I have great respect for Emmett Macfarlane and admire his work greatly; I’ve been reading it for years. Wish I had him as a prof when I was in university.
In my view, this is his best work yet. Blunt, honest, important, succinct. Wish I could write like Macfarlane.
@lorenking.org:
This is not Kennedy and Khrushchev saving face publicly while making concessions behind the scenes. This is not Chamberlain selling out the Czechs to buy Britain time. Trump is a contemptuous fool, and surrounds himself thus.
emmettmacfarlane.com is right. No appeasement. Disengage.
@amirattaran.bsky.social:
Unless Carney bargained a massive win against Trump—which is nowhere to be seen—his capitulation on the Digital Services Tax is a horrible error that encourages more pressure. I’m worried.
I don’t think Carney made an error, I thing he betrayed Canada intentionally. He’s a Harper Con, working to finish off what Harper failed to destroy for his rich Zionist Nazi pals.
@mikevlasic.bsky.social:
Anus tangerinus said he had all the cards, so Carney eagerly wanted to help prove that. I shudder to think of what Carney is giving away in these secret negotiations.
@pauldecampo.bsky.social:
Cowardly and ineffective tactic.
Caving to this bully will only lead to more demands
Carney continues to disappoint.
@tryangregory.bsky.social:
Promise of massive military spending to be paid for with extractive industries and cuts to public services, without tabling a budget in parliament.
Harper-Con Carney betraying Canadians, what Canadian cons do best.
Carney continues to do everything he can to appease Trump. It will not work.
***
@lukelebrun.ca:
The argument that Mark Carney is engaged in a complex 4D chess game with Trump and so we need to relax and trust the plan would have more credibility had he not wrapped himself in the flag and filmed “Elbows Up” ads with Mike Myers
Making concessions to Trump is what Carney said Poilievre would do
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
I’m being accused of inconsistency. Nope. I’m the guy who called for a WWII-like effort to pivot away from the Trump regime. I will continue to criticize any policy – including changing our border policies or dropping domestic tax policies to pursue trade deals – on this exact basis.
There’s literally no trade agreement with Trump that’s worth anything, precisely because Trump could turn around and break it any day of the week.
NO, this isn’t about the fucking digital sales tax, it’s about our relationship with Trump. By ditching the DST, Carney has signaled to the bully that he can threaten us and we’ll cave.
Everyone defending Carney is taking it on faith that he’s a strategic genius. I don’t need your forgiveness for not taking things on faith in this the Year of our Lord 2025.
Carney’s record so far?
- Capitulation on first big stand-off w/Trump
- Border bill with major rights & privacy issues
- A new law that spits on Indigenous rights
- Another bill giving political parties immunity from privacy rights
Poilievre would probably be doing worse, but that ain’t saying much.
@lisawedmann.bsky.social:
Moving forward with AI without policies, regulations or a plan.
Not policy, but sidelining NES & Gould, the first real signs that he only cared about business & money.and helping Nazi billionaires get richer
@bhaggart.bsky.social:
Mark Carney is negotiating deeper economic and security integration with the United States, just as he’s clearly said he would do all along.
It’s time to jettison the naive belief that Carney’s a genius playing some kind of a long game or buying time.
This is what appeasement looks like.
@tryangregory.bsky.social:
Liberal partisan denial and special pleading has gone into overdrive. I realize that cognitive dissonance is unpleasant, but my goodness.
***
@atrupar.com:
Leavitt:
“It’s very simple: Prime Minster Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America.”
Bill MacGougan:
I really wanted to see him stand firm and ensure that if it was rescinded we got something in return. I know Trump cannot be seen to lose but this is a bit much for me right now. Just terminated Facebook (sub-stack is the closest thing I have to social media next). Removed Google newsfeed. Will be moving Google Drive to Sync. Will not be using Uber or AirBnB. I have no idea how this is going to land for everyone else but for me… I’m getting out. Probably dump Substack soon too.Bravo! Reportedly, substack is controlled by one of the AI goons.
abrielle Lacelle:
Mr. MacFarlane’s incisive piece expressed my immediate response to our government’s decision. This announces Canada’s willingness to capitulate to senseless demands from someone who’s refused to honour contracts he himself signed.
@celeste.lgbt:
Spineless cowardice.
@skyyks.bsky.social:
Not cowardice, complicity.
