There is no piece of paper you could sign that is going to get Trump off our backs. There is no way to secure the illusion of business certainty in this political environment. It’s fantasy.
I don't get it either. Especially after everyone saw what happened to the "deals" negotiated by Keir Starmer and the EU's Ursula von der Leyen. And when it will blow our new international cred and growing middle-power alliances. This is shaping up as a Senator Bill Cassidy talk-tough-and-wimp-out humiliation and demoralize other nations that have been signalling a desire to stand up to Trump.
Domestically, a lot of people have been looking the other way at his anti-democratic moves on "projects of national interest", his dangerous Internet speech law, and the way he achieved his majority precisely because we thought he was the guy to stand up to Trump on our behalf. If Carney folds there will be righteous fury, and all those pent-up concerns will rage bigtime.
Absolutely. It's one thing to finagle a majority by questionable tactics for the purpose of being able to do hard, possibly unpopular things with less pushback. It's entirely another to do so for the purpose of being a total gutless wonder without anyone being able to stop you.
Much like it's one thing to go on vacation right as the threat of very consequential tariffs is looming as a kind of power move. Like, whatever, we're moving on and making sure we don't need you, do what you will.
It's, of course, again another thing to go on vacation and then wimp out while you're there. That makes it look like you think none of this matters in an entirely different way.
“We’ve made moves to strengthen our economy.”? Ok, name three. In reality, we’ve bloviated a lot about making those moves for the past year, and convened a lot of meetings to discuss the making of such moves, but otherwise, it’s pretty much same-old, same-old. Putting lipstick on the pig didn’t make it any less porcine. Funny how that works.
1) Federal spending and the deficit are higher than ever. Carney has introduced new programs (ex. training for the trades, condo bailout, GST exemptions on housing) rather than repealing them
2) Barriers to interprovincial trade are worse. The pipeline MOU in effect pays BC a toll to allow transit of physical goods. The electricity strategy makes no provision to force Quebec to transmit electricity from NL at cost plus risk adjusted rate of return
3)Trade agreements with other countries exist only on paper. To actually mean something, regulatory and infrastructure barriers need to be overcome
While a small issue, the retreat over the Toronto Island Airport expansion is symbolic of the new Liberals being the same as the old Liberals. The Feds are so concerned about a bielection that they caved to NIMBYs.
"Elbows Up" is absolute crap. It is a marketing appeal to Eastern Canada's Loyalist baggage. Canada is not at war. If the Carney government were true to its rhetoric, it would be expending its polling lead to balance the budget and drive through trade enabling infrastructure. This would entail exercising Parliamentary Supremacy, agressively fighting Supreme Court rulings that get in the way and imposing costs on NIMBYs (ex. provinces, indigenous groups, NGOs, even neighborhoods who obstruct lose federal funding and face lawsuits for imposing delays).
Bingo. Same for the current government when it comes to artificial intelligence - lots of studying, no action. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is rapidly building datacenters, open model AI etc.
Yes and Carney is about to sell off the airports to invest in heavens knows what - a boondoggle that is spinning up so many fees for consultants, advisors and financiers.
She said "we’ve made moves toward strengthening our economy internally" - towards not to. The agreements with Alberta and BC re the pipeline are a move *towards* strengthening the economy, but as there's no shovels in the ground, saying 'to strengthen' would give too much credit.
I would be pleasantly surprised if a pipeline was built during Carney's tenure. I don't think that's the most likely outcome. But that's the point of the 'towards'/'to' distinction. It's a good and necessary first step. On its own it does not strengthen the economy. We'll need concrete action.
The carbon capture requirement basically means a new pipeline would be unprofitable, which means no one (unless it is Brookfield or SNC-Lavalamp, er, Atkins-Realis on a government cost-plus contract) will ever build one. Which, of course, is the entire point of the carbon capture requirement.
To be fair (in my best Letterkenny drawl), Carney has a caucus of nattering loonies who'll rebel if he does anything at all. And he knows that the courts will block any attempt by the Major Projects Office or his Ministers to use their dictatorial powers.
I read a book about twenty years ago about the Palestine - Israel negotiations under Clinton. In it, the author talked about how Arafat negotiated: get partway to a deal, walk away, then come back using the last agreed upon point as the new starting place. Trump deals the same way, and I don't understand how the Canadian government doesn't see that.
Funny thing about that comparison. Arafat walked away from a deal to give the Palestinians a state comprising the entire Gaza strip, 97% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as the capital of their new state.
You’ve got it backwards. It’s the Americans who negotiate like Arafat.
That’s the basic problem with negotiating with Trump. No deal is worth anything because tomorrow or next month he has a new demand and the old concessions are the starting point for the new concessions he wants.
We made a deal with him. Now he has new demands. The same will always happen again.
"...surrender vs. resistance is a valid conversation to have. However, as a people, we did have that conversation, in the spring of 2025. We did make that choice. We chose resistance."
Gee, that's funny, I don't recall "surrender" being ANYONE'S position in that election.
The 2025 election was fought (primarily) between two camps:
The Liberals, who were blatantly running against Donald J. Trump rather than any Canadian opponents, with their "Elbows Up" slogans, with their mantra being "fight fight fight!!!"
...and Poilievre, who was continuing to press his case that Canada itself has structural flaws and self-imposed restrictions that do FAR greater damage to us economically than Trumps' tariffs ever could. His comments on Trump were few and far between - for the most part, he treated the election of Trump, the resulting tariffs, and all that followed as a distraction, NOT an all-consuming obsession.
The Line, as I recall, was apoplectic at the audacity of a politician simply ignoring Trump and trying to win in Canada based solely on "I will fix OUR country".
The funny thing about all of this is that Poilievre was exactly correct on much of this (in fact, immediately after the election campaign concluded, and ever since - the Libs have been trying to fix much of what Pierre was pointing out DURING the election - for example, interprovincial trade barriers, expanding our resource sector, etc. - but doing so in typical Liberal fashion, which is to say poorly, wrongly, and in such a way as to put money in Liberal-adjacent pockets)
...and again, the VAST majority of countries Trump has imposed these tariffs on have simply accepted the deal and moved on. Canada reacted the way we did because the Liberals encouraged us to fear the Evil Orange Man, who was about to invade our country and eat our babies, unless we flapped our Elbows and got real mad at our American neighbours, and stayed that way.
It was a cynical play, based solely on FEAR (and anti-Americansim), but it was the ONLY play the Liberals could make which would allow them to retain power.
Sadly, far too many Canadians (including The Line) bought it.
I keep giving The Line credit for being basically the first credible journalists willing to really articulate how Emperor Trudeau was wearing no clothes, and did a great job chronicling how he and everyone around him were ruining the country on a daily basis and objectively needed to go. It really gave form to my own thoughts on the matter and confirmed that I wasn't, in fact, crazy.
