The Liberals bought themselves unlimited room to fail by bribing almost the entire media, and are using it to the full.
After a year of no accomplishment whatsoever except backing off on a few of Trudeau's newest and most egregious plans (and of course shoveling billions out the door without tangible results), the biens-pensants are saying "now it's time for Carney to get to work".
In three years, they will be saying "he just needs another mandate for his banking brilliance to bear fruit. And those Conservatives are icky."
The net effect is that almost no journalists in Canada would be in their current employment without govt largesse. Our esteemed hosts are a welcome exception, which is why I pay to subscribe.
Leaving the taxpayer thing aside, I would say there is generally a lefty culture in newsrooms. The young journalists in particular see themselves as advocates for the oppressed.
So these journalists generally align with anti-right, pro-vaccine, anti-convoy, pro-gender ideology, pro-harm reduction sentiments. To the point where asking reasonable questions (is it possible that COVID came from a lab? What if gender affirming care creates harm?) is treated as heresy.
They consider opposing view points to be right-wing, potentially to the point of being dangerous. They won’t go near them. They shun the Right and support the Left.
CBC and other mainstream news is served directly to people's phones and pops up on a default news feed. It's where most of the quasi-politically-disengaged people I know get most of their exposure to news.
I am fully aware of how taxpayers are bankrolling mainstream media in this country. Bribery was mentioned in the original post so naturally I want to know how the bribery works. Because, bribery has legal implications, don't you think? Possibly criminal ones? Walk me through how the bribery works please. Just the bribery. Who, what, where, when, why and how, if you would. Thank you.
If you don't think the regime giving taxpayers' money to the media, under colour of law or not, is bribery, then I don't know how to convince you. Why else would they do it?
It wasn't and still isn't bribery. Bribery suggests something wholly nefarious has occurred. The reason government is bankrolling is the landscape of news has shifted—advertisers moved to social media, and then local news began to collapse. To prevent "news deserts," the Canadian government and tech giants (by law) are now injecting money into the industry.
I've not heard a peep from the CPC on this. I mean, with bribery going on, you think PP would be thundering from the rooftops and that isn't happening isn't it?
You're quite right about the last thing. Many in the CPC know that all of our institutions are bought garbage, but instead of drawing the logical conclusion that they need to be smashed, they timidly call for internal reform, in a futile attempt to avoid upsetting Toronto matrons of either sex.
Well said Sean. Unfair of you to ask for details or examples when folks espouse conspiracy theories. It’s clear they can’t. National funding for some of the legacy media (including the increasingly nutty national post) doesn’t cut it. What role did the media have when all of them were saying Pierre and the CPC were winning by a 20+ point landslide? Was that fake too?
The Conservatives did it to themselves with regards to the media. They are the voice that communicates to older Canadians. It was foolish to behave the way they did and then to expect a positive spin. Reporters are people too.
I think PP has many exceptional ideas and we know this because the Liberals keep taking them and implementing them. It is likely more are going to be “borrowed”. Nevertheless, he has some glaring weaknesses and none bigger than who he chose as his inner circle. Jenni Bryne has no business running a campaign and Sheer is a terrible front man. Unfortunately, these decisions are not reversible as the damage has been done. He won’t be the leader for the next election.
The subsidies for the media are bad and detrimental policy, but let's not exaggerate their impact. The subsidies are surely going to tilt coverage at the margins, but it's not as if the National Post or The Globe and Mail are fundamentally and wholly different in their structure and management style than they were a decade ago when the subsidies did not exist.
Again, it’s that journalists tend to the Lefties, especially the younger ones. They view themselves as allies to various causes of the day.
The older ones are hanging on until they can retire and won’t rock the boat.
Mainstream newsrooms used to be able to hire from a broader, more diverse candidate pool; it has become more narrow and shallow. Who’s knocking at the door to work in a failing industry?
Carney and his Liberals now fully control the House, Senate, Courts, and the media. The Elbows Up Election was our last chance to attempt to reverse the course we've been on for a decade. The only choice Canadians have at this point will be to leave this country (if they can figure out somewhere that will take them), or join what Jen adroitly coined the Canadian Octopus Economy.
The only federal instituion in any question of changing, really ever, is the House, and the earliest that could theoretically happen is 2029. The Senate and Courts are appointed by the PM/PMO, so no change is possible there; in fact, they can be further stacked with those loyal to the Liberals/CCP.
The media? Well, with a few notable outliers like The Line (assuming Matt & Jen still have the heart to continue it by 2029), I wouldn't count on any fair and balanced criticism coming from the fifth estate (which is now actually the fifth column).
