"Maple MAGA" is such a tiny, uninfluential cohort. They hold no power in government, in the bureaucracy, or in the media. They have never held any iota of political, cultural, or economic power in Canada. This is just eye rolling.
The vast majority of the media establishment, including the Line, is pro-government and pro-Carney. There are of course exceptions (thinking of a couple writers at NaPo). But the idea that there is not ENOUGH criticism of the govt is cowardly nonsense. We are in our powerless situation because the government, and their Canadian supporters, have neutered Canada. We lack raw power in the face of the USA because Canadians have been unwilling to be full throated in their criticisms of government policy and action. And full throated that we enact policies that grow our power. We are in this position because of decisions we have made about resource development, immigration, military procurement, health care decisions on and on. We continue to choose appearance over substance.
And that's why you get slop like this: "it’s time to draw a distinction between healthy good-faith skepticism, and the quisling slop that tries to pass for it. There is a sizeable portion of the Maple MAGA contingent that is emotionally invested in Canada’s failure."
The criticism here is just so unserious - but it does accurately reflect Canadians' own unseriousness. Let me know when we have a pipeline out east, or we can build resources in spite of FN veto, or we have a sensible immigration policy, or we do something on Chinese interference, or we can build a mine in <20 years (true stat), or we have actual free trade within Canada.
I recently commented on one of Jen’s dispatches in which she tore a very big strip off of Carney’s arse because he was not delivering on his promises. This actual article by Mat also criticizes this government’s problem getting projects started. They come closer to a balanced view of politics in Canada than just about any publication I have read. I have particularly enjoyed Matt’s scathing comments on Canada’ s military procurement and the Liberals attack on Canadian legal firearms owners. The Line has also been tearing a strip off of the Conservatives for not changing their failing opposition strategy . They have told the NDP exactly how terrible their leadership was, back when they were a party.
As always, it is a question of degrees. They're not asking the PM questions like: "First of all, I'd like to say thank you for all your hard work and your intelligent approach to everything that's been happening.”
In part because they are one of a very few who have admirably not taken money from the government. It is not to say the Line is never critical of Carney, of course they are, and Matt's most recent piece was excellent.
At the same time, just look at they're actually content - look at what's published. For example, compare the articles and podcast time taken to criticising Poilievre vs Carney. One person who has had and has immense power, the other who has never been more than an opposition leader.
This country is in this mess for a reason. The reason isn't "Maple MAGA" or even the incompetence of Poilievre.
Our mainstream media are a couple of cashed cheques away from agreeing that, like Kim Jong Un, Mark Carney scored 18 holes-in-one the first time he tried playing golf, invented the hamburger, and doesn't defecate.
Just last week Matt wrote an article espousing the Conservative's 2025 platform: fix Canada and ignore Trump (as much as possible). The Line hated that platform at the time.
Terry Glavin has an excellent substack. He is a Canadian journalist and while I don’t always agree with him, his articles are always well worth the read.
Yes, I like Glavin too. One of my metrics for a truly good journalist is: "Have you done something where the mainstream is howling for your blood?", or put another way "Have you done something that put your career and livelihood at serious risk?"
I think that's true of Glavin. It's also why I will always have such immense respect for Glenn Greenwald, no matter how much I disagree with some of his politics.
Many of these people with unsavory opinions at the time, turned out to be completely correct. Fances Widdowson now, Glavin as well, Jordan Peterson back in the day (no matter what happened to him after fame).
Of course the Canadian legacy media is pro government and pro Carney. They have gone from reporting facts (or at least observations) to singing for their government paid dinners aka per person subsidies. Just like in the old days when primarily Judaea-Christian charities asked homeless down and outers to sing hymns before eating their dinners.
It was a Quebec premier who stated that Canadians were like frogs (or lobsters - I forget which) in a pot of boiling water - when one tries to escape the others pull him back in. This seems to represent the cultural ethos of the majority of Canadian workers. Anyone who escapes the pot and achieved any degree of success gets vilified and soon realizes that the only compatible place where he/she gets accepted is south of the border.
IMO all that Carney can list as Canadian assets - besides all those untapped resources - is the docility of its workforce. Either because they are illiterate in English (ie much of Quebec)or are so addicted to subsidies and entitlements that they are paralyzed by the thought of losing these.
It makes me angry that Canada should, quite literally, be the richest and most prosperous country in world history.
We are beside the biggest and most dynamic economy the world has seen, we have abundant natural resources in every province, we fully control our borders, we have a small population, we inherited an incredible British cultural institution, and we have no direct military threats. And we respond to that, to your point, with docility and apathy.