They have been insisting on catching up with the true nature of this new replacement government the Hard Way, however. And JG in particular has decided that Poilievre is always the worse option, because she says so and doesn't like his vibes, and because he managed to lose an election under perhaps the weirdest circumstances of any Canadian election ever, and only looks for evidence to support that predisposition.
I can’t speak for JG. But I would caution you that identifying someone’s weaknesses can actually be an act of support. If the conservatives cared to see how anyone not solidly in their camp perceived their actions, they’d be able to adjust course and win a majority government. But I’m not sure they have that adaptability.
I understand your point in general, but the tone I get from Gerson since the 2025 election is mostly that Poilievre's a loser who can't ever win and is just dismissable as irrelevant and awful. Occasionally there is a 'Conservatives should do X' comment but mostly it's just eye rolls.
So hearing mind KRM’s comments and yours, I wonder why it is Poilievre and the CPC can’t adjust? Are they so beholden and wary of the base that they don’t see how they adjust their messaging? I give them benefit of the doubt for the tone of their fundraising messages but honestly I am beyond exasperated with their inability to get with the times and realize that the schtick that worked with Trudeau led Liberals doesn’t work here. There’s been a few brief sparks of pivot or new tone and then it’s back to same old.
The fundraising emails are totally awful. The party aligns with all my policy goals but I'm reluctant to give them any more money until they can prove that they can spend it on some narrative building that is actually worth a damn.
More generally, why is the CPC so bad at advertising? Liberals can shift a whole campaign with one 20 second appearance by Mike Meyers. Conservatives had Andrew Scheer going on about "meth!" (which was hilarious but for probably all the wrong reasons). They can't blame the media for their total failure to create paid advertising that resonates with... well anyone ever.
Sorry but I live in Alberta were we almost unanimously DID NOT vote for this fellow as we could see there was nothing there. To all you folks who 12 months ago said give him some time, don't worry he'll gitter done, how's that working out.
Please remind me why I want to stay and be part of this?
Because all of Alberta's oil will be going south...at a discount...likely an increasing one.....assuming Alberta gets to keep Fort McMurray. There will be no new pipeline. BC will decide how much goes down TMX.
Danielle went and kissed ass. She was anything but an adult....or a Canadian.
First of all, Mr. Carney also works with Trump "like an adult". So the claim that Ms. Smith is the only one that does this is just plain false. And it's worth noting that neither are getting much of anything for their efforts.
But to answer your question, the reason Alberta would "three times" worse off dealing with Mr. Trump on it's own is that you'd be smaller and weaker. (And 3x is being extremely generous). Donald Trump isn't going to give Alberta concessions because he likes you. Neither his friends nor his enemies think he's the kind of guy to give away anything. Nor did maga elect him to do that. It's right there in their slogan... They're "America first". That means extracting EVERY concession they can get in exchange for as little as possible.
Alberta has things America wants, but what you get in exchange is directly related to how strong you are. There's nothing for free.
It's nothing bad about Alberta, it's just the reality of the situation. Relations with the USA are now transactional and power based. Being smaller and weaker means you're worse off.
Smith won’t be around forever. I’ll be surprised if she survives another 2 years. Even if the referendum doesn’t destroy her, assuming the result is as expected, the separatists in the party are likely to push her out. But I’m not sure the UCP is electable anymore. And if there is a yes vote on the referendum, they’re definitely no longer electable since the only way to get a yes win is low voter turnout - but you can bet there’d be monstrous voter turn out at the next provincial election if that happened and UCP would be out the door.
Nah,we’re not. We are not Quebec. We have something the whole world wants. That’s the part the rest of Canada vilified us for. Irving Refinery had to ask Ottawa for permission to receive oil from the Offshore Rig to keep going. We will merrily keep pumping it South thru SK. We talked about more Refineries here,No! We talked about more pipelines,No! Where do you folks think BC is getting their fuel to help fight Wildland Fires? The last big farmland flood?. Imperial Oil,Esso is Canadian. What happens in this country when the US sees a serious competitor? Well run and profitable company. They buy it. Ask McDonalds how they got their coffee? Better yet,ask what was once Canadian ‘Tim’s’. Yes,they are changing the name too. Sell outs. Hostile takeovers,whatever!
You have something the world wants for now, but is moving on from. What you don't have is water....maybe not today, but the glaciers are gone in 25 years. Your plan then? Look, I think Irving should be refining Alberta oil. I think you could have shipped billions of dollars more if you'd stuck to Rachel Notley's plan to put it on the train. Instead, you paid $2 billion in cancellation fees thanks to Jason while waiting for pipelines that don't exist. Seems to me that what you ship through Saskatchewan will be determined by them... not by you, and the US will tell you what the price is since they have you over a barrel with a captive market. Would the NEP have built more refineries? Would Petro Canada? You weren't happy about that either (although some of it is for very justifiable...if 40-year-old...reasons). Esso is majority-owned by Exxon, and is not Canadian. Tim Hortons is owned by RBI, which is Brazilian and isn't changing its name. They're already talking about another pipeline, after we just spent billions giving you one. But, no, you'll whine some more about how badly you're treated. You're identical to Quebec, except you're also the richest.
Carney and your last recent immigrant taxi driver both have Canadians figured out. Canadians are the little brother to the US in most things that matter.
Canadians are like the annoying kid in school who would run his mouth thinking he is someone and then beg for mercy after someone actually gave him a punch. If we had more ambition and wanted more in life than to be taken care of we would fight back, but we don't.
Canadian elites are nowhere to be found in leading the nation into growing into adulthood. Most Canadian elites have one foot out the door. 2nd passport, property elsewhere, etc. They quite frankly don't believe in the place if you look at where they put their money. For them, Canada is a great place to be from and raise your kids. Life is lived elsewhere. They could have led Canada away from a patronage farming resource colony, but they didn't. When they cash out they move elsewhere. Heck, even former PM candidates like Ignatieff and families like the Irving's leave first chance they get. If they don't believe in Canada, why should guys like Trump, Xi, Putin or Vance?
I mean, Canada doesn't even trust itself with a homegrown head of state, lol. If Canada wants to be treated like a real country, and Canadians to not be seen as lesser, you have to actually play the part.
So yes, Carney understands Canadians. He knows we are polite enough to say publicly what we think is the socially acceptable thing, but that we aren't up for the "war" we say we are up for.
Heck, polling shows Canadians wouldn't even accept a $10 copay on health insurance if it meant building up the military.
No one knows Canadians better than the Liberals, warts and all. They tell us children what we want to hear, and then deal with the adults elsewhere.
The Canadian dream is an easy union job with a fully indexed pension for life and full benefits. We would sell this country in a heartbeat for that. It would be seen as justice. Prove me wrong.
This is all true and it hurts to hear it put so succinctly and bluntly.