@marmstr.bsky.social:
So angry about this
@kwardvancouver.bsky.social:
i bet we’ll get even angrierCarney is a vile betrayer of Canada, just like Lyin’ Brian (Mulroney and his vile NAFTA), Steve Harper selling Canada out over and over and over, and now we have Carney to finish destroying what Harper failed to. Carney’s going to give Canada to the fucking Nazis. Carney will have to kill me, no way will I cave to the fucking billionaires and their ugly raping machine Trump. I was born Canadian, I will die Canadian. Never will I be American or a genocidal Nazi like Carney.
@marmstr.bsky.social:
Sigh, you are probably right
@hoggerh.bsky.social:
This is what the whole thing has been about, any tax on the digital services shifting their massive profits abroad is met with fucking up the entire country.
@saskboy.bsky.social:
Yikes is right. He could say he intends to, to fool Trump, but he can’t and shouldn’t do that. He’s not a dictator like his American counterpart.
Or is he?
@kwardvancouver.bsky.social:
we need to watch him real close, i think you’re right and i don’t like where that goes
@jstewgie.bsky.social:
What the fuck?! The whole thing?! Not just the retroactive part?!
@kwardvancouver.bsky.social:
what the entire fuck indeed.
@man-o-man.bsky.social:
Carney came out of the bankers wilderness to take over the Liberal Party but he is a true blue conservative.
@kwardvancouver.bsky.social:
who cares about the Liberal party? he took over the government
And, Carny is cahoots with the vile little Nazi Poilievre, they have a super majority. The two con parties are one and the same, identical to the horror show in the USA just now (Dems = GOP). Nothing will be able to stop Carney’s destruction of our democracy and county, because Piss Panties Pierre and his Nazis will support every abusive thing Carney pulls against us
@cathyhannahperez.bsky.social:
NO!!!! As a US citizen fighting fascism…don’t bend to any US demands!Too late, Carney’s been doing nothing but bend – for the Nazis. He’s a catholic, and catholics support Nazis
Jean Brunet:
I am frustrated too. We should just tax the billionaires out of general principle. In fact tax them more and take a page out of that asshole’s playback. Do we actually need Facebook?No one needs Fuckbook, and especially after this new betrayal making the evil Zuckerberg and his vile tech goon billionaires richer, every human on earth, must remove themselves from Fuckbook, and stop using it. It’s one of the most evil control devices every created by humans. Ya, it’s addictive, ya, ya ya, my friends tell me they can’t live without out, and what about all those photos (especially those of kids and babies that pedophiles lust over) and how will I keep in touch with my friends and coworkers (ever hear of Canada Post, going for a walk, telephone)? So what, much in life is addictive to make the rich richer. It’s not hard to quit those things we are addicted to, even if just to stop the many abuses by kid rapists.
Terence J. Ollerhead:
… If Carney doesn’t fight like Zelenskyy, we may as well close up shot, if this capitulation is any guide. At best, it’s a PR disaster: such a move should have been accompanied on tv, online, etc., with an explanation.
@amirattaran.bsky.social:
Well, elbows down, I guess!
Carney is selling out Canada and is letting Facebook and Elon Musk skate without paying tax. This isn’t what we voted for.
Virginia Drew:
We didn’t vote for capitulation, giving in to someone like Donald Trump on even the smallest of issues is not how to win this war. Come on Carney, we can do better, show us how we are ‘strong and free’.
Terence J. Ollerhead:
I, along with every neighbour and friend, am tremendously disappointed with the decision on digital rights. This only empowers Trump, and an agreement with him in any case, is not worth anything, for all our acquiescence. It benefits no ordinary Canadian but further enriches the uberrich. Canadians have short tempers these days, and Carney will feel their full wrath if he doesn’t fight, every day, against Trump. This means not giving an inch.
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
Fucking cowardly fucks. All this will do is embolden Trump to make more demands and attacks on our sovereignty.
Canada rescinds digital services tax to advance stalled US trade talks
oooooh, this one has already pissed off some Liberal subscribers…
“Be patient! Don’t be so self righteous! Dealing with the US is hugely complex and challenging!”
Yeah? Well if Carney can’t get the easy decisions right, why should I shut my mouth now?
No, I want someone who doesn’t keep doing things I would’ve expected from PP.
Passing legislation that violates Indigenous rights, spits on privacy, and now, appeasing Trump.
