They say every cloud has a silver lining which means there is always a good or pleasant side-effect of a bad or unpleasant situation.   What’s a silver lining of the tariff tantrums coming from our southern neighbour Mr T?  Well, it seems our Canadian elected leaders have realized that perhaps we’d be better off if we cooperated more with our closer neighbours.  You know, as in our fellow Canadians regardless of whether they live in a different province.  It took until the year 2025 for premiers to lock arms and sing kumbaya.  Ok, maybe not quite that chummy but at least they are getting together, trying to move toward more integration in the face of U.S. tariffs. And using words like free trade across provincial boundaries.  Wow!  There’s an idea, don’t you think?   The premiers have been meeting in Ontario and in the words of our premier Scott Moe, “ We need to have free and open trade between our provinces”.   There actually is a Canadian Free Trade Agreement that dates back to 2014, but here in 2025 it looks like this CFTA will be seeing words turning into actions from coast to coast to coast.  Economists are predicting some belt tightening for a while due to Mr T’s tariffs but there may actually be a silver lining with the long-term side-effect being Canada flexing its muscles and starting to stand on its own two feet as we know it can.  To heck with T words, let’s concentrate on C words like collaboration, cooperation, connection, communication and coordination.