That leaves Carney three years to tie up any annoying loose ends of democratic function and accountability left in our 'federation' before he has to have one of those annoying 'elections' again, which will by that point be Canadian Kabuki Theatre, as will 'debates' in the House, Senate, and Courts. It's over. We now live in Mark Carney's Octopus's Garden.
"Oh just stop complaining, it's radiating Loser Energy."
I love that this has become the default reaction to pointing out the batshit crazy state of our country and all the ways it's been rigged to prevent any hope for change.
As for how to deal with this, I'm open to suggestions. I have concerns that a right-wing party capable of winning under the current circumstances would have to be so vicious and underhanded that it might not ultimately be an improvement.
But the real CPC loser energy isn't the complaining: it's the pretence that Carney might listen or want to help the country. The Cons should preface everything with "Carney knows perfectly well this is true, but doesn't want to act on it, due to reasons of his own which we won't speculate about. The only political way forward is an election or the public getting angry enough to make him cave".
The point to be scared (or hopeful I guess) is when the Conservatives stop complaining about the system being rigged against them and they silently start succeeding because they have raised billions in dark money and have started covertly bribing journalists and government MP's.
It's increasingly clear that the government and opposition aren't even playing the same game at present. The latter is stuck in the past.
I think they wouldn't succeed by out-Liberaling the Liberals. Far better a campaign to enrage the public with doxxing of crooks and parasites, smear and demonization campaigns, and calling out disloyalty. All of our institutions, courts, media, and academia, are bought. They all need to go.
"Might not be an improvement" is loser energy. Even if we got an equally bad government from the right, it is highly unlikely we would get the same degree of smug self-satisfaction. So, in effect, it would be much better.
And you hopefully wouldn’t have a French dominated government and civil service trying to screw the Anglos and destroy their morality and values every chance they got. “Look everybody, an elephant!”
I fear that any successful challenger would have to be totally morally bankrupt with no regard for rules, norms, or legality, and willing to go the few places that our already deeply underhanded government will not. Poilievre's biggest problem is that he still thinks there are rules. He's a boyscout trying to compete with mafia gangsters.
Do you consider the publicity around Poilievre via his interviews with Peter Mansbridge, Paul Wells, and Joe Rogan to be examples of the man being bitten by mainstream media? I am barely aware of any journalists who singled him out for criticism for any of those episodes.
The answer is simple: he should keep doing what he was doing in those specific instances - as opposed to doing whatever the hell he was thinking in that interview with the Taxpayers' Federation person.
He miraculously played a perfect game in those interviews, giving them nothing to work with. A single misstep, a single questionable claim, an instance where he was too slow to dismiss an inappropriate line of discussion, and they would have been on him like flies on shit. Wouldn't we all like to do our jobs perfectly all the time. And then it didn't matter because any time Poilievre has a good week, Carney will just release another of his paid-off floor crossers.
Assume for the moment that the system is indeed "rigged" against the Conservatives (a highly contentious premise). As Matt said in a recent podcast, if you do not have a plan to ever win, then just give up, fold up your party, and stop wasting finite political attention and effort on a hopeless project. Whining without a strategic plan is just a recipe for going nowhere and accomplishing nothing.
But if you are asking for suggestions to change, then you are entertaining that there is at least some window for the possibility for change, and that is where the comments from my prior post come in. You wrote in response, "A single misstep, a single questionable claim, an instance where he was too slow to dismiss an inappropriate line of discussion, and they would have been on him like flies on shit." Well, politics is not easy, but it does require some capacity to learn and improve based upon experiences. If Poilievre is still so vulnerable to interview mishaps after two decades(!) of political practice, then he's not going to ever learn - he should get the hell out of the way and let some other Conservative take his place.
Humans are subject to different and varying levels of adversity, often in arbitrary and unfair ways - but different people innovate or persevere differently when faced with the same scale of adversity. There is surely someone else who can learn better and faster when subject to the exact same level of political adversity that Poilievre is (allegedly) facing. Whoever does lead the party should clearly be someone who understands that political change comes slowly and requires extreme patience to pull off. And they should understand that i's not possible to prove your victimhood to the undecided political stakeholders if you're not willing to engage in some very public suffering on behalf of your cause...
The system is rigged against Conservatives at almost every level but it does not mean they can never win. They would be in power right now if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 US presidential election. The recent election in Hungary proved that even a more extreme rigging of the media can't always keep a ruling party in power forever.
So far, Carney has focused on establishing a dictatorship.
His manufactured majority will allow him to pass any legislation and to stack committees so as to suppress openness.
Bills C-5 and C-15 give him and his ministers the ability to override any non-criminal law.
