Between covid authoritarianism and gender ideology, Canada's left split in the last few years. The old pro-worker, pro-poor, lefties are, like Canadian blue collars, now Conservatives (or perhaps PPC).. As are those feminists who believe in actual rights for actual women.
The lefties who were attracted to pure authoritarianism for authoritarianism's sake, or believed in absolute technocratic rule as a way to perfect humanity, are now Liberals. They know perfectly well, unlike, apparently, Canadian boomers and journalists, that Carney will happily sacrifice the future of Canadians (and especially their children) on the altars of Net Zero, Mass Immigration/DEI, and the authoritarian administrative state.
Canadians' prosocial nature means that this authoritarianism can be quite soft, with only a few arrests and political prisoners and more paid self-censorshio than hard silencing, but it will continue to be quite real.
This tells us all that you similarly don't know a thing about what authoritarism is.
The law coming down hard on a massive, long standing street protest in a capital city along with blockades on border crossings isn't "political prisoner". It's crime.
Think the convoy protest organizers are "political prisoners" is right up there with fantastic statements about "all taxation is theft" and so-called "freemen on the land" pseudo-legal rubbish.
How many protesters calling to globalize the intifada and blockading streets/malls/campuses over the past year and a half had their bank accounts frozen?
A common hallmark of authoritarianism is selectively applied lawfare based on political considerations. What's the saying? “For our friends, everything; for our enemies, the law.”
And that’s true no matter how you feel about the convoy protests. Good or ill… they were not small things the government could just ignore and wait for it to inevitably away.
Nothing says that you don’t have a serious political outlook, then fantasizing that you’re a political prisoner in Canada.
2 months vs. 18, if we're talking scale. If those same protesters had blockaded Ottawa demanding more Net Zero or Defund the Police or something similarly left-coded, the feds would never have cracked down on them.
So who is missing the federal lefties ? I sure as heck do not. Terrorist-cheering dictatorial miscreants. Except these days they call themselves Liberals.
And why do I read the comments first, and only then the column ?
Carney IS a leftist. For the time being, for political expedience, he is keeping it under the surface. If he becomes an actually elected PM, his policies will make it clear. And he is the worst kind of leftist, very rich and keeping his money out of his country's jurisdiction while his party is pilfering the population through misgovernance. The Anointed God King, the one of profitably elastic ethics, Marx Carnage, . Hypocrite to the core. Politically, Canada is not much healthier than USA.
The nice thing about a resource economy is business flight isn't really a risk. An auto plant can be packed up and relocated to Mexico, but the oilsands cannot be. So no, Alberta wouldn't have anywhere near the same exposure to business flight as Quebec. The notion that CNRL would relocate its oil extraction operation away from......the oil......is far more fanciful than even the most optimistic Wexit scenarios. It's kind of like worrying about fishing companies potentially relocating their businesses away from water, or an airline company relocating its operations away from the sky.
The only thing scaring investment cash out of Alberta is Ottawa's regulatory stranglehold, so Wexit would if anything trigger an influx of capital.
Someone might want to let Encana know that they're stuck here.
Certain aspects of physical extraction can't move. Have you been paying any attention at all to the major oil companies that have severely lessened their staff and/or decamped since 2014?
Do you think that Alberta's entire economy consists of physical oil rigs?
A province run by Wexiteers is not going to trigger a capital inflow. That's just total fantasyland.
Corporate offices can relocate, but then like you said the great decamping is damage that's already done. That's like worrying about whether Wexit might lead to carbon taxes and emission caps - there's no actual downside risk if those are things that are already happening anyway.
51st statehood would trigger a massive capital inflow, because Ottawa's Net Zero policies get replaced by Washington's Drill Baby Drill.
Compared to the current 50 US states, Alberta is nowhere near the highest GDP per capita despite having abundant natural resources. Alberta's per capita GDP being above the rest of Canada isn't because Alberta is that prosperous; it's because the rest of Canada is that broke.
And when the only downside risks you can mention are *checks notes* things that are already happening under the status quo (like corporate decamping), 51st statehood looks more and more like all upside and no downside.
The worst case scenario is joining the US and getting a big economic boost. That's always been true for Canada, and especially Alberta. The reason not to do that has been our emotional attachment to fellow Canadians.
Sometimes doing nothing is the bigger risk. The numbers show that to be the case here.
As for Jen, I can't help notice a lot of her arguments against a more assertive Alberta are the same arguments used by abusers trying to keep their spouse in a relationship.
Except that she's Albertan. The main thing is that Canadians are very strongly status quo biased, and very strongly established authority biased, and very risk averse. Obviously Alberta is likely to gain from secession over another Liberal government, (and who's to say there won't be an infinite sequence of Liberal governments?), but there is a tail risk (Carney orders the PPCLI to seize the Alberta legislature, provokes a civil war, and the US intervenes) which could involve temporary unpleasantness. So maybe Alberta would chicken out.
We need to always remember that our ancestors are the people who read the Declaration of Independence and said "I'm for King George".
But maybe Alberta wouldn't chicken out.
Which is why I want the low risk outcome of a Conservative victory.
And the whole "landlocked" thing is a joke. Firstly, if we believe Trump is out to get Canada, why wouldn't he offer an independent Alberta a good deal, including plenty of oil export access?
Secondly, look at a map - if Canada plays hardball with an independent Alberta, we lose access to BC, YT, and NWT. Alberta has more weight in a post independence negotiation with Ottawa than it does now.
You can definitely trust *checks notes* Donald Trump to give *checks notes again* foreigners a great deal. Not like he'd use an isolated nation that had just pissed off the rest of Confederation to lock our oil distribution networks into the US system at widly below market rates.
Alberta will give Carney a chance. But we all know that he will reveal strangulation of Alberta oil & gas to be his agenda. At that point, a Trump maybe becomes a better risk than a Canadian "no".
51st statehood = foreigners no longer. Problem solved. And if Trump ultimately wants to annex all of Canada, he has every incentive to give the first movers a good deal pour encourager les autres. If he screws over Alberta then he'll scare away Saskatchewan et al.
Jen, I think the critical cog in the Alberta “sovereignty” scenario is a credible offer of American Statehood. Without that, it’s a joke, or like you say, Quebec separatist LARPing.
A referendum on Alberta independence alone would be doomed to fail. But, a referendum on becoming the 51st state, under the right conditions, may not. This is what is going unsaid by both Premier Smith and Preston Manning. We’re not there now or yet. And if Carney wins and governs even close to what he’s campaigned on, we won’t get there either. BUT - if this goes another direction and Carney fulfills all of his worst suspicions, there is a realistic scenario where shit could go sideways.
The *offer* is there, but it's not credible. You have to be a territory FIRST. Only then can the territory petition congress to be admitted as a state. It's nothing but words.
In other words.. you have to give up all your leverage, become a territory, draft a constitution and then trust that the **next** President AND **next** congress (because all that stuff takes a while) will agree.. all without anything going terribly wrong or the Americans deciding to use their now massive leverage against a bunch of foreign born Johnny-come-latelies.
It's not impossible.. it's just that there can't be a credible offer ahead of Alberta giving up all leverage and taking it on faith.
Maybe. But I don’t totally agree that this process can’t be short circuited and even legally short circuited under the current admin though. I don’t know about the being a territory first thing being required? Wasn’t Texas an independent country for a minute and then went straight to statehood? How about all the western states and Louisiana? In any regard - I stand by my statement for better or worse. It would need to be proposed that way (or with a formal economic union with the USA which I would think Trump less likely to be interested in) or not at all.
