MONTREAL — On looks alone, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Hydro-Québec CEO Michael Sabia couldn’t be more different. Ford, better known as Doug, brims with meaty bonhomie, all smiles and backslaps. Sabia, better known as Mr. Sabia, is a natty and diminutive technocrat who tends to use his inside voice when speaking out loud. Yet by virtue of controlling millions of exportable megawatts, both men are playing similar roles in U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada.

You’ve probably seen and heard Ford’s effort, in which he loudly threatened to tariff the bejesus out of, if not outright cut off, Ontario’s energy exports to the U.S. This schtick has earned him regular spots on Fox News, a glowing New York Times profile and the designated “Captain Canada” moniker that he may well stitch into a baseball cap someday.

Sabia’s effort, much like Quebec’s, has been comparatively discreet. Premier François Legault has so far rattled comparatively fewer sabres than Ford during the tariff war with the U.S., and he certainly hasn’t threatened to turn off lights in New York City. But Quebec’s spiel-free approach doesn’t mean the province lacks Ontario-grade leverage over its southern neighbour. In fact, it has much more—and appearances aside, Sabia isn’t afraid to wield it.

In a speech at the Canadian Club of Montreal in February, Sabia struck a defiant tone, saying that while Trump’s tariffs were bad for the U.S., his oil-soaked belligerence was worse, if only because it will deprive American industry of the vast wealth to be made from the global pivot away from fossil fuels. As for Hydro-Québec, Sabia was optimistic, even triumphalist. Energy development—namely, the corporation’s plan to develop and distribute 11,000 new megawatts over the next decade—isn’t just dams and power lines; it’s an exercise in sovereignty. Sabia’s message: Trump’s protectionist follies will make Canada stronger in the long run.

There were no Ford-style threats or bluster in Sabia’s 25-minute speech. He didn’t once mention the huge amount of power Hydro-Québec sent southward in 2024, or the two powerline projects set to deliver an additional 20 terawatt hours to the U.S. by 2026. He didn’t have to, because he knows the U.S. is utterly beholden to Hydro-Québec’s bounty. In a much quieter way, Sabia has shown how the utility can wreak havoc on American energy markets just by dialing back exports. In fact, Hydro-Québec is already doing just that.

In 2024, Hydro-Québec sold roughly 15 terawatt hours of power to outside markets, including  7.4 terawatt hours of power to New England and New York State. It sounds like a lot, and it is—15 terawatt hours is enough to power 1.4 million U.S. homes for a year. Yet it’s far less than the 23 terawatt hours the utility shipped outside Quebec borders in 2023, and less than half its 2021, when exports were at near-record highs. The issue for the most part is water, or lack thereof. Simply put, what the utility calls a “prolonged period of low runoff” has meant lower dam levels, and therefore less saleable electricity.

Selling power to the U.S.—as well as Ontario and New Brunswick, Hydro’s other two export markets—is a lucrative trade, because it fetches a significantly higher price than in Quebec. Yet the cratering decrease in exports hasn’t hurt Hydro-Québec’s bottom line to the extent you’d expect. In fact, its revenues were actually slightly higher in 2024 than the year before. Why? Demand from Quebec itself, which has grown by five per cent in four years. In powering more people and industry within Quebec’s borders, and otherwise busying itself with decarbonizing the province’s economy, Hydro-Québec has drastically reduced its dependence on U.S. lucre.

Things aren’t so swell for Hydro-Québec’s U.S. markets. In New York state, for instance, electricity rates increased by an average of more than 25 per cent between 2021 and 2024, according to state government data. Neighbouring Massachusetts has seen a similar increase. These increases aren’t due entirely to Hydro-Québec slackening exports. Safe to say, though, that much like Quebec aluminum, the U.S. needs Hydro-Québec more than Hydro-Québec needs the U.S.

America is about to need Hydro-Québec even more. If all goes to plan, the utility will be delivering an additional 20 terawatts via new lines to New York and Massachusetts—enough electricity to power nearly two million homes—by May 2026. In a Trump-free world, this would be a good-news story for both countries—a working example of border-free supply and demand via high tension wires. In Trump’s zero-sum game, the one Sabia outlined during that discrete Montreal soiree, it’s called something else entirely: leverage.

Martin Patriquin is The Logic’s Quebec correspondent. He joined in 2019 after 10 years as Quebec bureau chief for Maclean’s. A National Magazine Award and SABEW winner, he has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Walrus, Vice, BuzzFeed and The Globe and Mail, among others. He is also a panelist on CBC’s “Power & Politics.”