The Globe and Mail is one of the two main “newspapers of the elite” in Canada, and the older of the two. (The other one is the Nation Post). So this article is important:
Canada’s “deal” with the U.S. to drop the digital services tax, which benefits U.S. tech giants such as Meta and Netflix at the expense of Canadian fiscal sovereignty, and the Trump administration’s latest threat of a 35-per-cent tariff on Canadian goods perfectly encapsulate our current predicament: Washington no longer views Canada as an ally, but rather as a subordinate from which to extract concessions. It’s a stark reminder that trade diversification is no longer optional – it’s an urgent national imperative.
The rub is that our longstanding subordination to the U.S. is also holding us back from partnering with China, one of the world’s most important economies. To achieve economic sovereignty, Canada must break free from the made-in-Washington narrative that China is an unreliable trading partner bent on world domination. Instead, Canada must forge its own relationship with China – a relationship anchored in Canadian, not U.S., interests.
As the largest economy in the world on a purchasing power parity basis, China is set to be a core driver of future global economic growth. It also now accounts for a third of the world’s manufacturing output, more than all the G7 countries plus South Korea and Mexico combined. And not just low-cost manufacturing, but rather advanced production and world-beating technology. China leads in 37 of 44 critical technologies, from AI to green energy.
Everything said above is correct. I’d add that China is not an existential threat to Canada. They have never threatened our sovereignty the way Trump and the US has, and they never will. They cannot conquer us and are not stupid enough to believe they could, we are too large and too far away.
Of course we’ll have to kiss China’s ass if we want to move towards them. We’ve been very hostile for the last decade or so (we were friendly before that, it’s a policy change made by Trudeau).
I can’t see that kissing China’s ass is any more obnoxious than the deep tongue action we’ve been applying to America’s behind since 1984, with only a brief interregnum under Prime Minister Chretien (who used lips only.) In fact, China is likely to demand a lot less: mostly we have to stop discriminating against them economically (we can and should negotiate some carve-outs) and shut up about Taiwan. Given the size of our Navy our opinion on Taiwan is meaningless, and China isn’t going to Gaza the Taiwanese when they finally do unify, so this isn’t a very big concession.
It should be noted that Chinese military equipment appears, overall, to be superior to American and if we really intend to move away from the US, we shouldn’t be using American military gear. (I hope the reasons are obvious.) Moreover, China’s lead in military technology will just continue to grow.
Canada has three main geopolitical problems:
1) How to disentangle ourselves from America without getting invaded or economically crushed; and,
2) how to regrow our manufacturing capacity, so as to not become a 21st century Argentinian-style basket-case.
3) How not to go down with America.
We also have a number of serious domestic issues, a lot of them coming from American cultural, political and economic influence on Canada. Basically, we’re neoliberals, and we need to stop that, but America is dead set against it.
Anyway, America wants to cannibalize its allies to slow its decline and Canada would be stupid to go along, whether or not we fix our domestic issues.
It’s interesting to see that Canada’s elites are beginning to realize the bind. There is zero chance the Globe And Mail article would have been published if there weren’t powerful people in Canada who want the shift.
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Daniel A Lynch
Freudian slip in the title of this essay: Elite Opinion Begins To Shit
Ian Welsh
lol. Changed, but yes, appropriate.
Feral Finster
I suspect the real motivation is not a shift in elite opinion, but a plea for attention from their American Master.
I’ve seen similar dynamics in other abusive relationships.
Like & Subscribe
By 2050 many parts of America will be uninhabitable. By that time, Canada and America will be one, like it or not. Prepare for an exodus of Americans — say 200 million — to descend upon Canada. The bulk of the remainder will descend upon Alaska.
We can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on us. That’s vanity.
That scenario, a highly probable scenario, is dependent upon whether or not human still exists by 2050, meaning we haven’t annihilated the species via nuclear war or AI hasn’t done away with us or eliminated most of us and turned the rest into pets.
