I really don't want the next election to be about Trump. Trump is a blip. If Poilievre loses, so be it. (And for the record, I think he would make a great PM and is sorely needed at the moment, whether Canadians realize it or not.) But I think Carney, like Trudeau before him, is going to make a mess of the country, and that mess should be something that solely lies at the Liberals' feet (although they will blame Trump or Poilievre or whomever they can). Canadian voters are like drug addicts. We won't change until we hit rock bottom. But along the way, someone is providing us with clean needles and other handouts. We might just end up dying before we actually turn things around, sadly.
Trump may be a blip but the MAGA movement is most certainly not. Trump lit the fuse but the fuse was decades in the making. If Vance runs in '28 and wins, it'll be more of the same. And all MAGA politicians have done to date is exactly what they said they would. No serious Canadian leader can assume MAGA will disappear when Trump does.
Well, the Liberals had better come up with a better plan then. Or do we just continue to chirp while doing nothing to actually improve our country and economy and joining forces and melding “values” with China and Qatar and whoever else Carney dreams up?
I agree the Liberals need to produce substantive results; so far, we have good-sounding talk, but talk is cheap. At the same time, this article was about Poilievre, and I'm not convinced he has any plan at all to deal with Trump. If anything, he gives the impression that he sympathizes with MAGA-adjacent Canadians such as the trucker convoy participants. Gurney's article was about exactly that.
In the run up to the election, Poilievre made a moving speech decrying the plight of low-income Canadians. CBC's headlines, however, were all about his use of the term "biological clock," a term CBC itself has used repeatedly in headlines.
Do you have any idea how unlikely Vance is to be elected to any office, let alone the Presidency. He barely won the Senate seat in deep red Ohio even with Trump’s endorsement and Thiel’s money. Maga is a fading personality cult.
But the point is there’s a 100% chance China will still be an untrustworthy genocidal state in 2026 or 2028. There’s a better than even chance that Trump and Trumpism will be defeated or seriously weakened in that time frame. The government should by all means seek out other countries to trade with. Not sure the embrace of China makes sense (especially given his call in Davos to seek alliances with middle powers).
We differ on whether a limited-scope trade deal (i.e. not free trade) constitutes an 'embrace' of China's worldview. I don't believe it does. To me it represents hedging their bets against US uncertainty, and it makes sense. I wonder whether you're really interested in judging Carney's actions objectively.
That’s a fair point about the deal, but he has a history of being too close to China, and refusing to care about human rights. I do think he’s a big phony (sold out his green zealotry so he could get elected, sold Canadians a bunch of bs about elbows up). If that is lacking in objectivity, so be it.
All American Presidents are blips, but the trends aren't. Trump will leave office, but you need to remember that he got elected. He didn't cheat, the Americans WANTED him to be President and beating up on Canada is one of the things they like. That trend isn't going away. They are mad because they're delusional enough to think they've been mistreated by the system which they created and which has vastly increased their wealth and power.. .bu the facts don't matter, they FEEL aggrieved and they want to take it out on the people they used to call friends. And this has been building for a long, long time. And if it fades, it will also take a long, long time.
> Canadian voters are like drug addicts. We won't change until we hit rock bottom.
Sure we will. and we do. "Fails to change in the way I want" is not a synonym for "won't change". Did you forget Stephen Harper won three elections and was Prime Minister for 9 years? We do change our minds, but not necessarily in the way you like. Canada was absolutely voting for Prime Minister Poilievre, Canada changed it's mind from thinking he wasn't fit to run a lemonade stand.... but then he utterly failed to meet the moment and Canada changed its mind again and went for the guy who was meeting them moment.
Me, I think too many people won't change their minds from thinking Trump is a blip until reality beats them in the face for a decade or more about how false that is.
Further to my previous note, I offer the following comment:
QUOTE
Trump is a blip. If Poilievre loses, so be it.
END QUOTE
I agree with @JB. American voters in their tens-of-millions support Trump AND the policies, foreign and domestic, that are now his "signature achievements".
In my judgement, that strongly suggests that, whatever the outcome of the 2028 presidential election, the policies that garnered so much support (protectionism, antipathy for "encumbering alliances", coercive international behaviour) will persist.
As such, Conservatives need, in my view, to re-think almost everything that has shaped their party's position and policies since the merger of the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservative Party in the mid-2000s.
More to the point, any leader who wants a credible shot at forming a majority government after the next federal election (whenever that might be) almost certainly MUST confront the "Maple MAGA" movement in the Conservative Party, and also push back against separatists who misrepresent grievances for their own purposes.
Oh, and be more open-minded about the possibility that tens-of-millions of American dollars may flow, albeit covertly, to support said separatists, particularly in Alberta.
NB: Liberals, too, must be realistic about the limitations of their preferred political partners in the United States. If there is one thing that the Democratic Party shares in common with Donald Trump, it is a preference for trade protectionism.
For the first time in a long time, I live in a Conservative riding. I personally haven't encountered any "Maple MAGA" (God, I hate that term.). Our riding switched from NDP largely because people are fed up with what's going on at the local legal, with drugs, crime, loss of industry, etc. That's from chatting with people I know who actually switched allegiance. I still think a stronger country would make us less vulnerable to what's going on in the US (and, let's face, Dems weren't exactly going out of their way to help build a strong Canada). Like I said, the Cons losing the next election is not necessarily a bad thing. Canada might need to hit rock bottom first. Canadians aren't quite ready to do the hard work to build a strong country.
Their notion that Pierre was "perfect for the issues everyone had good reason to think the election would be fought on" was, IMHO, nothing less than delusional. Pierre already had the Convoy albatross around his neck, suggesting his judgment is no better than Trudeau's.
If they keep him, it means they haven't learned a thing since 2015. The Reform Party is still too much a part of the party, which will make them unelectable. As becomes clearer every day, even conservatives don't know what they represent anymore.
There's a bit of hypocrisy with the Conservative membership being willing to give Poilievre another shot after his flame-out while they drove out Erin O'Toole with pitchforks.
Perhaps. "They" is the CPC leadership group. The CPC knifed Erin. He lost because of his own Party. You lost last year because of Pierre. You'll lose in 2029 because of Pierre. You lost in 2019 because of Andrew. I think I have a pretty decent understanding of what happened and why. I think it's the CPC/Reform party that can't get its head around Canadian reality. I have no party affiliation. I'm the vote the CPC can get. You won't get it if you keep Pierre. It's that black and white.
Please explain where I have it wrong....and if you wouldn't mind, define what conservatism stands for in 2026.
To be fair to the Conservatives, O'Toole was driven out not by the Conservative membership but rather by caucus. Poilievre might survive this leadership review by a healthy margin, only then be tossed aside by his caucus in the coming year if he becomes a threat to the re-election prospects of a number of Conservative MPs, or if the Liberals gain a majority.
I recall that the press, did its best to be pick faults with the very good Erin O’Toole. The Liberal biased press really did not want a decent Conservative leader.
For some reason, they preferred the Liberal fool, J. Trudeau.
O'Toole campaigned for CPC Leader as a righteous rage-farmer and then he campaigned for the general electorate as a mature pragmatist. What got him the most scrutiny was the basic failure to account for this transformation, for failing to be credible either to hardline Conservatives or to Conservative-skeptics.
In the end, the Conservatives under O'Toole got 0.5% more of the vote than they did under Scheer. It was the Conservatives who decided that was not good enough for him to stay on, unless you think that the allegedly Trudeau-favouring media encouraged them to dump him.