As I’m thinking on Roki’s comment and the article we’re all commenting on, I’m realizing that Canada needs to have this fight for its own existential benefit. For its own identity and survival. And I think as Canadians, deep down we know it, and this is why we want it. If Roki’s comment is as true as it feels, we can’t survive as a nation like this - and we aren’t truly a nation. We’re just a self governing protectorate, whose only glory - and national definition therein, has been achieved in relation to and support of/from our colonial masters. First GB, and now the USA. They have been generous and good to us, they have humored us even. And now they aren’t, or can’t be, and we don’t know where this leaves us.
I am not as far down the garden path with my forecasts and conclusions as JG is here in this article. But if she proves to be right with her predictions, it will be a tragedy that our leaders sold us out before we had the chance to have the fight we’re looking for.
It’s not a fight we can win, but that’s not the point. It’s proving to ourselves and others we can take a beating and still keep swinging and getting up. There is dignity in this, and pride.
There is none in surrender, or holding onto a national dream of a union job, full benefits and an indexed pension. And if this is in fact the National dream and identity? Well, let’s be real and honest about that with ourselves. And let’s just negotiate the best possible terms of our surrender right now. 51st State would be an incredible win in that light.
I agree with you. Now is the time to grow up and become a fully fledged nation independent of suzerainty from the UK and now the US.
The people, at least the boomers are up for the fight but the problem is everyone who matters knows where our red lines are. We value being taken care of more than independence. Our left literally rallies around the idea that government is the modern equivalent of a benevolent landlord and church. Most Canadians are leftists who would never even consider voting other than big government socialism. The polling is consistent on this. That includes eastern Canadian PC types like Premier Houston btw.
Carney quite frankly as his actions have shown with the Toronto Island airport and dairy farmers thinks that Canadians won't sacrifice. Nothing shows him that we will.
One thing history shows us is watch what a societies elites do, not what they say. We have a Prime Minister who doesn't even have his family living in Canada. How is anyone supposed to take Canadian sovereign power seriously when even the folks with choices choose elsewhere to live and put their money?
If Canada does fall apart, it will be for not that many reasons and #1 is that the people with means and power just didn't believe in Canadians enough to put their money where their mouth is. Why is that?
Agree. My uni classmates who are most successful are generally ex pats, mostly in US, come back to their vacation properties here in the summer and that’s it. Once you get a few years, say 5-7, out of of university here and are on a fast track career, you need to get out of Canada to develop and then once you do, there typically are no longer enough or any senior roles for you here. 30 some years ago many companies had Canadian operations with Canadians executives but now for the most part they’ve consolidated too top roles into the US.
It's not just the US. Young people are moving to places like Australia, Dubai, Singapore, UK as well. That's what hurts, Canada is falling behind all developed countries. In the yearbook of developed nations, Canada was voted "most likely to end up like Argentina."
It's also a major reason why Alberta just keeps on growing. It's ludicrous. We thought it would stop with the student scam boom ending, but literally hundreds a day keep on moving to Alberta, mostly from other provinces and mostly young. Alberta is the closest thing we have in Canada to "American careers while raising your kids in Canada." It's moving to the US but if you want your kids to grow up in a place designed around families.
I don't think people back east understand just how different it is in Alberta. I know from experience, and this is one of the major impediments to Canada as a concept, most Ontarians have never even been to another province. They just think Ontario is how all of Canada is like.
Canada I can honestly say wouldn't be in this generational economic and prosperity funk if it was more like Alberta.
Canadian culture seriously needs to destigmatize entrepreneurship. It shouldn't just be for those who didn't do well at school. Our culture is what is killing our economy, but we don't have the self esteem to admit it.
We get the government we deserve. So if its fashionable to blame the 75 million Americans who voted for Trump in 3 straight elections for the mess we are in, then you have to ask what the 7 million Canadians who voted for Trudeau 3 times at about the same time were thinking.
Look, Harper was right about the deficit and about Immigration and Poilievre was right about the carbon tax and getting rid of other Trudeau legislation that is impeding the expansion of the economy. Canadians will have to learn to elect a leader whose sole objective is for the betterment of the country...not those who are only interested in looking to meet party girls...or those who want to impress the billionaire crowd over in Tuscany.
JG feels its too late. By the time those 7 or 8 million figure out you should use your head to vote, not your feelings or your elbows, she may be right !
A deal with Trump isn't worth the paper it's written on. Trump will abrogate it the moment that the whim strikes him. However, Trump's also obsessed with appearances. If he gets to hold up a piece of paper and *claim* it's a deal, he gets the headline and the soundbites he wants and will quickly get distracted with something else.
This is Trump's M.O.: when he tried to shake down Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden in his first term, he didn't even want anything concrete. He just wanted them to open an investigation publicly so Trump could make political hay. After losing the 2020 election, he was pressuring Georgia election officials to go looking for more votes or irregularities so he could *claim* there was fraud. More recently, he seized on the absolutely craptacular MOU with Iran so he could claim that the war he started was over and try to get shipping flowing through the strait of Hormuz. Iran almost immediately started violating the terms of the MOU, and Trump tried to ignore it because he just wanted out.
So that's what I'd be looking for in a "deal" with Trump over trade: something that gives Trump a superficial sense of "winning" that actually commits nothing or at least nothing that Canada didn't want to do anyway. Playing rope-a-dope with Trump is perfectly reasonable; the catch is that if Trump realizes he's been had, he'll be furious and lash out. To that end, public hue and cry could actually be useful in Canada by making Trump and his cronies feel like they got something.
However, actually caving to Trump and committing to a binding agreement would be blindingly stupid. Yes, any deal with Trump would be temporary, because Trump can't be trusted or relied on for anything. In short, I want to see the agreement and see what we've *really* committed to do.
I’m not as cynical as JG yet… but the Gordie Howe bridge deal rattled my faith for sure.
My question is what is Carney’s incentive to make a bad deal here? Why would he fold so easily, when he campaigned on and won an election explicitly on being tough and competent in dealing with the Americans? Is it truly that these guys are that soft and shortsighted? Why even make that WEF speech in the first place if this was going to be the tactic all along?
Why did the bridge have to open? Seriously. It took 10 years to build. From my perspective, letting it sit until the original terms of the agreement were honored would’ve been the biggest and most cost effective statement we could’ve made.
1) Interest would acummulate on the capital used to build the.bridge with zero revenue
2) The economic impact of direct freeway to freeway connection would not be realized
A better approach would have been a safety audit on the roads leading to the Windsor side of the Ambassador bridge recommending lower speed limits, a few stop signs and some extra traffic lights plus several playground zones. Through in some agressive traffic law enforcement
My argument is and will be those costs are minuscule and myopic compared to what we lose by rolling over on this issue. (Not to mention, doesn’t sound like we’re getting much more than maintenance costs anyways now)
The bridge agreement shows Carney's unwillingness to take a strong stand on any issue. Traffic volumes on the Ambassador and the tunnel have been falling for years. No big sacrifice to keep the bridge closed for a couple of years to show Canada is willling to draw a line.