Revelo
Your advice is a formula for Canadian suicide. USA will: a) find a few residents of Alberta/Saskatchewan who want to join USA, fund and arm these rebels, invade Alberta when Alberta/Canadian government tries to suppress the rebellion, make Republican voting Alberta and Saskatchewan USA states; b) similar rebellion for British Columbia, Yukon, NW Territory, Nunatuk, except don’t make these states because Vancouver full of liberals and the territories too small (maybe add the territories to Alaska); c) find a few Quebeqois who want partial independence (independent in everything except foreign policy) and give it to them, and let them take the Atlantic provinces as part of new country of Quebec under condition they make some provision for older English language speakers there; d) “Canada” now consists of Ontario and Manitoba; e) Anyone who objects is guilty of treason and terrorism and exiled to Ontario/Manitoba, which will be bankrupt and overpopulated and riven by strife between citizens by birth and recent immigrants from South Asia. If rump Canada causes trouble, do some “filtration” in Manitoba and northern Ontario and add those areas as another Republican state, with the troublesome population sent to south Ontario, which is now really overpopulated, bankrupt and riven by inter-ethnic strife.
Unlike in Ukraine, which made the same mistake you (Ian) are advising for Canada, there will be no equivalent of NATO support. That is, China and Russia will not send weapons to help Canada resist what I outlined above. It will be Canada versus the full power of the USA military, a military which will be facing humiliating retreat from elsewhere in the world and needs a crushing victory over some hapless victim to boost its self-esteem. Note that Russians under Putin see Ukrainian people as deluded victims and deserving of punishment but also eventual mercy as fellow Slavs. Americans will not be so kind to Canadians in Ontario. They will see them as traitors deserving of punishment and punishment alone, no mercy.
cc
About 7 years ago, in 2018, Canada (in the first few years of Justin Trudeau) had actually been trying to diversify our trade away from just the US, primarily through pursuit of a trade deal with China, the largest market and trading nation of the world.
The US then actively foreign-interfered and foreign-meddled in Canada to stop that democratic and sovereign Canadian choice, even going out of their way to overturn the long-established NAFTA agreement and explicitly insert an unprecedented clause into USMCA to discourage trade deals with so-called “non-market countries” – a euphemism for China, and the clause was widely recognized and reported as the “anti-China clause”, clearly aimed at very strongly discouraging a Canadian trade deal with China.
Just 8 weeks later, to further ensure that our government would not – could not – resume its prior sovereign decision to pursue increased trade with China, the US then got Canada to detain and arrest the Huawei CFO on a stop-over on her way to Mexico. Justin Trudeau, eager to please Trump and the US – especially after Trump called him weak and two-faced after the 2018 G7 in Quebec – foolishly fell for the trap, and that arrest and her subsequent multi-year detainment destroyed the previously good relations between Canada and China, ensuring that Canada would not be able to significantly diversify its trade from the US to China.
In the subsequent years, the US only continued its campaign to influence the Canadian politicians, media, and public against China. The Uighur oppression narrative was pushed, much of it hinging on just one or two highly questionable reports, including one from ASPI, the “Australian Strategic Policy Institute”. ASPI has recently been revealed to have been funded by USAID, a US State Department organization used to fund NGOs, think tanks, and opposition groups in other countries to influence and interfere in those countries. As a result of those concocted and planted narratives, Canada’s parliament even voted to officially condemn China of “genocide” in 2021, further destroying the relations and the path that Canada had been pursuing as a sovereign nation up until mid-2018. (But of course, silence about the horrific genocide in Gaza.)
