Canadians feel betrayed by U.S., but blame Trump, not average Americans

With cross-border tensions running high, KUOW’s Kim Malcolm kicks off a conversation on all things Canada, including this week’s trade war impacts. Michelle Eliot is an award-winning journalist, and host of the British Columbia program BC Today, on CBC in Vancouver.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: Yesterday, President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on goods from Canada. The story continues to move quickly. We heard today that U.S. automakers will get a one month reprieve, but feelings are still running quite high. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Trump's action “a very dumb thing to do,” and announced retaliatory tariffs in return. And Canada's Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said Trump had stabbed America's best friend in the back. You called the news of Trump's tariffs historic. What are you hearing from your audience on this?

Michelle Eliot: I note that it sounds like nobody's pulling their punches in those quotes, and that's what it sounded like yesterday. You know, I'd already heard quite a bit of anger building up among our callers over recent weeks, but yesterday was different. I could hear things just kind of hitting a crescendo. Callers to my show were using stronger and more blunt language than I have heard on the program. I don't know if they had heard the word dumb being used by the Prime Minister, but certainly they felt like the door was open to really express themselves as bluntly as they could.

Their main point was they didn't understand the reasoning for the tariffs. They've been criticized as also harming U.S. consumers. They were upset about the impact it would have on the Canadian economy. You just said the opposition leader Pierre Poilievre said it was a stab in the back. I think that's part of it, too. The ties between the two countries, they felt there was this breach of that, and this is really emotional. It was very emotional for people.

Yesterday did happen to be the day that the British Columbia provincial government handed down its 2025 budget. The Finance Minister Brenda Bailey called the potential tariff impacts the most consequential in generations. What are some of the big line items that BC leaders are going to be struggling with?

This was a really difficult budget for the province. Things were not rosy before the tariffs to begin with. BC already had a record deficit of over $9 billion last year. So now we have this curve ball of the tariffs, and so they had to balance, dealing with this deficit as well as planning for the impact of tariffs, and showing that they will try to protect British Columbia from losses.

What they decided to do is come up with a sort of constrained budget, not a lot of cuts, no cuts, because what they decided to do is protect the essentials. That's something Brenda Bailey said, this is going to be a budget about protecting the essentials. These line items-- healthcare, education, public transit-- these are contexts that were there before, and they are still here. So, it was a really difficult balance for the province to strike.

On a lighter note, let's consider something offered by the Daily Show's Desi Lydic last week. She lambasted President Trump for his recent $5 million gold card immigration proposal, but said she actually isn't completely opposed to buying her way into another country:

“Hey, Canada, how you doing, girl? I'm just going to come out and say it, I want to be in you. And listen, I don't have $5 million, but I do have $4, and a cough drop."

There is some talk down here of what it would take for people to move north if they were interested in doing that. Is Canada open to or expecting a wave of Americans with $4 and a cough drop to move there?

There's no opposition to Americans moving up here. But, I haven't seen a big wave so far. Anyway. If you have $4 and a cough drop, we may be able to negotiate.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.