Are you arguing that you can get the US to violate their constitution in order to admit a state AND have it stand up to court scrutiny all with the politics of it up in the air?
> why wouldn't he offer an independent Alberta a good deal, including plenty of oil export access?
Because he doesn't have to. Say what you will about Trump... giving things away when he doesn't have to is NOT one of his attributes. If you want something from him, you need LEVERAGE.
Mr. Trump (like every US leader) goes into every negotiation to get as much as he can for himself and US interests as he sees them and giving away as little as possible. Unlike other US leaders, he sees every negotiation as zero sum. EVERY concession he makes is a loss to him and there's no such thing as a win-win. That's the way he operates and it's what he says about negotiations.
To get something from Mr. Trump you need leverage to make him accept a "loss". Alberta has precious little leverage right now. Making itself smaller and weaker to go into negotiations reduces that even further.
Remember... you have to use leverage to force him accept a "loss" in negotiation because giving you ANYTHING in at all in negotiation is a loss. You don't have leverage. So he doesn't have to give you a good deal. So he won't... (and to be fair... no one gives you a good deal unless you have leverage.)
US gets more domestic oil. There is Trump's win for America. No need to get him to take a loss when statehood is a win-win for both Alberta and the USA. The only loser is the rest of Canada and Trump if anything sees that as a bonus.
It's not an assumption so much as an incredibly easy problem to solve. There's no reason why statehood negotiations can't start before the separation referendum.
Step 1) Negotiate a Letter of Intent from the USA along the lines of "if Alberta separates from Canada and applies for statehood, we will provide statehood on X timeline" (also pre-negotiate contentious issues like healthcare, infrastructure, defense, etc.)
Step 2) Use the LOI as the basis for a referendum (since the referendum is required to have a "clear question")
Step 3) if the referendum passes, apply for statehood per the parameters already pre-negotiated in the LOI
Step 4) Once statehood is secured, commence separation negotiations with Ottawa
The hardest part is negotiating the terms of the LOI, but if Trump (or Vance) wants Canadian territory to become American territory, then he's incentivized to both offer Alberta a decent deal and then stick to it, so that other provinces like Saskatchewan have a template to follow if they so choose.
I love the sound of trains. Whether they are commuter trains rolling through St. Henry or stacked, cargo trains rumbling through Bowness. You feel the sound as much as hear it.
Alberta is landlocked but the commercial traffic that crosses through, East-West and back, is substantial. My understanding is that the federation guarantees cross-province access. The alternative is through the USA or the, now USA controlled, Panama Canal.
Money talks. Always. And when the cost of remaining in the federation outweighs the benefit, things will change. Anyone who visited Calgary in the early '80s will remember the unemployed engineers driving taxis in a failing effort to not lose their homes. Interest rates in the high-teens to keep inflationary pressure in Toronto under control.
Polls suggested a CPC landslide, and now they don't. Hardcore Quebec separatists normally account for 35% of their population. They are still there. And with a very uncertain future, nothing should be off the table. And who is afraid of discussion?
Everything has a price and cheap oil can literally move mountains. It eventually becomes so irresistible that enemies will even buy it. Just ask Russia.
The issue is what is the inflection point where even with this fact it is still better off to go it alone than suffer living in a country that doesn't respect you or is excellent at anything other than producing Marvel Universe stars.
Or take 51st statehood; be part of a more economically functional country that doesn't rely on transfer payments from Alberta to stay nationally solvent.
I can see why you say Carney’s no lefty, especially given he’s axed the tax (or at least zeroed it out!), and plagiarized lots of the rest of the Cons’ policies. But isn’t ‘Values’ chock full of green zealotry, indictments of allegedly amoral capitalism, and calls for big government programs? Since we all know this is what he Carney really believes, maybe Canada’s left wing voters’ support of him is more explicable than you think?
I am not finished Value(s), but from what I can tell, it's a Rorschach test. If you are looking for an anti-Capitalist Net Zero fanatic, you can find it. If you are looking for the thoughts of a seasoned central banker with a clear eyed view on historic challenges like climate change, you can find that too. JG
If you think that climate change is a historic challenge that justifies serious (and therefore expensive) emission reductions on Canada's part, you are yourself a Net Zero fanatic.
I mean...ok. Virtually every poll on the subject shows a supermajority of Canadians believe climate change is real, and that we should do *something* about it, though the nature of that something varies widely. Even among Conservative voters, there's surprising levels of support for things like industrial carbon taxes, akin to what Alberta has championed under Conservative governments.
If you think CC isn't real and/or that we should do nothing, that puts you in the ~ 10-15% category of Canadian voters. So I guess the real question is: "who is the fanatic, here?"
What fraction of Canadians think that we should do something that is expensive to them personally? Like, eg, a carbon tax?
The evidence indicates that is a small number. People are happy to do things that they think cost nothing, or that will be expensive for, eg, other provinces.
Any serious emission reductions will be very expensive. I'm just in the small minority honest enough to admit it. And smart enough to realize that shoving all the costs onto other provinces isn't practical.
Trump’s the economic equivalent of a Flat Earther - if you’ve met them, you know the type: dead set on a flawed theory that’s long since been abandoned in the face of abundant evidence, yet they insist it’s true because they’re fixated on some fairly superficial observations. What’s incredibly disturbing is the number of Americans who are following along and rallying behind Trump’s stupidity, including the passive acquiescence or active endorsement of elected Republicans. America is a terribly sick society, and we’re barely seeing an immune response in these political rallies.
The phrase I like best for Mr. Trump's economic theories "critical economic theory"... as in critical race theory.
In critical race theory, any disparity between racial groups is proof of racial discrimination. No other facts are relevant. (Fewer black people in industry X? That's proof that industry X discriminates against black people and the solution is racial discrimination in favour of black people in that industry.). But this doesn't work for white people... the over-representation of black people in the NBA is not evidence that whites or asians should be given favourable treatment and contracts in the NBA.
In critical economic theory, any trade deficit is proof of unfair trade practices against the USA and the solution is always tariffs and punishing that nation. No other facts are relevant. And just like in critical race theory, this doesn't work for other countries. If the US has a trade surplus with another country, this is NOT evidence of unfair US practices and in fact a 10% tariff agains that country by the USA is STILL the answer. Also trade in services doesn't count because that would undermine the "evidence" of unfair foreign practices.
Critical economic theory... it's the perfect economic theory to answer every question with the same answer without needing to check any data.
Canadians would rather be nice than respected so we aren't going to lead anything.
The joke is that there are so many sacred cows in Quebec even the cows are sacred. Throw in the French language and no-fee health care and that's a lot off the table.
There is a reason Canadians are this way though, and its because if we lead in anything its in keeping a multicultural society together. We spend so much capital on keeping Quebec in Canada for instance that we don't have anything left in the bank to invest in leadership.
Notice what Carney's non-negotiables are, they are all Quebec centric. Notice who supports the Liberals, Eastern boomers, the generation obsessed with keeping Quebec a part of Canada and with integrating immigrants.
I still think the Liberals are absolutely finished when the boomers move on, or when Canada east of the Ottawa River undergoes demographic collapse. Canada is basically held together by spending so much on bribes for that generation and that part of the country we can't afford to lead anything anymore or invest in our growth. This is all quantified in our economic performance and the performance of our social programs.
