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“Right now the auto industry is being massively disrupted and we’re trying to get ahead of that,”saidDavid Paterson, vice-president of corporate affairs at GM’s Canadian unit. “If the company doesn’t take bold steps to move to the new technology, then there won’t be any jobs.”

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, therewere attempts madeat blaming Donald Trump for bringing about the end of car making in the Greater Toronto Area. Some accused the fat cats in Motor City of putting corporate greed ahead of the communities that are the foundation of their sprawling, if shrunken, auto empire. David Olive, a columnist at the Toronto Star, evenarguedthat General Motors of Canada Co. should be nationalized.

At times like these, we are terrible at directing the blame where it belongs: at ourselves.

For more than a year, we treated the NAFTA negotiations as a superficial David-versus-Goliath story. Rarely did we ask ask why negotiations to update 24-year-old trade rules for the “21st century” were being dictated by dairy farmers and auto companies and their union. When David avoided being stomped, we rejoiced and called it a victory, even if the dairymen and women came out of it bloodier than some in Quebec and parts of Ontario have been able to stomach.

GM’s factory closures should end the delusion that anything important was achieved during the NAFTA talks. The accomplishment was in ending the distraction. Otherwise, in order to save the Impala, we swallowed new U.S. patent standards and put down arms without any resolution to metal and lumber tariffs. And then we lost the Impala anyway.