The usual list of the Left’s corporate enemies, just like the list that was on my t-shirt, never includes multinational book publishing corporations. Lefties generally give Big Book a free pass. As politically savvy consumers grapple with overlapping calls for boycotts and buycotts, it seems like a good time to talk about this blind spot.

Canada currently fulfills around 25 percent of American lumber demand, a drop from 35 percent in the 1990s. That number shrinks every time a Canadian sawmill gets dismantled and shipped to the US. It gets smaller every time a Canadian company transfers its made-in-Canada technology, financial earnings, and supermill know-how down south, too.

People like me and my family members who work in the construction and restaurant industries are canaries in the coal mine of the economy. New condo starts have been down for some time, which is an early indicator of a real estate slump—but rents remain high. Recession is here already, for some folks. Like me. What are we going to do about it?

The rise of the populist right in deindustrialized areas, like the US Rust Belt, is a legacy of neoliberalism and free trade. We need to break this cycle. If we want to turn the tide of deindustrialization and create manufacturing jobs for the economy of the future, we need to be bold. And it starts now, not in some distant future.

Canada is no longer dealing with a globalizing neoliberalism that extracts surplus value from developing countries, the domestic working class, and racialized minorities. Instead, the American alt-right works with and through a different regime of accumulation that bears more affinities to mercantilism than the neoliberal order it is in the process of supplanting.

Over the past 60 years left-leaning folk have largely turned a blind eye to the decay of Canada’s distinguished military heritage and typically cast a jaundiced eye towards any talk of significant reinvestment. At this moment in history Canadian governments need to respond with the same energy and urgency that mobilized efforts to make our economy battle-ready in the face of war.

In order to achieve self-reliance several complementary, integrated components must be pursued. At the centre is an industrial strategy, which should be accompanied by appropriate monetary policy, regional development, fiscal policy, social policy, technological innovation, property ownership and control over investment, and international relations.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau portrayed himself as a progressive champion, his policies failed to meet the big challenges of our time. Tackling the affordability, housing, and climate crises head-on will require bold action—half-measures are not enough. Progressive parties must put forward bold solutions that can meet these challenges head-on.

By raising tariffs unilaterally, Trump will grossly violate USMCA, the former NAFTA. It’s no use doing deals with Trump, that he will break. Instead, let’s dust ourselves off and make things by Canadians for Canadians. Canada was tossed out of similar arrangements before. We picked ourselves up, became more self-reliant and thrived. Can we do so again?

There is no doubt that Trump’s tariff threats pose a very real problem for Canada. The US accounts for almost two-thirds of Canadian trade volumes, and virtually all of Canada’s oil exports go south. But responding to this threat with anything but capitulation will require a significant break from the decades of policy that opened the door to foreign ownership.