Why the fuck did we want Carney again?
@astrotuna.bsky.social:
I have never been more disappointedby a PM
Carney should just roll over and piss on himself.
@slingsnarrows.bsky.social:
Carney’s a Tory.
@kerrienation.bsky.social:
What a fucking joke Carney has been.
@mamacaps.bsky.social:
Huge Carney fan
NOT AT ALL HAPPY WITH THIS MOVE !!!!
@buzzkill45.bsky.social:
Disappointed by Carney so far. I’ll still stand by him over PP, but man. What a disappointment.
@xaiux.bsky.social:
What are we able to do to communicate that this isn’t what we want the government to do?
@its.small.patatas.ca:
Carney’s folded so many times already he might as well be origami
The Carney Honeymoon is Over by Emmett Macfarlane, Jun 29, 2025, Defending Canadian Democracy
Donald Trump resumed his attacks on Canadian sovereignty this past week, withdrawing from trade talks because someone apparently told him that Canada’s digital services tax were due to kick in. Trump bragged – once again – that Canada should be the 51st state, that the US needed nothing from us, as it held “all the cards,” and promised yet more tariffs against us.
One might have expected a Prime Minister who campaigned on the “Elbows Up” theme – and whose victory is largely attributed to the idea that he was best placed to stand up against Trump – would evince the resolve he promised during that campaign, ready with retaliatory measures and forging ahead with a bold vision to pivot us away from a fascist regime.
Instead we get cowardice and capitulation. News broke this evening that the federal government is rescinding the digital service tax in order to resume talks with the US.
Mark Carney has bowed to the pressure of an untrustworthy authoritarian moron who has repeatedly threatened Canada’s economy, who tore up the very trade deal he signed with us in his first term in office, all to negotiate another deal that no sober person would believe reliable or even worth attempting.
I’d have expected nothing less from Pierre Poilievre or Doug Ford. The bloom is off the rose.
Mark Carney promised to reinvigorate the economy, the military, and to diversify our trade relationships at record speed. The only thing he’s done so far in record speed is damage his own credibility.
We were living in a rare moment of patriotic fervor. Canadians were spoiling for a fight, ready to defend this country and its economy from a dangerous fascistic monster. Why we don’t seem to have leaders prepared to live up to the moment may be a question that haunts us in the months and years to come.
Paula Boutis:
This is terrible.
Pamela Allard:
I agree. I’m shocked and disgusted!
Doug Stephens:
… The snake Carney campaigned being THE ONE to stand up to Trump. He’s turned out to be a joke, and takes 3 months of for summer break in the midst of what he called an ” existential threat” with the US tariffs.
@bushfield.ca:
Carney is an even bigger disappointment than I expected. Can’t wait for the next arbitrary demand we cede.
@robacooper.bsky.social:
One wonders what next week’s demand will be and just how Carney will cave… so much for ‘ElbowsUp’..
@redgewayf.bsky.social:
We will end up the 51st state in everything but name.
@steveboots.bsky.social:
It’s already begun: “He’s playing the long game” then he’s a fool. We already had a trade deal with the US. It was called NAFTA. Then Trump demanded we renegotiate, so we did. It was called CUSMA. Now he’s demanding we renegotiate again. What reason is there to believe he’ll honour any deal?The trouble with humans is greed, selfishness and the desire to have fun and holiday and eat well, no matter what. Hanging onto that vile evil – hope, people will hope away reality, hope Carney is brilliantly playing AI chess, so that they can keep playing, travelling and having fun, destruction of our country and our rights, be damned.
@gordon-robitaille.bsky.social:
I am pretty upset with Capitulating Carney as well. There is absolutely no benefit to making deals with people who have no intention of honoring them. The current US administration has made it very clear that they don’t honour deals because they don’t know what honour is anymore.
@dadofblue.bsky.social:
Elbows so far down he just crushed his own balls.
@simongood.bsky.social:
@mark-carney.bsky.social is knees down and gently cupping the balls. What an embarrassment.
@theginjaninja.bsky.social:
So much for elbows up. We elected him because he promised to fight for canada, not roll over.
lexycameron.bsky.social:
I am sooooo pissed off about this.
So much for Elbows Up!
@timfordwrites.bsky.social:
I’m pretty tapped out on Liberal stans claiming “this is all 3D chess, trust me bro” when we have absolutely no evidence to suggest any kind of strategy beyond appeasement.
