Gregory Jack: Canadians have stopped waiting for America to go back to normal

And yet, most Americans still don’t know what the fuss is about.

By: Gregory Jack

We are just a few weeks from the mid-term elections in the United States, which, if the polls are to be believed, could provide a rare double-rebuke of the governing party if the Democrats manage to take both houses. Lest this column be mistaken for political interference by Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, I will refrain from any further discussion of who might win the mid-terms and focus my comments here on the state of the relationship between Canada and the United States, and a recent Ipsos poll conducted in both Canada and the U.S. to update our understanding of how citizens of both countries view that relationship.

We have known for some time through our polling that Canadians believe this dispute will continue for the foreseeable future. Our most recent poll finds that 67 per cent of Canadians believe Canada-U.S. trade and economic disputes will continue for several years, essentially unchanged from 70 per cent in February, 2025, and 68 per cent in October, 2025.

What has changed is Canadians’ expectations of what is possible. Today, just 35 per cent of Canadians believe that Prime Minister Mark Carney will secure a new trade deal with the United States. That’s down from 40 per cent a year earlier. Yet, despite declining confidence in an agreement, approval of the federal government’s management of Canada-U.S. relations increased from 51 per cent in September, 2025, to 62 per cent this month. Somehow, expectations are decreasing even as approval increases.

Canadians are also increasingly more comfortable with Canada hitting back. Support for retaliatory tariffs increased from 51 per cent at this time last year to 61 per cent today, even when respondents were reminded that Canadians might pay more. I think we have internalized that this trade war is going to continue to cost us, and to varying degrees, Canadians are accepting of those costs.

Beyond retaliatory tariffs, which are already in place, Canadians strongly support measures that build adaptive capacity: 80 per cent support giving Canadian-made products preference in government purchasing, 79 per cent support helping businesses enter non-U.S. export markets, and 78 per cent support worker retraining. This accords well with the prime minister’s “build” agenda, his efforts to seek out new partnerships in Europe and elsewhere, and his “middle power doctrine” first articulated at Davos earlier this year.

It is tempting to say that Carney’s performance is the reason why Canadians are feeling so emboldened. He continues to lead Canada through an incredibly unstable period, and reap high marks for how he has done so. In many ways, though, the situation Carney inherited is responsible for his good fortune. He has been able to unite Canadians around Trump and our response, and create urgency where none existed before to embark on nation-building projects and remove regulatory barriers that a government of a different party and in a different time would have been derided for.

Trump says the U.S. has all the cards, but it seems increasingly clear he dealt Carney a pretty good hand himself, by his very presence and petulance against Canada, which Carney has played exceptionally well to secure both his both electoral victory last year, and use to maintain his popularity.

It is in many ways reminiscent of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin’s efforts to slay the deficit, which they did at great cost to the provinces and Canadians’ pocketbooks in the mid-1990s. They were able to do so because Canadians accepted that it was necessary medicine to preserve Canada’s fiscal solvency, just as Carney has successfully convinced most Canadians that the things he is doing — from walking away from the table with the United States and imposing retaliatory tariffs, to removing environmental regulations and even striking deals with countries less aligned with our values, such as Turkey or China — are not just necessary, but even desirable. On the other hand, Canadians have concluded that our previous relationship with the U.S. is desirable no longer.

We asked Canadians what their ideal bilateral relationship with the United States looks like. A quarter (24 per cent) still say it should be Canada’s closest ally and partner. But a further 25 per cent say we should be close, but with each country being more economically independent than they are today. And four-in-10 (40 per cent) want something ranging from merely transactional (16 per cent) to more distant (24 per cent). There are not a lot of partisan differences here, as NDP, Liberal and many Conservative voters alike are taking a realistic view of where things are with America.

This isn’t the relationship Americans want with Canada, though, despite the rhetoric out of the White House. Three-in-10 (31 per cent) of Americans still view Canada as their closest ally and partner today, compared to just 11 per cent of Canadians, and a similar proportion — 34 per cent — say that is the relationship they want going forward. Just nine per cent of Americans want a more distant relationship. There is a serious fissure between how Canadians and Americans currently view the relationship.

Unsurprisingly, there are significant partisan differences in the U.S., as Republican voters side with Trump, while Democrats and Independents continue to view Canada more favourably than Canadians view America. We also find that a lot of Americans don’t know enough to say. While Canadians are clearly troubled by the U.S. relationship, many Americans may be somewhat oblivious to the rhetoric coming from their leaders.

Necessary neighbours but not necessarily friends may be the best way of describing where Canadians are at these days. In Mark Carney they see a prime minister who is expressing that view, and doing what he can to reduce economic reliance and sever the emotional ties that once bound us together. Through our polling on this issue over the past 20-plus months, we have seen a shift from emotional reaction in March, 2025, to something framed around resilience, protection and preparedness. Most Americans, with the exception of some Republicans and to the extent they pay attention at all, still hope to return to something resembling the previous relationship, and still see us as a trusted ally and partner.

This also explains, to a certain extent, why so many Canadians can’t understand why the Americans can’t figure out how hurt and upset Canadians are. They have bigger issues to worry about, most pressingly the war in Iran and affordability, and to the extent they think of Canada at all, they see us still as a reliable partner that will get past the current dispute and return to the way things were. Canadians do not believe that, if they ever really did once the 51^st state rhetoric and the tariffs started.

The mid-terms may have created some pressure for the United States to act; even as the president says the U.S. “has all the cards,” they have dropped tariffs on some goods to potentially save the seat of a vulnerable senator in Maine. If a deal is indeed at hand, Carney will have to explain to Canadians that he got what he couldn’t have in August. He may be painting himself into a corner where any deal with the U.S. looks like he is walking back or disappointing Canadians itching for the fight. It can’t help that the U.S. is also setting Canada up as a potential cause for losses by alleging political interference.

Carney seems to realize this, and doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to make a deal, saying earlier this week that none is imminent. Why would he want one when expectations of a deal, even with costs known, diminish even as his approval rating improves? Again, despite the president’s rhetoric, Carney seems to have time that Trump does not.

Maybe the mid-terms will reset the relationship to some extent, and perhaps time will indeed heal many of the wounds. But our polling clearly shows what I believe most Canadians feel in their gut: it’s never going to be quite the same again.

Gregory Jack is Senior Vice President, Public Affairs, Ipsos Canada

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