As a former Quebecer with relatives there, I think some Quebecers are more open to voting Conservative than in past elections. Quebec has many private health clinics and doctors who don't participate in the medicare system. Getting a family doctor in Quebec is much harder than in Ontario. I am sure the Canadian Supply Management will be adjusted in the next trade agreement.
When it comes to health care monopolies English Canada cares much more about keeping it. America love/hate obsession is their creed and universal health care is a rebuke to the American way.
Universal Health Care is a good policy. However, many people cannot access the health care system promptly. People have to wait months for surgery, etc.
It isn't that the NDP aren't relevant to Canada any longet, its that they aren't relevent to the 2 election questions: Trump and Polliviere. Boomers feel that Carney will protect their house prices (MAJOR concern) from Trump and women of most ages dislike Polliviere. Carney actually has no solution to Trump but maybe being not-Trudeau is enough for Trump to reduce the histrionics. Women appear to dislike Polliviere's aggressiveness; it seems excessively nasty.
Sadly, the NDP has no role in this election. Perhaps a new leader will take the party back to its union & western agrarian roots. Until that happens, we're stuck with the Liberals elitism and economic mismanagement.
"We don't like Trump, but we don't like anyone who is aggressive enough to stand up to him either.*
Poilievre basically has chosen to rather be respected than liked and that just doesn't work for Canadian women. It's a cultural thing. It's IMHO a cultural flaw but it is who we are. It's that "rather be liked than respected" cultural trait that keeps Canada together. Who else would bend over that much for Ottawa and the Atlantic otherwise?
What ballot question would give the NDP relevance?
Because it seems to me that Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh together may have permanently killed the NDP by making "never let the Conservatives win" the ultimate ballot question for "the left".
If you can't ever risk a Conservative win, then you have to back the LPC every time.
What ballot question would change that and make people vote NDP?
I am wondering why it isn't more obvious to others that aside from Mr. Singh's general unpopularity, the reason the federal NDP are losing vote share is because every left of centre voter is terrified of the certainty (to them) that Poilievre is a bilingual Northern Trump. Carney is as popular as he is because he is the strongest alternative for most voters to what they perceive as a similar candidate to Trump. The Liberals are scooping up all of those votes.
Sure. But that doesn't change my point at all. The most important election in Canada happened in November of last year.
Elections are about fear. Previously, the conservatives were flying high by capitalizing on fears that government spending, inability to get anything done, and cost of living issues were out of control; now that Trump has been inaugurated, the only fear is the orange man. When people are afraid, they rally to safety. And if you're a centrist voter who thought maybe the liberals had gotten a bit stale, or you're a leftist voter who would never vote conservative, your choice is now easy: Carney. The safest choice in a time when you're afraid some of the MAGA policies will make their way north of the border.
I am not sure I agree. Six months ago if you'd asked voters in Canada if they felt that maybe the civil service had gotten a bit big (maybe government was *cough* broken and inefficient?), wokeness had gotten out of control, and immigration was too high, you'd find a lot of sympathetic ears. Nowadays the whole conservative platform has to be redone as it too closely resembles MAGA. 🤷🏻♂️
I don't think the conservative platform resembles MAGA at all. There is a difference between national pride and massively rounding up anyone you think is an illegal immigrant and deporting them. There's a difference between making the federal service more efficient through allowed measures and creating an agency to go in with a wrecking ball and change everything. And there's a difference between being a lunatic who posts random shit on social media in the middle of the night (Trump) and changes his opinions more often than he changes his underwear (Trump) vs. being a rational person with reasonable policies that are good for Canada (conservatives.) I don't agree with all of the conservative platforms, but I agree with removing safer supply. I agree with harsher prison sentences for criminals. I agree with reducing our federal deficit, making Canada less dependent on the US increasing funding to Canada's military, reducing red tape, and improving efficiency in the public service.
Anyone who thinks the conservative platform is too close to MAGA is just believing the liberals/NDP and isn't actually doing their own research. And honestly - if someone's sole source of info on the vote is what media releases rather than actually reading party platform documents? Then I'm going to call that person a low information voter who is voting on propaganda rather than reality. I've done that in the past, learned my lesson, and now vote based on official platform documents. They're long and time consuming to read - but it's the only way to ACTUALLY know what you're voting for.
Another ray of hope is that the U.S. justice system will be able to rein in, or at least slow down, Trump. Some of his Executive Orders have already been stayed by lower courts, with one of the stays already upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. I think that there will be a lot more such stays.
An interesting one concerns Trump's tariffs. Two conservative groups have filed for stays, claiming that Trump has exceeded his authority. Trump has been careful to give legal grounds for the tariffs, citing a 1977 law that gives the President wide powers in case of an emergency. That might have flown -- if at a grat stretch -- for fentanyl and illegal border crossings. But how can penguins on Heard Island and the MacDonald Islands constitute an emergency? How do St. Pierre and Miquelon threaten U.S. security?
But just in case the 1977 law does give the President such powers, it can then be argued that Congress cannot delegate such broad powers to the Executive Branch. Doing so would violate the basic principle of separation of Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary.
Judicial decisions are hard to predict, but I'm pretty sure that the U.S. Supreme Court would hold these tariffs to be unconstitutional.
The real problem, of course, is whether Trump will listen to the courts. So far he has, even while complaining bitterly. Historically, there have been only two instances of U.S. Presidents ignoring the Supreme Court -- Andrew Jackson in 1837 (ordering a stop to settler encroachment on Indian lands in Georgia), and Abraham Lincoln (suspending habeas corpus on the rail line between Philadelphia and Washington in 1861 during the Civil War). Will Trump be a third instance? And will the people stand for it? I don't think so.
Turns out history will consider Jagmeet Singh a consequential politician after all, but for the most uncharitable of reasons. Last fall he was served up the easiest path to official opposition one could ever see, and he drove right past it into a giant hole in the ground. If this was all really about his pension, this will likely amount to the most expensive pension in the history of pensions. Hundreds of billions in spending to fund one guy at $70K/year.
If Jagmeet was hired by the LPC to do their exact bidding he wouldn't have done a thing differently. I really think he is personally despised now - both in and outside the NDP - for how ineffectual and spineless his time as leader has been. It's also clear he's not even trying to campaign and it's likely that if he was spontaneously replaced by just about anyone else his party would go up in the polls.
As to the idea lefties are lining up behind "no lefty" Carney, the simplest explanation is that they know his pivot to the right isn't real. If and when he is installed as PM, we will see all the same Trudeau era policies re-emerge, perhaps with a slightly more pseudo-patriotic coat of paint at least until US Congress removes Trump from power. The left knows this and so do all the special interest groups. Got to keep the gravy train running.
If the CPC has an oppo drop Tsar Bomba regarding Carney, we are fast approaching the point of no return so better use it soon. I'm not even sure if anything would be bad enough to steer his voters back to the NDP/Bloc/Greens at this point though. Poilievre's very existence is worse to these voters than anything Mark Carney could have plausibly done.
> As to the idea lefties are lining up behind "no lefty" Carney, the simplest explanation is that they know his pivot to the right isn't real.
There's a simpler explanation... that it's either an LPC or a Conservative government.... it's either Prime Minister Carney or Prime Minister Poilievre even if the pivot is completely genuine.