This was then conveniently followed by reports of “foreign interference”/”foreign meddling”, largely associated with China, leading to Canada holding a much publicized commission, further destroying those ties and pathways. Were these reports also fed by foreign actors seeking to influence Canada’s democracy? We have yet to hear which foreign actors these reports came from or what evidence they gave. Did they ultimately originate from the US, perhaps by way of their many deeply-integrated channels of influence into Canada? The likes of CSIS, ex-CSIS figures, the Privy Council, and our establishment news media, have continued to actively push foreign-seeded narratives designed to hinder Canadian economic, and thus political, independence. Are they really defending Canadian sovereignty or are they in fact serving as unwitting vectors and vehicles to help weaken and dismantle Canadian sovereignty?
In 2022, the US blew up the Nordstream pipeline to sabotage and prevent economic ties between Germany/Europe and Russia in the near future, and to make Germany/Europe more economically dependent on the US.
Was the 2018 US request for Canada to arrest and extradite Meng Wanzhou analagous in being designed to blow up the possibility of increased economic ties between Canada and China then and into the future, and keeping Canada ever more economically dependent on the US?
Oji
@Like & Subscribe . On the bright side, by 2035 or so Canada will lead the world in both diabetes and murders over chicken sandwiches.
Purple Library Guy
Wow. Lot of nonsense in the comments today.
cc
Revelo’s comment illustrates what the Anglo-American Empire do around the world. This is why countries that seek to have basic sovereignty and do what is right for their own people are forced to resort to defensive measures against the constant probing/meddling subversion by the CIA/MI6/NED/USAID/etc, whose propaganda organs then happily label those countries “authoritarian”. Those insidious agencies are the greatest threat to democracy, sovereignty, and freedom around the world. Canada would like to have the freedom and democratic sovereignty to diversify our trade and not be too dependent on a domineering, abusive partner, but that partner insists on a toxic, unhealthy complete and hegemonic control over us and the whole world.
Mark Level
I’m unsure if Revelo, who I respect, and L&S, who usually has chauvinist takes I disagree with, are correct about Canada’s future. If so, my decision to look at Mexico, starting in late fall, looks more realistic.
I don’t like White racism, but in this case I will take a “win” that of course the Empire would prefer to grab a mainly white country over its Southern neighbor. And if some or all of Canada is grabbed, that of course means Greenland is next on the menu, as the Elites see lots of oil, gas, etc. in the far North Polar area, want to compete with Russia who already have major assets there.
Trump is a complete deep-state tool, and his Admin has shafted the MAGA Cultists and wants to starve and eliminate them with the other “useless eaters” (as they say), Mitt Romney’s 47% “takers”, etc. He made the EUropean Chihuahuas pay the U$ for a further extension on Ukrainian deaths and territorial loss, has at least 3 wars on hold, Iran if Genocide Benjie can drag him in again, Russia (which the Europeans imagine they can extend until 2019), and China. They can never get to the 3rd target if they are too bogged down with the first two, so I guess China will prevail.
Horrid as Trump is, we at least dodged a bullet in 2016, had ShRillary been installed it would’ve been full-on NATO War on Russia and quite possibly nuclear Armageddon.
I haven’t forgotten Ian’s take on Canadian resistance but the US will always look for a hostile minority to turn into a local disruptive force. My hope would be that not just the Elites in Canada but the broad majority would recognize that it doesn’t end well for US proxies, certainly the Ukrainians will once again prove that, whether the fat lady finally sings in 2026 or ’29. The worst future for Canada would be getting swallowed up by the US, let’s hope sanity and self-defense prevail.
Troy
Canada is nothing if not a bellwether when it comes to getting its feet under the leading imperial power of the day.
A cursory policy analysis of the power American can project probably leads to the conclusion that the USA has so shit the bed politically, economically, and militarily that Canada can likely begin to shift towards China and can likely mitigate any repercussions that will stem from this. The USA has become impotent enough that Canada and Mexico are likely able to do as they want now.
The Heretic
The hostile minority in Canada needs to addressed-
A) the valid grievances that drive them has to be addressed with kindness
B) the selfish grievances should be addressed through honest debate
C) the Seditious ones should be investigated… a Sergio Moro should never be tolerated; they need be exposed and harshly (but quietly) dealt with.
