Reports of a French submarine popping up in Halifax last week offered a little morsel of hope and optimism to some here in Canada desperately searching for anything positive in the news lately. Solidarité! Fraternité! from across the ocean we read into the sub’s appearance. Stay strong, nos amis canadiens. We stand wiss you in your battle wiss zee tyran orange.
The reality, however, seems much more prosaic if still somewhat timely. With Canada looking to purchase some submarines (all those great powers sniffing around the Arctic waters) over the course of the next couple years, a French manufacturer may have just been taking their product out for a test drive, an audition for prospective buyers. 
Nothing to see here. Nothing more than a transatlantic transactional exercise.
Alas.
The hard truth is, whatever this thing that’s going on between us and the US, Canada v Trump, tariff spat, trade war, prelude to annexation and 51st statehood, nobody’s coming to help us. Witness U.K. Prime Minister Starmer’s awkward squirming with the question during his visit to the White House a couple weeks ago. One of His Majesty’s Commonwealth countries being threatened and bullied by the big bad Americans. “I think you’re trying to find a divide between us that doesn’t exist,” the British PM responded. Canada? What’s a Canada? Never heard of it.
Realpolitik in action.
Who’s going to poke the angry bear in the eye with a pointéd stick and risk drawing its ire their way? Sacrifices have to be made in order to try and assuage the vengeful spirit of spite that’s the driving force of American foreign policy at the moment. Better you than me. Sorry about that, mate.
Staring down the barrel of this existential crisis, our country’s absorption done with a mere erasure of a line on map, according to Donald von Bismarck, or not, maybe he’s just bluffing, maybe he’s just—Who knows. Whatever the machinations are, we have to realize that we’re on our own to contend with them. Any cavalry coming over the hill will likely be American and showing up just to burn down our houses.
And nobody else is going to do much about it aside from some We-are-not-amused tut-tutting and mild hand-wringing. Setting aside concerns for international rules and order, self-determined sovereign states and all that—and who among us hasn’t done that on occasion recently, turn a blind eye to appalling transgressions of self-determination and the committing of war crimes even?—what has Canada done in the last little while to expect the rest of the world to rush in to our rescue in the face of unhinged American aggression? In what way have we generated such global camaraderie?
Has Canada really been that good a neighbour?
Consider when Trump first wielded the tariff threat at his North American free trade partners, citing illegal immigration and drug smuggling across both borders as national emergency reasons. Canada’s first reaction was ‘Not us. Look to your south’. While factually correct, it still legitimized what was an absolutely specious argument coming from the White House. The premier of Ontario took the divide-and-conquer even further, suggested we just re-do the trade agreement between the US and Canada, cutting out Mexico in the process.
Yeah, thanks for that, buddy. Lemme get that knife back to you once we pull it out of our back.
Or further afield.
Ask a couple of South American countries what they think about Canada as seen through the lens of our mining operations down there. Would they consider us steadfast allies, always on the lookout for their best interests? Awww. That’s terrible news about American designs on your land and resources, mi amigo. Welcome to the club.
Even globally, Canada as a real laggard when it comes to the climate fight. A lot of talk. Little follow up action. Please refrain from looking at that per capita greenhouse emissions list. Numbers sometime lie.
I don’t think the rest of the world sees Canada the same as Canadians see Canada.
Canada has been a major beneficiary of the neoliberal world order of the past four decades. A world order determined by winners and losers. We have not done nearly enough to mitigate the losses of others or to curtail the excesses of the wins for those like us.
So we probably shouldn’t be surprised at the resounding muteness of the world’s voices speaking out against Trump’s expansionist ravings. In our comfort zone here in Fortress North America, we’ve neglected to curry much international favour. 
In fact, there are probably some places, people who might be experiencing a little schadenfreude at our expense. We made a deal with the devil, and snuggled up to a superpower, mostly for our own benefit. Free trade’s become fair play now. Good luck with all that.
It’s impossible to predict how this is all going to turn out. In the Trump era, nothing’s off the table until the table gets flipped. My leaning is to think internal pressures and divisions will boil over and distract the administration from its current imperial gaze. But guessing at this point is a mug’s game.
If nothing else, Canada should take this opportunity, this moment of crisis, to reflect on why it is we’re so isolated internationally and engage in a project of re-learning the Canadian values we’re always touting but rarely living up to.