@britculpsapp.bsky.social Jul 30, 2026:
christ if that’s not a metaphor for our times
Mark Carney promised to take on Donald Trump. He’s done anything but by Luke Savage, Aug 1, 2026
Luke Savage is a writer based in Toronto whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the Guardian. His first book, The Dead Center, was published in 2022 by O/R Books.
In his election night address to Canadians last year, Mark Carney spoke with gravity and urgency about the threat posed by Donald Trump. “America,” he declared, “wants our land, our resources, our water, our country … President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us.”
Having spent the 2025 campaign warning Canadians about the seriousness of this threat, the prime minister sounded similarly unequivocal about the need for a more assertive approach to Canada-U.S. relations. “Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration,” he added, “is over … We have to look out for ourselves and above all we have to take care of each other.”
I was an early critic of Mark Carney’s, but I nonetheless appreciated what he was saying. If Donald Trump really was intent on waging economic warfare against Canada and was cracking casual jokes about its annexation, the situation clearly called for a bold and muscular response. Among other things, the risks inherent in our deep integration with the United States had finally been laid bare for all to see, making a more self-reliant and independently-minded approach — economically and diplomatically — the only realistic option. Given the menacing and dangerous nature of the Trump administration in general, the idea of establishing critical distance from the MAGA-controlled Washington seemed both moral and pragmatic.
Whoever they may have voted for in 2025, millions of Canadians seemed to agree. Then as now, they overwhelmingly disapproved of America’s president and expected their prime minister to act on his own words from election night. The “Elbows Up” moment signalled Canadians’ defiant resolve in the face of the Trump threat. But the slogan could also double as a shorthand for the mandate voters gave to Mark Carney and the Liberals to stand up to Donald Trump.
Since last year’s election, however, the Carney government has repeatedly assumed a far more deferential and obsequious posture in its dealings with Washington. In trade negotiations, it capitulated to U.S. tech giants by abandoning plans for a Digital Services Tax, dropped retaliatory tariffs and introduced draconian border legislation that has been justly criticized by human rights groups. More worryingly, the prime minister’s efforts at cajoling the Trump White House have seen him go beyond these kinds of policy concessions and align quite explicitly with some of its most abhorrent behaviour.
Earlier this year, Carney offered swift backing for the illegal U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran (even as that war’s earliest casualties included nearly 200 children killed in the bombing of a school.)
He has similarly backed the administration’s Orwellian “Board of Peace” plans in Gaza, indicated a willingness to sign on to its proposed “Golden Dome” defence initiative, refrained from criticizing Marco Rubio’s attempts to dismantle the International Criminal Court through coercion and sought to reassure American investors by pledging to help “Make America Great Again.” Last fall, the government also invited Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts — a key Trump ally and architect of the far-right blueprint Project 2025 — to attend a closed-door meeting with members of cabinet (the visit was ultimately cancelled, almost certainly thanks to the ensuing backlash.) Does anyone seriously think this was what Canadians elected the Carney-led Liberals to do?
In this respect, the government’s more recent decision to send a representative to an administration-led summit concerned with the alleged threat of “left wing terrorism” only serves to underscore how far it has actually been willing to take its Trump-friendly approach.
Convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the conference is part of a wider neo-McCarthyite push to criminalize political opponents (as journalist Ken Klippenstein notes, related administration documents even make explicit reference to the likes of Black Lives Matter, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the union that represents Amazon workers.)
When asked about Canada’s attendance at the summit, officials at Foreign Affairs said only that the government “regularly exchanges views with other countries on violent extremism trends,” further stressing the “long history” of co-operation with the United States in the fight against terrorism. Given the Trump administration’s pattern of authoritarian behaviour, this is a statement that should worry every Canadian.
Defenders of the Carney government’s approach are liable to argue that all of this is just an exercise in careful realpolitik. Trump, in addition to being a volatile and unpredictable figure, is also notoriously receptive to flattery, and perhaps the best course involves simply trying to keep him happy. But even if one accepts that logic, Ottawa has visibly gained little from its deference to the Trump White House. After more than a year, the government’s trade negotiations remain very much in limbo and Trump is currently threatening to impose another round of tariffs on Canadian goods despite its many concessions.
The U.S. president has continued to make 51st state jokes and has reciprocated Mark Carney’s efforts at flattery by calling him “governor.” If those efforts were meant to be some kind of subtle strategy, the government’s approach has clearly been a dismal failure and, if anything, has only emboldened the Trump administration to continue making new demands.
But we should also consider the possibility that Carney’s apparent promise of a new and more independent global posture was never really genuine in the first place. When the prime minister gave his big speech in Davos earlier this year, what many heard was a stirring call for a new progressive internationalism in the age of Donald Trump. But, as I argued at the time, what he was really saying was that middle powers like Canada can no longer afford to ground their actions in the pursuit of idealistic notions like human rights.
This, not incidentally, is more or less how the government has sought to justify its own right-leaning domestic agenda as well: its abandonment of climate targets and gutting of environmental regulations; its tax cuts for the wealthy; its slash and burn attitude toward the public sector; and its overzealous embrace of AI.
Both at home and abroad, the Trump threat serves as a pretext for a form of would-be pragmatism that is really just conservatism by any other name. Within its own borders, Canada is increasingly being run less like a country and more like a business.
On the world stage, it is barely even pretending to care about concepts like international law and human rights.
This also helps explain the very stark difference between the prime minister’s campaign rhetoric and his incessant pursuit of cosy relations with Washington. After all, key planks of the Carney program — from the construction of new oil and gas infrastructure to the ramping up of military procurement and the supercharging of AI — will ultimately require the close involvement of U.S.-based companies and investors. Among other things, that practically guarantees strategic alignment with the Trump administration and the maintenance of friendly relations with America’s unapologetically pro-corporate president as long as he remains in office.
In 2025, amid an unprecedented trade war and a series of ominous threats from their much larger southern neighbour, millions of Canadians rallied behind what they took to be a promise of renewed economic sovereignty and progressive nation-building. Over the past year, the government they elected has effectively delivered the exact opposite.
hen it comes to social, economic, and environmental policy, it is following through on its promise to “nation-build” with a sweeping program of austerity, deregulation and cuts. In the realms of diplomacy and defence, meanwhile, it is bringing Canada into lockstep with Washington — and the Trump White House — like never before.
So much for Elbows up.
@mysticmoe.bsky.social:
Carney essentially pulled a bait and switch on the whole country, and its insane how few people seem to notice. He should have never been able to become leader of the Liberal party with his policies being what they are.
@lnnlband.bsky.social:
He’s also committing and enabling several genocides.
The LPC are a nazi party.
@vespalien.bsky.social:
Just another Neo-liberal austerity thatcherite.
@lnnlband.bsky.social:
Y’all can just say, “fascist”
Chumbawamba – The Day The Nazi Died Lyrics 2:34 Min
In my view, Carney is as evil a Nazi-Zionist as Trump, but more racist, more misogynistic, more anti human rights, more pro polluter, while lying as much. Canadians were and continue to be conned by the evil fucking Harper Con.
@AbubakerAbedW:
Mass funeral of 112 people in Gaza
This picture alongside millions will be a testament to the apathy, inaction, inhumanity of our brutal world.
We could’ve stopped it. You definitely could have. May it haunt the whole world.