Bill C-22 will give him and his ministers the ability to digitally spy on any Canadian. (Everybody, including progressives, were outraged when Snowden exposed this practice the US.)
Bill 1 (2019) gives him the ability to withhold subsidies from media who criticize the government.
Bill C-9 and C-18 (2023) gives him the ability to crack down on any speech he decides is hateful.
He has given himself the power to silence expat Chinese dissidents whom the RCMP can send to face imprisonment or death in China.
Agree 100%. But Canadians let it happen. Canada is now an elected dictatorship. The “Charter” (State Permission) is so exception ridden that it amounts to lipstick on a tyranny pig. As the late Dave Tomlinson (Canadian Firearms Law Guru and a true Western patriot) once said: “a slave that gets to choose its master every four years is still a slave” .
I fully disagree with the degree of disentanglement from the US that carney seems to be hinting at. I dislike fear tactics or emotionally laden language, particularly in the context of a prime minister who hasn’t actually accomplished anything in a year in office.
The most destructive thing about the present culture in Canada is that we have been divided between not even traditional left and right, but between our base anxieties.
One group can't get over their comfy worldview being shattered by the suggestion that the US might not be always our unambiguous friend and ally. Their brains have been broken and they have been personally insulted to the point where this is all they think about. They despise the US and can be persuaded that it's possible to disentangle our economy from theirs, even though that is patently absurd and would result in the biggest financial collapse any Western country has ever endured (and a good size recession for the US as well).
The other group doesn't love what's going on in the US but was already overwhelmed by different anxieties about typically something like being in their 20's to 40's and not even coming close to achieving the level of life success they wanted despite doing everything right. Sure the US is acting crazy but everything is crazy so what does it even matter? It will all blow over and there are more pressing issues at home.
These two groups can't even talk to one another anymore. What's frustrating is that they aren't equal. One is based much more on weird fantasy and butthurt ego.
The former group feels they have nothing to lose, because they are completely safe, with foreign investments, guaranteed pensions or, for govt employees, pay - and so they can indulge their fantasies.
The second group feel they have nothing to gain, because the system is rigged in favour of the first. When the second also starts to feel they have nothing to lose, the first had better watch out.
Mark Carney has proven that he has no interest in improving Canada's economic situation. He is an extremely overhyped white collar shyster with a lengthy list of severe conflicts of interest. Marc Carney is a sellout to the criminal organization going under the moniker Chinese Communist Party.
The public record of his bafflegab meaningless words salads, of his deliberate lies and deceptions is now thick and growing by the day.
Mark Carney has inserted himself into the Canadian politics with the hefty aid by unelected and unaccountable "Liberal" insiders.
Mark Carney is here to collapse the Canadian economy and then loot the country of assets by purchases pennies on the dollar, with his gang and his Brookfield. To Mark Carney the voters and population are nothing but serfs, saps and street rats to be drained of as much money as he and his gang can.
A nasty curse be set on the chicken wing chicken shit bullshit "Liberal" and wokey leftist voters.
Actions will matter more than words. I still question the government's ability to control costs in a supply and demand economy, while our neighbour has lost their mind and driven fuel prices up by 40+%. The US isn't going to become more reliable, and Howard Lutnick is a complete and total asshole. We're in a very deep hole due to past lack of action. I wouldn't want his job.
Lutnick is a real case study in a$$holery, isn't he? He's perfected the art of presenting himself as a total prick. Sometimes I think he's done more than DJT himself in damaging the American Brand internationally. I've had other people tell me (as they do with DJT) that it's all part of a 4-D Chess Master Class In Manipulation ™️ and that I'm just too thick to grasp the brilliance of the tactics. I can't help but going back to the gnawing feeling that sometimes, people are just showing you who they really are? ✳️
This is well written and seems spot on. More impressive than Carney's benefit from posturing against Trump and his forceful and thoughtful international speeches is the total collapse of Pierre, and unfortunately the conservatives with him. Hopefully Carney can actually start implementing some of the aspirational 'national building' projects that will push us back into being a productive economy.
For those who are whimpering about Carney's popularity, his stealing of ideas, and the floor crossers, perhaps you should contact the CPC. Pierre has given it to him on a silver platter. Would you prefer he did not adopt sound conservative policies?
Carney seems to think that Canadians will believe things are fine if he simply says they're fine even when they're clearly not fine. This is gaslighting on steroids. Inflation, driven by over a decade of deficit spending, irresponsible immigration policies which remain essentially unchanged, housing costs among the world's highest in some places, an hilariously incapable military and a broken trade relationship with the US are all the legacy of Liberal rule and it's doing nothing but get worse. None of this can be fixed by ever higher government spending and borrowing to hire more government employees or by flying around the world signing meaningless trade deals with faraway countries all while fanning the flames of anti-Americanism here at home. All this may get him elected but it won't solve any of our problems. For that, we will need competent government, something we simply haven't had for a long time. New boss, same as the old boss.
