs. According to the same Angus Reid poll, 13 per cent of Canadian workers are “very” concerned about losing their jobs, while an additional 25 per cent expressed some level of anxiety.

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Standing up to someone bigger than you doesn’t necessarily make you bigger. Being right doesn’t mean you’ll win.

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Canada could lose a serious trade war with an American economy vastly larger than ours. And perhaps, when the economic pain becomes real, we’ll discover that national resolve was easier in theory.

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But there comes a point when avoiding the punch costs more than taking it.

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For all the things this dysfunctional family argues about, we seem to agree on something pretty fundamental: We get to decide what Canada is.

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And this: We may need America. But we don’t belong to it.

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