What have we actually agreed to do that's not positively good for Canadians on its own? I remember when all the media was claiming that tariffs harm the people of the country that imposes them.
Carney was elected precisely because a lot of foolish and emotional people wanted to vent at Trump, and he has done that very well. The fact that those foolish people are also mainly entitled boomers and government funded employees who don't care much about the Canadian economy doesn't absolutely oblige him to wreck it immediately.
The Conservatives are in disarray because they jumped on the resistance bandwagon in order to appease Ontario matrons (even those currently living in Alberta) rather than proposing something sensible that would enable them to say "I told you so" now. The more fools they.
The fundamental problem is that states have every right to set their own trade policy and the Americans are too big for us to intimidate with threats. So we should always have set our policies at what's best for Canadians. Trump gave us an opportunity to consider what that would look like, bit both parties blew it.
The Conservatives are in disarray because they jumped on the resistance bandwagon in order to appease Ontario matrons (even those currently living in Alberta) rather than proposing something sensible that would enable them to say "I told you so" now.
May be unkind. Unfair maybe IMO fairness has nothing to do with it. And matrons are the ruling caste ( the most appropriate term) in Canadian politics. In all provinces even those of the gun hating Quebec ones)
I’m starting to really worry that we just elected another liberal. A lot of talk, not so much in the big things department. We don’t hate Americans. And we don’t want a rash government but we have been braced for sacrifice and our pride has been damaged so we want to see some brilliant strategy that screams “ we are Canadian and we will not accept being played. “. We have a milquetoast PM. What did we expect from a technocratic globalist banker?
The Liberals are a reflection of Canadians. We are a nation that is tolerant of flakes and hypocrites. It's hard to be a polite people without being so.
This would certainly be the end of the Liberals' hayride. As I've said here many times, there is no point in any deal with this administration. It's meaningless. It's time to tell them to flat-out fuck off. Rip off the Band-Aid and deal with the reality of the consequences.
They'll endorse the Liberal leader? Could you walk me through your reasons because I've been on here two years an a bit and I can tell you MG and JG take all parties to task on The Line. Never seen them endorse. Could you show me where you found that?
OK, it won't be an endorsement, just an anti-endorsement for the Conservatives.
Even as Jen's Tech-Daddy swoon is ending in the misery many predicted on this board, she still hates the Conservatives more. There was the "Poilievre is worse" drive-by in last week's podcast and in this article we are told to be just as angry with the Conservatives for Carney's incompetence.
During the last election, The Line lectured the Conservatives endlessly about dropping their "Fix Canada" campaign and switching to Carney's hair-on-fire anti-Trump rhetoric. That rhetoric brought us to the state of diplomatic collapse that even The Line seems to now recognize. Just guessing at Trump's personality disorders should have made it entirely foreseeable.
Jen even tripped out the mainstream media acorn that "Poilievre is mean and has no policies" during the election. He isn't and he did, as could have been determined with minimal research.
So, can you guess how The Line will vote in the separation referendum? In a federal election? Two years ago I couldn't. Now I can.
MG and JG have said on the podcast that they lean conservative. For me, JG's assessment of Poilievre is completely accurate. He is unlikeable to most people because if he was likeable and had always come across as likeable, he would have won the election last year. He cannot help himself to be unlikeable, he just is.
The apple thing might have played well to supporters but to the a hell of a lot of Canadians it told us precisely who this guy is.
Want to win? Ditch the social conservatives and Maga types. There are more people like me who are conservative voters and have stopped voting or spoiled ballots for the current incarnation of the party.
Want to win? Peddle hope. Seriously. The CPC needs to try peddling a bit of hope, don't you think?
We forget that the 'apple encounter' was literally a bumbling reporter coming up and - apropos of diddly squat - asking him why he was operating from the Trump Playbook (TM). Clearly a lazy, biased, bad-faith question he had heard 1000 times before and to which he responded with an actually fairly restrained level of contempt.
And of course that same lazy, biased, bad-faith narrative was what fucked him in the election, when it was screamed from the rooftops in various forms by every journalist in the country who didn't work for Post Media. And a couple that did (I'm looking at you John Ivison).
I get JG’s frustration with Poilievre but I’m still shocked by her fan girl enthusiasm for Carney last year. I can’t believe how easily she was fooled by his technocrat daddy persona and how he “looked” the part. Carney benefited so much from Trudeau’s utter ineptitude.
All of your negativity is based on complete speculation. What if we upped the price of the oil we sell the U.S. ? What about the minerals etc. We have a lot of what they need. Frankly if we have to give up
I don't get it either. Especially after everyone saw what happened to the "deals" negotiated by Keir Starmer and the EU's Ursula von der Leyen. And when it will blow our new international cred and growing middle-power alliances. This is shaping up as a Senator Bill Cassidy talk-tough-and-wimp-out humiliation and demoralize other nations that have been signalling a desire to stand up to Trump.
Domestically, a lot of people have been looking the other way at his anti-democratic moves on "projects of national interest", his dangerous Internet speech law, and the way he achieved his majority precisely because we thought he was the guy to stand up to Trump on our behalf. If Carney folds there will be righteous fury, and all those pent-up concerns will rage bigtime.
TACO will stand for Trump Always Cucks Ottawa.
Absolutely. It's one thing to finagle a majority by questionable tactics for the purpose of being able to do hard, possibly unpopular things with less pushback. It's entirely another to do so for the purpose of being a total gutless wonder without anyone being able to stop you.
Much like it's one thing to go on vacation right as the threat of very consequential tariffs is looming as a kind of power move. Like, whatever, we're moving on and making sure we don't need you, do what you will.
It's, of course, again another thing to go on vacation and then wimp out while you're there. That makes it look like you think none of this matters in an entirely different way.
"What's good for Brookfield / Eurasia is good for the schlubs."
He has passed a lot of anti-free speech legislation and granted himself and his ministers some dictatorial powers.
I'm just going to wait and see what happens in the next week or so before I make any judgements on which side caves.
“We’ve made moves to strengthen our economy.”? Ok, name three. In reality, we’ve bloviated a lot about making those moves for the past year, and convened a lot of meetings to discuss the making of such moves, but otherwise, it’s pretty much same-old, same-old. Putting lipstick on the pig didn’t make it any less porcine. Funny how that works.