@arghblarg.neocities.org:
Booo @mark-carney.bsky.social, boo! Am Canadian, DO NOT FOLD to #fascism!
@canadiangenxog.bsky.social:
In his first test, beyond rhetoric, Carney blinked instead of defending Canadian sovereignty. So much good will just frittered away.
@normajane.bsky.social:
OMFG! What a terrible decision that is.
@comoxtips.bsky.social:
Yeh, this is crap. Carney needs to act more like Zelensky and less like Starmer.
@retrocanada.bsky.social:
It turns out Rachel Curran didn’t need Harper’s boy in the PMO after all.Carney and Poilievre are both Harper’s boys, they’re puppet twins, serving the Nazis and Harper’s horrid IDU. Horrific betrayal by Carney. If I was his wife I’d be out the door, never to talk to him again, and if I was one of his daughters, same.
What an enormous mistake.
@msnwimby.bsky.social:
@mark-carney.bsky.social pathetic
@deanthesavage.bsky.social:
Best option on the table at the time. ReformaCons would’ve gone even further. Doesn’t excuse the violation of rights or privacy. I do think he’s been leagues better than skippy ever would’ve been on the world stage but still falling short when dealing with the mango moron.
@pilot2969.bsky.social;
I’m calling it now, this whole game is rigged. This all seems like theater across the board.I agree. And, Canada is in the most horrid position now because the game rigged us with only one party currently in Parliament – the genocidal Zionist Nazi Harper cons. Everything the Nazis want out of Canada, they will get, including destroying us. I say fuck that, and will fight to the death to remain a non Nazi, and will never be American. Never. Fuck you Carney, you evil Nazi piece of greed
@jc-in-rothesay.bsky.social:
Neville Chamberlain levels of appeasement to that orange fuck
@lasantink.bsky.social:
You are right. I’m so fucking angry that this criminal gets away with everything. Evil wins….again.Evil always wins, notably when it’s white old male religious.
@carollovescookies.bsky.social:
So an entire other country is telling Canada how to do our tax policy now?I don’t think it’s the country, I think it’s the disgusting billionaires. How does this make us strong and independent? Stop this #Liberals #Canada #MarkCarney. You ruined Canada Day – boo hiss.
@eddystcclair.bsky.social:
It’s so fucking sad to see Canada cave in to the bully. Next, they will agree to be the 52st state. Does anybody have a goddamn backbone.? Does anybody have the balls to stand up? You caved in and got nothing in return. I’m done with all you shitheads that can’t stand up to that punkass trump!!!
@elliottanderson.bsky.social:
If nobody knew about it why was the President of the US personally intervening? Regulating and taxing the tech oligarchs is needed if we want to be a goddam country at all. But that doesn’t matter to Liberals. Never did.
Craven quisling liars.
Mark Grieveson:
“The June 30, 2025 collection will be halted, and Minister Champagne will soon bring forward legislation to rescind the Digital Services Tax Act.”
@Lanampayne:
First he said it was about fentanyl and the border.
Then supply management.
Then autos.
Then lumber.
Then banks.
Then steel and aluminum.
Now it’s our tax system – which other countries and sovereign nations do.
It’s not about any of those things!
There is no rational consistent objective other than to break us.
And as for the tech bros needing protecting from a little tax. Come on.
Meta made over $62B in net income last year.
Pretty sure these are not the folks who need the President’s help.
@sundudeCAN:
this is EXACTLY right … Canada is under attack by Trump’s Amerika, plain and simpleAnd traitor Carney works for the USA to help them destroy us.
@JohnClke:
For all the Team Canada rhetoric the approach of the Canadian establishment to the protectionist turn by the more powerful US rival is appeasement if possible and defiance if necessary. #TradeWar
@TRyanGregory to @JohnClke:
I’d say it’s much worse than that. It’s using this as justification for massive transfers of public funds to the private sector, erosion of environmental protections, and undermining of civil liberties.Herr Hideous Harper’s evangelical wet dream
Carney’s “mandate” with a minority government that received votes from 30%* of the electorate is as follows:
1) Don’t be like the Conservatives.
2) Stand up to Trump.
He’s doing the opposite.
