You would have been called a cynic if you had predicted that, on the launch of a Canada-U.S. trade war initiated without valid cause by the larger country, Canada’s free-market Conservative Party would use the occasion to undermine its own government by supporting tariff-protected dairy farmers.
But then, politics has a way of breeding cynicism.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer did his part on Tuesday when he released a statement criticizing not U.S. President Donald Trump, who capriciously imposed levies on Canadian steel and aluminum last week, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the crime of announcing “flexibility” in his position on access to the Canadian dairy market.
Mr. Scheer called any weakening of the tariffs that shield Canadian milk, eggs and poultry from foreign competition “totally unacceptable” and accused the PM of being duplicitous for saying otherwise to an American audience.
The most galling thing about…
