This week’s visit by Mark Carney to the White House has brought sharp focus onto the collapsing empire to our south, and the bullet we so narrowly dodged domestically on April 28th.
Just before the Prime Minister left for Washington, DC, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wrote a petulant open letter to Carney telling him “No more losing” while offering, without a hint of irony, “I am always happy to help because we all must put Canada ahead of our parties.”
At no time, though, has Poilievre offered any indication of what he would have done differently or what he would be doing differently had he taken the Prime Minister’s Office this spring.
Mark Carney did not return with a new deal, but the CUSMA treaty remains in place, with most of the current tariffs in both directions being on items not covered by this successor to NAFTA.
Moreover, Carney has to walk a very fine line between screaming at the idiot sitting in the chair next to him in the now heavily gilded oval office and offering him just enough ego-boosting compliments to stay in the room long enough to have a dialog.
Poilievre needs to recognise that the baseline right now is not what it would be in normal times. Leaving the White House with Canada’s sovereignty intact is the objective, and everything else is more or less a bonus.
Trump, who represents our largest trading partner, is not honest with his own people. Given that, it is hard to expect Canada’s Prime Minister to sit in the blindingly golden room and expect an honest conversation.
Keep in mind that Trump has shut down the American government, deliberately, and with the help of Russell Vought, key author of Project 2025, in order specifically to dismember it, beginning lay-offs on Friday including over 1000 employees at the Centre for Disease Control. He has openly said not all government employees will get back-pay when the government does reopen — in fact he said, right there in front of Carney, that some employees do not deserve to be paid and will be “taken care of in a different way.” Such statements are hard to take as anything but a threat. And threatening is something Trump is quite good at.
In the past few days, former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James have been indicted on federal charges. Their principle offences? Opposing Donald Trump. To get the indictments, Trump had to replace the federal prosecutor that refused with one willing to do the deed.
Then, the day after the Prime Minister’s visit, Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, stated live on CNN that “under title 10 of the US code, the president has plenary authority” before stopping cold. He realised right then and there what a mouthful he’d just said. Never mind that title 10 of the US code says no such thing, plenary authority is lingo for absolute power with no judicial oversight.
Is it consistent with the First Amendment for DOD [Department of Defence] to revoke press credentials of a reporter just because the reporter published a story that was critical of President Trump?
He replied, to the astoundment of the Senator:
Yes, Senator, I would say it would be consistent with the First Amendment if the basis was that the person published information that was not otherwise approved for release by the department.
While we’re poking around the state of the American legislature, it has been almost three weeks since Democrat Adelita Grijalva won a special election in Arizona. She has yet to be sworn in by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, in spite of several opportunities to do so. The fact that the House motion to force the Epstein files to be released is short a single signature must surely be a coincidence.
With all this going on, Trump is sending the Texas National Guard into Chicago to try and incite violence to justify the application of the Insurrection Act which would largely give Trump the plenary powers Miller alluded to.
To create an enemy, the Trump administration is spreading propaganda about “antifa” being a terrorist organisation. Never mind that “antifa” is a concept that has existed for nearly a century and is simply short for “anti fascist.” The definition of someone who is anti-anti fascist ought to be fairly clear; remove the double-negative and you are left with “fascist.”
For those wondering how Trump views foreign relations, after receiving a $400 million gift aircraft from Qatar earlier this year, the China-aligned nation is opening an Air Force facility on American soil in Idaho.
Carney has to balance our needs against this wild backdrop. He isn’t going to bribe Trump and he knows he cannot provoke the highly corrupt president. In the circumstances, the status quo is better than the president turning his dictatorial attention toward Canada. Indeed, it is not Carney’s role to oppose the rising American fascism. He is one of very few people who cannot, by virtue of his office, do so as doing so would directly endanger his own country. Rather, his role is to protect Canada from its effects.
Poilievre, on the other hand, largely agrees with Trump’s policies and ideas, and has been copying his style for all the years he has been Conservative leader. It would be unwise to forget his open embrace of the Ottawa convoy, premised on overthrowing the democratically elected government, which largely propelled him to the Conservative leadership in the first place.
Unfortunately for Poilievre, though, he still can’t get a briefing on what Canada’s security and intelligence establishment actually knows about Trump, their policies, objectives, alliances, and weaknesses, all critical to being involved in negotiations with any foreign power, because, unless he has done it in secret since the election, Poilievre still does not have his security clearance.
It is difficult to imagine in what way Poilievre could possibly help, as he has so generously offered to do. Bullet dodged indeed.
Thank you for these clarifications. We need (and have) a leader who has skills and instincts to deal with an explosive situation. We need to stand together and help him and each other deal with a situation that we have never imagined.