EDITORIAL: United we stand, divided we fall

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The warning shot U.S. President Donald Trump fired across our bow before ultimately stepping back from a tariff war with Canada — for now — could not be clearer.

It’s that we must unite against attacks on our sovereignty disguised as economic warfare meant to reduce us to hewers of wood and drawers of water, by our powerful neighbour to the south.

It’s that united we stand, divided we fall.

The real threat isn’t being annexed by the United States.

It’s gradual economic decline fuelled by years of federal-provincial and inter-provincial squabbling over trade issues, weakening both our resolve and standard of living.

Indeed, trading between provinces is often more restrictive than trading with American states, which is bizarre.

Federal and provincial governments have lamented all this for years and every year it gets kicked down the road by politicians for the next year.

When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was disgracefully labelled a traitor to Canada for standing up for Alberta’s oil and gas sector she was doing her job, just as Ontario Premier Doug Ford is doing his in defending Ontario’s auto sector.

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Suggesting Smith is betraying her country, weakens not only Alberta, but Canada.

In Smith’s case, fortunately, cooler heads eventually prevailed, with several premiers agreeing with her argument that Canada’s response to Trump’s tariff threats couldn’t just be counter-tariff threats and nothing more.

There also had to be off-ramps to de-escalate potential conflicts, which Canada simply could not win in an all-out confrontation with the world’s most powerful economy with more than eight times our population.

Canada can only thrive economically when the provinces stand up for each other and the federal government stands up for Canada.

Unfortunately, Quebec Premier Francois Legault demonstrated on Tuesday that we still have a long way to go on this issue.

He reiterated Quebec’s long-standing opposition to the proposed Energy East pipeline, intended to ship Alberta oil to tide water in St. John, New Brunswick and from there to global markets.

Canada’s land-locked oil and natural gas resources currently have to be sold at bargain basement prices to the U.S. because they are our only major buyer.

As a result, Canada forgoes billions of dollars every year in profits that could be used to strengthen our economy.