I can name three regressions:
1) Federal spending and the deficit are higher than ever. Carney has introduced new programs (ex. training for the trades, condo bailout, GST exemptions on housing) rather than repealing them
2) Barriers to interprovincial trade are worse. The pipeline MOU in effect pays BC a toll to allow transit of physical goods. The electricity strategy makes no provision to force Quebec to transmit electricity from NL at cost plus risk adjusted rate of return
3)Trade agreements with other countries exist only on paper. To actually mean something, regulatory and infrastructure barriers need to be overcome
While a small issue, the retreat over the Toronto Island Airport expansion is symbolic of the new Liberals being the same as the old Liberals. The Feds are so concerned about a bielection that they caved to NIMBYs.
"Elbows Up" is absolute crap. It is a marketing appeal to Eastern Canada's Loyalist baggage. Canada is not at war. If the Carney government were true to its rhetoric, it would be expending its polling lead to balance the budget and drive through trade enabling infrastructure. This would entail exercising Parliamentary Supremacy, agressively fighting Supreme Court rulings that get in the way and imposing costs on NIMBYs (ex. provinces, indigenous groups, NGOs, even neighborhoods who obstruct lose federal funding and face lawsuits for imposing delays).
Bingo. Same for the current government when it comes to artificial intelligence - lots of studying, no action. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is rapidly building datacenters, open model AI etc.
Evan Solomon has not been invited to CNBC to discuss Canada's AI strategy.
I think Canada's AI strategy has moved south.
A country that seriously wants to move fast doesn’t bring in Sabia as their top bureaucrat.
Yes and Carney is about to sell off the airports to invest in heavens knows what - a boondoggle that is spinning up so many fees for consultants, advisors and financiers.
The airports could be sold to Brookfield.
She said "we’ve made moves toward strengthening our economy internally" - towards not to. The agreements with Alberta and BC re the pipeline are a move *towards* strengthening the economy, but as there's no shovels in the ground, saying 'to strengthen' would give too much credit.
If you actually believe there will be a pipeline built while Carney is PM, I have a lovely bridge for sale....
That whole farce is a naked ploy to tamp down the separatist vote this October.
By Christmas, the pipeline deal will be dead - but the Carbon Capture facility (which will directly enrich Mark Carney) will be full speed ahead.
You heard it predicted here first.
I would be pleasantly surprised if a pipeline was built during Carney's tenure. I don't think that's the most likely outcome. But that's the point of the 'towards'/'to' distinction. It's a good and necessary first step. On its own it does not strengthen the economy. We'll need concrete action.
What we NEED is to "build at speeds not seen in generations".
Unfortunately, that was a bald-faced lie, told to fool the rubes into voting Liberal one more time.
Once again I will note that the original TransMountain pipeline was built in just 30 months (from concept to production) a couple of generations ago.
Carney has been in power for over 16 months now - are we more than half way to completing this pipeline....?
The carbon capture requirement basically means a new pipeline would be unprofitable, which means no one (unless it is Brookfield or SNC-Lavalamp, er, Atkins-Realis on a government cost-plus contract) will ever build one. Which, of course, is the entire point of the carbon capture requirement.
To be fair (in my best Letterkenny drawl), Carney has a caucus of nattering loonies who'll rebel if he does anything at all. And he knows that the courts will block any attempt by the Major Projects Office or his Ministers to use their dictatorial powers.
Carney's caucus is full of nattering loonies. I don't think they have the guramba to rebel.
Exactly
I read a book about twenty years ago about the Palestine - Israel negotiations under Clinton. In it, the author talked about how Arafat negotiated: get partway to a deal, walk away, then come back using the last agreed upon point as the new starting place. Trump deals the same way, and I don't understand how the Canadian government doesn't see that.
Funny thing about that comparison. Arafat walked away from a deal to give the Palestinians a state comprising the entire Gaza strip, 97% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as the capital of their new state.
Not a smart move as it turns out.
The question is, will Carney walking away be a smart move, employment is up in Canada in July.
You’ve got it backwards. It’s the Americans who negotiate like Arafat.
That’s the basic problem with negotiating with Trump. No deal is worth anything because tomorrow or next month he has a new demand and the old concessions are the starting point for the new concessions he wants.
We made a deal with him. Now he has new demands. The same will always happen again.
Luckily we elected a Prime Minister who knows how to deal with that. Right?
"...surrender vs. resistance is a valid conversation to have. However, as a people, we did have that conversation, in the spring of 2025. We did make that choice. We chose resistance."
Gee, that's funny, I don't recall "surrender" being ANYONE'S position in that election.
The 2025 election was fought (primarily) between two camps:
The Liberals, who were blatantly running against Donald J. Trump rather than any Canadian opponents, with their "Elbows Up" slogans, with their mantra being "fight fight fight!!!"
...and Poilievre, who was continuing to press his case that Canada itself has structural flaws and self-imposed restrictions that do FAR greater damage to us economically than Trumps' tariffs ever could. His comments on Trump were few and far between - for the most part, he treated the election of Trump, the resulting tariffs, and all that followed as a distraction, NOT an all-consuming obsession.
The Line, as I recall, was apoplectic at the audacity of a politician simply ignoring Trump and trying to win in Canada based solely on "I will fix OUR country".
The funny thing about all of this is that Poilievre was exactly correct on much of this (in fact, immediately after the election campaign concluded, and ever since - the Libs have been trying to fix much of what Pierre was pointing out DURING the election - for example, interprovincial trade barriers, expanding our resource sector, etc. - but doing so in typical Liberal fashion, which is to say poorly, wrongly, and in such a way as to put money in Liberal-adjacent pockets)
...and again, the VAST majority of countries Trump has imposed these tariffs on have simply accepted the deal and moved on. Canada reacted the way we did because the Liberals encouraged us to fear the Evil Orange Man, who was about to invade our country and eat our babies, unless we flapped our Elbows and got real mad at our American neighbours, and stayed that way.
It was a cynical play, based solely on FEAR (and anti-Americansim), but it was the ONLY play the Liberals could make which would allow them to retain power.
Sadly, far too many Canadians (including The Line) bought it.
I keep giving The Line credit for being basically the first credible journalists willing to really articulate how Emperor Trudeau was wearing no clothes, and did a great job chronicling how he and everyone around him were ruining the country on a daily basis and objectively needed to go. It really gave form to my own thoughts on the matter and confirmed that I wasn't, in fact, crazy.
They have been insisting on catching up with the true nature of this new replacement government the Hard Way, however. And JG in particular has decided that Poilievre is always the worse option, because she says so and doesn't like his vibes, and because he managed to lose an election under perhaps the weirdest circumstances of any Canadian election ever, and only looks for evidence to support that predisposition.
I can’t speak for JG. But I would caution you that identifying someone’s weaknesses can actually be an act of support. If the conservatives cared to see how anyone not solidly in their camp perceived their actions, they’d be able to adjust course and win a majority government. But I’m not sure they have that adaptability.