Oh, and what about that promise to quickly get rid of all those intra-provincial trade barriers?...
"situational unity acquired through anti-American rhetoric into something more durable."
Wait, what?!? I must have misunderstood...
Aren't there ACTUAL tariffs? Isn't the auto-act destroyed? Didn't orange jesus say he wanted to annex Canada? Is that what rhetoric means? It's a pretty fancy word, so maybe I had that wrong too, lol.
"...but not a broad window to drift into other projects."
Alto HSR is a project at considerable expense that Canada does not need now. It falls into the category of luxury beliefs that solves no current problem. Given it will be paid for with borrowed money to build and very likely borrowed money to subsidize its operation, its plans should be dropped in the shredder, the same as Doug Ford's "gravy plane".
All the major projects and diversification trade deals are important but they will take time to bear fruit. Top issue now is maintaining working realpolitik economic cooperation and access to US market and supporting SME growth in Canada which should get traction faster than the long term stuff. At the same time reducing economic dependence to counter threats to our political sovereignty is critical. For all the comments here about a dictatorship our politicians are still responsible to voters and not donors, unlike our wannabe absorber.
Friend, good points but you have misread a few items. I wish you were more perceptive and more realistic on those.
"Liberal" politicians are definitely no longer responsible to voters and have not been since the The Idiot King's first day in the office. By his second year I had a very clear sense that the bastard is aiming at putting in place a leftists dictatorship.
The Carney character is cementing it in place while he is deliberately wasting time re. the improvement of economy. See Jerry Grant's comment.
Our political sovereignty has been over the decades gradually been sold off to Chinese Communist Party by the "Liberal" establishment, starting with the first Trudeau.
Sucking up to someone who has been bought isn't likely to work. The Conservatives need to go around the media, the way Trump did. I think Poilievre is likely to be the leader next time, simply because the Conservatives are afraid to have a battle between the Liberal-lite approach which has led to defeat after defeat, and something actually constructive and conservative.
Unless Carney poaches all the Liberal-lites first.
I do not believe that Trump owes his success due to "going around" the media. He's had such ubiquitous and never-ending media coverage since 2015 that even the negative and critical coverage have normalized his perpetual public presence. A swath of American voters have confused themselves into thinking that his lack of shame in the face of persistent criticism is a sign of having nothing to hide; he arguably would have never gotten this far if the media had ignored him or if he hid himself from it.
Poilievre is not the narcissist that Trump is, but Trump has also not been nearly as wimpy as the former when it comes to exposure to potential critical media.
Personally I view this as a tainted majority thanks to the 5 unprincipled MPs who ignored the wishes of their constituents and placed personal gain ahead of the people who voted for them. On the other hand I suspect Canadians may now find out who and what the real Carney is to the regret of many. The continued support of the Liberals by a dominant position in Eastern and Central Canada as opposed to the limited support they have west of the Ontario / Manitoba border speaks strongly to an unbalanced and divided Canada.
The Liberals bought themselves unlimited room to fail by bribing almost the entire media, and are using it to the full.
After a year of no accomplishment whatsoever except backing off on a few of Trudeau's newest and most egregious plans (and of course shoveling billions out the door without tangible results), the biens-pensants are saying "now it's time for Carney to get to work".
In three years, they will be saying "he just needs another mandate for his banking brilliance to bear fruit. And those Conservatives are icky."
If Mark Carney had a personal newsletter dedicated to singing his praises, it would read like most articles in the Globe and Mail.
>>The Liberals bought themselves unlimited room to fail by bribing almost the entire media, and are using it to the full.<<
Can you walk me through how that happens? How the money changes hands from the Liberal Party to the media and which media specifically?
Is it paper bags? We know the Liberals have a past with paper bags.
Or is it all media? JG and MG run this place and make it loud and clear they don't take government money..
Help me out here ....
Really
Of course the CBC is fully owned - don't dismiss that as a place for older journos to get a job. The broadcast networks are fully regulated. Then there is a huge raft of subsidies for other media: https://thehub.ca/2025/04/21/deepdive-government-subsidies-for-canadas-media-were-supposed-to-temporary-but-they-keep-on-growing-and-could-be-here-to-stay/
The net effect is that almost no journalists in Canada would be in their current employment without govt largesse. Our esteemed hosts are a welcome exception, which is why I pay to subscribe.
Leaving the taxpayer thing aside, I would say there is generally a lefty culture in newsrooms. The young journalists in particular see themselves as advocates for the oppressed.