(* 43.7% of a 68.7% turnout)
BGM:
Any idea why he has been identified as TACO? Because he chickens out only when people stand up to his bullying. When you cave in, he eats you for breakfast, then looks for dessert. This has been his MO his whole life.
@stewartprest.ca:
For those in the “who can say, maybe Carney is smarter than anyone” crowd, two concrete predictions coming out of my analysis: we’ll start to 1) hear more about the 51st state again, and 2) see indicators that the US is less willing to compromise on anything with Canada. I’ll be watching for both.And, I bet religion run Nazi USA and the raping catholic church is going to boss Carney around too, and he will cowardly cave and take away women’s and girl’s rights and criminalize abortion and birth control, and legalize rape of women and kids.
@tryangregory.bsky.social:
In case you’re wondering how Trump’s team perceives Carney’s supposed 4D chess (which coincidentally looks exactly like ring kissing).
You can’t appease Trump. You can’t expect Trump to honour any deals you make with him. Only a fool still tries at this point.
@bhaggart.bsky.social:
New from me: The government’s decision to axe the DST to keep comprehensive trade and security negotiations with the US alive sends a worrying message about how Carney understands the Canada-US crisis.
Photo: A metaphor, or just a cute cat in a box?
It’s far past time Canadians assessed Carney’s US strategy by Blayne Haggart, June 30, 2025, Blayne Haggart’s Orangespace
The Liberal decision to axe the digital services tax (DST) on large tech companies, set to go into effect today (June 30), is important not so much on its own terms, but what its elimination tells us about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s US strategy.
In a nutshell: Nothing good, if you’re interested in preserving Canadian independence.
Without getting into the tax itself too much, it was very much a mainstream policy, and a sound idea: make transnational tech companies that have a nasty habit of avoiding taxes in the jurisdictions in which they operate actually pay their way. It’s been the subject of negotiations at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Versions of it have been adopted in countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy.
It was also caught up in global politics, with the US playing a decidedly two-faced role in stymieing its adoption. Before Trump, the US was highly unlikely to ratify any agreement, which requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, making opponents’ arguments that Canada should’ve waited for a global compromise more than a little self-serving. Trump’s re-election sealed the (non-)deal. But Canada moved forward.
US tech companies despised the DST and were planning to attack it via the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) renegotiations scheduled for 2026.
Then on June 19 the Liberal government made a big show that they were going to implement it on schedule, Trump walked away from talks between Canada and the US on a comprehensive trade and security agreement because of it, and here we are.
What matters most isn’t the policy itself – though you’d think a government that wants to increase defence spending by anywhere from $50 to $90 billion would be interested in securing every revenue source it could – but what it tells us about Carney’s overall US strategy.
Mark Carney has been personally negotiating a “comprehensive” trade and security deal with the US; only in late June did he hand off this responsibility to Canada’s ambassador to the US.
According to a press release issued Sunday night(!), the Carney government cancelled the DST “to advance broader trade negotiations with the United States.”
Normally, such a move might not be a big deal; in normal negotiations, countries give and take. And it sure seemed like the government was setting up the DST to be a sacrificial lamb. (My working assumption for months has been that Carney, drawn to the rough physicality of pipelines and militaries, sees Canadian digital policy, outside of a fixation on AI, as wholly expendable. I fully expect future online harms legislation and the Online News Act to meet a fate similar to that of the DST.)And, when the bigoted ultra misogynistic religious in the Dems and GOP demand Canada legally copy the supremely corrupt raping catholic court of the USA, and criminalize birth control, condoms and women’s and girl’s reproductive health care (abortions), Carney will cave. And, when they demand all environmental, water, labour and civil protections are rescinded, Carney will cave. And when the ultra vulgar rape religious fucking billionaires destroying USA demand we legalize rape of women and girls, Carney will happily cave, sacrificing rights of women and girls, including those of his wife and daughters, in the name of trade and protecting profit raping by the rich … … … …
But these are not normal negotiations, and Trump is not a normal trading partner.
Start with Carney’s long-stated goal, from the Sunday press release announcing the end of the DST: “a new economic and security partnership with the United States.”
He’s not proposing a UK-style lightweight tariff deal, but a reworking of the entire Canada-US relationship, including security. If words uttered by Carney have any meaning, comprehensive means comprehensive. It requires deeper integration.
And he’s set a deadline of July 21 to do so. Already, he’s sacrificed a domestic policy simply to keep the talks going. And he’s done so while also claiming that Trump no longer wants to annex Canada, only to be contradicted by Trump himself days later.
