Mr Quinn just said a lot of what Canadians know already. The best thing that the Trump presidency can do for Canada is free trade. Free trade within Canada that is. Doing away with some of the ridiculous rules and regulations between provinces would boost the Canadian economy by billions. Lets hope a new Prime Minister can begin to work with the Premiers to get the economy rolling.
Maybe since Canada is the largest supplier of crude oil to the US (4.4 million barrels PER DAY) we are not as weak as some believe.. We contribute 20% of the US economy and the US has a trade deficit of $53.5 billion. No, we are not "weak"
Problem is if we don't get our shit together the US will start getting there supply's from other countries that are more willing trade partners with growing economies. This is a long term game and they can easily shift there resources elsewhere and become less dependent on our oil and gas. Milei was one of the first leaders to visit Trump. It has already started.
Also it could start leading to a brain drain from experienced oilfield personnel and other trades.. Paying more money in American dollars gives a person like me a 50% immediate increase in wealth. Some people have said why would you do that if you are a proud Canadian. Well because Canada abandoned me twice and broke me twice(family included).
It's not that easy to switch oil supplies. As the Canadian energy sector already knows, pipelines and pipeline capacity are a serious constraint. So is refining capacity, and specifically refineries capable of handling different types of crude. Canadian sour crude supplies a lot of the US midwest and gulf coast; the next best replacement is Venezuelan crude. Not an easy swap.
Trump and his supporters have also been extremely hostile to immigration. I don't know if you've looked into the challenges of getting a work permit for the US, let alone permanent residency, but unless you work in tech or are a nurse, you've got a problem.
It would be helpful if you would explain how Canada abandoned you. Not being nosey, as it would be really nice if people who lay that kind of blame would just come clean and tell the public what their beef is.
That's fair. It's a very long personal story. Quick summary. I was raised in a small town alberta and when Pierre Trudue formed the NEP it basically wiped us out. I witnessed suicides, abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, homelessness, etc etc. There was no help or caring from the people that help caused it. Actually all we got was the TRUDUE Salute. We can debate who's responsible for it blah blah blah. The main point is government policy was a main driver and many families didn't have tools to deal with fall out of bad policy. Now History has repeated itself although it has differences. Most oilfield families can save and scrimp through the downturns but when it's policy I blame the voters who voted the pricks in.
without a doubt, this is the best comment on the history of Liberal malfeasance and dubious policies on western Canadians. It is time we stop throwing Alberta and Sask under the bus.
"Canada" doesn't supply crude (or anything else) to the United States. Everything we export is exported by private-sector businesses who extracted or manufactured the materials and sold them usually under long-term contracts with their American customers. Many of these companies in Canada are of course American-owned. There is no way that Canadian businesses with customers and shareholders in the U.S. (or China) are going to be dictated to by a weakened Canadian government trying to starve the U.S. of oil, maple syrup, or anything else, for political-nationalist purposes.
The crude in the ground is indeed owned by the Province of Alberta. Private oil companies bid and purchase the right to pull it out of the ground and export it.
Selling our crude oil to somebody else would be a more serious threat if any of the pipelines to tidewater had survived the relentless opposition they faced from activists.
Speaking generally, our pipes all run to Louisiana, so that's where our oil is going to be sold at whatever price Louisiana refineries dictate.
How is Trudeau and activist. His government hasn't acted in so long, I can't remember the last actual effective thing his government did. They talk alot, they have great slogans, but nothing ever comes of it.
Be thankful for that. An ineffective, inefficient tyrant that can't get anything done is better than one who ticks of tasks one by one with clockwork efficiency.
Generally speaking, you don't want an efficient activist government. That just raises taxes and/or deficits. That's why Congressional gridlock in the U.S. where they can't pass any bills is actually a good thing. Trudeau with a majority would be Hell on wheels.
And the Canadian taxpayer paid for it because Trudeaus government was so hostile to the industry. Tanker ban, Northern Gateway dismissal and active dislike of the Energy East proposal.
It was the new BC NDP government that tried to block TMX, giving Kinder Morgan cold feet. (I find it annoying that the BC NDP and the Alberta NDP couldn't reach an agreement on TMX, despite being part of the same party.) The Trudeau government responded with the biggest hammer available by purchasing the pipeline outright, making it a federal project and hence unblockable by BC. https://russilwvong.com/blog/alberta-and-national-unity/
Northern Gateway was already dead when Harper announced its approval by press release. I don't know if he really understood the political situation with First Nations in BC. Eden Robinson: "If Enbridge has poked the hornet’s nest of aboriginal unrest, then the federal Conservatives, Stephen Harper’s government, has spent the last few years whacking it like a pinata."
I think it's fair for the oil sands to complain about duplicate regulations like the proposed emissions cap, but in terms of the basic compromise that Notley and Trudeau worked out - carbon pricing in exchange for pipeline capacity to tidewater - I think it worked better than Harper's approach (trying to convince Obama that KXL was a "no-brainer," and trying to get Northern Gateway approved with zero attention to BC First Nations, climate change, and oil spill response).
The only one that comes to mind is uranium. Others like copper and nickle etc can easily be got from Chile and Indonesia. Not to mention REE's, graphite etc. Lots of exploration prospects but in Trudeau's Canada good luck developing them.
Well Trump mentioned how they do not need our softwood lumber because they have lots of their own. Always surprises me when the US claims they can do things better and cheaper than places like Canada, but import the goods anyhow. They probably could import goods from elsewhere but a good deal of what were supply are raw materials. IF Trump puts huge tariffs on everyone he has threatened, who will be willing to supply anything to him. The US has always been the same as Trump, narcisisstic, thinking they are the only game in town. They are the modern developed world's biggest colonial (imperial ) oower. Their militry spending is for the purpose of control over the rest of the free world, and their new President has actually voiced his imperialist intentions for Canada and Greenland. The real problem is whether his party members in Congrsss will act as a check or just let him be the despot he desires to be.
It's astounding how few Albertans know about the nuclear arsenal located just south of them. I grew up near the US border, so I knew about them, but many do not.
If WWIII were to start, we knew we would be toast.
The problem (or advantage ) is that most of that oil goes into the US mid west which is a Republican stronghold. 25% tariff on it would lower the margin so much that a lot of producers would limit production. They would have to import from the US gulf coast which is complicated or so the price would increase. In any case, the effect on Canada would be a lot greater than the effect on the US.
Tariffs however were never on raw materials before, so I don't see why he wouldn't exclude them.
We offer much space,time before any country can reach the US border from the North. That said,its lack of security and monitoring is our and the US ‘Achilles Heel’. Trump is right,Russian and Chinese ships are cruising the Arctic. Hell,Canada has not even mapped the ocean floor.
Being told to buy more of my own weapons by my neighbour, who has a history of self-interested global aggression creating blowback is problematic, of course. (Middle Eastern terrorists, all terrorists, should be dealt with using harsh, overwhelming force, but they never hated America for who they are. It's what they do, real or perceived, that creates them.)
Having said that, I'm deeply embarrassed by the LPC treatment of our military, the lack of spending on defence, our pathetic unpreparedness, especially in the face of some things we HAVE spent money on. The LPC shames our great military history, and has utterly squandered our global gravitas. One grandfather was gassed in WWI, the other barely survived working convoys to help Britain survive WWII, and our uncle was burned alive in a plane fighting the air battle of Britain. Now we're a joke, and it pisses me off mightily.
Canadians should give up a latte or two, even more, to build a meaningful, effective presence in the North. This is an emergency, and a cultural imperative. Then we should take every lesson from Ukraine, rebuild every contingency plan, and fund resources for the most likely threats. NOW.
Middle Eastern terrorists do hate America for who they are: a free secular society that has no time for Islamic theocracy. Even the Christian fundamentalists believe in separation of Church and State. Muslims want the world to be converted to Islam at the point of a sword and that's why they hate America: America won't convert and impose sharia law.
America doesn't "create" terrorists. It has to resist them.
Looks like we have opposite opinions, lol. This is fine with me and the world is made up of many, varied points of view.
Broad, generalizations about people have no credibility for me. I've spent too much time, professionally, being responsible for the work of (thousands of) people.
I worked for a large American company for 20 years, in leadership, and know many, many Christian fundamentalists... not one of whom believes in the separation of church and state. Every one of them prays for, and pays for, a "Christian" government, and they're not shy about it.
I'm sure the others exist; I've just never met one.
I've studied a bit about the history of religion, and religious philosophy, and the few radical Islamists that want to convert the world at the point of a gun look as rare as the Christian fundamentalists who feel the same. Not rare enough in my view, but still a small minority of either.
At their roots, the two religions are similar, share similar histories, and have the idea of humility at their core (our senses, reality, time and space are limited, so we should be suspicious of what we "know").
One of the tricks to dealing with Trump is going to be giving him enough rope to hang himself. Trump's tariff threats and bullying of friends and allies is going to blow back on him, and he's not expecting that. The tariffs and other measures have a good chance of reigniting inflation and enraging a good part of his voters from the November election who were voting *against* Biden and his inflationary policies more than they were voting *for* Trump. Trump's power is already sharply constrained by what's going to be an effectively unworkable majority in the US House of Representatives, and he's already got the worst track record of any US president for having actions reversed by the courts. In 2 years, he could be the lamest of lame duck presidents facing a hostile Congress controlled by Democrats after mid-term elections, mired in legal problems, and seeing support crash among his own voters. This isn't going to be easy for Canadians, but there's no reason to roll over and make it easier for Trump if there's an opportunity to nudge him front of a political train.
Great summary of the situation. In the “guns or butter” choice faced by all serious countries, under the pacifist Trudeau regime Canada has been virtually all on the butter side along with subsidies notably to Quebec dairy producers. About time it is made to pay the defence bill. There are a lot of European and wealthy middle eastern nations who have been free riding as well.
No one ever mentions the elephant in our room. Quebec. Is it with us or against us? Not too many announcements coming from that area. I guess they can’t call on Macron either now
Québec, as always, is looking to see who is likely to win and then join that side. The Bloc's whole and only platform in Parliament is that Confederation doesn't work for Québec. This is their big chance to prove it.
Right on Susan! Quebec just pulled off another success by conning Newfoundland and Labrador in giving up its hydroelectric future in exchange for stopping their current and historical ripoff of NF in the sale of Churchill Falls electricity to NY state. This sets them up nicely for future revenues in an independence scenario. I bet even if Doug Ford puts an export tax on Ontario electricity that QC won’t follow suit.
An export tax on Ontario electricity would raise less money than the value of the electricity not sold because of the tax. No, if I was Quebec I absolutely would not follow suit with a foolish tax on a product that the more we sell of it the more we make. You don't tax your own exports. That's just stupid. Did Ford really say he was going to do that?
No Ford didn’t say it but he threatened to cut off electricity exports to the US. The amount involved would be minimal in any case. But I can easily see the Great Ottawa Brains coming up with the concept. Ontario electricity is part of a North American grid with daily energy flows back and forth across the Canada US border with economic and reliability benefits to everybody. (Quebec last I heard was not part of this interchange and only has export facilities to the US)
Subsidies to Canadian industries because of a small market. Interprovincial trade is the problem here. But those subsidies are not the ones Trump is referring to. Which ones besides defence I have no idea what he is on about.