Its the old line, Canadians were born on third base thinking they hit a triple.
I'm not sure how you even define "Maple MAGA". It's a Liberal talking point that has become a thought terminating cliche, applied to anyone who is reluctant to get on board a brain-dead pro-government panic about a set of circumstances that couldn't have served those in power better if they had scripted it beat for beat. There aren't a lot of Trump sympathizers left in Canada (remember when Doug Ford endorsed him?) and those that remain have no power, like you said.
Canada still has all the problems it had in October 2024. Productivity is bad. Opportunities, especially for the young, are limited. Pay is low. Everything is expensive and getting worse. We aren't punishing criminals properly. Immigration is too high and too easily abused. We spend far more than we can afford and get very little for it. Our media remain paid-off and unreliable. Corruption and waste are a fact of life in government projects, and we remain too committed to 'being nice' over getting things done. This government has improved some of these files slightly from the full-steam-ahead destructive insanity of the Trudeau years, but the interests of Liberal insiders and constituencies are directly intertwined with a lot of the problems in our society and we cannot really begin to address these until we get a new government.
But those who point this out, who choose to disregard the noise of the "look over there and not at us" event so conveniently offered by government and their supportive media, are vilified. Just like those who questioned unlimited government power during Covid.
> "Maple MAGA" is such a tiny, uninfluential cohort. They hold no power in government, in the bureaucracy, or in the media.
Not true on "the media" because we're well past the age when "the media" doesn't include all the influencers.
As for the rest...true... except they do seem to be trashing the electability of the Conservative party. And that seems like "influence" to me. (It's just bad influence).
There's just too many "Stephen Harper conservatives" who see Jamil Jivani and then double down on Mark Carney.
You'd have to show SOME evidence that Maple MAGA is having any influence on the electoral fortunes of the Cons. It's for the talking heads, but I see zero evidence regular people who are captured in those polls are paying any attention to "Maple MAGA" anything.
I don't even think its Jamil Jivani. I think none of that matters, I'm not sure the Cons at this stage can really do anything to change their electoral fortunes. Keep in mind, outside of the tiny, tiny "too online" cohort (of which we're a part) no one is actually paying attention to what the Cons are doing. How many regular people even know who Jimal Jivani is?
These polls are all being driven by the Carney Liberals actions, and their many, many media supporters. For every Maple MAGA influencer (which is a tiny number), you have CTV, CBC, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Quebec media, plus other regional media behind the Liberals.
Plus their own much group of Carney-ite influencers as well. There are far more pro-Carney influencers than anti-Carney ones right now. Even look at the Line, while it will still criticize Carney I would very much rate their coverage as pro-Carney. Even just on influencrs, the Liberals have larger numbers.
What can I say... Any stats can be interpreted multiple ways and even if you have a massive poll that was given to half the country asking them the exact question you want asked... well maybe there were other underlying reasons... because voters ALWAYS have multiple competing reasons for their vote.
What I can tell you is that I know a lot of people who liked Stephen Harper. And the so-called "maple maga" or quislings as I see them, (Jivani being the most obvious) is having an effect that Conservative HQ does not like. They can blame "the media" or whatever, but assigning blame doesn't handle the problem.
Now I don't know how Conservative HQ wants to handle the problem, but right now the plan seems to be "let's keep this anvil around our necks... it's not THAT heavy".
Not the strategy I'd pick, but no one's asking me.
Instead of focusing on providing a welcoming environment for European capital, by shepherding their projects through our license Raj, we should be focusing on creating an environment where European, Canadian, and even American capital can be put to good and effective use in Canada.
But the Liberal government has no interest in doing so. We should reflect on why this is. At the end of the day, it's not "Maple MAGA" that is executing national suicide.
My criticism of Pierre is that his strategy has been milquetoast, "me too", don't spook the herd. He won't win by becoming innocuous to Toronto matrons - look at the polls. His only hope is to terrify or horrify them.
My comment was a joke, but to your point, I'm not sure if Pierre could have won even then. I agree he was too milquetoast, but I think too many older, propertied Canadians are supportive of the status quo for even milquetoast Pierre to ever work and they'd be terrified of any politico who talked reality to Canadians.
"... Canada’s obstacle to investment has traditionally not been a lack of investor interest or global visibility. Canada’s biggest challenge has been, and remains, Canadians ..." All very true.
