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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

To quote trudeau (sr) "Living next to you [America] is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

Fact is, as a middle power country next to a super power, american politics has an inordinate impact on us, and we can't even complain to our local congresman, since obviously we dont have one.

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How does US policy tangibly affect Canada? Outside of NAFTA, what else is there?

It seems like the worst thing that happens is a bunch of people threatening to move to Canada every 4 years.

Canada probably wouldn’t have sent troops to Afghanistan if America hadn’t led the charge.

That was the Canadian governments choice.

And the choice had consequences to the us/canada relationship (just like the choice not to go to iraq did). Such choices affect us policy to canada down the line.

That was a NATO obligation. We would have sent troops to Afghanistan if Netherlands was attacked too.

It's quite literally our main export partner. Entire industries in Canada (Airplanes, cars, wood) live and die by US policy.

Is that a consequence of US or Canadian policy?

Its a consequence of being the only close country. Generally trade is easiest with countries that are nearby. NAFTA helped a lot too.

“Outside of NAFTA”

Are the softwood lumber tarrifs part of nafta? The steel tarrifs?

Every Canadian province except PEI trades more with the US and with the rest of Canada.

When Trump was elected the first time, super genius Canadians vowed to fight his trade policy by targeting American politicians in states that trade with Canada, threatening to cut them off. The only problem with that is that Canada is far more dependent on trade with the US than US states are with Canada. <https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8q9h8i/canadaus_tra...>

> How does US policy tangibly affect Canada? Outside of NAFTA, what else is there?

I think this is the wrong question, because U.S policy has many interactions with Canada (whether they're tangible or not is a valid question), but the point in my mind is how much of that is 1) Impactful enough for arbitrary Canadians, such that knowing about it would allow them to make different decisions or avoid negative outcomes 2) how many of what passes the first test makes it into news that people should be watching. Policy that impacts Canada is usually nuanced, detailed, esoteric, and you have to deliberately seek out fact-based documentation on it. If you're an importer/exporter, remote contractor, dual citizen, ya you should be doing that, but it's not likely coming from CNN or w/e.

Most news is stuff that is out of your control. People dont watch the news to make different decisions.

and for that reason, I'd argue that it's not just important for Canadians to stop ingesting American news, but people in general should severely reduce even the tacit awareness of the goings on elsewhere in the world. Ignorance is bliss isn't taken far enough. I could have gone the entire last decade without knowing who the U.S president was, and I would have been probably better off, save for a few scant social situations where it would've been relevant.

Trade is certainly a large factor which is why I mentioned NAFTA but that's just the nature of the global economy. The US also is affected by policy decisions in China.

It's not like the US sending billions to Ukraine or the security of the southern border affect Canadians. No politician is proposing any sort of dramatic shift in the US' relationship with Canada. There's no need for an average Canadian to have an opinion on Trump vs. Harris aside from being dragged into a culture war by consuming US centric media.

Exactly, I agree.

The US is by far Canada's main trading partner, with 66% of Canadian foreign trade being with the US. It exports 17 times as much to and imports 4 times as much from the US than its next largest trading partner, which in both cases is China. Many companies operating in Canada are American owned, and many Canadian companies have a significant presence in the US as well. The Canadian financial sector is heavily integrated with the US.

Canada and the US are close military allies. They share the world's only binational military command (NORAD) which is responsible for air defense of both countries. Canada has joined many US led military operations including Korea, Afghanistan, and both Gulf Wars. The US strongly influences military procurement in Canada, with Canadian units designed to be seamlessly interoperable with US forces.

The US and Canada share the world's longest border, which is rather porous. Large numbers of citizens of each nation travel to the other frequently, and many people have family on the opposite side of the border. Many Canadians live for an extended period of time in the US for education or employment.

Basically any economic, military, or immigration policy change in the US is going to have a huge impact on Canada.

The Canadian brain drain, it fundamentally affects the Canadian culture and economy by the constant loss of talent and aptitude. The gravitational pull of the U.S. is too powerful. Even I studied at two elite US schools, which put me on a path to H-1B like my peers in grad school一 but I didn't pursue that for personal reasons.

That's not really a consequence of US policy though, that's a consequence of private universities in the US being better. You could argue that is a consequence of policy but that's a fairly downstream effect and I'd argue that Canadian policy is to improve Canadian institutions is the solution so it's still in Canadians hands.

Its a consequence of NAFTA arguably.

No its a consequence of earning potential after going to school. If you go to the US you get special student visa which allows you to earn USD and if you are goijg into medicine your lifetime earnings are considerably higher in the US.

Canada has great schools but you don't have brand recognition/massive alumni networks/endowments like the US nor do you get visa access.

I see it not as a consequence of policy but a bigger picture consequence of hegemony, a sociopolitical and technological phenomenon over human societies. More concretely, I'd argue the neighboring Canadian brain drain is dual to the Mexican migration and exploitation of Latino workforce, again this gravitational pull of a world superpower being at work. It is a broader problem--the harm done to the social integrity of neighboring states--than merely policy.

>The Canadian brain drain, it fundamentally affects the Canadian culture and economy by the constant loss of talent and aptitude. The gravitational pull of the U.S. is too powerful.

Context for others: If you are a Canadian scientist, there is a 16% chance <https://np.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/37lgxg/the_...> that you will move to the US. That's not "16% of all Canadian scientists that move out of the country move to the US". Let me repeat: *16% of all Canadian scientists move to the US.* They're also likely to be among the top Canadian scientists, too.

By comparison, 5% of all American scientists move to another country, of which 32% go to Canada, so about 1.6-1.7% total. Since the US has nine times more people, that means that in absolute numbers the 1.7% of American scientists is about equal to the 16% of Canadian scientists, but there is no reason to think that the 1.7% makes up the top tier of American scientists; why would the best move north of the border? In other words, the US is receiving the best of Canadian scientists in exchange for an equal number of its non-best.

>Even I studied at two elite US schools, which put me on a path to H-1B like my peers in grad school一 but I didn't pursue that for personal reasons.

And you, of course, know that not doing so made you unusual.

Context for others: The probable successor to Trudeau as Liberal party leader went to Harvard. Not for grad school, for undergrad. Put another way, she has never attended higher education in her home country. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrystia_Freeland> Trudeau's pedecessor as Liberal leader spent 30 years outside Canada, mostly in the US, before being lured back to lead the party. After failing to become PM he immediately left Canada again for the US. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ignatieff>

We just added a 100% tariff on Chinese cars for ~some reason~.

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