So these journalists generally align with anti-right, pro-vaccine, anti-convoy, pro-gender ideology, pro-harm reduction sentiments. To the point where asking reasonable questions (is it possible that COVID came from a lab? What if gender affirming care creates harm?) is treated as heresy.
They consider opposing view points to be right-wing, potentially to the point of being dangerous. They won’t go near them. They shun the Right and support the Left.
Much as I like the Line, they are a pretty tiny part of the Canadian media landscape. TV, newspapers, CBC radio, and magazines account for most of it.
The traditional media has been replaced by Tik Tok and other social media.
CBC and other mainstream news is served directly to people's phones and pops up on a default news feed. It's where most of the quasi-politically-disengaged people I know get most of their exposure to news.
Yup
I am fully aware of how taxpayers are bankrolling mainstream media in this country. Bribery was mentioned in the original post so naturally I want to know how the bribery works. Because, bribery has legal implications, don't you think? Possibly criminal ones? Walk me through how the bribery works please. Just the bribery. Who, what, where, when, why and how, if you would. Thank you.
If you don't think the regime giving taxpayers' money to the media, under colour of law or not, is bribery, then I don't know how to convince you. Why else would they do it?
It wasn't and still isn't bribery. Bribery suggests something wholly nefarious has occurred. The reason government is bankrolling is the landscape of news has shifted—advertisers moved to social media, and then local news began to collapse. To prevent "news deserts," the Canadian government and tech giants (by law) are now injecting money into the industry.
I've not heard a peep from the CPC on this. I mean, with bribery going on, you think PP would be thundering from the rooftops and that isn't happening isn't it?
You're quite right about the last thing. Many in the CPC know that all of our institutions are bought garbage, but instead of drawing the logical conclusion that they need to be smashed, they timidly call for internal reform, in a futile attempt to avoid upsetting Toronto matrons of either sex.
Hence their lack of political success.
Well said Sean. Unfair of you to ask for details or examples when folks espouse conspiracy theories. It’s clear they can’t. National funding for some of the legacy media (including the increasingly nutty national post) doesn’t cut it. What role did the media have when all of them were saying Pierre and the CPC were winning by a 20+ point landslide? Was that fake too?
The Conservatives did it to themselves with regards to the media. They are the voice that communicates to older Canadians. It was foolish to behave the way they did and then to expect a positive spin. Reporters are people too.
I think PP has many exceptional ideas and we know this because the Liberals keep taking them and implementing them. It is likely more are going to be “borrowed”. Nevertheless, he has some glaring weaknesses and none bigger than who he chose as his inner circle. Jenni Bryne has no business running a campaign and Sheer is a terrible front man. Unfortunately, these decisions are not reversible as the damage has been done. He won’t be the leader for the next election.
Canada's MSM , while being subdidized, is not being bribed. They see themselves fully aligned with the progressive values and plans of the Liberals.
You don't have to bribe someone who's already part of your religeon.
The subsidies for the media are bad and detrimental policy, but let's not exaggerate their impact. The subsidies are surely going to tilt coverage at the margins, but it's not as if the National Post or The Globe and Mail are fundamentally and wholly different in their structure and management style than they were a decade ago when the subsidies did not exist.
Again, it’s that journalists tend to the Lefties, especially the younger ones. They view themselves as allies to various causes of the day.
The older ones are hanging on until they can retire and won’t rock the boat.
Mainstream newsrooms used to be able to hire from a broader, more diverse candidate pool; it has become more narrow and shallow. Who’s knocking at the door to work in a failing industry?
Carney and his Liberals now fully control the House, Senate, Courts, and the media. The Elbows Up Election was our last chance to attempt to reverse the course we've been on for a decade. The only choice Canadians have at this point will be to leave this country (if they can figure out somewhere that will take them), or join what Jen adroitly coined the Canadian Octopus Economy.
The only federal instituion in any question of changing, really ever, is the House, and the earliest that could theoretically happen is 2029. The Senate and Courts are appointed by the PM/PMO, so no change is possible there; in fact, they can be further stacked with those loyal to the Liberals/CCP.
The media? Well, with a few notable outliers like The Line (assuming Matt & Jen still have the heart to continue it by 2029), I wouldn't count on any fair and balanced criticism coming from the fifth estate (which is now actually the fifth column).
That leaves Carney three years to tie up any annoying loose ends of democratic function and accountability left in our 'federation' before he has to have one of those annoying 'elections' again, which will by that point be Canadian Kabuki Theatre, as will 'debates' in the House, Senate, and Courts. It's over. We now live in Mark Carney's Octopus's Garden.