I follow your excitement about the upcoming "Summit" but I am skeptical. I offer a question and a comment in that context.
First, I know and understand that at the end of the "Summit" there will be no binding commitments, etc., etc.; that is simply not possible. I do expect that we will receive the usual bumph: a meaningless MOU or some such document full of fluff but not one heck of a lot of specifics. Quite frankly, that is to be expected. But ....
Second, the two days, and particularly the end of the two days, will be talk, talk, talk, something at which both this government and it's immediate predecessor were good at producing, but, but, but, when and how will we ultimately be able to adjudge this confab as being successful or otherwise?
The truth is that I don't think that we can ever come to any conclusion about this meeting except to say that MC was successful in getting bums in the seats. And, more or less the right bums in the seats. In that sense, MC was able to utilize his Rolodex / electronic address book. So, we can determine pretty much right now that the GOC is successful in getting bums in seats but will this be successful in any other sense? I don't know.
Now, if one goes back to the first paragraph above, given that MC has largely left alone the over/bad regulations and laws, the stifling bureaucracy, the go slow attitude of the process and has not even announced his intention to change it where what he has done is to announce new agencies, I am dubious that any of the attendees at the upcoming conclave will be eager to invest in Canada. Oh, there will be some investment, but not at the level that the government - and the deluded populace of Canada - hope for. Remember, hope is not a plan.
Oh, and the new agencies, such as the Build Canada people, the Major Projects Office, the Defense Infrastructure Agency and the like? They were established to do an end run around the bureaucracy but they have been staffed up by bureaucrats. They were established because the existing structure could not more quickly and now the new agencies have proven themselves to also be unable to move quickly. They were established to get around various laws, regulations, practices and the like but the government has not taken steps to even start or to announce starting the reform of the various laws, regulations, practices and the like.
I am not a believer that this particular "tiger" can change its spots.
The only way to actually change the bureaucracy is with massive firings and a new culture (a bureaucratic Great Replacement, as you might say), and the Liberals will never do that, because they, unlike the Conservatives, are politically astute enough to stand by their base.
I have never been a fan of Poilievre and fully agree he royally screwed the election when Trump entered it.
But it's funny to think how many of the reforms he was posing (which didn't go nearly far enough!) would be such an asset right now.
But to your point, you can't win an election by talking about reforming old age benefits, the CBC, or our bureaucracy and win. Which apparently is Pierre's fault?
I just don't think that's true. Bureaucrats and CBC fans already don't vote conservative. The best way to change the minds of true swing or occasional voters is with the power of a fanatically committed proselytizing base. Make "saving the country" a crusade, and people will vote against their immediate material interests for the benefit of their kids, or simply because they are caught up in the hype.
An interesting idea. Don't you think he had a decent proselytizing base during the election?
I just don't see how that works especially with the collapsed NDP. That is, I'm not sure it's even possible for any conservative to win in today's Canada without the NDP. Harper really needed a strong NDP himself.
How do you capture all these votes locked into the Liberal wing, without become a Liberal-lite?
The current and former Liberal governments have spent a lot of our tax money lately. The spending is nonstop. Someone in government finally figured out that they're going have to find a way to pay for all of it ( defence spending, fuel tax suspension, high speed railway, etc. ). MC set up a meet and greet with some of his friends and powerful business exec's. So what? Look, If Canada was a great place to invest and make some money for the business community, trust me, they would already be here. Liberal and Conservative government's do what's right for themselves to stay in power, not what's good for Canada and the Canadian economy. Canada should already be a prosperous country. Prosperity would eliminate a lot of the other problems and issues Mat and Jen discuss in the article.
Chris Selley bangs on about it every chance he gets on Twitter, but I agree with him: nobody should ever be treating Jean Chretien as a senior statesmen until he gives his answers. The man was Minister of Indian Affairs and later Minister of Justice for much of the duration of the Sixties Scoop (which despite the name, went well into the 70s). Even without counting the cultural genocide claim that the Canadian federal government has never disavowed which would make him party to genocide, it's baffling how severely disinterested Canadian society is in Chretien's role during that time. To my knowledge, he never even testified at the Truth and Reconciliation committee, and what little he has been forthcoming with in the last decade has been shocking in a negative way (such as claiming he was unaware of abuse at the residential schools).
He also sold out to China via the Power Corp the second he left office and has been serving their interests. Which also gets glossed over and make his comments more ironic than brave.
He didn't need to leave office to begin the process: ask him what was he doing riding a bicycle in Beijing to embrace the Chinese Communist regime whose hands were still wet with the blood of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters.