Well, both of those men did in fact lose to a Prime Minister Trudeau, who had already lost a fair bit of popularity, and neither of them were as “new right” as Mr. Poilievre.
Ultimately, though I think Mr. Singh is channelling a fair bit of “the left” when he says that he wouldn’t work with a conservative government under any circumstances. That’s new.
If you’re not prepared to risk a conservative government, you’re not voting for a third place leftist party which means you’re voting for the banker.
It's also hard to explain why these other left-leaning voters were, for 18 months, more ok with a Poilievre super-majority government than another term of Justin Trudeau. You'd think they'd be even less enthusiastic about Carney - a man who in an alternate reality could plausibly be running as a (very centrist) Conservative leader.
Do they now really, literally believe that Pierre as PM would just turn around and hand the national keys to Trump?
The common argument is that it cones down to two things.
Mr. Trudeau being *especially* unpopular and a change in the ballot question to Donald Trump. And that happens to fit with the perception I see in “the left” that a conservative government is unthinkable, not a slightly less preferred alternative to working with the LPC.
Jen Gerson's comment about Manning and his ilk really resonated with me:
QUOTE
These people aren’t serious. They’re Quebec separatist LARPers.
END QUOTE
As did her subsequent analysis of the likely outcome of all this unserious kvetching that they and theirs are indulging in.
- - - - - - -
As for the United States under Donald Trump, I'm inclined to agree with you.
Short of a major shift in the consciences of the Republicans in Congress, a serious economic crash (not just a recession, but a major shrinkage--approaching five percent of US GDP this year) AND much bigger protests, ** nothing ** is likely to force a halt to Trump's policy of consigning the United States to economic suicide (and the associated act of global vandalism being perpetrated to facilitate that goal) between now and the end of 2025.
Even the other issues, including the Trump regime's horrific treatment of dissidents in the United States (in my view, the reactionary arrests and summary deportations are just beginning) are likely to persist until Trump is removed from office.
It is worth noting that the Financial Times today published an op-ed that drew a link between Trump's tutelage under the mafia lawyer, Roy Cohn, and his mafioso's approach to global governance today. The op-ed, by Gideon Rachman, went on to note that there is a big difference between Trump's understanding of how these things "should work" and the reality of dealing with the collective outrage provoked by his attacks on most of the world's sovereign states (friend and foe alike).
Hint: It's not like in the movies.
C.f.: Gideon Rachman, Trump and the mob boss approach to global markets: The US president discovers that it is easier to shake down a law firm than to reshape the international trading system, the Financial Times, 7 April 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/994616da-d637-48aa-8599-cbcf1c88d0d4.
Good on Matt for replicating in writing Jen’s verbal argument against a free self determining Alberta. Of course their logic assumes that Canadians will wake up after the election and not notice any difference from the day before.
Too bad they weren’t around 249 years ago George Washington after reading this would have traded in his blue uniform for a red coat.
Their points while internally consistent ignore the value of faith and love of country which is a hallmark of American culture. And once the possibility of Alberta statehood emerges, I’m totally convinced the US goodwill and support of all kinds - political, economic and military if need be - will be overwhelming. Ask anyone who naturalizes as an American citizen - the welcome and congratulations even from total strangers are just overwhelming. In Canada the view is more likely to be “another foreigner to house and feed”.
Logical arguments assume everyone is playing the same game - say bridge - and is following the same rules. Canadians by and large are some of the biggest rule followers in the universe as they know it. But when the game changes to say Texas Hold-em they panic and circle the wagons shouting “one no-Trump” ( Sorry I couldn’t resist 😆😆).
I was listening to a CBC interview with Mark Rowlands, chair of the department of philosophy at the university of Miami and is the author of The Word of Dog. His thesis is that humans can learn about happiness and commitment from dogs. He related an anecdote that when it was time for a car ride, his dog would fetch its leash and toss it up and try to put the leash around its neck. I couldn’t help but think that the analogy perfectly fits Canadian voters 🙄
In reply to your invitation to left readers (I'm a subscriber because I like reading what intelligent conservatives have to say even though I've never voted Lib or Con since I became old enough to vote in 1967), yes, I do have a theory about why the federal NDP is doing so poorly. They are not bold enough, not far enough to the left! They've been creeping rightward since the Cold War started. The early leaders (Douglas, Lewis) were not bad, but since the free trade election of 1988 (Broadbent was awful), it's been downhill. What I'm saying is best illustrated by denticare. It's means-tested, unlike medicare which is universal, so that no-one can think "why should I pay for this guy's heart operation through my taxes when I have to buy insurance for mine?". Singh was in favour of means-testing back when he was running for the leadership, so it wasn't forced by the Libs. It's the NDP caving to the insurance companies, which can go on selling dental insurance to most people.
In Alberta there has always, since at least the NEP, the constantly embittered (with some real and mostly not so real complaints) and a few loud politicians with a slogan without plan or vision who want to bitch that "the only good thing that comes out of the east is the sun".
They are loud and the embittered repeat the mantra but the vast majority of Albertans would land in the centre/status quo and ignore the clown in the assless chaos (pronounced shaps Jen) despite the noise she makes, the trips she takes and the corruption she is either part of or condones.
While Canada can and should pay a "bit" of attention to the legitimate grievances regarding things like regional equity in opportunity and useless pandering on ineffective gun control directed at trained, legitimate gun owners who are NOT the problem!
The NDP are making the same mistake they have been making for the last 20 years. They are so fearful of a Conservative government, that they attack them with everything they have.
They go after the Tories hammer and tongs. But guess what happens? They fear monger the Tories so much, they scare their soft supporters to the Liberals, particularly in southern Ontario and suburban Vancouver.
This time, it worked too well. Dippers are so scared of Poilievre, they are rushing to support a capitalist central banker.
Add to that Singh’s refusal to bring down the government when he had a chance when it was led by an unpopular PM, and it solidifies my position that the federal NDP is politically inept.
Between covid authoritarianism and gender ideology, Canada's left split in the last few years. The old pro-worker, pro-poor, lefties are, like Canadian blue collars, now Conservatives (or perhaps PPC).. As are those feminists who believe in actual rights for actual women.
The lefties who were attracted to pure authoritarianism for authoritarianism's sake, or believed in absolute technocratic rule as a way to perfect humanity, are now Liberals. They know perfectly well, unlike, apparently, Canadian boomers and journalists, that Carney will happily sacrifice the future of Canadians (and especially their children) on the altars of Net Zero, Mass Immigration/DEI, and the authoritarian administrative state.
Canadians' prosocial nature means that this authoritarianism can be quite soft, with only a few arrests and political prisoners and more paid self-censorshio than hard silencing, but it will continue to be quite real.
Wickedly true.
> political prisoners
Oh puh-leaze... Canada doesn't have those. Not one single one.
Nothing says "I'm so sheltered that I have no idea what actual authoritarianism is" than that sentence of yours.
Tell that to the Freedom Convoy organizers, and then compare what was done to them vs. to the pro-Hamas protesters.
This tells us all that you similarly don't know a thing about what authoritarism is.
The law coming down hard on a massive, long standing street protest in a capital city along with blockades on border crossings isn't "political prisoner". It's crime.
Think the convoy protest organizers are "political prisoners" is right up there with fantastic statements about "all taxation is theft" and so-called "freemen on the land" pseudo-legal rubbish.
