The “Shop Local” and “Buy Canadian” imperatives of the past few weeks are putting the riches of home in a whole new light.

“Buy Canadian” is an offensive defense, an important, even powerful response to President Trump’s declaration of economic warfare on us, the United States’s closest trading partner and, basically, BFF.

It puts choice in the hands of individual consumers. It grants a sense of agency, and of power.

In light of the New World Order now unfolding, the re-orienting required by the Americans choosing Russia over Ukraine — only the front line of Russia’s war on the democratic West — a national effort to unite the country in individual acts of defiance and solidarity could not be more important.  

The campaign could equally be called Avoid American, but that would risk its fervent, national colour, not to mention plunge us into politics rather than patriotism.

Nonetheless, it’s hard to not enjoy thinking about all the various ways grocery shopping could become more entertaining. A little sticker of a MAGA hat on the offending avocados? But wait. Should we make an exception for California?

Or how about a display of the national flags of every other nation from which we import — Mexico’s banner flying proud over the piles of pineapples, while Guatemala and Nicaragua, for once, are honoured for their bananas.

We could turn our grocery stores into a veritable UN of opposition to America. A nutshell NATO.

Before the pain sets in, it might be forgivable to feel galvanized by the Canada Campaigns, which suggest new ways of defending our overlooked and taken-for-granted, too often marginalized country, one that will soon be front and centre on the world stage, right alongside Ukraine. 

Yes, we are next. 

Despite the dire situation, as in wartime, there’s a bit of excitement, too.

We are suddenly no longer shackled to the monolithic market to the south, with which, in its more extreme, libertarian modes, we have always had stark divergences in values and in public policy.

Now, as these manifest in overt racism, misogyny, trans- and homophobia, and violent deportations and incarcerations of harmless and hardworking migrants, these “divergences” are impossible to ignore.

It’s not just the war on Canada to which we object. It’s the war on human life occurring within American borders. It’s intolerable.

In terms of public policy and governance, Canada has far more in common with its social democratic European neighbours, perhaps most particularly countries like Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, and of course the U.K., than with the U.S. These are countries of high taxation, strict gun control, universal healthcare, excellent education, and intense parliamentary politics. Longstanding democracies, they have generally  — not always, but at least it’s the ideal — been able to take decency, equity, and inclusion for granted.

Canada has always leaned left and skewed European. But its capital, its economy, is American.

Our major trading partner is the U.S. About 77 percent of our exports go to the United States. A 25 percent tariff would cause our GDP to contract by 3.4 to 4.2 percent, according to the Royal Bank of Canada.

That means a recession twice as intense as that triggered by the pandemic.

It’s no accident people are talking of wartime. We are on the brink of a period of austerity so stark it will feel like a war.   

Yet I’m sure I’m not the only one struck by all the attention, this startling sense of our worth and value on the world stage. Along with Greenland, whose population of 57,000 is just double that of the Prince Edward County, Canada is suddenly important, valuable — and being sought after by countries that absolutely will not invade us should we say no.

We’ve always known we are a big, beautiful country, as Trump would put it, in his limited vocabulary. We are much larger than the United States in terms of sheer land mass. The craven, crazy, oil-driven regimes we have just realized we are sandwiched between, the U.S. and Russia, have long been rubbing their hands at the prospect of the wealth climate change will unlock in northern territories.

Think of all the Mar-a-Lagos one could install in a Greenland actually green. Never mind in the vast, formerly Canadian north. Never mind the rare earth minerals Canada alone is swimming in.

The evil empires all about us plotting our demise are the eye-opener we sorely needed, to realize anew just how much we have. We should be very, very alarmed.

But prospects of new alliances, and of intentional, rather than geographically convenient, trading partners are rushing to fill the breach.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen recently suggested Canada would be a welcome addition to the European Union. But not just because we common values, ideals, and principles. It’s Canada’s riches — space alone is gold to an overcrowded, heaving EU, never mind endless natural resources. 

Trump and Putin are not the only ones to have noticed the sheer abundance we have directly to hand.

In a statement this month after the EU-Canada Summit, the EU President said that Canada is “the only country in the Western hemisphere with all the raw materials required for lithium batteries.” We are a key resource as the world goes green. “So I would say this is a perfect match,” she smiled, knowing full well the lure of Europe to a cold Canadian.

And new frontiers are opening up within. Canada’s ridiculous, parochial, hamstringing system of regulations preventing internal trade are finally, also, being seen anew. Stats Can says $532 billion of goods and services moved across provincial and territorial borders in Canada in 2023. That is 18 per cent of the GDP. Demolishing even just some domestic trade barriers could boost it by something like $50 to $100 billion a year. That new trade alone would remedy the impact of the U.S. tariffs.

Canada shall be overlooked no longer — and that starts with us. Buy Canadian indeed. Everybody else is.