We’re not dealing with Trump, we’re dealing with Putin (and the raping catholic church and mass murdering Israel) in Trump’s clothing. Trump (owned by Nazi Musk) has already destroyed USA for Putin.
Putin wants Canada’s resources and north, for obvious reasons: he’s a greedy mass murderer like Netanyahu, and he’s bankrupting Russia with his illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s money helped Musk buy Twitter and ruin it, to use as propaganda to get Trump back into power. Trump owes Putin (and the raping catholic church corrupting SCOTUS, fast coming for our supremely lying unjust court) for his freedom (not being in prison for his 34 felonies), he has no choice but to destroy Canada to give us to Putin (and the raping catholic church). Pay back time. Carney is a Harper stooge.
Harper hates Canada, hates our charter notably our right to freedom of expression; Harper and his evil evangelical ilk have long longed for us to be the 51st state. Harper failed when Canadians realized how evil he was and punted him. Carney and Trump tricked Canadians to give Harper’s Carney-PeePee team the chance to finish us off. It’s going to be mighty ugly.
These are not the actions of someone who is simply stringing the US alone.
They’re the actions of someone seeking to address the problems in Canada-US relations through deeper integration.
The unilateral setting of an arbitrary deadline to conclude the talks is particularly odd. Deadlines only work to spur negotiations if both parties share the urgency (they don’t) or if one has the ability to impose its will on the other (Canada doesn’t). So why the deadline?
Then there’s the most-obvious problem. Donald Trump is an unreliable negotiating partner who has proven time and again, in politics and business, that he will renege on any agreement if he feels that doing so will work to his advantage. The greatest irony of Carney’s talks is that they’re in response to Trump’s tariffs, tariffs that are illegal under the actual agreement governing North American economic relations, which was negotiated by Trump himself. A treaty that is up for re-negotiation next year. Is Carney’s new agreement, being done as far as I can tell on the fly, supposed to replace the USMCA? Or are we going to simply do this all again next year?
It all comes down to: we have no reason to trust the word of the United States, and yet Carney is acting as if we can.
Mark Carney is negotiating a far-reaching economic and security agreement outside of the current treaty framework, with a president who cannot be trusted to keep his word, and thus who cannot deliver the certainty that Carney wants. In pursuit of this unachievable goal, Carney has demonstrated that he is willing to limit Canadian policy autonomy without any indication of where he would stop or what policies are off limits.
Deeper integration is the plan
A lot of people who voted for Carney want to believe that he’s playing some kind of long game, that he’s stringing the United States along until… something?
It’s time we started analyzing Carney’s plans as they are, not as we wish they were.
Carney is spending a lot of time and hard-earned political capital keeping alive the possibility of a comprehensive trade and security agreement with the US. He’s remained stone-cold silent on Canadians being harassed at the border and detained by ICE. The US military is in talks with Canadian miners for key minerals. He’s said nothing about how Canada will respond to the evisceration of US standards and regulatory setting, processes upon which all Canadians, and Canadian businesses depend. It would require more, not less, government regulatory capacity. Instead, Carney is cutting taxes and wants to cap the size of the civil service.
Carney has been utterly consistent in his desire for a comprehensive trade and security agreement with the United States. Even at the height of his elbows-up rhetoric, it was always part of his platform, pitched as part of his diversification plan, of needing a new arrangement for Canada. Maybe we should start taking him at his word.
These negotiations never made any sense as a diversification strategy. By definition any comprehensive agreement would entail creating many more new connections and dependencies. And again, almost by definition, these new dependencies, including in security and defence, will make it that much more difficult to meaningfully distance Canada from the United States.
Understanding Carney: Economic blinders, ignoring authoritarianism
All signs suggest that Carney has badly misread the nature of the US threat, and that Canadians in turn have misread Carney on this central issue.
Carney has repeatedly said that Canada will never be the 51st state, but there’s more than one way to hollow out a country’s sovereignty. Sacrificing domestic policies in pursuit of a treaty that binds only one partner is one way to that goal.
Everything Carney has done indicates that he sees the Trump threat in purely economic terms. Trump, in this view, is dangerous because he’s erratic and has glommed on to an absurd, dangerous economic policy that threatens the viability of the Canadian economy. In such a scenario, the goal is to reduce or eliminate the tariff barriers while seeking to diversify as much as possible the domestic Canadian economy.