Yeah, no. I'm well read, I follow the news (including reporting of the event on this site), and I stand by my characterization. If you want to disagree, disagree, but don't insinuate it's obvious that I don't know what happened.
The lowers courts (not the Supreme Court, at least not yet) ruled that the use of the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy was illegal due to the convoy not constituting a "threat to national security". The courts did not rule that the convoy was legal in its entirety, or that it could not be legally cleared by other means. The criminal convictions against convoy organizers Chris Barber and Tamara Lich still remain in full force.
The decision actually said that many of the actions of the convoy were indeed illegal (honking loud horns at all hours, blocking public infrastructure etc). It didn't exonerate them at all. But god forbid anyone engage with any nuance.
So you advocate for a direct physical confrontation between the Convoy and the Police? Zero chance that doesn't turn violent. Maybe if the clowns had been smart enough, or respectful of others to just shut up, but I guess that was too much to ask based on their collective IQs.
I do. It's called enforcing the damn law. We don't say "the law must be followed unless the law breakers might get violent, in which case they can do what they want".
Enforce the damn laws of the land.
What I don't favour is selective policing where "environmental" protests (which are actually just anti-economy protests) are treated with kid gloves and allowed to shut down businesses, racist protests against Jews are treated with kids gloves and allowed to continue, but protests that the Laurentiens dislike are cracked down on.
And the problem for Mr. Trudeau was... that Canada had been treating leftie protests with kid gloves for a long time and suddenly having a double standard for the convoy was a little too obvious.
Which in no way changes that the Convoy was the biggest gathering of selfish idiots in Canadian history. The Emergencies Act was not required, is the ruling that I'm aware of. I support that ruling because it wasn't needed, because Doug stopped playing idiot politics, and opened Windsor the second the US called us an unreliable trading partner.
Nothing will change the reality that the Convoy were selfish, ignorant fools.
I agree I didnt like it either, but thats why we have a free country so if a group of Canadians do not like something the govt is doing they have that right. As far as the charges that was Trudeau feeding his ego and demanding courts adhere. Where are the chages and jail time for the horrific attacks on the CDn Jews from people that aren't even invested in Canada. Crickets.
I have no issue with them protestsing. They could still be on Parliament Hill today for all I care. But they don't have the right to make the population's life miserable or gridlock a city. No nation on earth would have toleated what we did for 6 weeks. Most would have been gone before the first weekend was over.
Truduea didn't lay any charges so that is irrationally taking your hatred for him and applying it to things he didn't control. The rest of your grievances are failures of policing. The laws are in place to deal with that, although your comment sounds openly racist and rather ignorant. Based on what, does their anger at what is happening in their homeland mean they aren't invested in Canada? Does that mean Jews who live here and were furious about October 7 aren't invested either?
There is a difference between people not being charged because the crime perpetrators were not caught, and not being charged because they are treated as above the rule of law. You're not actually aware of any specific person who committed hate crimes against Jews and whom the police deliberately declined to prosecute - every instance of a crime you can think of against the Jews is just an incident where the perpetrators were clever enough to hide their identity and get away.
Do you want Chris Barber and Tamara Lich pardoned of their criminal convictions?
Why not? Barber and Lich were not seriously trying to overthrow the incompetent government of J. Trudeau. It was theatre.
There is no comparison to the very overt hatred of Jews that has become rife. And you know well that most of the protesters have made no effort to face cover.
These grossly antisemitic protests are/were tolerated, even outside of Jewish owned businesses, synagogues and neighbourhoods.
Your excuses for these protesters is a very troubling.
You write, "you know well that most of the protesters have made no effort to face cover."
In that case, then you should be able to name names of who should have charges pressed against them, rather than pointing fingers in a nebulous direction. Barber and Lich are known commodities unlike whoever it is you are talking about.
Barber and Lich were convicted of "mischief" charges, meaning they were convicted of encouraging the desecration of others' property. Their convictions have nothing to do with the Emergencies Act over-reach in response to the pretense of a "national security threat".
Indeed, the first inquiry ruled that Trudeau’s use of the Emergency Act was completely unnecessary, especially given that it was all coming to an end. . .it was blatantly obvious that Justin wanted his ‘strong’ moment like his father did in 1970. . I am so glad that we are finally free of that conceited, vacuous man that we endured for so long , thanks to the now decimated NDP.
J.T. was able to do far too much damage to this country thanks to those idiots. I hope they remain on the fringes for a very long time.
I was once a member of the NDP years ago for provincial reasons here in BC. THE Socreds and then the risen from the dead Liberals under Gordon Campbell were dog eat dog and many poor British Columbians suffered as a result.
The late NDP Premier Horgan was a far better premier than his successor, David Eby is.
Which inquiry are you talking about? If you are referring to the Public Order Emergency Commission chaired by Paul Rouleau, that inquiry actually gave its seal of approval to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
However, the courts did not have a legal obligation to accept the opinion of said inquiry, so the Federal Court exercised its judgment to decide that the invocation was illegal.
Illegal or otherwise, this was actually one of the more mature episodes of governance on the part of the Trudeau government. They certainly did not rush to the invocation or fail to consult widely, even if they happened to get their legal judgments wrong. The invocation did not do much in the way of long-lasting harm to the country.
Harper was useless. FIPA is his masterpiece; something Conservatives are true hypocrites about when they complain about Carney talking to China.
However, I can think of no one with worse judgment than Trudeau. He said all the right things, and I believed in him in 2015. Then, we had SNC. JWR saved his ass, and he politically buried her. Truth and Reconcilliation day, and he buggers off to Vancouver Island. Electric vehicles, while doing nothing to build the infrastructure to support them. Every gun law change, the buyback being the stupidest of all, when we all know the issue is the border. Another who completely ignored the military.
To be honest, I'm no big fan of any PM over the last 40 years, but I hate deficit financing. I think it's as big a scam as trcikle down economics. It just pushes financial calamity down the road. The US is there now. The rest of the planet has the ability to destroy the US economy without firing a shot. We're not that far away.
Trudeau got COVID right. None of it was his idea. So yes, I say Trudeau is the absolute worst because no PM I can think of had worse judgment, and a greater ability to say the right thing and not act on it. 10 years in power and not a single accomplishment (I care a lot more about accomplishments than scandals) that made things better for the country. Just more programs we can't afford. He was a screen door on a submarine.
There is no best way to deal with Trump’s bombast and his absurd/sometimes grotesque and ever contradictory statements and anybody that thinks that there is (and that they know what it is) is fooling themselves. Trying to keep up with him and respond to everything he says and does is a fool’s game - I don’t want the Prime Minister doing that and I care even less about an opposition leader doing that.
There is one and only one best way to actually “deal with Trump” and that is to repair this country through responsible fiscal management, rebuilding our national defence, bringing down supply management and other internal trade barriers, extracting our natural resources, etc. Every minute spent fretting about what Trump is saying about 51st state, Greenland, NATO, down-playing the military assistance provided to the US post-911 etc is a minute wasted. Can somebody please keep their eye on the ball?
Sadly, we take the world as we find it, not as we wish it were. And so, while far too many Canadians for my liking are obsessed with the USA and Trump’s rantings (exactly why the hell are people in Toronto protesting the conduct of LEOs in Minnesota??!!) to the exclusion of doing something to fix this country, this is the landscape in which our politics functions and somebody from the Conservatives needs to be able to navigate it if they want to win elections. And, if as it appears is possible, the masses want somebody (Conservative or Liberal) who can “deal with Trump” by making nice speeches with appropriate gravitas to an adoring international audience more than someone who is capable of actually repairing the country then H.L. Mencken’s words ring true once again. (None of this should be taken as an endorsement of PP or a claim that Carney *can’t* do it - rather, it is an expression of dismay with the general state of our politics.)
