Opinion: The retreat of North Americanism: Canadians and Americans keep moving further apart

Back in the day, when Canada signed the landmark free trade agreement with the United States, there was a good deal of fear and loathing.

Like many, he worried the border would weaken, that continentalism had won out.

The response to the terrorist horror – with many Americans believing the hijackers had come through Canada – was to fortify the world’s longest undefended border.

His medieval empire, his attack on truth, democracy and decency, soured the opinion of Canadians on America like never before.

Then, taking the boundary divide to the max, came the shock of the coronavirus pandemic, which had the effect of cocooning Canada, shutting down the border to all but essential traffic.

All said, there’s been quite a turn since the heady days of free trade.

Free trade, as Mr.

That termination meant Canada needed the U.S.

needed Canada less.

Michael Adams, the head of the Environics Institute who has been surveying Canadian attitudes toward Americans for decades, concurs that the North Americanism envisaged with free trade is pretty much kaput.

Of course, as was rightly noted by Goldy Hyder, chief executive officer of the Business Council of Canada, economic dependence on the American market is here to stay, despite any other decoupling tendencies.

Trudeau in Europe that he promised freedom for Americans by July 4 and that opening the Canadian border is part of the deal.