Teflon Jean. Nothing ever sticks to the man - he's embraced the Witty Grandpa Halo.
Not sure I will live (or will want to live) to see the day when Trudeau the Younger becomes Trudeau the Older, and aging Canadian Millenials that lustily voted for him from 2015-21 (and perhaps their American Democrat Millenials and Euro-Millennials who admired him from afar during that time) will wax nostalgic about the Trudeaumania II era.
Just imagine Justin with his perfect shining white hair preening for his aging cultists in 30 years or so, and whitewashing his blackface and thousand other scandals as just the angry right-wingers trying to tear him down.
Hey, it worked for Trudeau the Elder, and for Teflon Jean, so why not for the Dauphin?
Trudeau the Elder was Yoda, I guess Justin would be a grown-up Grogu?
Having worked this scenario over in this comment, I hope I don't live to see this.
One thing that occurred to me is that Trump will try to stop Europeans from providing that which Carney has requested. A trillion $$ of investment is a target too rich for Trump to ignore — as well as Carney’s request to have a formal relationship of some sort with the EU.
Every thing that Carney says or does — Trump reacts to. Almost always negatively. Almost always with some additional penalty against us. Whether monetary or renaming geography or just plain silliness in his various and highly revealing memes.
We need Carney to succeed. Better yet we need Trump to be gone or at least neutered in the mid-terms.
In one bucket you get Major Projects Office and Investment Summits. In another bucket, you get removal of C-69, FN vetos, and other unnecessary regulations.
It is amazing that Canada survived until 2015. Things are so much better now with central planning. To think business and the markets were once allowed to decide what would be good development projects! It used to take an understanding of economics to decide on a good project, now that can all be based on the feelings of one man. Reverse engineering the USSR will take time, but it will be worth it for the more equal pigs.
I'm not surprised. After all, this is the same guy who introduced Canada to the schadenfreude of "The Shawinigan Handshake". There's lots of things that Chretien did that I didn't agree with, but I always respected him for being a very smart, pragmatic political operator.
I would argue that the sclerotic procurement processes are a feature in service of another goal: removing democratic control of public spending. This has been a 30 year process, and Canada is now lousy with penny pinchers and naysayers who can’t imagine a world where the big bad (democratically elected) politicians could just get on with a purchase. No, every spending decision must be controlled and second-guessed and approved by bankers and bureaucrats and trade lawyers.
We took the CPP Fund away from the provinces and handed it to overpaid bureaucrats to spend overseas. We force every procurement to comply with a dozen “free trade” agreements. The budget forecasts are constantly second guessed by the PBO for no reason. We don’t spend money on infrastructure, we create infrastructure banks to do nothing. All in service of an arbitrary budget target of ever shrinking government debt-to-GDP.
The lack of spending would normally crater the economy, but we created trillions of dollars of mortgage guarantees and bailouts that have kept the money flowing - at the expense of everyone who doesn’t own property.
Carney has made progress against this pathology, but old habits die hard. This investor summit is weird. Canada can spend a trillion more dollars if it wants to; it doesn’t need to butter up Larry Fink. I’ll be watching to see if this is yet another giveaway of democratic control to global bankers and investors or if Canada will take control of its own destiny again.
There are lots of good things in this comment. Particularly "We get to decide for ourselves whether we choose to enter this bilateral relationship as supplicants or equals." Equality before God is a very relevant concept here. We have every reason to expect negotiations to be conducted in the manner of equals as people and nations.
If we are going to act to expect equality Canada must be adult. The US wants a renegotiation of trade terms and Canada'd do best by reacting substantively and not emotionally to Trump's not so adult words. Elbows up is an emotional reaction that gets the Liberals votes. It's not relevant to the trade talks and highlights the small size of our economy compared to the US'.
The comments on Europe are IMO right on. It's time someone in the media addressed the situation. Thank you, Matt and Jen.
"Maple MAGA" is such a tiny, uninfluential cohort. They hold no power in government, in the bureaucracy, or in the media. They have never held any iota of political, cultural, or economic power in Canada. This is just eye rolling.
The vast majority of the media establishment, including the Line, is pro-government and pro-Carney. There are of course exceptions (thinking of a couple writers at NaPo). But the idea that there is not ENOUGH criticism of the govt is cowardly nonsense. We are in our powerless situation because the government, and their Canadian supporters, have neutered Canada. We lack raw power in the face of the USA because Canadians have been unwilling to be full throated in their criticisms of government policy and action. And full throated that we enact policies that grow our power. We are in this position because of decisions we have made about resource development, immigration, military procurement, health care decisions on and on. We continue to choose appearance over substance.