QUOTE: "There is one and only one best way to actually “deal with Trump” and that is to repair this country through responsible fiscal management, rebuilding our national defence, bringing down supply management and other internal trade barriers, extracting our natural resources, etc. Every minute spent fretting about what Trump is saying about 51st state, Greenland, NATO, down-playing the military assistance provided to the US post-911 etc is a minute wasted. Can somebody please keep their eye on the ball?"
> repair this country through responsible fiscal management, rebuilding our national defence, bringing down supply management and other internal trade barriers, extracting our natural resources, etc.
Absolutely... with caveats that as long as the Americans are scewing us over, we avoid helping them. So rebuild our national defence with European and Asian hardware and agreements. Bring down supply management... for the import of European dairy only, not American, and sell our natural resources more and more to everyone who isn't American.
Trump was the icing. The real meat (to mix metaphors) was that Carney has a brain. Poilievre does not. (And clearly neither do quite a few others in his party.)
End of story.
First time in my life I've ever voted Liberal. And I wasn't holding my nose.
Is he moving as fast on some things as I'd like (like tax reform - the biggest single economic issue we have, IMHO)? No. But given what else is going on, I'm still willing to cut him some slack. Besides, the tax reform file is probably going to need a majority to get done what needs to get done. (Actually, it will need a constitutional amendment, but that's another story.)
Yes. Brains for the win, and extra helpings of brutal courage along the way. If Carney can explain the need for courage while also getting things moving quickly, I will be able to hang in there. This week’s provincial premiers meeting should be telling.
OAS reform is the biggest fiscal issue, nothing else comes close. It's growing triple to quadruple what the economy and revenues are, and it's going to eat everything else. Minor reforms yield billions, significant ones yield tens of billions. Every single year.
Ah yes, I should have said tax/welfare reform. Because it's all part of the same thing. Who pays and how much, and welfare is just negative tax, and OAS is welfare.
I'm not talking minor reforms, I'm talking Carter Commission and constitutional amendment sized ones.
Hint, provincial transfers are baked into the constitution. They should be repurposed to fund making welfare a federal responsibility that is integrated into the tax system. That way what used to be equalization occurs on an individual basis and being far more granular, it would be more responsive to who actually needs it regardless of where they lived without resorting to federal/provincial negotiations on transfers. It would also lay bare the inadequacy of the tax base to support the provinces the size of the maritime ones, and Quebec's to support its own spending.
The icing on this cake is that it can actually be done without increasing total tax revenues.
I like Daryl Bricker’s of Ipsos explanation the best: Poilievre lost because of a perfect storm-Trump AND Carney replacing Trudeau. If only one of these things happened, I think we would have PM Poilievre today
IMHO, as long as Carney comes across as calm and competent, and Trump or whatever screwball inherits his MAGA empire remains in the White House causing instability at home and abroad, the Liberals will continue to govern.
As long as Trump and/or MAGA remain a thing in American right-wing politics, the Tories are going to find it difficult to thread the needle of having no enemies on the right but appealing to gettable Liberal voters.
I think when all those Dippers realize that they voted for a banker, that may change. Or Poilievre will scare the hell out of them so much that they will stick with the banker.
Exactly. This is an even bigger issue when Danielle Smith continues to link the UCP (Conservative) brand with pro 51st state separatists and Pierre Poilievre hasn't taken a strong "Sister Soulyah"/"Rev. Jeremiah Wright" stand against them.
Maybe he agrees with them ...that Albertans have had enough of the Canadian disfunction and are willing and perhaps the, unlikely, event of winning a referendum on this issue. I think I understand their take on this. It's not that hard and to hear the eastern pundits display continued arrogance against their right to have an opinion on the matter doesn't help at all. We've put up with the Quebec threat of separation for decades and now I think that might be more likely. People have had enough of the inability to fix what ails Canada. We're a huge country....we would still be a huge country if a couple of provinces left to form their own. Governance might even be more manageable.
Remind us, please, how much the federal government under the hated Justin Trudeau spent on the TMX pipeline expansion? (Answer: CAD 34+ billion)
Remind us, too, how much more Western Canada Select is now being exported to China and other places via said pipeline? (Answer: About 88 million barrels per year)
And, finally, would the TMX expansion have been built if the federal government had NOT ponied up the money (and expended political capital) to get it done?
NB: For the record, I was deeply frustrated with Trudeau's ineptitude and focus, both foreign and domestic. I was ecstatic when the Liberals finally got rid of him, years after they should have.
And, for the record, Mark Carney could turn out to be the most consequential Prime Minister since Brian Mulroney served in that role.
You sound as though the west should be grateful for any crumbs thrown it’s way over the years. The premier of BC, my province, pointed out to PM Carney that B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan financed the bulk of transfer payments.
He strongly implied that some gratitude would be appreciated.
I do believe that Justin Trudeau began with a mountain to climb vis-à-vis Alberta, thanks in part to the legacy of his father (the National Energy Program). As someone who was trying to make my way in life as a young Albertan at the time, I well remember how difficult things were.
However, those in Alberta who like to complain today of the NEP seldom acknowledge that PET's National Energy Program was popular amongst industrial firms in Ontario and Quebec, and popular as well with the Progressive Conservative Premier of Ontario at the time, William Davis.
This reminds me of how China under the Communist Party selectively cites past history (decades in the past) to advance present-day political agendas.
As for "crumbs" that the TMX represents, well, if you consider CAD 34 billion to be "crumbs", there really isn't much that I can do to change your perspective, is there?
I'll leave you with the following observations:
* Between May 2024 and January 2025, Alberta booked an estimated CAD 10 billion in extra revenue on sales of Western Canada Select shipped through the newly expanded TMX;
TMX has boosted pipeline capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000, and improved access to marine transport through the Port of Vancouver. Within its first month, the combined pipelines were already transporting 704,000 barrels per day — 81 per cent of its capacity. Between May 2024 and September 2025, crude oil exports to Indo-Pacific markets went from virtually zero to an average of C$571 million per month...
I have to wonder if there is anything behind recent reporting about the International Democracy Union, the Global Far-Right Leadership Club, and its influence in the CPC. Are they struggling to confront their Trump problem because they don’t believe it is a problem?
What a great column! Thanks for this. MG really laid out the challenges facing Poilievre. For me, Poilievre has kept his mouth shut for nine months while Trump shat upon Greenland, Canada, our Allies and whatever bonkers thoughts were and are going through his head. That must mean there are a good chunk of Trump supporters in the CPC and we're going to see them flex their muscle this weekend.
The last election's ballot question was 'who is best to handle Trump?'
#$%@! There is no handling Trump. You get the same garbage spewing from his mouth until he changes his mind, spews more, then changes his mind again. I honest-to-god feel sometimes that I am being gaslit because the news, politicians, etc, keep putting forward the proposition that Donald Trump can be negotiated with and there is zero evidence that is even a slight possibility.
Poilievre is in an intellectual and political kobayashi maru situation, I think. He's going to lose the forthcoming election unless the rapture or first contact with aliens happens. The Liberals, yet again, will continue to govern. I would not be surprised if the party splits back to its reform and PC roots again if they get crushed in an election.