"Political prisoners"? That's entirely unserious chatter.
How many protesters calling to globalize the intifada and blockading streets/malls/campuses over the past year and a half had their bank accounts frozen?
A common hallmark of authoritarianism is selectively applied lawfare based on political considerations. What's the saying? “For our friends, everything; for our enemies, the law.”
That were off the scale of the convoy protest?
Zero.
Scale matters.
And that’s true no matter how you feel about the convoy protests. Good or ill… they were not small things the government could just ignore and wait for it to inevitably away.
Nothing says that you don’t have a serious political outlook, then fantasizing that you’re a political prisoner in Canada.
2 months vs. 18, if we're talking scale. If those same protesters had blockaded Ottawa demanding more Net Zero or Defund the Police or something similarly left-coded, the feds would never have cracked down on them.
This authoritarianism will be nice. More like your mom than your coach or competent boss.
I cannot resist reading a bit of sarcasm into that line.
So who is missing the federal lefties ? I sure as heck do not. Terrorist-cheering dictatorial miscreants. Except these days they call themselves Liberals.
And why do I read the comments first, and only then the column ?
Carney IS a leftist. For the time being, for political expedience, he is keeping it under the surface. If he becomes an actually elected PM, his policies will make it clear. And he is the worst kind of leftist, very rich and keeping his money out of his country's jurisdiction while his party is pilfering the population through misgovernance. The Anointed God King, the one of profitably elastic ethics, Marx Carnage, . Hypocrite to the core. Politically, Canada is not much healthier than USA.
The nice thing about a resource economy is business flight isn't really a risk. An auto plant can be packed up and relocated to Mexico, but the oilsands cannot be. So no, Alberta wouldn't have anywhere near the same exposure to business flight as Quebec. The notion that CNRL would relocate its oil extraction operation away from......the oil......is far more fanciful than even the most optimistic Wexit scenarios. It's kind of like worrying about fishing companies potentially relocating their businesses away from water, or an airline company relocating its operations away from the sky.
The only thing scaring investment cash out of Alberta is Ottawa's regulatory stranglehold, so Wexit would if anything trigger an influx of capital.
See https://open.substack.com/pub/milesmcstylez/p/canada-should-not-be-the-51st-state
For those allegedly missing specifics.
Someone might want to let Encana know that they're stuck here.
Certain aspects of physical extraction can't move. Have you been paying any attention at all to the major oil companies that have severely lessened their staff and/or decamped since 2014?
Do you think that Alberta's entire economy consists of physical oil rigs?
A province run by Wexiteers is not going to trigger a capital inflow. That's just total fantasyland.
JG
Corporate offices can relocate, but then like you said the great decamping is damage that's already done. That's like worrying about whether Wexit might lead to carbon taxes and emission caps - there's no actual downside risk if those are things that are already happening anyway.
51st statehood would trigger a massive capital inflow, because Ottawa's Net Zero policies get replaced by Washington's Drill Baby Drill.
You think that holding a referendum presents 0 downside economic risk to a province that has the highest GDP per capita at present.
This is not a serious argument. It's juvenile wishcasting.
JG
Compared to the current 50 US states, Alberta is nowhere near the highest GDP per capita despite having abundant natural resources. Alberta's per capita GDP being above the rest of Canada isn't because Alberta is that prosperous; it's because the rest of Canada is that broke.
And when the only downside risks you can mention are *checks notes* things that are already happening under the status quo (like corporate decamping), 51st statehood looks more and more like all upside and no downside.
The worst case scenario is joining the US and getting a big economic boost. That's always been true for Canada, and especially Alberta. The reason not to do that has been our emotional attachment to fellow Canadians.
At some point that wears thin.
Sometimes doing nothing is the bigger risk. The numbers show that to be the case here.
As for Jen, I can't help notice a lot of her arguments against a more assertive Alberta are the same arguments used by abusers trying to keep their spouse in a relationship.
Except that she's Albertan. The main thing is that Canadians are very strongly status quo biased, and very strongly established authority biased, and very risk averse. Obviously Alberta is likely to gain from secession over another Liberal government, (and who's to say there won't be an infinite sequence of Liberal governments?), but there is a tail risk (Carney orders the PPCLI to seize the Alberta legislature, provokes a civil war, and the US intervenes) which could involve temporary unpleasantness. So maybe Alberta would chicken out.
We need to always remember that our ancestors are the people who read the Declaration of Independence and said "I'm for King George".
But maybe Alberta wouldn't chicken out.
Which is why I want the low risk outcome of a Conservative victory.
And the whole "landlocked" thing is a joke. Firstly, if we believe Trump is out to get Canada, why wouldn't he offer an independent Alberta a good deal, including plenty of oil export access?
Secondly, look at a map - if Canada plays hardball with an independent Alberta, we lose access to BC, YT, and NWT. Alberta has more weight in a post independence negotiation with Ottawa than it does now.
You can definitely trust *checks notes* Donald Trump to give *checks notes again* foreigners a great deal. Not like he'd use an isolated nation that had just pissed off the rest of Confederation to lock our oil distribution networks into the US system at widly below market rates.
Lol.
JG
Alberta will give Carney a chance. But we all know that he will reveal strangulation of Alberta oil & gas to be his agenda. At that point, a Trump maybe becomes a better risk than a Canadian "no".
51st statehood = foreigners no longer. Problem solved. And if Trump ultimately wants to annex all of Canada, he has every incentive to give the first movers a good deal pour encourager les autres. If he screws over Alberta then he'll scare away Saskatchewan et al.
Jen, I think the critical cog in the Alberta “sovereignty” scenario is a credible offer of American Statehood. Without that, it’s a joke, or like you say, Quebec separatist LARPing.
A referendum on Alberta independence alone would be doomed to fail. But, a referendum on becoming the 51st state, under the right conditions, may not. This is what is going unsaid by both Premier Smith and Preston Manning. We’re not there now or yet. And if Carney wins and governs even close to what he’s campaigned on, we won’t get there either. BUT - if this goes another direction and Carney fulfills all of his worst suspicions, there is a realistic scenario where shit could go sideways.
> is a credible offer of American Statehood
The catch is that there isn't a credible offer.
The *offer* is there, but it's not credible. You have to be a territory FIRST. Only then can the territory petition congress to be admitted as a state. It's nothing but words.
In other words.. you have to give up all your leverage, become a territory, draft a constitution and then trust that the **next** President AND **next** congress (because all that stuff takes a while) will agree.. all without anything going terribly wrong or the Americans deciding to use their now massive leverage against a bunch of foreign born Johnny-come-latelies.
It's not impossible.. it's just that there can't be a credible offer ahead of Alberta giving up all leverage and taking it on faith.
Texas was never a territory. It joined the USA as an independent republic which became a state.
Maybe. But I don’t totally agree that this process can’t be short circuited and even legally short circuited under the current admin though. I don’t know about the being a territory first thing being required? Wasn’t Texas an independent country for a minute and then went straight to statehood? How about all the western states and Louisiana? In any regard - I stand by my statement for better or worse. It would need to be proposed that way (or with a formal economic union with the USA which I would think Trump less likely to be interested in) or not at all.
Are you arguing that you can get the US to violate their constitution in order to admit a state AND have it stand up to court scrutiny all with the politics of it up in the air?
That seems wildly less plausible.
> why wouldn't he offer an independent Alberta a good deal, including plenty of oil export access?