And that's why you get slop like this: "it’s time to draw a distinction between healthy good-faith skepticism, and the quisling slop that tries to pass for it. There is a sizeable portion of the Maple MAGA contingent that is emotionally invested in Canada’s failure."
The criticism here is just so unserious - but it does accurately reflect Canadians' own unseriousness. Let me know when we have a pipeline out east, or we can build resources in spite of FN veto, or we have a sensible immigration policy, or we do something on Chinese interference, or we can build a mine in <20 years (true stat), or we have actual free trade within Canada.
I recently commented on one of Jen’s dispatches in which she tore a very big strip off of Carney’s arse because he was not delivering on his promises. This actual article by Mat also criticizes this government’s problem getting projects started. They come closer to a balanced view of politics in Canada than just about any publication I have read. I have particularly enjoyed Matt’s scathing comments on Canada’ s military procurement and the Liberals attack on Canadian legal firearms owners. The Line has also been tearing a strip off of the Conservatives for not changing their failing opposition strategy . They have told the NDP exactly how terrible their leadership was, back when they were a party.
Keep up the high quality political analysis M&J.
As always, it is a question of degrees. They're not asking the PM questions like: "First of all, I'd like to say thank you for all your hard work and your intelligent approach to everything that's been happening.”
In part because they are one of a very few who have admirably not taken money from the government. It is not to say the Line is never critical of Carney, of course they are, and Matt's most recent piece was excellent.
At the same time, just look at they're actually content - look at what's published. For example, compare the articles and podcast time taken to criticising Poilievre vs Carney. One person who has had and has immense power, the other who has never been more than an opposition leader.
This country is in this mess for a reason. The reason isn't "Maple MAGA" or even the incompetence of Poilievre.
Our mainstream media are a couple of cashed cheques away from agreeing that, like Kim Jong Un, Mark Carney scored 18 holes-in-one the first time he tried playing golf, invented the hamburger, and doesn't defecate.
That last part might explain a few things though.
Just last week Matt wrote an article espousing the Conservative's 2025 platform: fix Canada and ignore Trump (as much as possible). The Line hated that platform at the time.
And still would, if the Conservatives espoused it.
Terry Glavin has an excellent substack. He is a Canadian journalist and while I don’t always agree with him, his articles are always well worth the read.
Yes, I like Glavin too. One of my metrics for a truly good journalist is: "Have you done something where the mainstream is howling for your blood?", or put another way "Have you done something that put your career and livelihood at serious risk?"
I think that's true of Glavin. It's also why I will always have such immense respect for Glenn Greenwald, no matter how much I disagree with some of his politics.
Many of these people with unsavory opinions at the time, turned out to be completely correct. Fances Widdowson now, Glavin as well, Jordan Peterson back in the day (no matter what happened to him after fame).
Of course the Canadian legacy media is pro government and pro Carney. They have gone from reporting facts (or at least observations) to singing for their government paid dinners aka per person subsidies. Just like in the old days when primarily Judaea-Christian charities asked homeless down and outers to sing hymns before eating their dinners.
It was a Quebec premier who stated that Canadians were like frogs (or lobsters - I forget which) in a pot of boiling water - when one tries to escape the others pull him back in. This seems to represent the cultural ethos of the majority of Canadian workers. Anyone who escapes the pot and achieved any degree of success gets vilified and soon realizes that the only compatible place where he/she gets accepted is south of the border.
IMO all that Carney can list as Canadian assets - besides all those untapped resources - is the docility of its workforce. Either because they are illiterate in English (ie much of Quebec)or are so addicted to subsidies and entitlements that they are paralyzed by the thought of losing these.
It makes me angry that Canada should, quite literally, be the richest and most prosperous country in world history.
We are beside the biggest and most dynamic economy the world has seen, we have abundant natural resources in every province, we fully control our borders, we have a small population, we inherited an incredible British cultural institution, and we have no direct military threats. And we respond to that, to your point, with docility and apathy.
Its the old line, Canadians were born on third base thinking they hit a triple.
Canadians were born on third base and keep trying to steal second.
👏👏👏🎯🎯🎯
Unfortunately, politicians are terrible at identifying worthwhile untapped resources. O&G will make money, Ring of Fire and Crawford will not.
Jacques Parizeau was the premier.
For Canadian journalists, it's all about the feelz.