The best thing for the country would be a party split so we get the old PCs back, a party I could actually consider voting for (and did a few times back in the Joe Clark days).
True, but as long as the more moderate voices in the "big-tent" Conservative party are consistently marginalized, it drives voters like me away from them permanently.
What Conservatives do not get is that the miracle is not that Poilievre lost the election after a huge lead, but the miracle is that he was actually competitive at all to begin with. It was foreseeable and foreseen that this ignorant meme-bot would be a liability to the Conservative Party, as I remarked in early 2022: https://unpublished.ca/opinion/pierre-poilievre-uniquely-unqualified-to-be-a-prime-minister
Admittedly, however, I did not foresee that Poilievre would lead the Conservatives to more votes than any Conservative leader since Brian Mulroney (while also motivating more Canadians to vote Liberal than any time since the Pierre Trudeau era).
I think conservative parties in Canada are struggling with how to respond to Trump because their coalition includes people who like Trump and his populist approach. That populist faction is big enough that it can cost conservative parties an election if they don't turn out (or worse, form a break-away party), but the positions they embrace are sufficiently toxic for the broader electorate that they can cost a conservative party victory if they're given too much influence. This faction has also been emboldened by the success of Trump's approach, and has become increasingly unwilling to compromise their demands. This dynamic is most evident in Alberta, where they ended Jason Kenney's tenure as premier by making the caucus ungovernable and Danielle Smith is likewise engaged in a complex dance trying to placate them.
Conservative Party fundraising has been tapping populism for years; consequently, a lot of the party membership are people motivated by the same sort of politics that epitomize Trump's approach: tough on crime, anti immigration, pro military, anti woke. The difference used to be that the Conservatives would actually tie those things to fairly reasonable policies. We're not seeing much policy in the Poilievre era, just slogans and attitude.
If the Conservatives want to distance themselves from Trump and retain the populists, they need to articulate some effective policy aligned with those themes. That policy need to distinguish itself from Trump's authoritarianism, and also needs to engage Canadian nationalism. Embracing nationalism should be *easy* for the Conservatives - the Harper-era embrace of national symbols like the military, history, and hockey was popular and also drove the Liberals and NDP up the walls. It just takes good leadership.
Entirely agree with you Matt but one thing bothers me the Liberals have also had 12 months to do what they promised and they have failed miserably and the media still can't get that message across or get to the elbows up community. Ive read so many comments where the solid Libs saying, he has signed 12 deals Yea, we don't need any US trade now Yea and on and on.
His record speaks for itself. Twenty plus years of rage politics. Don’t want it, don’t need it. Canada’s not broken it’s a work in process. You are either a builder or a destroyer like Mrs David Smith Moretta. I choose builders
I am a Canadian conservative, and Conservative Party member in my 64th year.
I made the trek to Calgary as a delegate.
Please explain to me why President Trump is the number one issue in Canada, when we have a series of very serious, limiting, and debilitating crises that the Liberal Government refuse to acknowledge, let alone repair.
The problems that face this Country are real; they are not imagined.
We have had issues with every President in my lifetime, from Johnson to Trump. That will not end with this current administration.
Perhaps if we want the Americans to stop treating us like the 51st State, perhaps we should grow up and stop acting like the 51st State.
Perhaps we should listen to Pierre Poilievre and stop manufacturing problems that don’t exist.
Canadians will be forced to face reality at some point; we can do so now on our terms, or wait and have reality thrust upon us.
Please explain to me why President Trump is the number one issue in Canada...
END QUOTE
* Under Trump, the United States has deep-sixed its credibility with all of its allies, including Canada;
* Furthermore, the threat to subjugate Canada by imposing tariffs that are already undermining our economic prosperity (and, if followed with further tariffs and other discriminatory measures, will destroy Canada's economy);
* Canada has, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, failed to put sufficient effort into engaging more effectively and consistently with other countries in an effort to make the country less reliant on US good will; this has put us well and truly on the back foot in the face of what is likely to be ongoing US skepticism (and Donald Trump's outright hostility);
* We cannot defend ourselves without American aid, clearly a terrible dereliction of our duty as a sovereign state.
This is not an exhaustive list.
Trump, and the broader shift in US attitudes towards the rest of the world, including Canada, poses an existential threat to this country.
I think you have gravely overstated the overt threat of President Trump, and failed to express the poor decision-making that has led to this break in our relationship.
Respectfully, and without malice, President Trump is nowhere near Canada’s greatest threat or problem.
That would be our ongoing crisis of apathy, fear, paralysis, and unaccountability.
Each of these will remain, long after President Trump is gone.
We've been slackers in defence for decades, and we've been economic slackers as well. We've been freeloading underperformers. We need to get our shit together, regardless of who the president is.
He'd be the best Conservative PM we've had since Sir John A. if we had still had a Progressive Conservative party without Mulroney having turned himself into an albatross.
Even aside from Trump: People were so sick of Trudeau that it made the CPC numbers far, far higher than they would be against “generic LPC leader” let alone Carney.
The CPC has spent a year trying to convince Canadians that Trudeau’s policies are Liberal core values and so Carney is “just like Justin”. This fails the sniff test; Trudeau was the outlier in 100 years of LPC history. He reflected world trends (the great Social Justice wave of 2012-2022) but the LPC is clearly rapidly going back to being the centrist party they always were. Most Canadians see this, which is why Carney’s support remains high.
CPC needs to run against a centrist LPC, not against the ghost of Justin Trudeau, or they will continue to lose.
I really don't want the next election to be about Trump. Trump is a blip. If Poilievre loses, so be it. (And for the record, I think he would make a great PM and is sorely needed at the moment, whether Canadians realize it or not.) But I think Carney, like Trudeau before him, is going to make a mess of the country, and that mess should be something that solely lies at the Liberals' feet (although they will blame Trump or Poilievre or whomever they can). Canadian voters are like drug addicts. We won't change until we hit rock bottom. But along the way, someone is providing us with clean needles and other handouts. We might just end up dying before we actually turn things around, sadly.
Trump may be a blip but the MAGA movement is most certainly not. Trump lit the fuse but the fuse was decades in the making. If Vance runs in '28 and wins, it'll be more of the same. And all MAGA politicians have done to date is exactly what they said they would. No serious Canadian leader can assume MAGA will disappear when Trump does.
Well, the Liberals had better come up with a better plan then. Or do we just continue to chirp while doing nothing to actually improve our country and economy and joining forces and melding “values” with China and Qatar and whoever else Carney dreams up?
I agree the Liberals need to produce substantive results; so far, we have good-sounding talk, but talk is cheap. At the same time, this article was about Poilievre, and I'm not convinced he has any plan at all to deal with Trump. If anything, he gives the impression that he sympathizes with MAGA-adjacent Canadians such as the trucker convoy participants. Gurney's article was about exactly that.
Yes, Canadian media is mostly about holding the opposition leader accountable. I am very much aware of that.
You must be new to the Line: they've been holding Trudeau and co. (not to mention Singh and the NDP) accountable for several years.
In the run up to the election, Poilievre made a moving speech decrying the plight of low-income Canadians. CBC's headlines, however, were all about his use of the term "biological clock," a term CBC itself has used repeatedly in headlines.
Not new. Back again after a few months hiatus. Was one of the original subscribers. Still read them but temporarily pulled my funding haha. 🤣
Do you have any idea how unlikely Vance is to be elected to any office, let alone the Presidency. He barely won the Senate seat in deep red Ohio even with Trump’s endorsement and Thiel’s money. Maga is a fading personality cult.