We are in a difficult time; we do need to be more economically sovereign, more internally capable (industrially and otherwise), yet not shaft the environment, and yet not alarm the USA…
Mark Level
Euro-Chihuahuas imagine they can extend the Ukraine-Russia war until 2029, 4.5 years more. (Typo.)
Purple Library Guy
As to Canada being literally taken over by the US, if they could pull that off they would have done it long ago. They’ve tried often enough, and much more often they’ve laid plans that they ended up abandoning, or at least shelving, as unrealistic. The United States is very powerful, but even at its peak it was not all-powerful. There are things the likes of Trump can want, but can’t have.
American oil companies have more influence over Canada, especially Alberta and Saskatchewan, than the US overall does. And they’ve been sowing some nasty seeds. But their time horizon for reaping them is now short ’cause the oil patch is gonna dry up. And there’s little indication that even Alberta is going to have a critical mass for a serious separatist project, despite all the lies they’re fed. The Quebecois have shown that they’re not stupid enough to fall for American nonsense–they might complain about the rest of Canada, but their elbows were up first and hardest when Trump threatened Canada.
In the end, the limitations of attempts to break the country up by covert operations are the limitations of ad campaigns–it’s a lot easier to persuade people to do things they kind of want to do than things they really don’t want to do, that’s why you see ads for nice clothes and fancy cars but few ads for “stub your toe, just $10!” And Canadians really, really don’t want to be part of the US. And to you Americans saying it’s going to happen, I’m going to strip off the politeness–I’ve seen it formulated as “You can really like someone without wanting to BE that someone”, but it’s not actually that. It’s that we think you suck–not just Trump, the whole damn place. Our whole identity would be gone if we couldn’t suck less than the US.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is seriously damaging the US’ ability to do almost everything, and that includes international subversion. Look at the way they nobbled USAID. Even back when, I don’t think they could have done it, but maybe glory days US subversion might have at least had a shot. The hamfisted dorks now? Fuggedaboudit.
I’m sure that concerted efforts at an independent foreign or economic policy would see retaliation, and serious efforts to undermine the careers of whatever politicians were advancing that independent course. At this point, it would probably be worth it for the country, and a determined and cunning politician could probably make the political dividends outweigh the costs, although they’d have to push some media reform. But actual takeover or dismemberment of the country? Yeah, they wish.
Bride of Zelensky
This article is an op ed. It does not reflect wider elite opinion. Even the comments on Twitter underneath the link to this piece are full of outrage and paranoid rants about ‘the CCP’. There is a zero percent chance the Canadian elite are going to turn to China and ditch the USA as Canada’s main trading partner and arms supplier. They are a spineless and complacent bunch and they know that the US would really hammer Canada if it tried to do that. They are not willing to fight that fight. One only has to observe what Mark Carney’s Liberal Party government is doing to see what the future has in store. Appeasing the US on trade, slashing public spending and increasing the defence budget. The Conservative opposition meanwhile is complaining that the appeasements and public sector cuts don’t go far enough. Dumb and dumber.
A concrete example of how this is playing out: BC needs to update its ferry fleet and wants to do a deal with a Chinese shipyard to build the new ships. There is already an outcry over this with Chrystia Freeland, now Minister of Transport and Internal Trade, leading the chorus. So yeah I think I think you are giving the Canadian elites far too much credit. They will make a few tweaks here and there to diversify some trade away from the US and make grand pronouncements about how they are standing up for Canada blah blah while doing the opposite. As always actions speak louder than words.
The whole raison d’être of the “liberal” elites is to keep the current system, and their positions of power and privilege within it, going for as long as possible and they will sell gladly sell Canada down the river to do that. They are also dull and unimaginative people, which kind of sums up Canada’s political class in general tbh just look at the NDP, and they have no vision for a more sovereign and self-sufficient Canada that’s less reliant on the United States. I don’t think there will ever be a Canadian AMLO or Sheinbaum, bold forward thinking is downright un-Canadian, but I would love to be proven wrong.