I'm not sure how you even define "Maple MAGA". It's a Liberal talking point that has become a thought terminating cliche, applied to anyone who is reluctant to get on board a brain-dead pro-government panic about a set of circumstances that couldn't have served those in power better if they had scripted it beat for beat. There aren't a lot of Trump sympathizers left in Canada (remember when Doug Ford endorsed him?) and those that remain have no power, like you said.
Canada still has all the problems it had in October 2024. Productivity is bad. Opportunities, especially for the young, are limited. Pay is low. Everything is expensive and getting worse. We aren't punishing criminals properly. Immigration is too high and too easily abused. We spend far more than we can afford and get very little for it. Our media remain paid-off and unreliable. Corruption and waste are a fact of life in government projects, and we remain too committed to 'being nice' over getting things done. This government has improved some of these files slightly from the full-steam-ahead destructive insanity of the Trudeau years, but the interests of Liberal insiders and constituencies are directly intertwined with a lot of the problems in our society and we cannot really begin to address these until we get a new government.
But those who point this out, who choose to disregard the noise of the "look over there and not at us" event so conveniently offered by government and their supportive media, are vilified. Just like those who questioned unlimited government power during Covid.
Traitor
> "Maple MAGA" is such a tiny, uninfluential cohort. They hold no power in government, in the bureaucracy, or in the media.
Not true on "the media" because we're well past the age when "the media" doesn't include all the influencers.
As for the rest...true... except they do seem to be trashing the electability of the Conservative party. And that seems like "influence" to me. (It's just bad influence).
There's just too many "Stephen Harper conservatives" who see Jamil Jivani and then double down on Mark Carney.
You'd have to show SOME evidence that Maple MAGA is having any influence on the electoral fortunes of the Cons. It's for the talking heads, but I see zero evidence regular people who are captured in those polls are paying any attention to "Maple MAGA" anything.
I don't even think its Jamil Jivani. I think none of that matters, I'm not sure the Cons at this stage can really do anything to change their electoral fortunes. Keep in mind, outside of the tiny, tiny "too online" cohort (of which we're a part) no one is actually paying attention to what the Cons are doing. How many regular people even know who Jimal Jivani is?
These polls are all being driven by the Carney Liberals actions, and their many, many media supporters. For every Maple MAGA influencer (which is a tiny number), you have CTV, CBC, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Quebec media, plus other regional media behind the Liberals.
Plus their own much group of Carney-ite influencers as well. There are far more pro-Carney influencers than anti-Carney ones right now. Even look at the Line, while it will still criticize Carney I would very much rate their coverage as pro-Carney. Even just on influencrs, the Liberals have larger numbers.
What can I say... Any stats can be interpreted multiple ways and even if you have a massive poll that was given to half the country asking them the exact question you want asked... well maybe there were other underlying reasons... because voters ALWAYS have multiple competing reasons for their vote.
What I can tell you is that I know a lot of people who liked Stephen Harper. And the so-called "maple maga" or quislings as I see them, (Jivani being the most obvious) is having an effect that Conservative HQ does not like. They can blame "the media" or whatever, but assigning blame doesn't handle the problem.
Now I don't know how Conservative HQ wants to handle the problem, but right now the plan seems to be "let's keep this anvil around our necks... it's not THAT heavy".
Not the strategy I'd pick, but no one's asking me.
Instead of focusing on providing a welcoming environment for European capital, by shepherding their projects through our license Raj, we should be focusing on creating an environment where European, Canadian, and even American capital can be put to good and effective use in Canada.
But the Liberal government has no interest in doing so. We should reflect on why this is. At the end of the day, it's not "Maple MAGA" that is executing national suicide.
Sir, I'm going to need to see some more criticism of Pierre in this post.
My criticism of Pierre is that his strategy has been milquetoast, "me too", don't spook the herd. He won't win by becoming innocuous to Toronto matrons - look at the polls. His only hope is to terrify or horrify them.
My comment was a joke, but to your point, I'm not sure if Pierre could have won even then. I agree he was too milquetoast, but I think too many older, propertied Canadians are supportive of the status quo for even milquetoast Pierre to ever work and they'd be terrified of any politico who talked reality to Canadians.
Many of those Canadians have kids and grandkids. Can we get them to lobby grandpa for us?
"... Canada’s obstacle to investment has traditionally not been a lack of investor interest or global visibility. Canada’s biggest challenge has been, and remains, Canadians ..." All very true.