You may be right, but I wouldn't bet on it, and neither can the government.
But the point is there’s a 100% chance China will still be an untrustworthy genocidal state in 2026 or 2028. There’s a better than even chance that Trump and Trumpism will be defeated or seriously weakened in that time frame. The government should by all means seek out other countries to trade with. Not sure the embrace of China makes sense (especially given his call in Davos to seek alliances with middle powers).
We differ on whether a limited-scope trade deal (i.e. not free trade) constitutes an 'embrace' of China's worldview. I don't believe it does. To me it represents hedging their bets against US uncertainty, and it makes sense. I wonder whether you're really interested in judging Carney's actions objectively.
That’s a fair point about the deal, but he has a history of being too close to China, and refusing to care about human rights. I do think he’s a big phony (sold out his green zealotry so he could get elected, sold Canadians a bunch of bs about elbows up). If that is lacking in objectivity, so be it.
> Trump is a blip.
All American Presidents are blips, but the trends aren't. Trump will leave office, but you need to remember that he got elected. He didn't cheat, the Americans WANTED him to be President and beating up on Canada is one of the things they like. That trend isn't going away. They are mad because they're delusional enough to think they've been mistreated by the system which they created and which has vastly increased their wealth and power.. .bu the facts don't matter, they FEEL aggrieved and they want to take it out on the people they used to call friends. And this has been building for a long, long time. And if it fades, it will also take a long, long time.
> Canadian voters are like drug addicts. We won't change until we hit rock bottom.
Sure we will. and we do. "Fails to change in the way I want" is not a synonym for "won't change". Did you forget Stephen Harper won three elections and was Prime Minister for 9 years? We do change our minds, but not necessarily in the way you like. Canada was absolutely voting for Prime Minister Poilievre, Canada changed it's mind from thinking he wasn't fit to run a lemonade stand.... but then he utterly failed to meet the moment and Canada changed its mind again and went for the guy who was meeting them moment.
Me, I think too many people won't change their minds from thinking Trump is a blip until reality beats them in the face for a decade or more about how false that is.
The Americans voted for Trump over the alternative, an airhead called Harris.
Yeeee-ah.
How's that working out?
Better. Complicated, but better.
Voted for a felon over a prosecutor.
I tried to reply earlier to your comment. It didn’t take (IT glitch, perhaps). I’ll respond later today.
Further to my previous note, I offer the following comment:
QUOTE
Trump is a blip. If Poilievre loses, so be it.
END QUOTE
I agree with @JB. American voters in their tens-of-millions support Trump AND the policies, foreign and domestic, that are now his "signature achievements".
In my judgement, that strongly suggests that, whatever the outcome of the 2028 presidential election, the policies that garnered so much support (protectionism, antipathy for "encumbering alliances", coercive international behaviour) will persist.
As such, Conservatives need, in my view, to re-think almost everything that has shaped their party's position and policies since the merger of the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservative Party in the mid-2000s.
More to the point, any leader who wants a credible shot at forming a majority government after the next federal election (whenever that might be) almost certainly MUST confront the "Maple MAGA" movement in the Conservative Party, and also push back against separatists who misrepresent grievances for their own purposes.
Oh, and be more open-minded about the possibility that tens-of-millions of American dollars may flow, albeit covertly, to support said separatists, particularly in Alberta.
NB: Liberals, too, must be realistic about the limitations of their preferred political partners in the United States. If there is one thing that the Democratic Party shares in common with Donald Trump, it is a preference for trade protectionism.
For the first time in a long time, I live in a Conservative riding. I personally haven't encountered any "Maple MAGA" (God, I hate that term.). Our riding switched from NDP largely because people are fed up with what's going on at the local legal, with drugs, crime, loss of industry, etc. That's from chatting with people I know who actually switched allegiance. I still think a stronger country would make us less vulnerable to what's going on in the US (and, let's face, Dems weren't exactly going out of their way to help build a strong Canada). Like I said, the Cons losing the next election is not necessarily a bad thing. Canada might need to hit rock bottom first. Canadians aren't quite ready to do the hard work to build a strong country.
Their notion that Pierre was "perfect for the issues everyone had good reason to think the election would be fought on" was, IMHO, nothing less than delusional. Pierre already had the Convoy albatross around his neck, suggesting his judgment is no better than Trudeau's.
If they keep him, it means they haven't learned a thing since 2015. The Reform Party is still too much a part of the party, which will make them unelectable. As becomes clearer every day, even conservatives don't know what they represent anymore.
There's a bit of hypocrisy with the Conservative membership being willing to give Poilievre another shot after his flame-out while they drove out Erin O'Toole with pitchforks.
I suspect if they'd kept him, he might be PM today. PP will never hold that office. He's a self-inflicted wound.
Your use of “they” is a clear indication that you’re passing judgment on something of which you have no clear knowledge or understanding.
Perhaps. "They" is the CPC leadership group. The CPC knifed Erin. He lost because of his own Party. You lost last year because of Pierre. You'll lose in 2029 because of Pierre. You lost in 2019 because of Andrew. I think I have a pretty decent understanding of what happened and why. I think it's the CPC/Reform party that can't get its head around Canadian reality. I have no party affiliation. I'm the vote the CPC can get. You won't get it if you keep Pierre. It's that black and white.
Please explain where I have it wrong....and if you wouldn't mind, define what conservatism stands for in 2026.
To be fair to the Conservatives, O'Toole was driven out not by the Conservative membership but rather by caucus. Poilievre might survive this leadership review by a healthy margin, only then be tossed aside by his caucus in the coming year if he becomes a threat to the re-election prospects of a number of Conservative MPs, or if the Liberals gain a majority.
I recall that the press, did its best to be pick faults with the very good Erin O’Toole. The Liberal biased press really did not want a decent Conservative leader.
For some reason, they preferred the Liberal fool, J. Trudeau.
He was one of them, I guess.
O'Toole campaigned for CPC Leader as a righteous rage-farmer and then he campaigned for the general electorate as a mature pragmatist. What got him the most scrutiny was the basic failure to account for this transformation, for failing to be credible either to hardline Conservatives or to Conservative-skeptics.
In the end, the Conservatives under O'Toole got 0.5% more of the vote than they did under Scheer. It was the Conservatives who decided that was not good enough for him to stay on, unless you think that the allegedly Trudeau-favouring media encouraged them to dump him.
Your use of “they” indicates you are passing judgment on something of which you have no clear knowledge or understanding of the matter.
Yeah, no. I'm well read, I follow the news (including reporting of the event on this site), and I stand by my characterization. If you want to disagree, disagree, but don't insinuate it's obvious that I don't know what happened.
The convoy was ruled by the Supreme Court twice that it was legal and allowed and Liberals were illegal and broke the law.
The lowers courts (not the Supreme Court, at least not yet) ruled that the use of the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy was illegal due to the convoy not constituting a "threat to national security". The courts did not rule that the convoy was legal in its entirety, or that it could not be legally cleared by other means. The criminal convictions against convoy organizers Chris Barber and Tamara Lich still remain in full force.
The decision actually said that many of the actions of the convoy were indeed illegal (honking loud horns at all hours, blocking public infrastructure etc). It didn't exonerate them at all. But god forbid anyone engage with any nuance.
Oh, boo hoo. Try living in Paris in the neighbourhoods where the some times constant demos go on.
Why didn’t the police disable the honking horns?