Marketing boards are a big issue. Deliberate throttling of competition to keep prices higher than they would be in a free enterprise market. All countries seem to do this because rural areas have more voting power per capita than urban areas that would benefit from lower prices.
I watched a paid 30 minute interview with Jordan Peterson and PP (it wasn't included in the free version). It was clear they both think Canada should "work" with the US in order to reap the mutual benefits. I disagree. With trump's transactional winner/loser mentality, having Canada scramble to do his bidding puts us in the weak, "loser" category. Any deal with trump will heavily benefit the US at our disadvantage. I've never seen anything from him that would change my mind on that. History, treaties, written agreements or indeed friendship or respect mean nothing to him.
We're in a tough position alright, but I strongly suspect we may have more leverage than we think. I recently read a great article by Dan Gardiner, who is on the resistance side. I'm with him.
I agree that Canadians are selling themselves short but no one wins a trade war and Canada being an exporting country would suffer far more before any swing back to equilibrium would happen.
My issue is you’re treating Trump like a normal businessman who sees Canada as a business partner on an equal footing. No. That’s where I disagree with previous comments, because trump does not respect Canada, nor will he engage from a position of mutual respect. He’s made clear one way or another, that he respects power and dominance. I think he’s playing us, trying to force us into a position of fear and appeasement. I reject that, and I hope our leaders (🙄) refuse to be manipulated by him.
They're 10 times our population and 100 times more influential in the world.
I agree that we have to use the leverage we have, but consider that if the US decided to cut us off from their market completely, Canada would become an uninhabitable cold hell.
We have to approach them as a junior partner.
Any economic 'resistance' Canada could muster is paltry, and while inconvenient politically and practically in the short term, America could source nearly all we export to them from other suppliers.
Evidence is all around - the NAFTA and USMCA deals greatly benefited Canada, and improved our standard of living here immensely.
The Liberal and NDP parties were staunchly against NAFTA, until the evidence was in.
Then they were all for it.
Let's not go back to the pre-NAFTA 'days of glory' under Pierre Trudeau's Anti-American Socialist Fantasy - we were nearly bankrupted by 1983.
I can’t disagree that too many governments have put more emphasis on buying votes than meeting their real national governance responsibilities, but I disagree that the we need the US more than it needs us. The relationship between the US and Canada has always been one sided. We have been the jewels of wood and drawers of water for the US. We ship resources to the US and buy back manufactured goods. Over 10 % of US oil and gas comes from Canada. 97% of their Potash comes from Canada. I could go through a listing of resources that Trump’s US industry relies, but it is long. The point being we buy manufactured goods from the US. You can buy manufactured goods from other places (and much of the so called US goods are made in China), but you can’t easily get resources from other places. Canada has too often taken the easy way out by exporting to the US market and maybe with Trump tariffs business will get off its duff and go after new markets or even start processing our resources here in Canada. We now have a population of 41M people. We can do more if we shuck the gig economy the Liberals have imposed on the country.
Trump is a bully. Acquiescing to a bully leads to more bullying. We need to do the tough things now even if it hurts to prevent tougher times further on. Canada and the US have a symbiotic relationship that has worked for both. If Trump disrupts that he may be surprised.
Allen, you write, in part, "... maybe ... business will get off its duff and go after new markets or even start processing our resources here in Canada ..."
Yessss ... maybe.
I recall that T1 tried that; he labelled his attempt to re-orient our business direction as "The Third Way" I seem to recall. [The "first" way was to sell domestically, the "second" way was to sell to the US and the "third" way was to sell to the rest of the world. All as I recall.] In any event, the policy was announced and instigated and attempted and undertaken. And failed. Simply put, geography, you know. And resulting costs. And non-common languages and customs (How many Spanish speakers / knowledge of Spanish / Mexican / Argentinian / etc. requiements in Canada? How many German speakers / knowledge of German requirements in Canada? And so on.
As to processing our resources here, all fine and dandy but, then what to do with them? We just don't need all of them to produce whatever domestically so we refine all our oil here, mill all our wheat domestically, refine all our aluminum in Canada and then what? We still have to sell those products to the world and the largest market in the world is ..... Yup, you guessed it, the largest market is directly south of us.
So, what you suggest has value but a) it has been earnestly been tried before; and b) those previous attempts have not worked out too well. That doesn't mean at all that we should not try those things again but it does mean that we would do well to be realistic about prospects for success.
Great comment Ken. It is past time that Canadians put away their false smugness and live in the real world. Where people actually go to work each day to their office, where governments actually work for Canadians and achievable solutions are put into policies that cannot be litigate by some bored professor.
I don’t really disagree with you or your history lesson which is how I remember it as well. I’ve been to conventions and trade shows and quite frankly our businesses don’t stack up. We have engineering firms that work around the world. They have to educate themselves so can others. I’m not saying it’s our salvation, but we must improve and I don’t think those ‘Team Canada’ expeditions are anything more than political junkets. Individual businesses must invest if they want to grow. Sometimes I think the goal of many Canadian businesses is to grow sufficiently to the point that they can be bought by a US company. Washington State has 7.5M people yet has produced Costco, Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing, Expedia, Amazon and more. Canada has 40 M and has one global brand - Shopify. We must find out why that is and do better. Ramble ended.
You point to engineering firms and discuss their position in the world. I fully agree, having had to deal with some of those firms and they clearly, clearly were very good businessmen.
I will offer just one anecdote to illustrate your comment about our business class. I am a retired accountant and as an accountant I always took professional development courses. To me, the best of the courses was one that I took annually where one of the speakers was an accountant in Calgary who I knew personally. He was the local lead technology partner and the firm's international lead technology partner. We always got him to talk about (naturally!) technology and he always was very gracious and did so, Invariably he would ask the audience questions about how many of you do X, how many do Y, etc., etc. and some hands would go up but not a whole lot. He would then say that when he was talking to U.S. or other international audiences the whole audience would have raised hands. In other words, we were laggards in spending on technology. And that is simply a way to confirm your observation and to answer your question as to why.
Oh, and yes, I recall talking to one accounting firm whose whole business plan was to mimic a way of business of some U.S. businesses so that they could sell their business. Didn't work out! Originality, investment and thoughtfulness would have been much more productive.
The problem with being 74 (my age) is that I really do get tired of warning younger folk (you know, in their fifties and sixties), "Watch out when an oldster starts out, with 'I remember when ...'"
The biggest cost with smelting aluminum is the electricity. So Canada does smelt aluminum using ultra-cheap hydroelectricity in Chicoutimi and I think still in Kitimat. The smelting companies are foreign-owned now. We have no bauxite ore in Canada but it comes from around the world to be made into aluminum here, and it is one of our important exports to the U.S. (Iceland smelts aluminum too using geothermal electricity.) The finishing into aluminum products is not something we can do efficiently but the role electricity plays in making aluminum is a good example of a process that we could do here (and do) because our electricity is cheap and the ore can easily get to the smelters by ship (and the ingots out to market by ship or rail.) These bits of lucky geography overcome the small-market economic disadvantages that you otherwise cite accurately.
Absolutely if you live next door to a huge market that speaks English you have to expect that most of your trade in manufactured goods or knowledge work will be with it. Japan may buy our coal and Korea our oil, but all of our aluminum and car parts and computer chips are going to go to the U.S.
I stand corrected about the issue of relatively cheap electricity but we are still left with the issue of finding a market. Yes, we can refine aluminum but we are doing that now - and selling it into primarily the American market. As I say, the issue of finding non-US markets remain. Two questions: 1) if those non-American markets are so prevalent why have we not found them previously; and 2) given that other countries will likely face US tariffs, would we not find a really big dog fight for those other markets?
As I said above, all that stuff that Canada exports to the U.S. is owned not by Canadians at all but by the shareholders of the companies that extracted or manufactured it. "Canada" doesn't have a say in the matter as to whether the Alberta oilfields continue to send crude to the U.S., (or Ingersoll and Brampton send car parts to Detroit.) It's not "our" oil. It's not worth anything left in the ground. It only gains value when the oil-drilling company pays royalties to Alberta and takes possession at the well-head. Then it's their oil and they can sell it anywhere they want.
Actually, they can’t. The sovereign country where the resources come from still controls what leaves the country and where it goes. Shareholders may own the company, but as owners they take a risk. One of those risks is what the government of the country where the assets are located might do on any given day. Ask the shareholders of the many mines that have been taken over by countries in S. America or oil companies in the Middle East. Imagine if General Dynamics in London (if it still is GD) wanted to sell its armoured vehicles to Russia. The Canadian government would shut it down in a heartbeat. Shareholders do reap benefit from companies they own and they have a say in the management of the company, but they also have risk that their investments will be negatively affected by government. Determining that risk is called due dilligence.
Well, yes, but the whole argument for investing in Canada is that for ordinary industrial products and raw materials the Canadian government doesn't pull stunts like that. I reiterate that Canada is not going to tell a producer that they can't sell their products to the United States just out of some political grudge between Trudeau (and his successor) and Trump. Military equipment to foreign hostile countries would be a special case that I thought too obvious to mention. The original poster was talking about Canada threatening to cut off a vital commodity to a military and commercial ally just because it's "our" oil. Not going to happen.
…and allies don’t normally apply cross the board tariffs on other allies for no rationale reason and contrary to existing trade agreements. A Trumpian US is not a true ally. He has stated that he is doing to wage an economic war against us. You also forget that the government owns the major pipeline taking petroleum to the US. We must be prepared to fight back. Putting tariffs on sleeping bags and other fluff as the government did last time was the action of a weakling. Stopping export of coal would get their attention as all US coal exports go through Canada and Warren Buffet owns the railway that carries most of that coal to port. The Orange Buffoon is complaining that a trade surplus is subsidization so just stop shipments of key products that will balance the trade. That’s what Orangeman wants, so give it to him.
What? All U.S. coal exports go through Canada? Presumably you mean to Vancouver via Buffet's BNSF. Then what is all that black stuff that Norfolk Southern, CSX, UP, CN, and CPKCS trains carry to ports in Norfolk, Baltimore, Louisiana, Wisconsin, California, and even to little Sandusky Ohio?
Most of the Powder River low-sulphur steam coal that BNSF could logically take to Vancouver is instead burned domestically in power plants. I don't know how much of the coal that ships out of Roberts Bank in Van comes from American mines. Perhaps you do. It does seem like a lot but stopping those trains at the border isn't going to bring America's coal industry to its knees.
The pipeline that the Canadian government owns (TMX) goes to tidewater in Burnaby, not to the U.S. The ones that cross the border are owned by shareholder corporations. The government is not going to shut them down. Don't be silly.
Allen, you beclown yourself thinking that Canada is an equal to the US. Damage the US economy and they will turn the screws on Canada until it falls apart on its own. Alberta will choose prosperity over Canada any day of the week.
JR, the industry may be foreign owned but the actual resource is owned by the provinces (with the minor exception of freehold resource ownership). Therefore, the provinces can influence what the resource companies do.
Which is to encourage them to dig it up and sell it, in order for the province to obtain the royalties. The province owns it only when it's in the ground where it isn't worth anything. Only when it's flowing through pipes to a paying customer is it earning money.
Susan, I kinda agree. But, as always, the devil is in the details.
Yes, the entire resource when in the ground belongs to the province. Just to use silly numbers, assume that the Crown royalty is 10% of the value of the resource (oil, gas, etc.) when produced. Therefore when the producer produces a barrel of (say) oil, 10% of the value belongs to the province.