Because he doesn't have to. Say what you will about Trump... giving things away when he doesn't have to is NOT one of his attributes. If you want something from him, you need LEVERAGE.
Mr. Trump (like every US leader) goes into every negotiation to get as much as he can for himself and US interests as he sees them and giving away as little as possible. Unlike other US leaders, he sees every negotiation as zero sum. EVERY concession he makes is a loss to him and there's no such thing as a win-win. That's the way he operates and it's what he says about negotiations.
To get something from Mr. Trump you need leverage to make him accept a "loss". Alberta has precious little leverage right now. Making itself smaller and weaker to go into negotiations reduces that even further.
Remember... you have to use leverage to force him accept a "loss" in negotiation because giving you ANYTHING in at all in negotiation is a loss. You don't have leverage. So he doesn't have to give you a good deal. So he won't... (and to be fair... no one gives you a good deal unless you have leverage.)
US gets more domestic oil. There is Trump's win for America. No need to get him to take a loss when statehood is a win-win for both Alberta and the USA. The only loser is the rest of Canada and Trump if anything sees that as a bonus.
You keep saying this. But you keep avoiding the very basic assumption you’re making.
After you give up all your leverage by leaving Canada and absolutely land locking yourself …. Then you trust them to give you a great deal.
Well…. That’s one thing to believe.
Up to you if you choose to believe though.
It's not an assumption so much as an incredibly easy problem to solve. There's no reason why statehood negotiations can't start before the separation referendum.
Step 1) Negotiate a Letter of Intent from the USA along the lines of "if Alberta separates from Canada and applies for statehood, we will provide statehood on X timeline" (also pre-negotiate contentious issues like healthcare, infrastructure, defense, etc.)
Step 2) Use the LOI as the basis for a referendum (since the referendum is required to have a "clear question")
Step 3) if the referendum passes, apply for statehood per the parameters already pre-negotiated in the LOI
Step 4) Once statehood is secured, commence separation negotiations with Ottawa
The hardest part is negotiating the terms of the LOI, but if Trump (or Vance) wants Canadian territory to become American territory, then he's incentivized to both offer Alberta a decent deal and then stick to it, so that other provinces like Saskatchewan have a template to follow if they so choose.
I went into some more detail a couple months ago here https://milesmcstylez.substack.com/p/canada-should-not-be-the-51st-state
I love the sound of trains. Whether they are commuter trains rolling through St. Henry or stacked, cargo trains rumbling through Bowness. You feel the sound as much as hear it.
Alberta is landlocked but the commercial traffic that crosses through, East-West and back, is substantial. My understanding is that the federation guarantees cross-province access. The alternative is through the USA or the, now USA controlled, Panama Canal.
Money talks. Always. And when the cost of remaining in the federation outweighs the benefit, things will change. Anyone who visited Calgary in the early '80s will remember the unemployed engineers driving taxis in a failing effort to not lose their homes. Interest rates in the high-teens to keep inflationary pressure in Toronto under control.
Polls suggested a CPC landslide, and now they don't. Hardcore Quebec separatists normally account for 35% of their population. They are still there. And with a very uncertain future, nothing should be off the table. And who is afraid of discussion?
I would say Alberta is already at a point where the costs of remaining part of Canada outweigh the benefits.
How will Alberta the Nation get it's oil to market? It would have to negotiate with its's former senior government.
Thats why the oil companies will leave. They can extract the oil, they may not have the means to sell it. Hence, goodbye.
Everything has a price and cheap oil can literally move mountains. It eventually becomes so irresistible that enemies will even buy it. Just ask Russia.
The issue is what is the inflection point where even with this fact it is still better off to go it alone than suffer living in a country that doesn't respect you or is excellent at anything other than producing Marvel Universe stars.
Or take 51st statehood; be part of a more economically functional country that doesn't rely on transfer payments from Alberta to stay nationally solvent.
Keep in mind Canada has already blocked every east/west pipeline, so all the oil has to flow through Montana regardless.
I can see why you say Carney’s no lefty, especially given he’s axed the tax (or at least zeroed it out!), and plagiarized lots of the rest of the Cons’ policies. But isn’t ‘Values’ chock full of green zealotry, indictments of allegedly amoral capitalism, and calls for big government programs? Since we all know this is what he Carney really believes, maybe Canada’s left wing voters’ support of him is more explicable than you think?
I am not finished Value(s), but from what I can tell, it's a Rorschach test. If you are looking for an anti-Capitalist Net Zero fanatic, you can find it. If you are looking for the thoughts of a seasoned central banker with a clear eyed view on historic challenges like climate change, you can find that too. JG
If you think that climate change is a historic challenge that justifies serious (and therefore expensive) emission reductions on Canada's part, you are yourself a Net Zero fanatic.
I mean...ok. Virtually every poll on the subject shows a supermajority of Canadians believe climate change is real, and that we should do *something* about it, though the nature of that something varies widely. Even among Conservative voters, there's surprising levels of support for things like industrial carbon taxes, akin to what Alberta has championed under Conservative governments.
If you think CC isn't real and/or that we should do nothing, that puts you in the ~ 10-15% category of Canadian voters. So I guess the real question is: "who is the fanatic, here?"
What fraction of Canadians think that we should do something that is expensive to them personally? Like, eg, a carbon tax?
The evidence indicates that is a small number. People are happy to do things that they think cost nothing, or that will be expensive for, eg, other provinces.
Any serious emission reductions will be very expensive. I'm just in the small minority honest enough to admit it. And smart enough to realize that shoving all the costs onto other provinces isn't practical.
Pretty sure the “covid authoritarianism” comment nailed down the answer to that question.
Trump’s the economic equivalent of a Flat Earther - if you’ve met them, you know the type: dead set on a flawed theory that’s long since been abandoned in the face of abundant evidence, yet they insist it’s true because they’re fixated on some fairly superficial observations. What’s incredibly disturbing is the number of Americans who are following along and rallying behind Trump’s stupidity, including the passive acquiescence or active endorsement of elected Republicans. America is a terribly sick society, and we’re barely seeing an immune response in these political rallies.
The phrase I like best for Mr. Trump's economic theories "critical economic theory"... as in critical race theory.
In critical race theory, any disparity between racial groups is proof of racial discrimination. No other facts are relevant. (Fewer black people in industry X? That's proof that industry X discriminates against black people and the solution is racial discrimination in favour of black people in that industry.). But this doesn't work for white people... the over-representation of black people in the NBA is not evidence that whites or asians should be given favourable treatment and contracts in the NBA.
In critical economic theory, any trade deficit is proof of unfair trade practices against the USA and the solution is always tariffs and punishing that nation. No other facts are relevant. And just like in critical race theory, this doesn't work for other countries. If the US has a trade surplus with another country, this is NOT evidence of unfair US practices and in fact a 10% tariff agains that country by the USA is STILL the answer. Also trade in services doesn't count because that would undermine the "evidence" of unfair foreign practices.
Critical economic theory... it's the perfect economic theory to answer every question with the same answer without needing to check any data.
What an absolutely trash take.
Excellent take.
Canadians would rather be nice than respected so we aren't going to lead anything.
The joke is that there are so many sacred cows in Quebec even the cows are sacred. Throw in the French language and no-fee health care and that's a lot off the table.