I follow your excitement about the upcoming "Summit" but I am skeptical. I offer a question and a comment in that context.
First, I know and understand that at the end of the "Summit" there will be no binding commitments, etc., etc.; that is simply not possible. I do expect that we will receive the usual bumph: a meaningless MOU or some such document full of fluff but not one heck of a lot of specifics. Quite frankly, that is to be expected. But ....
Second, the two days, and particularly the end of the two days, will be talk, talk, talk, something at which both this government and it's immediate predecessor were good at producing, but, but, but, when and how will we ultimately be able to adjudge this confab as being successful or otherwise?
The truth is that I don't think that we can ever come to any conclusion about this meeting except to say that MC was successful in getting bums in the seats. And, more or less the right bums in the seats. In that sense, MC was able to utilize his Rolodex / electronic address book. So, we can determine pretty much right now that the GOC is successful in getting bums in seats but will this be successful in any other sense? I don't know.
Now, if one goes back to the first paragraph above, given that MC has largely left alone the over/bad regulations and laws, the stifling bureaucracy, the go slow attitude of the process and has not even announced his intention to change it where what he has done is to announce new agencies, I am dubious that any of the attendees at the upcoming conclave will be eager to invest in Canada. Oh, there will be some investment, but not at the level that the government - and the deluded populace of Canada - hope for. Remember, hope is not a plan.
Oh, and the new agencies, such as the Build Canada people, the Major Projects Office, the Defense Infrastructure Agency and the like? They were established to do an end run around the bureaucracy but they have been staffed up by bureaucrats. They were established because the existing structure could not more quickly and now the new agencies have proven themselves to also be unable to move quickly. They were established to get around various laws, regulations, practices and the like but the government has not taken steps to even start or to announce starting the reform of the various laws, regulations, practices and the like.
I am not a believer that this particular "tiger" can change its spots.
The only way to actually change the bureaucracy is with massive firings and a new culture (a bureaucratic Great Replacement, as you might say), and the Liberals will never do that, because they, unlike the Conservatives, are politically astute enough to stand by their base.
I have never been a fan of Poilievre and fully agree he royally screwed the election when Trump entered it.
But it's funny to think how many of the reforms he was posing (which didn't go nearly far enough!) would be such an asset right now.
But to your point, you can't win an election by talking about reforming old age benefits, the CBC, or our bureaucracy and win. Which apparently is Pierre's fault?
I just don't think that's true. Bureaucrats and CBC fans already don't vote conservative. The best way to change the minds of true swing or occasional voters is with the power of a fanatically committed proselytizing base. Make "saving the country" a crusade, and people will vote against their immediate material interests for the benefit of their kids, or simply because they are caught up in the hype.
An interesting idea. Don't you think he had a decent proselytizing base during the election?
I just don't see how that works especially with the collapsed NDP. That is, I'm not sure it's even possible for any conservative to win in today's Canada without the NDP. Harper really needed a strong NDP himself.
How do you capture all these votes locked into the Liberal wing, without become a Liberal-lite?
The current and former Liberal governments have spent a lot of our tax money lately. The spending is nonstop. Someone in government finally figured out that they're going have to find a way to pay for all of it ( defence spending, fuel tax suspension, high speed railway, etc. ). MC set up a meet and greet with some of his friends and powerful business exec's. So what? Look, If Canada was a great place to invest and make some money for the business community, trust me, they would already be here. Liberal and Conservative government's do what's right for themselves to stay in power, not what's good for Canada and the Canadian economy. Canada should already be a prosperous country. Prosperity would eliminate a lot of the other problems and issues Mat and Jen discuss in the article.
Chris Selley bangs on about it every chance he gets on Twitter, but I agree with him: nobody should ever be treating Jean Chretien as a senior statesmen until he gives his answers. The man was Minister of Indian Affairs and later Minister of Justice for much of the duration of the Sixties Scoop (which despite the name, went well into the 70s). Even without counting the cultural genocide claim that the Canadian federal government has never disavowed which would make him party to genocide, it's baffling how severely disinterested Canadian society is in Chretien's role during that time. To my knowledge, he never even testified at the Truth and Reconciliation committee, and what little he has been forthcoming with in the last decade has been shocking in a negative way (such as claiming he was unaware of abuse at the residential schools).
He also sold out to China via the Power Corp the second he left office and has been serving their interests. Which also gets glossed over and make his comments more ironic than brave.
He didn't need to leave office to begin the process: ask him what was he doing riding a bicycle in Beijing to embrace the Chinese Communist regime whose hands were still wet with the blood of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters.
