How Project 2025 could upend Canada-U.S. relationship under Trump

Concerns are growing about how a far-right policy agenda known as Project 2025 could influence a second Donald Trump presidency — as well as Canada’s relationship with the United States.

Democrats have been attempting to tie Trump to the controversial initiative and convince voters its extreme conservative policies would be representative of how Trump will govern if he wins the U.S. election in November.

At the heart of Project 2025 is a plan to overhaul the U.S. government bureaucracy to make the civil service much more aligned with the political interests of the White House. That would have major implications on the day-to-day business of managing Canada-U.S. relations in important areas like trade, analysts say.

“This presents a real threat,” said Donald Abelson, a political science professor at McMaster University who studies Canada-U.S. relations and American think tanks like the conservative Heritage Foundation, which spearheaded Project 2025.

The warning is the latest to come from Canadians studying the possible effects of a second Trump administration. Economists have said Trump’s plans on immigration and trade — including a blanket 10 per cent tariff on foreign imports — would hit Canada’s economy harder than the U.S.

Project 2025 calls for the return of a Trump-era executive order known as Schedule F, which would reclassify tens of thousands of American civil servants as political appointees who can be easily fired and replaced.

Trump issued the order close to the end of his presidency but was unable to implement it after losing the 2020 election. U.S. President Joe Biden rescinded Schedule F upon taking office, but Trump and Project 2025 vow to reinstate it.

Unlike Canada, which has a permanent bureaucracy in place