I understand your point in general, but the tone I get from Gerson since the 2025 election is mostly that Poilievre's a loser who can't ever win and is just dismissable as irrelevant and awful. Occasionally there is a 'Conservatives should do X' comment but mostly it's just eye rolls.
So hearing mind KRM’s comments and yours, I wonder why it is Poilievre and the CPC can’t adjust? Are they so beholden and wary of the base that they don’t see how they adjust their messaging? I give them benefit of the doubt for the tone of their fundraising messages but honestly I am beyond exasperated with their inability to get with the times and realize that the schtick that worked with Trudeau led Liberals doesn’t work here. There’s been a few brief sparks of pivot or new tone and then it’s back to same old.
The fundraising emails are totally awful. The party aligns with all my policy goals but I'm reluctant to give them any more money until they can prove that they can spend it on some narrative building that is actually worth a damn.
More generally, why is the CPC so bad at advertising? Liberals can shift a whole campaign with one 20 second appearance by Mike Meyers. Conservatives had Andrew Scheer going on about "meth!" (which was hilarious but for probably all the wrong reasons). They can't blame the media for their total failure to create paid advertising that resonates with... well anyone ever.
Mr. elbows up. Always knew he’d fold like a cheap suit. Such a phony.
As I commented in another Substack article, Elbows Up is meaningless when performed by those who are on their knees.
It leads directly to a face plant.
Sorry but I live in Alberta were we almost unanimously DID NOT vote for this fellow as we could see there was nothing there. To all you folks who 12 months ago said give him some time, don't worry he'll gitter done, how's that working out.
Please remind me why I want to stay and be part of this?
Because if you go, you're three times more fucked dealing with Trump on your own.
Why? Trump likes Smith. She was the only Canadian political leader that went down and negotiated with him like an adult.
Does Alberta want to be Puerto Rico North?
What? We are not now?
Why would Alberta enter into an arrangement like that? They have a prosperous economy with ample opportunity for growth.
Because all of Alberta's oil will be going south...at a discount...likely an increasing one.....assuming Alberta gets to keep Fort McMurray. There will be no new pipeline. BC will decide how much goes down TMX.
Danielle went and kissed ass. She was anything but an adult....or a Canadian.
Smith negotiated. Your guy insulted. Who won?
First of all, Mr. Carney also works with Trump "like an adult". So the claim that Ms. Smith is the only one that does this is just plain false. And it's worth noting that neither are getting much of anything for their efforts.
But to answer your question, the reason Alberta would "three times" worse off dealing with Mr. Trump on it's own is that you'd be smaller and weaker. (And 3x is being extremely generous). Donald Trump isn't going to give Alberta concessions because he likes you. Neither his friends nor his enemies think he's the kind of guy to give away anything. Nor did maga elect him to do that. It's right there in their slogan... They're "America first". That means extracting EVERY concession they can get in exchange for as little as possible.
Alberta has things America wants, but what you get in exchange is directly related to how strong you are. There's nothing for free.
It's nothing bad about Alberta, it's just the reality of the situation. Relations with the USA are now transactional and power based. Being smaller and weaker means you're worse off.
Smith won’t be around forever. I’ll be surprised if she survives another 2 years. Even if the referendum doesn’t destroy her, assuming the result is as expected, the separatists in the party are likely to push her out. But I’m not sure the UCP is electable anymore. And if there is a yes vote on the referendum, they’re definitely no longer electable since the only way to get a yes win is low voter turnout - but you can bet there’d be monstrous voter turn out at the next provincial election if that happened and UCP would be out the door.
Nah,we’re not. We are not Quebec. We have something the whole world wants. That’s the part the rest of Canada vilified us for. Irving Refinery had to ask Ottawa for permission to receive oil from the Offshore Rig to keep going. We will merrily keep pumping it South thru SK. We talked about more Refineries here,No! We talked about more pipelines,No! Where do you folks think BC is getting their fuel to help fight Wildland Fires? The last big farmland flood?. Imperial Oil,Esso is Canadian. What happens in this country when the US sees a serious competitor? Well run and profitable company. They buy it. Ask McDonalds how they got their coffee? Better yet,ask what was once Canadian ‘Tim’s’. Yes,they are changing the name too. Sell outs. Hostile takeovers,whatever!
You have something the world wants for now, but is moving on from. What you don't have is water....maybe not today, but the glaciers are gone in 25 years. Your plan then? Look, I think Irving should be refining Alberta oil. I think you could have shipped billions of dollars more if you'd stuck to Rachel Notley's plan to put it on the train. Instead, you paid $2 billion in cancellation fees thanks to Jason while waiting for pipelines that don't exist. Seems to me that what you ship through Saskatchewan will be determined by them... not by you, and the US will tell you what the price is since they have you over a barrel with a captive market. Would the NEP have built more refineries? Would Petro Canada? You weren't happy about that either (although some of it is for very justifiable...if 40-year-old...reasons). Esso is majority-owned by Exxon, and is not Canadian. Tim Hortons is owned by RBI, which is Brazilian and isn't changing its name. They're already talking about another pipeline, after we just spent billions giving you one. But, no, you'll whine some more about how badly you're treated. You're identical to Quebec, except you're also the richest.
Didn't the ice caps and glaciers disappear in 2016?
O&G demand is still rising.
Carney and your last recent immigrant taxi driver both have Canadians figured out. Canadians are the little brother to the US in most things that matter.
Canadians are like the annoying kid in school who would run his mouth thinking he is someone and then beg for mercy after someone actually gave him a punch. If we had more ambition and wanted more in life than to be taken care of we would fight back, but we don't.
Canadian elites are nowhere to be found in leading the nation into growing into adulthood. Most Canadian elites have one foot out the door. 2nd passport, property elsewhere, etc. They quite frankly don't believe in the place if you look at where they put their money. For them, Canada is a great place to be from and raise your kids. Life is lived elsewhere. They could have led Canada away from a patronage farming resource colony, but they didn't. When they cash out they move elsewhere. Heck, even former PM candidates like Ignatieff and families like the Irving's leave first chance they get. If they don't believe in Canada, why should guys like Trump, Xi, Putin or Vance?
I mean, Canada doesn't even trust itself with a homegrown head of state, lol. If Canada wants to be treated like a real country, and Canadians to not be seen as lesser, you have to actually play the part.
So yes, Carney understands Canadians. He knows we are polite enough to say publicly what we think is the socially acceptable thing, but that we aren't up for the "war" we say we are up for.
Heck, polling shows Canadians wouldn't even accept a $10 copay on health insurance if it meant building up the military.
No one knows Canadians better than the Liberals, warts and all. They tell us children what we want to hear, and then deal with the adults elsewhere.
The Canadian dream is an easy union job with a fully indexed pension for life and full benefits. We would sell this country in a heartbeat for that. It would be seen as justice. Prove me wrong.