Yep. And as you know, a lot more than that.
Teflon Jean. Nothing ever sticks to the man - he's embraced the Witty Grandpa Halo.
Not sure I will live (or will want to live) to see the day when Trudeau the Younger becomes Trudeau the Older, and aging Canadian Millenials that lustily voted for him from 2015-21 (and perhaps their American Democrat Millenials and Euro-Millennials who admired him from afar during that time) will wax nostalgic about the Trudeaumania II era.
Just imagine Justin with his perfect shining white hair preening for his aging cultists in 30 years or so, and whitewashing his blackface and thousand other scandals as just the angry right-wingers trying to tear him down.
Hey, it worked for Trudeau the Elder, and for Teflon Jean, so why not for the Dauphin?
Trudeau the Elder was Yoda, I guess Justin would be a grown-up Grogu?
Having worked this scenario over in this comment, I hope I don't live to see this.
We should all hope that Carney’s strategy works.
One thing that occurred to me is that Trump will try to stop Europeans from providing that which Carney has requested. A trillion $$ of investment is a target too rich for Trump to ignore — as well as Carney’s request to have a formal relationship of some sort with the EU.
Every thing that Carney says or does — Trump reacts to. Almost always negatively. Almost always with some additional penalty against us. Whether monetary or renaming geography or just plain silliness in his various and highly revealing memes.
We need Carney to succeed. Better yet we need Trump to be gone or at least neutered in the mid-terms.
Trump will go, on schedule, in Jan 2029. Carney can neither hasten nor delay trust inevitability.
Indeed. Maybe even sooner. Problem is — Trump is just a symptom of a nation that has somewhat lost its way. We are in the way of their current path.
In one bucket you get Major Projects Office and Investment Summits. In another bucket, you get removal of C-69, FN vetos, and other unnecessary regulations.
Pick one.
It is amazing that Canada survived until 2015. Things are so much better now with central planning. To think business and the markets were once allowed to decide what would be good development projects! It used to take an understanding of economics to decide on a good project, now that can all be based on the feelings of one man. Reverse engineering the USSR will take time, but it will be worth it for the more equal pigs.
Never thought the "Little Guy from Shawinigan" would be the face of Asshole Canada? 🇨🇦
Good column, well balanced and as noted Canada needs to get out of its way.
I'm not surprised. After all, this is the same guy who introduced Canada to the schadenfreude of "The Shawinigan Handshake". There's lots of things that Chretien did that I didn't agree with, but I always respected him for being a very smart, pragmatic political operator.
Jen, read @benwoodfinden 8 points on EU he put out today. Well worth it.
I would argue that the sclerotic procurement processes are a feature in service of another goal: removing democratic control of public spending. This has been a 30 year process, and Canada is now lousy with penny pinchers and naysayers who can’t imagine a world where the big bad (democratically elected) politicians could just get on with a purchase. No, every spending decision must be controlled and second-guessed and approved by bankers and bureaucrats and trade lawyers.
We took the CPP Fund away from the provinces and handed it to overpaid bureaucrats to spend overseas. We force every procurement to comply with a dozen “free trade” agreements. The budget forecasts are constantly second guessed by the PBO for no reason. We don’t spend money on infrastructure, we create infrastructure banks to do nothing. All in service of an arbitrary budget target of ever shrinking government debt-to-GDP.
The lack of spending would normally crater the economy, but we created trillions of dollars of mortgage guarantees and bailouts that have kept the money flowing - at the expense of everyone who doesn’t own property.
Carney has made progress against this pathology, but old habits die hard. This investor summit is weird. Canada can spend a trillion more dollars if it wants to; it doesn’t need to butter up Larry Fink. I’ll be watching to see if this is yet another giveaway of democratic control to global bankers and investors or if Canada will take control of its own destiny again.
There are lots of good things in this comment. Particularly "We get to decide for ourselves whether we choose to enter this bilateral relationship as supplicants or equals." Equality before God is a very relevant concept here. We have every reason to expect negotiations to be conducted in the manner of equals as people and nations.
If we are going to act to expect equality Canada must be adult. The US wants a renegotiation of trade terms and Canada'd do best by reacting substantively and not emotionally to Trump's not so adult words. Elbows up is an emotional reaction that gets the Liberals votes. It's not relevant to the trade talks and highlights the small size of our economy compared to the US'.
The comments on Europe are IMO right on. It's time someone in the media addressed the situation. Thank you, Matt and Jen.