AskACanadian

It's impractical/implausible that we could at this stage. Even after the elbows up stuff, our government hasn't pulled back its entanglement with US tech giants -- if anything, it's gone further on that front, considerably. Things like our financial regulators, banks and basic government services all run off of Microsoft365. Microsoft365 is a 'subscription' services that can be cancelled / impacted by US govt trade dictates. The US can literally 'shut off' Canada's government, or at least many of its functional/operational wings.

The US listing Canada's push for data sovereignty as a trade irritant, as well as Rubio's memo last year noting foreign countries seeking data sovereignty equated to a national security risk for the USA, basically confirms that they're misusing/misappropriating the data held at US companies for things like AI and their authoritarian surveillance programs. Even the mention of a country pulling back from this sort of dangerous entanglement, gets the US trade teams up in arms / ready to heavily sanction former allies. Carney and crowd will almost definitely cave. Has an ex-bank regulator type, and the banking sector has been one of those most heavily pushed into using US tech giants, essentially by regulatory decree -- he's not just drunk the koolaid, he was the guy serving it up.

Point being, that even if by some bizarre situation Canada went that way while somehow avoiding getting attacked as a result, it'd still be an absolutely catastrophic hit on things like productivity and basic government function.

Wait a few months, & see, for yourself.

Once Trump has instantiated his dictatorship, he wants to POUR the US into war, owning all of the Americas, if he can.

Canada's sovereignty stands in his way.

He wasn't kidding about the "Greater North America" thing, or about annexing Canada, or about "NEEDING" Greenland ( to enforce his annexing of Canada )..

it'll happen.

I know Canada bought the wrong howitzers ( few costly self-propelled ones, when we're going to need zillions of shoot-n-scoot ones ), & have no idea if Carney made the right decision with which submarines to buy..

but war's coming: the uprooting-of-the-world is still accelerating, & the tippingpoint's coming.

this world's going to be a sea of killings, in Regional Consolidation Time, by year-end.

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My guess:

Under a LPC/CPC gov't probably a depression followed by a reversal of the boycott, or slow recovery (LPC case). Under an NDP gov't a depression followed by a faster recovery with a lot of concessions won for working Canadians from Canada's capitalists.

Who knows...

At least there is a chance (no matter how small) it wouldn't invite an actual WW2 nazi and give them standing ovations in the House of Commons... or support genocides across the globe like the one in Palestine.

There is a chance (no matter how small) it would show some humanity.

We'd likely go back to Britain being our biggest trade partner again.

QOL would go up as we could focus more on community rather than what benefits the US the most.

We'd have to worry about invasion though.

Canada would have to face an existential threat, like an act of war or terrorism carried out by the US or Israel, before the society can justify that kind of deep divorce. All of the politicians and gatekeepers, or the establishment, are already aligned with active trade with the US. Under this scenario, Canada's enjoyed a long standing "friendship" with the US over generations. This incumbent network would not disappear without some serious shifts in the world.

Canada and the US have similar arrangements of hard and soft political power with Israel. We have networked ties with organizations/clubs, funding, information sharing, diplomatic missions, military contracts, commercial business, and large communities. Both Canada and the US also have an unknown number of Israeli soldiers who reside in each. Almost surely, these networked ties will engage soft power to resist the new scenario or create some kind of stalemate.

Under the new scenario of boycotts and sanctions, I'd hazard a guess that either the US has catastrophically collapsed and has become hostile or there's been some kind of societal change within Canada (state or domestic terrorism or foreign interference) that involves varying degrees of systematic violence to enforce a new power structure. If we followed these two guesses, then Canada would already be in the midst of a recession or depression, and escalated military readiness.

We would perceive a life threatening force in our neighbour...this would not be a good time.

Now if we just flipped a switch and said "oh today we boycott the US", sure I suppose that would just be a depression and further discussions would be needed for concessions.

It would depend if a strong Buy Canadian sentiment accompanied it.