So you advocate for a direct physical confrontation between the Convoy and the Police? Zero chance that doesn't turn violent. Maybe if the clowns had been smart enough, or respectful of others to just shut up, but I guess that was too much to ask based on their collective IQs.
I do. It's called enforcing the damn law. We don't say "the law must be followed unless the law breakers might get violent, in which case they can do what they want".
Enforce the damn laws of the land.
What I don't favour is selective policing where "environmental" protests (which are actually just anti-economy protests) are treated with kid gloves and allowed to shut down businesses, racist protests against Jews are treated with kids gloves and allowed to continue, but protests that the Laurentiens dislike are cracked down on.
And the problem for Mr. Trudeau was... that Canada had been treating leftie protests with kid gloves for a long time and suddenly having a double standard for the convoy was a little too obvious.
Which in no way changes that the Convoy was the biggest gathering of selfish idiots in Canadian history. The Emergencies Act was not required, is the ruling that I'm aware of. I support that ruling because it wasn't needed, because Doug stopped playing idiot politics, and opened Windsor the second the US called us an unreliable trading partner.
Nothing will change the reality that the Convoy were selfish, ignorant fools.
I agree I didnt like it either, but thats why we have a free country so if a group of Canadians do not like something the govt is doing they have that right. As far as the charges that was Trudeau feeding his ego and demanding courts adhere. Where are the chages and jail time for the horrific attacks on the CDn Jews from people that aren't even invested in Canada. Crickets.
I have no issue with them protestsing. They could still be on Parliament Hill today for all I care. But they don't have the right to make the population's life miserable or gridlock a city. No nation on earth would have toleated what we did for 6 weeks. Most would have been gone before the first weekend was over.
Truduea didn't lay any charges so that is irrationally taking your hatred for him and applying it to things he didn't control. The rest of your grievances are failures of policing. The laws are in place to deal with that, although your comment sounds openly racist and rather ignorant. Based on what, does their anger at what is happening in their homeland mean they aren't invested in Canada? Does that mean Jews who live here and were furious about October 7 aren't invested either?
There is a difference between people not being charged because the crime perpetrators were not caught, and not being charged because they are treated as above the rule of law. You're not actually aware of any specific person who committed hate crimes against Jews and whom the police deliberately declined to prosecute - every instance of a crime you can think of against the Jews is just an incident where the perpetrators were clever enough to hide their identity and get away.
Do you want Chris Barber and Tamara Lich pardoned of their criminal convictions?
Why not? Barber and Lich were not seriously trying to overthrow the incompetent government of J. Trudeau. It was theatre.
There is no comparison to the very overt hatred of Jews that has become rife. And you know well that most of the protesters have made no effort to face cover.
These grossly antisemitic protests are/were tolerated, even outside of Jewish owned businesses, synagogues and neighbourhoods.
Your excuses for these protesters is a very troubling.
You write, "you know well that most of the protesters have made no effort to face cover."
In that case, then you should be able to name names of who should have charges pressed against them, rather than pointing fingers in a nebulous direction. Barber and Lich are known commodities unlike whoever it is you are talking about.
Barber and Lich were convicted of "mischief" charges, meaning they were convicted of encouraging the desecration of others' property. Their convictions have nothing to do with the Emergencies Act over-reach in response to the pretense of a "national security threat".
They signed on with Bauder. That's exactly what they hoped to do.
Indeed, the first inquiry ruled that Trudeau’s use of the Emergency Act was completely unnecessary, especially given that it was all coming to an end. . .it was blatantly obvious that Justin wanted his ‘strong’ moment like his father did in 1970. . I am so glad that we are finally free of that conceited, vacuous man that we endured for so long , thanks to the now decimated NDP.
J.T. was able to do far too much damage to this country thanks to those idiots. I hope they remain on the fringes for a very long time.
I was once a member of the NDP years ago for provincial reasons here in BC. THE Socreds and then the risen from the dead Liberals under Gordon Campbell were dog eat dog and many poor British Columbians suffered as a result.
The late NDP Premier Horgan was a far better premier than his successor, David Eby is.
Which inquiry are you talking about? If you are referring to the Public Order Emergency Commission chaired by Paul Rouleau, that inquiry actually gave its seal of approval to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
However, the courts did not have a legal obligation to accept the opinion of said inquiry, so the Federal Court exercised its judgment to decide that the invocation was illegal.
Illegal or otherwise, this was actually one of the more mature episodes of governance on the part of the Trudeau government. They certainly did not rush to the invocation or fail to consult widely, even if they happened to get their legal judgments wrong. The invocation did not do much in the way of long-lasting harm to the country.
JT will likely go down in history as the worst PM we've ever had. It's not his fault he won.
Are you sure about that? I have taken the effort to list out many of the Trudeau and the Harper governments' various scandals, and the Harper record is at least as bad, if not worse, than the Trudeau government's record: https://stefanklietsch.substack.com/p/comparing-and-contrasting-the-scandals
But given your persistent criticism of Poilievre, I'm sure that you already agreed that his record in the Harper government was less than stellar!
Harper was useless. FIPA is his masterpiece; something Conservatives are true hypocrites about when they complain about Carney talking to China.
However, I can think of no one with worse judgment than Trudeau. He said all the right things, and I believed in him in 2015. Then, we had SNC. JWR saved his ass, and he politically buried her. Truth and Reconcilliation day, and he buggers off to Vancouver Island. Electric vehicles, while doing nothing to build the infrastructure to support them. Every gun law change, the buyback being the stupidest of all, when we all know the issue is the border. Another who completely ignored the military.
To be honest, I'm no big fan of any PM over the last 40 years, but I hate deficit financing. I think it's as big a scam as trcikle down economics. It just pushes financial calamity down the road. The US is there now. The rest of the planet has the ability to destroy the US economy without firing a shot. We're not that far away.
Trudeau got COVID right. None of it was his idea. So yes, I say Trudeau is the absolute worst because no PM I can think of had worse judgment, and a greater ability to say the right thing and not act on it. 10 years in power and not a single accomplishment (I care a lot more about accomplishments than scandals) that made things better for the country. Just more programs we can't afford. He was a screen door on a submarine.
There is no best way to deal with Trump’s bombast and his absurd/sometimes grotesque and ever contradictory statements and anybody that thinks that there is (and that they know what it is) is fooling themselves. Trying to keep up with him and respond to everything he says and does is a fool’s game - I don’t want the Prime Minister doing that and I care even less about an opposition leader doing that.
There is one and only one best way to actually “deal with Trump” and that is to repair this country through responsible fiscal management, rebuilding our national defence, bringing down supply management and other internal trade barriers, extracting our natural resources, etc. Every minute spent fretting about what Trump is saying about 51st state, Greenland, NATO, down-playing the military assistance provided to the US post-911 etc is a minute wasted. Can somebody please keep their eye on the ball?
Sadly, we take the world as we find it, not as we wish it were. And so, while far too many Canadians for my liking are obsessed with the USA and Trump’s rantings (exactly why the hell are people in Toronto protesting the conduct of LEOs in Minnesota??!!) to the exclusion of doing something to fix this country, this is the landscape in which our politics functions and somebody from the Conservatives needs to be able to navigate it if they want to win elections. And, if as it appears is possible, the masses want somebody (Conservative or Liberal) who can “deal with Trump” by making nice speeches with appropriate gravitas to an adoring international audience more than someone who is capable of actually repairing the country then H.L. Mencken’s words ring true once again. (None of this should be taken as an endorsement of PP or a claim that Carney *can’t* do it - rather, it is an expression of dismay with the general state of our politics.)