First off, the producer could pay 10% of the selling price to the Crown or, secondly, (and this is what the Crown does in a lot of cases) the Crown has the right to require that the producer give over 10% of the actual volume of oil and the Crown sells it. This latter instance is known as the province "taking in kind" it's royalty.
Therefore, the province has a number of options. First, do not ignore the fact that a lot of the industry is actually domestically owned (the 90% number for foreign ownership is too high - just as one example, Canadian Natural Resources Limited is - I believe - the largest producer in Canada and is a Canadian company). Second, the province can use the take in kind volumes to influence a lot of things. Third, the province can change the terms of royalties to remain at, say, 10% but to require additional things (i.e. if you want to produce our oil pay us 10% AND do "X").
All of that is to say that the province does have levers. What the province does NOT have is any way to diversify our markets. Clearly, the majority of production goes south. Just as clearly the current federal government and it's acolytes (including Quebec) have discouraged additional pipelines to tidewater both east and west. That means that we are left with far and away the majority of our production going to the US.
Thank you for that explanation. Is there any case under that spectrum of royalty arrangements that a *province* (say Alberta of course) would want to prevent the resource company (whether Canadian- or foreign- owned) from selling its (or the provincial Crown's) oil to the United States? I can see that federal government might want to prevent sales (and I suppose it could legislate accordingly, similar to Trudeau I and the NEP) but would the province want to, ever?
Point I'm making is that a lot of Canadian nationalists seem to think that if "we" (themselves, sitting in Toronto or Vancouver) want to spite Trump and hurt him real bad, "we" can shut off the flow of "our" oil to the U.S. I think only the province where the oil is located in the ground could do that, through its royalty regime, and I don't see any scenario where it would co-operate with those nationalists sitting comfy and smug in Van and Toronto.
Actually, it was Trudeau the 1st that came up with Petro Canada. The ownership statistics were even worse back then and the point of Petro Canada was to get some Canadian ownership in the patch. That obviously had mixed results but don't blame the lack of Canadian ownership on Pierre of all people.
Would that were true, we would have done it during the Mulroney, Cretien-Martin, and Stephen Harper periods. We didn't, because we chose not to.
Canada is cold as hell 3/4 of the calendar year, and our transportation infrastructure needed to build and facilitate the value added economy you describe is completely inadequate. Any chance we had to build a transportation infrastructure up to the task in our cold climate was pissed away by every federal government including and since Mulroney in favour of increasingly unaffordable and ineffective social programs.
Remember Mulroney's line that Canada's social programs were a 'sacred trust'?
It helped elect him in Ontario & Quebec in 1984.
Hope you've enjoyed the sacred trusts while they've predictably bureaucratized and crumbled, along with what's left of our 1960s-era transporation infrastructure (not to mention our military capacity).
Now we're over a trillion dollars in debt with SFA to show for it.
In the meantime, for just three examples, take a good hard look at the amazing US highway interstate, airline, and navigable river transportation networks and you'll see why they kick our collectivist asses six ways to Sunday.
I agree Trump is a bully.
We have actively embraced our status as the 98 lb (44kg) weakling.
As I've noted elsewhere in this comment thread, I hope we learn from what's about to happen to us. It might finally convince us to work harder, eat better, and go to the gym regularly. If we can't beat up the US bully, maybe we can push ourselves to get in good enough shape over the next two decades to outrun them.
When someone holds a gun to your head they are more than a bully. They own you. You can beg or you can accept your fate. To think that Canada could "stand up and fight America" is the level of preposterousness that only doesn't get laughed at by old stock Canadians.
Face it, Canada is a colony of the US by choice. Our timid business elites always chose the low risk option and now we are trapped.
If Trump allowed any Canadian born under 40 to move to the US to work it would utterly gut Canada. If that isn't a symbol of failure I don't know what is.
Gregg Quinn, your piece is insulting in its simplicity and scolding approach. I could barely read to the end- we’ll stand up to Trump’s lunacy with strength and determination. Canada is a great democracy that is going through a temporary period of political turmoil and facing the narcissistic power lust of the bully the Americans elected to lead them. You just watch and learn and tone down the pomposity. Seriously unbelievable.
Now, please recommend some practical steps. Don't simply say that we will stand up to Trump but, instead, what SPECIFICALLY should we do? And, in answering - with specificity, please - what we should do, what would the domestic consequences be of such action? Further, in what way would we reasonably expect DJT to respond and the domestic consequences of his responses to our actions?
I ask those questions as there are / will be lots of people saying that we should stand up but what does that really mean? Simple bluster doesn't do the job; actual actions are important but we need to know just what actions we can / should undertake and the consequences of those actions.
Canada’s first priority over the next couple weeks is to negotiate some kind of settlement with the US to avoid tariffs, which may include threatening tariffs of our own.
If that fails, Canada will need to expand trade elsewhere, particularly with Europe and Asia. Because of transport costs, you tend to have more trade over shorter distances. But maritime transport is remarkably cheap compared to land-based transport: once you can get your products to a port (like Vancouver or Montreal or Halifax), you can ship them worldwide.
This also seems like a good opportunity to take economists' advice on improving productivity (e.g. removing restrictions on homebuilding, internal trade barriers, tax reform).
Russ, thank you for your (as always) thoughtful comments. Having offered those plaudits, I do have some quibbles.
You say we should "negotiate some kind of settlement with the US ... " Sounds really good. Just WHO will handle those negotiations? The current (non) leader, i.e. the Face Painter, has no authority to negotiate but, far, far, more importantly I have to think that the Trumpster will simply say something like, "Governor, you have no authority to negotiate and you cannot pass any legislation to implement your deal. Go away and in a couple of months, after the election, we will talk to the new guys."
In other words, no matter what we want, DJT will not be interested because any negotiators we send have no credibility and will be unable to make any deal stick.
Expand trade elsewhere. Yes, a good idea. T1, the Face Painter's father, tried his "Third Way" to attempt the very same thing back in the seventies. It was an honest effort but did not bear much fruit. The fact is that geography means that north-south trade is far more efficient than east-west trade/transportation.
Yes, maritime transportation is cheaper than rail, much cheaper than truck. Oh, but you have to go through the ports and what rational Canadian business would trust the unions or management in the ports to not go on strike/lockout/etc.?
Restrictions on homebuilding / internal trade barriers / tax reform? All good ideas, but, but, but.
Homebuilding is primarily a municipal / provincial area and the federal government can only do so much. The current government has just started doing some things after much prodding but hasn't really done much at all; the CPC is certainly making noises about using the federal spending power as a big stick in the homebuilding area but the CPC stick (and the methods the current guys are using) will only work over a period of some years.
Internal trade barriers? I'm 74 and I think that I have been hearing about that issue for about fifty years and not much has been done. Again, assuming that agreements (please note: plural) can be struck, I expect that it would take some years for this to really assist.
Tax reform? Again, good idea but ... Again, I'm 74 and a retired accountant. I came into the accountancy profession just after the REAL BIG tax reform as at December 31, 1971 - so, effective in 1972. That is the last noticeable tax reform and since that time the various governments have only made the Income Tax Act much, much, much worse. That 1972 tax reform was passed by T1 and, as noted, took effect only on January 1, 1972. The reforms arose out of the Carter Royal Commission which, in turn was appointed by PM John Diefenbaker (yeah, the guy who was the predecessor to the predecessor to T1) in 1962. Yup, ten years (three Prime Ministers) from start to finish and you just know that today it would take much longer when you figure out all the special interest groups (and in taxation there are an INFINITE number of special interest groups), hearings, draft legislation, re-draft legislation, re-re-re-draft legislation, etc.
Put differently, all of your suggestions are absolutely valid but none of them are immediately possible. Put, yet again, differently: we are totally fucked!
Good comment. Canada's port capacity is poor and the ports are controlled by the motorcycle gangs who use them for smuggling. For a large country with three coasts we have actually much less usable salt water coastline than the U.S. does and our ports are small and pokey compared to Long Beach and Baltimore (which are very inefficient also because of the powerful longshoreman's unions that get paid as if they were manually unloading cargo even when they're not because it's all containerized.)
But just stepping back. Most of our trade with the U.S. is either in pipelines or by truck for just-in-time delivery. And rail. None of that is easily moved by ship to overseas countries. Our outgoing ship trade is mostly bulk commodities like coal, sulphur, and grain....and returning empty sea cans -- lol. (For a while we were shipping discarded Blue Box plastic to foreign countries for "recycling" but they finally told us to stop doing it because they were just piling the stuff on the wharfs until it fell into the harbours.) We're not going to be shipping car parts to China instead of Indiana just to get around a tariff.
> Jeremy Kronick, vice-president of economic analysis and strategy at the C.D. Howe Institute, said the government should bring opposition politicians into trade negotiations with Mr. Trump, including Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, who will likely become prime minister this year if his party’s lead in the polls holds.
> “The key there is to have a voice at the table in those negotiations that Trump takes seriously,” Mr. Kronick said. “All parties kind of see the issues mostly the same way, and so I think it’s up to this government to bring the opposition leaders to the table so … we’re talking as much as possible with one voice regardless of who wins the election when it comes.”
Regarding the obstacles you've identified, they're all certainly valid - but that doesn't mean we should give up. All of these ideas have been floating around for years (or decades!), and we now have a powerful incentive to overcome our small-c conservatism and actually push forward with them.
In the short term, when the tariffs hit I would expect to see increased unemployment, especially in specific areas that depend on US markets. We're going to need looser fiscal policy (larger deficits, through automatic stabilizers like increased EI payments and lower income-tax revenue) and monetary policy (lower interest rates). This is something that Chrystia Freeland talked about in her resignation letter - gimmicks like the Christmas GST tax cut (the ultimate boutique tax credit) are a bad idea because we need to keep our fiscal firepower in reserve.
On the federal government's role in housing supply: there's two key bottlenecks, red tape and costs. Even if something's legal to build, if costs are too high it won't get built. The federal government can help directly with the cost bottleneck. Poilievre's proposal to raise the threshold for GST on new housing to $1 million will help with condo projects which are currently underwater, especially in the GTA. Probably the biggest moves that the Trudeau government made to help with the cost bottleneck are (a) waiving GST on new purpose-built rental housing and (b) allowing faster depreciation on new rental housing (over 10 years instead of 25 years, offsetting taxable income). RCFI/ALCP (low-cost long-term loans for new rental housing) and MLI Select (low-cost mortgage loan insurance) fall into this category as well.
And, thank you, Sir for your - again - thoughtful response.
I agree that the suggestion of a cross party negotiating team is an interesting idea. From what I read, the idea that the Face Painter would consider including PP on such a team is a non-starter due to his personal animus toward PP. Similarly, PP is dismissive of the Face Painter. [My use of that name for the Prime Minister will tell you of my thoughts about him!]
Notwithstanding all of that, there remains the issue that this government will fall at the earliest possible date and that means that any potential negotiation would become an election issue.
Ah, "The key there is to have a voice at the table in those negotiations that Trump takes seriously." Quite simply, DJT doesn't take seriously the government run by "the Governor" and he (DJT) knows that that government will shortly be replaced so he is incredibly unlikely to take seriously any grouping that is not actually representative of the new government.
