Better to be a dog in a peaceful time.

• Author: Atkins, Michael
• Position: President's Note

I've been thinking about Donald Trump again. Sorry.

It is the summer and I should be sailing and riding my bike, pretending to be young. That's what old people do now. When I should have been biking I was thinking of that famous quote: "May you live in interesting times," which is an alleged "Chinese curse."

Apparently it is not. Wikipedia tells me the closest you can get to this nuance in Chinese is: "Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic (warring) period."

Much better. I want to be a dog.

In Canada, we have tied our future to free trade. I was a keen observer of the 1988 election battle between Brian Mulroney and John Turner. In the end, Mulroney saved his bacon by winning the free trade debate. Well, not entirely. More people voted against free trade than for it (the Liberals and NDP were against the agreement) but the Tories had the most seats.

Back then, Ontario (not so much Northern Ontario) was sprinkled with branch plants. These were divisions of American companies that built facilities in Canada to avoid the huge tariffs at the border. Branch plants were generally brainless (no innovation or world product mandates) but did provide lots of employment for towns like Midland, Collingwood, Belleville and Sarnia. Some have not recovered from their disappearance.

Tariffs have been an issue since Confederation. Maritimers and Westerners hate tariffs. They saw it as a conspiracy of Upper Canada to prevent them from buying cheaper stoves and fridges from the United States and being forced to buy expensive ones from Ontario. It probably was a conspiracy. Of course, we are still trying to establish free trade inside of Canada notwithstanding the demise of tariffs between Canada and other countries.

I'm not sure free trade has worked as well for Canada or Ontario as everyone thinks it has. Ontario's manufacturing sector has not seen much of a bump since the dollar collapsed to 76 cents. The sector is so hollowed out there isn't enough of a base to build on.

The emerging isolation of the United States with or without Mr. Trump is worrying.

Our markets have been integrated. Products are exported, parts of products are sent back and forth across the border before final assembly. For better or worse, businesses have...