To survive Donald Trump, Canada must do these four things. Justin Trudeau is going to hate them all

In January 2017, the day after Donald Trump signed what he called a “Muslim ban,” limiting travel from some Middle Eastern countries to the United States, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent a signal, without mentioning Trump, that Canada was different.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” he tweeted. “Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada”
The message was retweeted more than 400,000 times, and embassies were inundated with inquiries. Before long, there was an influx of asylum seekers crossing from Roxham Road, in upstate New York, and at other irregular border crossings.
It is hard to recall, now that the mood around immigration has soured, but at the time, many Canadians cheered Trudeau’s performative progressivism. 
He campaigned in 2015 on a promise to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada. In December of 2016 he personally greeted the first planeload to arrive at Pearson International Airport. 
Still, it was a foolish tweet, a gesture that created a pounding headache for border officers and Mounties. It was also part of a sustained, government-wide effort to make Canada grow, climaxing in the third quarter of 2022, when the population spiked by 362,453, the fastest rate of growth in Canada since 1957. 
There are now 41 million Canadians. Every city of any size has tent encampments, and public opinion has shifted decisively. In 2018, 40 per cent of Canadians thought there was too much immigration. Now, 60 per cent believe the same.
Back in 2015, Trudeau had good reason to perform progressivism on the world stage. He got a political boost at home when he was cheered by envious citizens of countries led by less-dashing and forward-looking leaders. Rolling Stone put him on their cover with the headline: Why Can’t He Be Our President?
Now that Donald Trump is president again, Trudeau can no longer afford to make this kind of gesture. Trump has promised to impose high tariffs on imports and deport millions of undocumented workers. If he follows through — which seems unlikely; both measures would do a lot of damage to the American economy — Canada will face an economic crisis and a grim, nightmarish scene on our southern border.
Trump’s second election is the biggest challenge Canada has faced since the Second World War. If the world’s most powerful country — containing the market we absolutely need — is governed as Trump has promised to govern, it will pose unprecedented challenges to our economy, our stability and our sovereignty.
I have no idea if Trudeau is up to the challenge. He and his team did a good job dealing with Trump last time, but the situation is now much more dangerous.
In researching my book, “The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau”, I was impressed by how hard the Trudeau people worked and how smart they were in managing the renegotiation of our trade relationship during the first Trump presidency. It was an all-hands-on-deck effort, with smart, unorthodox, targeted diplomacy, a disciplined negotiating strategy and, crucially, buy-in from across the political spectrum.
Brian Mulroney, who had known Trump for years, played an important role, so did former Conservative MPs James Moore and Rona Ambrose, and provincial leaders, including then-Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall.
That kind of unity will be much harder this time around, given that Pierre Poilievre has had a 20-point lead in the polls for two years, and his supporters are increasingly desperate to get rid of Trudeau. The election of a clearly unpopular and unsuitable American president has revealed the precariousness of the progressive coalition when spiking food costs are hurting working people. Poilievre is carefully cultivating the same sentiment that got Trump elected, and is ready to win the upcoming election. His allies want to replace Trudeau, not help him.
Until Trump was elected, I had been hoping that Trudeau would read the writing on the wall and go, so that a different leader could take the Liberals to the polls, giving voters a better alternative to Poilievre. After Trump’s election, I am less certain. This is a real crisis, and not a good time for a leadership race, particularly one that would end up being dominated by highly motivated Canadians understandably fixated on events in the Middle East.
But Trudeau cannot carry on as before. He successfully walked a tightrope with Trump last time, communicating with Canadians without excessive virtue signaling about American politics. It will be much harder to do that this time if Trump’s government is as shocking as he has promised it will be.    
To calm the waters at home, Trudeau must tack hard to the middle. He needs to take some of the fury out of conservatism. That would mean removing the cap on emissions in the oil sands and getting rid of the carbon tax. It may be excellent policy, but voters have been clear, they don’t like it. The carbon tax is already politically dead. It’s time for Trudeau to bury it. 
Elections around the world have shown voters are in a foul mood, largely because of a cost-of-living crisis brought on by post-pandemic inflation. Removing the carbon tax would do little to improve that, but it would demonstrate that Trudeau is putting voters’ concerns ahead of his own ideological beliefs
He also must get tough on immigration. Canada is not as riven by the issue as Europe or the United States, but anti-immigrant sentiment is a dangerous force. European centrist parties have had to adopt stricter border controls to contain rising far-right parties. In the UK, Labour’s Keir Starmer won, in part, by promising to cut immigration. 
In Canada, the huge population increases of 2022 and 2023 have strained our consensus to the breaking point. Most Canadians think immigration is too high. We live in a democracy. Trudeau should do what people want, which means making it harder to get into this country. We must comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, yes, but the Charter does not say Canada has to have open borders.
We also need a painful but necessary increase in our military spending, to mollify Trump and our other allies, and to ensure we can defend our country. We should not feel sorry for ourselves as Canadians. We have been free riders, loafing under the security umbrella of Uncle Sam, since the end of World War II, spending our money on health care and education while other countries picked up the tab on defence. That era is over. We need to staff up, break procurement logjams and buy gear, starting with new submarines.
I don’t personally like any of these policies. I would prefer to carry on living in a country with a small military, one that cuts emissions and welcomes refugees, and has a dashing progressive leader making cringey but well-meaning gestures on the world stage, but that is not the world we are living in today.
Trudeau needs to make tough decisions — against his inclinations and those of his supporters.  Canada needs broad consensus for stable, middle-of-the-road government during what promises to be a period of terrible uncertainty.
That’s not how Trudeau has ever governed, but if he wants to leave office with his head held high, he has no choice. In his final months, he needs to put stability and security above all.