I agree that we shouldn't give up in respect of those other things but, similarly, we shouldn't expect those things to be easy to achieve, even within a totally Canadian context. Further, each of those things (assuming they could be navigated to success) would take substantial time before becoming effective. Again, we shouldn't give up trying to achieve them but, also again, they are not an immediate solution.
I agree on the impact of tariffs and on potential domestic consequences arising therefrom.
I agree in respect of housing but it will take a number of years for those changes (both currently enacted and proposed) to really have effect. Again, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do them (We should! We should!) but that does mean that we shouldn't look to near term benefits.
As one possible additional housing item that would have a somewhat faster response time, one might consider changing the Income Tax Act to allow MURBs. MURBs (Multiple Unit Residential Buildings) were a feature of the Income Tax Act in the late 1970s under T1 and they generated just a monstrous amount of rental housing simply because they allowed investors to write off all normal rental expenses against normal income. By contrast, since MURBs were eliminated the rule has been that if you have a rental loss, you cannot write off that loss against other income (sorry, I'm a retired accountant so I geek out a bit on some of these things). As noted, MURBs caused a LOT of housing to be built relatively rapidly. The reason is that the structure of the law allowed investors (think just regular people) to finance one or two or three or whatever number of units in a development instead of needing a company with access to gazillions of dollars. More capital = more housing.
There were definitely problems with MURBs but I think that it is time to consider using them again.
MURBs are definitely a policy worth looking at. If you know people in the Conservative Party I hope you're talking about MURBs at every opportunity! I was just talking to someone about them a couple months ago (on the Liberal side). Do you know when and why they were cancelled? Did somebody think we had an oversupply of housing?
Practical steps to deal with Trump is what you're asking about. Trump is an irrational and quite unpredictable actor. He clearly has little respect for Canada, the Canadian government, our so called leadership which, as we all agree, is entirely lame during the greatest geo political crisis of my life time. Doing what we can on the the border vis a vis the relatively meagre amount of fentanyl and terrorists/immigrants will give Trump a win which may be the best approach to satisfy him personally. But it won't stop the tariffs. A solid plan was announced yesterday by Stephen Lecce, the Ontario Minister of Energy and Electrification who along with Doug Ford is taking a carrot and stick approach - the carrot is a proposal for a Fortress Am-Can - a cross border energy security proposal which would become a "beacon of stability, security and long term prosperity." Its a brilliant grand strategic manoeuvre that will be supported by one on one meetings with business leaders and Republican politicians from northern states that rely on Canadian energy including hydro power as well access to rare minerals. If we are slapped with tariffs we must respond in kind with forceful counter tariffs and the Ontario government is prepared to turn off the flow of electricity plus rare minerals that the US can only buy from Canada since China is no longer a trading partner. Daneille Smith has similar levers with oil. I am not suggesting the provinces go this alone but they can certainly participate using their business and political relationships and appearing on US media that are best suited to their style and message. Ford was a perfect foil for Jessie on Fox. A federal provincial meeting ASAP is needed and coming to coordinate the approach particularly since natural resources - a provincial responsibility - are some of our strongest levers. Targeting Republican states with counter tarrffs that the American consumer will feel is the best way forward. Republicans and the American people are the only ones who may be able to convince Trump that a policy of working against, instead of in cooperation with, Canada is a bad idea. Those are the people who have to be convinced by a Team Canada approach.
A final few points about the death spiral of the Canadian military, as Bill Blair himself has described it. Canada must pass legislation to create a a multi-year maintenance and refurbishment plan for military equipment across all military services with guaranteed and indexed to inflation budget allocations to cover a 30 year horizon. Tall order but I understand that is how it gets done in some of the EU nations that have ramped up spending in recent years. Military investments cannot be politicized decisions that are debated endlessly and minimized by absurd NDP ideas that to invest in our military is war mongering. We invest in our military to prevent war. The procurement process must be completely overhauled and not restricted to domestic suppliers. This would make Trump happy and make these investment decisions more competitive. To plan for the future we should require one year mandatory military service of our young people. But it will take multiple years of investments in human resources as well as training infrastructure before that rather novel idea could even be entertained. It took decades of neglect on the part of both the Conservatives and the Liberals to bring our military this low.
You're right. J. Singh said that they way you deal with a bully is to stand up to him. That's not what actually happens. The way you stop bullying in schools is for an adult to intervene and punish the bully. If there is no adult, bullies play hell with the people they pick on. Singh has obviously never been bullied himself.
Canada has been getting a rough ride with Trudeau for almost 10 years but that's on the apathetic and uninformed Canadian electorate. We got the government we deserved. Trump is a bully and should be put in his place but the hapless Trudeau isn't the guy to do that. Canada under Trudeau has become irrelevant, weak, without influence and deserving of criticism and ridicule. Canada will rise again but for that, Canadians will have to stop demanding "free" stuff and realize they need to sacrifice the self for the betterment of the whole. Are Canadians up to the challenge? I'm not sure, apathy runs pretty deep but I keep my fingers crossed that Canadians have enough smarts to fight for what we have and what we are.
To answer your question, no Canadians are not. Not anymore at least. Young people get a better deal moving to the US from Canada in 2025. Why would they fight to be less prosperous in a country that takes advantage of them?
Young people have been told for the last 10 years that Canada isn’t worth fighting for, that Canadians should be ashamed of their history. Is it any wonder they prefer going away to seek a better life? The government in the last 10 years has destroyed the economy, made a joke of most if not all federal institutions, has pretty much destroyed any hope for them to get ahead and live a prosperous, fulfilling life so for these reasons and many more, I agree with you.
It's all that and to be even more succinct, why would a young Canadian cross the street let alone risk their lives to push against the US? Health insurance? The Charter of Rights and Freedoms? For the right of municipalities to make it hard to build new homes?
At least French Canada has their nation to fight for. English Canada is so integrated with the US it's the narcissism of small differences why we are even apart from them.
At their core and on an emotional level, Canadians are different from Americans and if those differences make it worth fighting for an independent and distinct country then they are worthwhile ideals. On a purely logical and financial level, those may not matter much though as survival, happiness and prosperity are the ultimate goal.
My point is they aren't worth fighting for. Fight to stay poorer than the US? Fight to have a weaker Constitution? Fight for dairy supply management and weird language laws?
Ultimately people choose what is best for their children, and right now for Gen Z young families with young kids that is the US. Higher salaries, cheaper houses, more business opportunities, even better health care if you have good insurance.
It's hard to compete with a higher standard of living.
I agree. Ultimately, it's a personal decision. I personally have no warm feelings for Canada, don't feel much patriotism for a country that keeps turning its back on its citizens and, being from Alberta, feeling the derision and outright ignorance and hate from central and eastern Canada towards my province. Canadians are apathetic, passive aggressive, completely politically ignorant and not all that tolerant. Given a choice, I would seriously consider moving south.
I have a question that is a little off topic but I trust the opinions from this group.
Once Trump gets in and puts his team into place, how will our relationship change? We have Known Terrorists from multiple countries being Harbored in Canada. China, Iran and India are openly active in our political, monetary, drug, real estate and education industries.
We have no real military and/or corrupted police force. What is to stop them from declaring us as Harboring Terrorists and treating us the same as any other country and just start taking people out since we seem to not extradite anyone? Personally I am good with it?
Maybe that's why Donald Trump would like to annex us. U.S. law would apply here and the FBI could operate freely and hunt down the bad guys. No need to assassinate them or even extradite them. Just arrest them in Toronto and drive them to Buffalo.
If Canada joined the U.S. (presumably as a territory, not as a state -- big difference) we wouldn't enjoy lower taxes. We would pay lower federal taxes like everyone else in the U.S. federal tax regime but if we wanted universal free health care just for ex-Canadians we would have to tax ourselves as a territory to raise the money. Some states levy state income taxes. Canada would have to levy them too. (I don't know if U.S. territories can levy their own taxes, though. Washington keeps a tight rein on its territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, etc., and Alaska & Hawaii before 1959.) Washington would not subsidize our universal free medicare when American residents in the 50 states didn't enjoy this.
There are few things more pathetic than the Laurentian Elite and old stock boomer Canadian types saying "we need to hit Trump and America hard."
The fact is American could crush Canada in an afternoon, and no one would lose out more than the Laurentian Elite and Central Canadian boomer types. Immigrants would support Canada becoming part of the US orbit, and that is 32% of the population,. Count those under 40 with who this version of Canada sucks for, and you have a majority would would at the minimum want an economic union with the US.
Face it, economically Canada has already lost. Our leaders were too greedy and risk adverse and they lost for us. Pursue economic union now or you will be pursuing state vs territory of the US status next.
Leaders lead btw when big geopolitical change occurs. It comes from the top, not from the peasantry.
Okay! We are doomed. We have been since the first NAFTA. The terms of that "free trade" agreement were evident. The US was free to do whatever they wished and Canada had no choice but to buckle. The same is basically true under the current USMC agreement. What I am wondering is how exactly is the US subsidizing Canada and in what areas other than perhaps defense. Trump mentioned automobiles in one of his press conferences. I guess that he really doesn't know that all those GM Ford and Chrysler vehicles are actually made by American compaies which simply add the monicker 'of Canada' to the name. All the shots are called by the home office. It is largely the same for all other major corporations in Canada. We have been and still are a branch office economy dependent on the largess of the mother American company for a good deal of our employment.The real problem with Trump's plan is that all those manufacturing jobs he wants to return to the USA will actually increase the prices of everything made in the USA, as no one will work for the same kind of wages as in say Mexico or Canada for that matter. So, I ask to be enlightened on this subsidization of Canada that Trump keeps mentioning as do so many pundits and just commentators even here. Defense is a given, we should pull up our socks there, but what other fields are we so heavily subsidized in?
Mr Quinn just said a lot of what Canadians know already. The best thing that the Trump presidency can do for Canada is free trade. Free trade within Canada that is. Doing away with some of the ridiculous rules and regulations between provinces would boost the Canadian economy by billions. Lets hope a new Prime Minister can begin to work with the Premiers to get the economy rolling.
Maybe since Canada is the largest supplier of crude oil to the US (4.4 million barrels PER DAY) we are not as weak as some believe.. We contribute 20% of the US economy and the US has a trade deficit of $53.5 billion. No, we are not "weak"
Problem is if we don't get our shit together the US will start getting there supply's from other countries that are more willing trade partners with growing economies. This is a long term game and they can easily shift there resources elsewhere and become less dependent on our oil and gas. Milei was one of the first leaders to visit Trump. It has already started.
Also it could start leading to a brain drain from experienced oilfield personnel and other trades.. Paying more money in American dollars gives a person like me a 50% immediate increase in wealth. Some people have said why would you do that if you are a proud Canadian. Well because Canada abandoned me twice and broke me twice(family included).
It's not that easy to switch oil supplies. As the Canadian energy sector already knows, pipelines and pipeline capacity are a serious constraint. So is refining capacity, and specifically refineries capable of handling different types of crude. Canadian sour crude supplies a lot of the US midwest and gulf coast; the next best replacement is Venezuelan crude. Not an easy swap.
Trump and his supporters have also been extremely hostile to immigration. I don't know if you've looked into the challenges of getting a work permit for the US, let alone permanent residency, but unless you work in tech or are a nurse, you've got a problem.
I understand about the current infrastructure hence current. US is not the only place to go and make the American dollar in the oilfield
It would be helpful if you would explain how Canada abandoned you. Not being nosey, as it would be really nice if people who lay that kind of blame would just come clean and tell the public what their beef is.