QUOTE: "There is one and only one best way to actually “deal with Trump” and that is to repair this country through responsible fiscal management, rebuilding our national defence, bringing down supply management and other internal trade barriers, extracting our natural resources, etc. Every minute spent fretting about what Trump is saying about 51st state, Greenland, NATO, down-playing the military assistance provided to the US post-911 etc is a minute wasted. Can somebody please keep their eye on the ball?"
Exactly this. Thank you.
> repair this country through responsible fiscal management, rebuilding our national defence, bringing down supply management and other internal trade barriers, extracting our natural resources, etc.
Absolutely... with caveats that as long as the Americans are scewing us over, we avoid helping them. So rebuild our national defence with European and Asian hardware and agreements. Bring down supply management... for the import of European dairy only, not American, and sell our natural resources more and more to everyone who isn't American.
Excellent post! One of the best I've seen.
Trump was the icing. The real meat (to mix metaphors) was that Carney has a brain. Poilievre does not. (And clearly neither do quite a few others in his party.)
End of story.
First time in my life I've ever voted Liberal. And I wasn't holding my nose.
Is he moving as fast on some things as I'd like (like tax reform - the biggest single economic issue we have, IMHO)? No. But given what else is going on, I'm still willing to cut him some slack. Besides, the tax reform file is probably going to need a majority to get done what needs to get done. (Actually, it will need a constitutional amendment, but that's another story.)
Yes. Brains for the win, and extra helpings of brutal courage along the way. If Carney can explain the need for courage while also getting things moving quickly, I will be able to hang in there. This week’s provincial premiers meeting should be telling.
Peddle hope. That might work.
"It is a faint hope," channeling Aragorn from LOTR
OAS reform is the biggest fiscal issue, nothing else comes close. It's growing triple to quadruple what the economy and revenues are, and it's going to eat everything else. Minor reforms yield billions, significant ones yield tens of billions. Every single year.
Ah yes, I should have said tax/welfare reform. Because it's all part of the same thing. Who pays and how much, and welfare is just negative tax, and OAS is welfare.
I'm not talking minor reforms, I'm talking Carter Commission and constitutional amendment sized ones.
Hint, provincial transfers are baked into the constitution. They should be repurposed to fund making welfare a federal responsibility that is integrated into the tax system. That way what used to be equalization occurs on an individual basis and being far more granular, it would be more responsive to who actually needs it regardless of where they lived without resorting to federal/provincial negotiations on transfers. It would also lay bare the inadequacy of the tax base to support the provinces the size of the maritime ones, and Quebec's to support its own spending.
The icing on this cake is that it can actually be done without increasing total tax revenues.
So no, not minor at all.
I like Daryl Bricker’s of Ipsos explanation the best: Poilievre lost because of a perfect storm-Trump AND Carney replacing Trudeau. If only one of these things happened, I think we would have PM Poilievre today
IMHO, as long as Carney comes across as calm and competent, and Trump or whatever screwball inherits his MAGA empire remains in the White House causing instability at home and abroad, the Liberals will continue to govern.
As long as Trump and/or MAGA remain a thing in American right-wing politics, the Tories are going to find it difficult to thread the needle of having no enemies on the right but appealing to gettable Liberal voters.
The demise of the NDP helped as well.
I think when all those Dippers realize that they voted for a banker, that may change. Or Poilievre will scare the hell out of them so much that they will stick with the banker.
Exactly. This is an even bigger issue when Danielle Smith continues to link the UCP (Conservative) brand with pro 51st state separatists and Pierre Poilievre hasn't taken a strong "Sister Soulyah"/"Rev. Jeremiah Wright" stand against them.
Maybe he agrees with them ...that Albertans have had enough of the Canadian disfunction and are willing and perhaps the, unlikely, event of winning a referendum on this issue. I think I understand their take on this. It's not that hard and to hear the eastern pundits display continued arrogance against their right to have an opinion on the matter doesn't help at all. We've put up with the Quebec threat of separation for decades and now I think that might be more likely. People have had enough of the inability to fix what ails Canada. We're a huge country....we would still be a huge country if a couple of provinces left to form their own. Governance might even be more manageable.
Remind us, please, how much the federal government under the hated Justin Trudeau spent on the TMX pipeline expansion? (Answer: CAD 34+ billion)
Remind us, too, how much more Western Canada Select is now being exported to China and other places via said pipeline? (Answer: About 88 million barrels per year)
And, finally, would the TMX expansion have been built if the federal government had NOT ponied up the money (and expended political capital) to get it done?
NB: For the record, I was deeply frustrated with Trudeau's ineptitude and focus, both foreign and domestic. I was ecstatic when the Liberals finally got rid of him, years after they should have.
And, for the record, Mark Carney could turn out to be the most consequential Prime Minister since Brian Mulroney served in that role.
You sound as though the west should be grateful for any crumbs thrown it’s way over the years. The premier of BC, my province, pointed out to PM Carney that B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan financed the bulk of transfer payments.
He strongly implied that some gratitude would be appreciated.
I do believe that Justin Trudeau began with a mountain to climb vis-à-vis Alberta, thanks in part to the legacy of his father (the National Energy Program). As someone who was trying to make my way in life as a young Albertan at the time, I well remember how difficult things were.
However, those in Alberta who like to complain today of the NEP seldom acknowledge that PET's National Energy Program was popular amongst industrial firms in Ontario and Quebec, and popular as well with the Progressive Conservative Premier of Ontario at the time, William Davis.
This reminds me of how China under the Communist Party selectively cites past history (decades in the past) to advance present-day political agendas.
As for "crumbs" that the TMX represents, well, if you consider CAD 34 billion to be "crumbs", there really isn't much that I can do to change your perspective, is there?
I'll leave you with the following observations:
* Between May 2024 and January 2025, Alberta booked an estimated CAD 10 billion in extra revenue on sales of Western Canada Select shipped through the newly expanded TMX;
C.f.: TMX is already showing its value: an extra $10bn in revenues in 2024; but US tariffs loom large on Alberta’s oil, Alberta Central (analysis by Alberta Central Chief Economist Charles St-Arnaud), 17 January 2025, https://albertacentral.com/intelligence-centre/economic-news/tmx-is-already-showing-its-value-an-extra-10bn-in-revenues-in-2024-but-us-tariffs-loom-large-on-albertas-oil/
AND
QUOTE
TMX has boosted pipeline capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000, and improved access to marine transport through the Port of Vancouver. Within its first month, the combined pipelines were already transporting 704,000 barrels per day — 81 per cent of its capacity. Between May 2024 and September 2025, crude oil exports to Indo-Pacific markets went from virtually zero to an average of C$571 million per month...
END QUOTE
C.f.: Rachael Gurney, Xiaoting (Maya) Liu, Canada’s Oil Exporting Future: Trans-Mountain, China, Asia, and Beyond, the Asia-Pacific Foundation, 13 January 2026, https://www.asiapacific.ca/publication/canadas-oil-exporting-future-trans-mountain-china-asia-and-beyond
I have to wonder if there is anything behind recent reporting about the International Democracy Union, the Global Far-Right Leadership Club, and its influence in the CPC. Are they struggling to confront their Trump problem because they don’t believe it is a problem?
What a great column! Thanks for this. MG really laid out the challenges facing Poilievre. For me, Poilievre has kept his mouth shut for nine months while Trump shat upon Greenland, Canada, our Allies and whatever bonkers thoughts were and are going through his head. That must mean there are a good chunk of Trump supporters in the CPC and we're going to see them flex their muscle this weekend.
