Category: Canada Page 1 of 6

Most Americans don’t understand why Canadians are so angry about Trump’s actions and his talks of annexation.

I think hockey illustrates it well. Back in 2014 the American anthem singer’s mic failed at a hockey game. Canadians finished the song:

Just recently, fans at a Montreal game booed the anthem.

Here’s the thing: ordinary Canadians thought that America was Canada’s friend. They really believed this.

Thus, hearing Trump’s threats and seeing how many Americans back them and how they deride and insult Canada, they feel betrayed.

The opposition to joining the US is in super-majority territory: over 80%. Canadians like being Canadian and think our society and form of government is better than America’s. They know Americans think the opposite, but it never occurred to most of them that America would try and force Canada to give up its sovereignty, or economically attack America.

Of course this is foolishness. America has never had friends, and never will. It’s an antagonistic nation of bullies, with a record of invading and bullying other nations. But ordinary Canadians, like ordinary people everywhere, don’t really think such issues through. Americans are a lot like Canadians and Canadians consume a ton of American media and tended to identify with America.

Personally I’ve always been worried that America would turn on Canada, and since the 90s I’ve pushed for Canadian policy to recognize that. So, if we can avoid an invasion, I’m somewhat pleased that Trump has torn off the mask and shown the barbarian beneath. Even if the political elite is still in denial, it pushes us towards understanding the world more realistically. There is only one country that can credibly threaten Canada, and it’s been that way for as long as Canada has existed. Hell, since before Canada was formed.

Oh, and Americans, America doesn’t protect us from anybody but America. For Canada, NATO is and always has been nothing but an American protection racket. A proper Canadian military wouldn’t be an expeditionary force designed to help American overseas wars: it would be naval and air, with a lot of icebreakers and an army primarily trained for insurgency and to defend against the only country in the world which has ever been a threat to us.

But I agree. Canada should spend a lot more on its military. We just shouldn’t spend it on US tech, as Canadians have begun to recognize:

The United States controls many of the key systems onboard Canada’s new warships, allowing the Americans to hold this country hostage over future upgrades or even the provision of spare parts, defence industry officials warn.Taxpayers are spending as much as $80 billion on a new fleet of Canadian Surface Combatants to be constructed at Irving Shipbuilding.

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The heart of each of the warships is the command management system, which controls weapons, radars and other intelligence-gathering equipment.

Originally that high-tech system was supposed to be Canadian-made and under the full control of the Canadian government.

But that was switched out for made-in-the-U.S. technology called Aegis, allowing the Americans full control and oversight over the supply of parts, modifications or future upgrades, industry officials confirm.

“This is what happens when you exclude Canadian companies: You find yourself potentially being held hostage,” explained Alan Williams, the former procurement chief at the Department of National Defence. “We don’t control the (combat management) system; the Americans do. Who knows what they are going to demand from us?”

Other Canadian defence industry officials acknowledged the same concerns. They asked not to be named as they did not want to jeopardize ongoing contracts with the federal government.

You don’t make your military dependent on the good will of the country that is the primary threat.

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He ruled for about the normal time for Canadian Prime Ministers. This, from Taibbi, is well-written nonsense:

Canadian Prime Minister and feminist heartthrob Justin Trudeau resigned this morning. His departure completes an unprecedented popularity cliff dive, dropping from 65% to an incredible 16% approval rating over the course of a nine-year reign that men will chuckle over, from now through the end of time. Centuries from now, fathers will sit sons on their knees and tell The Fall of Trudeau as a cautionary tale.

Trudeau had about nine years:

• Harper had 9 years;
• Martin had 3;
• Chretien had 10;
• Campbell had less than one, but was an unelected caretaker PM; and,
• Mulroney had 9.

American red-pill nonsense is just that. Trudeau was was a gifted politician who was bad at policy. He resigned because his own caucus wanted him gone, as they think they’re more likely to keep their seats without him.

The Liberals won’t win the next election, the standard pattern in Canadian politics is for the Liberals and Conservatives to alternate. Barring some huge surprise, the Conservatives will rule next. But how much of a majority they have will depend a lot on who the next Liberal leader is.