"Oh just stop complaining, it's radiating Loser Energy."
I love that this has become the default reaction to pointing out the batshit crazy state of our country and all the ways it's been rigged to prevent any hope for change.
As for how to deal with this, I'm open to suggestions. I have concerns that a right-wing party capable of winning under the current circumstances would have to be so vicious and underhanded that it might not ultimately be an improvement.
But the real CPC loser energy isn't the complaining: it's the pretence that Carney might listen or want to help the country. The Cons should preface everything with "Carney knows perfectly well this is true, but doesn't want to act on it, due to reasons of his own which we won't speculate about. The only political way forward is an election or the public getting angry enough to make him cave".
The point to be scared (or hopeful I guess) is when the Conservatives stop complaining about the system being rigged against them and they silently start succeeding because they have raised billions in dark money and have started covertly bribing journalists and government MP's.
It's increasingly clear that the government and opposition aren't even playing the same game at present. The latter is stuck in the past.
I think they wouldn't succeed by out-Liberaling the Liberals. Far better a campaign to enrage the public with doxxing of crooks and parasites, smear and demonization campaigns, and calling out disloyalty. All of our institutions, courts, media, and academia, are bought. They all need to go.
"Might not be an improvement" is loser energy. Even if we got an equally bad government from the right, it is highly unlikely we would get the same degree of smug self-satisfaction. So, in effect, it would be much better.
And you hopefully wouldn’t have a French dominated government and civil service trying to screw the Anglos and destroy their morality and values every chance they got. “Look everybody, an elephant!”
Not that I wouldn't be willing to take the chance at this point. Don't get me wrong.
You mean the current administration is not vicious and underhanded now? Could have fooled me.
I fear that any successful challenger would have to be totally morally bankrupt with no regard for rules, norms, or legality, and willing to go the few places that our already deeply underhanded government will not. Poilievre's biggest problem is that he still thinks there are rules. He's a boyscout trying to compete with mafia gangsters.
He needs to realize that the rules, norms, and legalities are themselves morally bankrupt, and the only way forward is to rip it all up.
It increasingly looks so.
Do you consider the publicity around Poilievre via his interviews with Peter Mansbridge, Paul Wells, and Joe Rogan to be examples of the man being bitten by mainstream media? I am barely aware of any journalists who singled him out for criticism for any of those episodes.
The answer is simple: he should keep doing what he was doing in those specific instances - as opposed to doing whatever the hell he was thinking in that interview with the Taxpayers' Federation person.
He miraculously played a perfect game in those interviews, giving them nothing to work with. A single misstep, a single questionable claim, an instance where he was too slow to dismiss an inappropriate line of discussion, and they would have been on him like flies on shit. Wouldn't we all like to do our jobs perfectly all the time. And then it didn't matter because any time Poilievre has a good week, Carney will just release another of his paid-off floor crossers.
But this isn't even what I was talking about?
Assume for the moment that the system is indeed "rigged" against the Conservatives (a highly contentious premise). As Matt said in a recent podcast, if you do not have a plan to ever win, then just give up, fold up your party, and stop wasting finite political attention and effort on a hopeless project. Whining without a strategic plan is just a recipe for going nowhere and accomplishing nothing.
But if you are asking for suggestions to change, then you are entertaining that there is at least some window for the possibility for change, and that is where the comments from my prior post come in. You wrote in response, "A single misstep, a single questionable claim, an instance where he was too slow to dismiss an inappropriate line of discussion, and they would have been on him like flies on shit." Well, politics is not easy, but it does require some capacity to learn and improve based upon experiences. If Poilievre is still so vulnerable to interview mishaps after two decades(!) of political practice, then he's not going to ever learn - he should get the hell out of the way and let some other Conservative take his place.
Humans are subject to different and varying levels of adversity, often in arbitrary and unfair ways - but different people innovate or persevere differently when faced with the same scale of adversity. There is surely someone else who can learn better and faster when subject to the exact same level of political adversity that Poilievre is (allegedly) facing. Whoever does lead the party should clearly be someone who understands that political change comes slowly and requires extreme patience to pull off. And they should understand that i's not possible to prove your victimhood to the undecided political stakeholders if you're not willing to engage in some very public suffering on behalf of your cause...
The system is rigged against Conservatives at almost every level but it does not mean they can never win. They would be in power right now if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 US presidential election. The recent election in Hungary proved that even a more extreme rigging of the media can't always keep a ruling party in power forever.
So far, Carney has focused on establishing a dictatorship.
His manufactured majority will allow him to pass any legislation and to stack committees so as to suppress openness.
Bills C-5 and C-15 give him and his ministers the ability to override any non-criminal law.