The last election's ballot question was 'who is best to handle Trump?'
#$%@! There is no handling Trump. You get the same garbage spewing from his mouth until he changes his mind, spews more, then changes his mind again. I honest-to-god feel sometimes that I am being gaslit because the news, politicians, etc, keep putting forward the proposition that Donald Trump can be negotiated with and there is zero evidence that is even a slight possibility.
Poilievre is in an intellectual and political kobayashi maru situation, I think. He's going to lose the forthcoming election unless the rapture or first contact with aliens happens. The Liberals, yet again, will continue to govern. I would not be surprised if the party splits back to its reform and PC roots again if they get crushed in an election.
The best thing for the country would be a party split so we get the old PCs back, a party I could actually consider voting for (and did a few times back in the Joe Clark days).
As the 1990s proved, splitting the right-wing vote in a first-past-the-post electoral system only guarantees Liberal majorities.
True, but as long as the more moderate voices in the "big-tent" Conservative party are consistently marginalized, it drives voters like me away from them permanently.
Should that happen it will be clear to me the CPC, split or not, value purity over reality.
What Conservatives do not get is that the miracle is not that Poilievre lost the election after a huge lead, but the miracle is that he was actually competitive at all to begin with. It was foreseeable and foreseen that this ignorant meme-bot would be a liability to the Conservative Party, as I remarked in early 2022: https://unpublished.ca/opinion/pierre-poilievre-uniquely-unqualified-to-be-a-prime-minister
Admittedly, however, I did not foresee that Poilievre would lead the Conservatives to more votes than any Conservative leader since Brian Mulroney (while also motivating more Canadians to vote Liberal than any time since the Pierre Trudeau era).
I think conservative parties in Canada are struggling with how to respond to Trump because their coalition includes people who like Trump and his populist approach. That populist faction is big enough that it can cost conservative parties an election if they don't turn out (or worse, form a break-away party), but the positions they embrace are sufficiently toxic for the broader electorate that they can cost a conservative party victory if they're given too much influence. This faction has also been emboldened by the success of Trump's approach, and has become increasingly unwilling to compromise their demands. This dynamic is most evident in Alberta, where they ended Jason Kenney's tenure as premier by making the caucus ungovernable and Danielle Smith is likewise engaged in a complex dance trying to placate them.
Conservative Party fundraising has been tapping populism for years; consequently, a lot of the party membership are people motivated by the same sort of politics that epitomize Trump's approach: tough on crime, anti immigration, pro military, anti woke. The difference used to be that the Conservatives would actually tie those things to fairly reasonable policies. We're not seeing much policy in the Poilievre era, just slogans and attitude.
If the Conservatives want to distance themselves from Trump and retain the populists, they need to articulate some effective policy aligned with those themes. That policy need to distinguish itself from Trump's authoritarianism, and also needs to engage Canadian nationalism. Embracing nationalism should be *easy* for the Conservatives - the Harper-era embrace of national symbols like the military, history, and hockey was popular and also drove the Liberals and NDP up the walls. It just takes good leadership.
I have no idea how their going to crack that nut, but the NDP started out as a populist party and ... no, wait.."
Entirely agree with you Matt but one thing bothers me the Liberals have also had 12 months to do what they promised and they have failed miserably and the media still can't get that message across or get to the elbows up community. Ive read so many comments where the solid Libs saying, he has signed 12 deals Yea, we don't need any US trade now Yea and on and on.
His record speaks for itself. Twenty plus years of rage politics. Don’t want it, don’t need it. Canada’s not broken it’s a work in process. You are either a builder or a destroyer like Mrs David Smith Moretta. I choose builders
I am a Canadian conservative, and Conservative Party member in my 64th year.
I made the trek to Calgary as a delegate.
Please explain to me why President Trump is the number one issue in Canada, when we have a series of very serious, limiting, and debilitating crises that the Liberal Government refuse to acknowledge, let alone repair.
The problems that face this Country are real; they are not imagined.
We have had issues with every President in my lifetime, from Johnson to Trump. That will not end with this current administration.
Perhaps if we want the Americans to stop treating us like the 51st State, perhaps we should grow up and stop acting like the 51st State.
Perhaps we should listen to Pierre Poilievre and stop manufacturing problems that don’t exist.
Canadians will be forced to face reality at some point; we can do so now on our terms, or wait and have reality thrust upon us.
QUOTE
Please explain to me why President Trump is the number one issue in Canada...
END QUOTE
* Under Trump, the United States has deep-sixed its credibility with all of its allies, including Canada;
* Furthermore, the threat to subjugate Canada by imposing tariffs that are already undermining our economic prosperity (and, if followed with further tariffs and other discriminatory measures, will destroy Canada's economy);
* Canada has, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, failed to put sufficient effort into engaging more effectively and consistently with other countries in an effort to make the country less reliant on US good will; this has put us well and truly on the back foot in the face of what is likely to be ongoing US skepticism (and Donald Trump's outright hostility);
* We cannot defend ourselves without American aid, clearly a terrible dereliction of our duty as a sovereign state.
This is not an exhaustive list.
Trump, and the broader shift in US attitudes towards the rest of the world, including Canada, poses an existential threat to this country.
I think you have gravely overstated the overt threat of President Trump, and failed to express the poor decision-making that has led to this break in our relationship.
Respectfully, and without malice, President Trump is nowhere near Canada’s greatest threat or problem.
That would be our ongoing crisis of apathy, fear, paralysis, and unaccountability.
Each of these will remain, long after President Trump is gone.
"The break in our relationship"
Are you attempting to suggest that Canadians are somehow responsible?
We've been slackers in defence for decades, and we've been economic slackers as well. We've been freeloading underperformers. We need to get our shit together, regardless of who the president is.
I think that most of us understand this. Those who don't? Hopeless.
Sadly, a lot of us are in denial but still vote.
I am suggesting that if Canadians continue to pretend President Trump is Canada’s biggest problem, then none of our real problems will be solved.
Yes, Prime Minister Carney is complicit in hastening the decaying relationship. Yes, Canadians are complicit for facilitating the decaying.
I fundamentally disagree with your take on Carney, and on where complicity for the destruction of Canada-US relations lies.
I have no problem with that.
You are like most Canadians, in that regard.
The CPC held a big rally on a Saturday, Pierre gave a a powerful anti-Trump speech, and by Monday the media were back to wondering if Pierre would speak out against Trump's 51st nonsense. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-canada-first-rally-1.7459415
The Tories' greatest problem is that Carney is the best conservative politician in Canada.
If only he didn't lie like a Liberal
He'd be the best Conservative PM we've had since Sir John A. if we had still had a Progressive Conservative party without Mulroney having turned himself into an albatross.
Even aside from Trump: People were so sick of Trudeau that it made the CPC numbers far, far higher than they would be against “generic LPC leader” let alone Carney.
The CPC has spent a year trying to convince Canadians that Trudeau’s policies are Liberal core values and so Carney is “just like Justin”. This fails the sniff test; Trudeau was the outlier in 100 years of LPC history. He reflected world trends (the great Social Justice wave of 2012-2022) but the LPC is clearly rapidly going back to being the centrist party they always were. Most Canadians see this, which is why Carney’s support remains high.
CPC needs to run against a centrist LPC, not against the ghost of Justin Trudeau, or they will continue to lose.