The border closings have done enormous damage to Canada’s reputation at the worst possible time

If Canadians wanted to let a few truckers and their friends clog the streets of downtown Ottawa and blow horns in the name of free speech, that was their business. But the moment protesters blocked the U.S. border crossing at Coutts, Alta., on Jan. 29, the RCMP should have hauled them away and ensured that the $44-million in daily trade there, much of it in perishable animal products, kept flowing unimpeded.

The failure to do so has done enormous damage to Canada’s reputation at the worst possible time, when some in the United States are more than happy to start cutting Canadian companies out of critical supply chains. As Flavio Volpe, the energetic lobbyist for Canadian auto parts firms, correctly put it, the border disruptions have “caused potentially irreparable harm to Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.”

Column contributed by Edward Alden, Ross Distinguished Professor of Canada-United States Business and Economics Relations at Western.