That's fair. It's a very long personal story. Quick summary. I was raised in a small town alberta and when Pierre Trudue formed the NEP it basically wiped us out. I witnessed suicides, abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, homelessness, etc etc. There was no help or caring from the people that help caused it. Actually all we got was the TRUDUE Salute. We can debate who's responsible for it blah blah blah. The main point is government policy was a main driver and many families didn't have tools to deal with fall out of bad policy. Now History has repeated itself although it has differences. Most oilfield families can save and scrimp through the downturns but when it's policy I blame the voters who voted the pricks in.
without a doubt, this is the best comment on the history of Liberal malfeasance and dubious policies on western Canadians. It is time we stop throwing Alberta and Sask under the bus.
Throwing Alberta under the bus is increasingly difficult as its seat count continues to rise
"Canada" doesn't supply crude (or anything else) to the United States. Everything we export is exported by private-sector businesses who extracted or manufactured the materials and sold them usually under long-term contracts with their American customers. Many of these companies in Canada are of course American-owned. There is no way that Canadian businesses with customers and shareholders in the U.S. (or China) are going to be dictated to by a weakened Canadian government trying to starve the U.S. of oil, maple syrup, or anything else, for political-nationalist purposes.
The crude in the ground is indeed owned by the Province of Alberta. Private oil companies bid and purchase the right to pull it out of the ground and export it.
Selling our crude oil to somebody else would be a more serious threat if any of the pipelines to tidewater had survived the relentless opposition they faced from activists.
Speaking generally, our pipes all run to Louisiana, so that's where our oil is going to be sold at whatever price Louisiana refineries dictate.
Activists like Trudeau
How is Trudeau and activist. His government hasn't acted in so long, I can't remember the last actual effective thing his government did. They talk alot, they have great slogans, but nothing ever comes of it.
Be thankful for that. An ineffective, inefficient tyrant that can't get anything done is better than one who ticks of tasks one by one with clockwork efficiency.
Generally speaking, you don't want an efficient activist government. That just raises taxes and/or deficits. That's why Congressional gridlock in the U.S. where they can't pass any bills is actually a good thing. Trudeau with a majority would be Hell on wheels.
The Trans Mountain expansion from Edmonton to Vancouver is up and running, in the nick of time. https://boereport.com/2024/07/15/japan-s-korea-refiners-join-china-in-buying-canadian-tmx-oil/
And the Canadian taxpayer paid for it because Trudeaus government was so hostile to the industry. Tanker ban, Northern Gateway dismissal and active dislike of the Energy East proposal.
It was the new BC NDP government that tried to block TMX, giving Kinder Morgan cold feet. (I find it annoying that the BC NDP and the Alberta NDP couldn't reach an agreement on TMX, despite being part of the same party.) The Trudeau government responded with the biggest hammer available by purchasing the pipeline outright, making it a federal project and hence unblockable by BC. https://russilwvong.com/blog/alberta-and-national-unity/
Northern Gateway was already dead when Harper announced its approval by press release. I don't know if he really understood the political situation with First Nations in BC. Eden Robinson: "If Enbridge has poked the hornet’s nest of aboriginal unrest, then the federal Conservatives, Stephen Harper’s government, has spent the last few years whacking it like a pinata."
My understanding is that Trump putting Keystone XL back on the table is what killed Energy East - it was the same company proposing both projects, and they needed their customers to move from Energy East to KXL to make KXL viable. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/how-donald-trump-killed-the-energy-east-pipeline/article36527153/
I think it's fair for the oil sands to complain about duplicate regulations like the proposed emissions cap, but in terms of the basic compromise that Notley and Trudeau worked out - carbon pricing in exchange for pipeline capacity to tidewater - I think it worked better than Harper's approach (trying to convince Obama that KXL was a "no-brainer," and trying to get Northern Gateway approved with zero attention to BC First Nations, climate change, and oil spill response).
What does the US import from us that it couldn’t import from elsewhere though?
Critical minerals.
The only one that comes to mind is uranium. Others like copper and nickle etc can easily be got from Chile and Indonesia. Not to mention REE's, graphite etc. Lots of exploration prospects but in Trudeau's Canada good luck developing them.
Well Trump mentioned how they do not need our softwood lumber because they have lots of their own. Always surprises me when the US claims they can do things better and cheaper than places like Canada, but import the goods anyhow. They probably could import goods from elsewhere but a good deal of what were supply are raw materials. IF Trump puts huge tariffs on everyone he has threatened, who will be willing to supply anything to him. The US has always been the same as Trump, narcisisstic, thinking they are the only game in town. They are the modern developed world's biggest colonial (imperial ) oower. Their militry spending is for the purpose of control over the rest of the free world, and their new President has actually voiced his imperialist intentions for Canada and Greenland. The real problem is whether his party members in Congrsss will act as a check or just let him be the despot he desires to be.
12 aircraft carriers and nuclear missiles 5 hours south of Calgary in Great Falls, MT say that Canada is weak. Might is already right in the end.
It's astounding how few Albertans know about the nuclear arsenal located just south of them. I grew up near the US border, so I knew about them, but many do not.
If WWIII were to start, we knew we would be toast.
https://www.mtpr.org/montana-news/2023-02-15/why-are-there-so-many-nuclear-missiles-in-montana
The problem (or advantage ) is that most of that oil goes into the US mid west which is a Republican stronghold. 25% tariff on it would lower the margin so much that a lot of producers would limit production. They would have to import from the US gulf coast which is complicated or so the price would increase. In any case, the effect on Canada would be a lot greater than the effect on the US.
Tariffs however were never on raw materials before, so I don't see why he wouldn't exclude them.
We offer much space,time before any country can reach the US border from the North. That said,its lack of security and monitoring is our and the US ‘Achilles Heel’. Trump is right,Russian and Chinese ships are cruising the Arctic. Hell,Canada has not even mapped the ocean floor.
Being told to buy more of my own weapons by my neighbour, who has a history of self-interested global aggression creating blowback is problematic, of course. (Middle Eastern terrorists, all terrorists, should be dealt with using harsh, overwhelming force, but they never hated America for who they are. It's what they do, real or perceived, that creates them.)
Having said that, I'm deeply embarrassed by the LPC treatment of our military, the lack of spending on defence, our pathetic unpreparedness, especially in the face of some things we HAVE spent money on. The LPC shames our great military history, and has utterly squandered our global gravitas. One grandfather was gassed in WWI, the other barely survived working convoys to help Britain survive WWII, and our uncle was burned alive in a plane fighting the air battle of Britain. Now we're a joke, and it pisses me off mightily.
Canadians should give up a latte or two, even more, to build a meaningful, effective presence in the North. This is an emergency, and a cultural imperative. Then we should take every lesson from Ukraine, rebuild every contingency plan, and fund resources for the most likely threats. NOW.
Middle Eastern terrorists do hate America for who they are: a free secular society that has no time for Islamic theocracy. Even the Christian fundamentalists believe in separation of Church and State. Muslims want the world to be converted to Islam at the point of a sword and that's why they hate America: America won't convert and impose sharia law.
America doesn't "create" terrorists. It has to resist them.
Looks like we have opposite opinions, lol. This is fine with me and the world is made up of many, varied points of view.
Broad, generalizations about people have no credibility for me. I've spent too much time, professionally, being responsible for the work of (thousands of) people.
I worked for a large American company for 20 years, in leadership, and know many, many Christian fundamentalists... not one of whom believes in the separation of church and state. Every one of them prays for, and pays for, a "Christian" government, and they're not shy about it.
I'm sure the others exist; I've just never met one.
I've studied a bit about the history of religion, and religious philosophy, and the few radical Islamists that want to convert the world at the point of a gun look as rare as the Christian fundamentalists who feel the same. Not rare enough in my view, but still a small minority of either.
At their roots, the two religions are similar, share similar histories, and have the idea of humility at their core (our senses, reality, time and space are limited, so we should be suspicious of what we "know").
My philosophy does not include either dogma.
And, oh-by-the-way, to the author: thanks for the POS subs, lol. I wonder if the sellers think they got away with something... because they did.
I still think this piece is important right now.
I am glad to see that The Line is getting this kind of contributors.
One of the tricks to dealing with Trump is going to be giving him enough rope to hang himself. Trump's tariff threats and bullying of friends and allies is going to blow back on him, and he's not expecting that. The tariffs and other measures have a good chance of reigniting inflation and enraging a good part of his voters from the November election who were voting *against* Biden and his inflationary policies more than they were voting *for* Trump. Trump's power is already sharply constrained by what's going to be an effectively unworkable majority in the US House of Representatives, and he's already got the worst track record of any US president for having actions reversed by the courts. In 2 years, he could be the lamest of lame duck presidents facing a hostile Congress controlled by Democrats after mid-term elections, mired in legal problems, and seeing support crash among his own voters. This isn't going to be easy for Canadians, but there's no reason to roll over and make it easier for Trump if there's an opportunity to nudge him front of a political train.
Great summary of the situation. In the “guns or butter” choice faced by all serious countries, under the pacifist Trudeau regime Canada has been virtually all on the butter side along with subsidies notably to Quebec dairy producers. About time it is made to pay the defence bill. There are a lot of European and wealthy middle eastern nations who have been free riding as well.
No one ever mentions the elephant in our room. Quebec. Is it with us or against us? Not too many announcements coming from that area. I guess they can’t call on Macron either now
Québec, as always, is looking to see who is likely to win and then join that side. The Bloc's whole and only platform in Parliament is that Confederation doesn't work for Québec. This is their big chance to prove it.
Right on Susan! Quebec just pulled off another success by conning Newfoundland and Labrador in giving up its hydroelectric future in exchange for stopping their current and historical ripoff of NF in the sale of Churchill Falls electricity to NY state. This sets them up nicely for future revenues in an independence scenario. I bet even if Doug Ford puts an export tax on Ontario electricity that QC won’t follow suit.
An export tax on Ontario electricity would raise less money than the value of the electricity not sold because of the tax. No, if I was Quebec I absolutely would not follow suit with a foolish tax on a product that the more we sell of it the more we make. You don't tax your own exports. That's just stupid. Did Ford really say he was going to do that?
No Ford didn’t say it but he threatened to cut off electricity exports to the US. The amount involved would be minimal in any case. But I can easily see the Great Ottawa Brains coming up with the concept. Ontario electricity is part of a North American grid with daily energy flows back and forth across the Canada US border with economic and reliability benefits to everybody. (Quebec last I heard was not part of this interchange and only has export facilities to the US)
Subsidies to Canadian industries because of a small market. Interprovincial trade is the problem here. But those subsidies are not the ones Trump is referring to. Which ones besides defence I have no idea what he is on about.
Marketing boards are a big issue. Deliberate throttling of competition to keep prices higher than they would be in a free enterprise market. All countries seem to do this because rural areas have more voting power per capita than urban areas that would benefit from lower prices.
I watched a paid 30 minute interview with Jordan Peterson and PP (it wasn't included in the free version). It was clear they both think Canada should "work" with the US in order to reap the mutual benefits. I disagree. With trump's transactional winner/loser mentality, having Canada scramble to do his bidding puts us in the weak, "loser" category. Any deal with trump will heavily benefit the US at our disadvantage. I've never seen anything from him that would change my mind on that. History, treaties, written agreements or indeed friendship or respect mean nothing to him.