Bill C-22 will give him and his ministers the ability to digitally spy on any Canadian. (Everybody, including progressives, were outraged when Snowden exposed this practice the US.)
Bill 1 (2019) gives him the ability to withhold subsidies from media who criticize the government.
Bill C-9 and C-18 (2023) gives him the ability to crack down on any speech he decides is hateful.
He has given himself the power to silence expat Chinese dissidents whom the RCMP can send to face imprisonment or death in China.
Taken together, this is truly terrifying.
Agree 100%. But Canadians let it happen. Canada is now an elected dictatorship. The “Charter” (State Permission) is so exception ridden that it amounts to lipstick on a tyranny pig. As the late Dave Tomlinson (Canadian Firearms Law Guru and a true Western patriot) once said: “a slave that gets to choose its master every four years is still a slave” .
Jerry, you make some good points, but we lose the focus when we start talking about dictatorships.
No one has seized power; Davos Man is simply willing to go to lengths others would be embarrassed to attempt.
The Liberal-funded Canadian media are too incurious to ask themselves “why has this never happened before?”
Canadians appear to relish the warmth and comfort of their newly dirtied diaper, but even they will tire of soggy bottoms in time.
What Mr. Carney has done is reveal his true nature: that is, he is ruthless in the pursuit of power, influence, and personal wealth.
Canada is just where he parks his car; he already has his next gig planned.
The Conservatives voted in favour of Bill C-5.
Bill C-9 and C-18, whatever their flaws, do not give the Prime Minister any special powers.
I fully disagree with the degree of disentanglement from the US that carney seems to be hinting at. I dislike fear tactics or emotionally laden language, particularly in the context of a prime minister who hasn’t actually accomplished anything in a year in office.
The most destructive thing about the present culture in Canada is that we have been divided between not even traditional left and right, but between our base anxieties.
One group can't get over their comfy worldview being shattered by the suggestion that the US might not be always our unambiguous friend and ally. Their brains have been broken and they have been personally insulted to the point where this is all they think about. They despise the US and can be persuaded that it's possible to disentangle our economy from theirs, even though that is patently absurd and would result in the biggest financial collapse any Western country has ever endured (and a good size recession for the US as well).
The other group doesn't love what's going on in the US but was already overwhelmed by different anxieties about typically something like being in their 20's to 40's and not even coming close to achieving the level of life success they wanted despite doing everything right. Sure the US is acting crazy but everything is crazy so what does it even matter? It will all blow over and there are more pressing issues at home.
These two groups can't even talk to one another anymore. What's frustrating is that they aren't equal. One is based much more on weird fantasy and butthurt ego.
The former group feels they have nothing to lose, because they are completely safe, with foreign investments, guaranteed pensions or, for govt employees, pay - and so they can indulge their fantasies.
The second group feel they have nothing to gain, because the system is rigged in favour of the first. When the second also starts to feel they have nothing to lose, the first had better watch out.
Carney's strategy of uniting Canada is working great, if you define Canada as the land mass east of the Manitoba border...
Isn’t that the part formerly known as Upper Canada?
Well, Upper Canada, Lower Canada and the "outer regions " as they were thought of back when Canada was formed.
Just being pedantic.
Thanks.
Now is the time to start fixing problems?
What, may I ask, has Prime Minister HopScotch been doing for the past year?
I vaguely remember something about an existential crisis (take a drink) from last spring, do I not?
Methinks we culled the wrong ostrich herd, truth-be-known.
Mark Carney has proven that he has no interest in improving Canada's economic situation. He is an extremely overhyped white collar shyster with a lengthy list of severe conflicts of interest. Marc Carney is a sellout to the criminal organization going under the moniker Chinese Communist Party.
The public record of his bafflegab meaningless words salads, of his deliberate lies and deceptions is now thick and growing by the day.
Mark Carney has inserted himself into the Canadian politics with the hefty aid by unelected and unaccountable "Liberal" insiders.
Mark Carney is here to collapse the Canadian economy and then loot the country of assets by purchases pennies on the dollar, with his gang and his Brookfield. To Mark Carney the voters and population are nothing but serfs, saps and street rats to be drained of as much money as he and his gang can.
A nasty curse be set on the chicken wing chicken shit bullshit "Liberal" and wokey leftist voters.
Actions will matter more than words. I still question the government's ability to control costs in a supply and demand economy, while our neighbour has lost their mind and driven fuel prices up by 40+%. The US isn't going to become more reliable, and Howard Lutnick is a complete and total asshole. We're in a very deep hole due to past lack of action. I wouldn't want his job.