This is all true and it hurts to hear it put so succinctly and bluntly.
As I’m thinking on Roki’s comment and the article we’re all commenting on, I’m realizing that Canada needs to have this fight for its own existential benefit. For its own identity and survival. And I think as Canadians, deep down we know it, and this is why we want it. If Roki’s comment is as true as it feels, we can’t survive as a nation like this - and we aren’t truly a nation. We’re just a self governing protectorate, whose only glory - and national definition therein, has been achieved in relation to and support of/from our colonial masters. First GB, and now the USA. They have been generous and good to us, they have humored us even. And now they aren’t, or can’t be, and we don’t know where this leaves us.
I am not as far down the garden path with my forecasts and conclusions as JG is here in this article. But if she proves to be right with her predictions, it will be a tragedy that our leaders sold us out before we had the chance to have the fight we’re looking for.
It’s not a fight we can win, but that’s not the point. It’s proving to ourselves and others we can take a beating and still keep swinging and getting up. There is dignity in this, and pride.
There is none in surrender, or holding onto a national dream of a union job, full benefits and an indexed pension. And if this is in fact the National dream and identity? Well, let’s be real and honest about that with ourselves. And let’s just negotiate the best possible terms of our surrender right now. 51st State would be an incredible win in that light.
I agree with you. Now is the time to grow up and become a fully fledged nation independent of suzerainty from the UK and now the US.
The people, at least the boomers are up for the fight but the problem is everyone who matters knows where our red lines are. We value being taken care of more than independence. Our left literally rallies around the idea that government is the modern equivalent of a benevolent landlord and church. Most Canadians are leftists who would never even consider voting other than big government socialism. The polling is consistent on this. That includes eastern Canadian PC types like Premier Houston btw.
Carney quite frankly as his actions have shown with the Toronto Island airport and dairy farmers thinks that Canadians won't sacrifice. Nothing shows him that we will.
One thing history shows us is watch what a societies elites do, not what they say. We have a Prime Minister who doesn't even have his family living in Canada. How is anyone supposed to take Canadian sovereign power seriously when even the folks with choices choose elsewhere to live and put their money?
If Canada does fall apart, it will be for not that many reasons and #1 is that the people with means and power just didn't believe in Canadians enough to put their money where their mouth is. Why is that?
Agree. My uni classmates who are most successful are generally ex pats, mostly in US, come back to their vacation properties here in the summer and that’s it. Once you get a few years, say 5-7, out of of university here and are on a fast track career, you need to get out of Canada to develop and then once you do, there typically are no longer enough or any senior roles for you here. 30 some years ago many companies had Canadian operations with Canadians executives but now for the most part they’ve consolidated too top roles into the US.
It's not just the US. Young people are moving to places like Australia, Dubai, Singapore, UK as well. That's what hurts, Canada is falling behind all developed countries. In the yearbook of developed nations, Canada was voted "most likely to end up like Argentina."
It's also a major reason why Alberta just keeps on growing. It's ludicrous. We thought it would stop with the student scam boom ending, but literally hundreds a day keep on moving to Alberta, mostly from other provinces and mostly young. Alberta is the closest thing we have in Canada to "American careers while raising your kids in Canada." It's moving to the US but if you want your kids to grow up in a place designed around families.
I don't think people back east understand just how different it is in Alberta. I know from experience, and this is one of the major impediments to Canada as a concept, most Ontarians have never even been to another province. They just think Ontario is how all of Canada is like.
Canada I can honestly say wouldn't be in this generational economic and prosperity funk if it was more like Alberta.
Canadian culture seriously needs to destigmatize entrepreneurship. It shouldn't just be for those who didn't do well at school. Our culture is what is killing our economy, but we don't have the self esteem to admit it.
Great comment and exactly right. Canadians love their nanny.
We get the government we deserve. So if its fashionable to blame the 75 million Americans who voted for Trump in 3 straight elections for the mess we are in, then you have to ask what the 7 million Canadians who voted for Trudeau 3 times at about the same time were thinking.
Look, Harper was right about the deficit and about Immigration and Poilievre was right about the carbon tax and getting rid of other Trudeau legislation that is impeding the expansion of the economy. Canadians will have to learn to elect a leader whose sole objective is for the betterment of the country...not those who are only interested in looking to meet party girls...or those who want to impress the billionaire crowd over in Tuscany.
JG feels its too late. By the time those 7 or 8 million figure out you should use your head to vote, not your feelings or your elbows, she may be right !
A deal with Trump isn't worth the paper it's written on. Trump will abrogate it the moment that the whim strikes him. However, Trump's also obsessed with appearances. If he gets to hold up a piece of paper and *claim* it's a deal, he gets the headline and the soundbites he wants and will quickly get distracted with something else.
This is Trump's M.O.: when he tried to shake down Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden in his first term, he didn't even want anything concrete. He just wanted them to open an investigation publicly so Trump could make political hay. After losing the 2020 election, he was pressuring Georgia election officials to go looking for more votes or irregularities so he could *claim* there was fraud. More recently, he seized on the absolutely craptacular MOU with Iran so he could claim that the war he started was over and try to get shipping flowing through the strait of Hormuz. Iran almost immediately started violating the terms of the MOU, and Trump tried to ignore it because he just wanted out.
So that's what I'd be looking for in a "deal" with Trump over trade: something that gives Trump a superficial sense of "winning" that actually commits nothing or at least nothing that Canada didn't want to do anyway. Playing rope-a-dope with Trump is perfectly reasonable; the catch is that if Trump realizes he's been had, he'll be furious and lash out. To that end, public hue and cry could actually be useful in Canada by making Trump and his cronies feel like they got something.
However, actually caving to Trump and committing to a binding agreement would be blindingly stupid. Yes, any deal with Trump would be temporary, because Trump can't be trusted or relied on for anything. In short, I want to see the agreement and see what we've *really* committed to do.
Is Elbows Up still a thing?
It hasnt been a thing since the campaign ended.
Why get into a fight with the guy if you can sneak by him and shoot one into the net?
I’m not as cynical as JG yet… but the Gordie Howe bridge deal rattled my faith for sure.
My question is what is Carney’s incentive to make a bad deal here? Why would he fold so easily, when he campaigned on and won an election explicitly on being tough and competent in dealing with the Americans? Is it truly that these guys are that soft and shortsighted? Why even make that WEF speech in the first place if this was going to be the tactic all along?
Honest questions.
The bridge had to open and Canada had no leverage. The issue is that Carney lied about the terms of the deal
Why did the bridge have to open? Seriously. It took 10 years to build. From my perspective, letting it sit until the original terms of the agreement were honored would’ve been the biggest and most cost effective statement we could’ve made.
