Donald Trump knows the value of a good external enemy to unite his nationalist base, and — for reasons that might baffle even some of his staunchest supporters — Canada has taken on the role. With Parliament in abeyance following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation, and with the country’s reputation for civility, Trump probably thought Canada would be an easy target to bully. What the U.S. president didn’t count on, however, is the nationalism he would prompt in Canadian politicians more than happy to use his playbook against him.

Enter Doug Ford, the right-populist Ontario premier who has captured the prevailing mood with an uncompromising resistance of his own, with steps ranging from pulling American-made liquor off shelves to threatening the United States’ power supply. “If they start hurting families anywhere in Canada, especially Ontario, well, the lights are going off,” warned Ford, who come Monday will be imposing a 25 percent surcharge on electricity exported from Ontario to some 1.5 million homes in Michigan, Minnesota and New York state. He’s been unrelenting even after Trump delayed many tariffs, demanding they go to “zero.”

From the very first moment of Trump’s Canadian excesses — the ridiculing of the prime minister as “Governor Trudeau,” the talk of Canada as a “51st state,” a covetous eye cast toward our wealth of minerals and water, threats to abrogate border agreements, and ultimately the yo-yo game of tariffs — Ontario’s resolute premier has been proactive about retaliating and the need for the country to act as one.

“Ford Nation,” the less-incensed predecessor of the MAGA movement that brought the premier to power for the first time in 2018, has lost the moniker but is now a much larger force. Even in my own household — I ran (unsuccessfully) for federal office back in 2015 for the left-wing New Democratic Party — we find ourselves buoyed and validated in this utterly discombobulating fight by Ford’s steadfast resolve, this very Canadian quality the great Nova Scotia poet Alden Nowlan once described as “stubborn disinclination.”

Hockey is a metaphor for just about anything in Canada, and Ford is our enforcer, the tough guy who’s not the best skater, who’s not on the ice to score, but is ready for a scrap and to protect those who can. You want him on your side, this guy in the corner with his elbows up. He might throw an errant punch now and then, but a good enforcer makes his presence felt, and Ford has done that. To wit: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick personally urged him to back down in a phone call and failed — another point scored.

Ford, elected to a third term last month, might now be one of Canada’s most successful politicians ever, but he’s still something of an unlikely champion. Readers in the United States might be more familiar with his late brother Rob Ford, the similarly populist mayor of Toronto whose multiracial, working-class base rallied behind him even after he was reportedly caught on tape smoking crack cocaine and, later, reeling off racial slurs. Doug Ford has had legal troubles of his own: His government is being investigated over its relationships with property developers. He is not generally loved in Toronto, and he previously was keen on Trump, who shares his skepticism toward elites and bureaucrats. Ford was, as he told his supporters last month, “100 percent” happy Trump won in November — until, that is, “the guy pulled out the knife and f—ing yanked it into us.”

But there are differences between Ford and Trump that have served Ford well. He has won voters by backtracking on occasion, typically with the sheepishness of a schoolboy caught in the act — rather than, as the U.S. president often does, vengefully doubling down on a policy at appalling cost to others through some deep-felt sense of personal injury. And, another very Canadian trait, Ford has been able to cooperate. In 2020, during the covid-19 pandemic, he reached across the parapet to work with his nemesis — Trudeau — because circumstances demanded it. Now, the two men do so again.

In his most recent election, Ford easily shook off attacks by his opponents over a fruitless visit to Washington with other premiers to head off U.S. tariffs. Ontarians, indeed Canadians, understand that we are in our very own missile crisis; that the trammeling of relations between our two countries is an existential matter; and that what is needed to face it is unity rather than the usual politics. War by “economic force” is what Trump is gleefully undertaking, and his here-today-gone-tomorrow-here-again tariffs strategy is messing with Canadian minds as much as their wallets. It’s like living with an abuser, said a female friend: The fist might not land, but the threat is constant.

Ford’s successful anti-Trump pivot is also notable because federal conservatives in Canada have struggled to do the same. Pierre Poilievre, the career politician who leads the Conservative Party, and a man who seemingly promises anything to anyone if it suits, appeared destined to ride this country’s own Trumpian resentments and become our next prime minister on the basis of a deliberately imitative “Canada First” platform. Now, what was once a very comfortable lead for Conservatives in the polls has vanished. Like Ford, Poilievre has railed against the White House, but only to be belittled by Trump. (This is how it goes with bullies; the last thing they like is a lesser version of themselves putting their worst aspects on show.) Poilievre’s turn is not working because he is explicitly identified with a divisive political game and division is not what Canada wants or needs. We have a bigger foe than ourselves to counter.

Ford gets it. He’s making Trudeau’s final days in office easier, and his fellow premiers are standing with him in an exceptional moment of pan-Canadian unity. Even Danielle Smith of oil-rich Alberta, who was previously disinclined to put up a fight, and Quebec’s Francois Legault, leader of a province constantly threatening secession, are playing with the team now.

No one in Canada wants this fight, and few win if the tariffs go through — but Ford is winning already. He insists he wants to be premier “forever,” not prime minister. But up here, we’ve needed a minister for all of Canada for some time and what Ford has been projecting is that he can capably be that. He wants to be liked and, right now, he’s pleasing not just Ontario but the greater franchise. Might do to check back in four years.

Noah Richler is a Canadian author based in Toronto.