This is a nothing-burger. Yes, Trudeau could have been a better Prime Minister. He mishandled Covid in the same way as almost every other western leader; let in way too many immigrants, and inflation, especially in rent and food hurt him just like it did every other neo-liberal government of the era.

I despise Trudeau. He’s an empty neoliberal suit coasting on being le dauphin. (Son of Pierre Trudeau, one of Canada’s greatest Prime Ministers.) But he was a gifted politician, and his fall is bog standard for Canadian post-war Prime Ministers. It is entirely normal and has nothing to do with red-pills, cucks, soy, pick-up artists, feminism or any other culture nonsense. All of that is just noise, he may have been attacked on the cultural politics of the day, but he lost because people became worse off under his rule and because his time was, essentially, up. Even a very good Prime Minister finds it hard to hold on for more than two terms in Canadian politics.

He’s not an extraordinary cautionary tale and no one except historians will remember him in fifty years, let alone centuries from now.

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This isn’t about all the high minding crap she said (lost the confidence of the PM, etc…) it’s an attempt to pressure Trudeau to resign, so the Liberals don’t have him as an albatross hung around their neck during the next election. The Liberals will still lose, I’d think, but they won’t get slaughtered, or that’s their hope.

Freeland has terrible politics. She’s the worst sort of neoliberal. She’s been Trudeau’s strong right hand, and done most of his dirty work. Given this is the case, I don’t think she’ll make a good candidate if she’s the new Liberal leader.

Trudeau may want to hang on, knowing he’ll lose the next election, with an eye to running again after four years of Conservative rule. It’s what his father did, and he may wish to emulate Pierre.

Pollievre, the Conservative leader, will probably be the next Prime Minister. He’s right wing of the modern American variety. Nativist, nasty, and stupid. About the only good thing I can say about him is that he’ll fight if Trump goes ahead with tariffs.

Trump’s threatening everyone with tariffs. The Euros, Chinese, Mexico, Canada and so on. The smart response would be for all of these nations to coordinate their response, rather than each midget fighting on their own. More on that in a later post.

So, the CBC is the the national broadcaster in Canada, similar to the BBC in Europe. They’re pretty stodgy, they run good radio programs and they are wary of the government, as you’d expect.

They just wrote a really good article in problems in the housing market.

The two graphs that really matter are:

But here’s what I find interesting. Quotes like this:

“What started happening in B.C. and spread throughout the country is that we weren’t just satisfied with paying off our mortgage to build equity. We’re like: ‘You know what? I want this home price to double, triple, quadruple.'”

When existing homeowners want prices to rise faster than earnings in the local economy “is the moment you want a wealth windfall for those who are owners now that will come, by definition mathematically, at the expense of affordability for those who follow,” Kershaw said.

“That’s the trouble we’ve gotten ourselves into. And if we cannot have that conversation, we will never solve the crisis of housing affordability.”

If housing is an investment; a way to get rich, then by definition it’s going to get expensive faster than most people’s income. This is common sense. It’s acknowledged in Japan, for example, but in North America we’re addicted to our free riches, and since most people are locked out of the other sources of unearned wealth, real-estate prices are politically off-limits, they’re supposed to go up faster than inflation and wages forever, and the government colludes to make it happen, including by guaranteeing mortgages and stepping in 2008 to limit the price crash.

Homeowners and home investors, after all, vote and donate to political parties.

Anyway, CBC is stodgy and politically wary, for it to allow an article saying that home owners aren’t saints and perhaps housing prices shouldn’t be allowed to float into the stratosphere is very interesting.

The technical solutions to fixing rent and housing prices are well known: if Japan, with way less land, fewer resources and far more people can keep housing affordable, obviously Canada can do it.

But we can’t do it political parties want housing prices to keep rising and rising because it make an important chunk of voters happy.

And lack of housing (aka. homelessness) and increased food prices are going to lead to political unrest if something isn’t done.

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