There is a reason Canadians are this way though, and its because if we lead in anything its in keeping a multicultural society together. We spend so much capital on keeping Quebec in Canada for instance that we don't have anything left in the bank to invest in leadership.
Notice what Carney's non-negotiables are, they are all Quebec centric. Notice who supports the Liberals, Eastern boomers, the generation obsessed with keeping Quebec a part of Canada and with integrating immigrants.
I still think the Liberals are absolutely finished when the boomers move on, or when Canada east of the Ottawa River undergoes demographic collapse. Canada is basically held together by spending so much on bribes for that generation and that part of the country we can't afford to lead anything anymore or invest in our growth. This is all quantified in our economic performance and the performance of our social programs.
As a former Quebecer with relatives there, I think some Quebecers are more open to voting Conservative than in past elections. Quebec has many private health clinics and doctors who don't participate in the medicare system. Getting a family doctor in Quebec is much harder than in Ontario. I am sure the Canadian Supply Management will be adjusted in the next trade agreement.
When it comes to health care monopolies English Canada cares much more about keeping it. America love/hate obsession is their creed and universal health care is a rebuke to the American way.
Universal Health Care is a good policy. However, many people cannot access the health care system promptly. People have to wait months for surgery, etc.
It isn't that the NDP aren't relevant to Canada any longet, its that they aren't relevent to the 2 election questions: Trump and Polliviere. Boomers feel that Carney will protect their house prices (MAJOR concern) from Trump and women of most ages dislike Polliviere. Carney actually has no solution to Trump but maybe being not-Trudeau is enough for Trump to reduce the histrionics. Women appear to dislike Polliviere's aggressiveness; it seems excessively nasty.
Sadly, the NDP has no role in this election. Perhaps a new leader will take the party back to its union & western agrarian roots. Until that happens, we're stuck with the Liberals elitism and economic mismanagement.
"We don't like Trump, but we don't like anyone who is aggressive enough to stand up to him either.*
Poilievre basically has chosen to rather be respected than liked and that just doesn't work for Canadian women. It's a cultural thing. It's IMHO a cultural flaw but it is who we are. It's that "rather be liked than respected" cultural trait that keeps Canada together. Who else would bend over that much for Ottawa and the Atlantic otherwise?
You are right on. You can be the nastiest backstabbing pedophile in the cell block. But as long as you’re polite you’re a true Canadian hero.
Supposedly Paul Bernardo gets absolute metric tonnes of fan mail, mostly from Canadian women.
Yep. His Mama must have taught him to mind his manners 🙄
It’s the “we’re stuck with... ” part I hate.
What ballot question would give the NDP relevance?
Because it seems to me that Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh together may have permanently killed the NDP by making "never let the Conservatives win" the ultimate ballot question for "the left".
If you can't ever risk a Conservative win, then you have to back the LPC every time.
What ballot question would change that and make people vote NDP?
I am wondering why it isn't more obvious to others that aside from Mr. Singh's general unpopularity, the reason the federal NDP are losing vote share is because every left of centre voter is terrified of the certainty (to them) that Poilievre is a bilingual Northern Trump. Carney is as popular as he is because he is the strongest alternative for most voters to what they perceive as a similar candidate to Trump. The Liberals are scooping up all of those votes.
But even when the Liberals were tanking in the polls over the last two years, the NDP numbers never moved beyond the margin of error.
Sure. But that doesn't change my point at all. The most important election in Canada happened in November of last year.
Elections are about fear. Previously, the conservatives were flying high by capitalizing on fears that government spending, inability to get anything done, and cost of living issues were out of control; now that Trump has been inaugurated, the only fear is the orange man. When people are afraid, they rally to safety. And if you're a centrist voter who thought maybe the liberals had gotten a bit stale, or you're a leftist voter who would never vote conservative, your choice is now easy: Carney. The safest choice in a time when you're afraid some of the MAGA policies will make their way north of the border.
Which is a big wild as I think carney may be more like Trump than Poilievre.
(To be clear neither is a Trump person - but I suspect some of carneys ideals may run closer to Trump than the conservatives)
I am not sure I agree. Six months ago if you'd asked voters in Canada if they felt that maybe the civil service had gotten a bit big (maybe government was *cough* broken and inefficient?), wokeness had gotten out of control, and immigration was too high, you'd find a lot of sympathetic ears. Nowadays the whole conservative platform has to be redone as it too closely resembles MAGA. 🤷🏻♂️
I don't think the conservative platform resembles MAGA at all. There is a difference between national pride and massively rounding up anyone you think is an illegal immigrant and deporting them. There's a difference between making the federal service more efficient through allowed measures and creating an agency to go in with a wrecking ball and change everything. And there's a difference between being a lunatic who posts random shit on social media in the middle of the night (Trump) and changes his opinions more often than he changes his underwear (Trump) vs. being a rational person with reasonable policies that are good for Canada (conservatives.) I don't agree with all of the conservative platforms, but I agree with removing safer supply. I agree with harsher prison sentences for criminals. I agree with reducing our federal deficit, making Canada less dependent on the US increasing funding to Canada's military, reducing red tape, and improving efficiency in the public service.
Anyone who thinks the conservative platform is too close to MAGA is just believing the liberals/NDP and isn't actually doing their own research. And honestly - if someone's sole source of info on the vote is what media releases rather than actually reading party platform documents? Then I'm going to call that person a low information voter who is voting on propaganda rather than reality. I've done that in the past, learned my lesson, and now vote based on official platform documents. They're long and time consuming to read - but it's the only way to ACTUALLY know what you're voting for.
Another ray of hope is that the U.S. justice system will be able to rein in, or at least slow down, Trump. Some of his Executive Orders have already been stayed by lower courts, with one of the stays already upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. I think that there will be a lot more such stays.
An interesting one concerns Trump's tariffs. Two conservative groups have filed for stays, claiming that Trump has exceeded his authority. Trump has been careful to give legal grounds for the tariffs, citing a 1977 law that gives the President wide powers in case of an emergency. That might have flown -- if at a grat stretch -- for fentanyl and illegal border crossings. But how can penguins on Heard Island and the MacDonald Islands constitute an emergency? How do St. Pierre and Miquelon threaten U.S. security?
But just in case the 1977 law does give the President such powers, it can then be argued that Congress cannot delegate such broad powers to the Executive Branch. Doing so would violate the basic principle of separation of Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary.
Judicial decisions are hard to predict, but I'm pretty sure that the U.S. Supreme Court would hold these tariffs to be unconstitutional.
The real problem, of course, is whether Trump will listen to the courts. So far he has, even while complaining bitterly. Historically, there have been only two instances of U.S. Presidents ignoring the Supreme Court -- Andrew Jackson in 1837 (ordering a stop to settler encroachment on Indian lands in Georgia), and Abraham Lincoln (suspending habeas corpus on the rail line between Philadelphia and Washington in 1861 during the Civil War). Will Trump be a third instance? And will the people stand for it? I don't think so.
Turns out history will consider Jagmeet Singh a consequential politician after all, but for the most uncharitable of reasons. Last fall he was served up the easiest path to official opposition one could ever see, and he drove right past it into a giant hole in the ground. If this was all really about his pension, this will likely amount to the most expensive pension in the history of pensions. Hundreds of billions in spending to fund one guy at $70K/year.
If Jagmeet was hired by the LPC to do their exact bidding he wouldn't have done a thing differently. I really think he is personally despised now - both in and outside the NDP - for how ineffectual and spineless his time as leader has been. It's also clear he's not even trying to campaign and it's likely that if he was spontaneously replaced by just about anyone else his party would go up in the polls.