From this perspective, Carney’s actions make perfect sense. He’s trying to minimize the erratic Trump problem in the hope that economic sanity will one day return to the USHope is always evil. It blinds us to the harms abusers do to us. The USA will never recover from Trump, Putin is making sure of that, while implementing bog-standard conservative domestic economic policies (lower taxes! Less government! Pipelines! Defence spending! Natural resources!). It’s the kind of analysis you’d expect from someone who had spent their entire lives existing at the very centre of mainstream economic thought and focused only on maximizing or minimizing a few economic variables – inflation, portfolio returns, GDP.
It’s true that Trump is erratic and his tariff policies are bananas. But Carney’s mistaken the symptoms for the disease.
The real danger to Canada is that Trump is an autocrat, a fascist, who is dragging the United States into despotism. He has shattered North American governance’s underlying foundation. The rule of law no longer holds. Instead, power carries the day. The tariffs are the symptom. That Trump would impose them in the first place: that’s the important change.
The United States, and by extension, North America, are no longer what they were, and they’re not coming back. Even 20 years ago, integrationists could credibly argue that we’d be getting closer to a liberal-democratic US that (mostly) respected the rule of the law and (mostly) shared our values. That is no longer the case. The United States under Republican rule seeks not cooperation but domination. Any comprehensive agreements would reflect this changed status. The absolute best we can hope for is severe instability, as successive Republic and Democratic presidents void their predecessors’ policies; the worst is despotism and civil war. Again, this is the fundamental sea change.
Mark Carney, in surrendering the DSA, has jeopardized Canadian policy autonomy, all in the pursuit of the fantasy of a binding agreement.
Mark Carney may want secure access to the US market and for tariffs to go away. But neither of these are on the table because you can’t have certainty when dealing with a country that doesn’t respect the rule of law or other countries’ sovereignty.
And until he realizes this, he will continue to puff and posture and give away the store in pursuit of a fantasy.
Responding to this crisis requires a wartime-level effort, not just to buy more guns, but to wean our military from US influence, our networks from US software vulnerabilities. It requires governance changes. None of which Carney has shown the slightest interest in.He’s only interested in money and power for himself, and to feed his big Ugly Harper Fascist ego, salivating as he destroys Canada.
It requires the exact opposite of what Carney is doing in Canada-US relations. Without domestic policy autonomy, sovereignty is meaningless.
Canada will continue to have relations with the United States. We will still have to deal with issues as they come up. That’s always been part of the job. But we need to do so with the full understanding of who we’re dealing with, and what’s possible, should we want to maintain our independence.
That starts with ending comprehensive trade negotiations and getting serious about policies that will actually promote Canadian sovereignty.
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
We have a trade deal with the US. Trump broke it, and can’t be trusted with a new one. Our goals should be pivoting away from the US as much as possible, not further entrenching our relationship with them. And not just for economic reasons.
Why would I wait until a deal is done when my position is we shouldn’t be pursuing a deal in the first place?
Refer also to:
Harper-Con Carney’s Bill C-5: Make evil more evil and the rich richer. More profit for war mongers, water & energy devouring noisy polluting stupid stolen AI, and fossil fuel polluters while harming climate, permanently losing water, worsening already terrible wildfires, trouncing environment, impacting already harmed communities, families
Israel’s illegal attacks against Iran: “Genocidal piece of garbage” PM Mark (aka Harper) Carney is an “absolute fascist handmaiden.” Former ambassador to Iran, Richard Dalton: Israel’s strikes on Iran are “in breach of every legal requirement for a pre-emptive attack.”
John Vaillant calling Mark Carney: “The steady increase in fossil fuel-enhanced weather disasters: these floods, fires, heat waves, and intensifying storms are the Bank of Nature’s repo men coming to collect on that debt — ‘repossessing’ our homes, our cars, our towns, even our very lives.”
Dear PM Carney & MP Evan Solomon: Tech Bros’ AI (aka Stolen Intelligence) is helping kill earth’s ability to sustain life; indirect emissions rose 150% in 3 years as AI expands too big for its lying britches.
More evidence Mark Carney is a Harper Conservative, not only that, he’s a Copy Cat.
2025 06 06: Harper-Con Carney fully tosses his liberal disguise.