We're in a tough position alright, but I strongly suspect we may have more leverage than we think. I recently read a great article by Dan Gardiner, who is on the resistance side. I'm with him.
I agree that Canadians are selling themselves short but no one wins a trade war and Canada being an exporting country would suffer far more before any swing back to equilibrium would happen.
I guess everyone’s going to have an opinion on this.
My issue is you’re treating Trump like a normal businessman who sees Canada as a business partner on an equal footing. No. That’s where I disagree with previous comments, because trump does not respect Canada, nor will he engage from a position of mutual respect. He’s made clear one way or another, that he respects power and dominance. I think he’s playing us, trying to force us into a position of fear and appeasement. I reject that, and I hope our leaders (🙄) refuse to be manipulated by him.
Trump is a businessman. Win/win is on the table. One thing Canadians will not get it Canada win/USA lose. That's just crazy talk,
Obviously the US is going to 'win' any trade war.
They're 10 times our population and 100 times more influential in the world.
I agree that we have to use the leverage we have, but consider that if the US decided to cut us off from their market completely, Canada would become an uninhabitable cold hell.
We have to approach them as a junior partner.
Any economic 'resistance' Canada could muster is paltry, and while inconvenient politically and practically in the short term, America could source nearly all we export to them from other suppliers.
Evidence is all around - the NAFTA and USMCA deals greatly benefited Canada, and improved our standard of living here immensely.
The Liberal and NDP parties were staunchly against NAFTA, until the evidence was in.
Then they were all for it.
Let's not go back to the pre-NAFTA 'days of glory' under Pierre Trudeau's Anti-American Socialist Fantasy - we were nearly bankrupted by 1983.
I can’t disagree that too many governments have put more emphasis on buying votes than meeting their real national governance responsibilities, but I disagree that the we need the US more than it needs us. The relationship between the US and Canada has always been one sided. We have been the jewels of wood and drawers of water for the US. We ship resources to the US and buy back manufactured goods. Over 10 % of US oil and gas comes from Canada. 97% of their Potash comes from Canada. I could go through a listing of resources that Trump’s US industry relies, but it is long. The point being we buy manufactured goods from the US. You can buy manufactured goods from other places (and much of the so called US goods are made in China), but you can’t easily get resources from other places. Canada has too often taken the easy way out by exporting to the US market and maybe with Trump tariffs business will get off its duff and go after new markets or even start processing our resources here in Canada. We now have a population of 41M people. We can do more if we shuck the gig economy the Liberals have imposed on the country.
Trump is a bully. Acquiescing to a bully leads to more bullying. We need to do the tough things now even if it hurts to prevent tougher times further on. Canada and the US have a symbiotic relationship that has worked for both. If Trump disrupts that he may be surprised.
Allen, you write, in part, "... maybe ... business will get off its duff and go after new markets or even start processing our resources here in Canada ..."
Yessss ... maybe.
I recall that T1 tried that; he labelled his attempt to re-orient our business direction as "The Third Way" I seem to recall. [The "first" way was to sell domestically, the "second" way was to sell to the US and the "third" way was to sell to the rest of the world. All as I recall.] In any event, the policy was announced and instigated and attempted and undertaken. And failed. Simply put, geography, you know. And resulting costs. And non-common languages and customs (How many Spanish speakers / knowledge of Spanish / Mexican / Argentinian / etc. requiements in Canada? How many German speakers / knowledge of German requirements in Canada? And so on.
As to processing our resources here, all fine and dandy but, then what to do with them? We just don't need all of them to produce whatever domestically so we refine all our oil here, mill all our wheat domestically, refine all our aluminum in Canada and then what? We still have to sell those products to the world and the largest market in the world is ..... Yup, you guessed it, the largest market is directly south of us.
So, what you suggest has value but a) it has been earnestly been tried before; and b) those previous attempts have not worked out too well. That doesn't mean at all that we should not try those things again but it does mean that we would do well to be realistic about prospects for success.
Great comment Ken. It is past time that Canadians put away their false smugness and live in the real world. Where people actually go to work each day to their office, where governments actually work for Canadians and achievable solutions are put into policies that cannot be litigate by some bored professor.
Rant over - happy New Year.
I don’t really disagree with you or your history lesson which is how I remember it as well. I’ve been to conventions and trade shows and quite frankly our businesses don’t stack up. We have engineering firms that work around the world. They have to educate themselves so can others. I’m not saying it’s our salvation, but we must improve and I don’t think those ‘Team Canada’ expeditions are anything more than political junkets. Individual businesses must invest if they want to grow. Sometimes I think the goal of many Canadian businesses is to grow sufficiently to the point that they can be bought by a US company. Washington State has 7.5M people yet has produced Costco, Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing, Expedia, Amazon and more. Canada has 40 M and has one global brand - Shopify. We must find out why that is and do better. Ramble ended.
You point to engineering firms and discuss their position in the world. I fully agree, having had to deal with some of those firms and they clearly, clearly were very good businessmen.
I will offer just one anecdote to illustrate your comment about our business class. I am a retired accountant and as an accountant I always took professional development courses. To me, the best of the courses was one that I took annually where one of the speakers was an accountant in Calgary who I knew personally. He was the local lead technology partner and the firm's international lead technology partner. We always got him to talk about (naturally!) technology and he always was very gracious and did so, Invariably he would ask the audience questions about how many of you do X, how many do Y, etc., etc. and some hands would go up but not a whole lot. He would then say that when he was talking to U.S. or other international audiences the whole audience would have raised hands. In other words, we were laggards in spending on technology. And that is simply a way to confirm your observation and to answer your question as to why.
Oh, and yes, I recall talking to one accounting firm whose whole business plan was to mimic a way of business of some U.S. businesses so that they could sell their business. Didn't work out! Originality, investment and thoughtfulness would have been much more productive.
Ken, we seem to remember many of the same things. Unfortunately, we may be forgetting many of the same things,
Dementia, thy name is Ken / Allen.
The problem with being 74 (my age) is that I really do get tired of warning younger folk (you know, in their fifties and sixties), "Watch out when an oldster starts out, with 'I remember when ...'"
I guess then I should warn you when I start ‘I remember when…”
The biggest cost with smelting aluminum is the electricity. So Canada does smelt aluminum using ultra-cheap hydroelectricity in Chicoutimi and I think still in Kitimat. The smelting companies are foreign-owned now. We have no bauxite ore in Canada but it comes from around the world to be made into aluminum here, and it is one of our important exports to the U.S. (Iceland smelts aluminum too using geothermal electricity.) The finishing into aluminum products is not something we can do efficiently but the role electricity plays in making aluminum is a good example of a process that we could do here (and do) because our electricity is cheap and the ore can easily get to the smelters by ship (and the ingots out to market by ship or rail.) These bits of lucky geography overcome the small-market economic disadvantages that you otherwise cite accurately.
Absolutely if you live next door to a huge market that speaks English you have to expect that most of your trade in manufactured goods or knowledge work will be with it. Japan may buy our coal and Korea our oil, but all of our aluminum and car parts and computer chips are going to go to the U.S.
I stand corrected about the issue of relatively cheap electricity but we are still left with the issue of finding a market. Yes, we can refine aluminum but we are doing that now - and selling it into primarily the American market. As I say, the issue of finding non-US markets remain. Two questions: 1) if those non-American markets are so prevalent why have we not found them previously; and 2) given that other countries will likely face US tariffs, would we not find a really big dog fight for those other markets?
As I said above, all that stuff that Canada exports to the U.S. is owned not by Canadians at all but by the shareholders of the companies that extracted or manufactured it. "Canada" doesn't have a say in the matter as to whether the Alberta oilfields continue to send crude to the U.S., (or Ingersoll and Brampton send car parts to Detroit.) It's not "our" oil. It's not worth anything left in the ground. It only gains value when the oil-drilling company pays royalties to Alberta and takes possession at the well-head. Then it's their oil and they can sell it anywhere they want.
Actually, they can’t. The sovereign country where the resources come from still controls what leaves the country and where it goes. Shareholders may own the company, but as owners they take a risk. One of those risks is what the government of the country where the assets are located might do on any given day. Ask the shareholders of the many mines that have been taken over by countries in S. America or oil companies in the Middle East. Imagine if General Dynamics in London (if it still is GD) wanted to sell its armoured vehicles to Russia. The Canadian government would shut it down in a heartbeat. Shareholders do reap benefit from companies they own and they have a say in the management of the company, but they also have risk that their investments will be negatively affected by government. Determining that risk is called due dilligence.
Well, yes, but the whole argument for investing in Canada is that for ordinary industrial products and raw materials the Canadian government doesn't pull stunts like that. I reiterate that Canada is not going to tell a producer that they can't sell their products to the United States just out of some political grudge between Trudeau (and his successor) and Trump. Military equipment to foreign hostile countries would be a special case that I thought too obvious to mention. The original poster was talking about Canada threatening to cut off a vital commodity to a military and commercial ally just because it's "our" oil. Not going to happen.
…and allies don’t normally apply cross the board tariffs on other allies for no rationale reason and contrary to existing trade agreements. A Trumpian US is not a true ally. He has stated that he is doing to wage an economic war against us. You also forget that the government owns the major pipeline taking petroleum to the US. We must be prepared to fight back. Putting tariffs on sleeping bags and other fluff as the government did last time was the action of a weakling. Stopping export of coal would get their attention as all US coal exports go through Canada and Warren Buffet owns the railway that carries most of that coal to port. The Orange Buffoon is complaining that a trade surplus is subsidization so just stop shipments of key products that will balance the trade. That’s what Orangeman wants, so give it to him.
What? All U.S. coal exports go through Canada? Presumably you mean to Vancouver via Buffet's BNSF. Then what is all that black stuff that Norfolk Southern, CSX, UP, CN, and CPKCS trains carry to ports in Norfolk, Baltimore, Louisiana, Wisconsin, California, and even to little Sandusky Ohio?
https://uscoalexports.org/coal-exports-facts-figures/
Most of the Powder River low-sulphur steam coal that BNSF could logically take to Vancouver is instead burned domestically in power plants. I don't know how much of the coal that ships out of Roberts Bank in Van comes from American mines. Perhaps you do. It does seem like a lot but stopping those trains at the border isn't going to bring America's coal industry to its knees.
The pipeline that the Canadian government owns (TMX) goes to tidewater in Burnaby, not to the U.S. The ones that cross the border are owned by shareholder corporations. The government is not going to shut them down. Don't be silly.
Allen, you beclown yourself thinking that Canada is an equal to the US. Damage the US economy and they will turn the screws on Canada until it falls apart on its own. Alberta will choose prosperity over Canada any day of the week.
I believe the most recent figure that I've heard is that the Canadian Oil patch is 90% foreign owned. A sobering statistic under these circumstances.
JR, the industry may be foreign owned but the actual resource is owned by the provinces (with the minor exception of freehold resource ownership). Therefore, the provinces can influence what the resource companies do.
Which is to encourage them to dig it up and sell it, in order for the province to obtain the royalties. The province owns it only when it's in the ground where it isn't worth anything. Only when it's flowing through pipes to a paying customer is it earning money.
Susan, I kinda agree. But, as always, the devil is in the details.