As to the idea lefties are lining up behind "no lefty" Carney, the simplest explanation is that they know his pivot to the right isn't real. If and when he is installed as PM, we will see all the same Trudeau era policies re-emerge, perhaps with a slightly more pseudo-patriotic coat of paint at least until US Congress removes Trump from power. The left knows this and so do all the special interest groups. Got to keep the gravy train running.
If the CPC has an oppo drop Tsar Bomba regarding Carney, we are fast approaching the point of no return so better use it soon. I'm not even sure if anything would be bad enough to steer his voters back to the NDP/Bloc/Greens at this point though. Poilievre's very existence is worse to these voters than anything Mark Carney could have plausibly done.
> As to the idea lefties are lining up behind "no lefty" Carney, the simplest explanation is that they know his pivot to the right isn't real.
There's a simpler explanation... that it's either an LPC or a Conservative government.... it's either Prime Minister Carney or Prime Minister Poilievre even if the pivot is completely genuine.
An NDP government isn't exactly plausible in most other elections though, to say nothing of the Greens or Bloc.
Why no rush on the left to line up against "pro life religious zealot" Scheer or "anti vaxer gun nut" O'Toole?
Well, both of those men did in fact lose to a Prime Minister Trudeau, who had already lost a fair bit of popularity, and neither of them were as “new right” as Mr. Poilievre.
Ultimately, though I think Mr. Singh is channelling a fair bit of “the left” when he says that he wouldn’t work with a conservative government under any circumstances. That’s new.
If you’re not prepared to risk a conservative government, you’re not voting for a third place leftist party which means you’re voting for the banker.
It's also hard to explain why these other left-leaning voters were, for 18 months, more ok with a Poilievre super-majority government than another term of Justin Trudeau. You'd think they'd be even less enthusiastic about Carney - a man who in an alternate reality could plausibly be running as a (very centrist) Conservative leader.
Do they now really, literally believe that Pierre as PM would just turn around and hand the national keys to Trump?
The common argument is that it cones down to two things.
Mr. Trudeau being *especially* unpopular and a change in the ballot question to Donald Trump. And that happens to fit with the perception I see in “the left” that a conservative government is unthinkable, not a slightly less preferred alternative to working with the LPC.
Why did you switch from "referendum" to "referenda" and then back to "referendum"?
Thank you for this.
Jen Gerson's comment about Manning and his ilk really resonated with me:
QUOTE
These people aren’t serious. They’re Quebec separatist LARPers.
END QUOTE
As did her subsequent analysis of the likely outcome of all this unserious kvetching that they and theirs are indulging in.
- - - - - - -
As for the United States under Donald Trump, I'm inclined to agree with you.
Short of a major shift in the consciences of the Republicans in Congress, a serious economic crash (not just a recession, but a major shrinkage--approaching five percent of US GDP this year) AND much bigger protests, ** nothing ** is likely to force a halt to Trump's policy of consigning the United States to economic suicide (and the associated act of global vandalism being perpetrated to facilitate that goal) between now and the end of 2025.
Even the other issues, including the Trump regime's horrific treatment of dissidents in the United States (in my view, the reactionary arrests and summary deportations are just beginning) are likely to persist until Trump is removed from office.
It is worth noting that the Financial Times today published an op-ed that drew a link between Trump's tutelage under the mafia lawyer, Roy Cohn, and his mafioso's approach to global governance today. The op-ed, by Gideon Rachman, went on to note that there is a big difference between Trump's understanding of how these things "should work" and the reality of dealing with the collective outrage provoked by his attacks on most of the world's sovereign states (friend and foe alike).
Hint: It's not like in the movies.
C.f.: Gideon Rachman, Trump and the mob boss approach to global markets: The US president discovers that it is easier to shake down a law firm than to reshape the international trading system, the Financial Times, 7 April 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/994616da-d637-48aa-8599-cbcf1c88d0d4.
Good on Matt for replicating in writing Jen’s verbal argument against a free self determining Alberta. Of course their logic assumes that Canadians will wake up after the election and not notice any difference from the day before.
Too bad they weren’t around 249 years ago George Washington after reading this would have traded in his blue uniform for a red coat.
Their points while internally consistent ignore the value of faith and love of country which is a hallmark of American culture. And once the possibility of Alberta statehood emerges, I’m totally convinced the US goodwill and support of all kinds - political, economic and military if need be - will be overwhelming. Ask anyone who naturalizes as an American citizen - the welcome and congratulations even from total strangers are just overwhelming. In Canada the view is more likely to be “another foreigner to house and feed”.
Logical arguments assume everyone is playing the same game - say bridge - and is following the same rules. Canadians by and large are some of the biggest rule followers in the universe as they know it. But when the game changes to say Texas Hold-em they panic and circle the wagons shouting “one no-Trump” ( Sorry I couldn’t resist 😆😆).
I was listening to a CBC interview with Mark Rowlands, chair of the department of philosophy at the university of Miami and is the author of The Word of Dog. His thesis is that humans can learn about happiness and commitment from dogs. He related an anecdote that when it was time for a car ride, his dog would fetch its leash and toss it up and try to put the leash around its neck. I couldn’t help but think that the analogy perfectly fits Canadian voters 🙄
Great comment, expressing what is in the minds of many Canadians.
In reply to your invitation to left readers (I'm a subscriber because I like reading what intelligent conservatives have to say even though I've never voted Lib or Con since I became old enough to vote in 1967), yes, I do have a theory about why the federal NDP is doing so poorly. They are not bold enough, not far enough to the left! They've been creeping rightward since the Cold War started. The early leaders (Douglas, Lewis) were not bad, but since the free trade election of 1988 (Broadbent was awful), it's been downhill. What I'm saying is best illustrated by denticare. It's means-tested, unlike medicare which is universal, so that no-one can think "why should I pay for this guy's heart operation through my taxes when I have to buy insurance for mine?". Singh was in favour of means-testing back when he was running for the leadership, so it wasn't forced by the Libs. It's the NDP caving to the insurance companies, which can go on selling dental insurance to most people.
In Alberta there has always, since at least the NEP, the constantly embittered (with some real and mostly not so real complaints) and a few loud politicians with a slogan without plan or vision who want to bitch that "the only good thing that comes out of the east is the sun".
They are loud and the embittered repeat the mantra but the vast majority of Albertans would land in the centre/status quo and ignore the clown in the assless chaos (pronounced shaps Jen) despite the noise she makes, the trips she takes and the corruption she is either part of or condones.
While Canada can and should pay a "bit" of attention to the legitimate grievances regarding things like regional equity in opportunity and useless pandering on ineffective gun control directed at trained, legitimate gun owners who are NOT the problem!
The NDP are making the same mistake they have been making for the last 20 years. They are so fearful of a Conservative government, that they attack them with everything they have.
They go after the Tories hammer and tongs. But guess what happens? They fear monger the Tories so much, they scare their soft supporters to the Liberals, particularly in southern Ontario and suburban Vancouver.
This time, it worked too well. Dippers are so scared of Poilievre, they are rushing to support a capitalist central banker.
Add to that Singh’s refusal to bring down the government when he had a chance when it was led by an unpopular PM, and it solidifies my position that the federal NDP is politically inept.