1) Interest would acummulate on the capital used to build the.bridge with zero revenue
2) The economic impact of direct freeway to freeway connection would not be realized
A better approach would have been a safety audit on the roads leading to the Windsor side of the Ambassador bridge recommending lower speed limits, a few stop signs and some extra traffic lights plus several playground zones. Through in some agressive traffic law enforcement
Add those costs to our daily tab.
My argument is and will be those costs are minuscule and myopic compared to what we lose by rolling over on this issue. (Not to mention, doesn’t sound like we’re getting much more than maintenance costs anyways now)
The bridge agreement shows Carney's unwillingness to take a strong stand on any issue. Traffic volumes on the Ambassador and the tunnel have been falling for years. No big sacrifice to keep the bridge closed for a couple of years to show Canada is willling to draw a line.
What have we actually agreed to do that's not positively good for Canadians on its own? I remember when all the media was claiming that tariffs harm the people of the country that imposes them.
Carney was elected precisely because a lot of foolish and emotional people wanted to vent at Trump, and he has done that very well. The fact that those foolish people are also mainly entitled boomers and government funded employees who don't care much about the Canadian economy doesn't absolutely oblige him to wreck it immediately.
The Conservatives are in disarray because they jumped on the resistance bandwagon in order to appease Ontario matrons (even those currently living in Alberta) rather than proposing something sensible that would enable them to say "I told you so" now. The more fools they.
The fundamental problem is that states have every right to set their own trade policy and the Americans are too big for us to intimidate with threats. So we should always have set our policies at what's best for Canadians. Trump gave us an opportunity to consider what that would look like, bit both parties blew it.
QUOTE
The Conservatives are in disarray because they jumped on the resistance bandwagon in order to appease Ontario matrons (even those currently living in Alberta) rather than proposing something sensible that would enable them to say "I told you so" now.
END QUOTE
Unkind, unfair and not credible.
May be unkind. Unfair maybe IMO fairness has nothing to do with it. And matrons are the ruling caste ( the most appropriate term) in Canadian politics. In all provinces even those of the gun hating Quebec ones)
Who cares about fair? This isn't Uno or Candyland. It's true and more importantly, people believe it is true.
I would add the Quebec Frenchies.
I think the anti-Trumpism was more English, because it was amplified by consumption of American media.
I’m starting to really worry that we just elected another liberal. A lot of talk, not so much in the big things department. We don’t hate Americans. And we don’t want a rash government but we have been braced for sacrifice and our pride has been damaged so we want to see some brilliant strategy that screams “ we are Canadian and we will not accept being played. “. We have a milquetoast PM. What did we expect from a technocratic globalist banker?
The Liberals are a reflection of Canadians. We are a nation that is tolerant of flakes and hypocrites. It's hard to be a polite people without being so.
This would certainly be the end of the Liberals' hayride. As I've said here many times, there is no point in any deal with this administration. It's meaningless. It's time to tell them to flat-out fuck off. Rip off the Band-Aid and deal with the reality of the consequences.
Welcome back, Jen.
Carney will resign. The Liberals will select another leader. The Line will endorse that leader.
They'll endorse the Liberal leader? Could you walk me through your reasons because I've been on here two years an a bit and I can tell you MG and JG take all parties to task on The Line. Never seen them endorse. Could you show me where you found that?
OK, it won't be an endorsement, just an anti-endorsement for the Conservatives.
Even as Jen's Tech-Daddy swoon is ending in the misery many predicted on this board, she still hates the Conservatives more. There was the "Poilievre is worse" drive-by in last week's podcast and in this article we are told to be just as angry with the Conservatives for Carney's incompetence.
During the last election, The Line lectured the Conservatives endlessly about dropping their "Fix Canada" campaign and switching to Carney's hair-on-fire anti-Trump rhetoric. That rhetoric brought us to the state of diplomatic collapse that even The Line seems to now recognize. Just guessing at Trump's personality disorders should have made it entirely foreseeable.
Jen even tripped out the mainstream media acorn that "Poilievre is mean and has no policies" during the election. He isn't and he did, as could have been determined with minimal research.
So, can you guess how The Line will vote in the separation referendum? In a federal election? Two years ago I couldn't. Now I can.
Hate is a pretty strong word to use.
MG and JG have said on the podcast that they lean conservative. For me, JG's assessment of Poilievre is completely accurate. He is unlikeable to most people because if he was likeable and had always come across as likeable, he would have won the election last year. He cannot help himself to be unlikeable, he just is.
The apple thing might have played well to supporters but to the a hell of a lot of Canadians it told us precisely who this guy is.
Want to win? Ditch the social conservatives and Maga types. There are more people like me who are conservative voters and have stopped voting or spoiled ballots for the current incarnation of the party.
Want to win? Peddle hope. Seriously. The CPC needs to try peddling a bit of hope, don't you think?
We forget that the 'apple encounter' was literally a bumbling reporter coming up and - apropos of diddly squat - asking him why he was operating from the Trump Playbook (TM). Clearly a lazy, biased, bad-faith question he had heard 1000 times before and to which he responded with an actually fairly restrained level of contempt.
And of course that same lazy, biased, bad-faith narrative was what fucked him in the election, when it was screamed from the rooftops in various forms by every journalist in the country who didn't work for Post Media. And a couple that did (I'm looking at you John Ivison).
What unlikeable things has he done? Apple guy was woefully unprepared and dumb.
Why is it a good thing that Carney yells at his MPs? Poilievre doesn't yell.
Have you listened to Poilievre's March 31, 2025 speech? Or any? The man is compassionate. Carney is an automaton.
I get JG’s frustration with Poilievre but I’m still shocked by her fan girl enthusiasm for Carney last year. I can’t believe how easily she was fooled by his technocrat daddy persona and how he “looked” the part. Carney benefited so much from Trudeau’s utter ineptitude.
Carney is a massive improvement over Katy Perry's BF.
The Line was right. The Conservative campaign manager was grossly incompetent.
Elbows up was a great way to win an election but started an unsustainable "Trump Whisperer" narrative that has lead to disaster.
Agreed.
All of your negativity is based on complete speculation. What if we upped the price of the oil we sell the U.S. ? What about the minerals etc. We have a lot of what they need. Frankly if we have to give up
part of our dairy protection so what?
Anyway we don’t know yet!!’
As for the oil, if they don’t buy from us, they can buy from elsewhere. We,
on the other hand, have no one else to sell it to because …… no pipelines
Reverse a few pipelines and they can refine Venezuelan crude in the Midwest. Poof goes Canada's economy.
A thoughtful review of most economic data indicates that, without Sasky and AB, the nation is in trouble
Can’t believe these are real. The writers have no understanding of Canada’s economy . Wonder what they think of Trumps Lake America?
Carney vowed not to use our resources, or anything else, as leverage in the talks. I don't think he has ever negotiated before.
Well he seems cocky enough about it to be basking in the Tuscan sun