Yes, the entire resource when in the ground belongs to the province. Just to use silly numbers, assume that the Crown royalty is 10% of the value of the resource (oil, gas, etc.) when produced. Therefore when the producer produces a barrel of (say) oil, 10% of the value belongs to the province.
First off, the producer could pay 10% of the selling price to the Crown or, secondly, (and this is what the Crown does in a lot of cases) the Crown has the right to require that the producer give over 10% of the actual volume of oil and the Crown sells it. This latter instance is known as the province "taking in kind" it's royalty.
Therefore, the province has a number of options. First, do not ignore the fact that a lot of the industry is actually domestically owned (the 90% number for foreign ownership is too high - just as one example, Canadian Natural Resources Limited is - I believe - the largest producer in Canada and is a Canadian company). Second, the province can use the take in kind volumes to influence a lot of things. Third, the province can change the terms of royalties to remain at, say, 10% but to require additional things (i.e. if you want to produce our oil pay us 10% AND do "X").
All of that is to say that the province does have levers. What the province does NOT have is any way to diversify our markets. Clearly, the majority of production goes south. Just as clearly the current federal government and it's acolytes (including Quebec) have discouraged additional pipelines to tidewater both east and west. That means that we are left with far and away the majority of our production going to the US.
Thank you for that explanation. Is there any case under that spectrum of royalty arrangements that a *province* (say Alberta of course) would want to prevent the resource company (whether Canadian- or foreign- owned) from selling its (or the provincial Crown's) oil to the United States? I can see that federal government might want to prevent sales (and I suppose it could legislate accordingly, similar to Trudeau I and the NEP) but would the province want to, ever?
Point I'm making is that a lot of Canadian nationalists seem to think that if "we" (themselves, sitting in Toronto or Vancouver) want to spite Trump and hurt him real bad, "we" can shut off the flow of "our" oil to the U.S. I think only the province where the oil is located in the ground could do that, through its royalty regime, and I don't see any scenario where it would co-operate with those nationalists sitting comfy and smug in Van and Toronto.
Can thank Trudeau 1 and 2 for that
Actually, it was Trudeau the 1st that came up with Petro Canada. The ownership statistics were even worse back then and the point of Petro Canada was to get some Canadian ownership in the patch. That obviously had mixed results but don't blame the lack of Canadian ownership on Pierre of all people.
Could you please explain what you mean by this comment? I don't really understand what the Trudeau's have to do with mineral rights.
Likely the punishing regulations imposed by the Feds for mineral extraction. We’ve seen JT bungle pipelines, his failures don’t stop there.
No way that is even close to true. The biggest 4 producers are:
1) CNRL
2) Suncor
3) Cenovus
4) Imperial
All 4 are Calgary based, although Imperial is majority owned by Exxon. As public companies, shareholders can be from almost any country,
Would that were true, we would have done it during the Mulroney, Cretien-Martin, and Stephen Harper periods. We didn't, because we chose not to.
Canada is cold as hell 3/4 of the calendar year, and our transportation infrastructure needed to build and facilitate the value added economy you describe is completely inadequate. Any chance we had to build a transportation infrastructure up to the task in our cold climate was pissed away by every federal government including and since Mulroney in favour of increasingly unaffordable and ineffective social programs.
Remember Mulroney's line that Canada's social programs were a 'sacred trust'?
It helped elect him in Ontario & Quebec in 1984.
Hope you've enjoyed the sacred trusts while they've predictably bureaucratized and crumbled, along with what's left of our 1960s-era transporation infrastructure (not to mention our military capacity).
Now we're over a trillion dollars in debt with SFA to show for it.
In the meantime, for just three examples, take a good hard look at the amazing US highway interstate, airline, and navigable river transportation networks and you'll see why they kick our collectivist asses six ways to Sunday.
I agree Trump is a bully.
We have actively embraced our status as the 98 lb (44kg) weakling.
As I've noted elsewhere in this comment thread, I hope we learn from what's about to happen to us. It might finally convince us to work harder, eat better, and go to the gym regularly. If we can't beat up the US bully, maybe we can push ourselves to get in good enough shape over the next two decades to outrun them.
For everyone's sake in Canada, I sure hope we do.
When someone holds a gun to your head they are more than a bully. They own you. You can beg or you can accept your fate. To think that Canada could "stand up and fight America" is the level of preposterousness that only doesn't get laughed at by old stock Canadians.
Face it, Canada is a colony of the US by choice. Our timid business elites always chose the low risk option and now we are trapped.
If Trump allowed any Canadian born under 40 to move to the US to work it would utterly gut Canada. If that isn't a symbol of failure I don't know what is.
Exactly as I see it. No arguments here. Well said. Party time is over. Time to put some adults in charge who know some history and can do arithmetic.
If only we had some.
Gregg Quinn, your piece is insulting in its simplicity and scolding approach. I could barely read to the end- we’ll stand up to Trump’s lunacy with strength and determination. Canada is a great democracy that is going through a temporary period of political turmoil and facing the narcissistic power lust of the bully the Americans elected to lead them. You just watch and learn and tone down the pomposity. Seriously unbelievable.
Bold talk.
Listen who's scolding and being simplistic.
Okay, Michelle, we understand your position.
Now, please recommend some practical steps. Don't simply say that we will stand up to Trump but, instead, what SPECIFICALLY should we do? And, in answering - with specificity, please - what we should do, what would the domestic consequences be of such action? Further, in what way would we reasonably expect DJT to respond and the domestic consequences of his responses to our actions?
I ask those questions as there are / will be lots of people saying that we should stand up but what does that really mean? Simple bluster doesn't do the job; actual actions are important but we need to know just what actions we can / should undertake and the consequences of those actions.
Canada’s first priority over the next couple weeks is to negotiate some kind of settlement with the US to avoid tariffs, which may include threatening tariffs of our own.
If that fails, Canada will need to expand trade elsewhere, particularly with Europe and Asia. Because of transport costs, you tend to have more trade over shorter distances. But maritime transport is remarkably cheap compared to land-based transport: once you can get your products to a port (like Vancouver or Montreal or Halifax), you can ship them worldwide.
This also seems like a good opportunity to take economists' advice on improving productivity (e.g. removing restrictions on homebuilding, internal trade barriers, tax reform).
https://vancouverkingsway.ca/trade-war
Russ, thank you for your (as always) thoughtful comments. Having offered those plaudits, I do have some quibbles.
You say we should "negotiate some kind of settlement with the US ... " Sounds really good. Just WHO will handle those negotiations? The current (non) leader, i.e. the Face Painter, has no authority to negotiate but, far, far, more importantly I have to think that the Trumpster will simply say something like, "Governor, you have no authority to negotiate and you cannot pass any legislation to implement your deal. Go away and in a couple of months, after the election, we will talk to the new guys."
In other words, no matter what we want, DJT will not be interested because any negotiators we send have no credibility and will be unable to make any deal stick.
Expand trade elsewhere. Yes, a good idea. T1, the Face Painter's father, tried his "Third Way" to attempt the very same thing back in the seventies. It was an honest effort but did not bear much fruit. The fact is that geography means that north-south trade is far more efficient than east-west trade/transportation.
Yes, maritime transportation is cheaper than rail, much cheaper than truck. Oh, but you have to go through the ports and what rational Canadian business would trust the unions or management in the ports to not go on strike/lockout/etc.?
Restrictions on homebuilding / internal trade barriers / tax reform? All good ideas, but, but, but.
Homebuilding is primarily a municipal / provincial area and the federal government can only do so much. The current government has just started doing some things after much prodding but hasn't really done much at all; the CPC is certainly making noises about using the federal spending power as a big stick in the homebuilding area but the CPC stick (and the methods the current guys are using) will only work over a period of some years.
Internal trade barriers? I'm 74 and I think that I have been hearing about that issue for about fifty years and not much has been done. Again, assuming that agreements (please note: plural) can be struck, I expect that it would take some years for this to really assist.
Tax reform? Again, good idea but ... Again, I'm 74 and a retired accountant. I came into the accountancy profession just after the REAL BIG tax reform as at December 31, 1971 - so, effective in 1972. That is the last noticeable tax reform and since that time the various governments have only made the Income Tax Act much, much, much worse. That 1972 tax reform was passed by T1 and, as noted, took effect only on January 1, 1972. The reforms arose out of the Carter Royal Commission which, in turn was appointed by PM John Diefenbaker (yeah, the guy who was the predecessor to the predecessor to T1) in 1962. Yup, ten years (three Prime Ministers) from start to finish and you just know that today it would take much longer when you figure out all the special interest groups (and in taxation there are an INFINITE number of special interest groups), hearings, draft legislation, re-draft legislation, re-re-re-draft legislation, etc.
Put differently, all of your suggestions are absolutely valid but none of them are immediately possible. Put, yet again, differently: we are totally fucked!
Good comment. Canada's port capacity is poor and the ports are controlled by the motorcycle gangs who use them for smuggling. For a large country with three coasts we have actually much less usable salt water coastline than the U.S. does and our ports are small and pokey compared to Long Beach and Baltimore (which are very inefficient also because of the powerful longshoreman's unions that get paid as if they were manually unloading cargo even when they're not because it's all containerized.)
But just stepping back. Most of our trade with the U.S. is either in pipelines or by truck for just-in-time delivery. And rail. None of that is easily moved by ship to overseas countries. Our outgoing ship trade is mostly bulk commodities like coal, sulphur, and grain....and returning empty sea cans -- lol. (For a while we were shipping discarded Blue Box plastic to foreign countries for "recycling" but they finally told us to stop doing it because they were just piling the stuff on the wharfs until it fell into the harbours.) We're not going to be shipping car parts to China instead of Indiana just to get around a tariff.
Its more than just the motorcycle gangs
Thanks, Ken. Regarding negotiations with Trump, I thought this suggestion was a good one: opposition leaders (especially Poilievre) should be involved in the Canadian response. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-trudeaus-resignation-compounds-economic-uncertainty-ahead-of-possible/
> Jeremy Kronick, vice-president of economic analysis and strategy at the C.D. Howe Institute, said the government should bring opposition politicians into trade negotiations with Mr. Trump, including Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, who will likely become prime minister this year if his party’s lead in the polls holds.
> “The key there is to have a voice at the table in those negotiations that Trump takes seriously,” Mr. Kronick said. “All parties kind of see the issues mostly the same way, and so I think it’s up to this government to bring the opposition leaders to the table so … we’re talking as much as possible with one voice regardless of who wins the election when it comes.”
Regarding the obstacles you've identified, they're all certainly valid - but that doesn't mean we should give up. All of these ideas have been floating around for years (or decades!), and we now have a powerful incentive to overcome our small-c conservatism and actually push forward with them.
In the short term, when the tariffs hit I would expect to see increased unemployment, especially in specific areas that depend on US markets. We're going to need looser fiscal policy (larger deficits, through automatic stabilizers like increased EI payments and lower income-tax revenue) and monetary policy (lower interest rates). This is something that Chrystia Freeland talked about in her resignation letter - gimmicks like the Christmas GST tax cut (the ultimate boutique tax credit) are a bad idea because we need to keep our fiscal firepower in reserve.