Oakchair
Mark Carney campaigned on America being Canada’s enemy. His government just sent Ukraine a few billion more in shit at behest of the American Empire. There is a massive amount of cognitive dissonance swarming around so maybe Carney was too ignorant to realize he was being a tool of the American Empire.
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Euro-Chihuahuas imagine they can extend the Ukraine-Russia war
—–
The only way to possibly extend the war is to send Ukraine another several hundred billion in equipment, supplies, and goods. When the Ukraine war stops being a financial black hole for the Empire it’s use for Russia ends as well as the war.
Revelo
There seems to be some thinking by Canadian posters here that: a) Canada leaders who stand up to USA are true patriots whereas Canadian leaders who kowtow to USA are sellouts; b) USA would face massive opposition from Canada guerrillas if it invaded and so invasion would be expensive and that acts as deterrence. Same mistake Ukrainians made.
Worst possible Canadian leader for average Canadian is a fake patriot leader who deliberately provokes conflict with USA so he/she can become a wartime leader, then cancel elections and stay in power forever due to state of emergency, meanwhile enriching him or herself and his/her cronies in the government, while sending genuinely patriotic Canadians to die in a futile guerrilla war. Note also that USA does not need to invade Canada to get what it wants, which is uncontested control of North America. It can simply destroy Canada. Seizing Alberta/Saskatchewan and then blockading Canada on either side would do the trick, for example. No more internet or other telecommunications connections to outer world for Canadians stuck inside the blockade, though ham radio would still work. No possibility of fighting a real war because USA would simply destroy Canadian factories, power plants, etc. All these factories and power plants just duplicate what USA has in its own industrial heartland, so USA can afford to destroy Canada as necessary. Drag the misery out for 10 years and tighten the blockade perimeter as needed until Canadians stuck inside the blockade turn on each other in frustration.
To repeat. Study Ukraine as a lesson in what not to do. Be wary of Canadian false patriots who see conflict with USA as opportunity for personal gain regardless of cost to average Canadians. Understand that USA will be far harsher with respect to Canada than Russia has been with respect to Ukraine. Study Iraq and Libya to see final result of USA interventions.
To me at least, obvious way for Canada to deal with Trump’s USA is same as during previous periods of trade conflict: wait out the current unfriendly regime without escalating.
Eric Anderson
PLG: Hard agree on both your comments.
The talent flight is real. Maga can’t really govern, only disrupt. As many here know, I live in the epicenter of maga-lala-land. They’ve pushed out the old guard conservatives who had some sense of the trade-offs necessary to actually run a state/county. Everything is about revanchism. They are masters of cutting their noses off to spite their faces. And, in the meantime, jails can’t keep up with local crime. Not enough law enforcement on the ground to do anything but respond to emergencies. Not enough prosecutors to keep up. Nor, enough judges. Public utilities struggling to deliver services … etc etc etc.
But, all the old confederate flag trump saluting boomers/silents with their 20 ac compounds and Amazon delivery are doing just fine. The rest of the little people??? Frustration grows.
Give it some more time and the conditions for Lenin’s famous quote will be ripe. The power will be there in the street for those savvy enough to pick it up.
Eric Anderson
I’ll also say, as I’ve maintained elsewhere — the insanity in this country is largely a product of the late silent / baby boomer inability to handle the rapid change that has overtaken them. But, there they all sit in power. There they all sit holding 4/5 of the assets in this country.
They are barely functional sheep that lined up to get sheared by the billionaire class. And, since it’s largely the Gen-X sociopath billionaires that early rose to the top to sheer them, I’d like to think that Gen-X and younger generations are more prepared to pick up the power in the streets soon left by their vacuum and run with it in a more politically healthy direction.