Lutnick is a real case study in a$$holery, isn't he? He's perfected the art of presenting himself as a total prick. Sometimes I think he's done more than DJT himself in damaging the American Brand internationally. I've had other people tell me (as they do with DJT) that it's all part of a 4-D Chess Master Class In Manipulation ™️ and that I'm just too thick to grasp the brilliance of the tactics. I can't help but going back to the gnawing feeling that sometimes, people are just showing you who they really are? ✳️
This is well written and seems spot on. More impressive than Carney's benefit from posturing against Trump and his forceful and thoughtful international speeches is the total collapse of Pierre, and unfortunately the conservatives with him. Hopefully Carney can actually start implementing some of the aspirational 'national building' projects that will push us back into being a productive economy.
For those who are whimpering about Carney's popularity, his stealing of ideas, and the floor crossers, perhaps you should contact the CPC. Pierre has given it to him on a silver platter. Would you prefer he did not adopt sound conservative policies?
Carney seems to think that Canadians will believe things are fine if he simply says they're fine even when they're clearly not fine. This is gaslighting on steroids. Inflation, driven by over a decade of deficit spending, irresponsible immigration policies which remain essentially unchanged, housing costs among the world's highest in some places, an hilariously incapable military and a broken trade relationship with the US are all the legacy of Liberal rule and it's doing nothing but get worse. None of this can be fixed by ever higher government spending and borrowing to hire more government employees or by flying around the world signing meaningless trade deals with faraway countries all while fanning the flames of anti-Americanism here at home. All this may get him elected but it won't solve any of our problems. For that, we will need competent government, something we simply haven't had for a long time. New boss, same as the old boss.
Oh, and what about that promise to quickly get rid of all those intra-provincial trade barriers?...
Nah.
"situational unity acquired through anti-American rhetoric into something more durable."
Wait, what?!? I must have misunderstood...
Aren't there ACTUAL tariffs? Isn't the auto-act destroyed? Didn't orange jesus say he wanted to annex Canada? Is that what rhetoric means? It's a pretty fancy word, so maybe I had that wrong too, lol.
"...but not a broad window to drift into other projects."
Alto HSR is a project at considerable expense that Canada does not need now. It falls into the category of luxury beliefs that solves no current problem. Given it will be paid for with borrowed money to build and very likely borrowed money to subsidize its operation, its plans should be dropped in the shredder, the same as Doug Ford's "gravy plane".
All the major projects and diversification trade deals are important but they will take time to bear fruit. Top issue now is maintaining working realpolitik economic cooperation and access to US market and supporting SME growth in Canada which should get traction faster than the long term stuff. At the same time reducing economic dependence to counter threats to our political sovereignty is critical. For all the comments here about a dictatorship our politicians are still responsible to voters and not donors, unlike our wannabe absorber.
Friend, good points but you have misread a few items. I wish you were more perceptive and more realistic on those.
"Liberal" politicians are definitely no longer responsible to voters and have not been since the The Idiot King's first day in the office. By his second year I had a very clear sense that the bastard is aiming at putting in place a leftists dictatorship.
The Carney character is cementing it in place while he is deliberately wasting time re. the improvement of economy. See Jerry Grant's comment.
Our political sovereignty has been over the decades gradually been sold off to Chinese Communist Party by the "Liberal" establishment, starting with the first Trudeau.
I wish I could “like” this 50,000 times.
Voters elect them
"Take time to bear fruit"? Another mandate, perhaps?
Sucking up to someone who has been bought isn't likely to work. The Conservatives need to go around the media, the way Trump did. I think Poilievre is likely to be the leader next time, simply because the Conservatives are afraid to have a battle between the Liberal-lite approach which has led to defeat after defeat, and something actually constructive and conservative.
Unless Carney poaches all the Liberal-lites first.
I do not believe that Trump owes his success due to "going around" the media. He's had such ubiquitous and never-ending media coverage since 2015 that even the negative and critical coverage have normalized his perpetual public presence. A swath of American voters have confused themselves into thinking that his lack of shame in the face of persistent criticism is a sign of having nothing to hide; he arguably would have never gotten this far if the media had ignored him or if he hid himself from it.
Poilievre is not the narcissist that Trump is, but Trump has also not been nearly as wimpy as the former when it comes to exposure to potential critical media.
Personally I view this as a tainted majority thanks to the 5 unprincipled MPs who ignored the wishes of their constituents and placed personal gain ahead of the people who voted for them. On the other hand I suspect Canadians may now find out who and what the real Carney is to the regret of many. The continued support of the Liberals by a dominant position in Eastern and Central Canada as opposed to the limited support they have west of the Ontario / Manitoba border speaks strongly to an unbalanced and divided Canada.