On the federal government's role in housing supply: there's two key bottlenecks, red tape and costs. Even if something's legal to build, if costs are too high it won't get built. The federal government can help directly with the cost bottleneck. Poilievre's proposal to raise the threshold for GST on new housing to $1 million will help with condo projects which are currently underwater, especially in the GTA. Probably the biggest moves that the Trudeau government made to help with the cost bottleneck are (a) waiving GST on new purpose-built rental housing and (b) allowing faster depreciation on new rental housing (over 10 years instead of 25 years, offsetting taxable income). RCFI/ALCP (low-cost long-term loans for new rental housing) and MLI Select (low-cost mortgage loan insurance) fall into this category as well.
And, thank you, Sir for your - again - thoughtful response.
I agree that the suggestion of a cross party negotiating team is an interesting idea. From what I read, the idea that the Face Painter would consider including PP on such a team is a non-starter due to his personal animus toward PP. Similarly, PP is dismissive of the Face Painter. [My use of that name for the Prime Minister will tell you of my thoughts about him!]
Notwithstanding all of that, there remains the issue that this government will fall at the earliest possible date and that means that any potential negotiation would become an election issue.
Ah, "The key there is to have a voice at the table in those negotiations that Trump takes seriously." Quite simply, DJT doesn't take seriously the government run by "the Governor" and he (DJT) knows that that government will shortly be replaced so he is incredibly unlikely to take seriously any grouping that is not actually representative of the new government.
I agree that we shouldn't give up in respect of those other things but, similarly, we shouldn't expect those things to be easy to achieve, even within a totally Canadian context. Further, each of those things (assuming they could be navigated to success) would take substantial time before becoming effective. Again, we shouldn't give up trying to achieve them but, also again, they are not an immediate solution.
I agree on the impact of tariffs and on potential domestic consequences arising therefrom.
I agree in respect of housing but it will take a number of years for those changes (both currently enacted and proposed) to really have effect. Again, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do them (We should! We should!) but that does mean that we shouldn't look to near term benefits.
As one possible additional housing item that would have a somewhat faster response time, one might consider changing the Income Tax Act to allow MURBs. MURBs (Multiple Unit Residential Buildings) were a feature of the Income Tax Act in the late 1970s under T1 and they generated just a monstrous amount of rental housing simply because they allowed investors to write off all normal rental expenses against normal income. By contrast, since MURBs were eliminated the rule has been that if you have a rental loss, you cannot write off that loss against other income (sorry, I'm a retired accountant so I geek out a bit on some of these things). As noted, MURBs caused a LOT of housing to be built relatively rapidly. The reason is that the structure of the law allowed investors (think just regular people) to finance one or two or three or whatever number of units in a development instead of needing a company with access to gazillions of dollars. More capital = more housing.
There were definitely problems with MURBs but I think that it is time to consider using them again.
MURBs are definitely a policy worth looking at. If you know people in the Conservative Party I hope you're talking about MURBs at every opportunity! I was just talking to someone about them a couple months ago (on the Liberal side). Do you know when and why they were cancelled? Did somebody think we had an oversupply of housing?
Tex Enemark talks about the tax-shelter provisions in a July 2017 article: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/07/06/Tax-Changes-More-Rental-Housing/
Practical steps to deal with Trump is what you're asking about. Trump is an irrational and quite unpredictable actor. He clearly has little respect for Canada, the Canadian government, our so called leadership which, as we all agree, is entirely lame during the greatest geo political crisis of my life time. Doing what we can on the the border vis a vis the relatively meagre amount of fentanyl and terrorists/immigrants will give Trump a win which may be the best approach to satisfy him personally. But it won't stop the tariffs. A solid plan was announced yesterday by Stephen Lecce, the Ontario Minister of Energy and Electrification who along with Doug Ford is taking a carrot and stick approach - the carrot is a proposal for a Fortress Am-Can - a cross border energy security proposal which would become a "beacon of stability, security and long term prosperity." Its a brilliant grand strategic manoeuvre that will be supported by one on one meetings with business leaders and Republican politicians from northern states that rely on Canadian energy including hydro power as well access to rare minerals. If we are slapped with tariffs we must respond in kind with forceful counter tariffs and the Ontario government is prepared to turn off the flow of electricity plus rare minerals that the US can only buy from Canada since China is no longer a trading partner. Daneille Smith has similar levers with oil. I am not suggesting the provinces go this alone but they can certainly participate using their business and political relationships and appearing on US media that are best suited to their style and message. Ford was a perfect foil for Jessie on Fox. A federal provincial meeting ASAP is needed and coming to coordinate the approach particularly since natural resources - a provincial responsibility - are some of our strongest levers. Targeting Republican states with counter tarrffs that the American consumer will feel is the best way forward. Republicans and the American people are the only ones who may be able to convince Trump that a policy of working against, instead of in cooperation with, Canada is a bad idea. Those are the people who have to be convinced by a Team Canada approach.
A final few points about the death spiral of the Canadian military, as Bill Blair himself has described it. Canada must pass legislation to create a a multi-year maintenance and refurbishment plan for military equipment across all military services with guaranteed and indexed to inflation budget allocations to cover a 30 year horizon. Tall order but I understand that is how it gets done in some of the EU nations that have ramped up spending in recent years. Military investments cannot be politicized decisions that are debated endlessly and minimized by absurd NDP ideas that to invest in our military is war mongering. We invest in our military to prevent war. The procurement process must be completely overhauled and not restricted to domestic suppliers. This would make Trump happy and make these investment decisions more competitive. To plan for the future we should require one year mandatory military service of our young people. But it will take multiple years of investments in human resources as well as training infrastructure before that rather novel idea could even be entertained. It took decades of neglect on the part of both the Conservatives and the Liberals to bring our military this low.
You're right. J. Singh said that they way you deal with a bully is to stand up to him. That's not what actually happens. The way you stop bullying in schools is for an adult to intervene and punish the bully. If there is no adult, bullies play hell with the people they pick on. Singh has obviously never been bullied himself.
I understand the sentiment. We might be able to mount a response if we had a leader. We won't any time soon.
Canada has been getting a rough ride with Trudeau for almost 10 years but that's on the apathetic and uninformed Canadian electorate. We got the government we deserved. Trump is a bully and should be put in his place but the hapless Trudeau isn't the guy to do that. Canada under Trudeau has become irrelevant, weak, without influence and deserving of criticism and ridicule. Canada will rise again but for that, Canadians will have to stop demanding "free" stuff and realize they need to sacrifice the self for the betterment of the whole. Are Canadians up to the challenge? I'm not sure, apathy runs pretty deep but I keep my fingers crossed that Canadians have enough smarts to fight for what we have and what we are.
To answer your question, no Canadians are not. Not anymore at least. Young people get a better deal moving to the US from Canada in 2025. Why would they fight to be less prosperous in a country that takes advantage of them?
Young people have been told for the last 10 years that Canada isn’t worth fighting for, that Canadians should be ashamed of their history. Is it any wonder they prefer going away to seek a better life? The government in the last 10 years has destroyed the economy, made a joke of most if not all federal institutions, has pretty much destroyed any hope for them to get ahead and live a prosperous, fulfilling life so for these reasons and many more, I agree with you.
It's all that and to be even more succinct, why would a young Canadian cross the street let alone risk their lives to push against the US? Health insurance? The Charter of Rights and Freedoms? For the right of municipalities to make it hard to build new homes?
At least French Canada has their nation to fight for. English Canada is so integrated with the US it's the narcissism of small differences why we are even apart from them.
At their core and on an emotional level, Canadians are different from Americans and if those differences make it worth fighting for an independent and distinct country then they are worthwhile ideals. On a purely logical and financial level, those may not matter much though as survival, happiness and prosperity are the ultimate goal.
My point is they aren't worth fighting for. Fight to stay poorer than the US? Fight to have a weaker Constitution? Fight for dairy supply management and weird language laws?
Ultimately people choose what is best for their children, and right now for Gen Z young families with young kids that is the US. Higher salaries, cheaper houses, more business opportunities, even better health care if you have good insurance.
It's hard to compete with a higher standard of living.
I agree. Ultimately, it's a personal decision. I personally have no warm feelings for Canada, don't feel much patriotism for a country that keeps turning its back on its citizens and, being from Alberta, feeling the derision and outright ignorance and hate from central and eastern Canada towards my province. Canadians are apathetic, passive aggressive, completely politically ignorant and not all that tolerant. Given a choice, I would seriously consider moving south.
We are not only a country that allowed tampons to be available in men's bathrooms, we had people cheering this 'progressive' move.
We have a lot of problems and only very strong and dedicated governments will be able to fix this country.
I have a question that is a little off topic but I trust the opinions from this group.
Once Trump gets in and puts his team into place, how will our relationship change? We have Known Terrorists from multiple countries being Harbored in Canada. China, Iran and India are openly active in our political, monetary, drug, real estate and education industries.
We have no real military and/or corrupted police force. What is to stop them from declaring us as Harboring Terrorists and treating us the same as any other country and just start taking people out since we seem to not extradite anyone? Personally I am good with it?
Maybe that's why Donald Trump would like to annex us. U.S. law would apply here and the FBI could operate freely and hunt down the bad guys. No need to assassinate them or even extradite them. Just arrest them in Toronto and drive them to Buffalo.
Im thinking that would be a bonus for them and make it easier. Less political drama and easier optics
If Canada joined the U.S. (presumably as a territory, not as a state -- big difference) we wouldn't enjoy lower taxes. We would pay lower federal taxes like everyone else in the U.S. federal tax regime but if we wanted universal free health care just for ex-Canadians we would have to tax ourselves as a territory to raise the money. Some states levy state income taxes. Canada would have to levy them too. (I don't know if U.S. territories can levy their own taxes, though. Washington keeps a tight rein on its territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, etc., and Alaska & Hawaii before 1959.) Washington would not subsidize our universal free medicare when American residents in the 50 states didn't enjoy this.
There are few things more pathetic than the Laurentian Elite and old stock boomer Canadian types saying "we need to hit Trump and America hard."
The fact is American could crush Canada in an afternoon, and no one would lose out more than the Laurentian Elite and Central Canadian boomer types. Immigrants would support Canada becoming part of the US orbit, and that is 32% of the population,. Count those under 40 with who this version of Canada sucks for, and you have a majority would would at the minimum want an economic union with the US.
Face it, economically Canada has already lost. Our leaders were too greedy and risk adverse and they lost for us. Pursue economic union now or you will be pursuing state vs territory of the US status next.
Leaders lead btw when big geopolitical change occurs. It comes from the top, not from the peasantry.
Okay! We are doomed. We have been since the first NAFTA. The terms of that "free trade" agreement were evident. The US was free to do whatever they wished and Canada had no choice but to buckle. The same is basically true under the current USMC agreement. What I am wondering is how exactly is the US subsidizing Canada and in what areas other than perhaps defense. Trump mentioned automobiles in one of his press conferences. I guess that he really doesn't know that all those GM Ford and Chrysler vehicles are actually made by American compaies which simply add the monicker 'of Canada' to the name. All the shots are called by the home office. It is largely the same for all other major corporations in Canada. We have been and still are a branch office economy dependent on the largess of the mother American company for a good deal of our employment.The real problem with Trump's plan is that all those manufacturing jobs he wants to return to the USA will actually increase the prices of everything made in the USA, as no one will work for the same kind of wages as in say Mexico or Canada for that matter. So, I ask to be enlightened on this subsidization of Canada that Trump keeps mentioning as do so many pundits and just commentators even here. Defense is a given, we should pull up our socks there, but what other fields are we so heavily subsidized in?