I find it hard to come to a different conclusion than I did on Saturday that Prime Minister Mark Carney made the right choice by walking away from trade negotiations with the United States.
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Carney → find → States
The demand that Canada align its trade policy with the U.S., while still facing harsh tariffs, is an obvious non-starter.
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Canada → align → tariffs
Even so, the Liberals have been twisting themselves into knots to prove that they are every bit as self-obsessed and petty as they have always been.
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they → twist → knots
Consider the fact that among the major reasons Canada walked away from the deal was over American demands that we scrap policies that force U.S.-owned streaming services to prioritize Canadian, including French-language, content and to contribute to the production of said content.
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services → consider → content
(If there was another issue related to the French language at play, it hasn’t yet come out.)
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it → be → play
Displaying the hyperbole that can only be mustered by a Liberal prime minister who’s dependent on Quebec for his majority, Carney exaggerated that demand as “threats to French language and culture” on Saturday.
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Carney → display → Saturday
Then, on Monday, speaking in French, the prime minister added, “Here in Quebec, here in Canada, these are rights.
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these → speak → Canada
Of course the Americans want Canada to get rid of those policies.
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Canada → want → policies
Canadian content, or CanCon, has become shorthand for bland, inoffensive productions that are of little interest to anyone, let alone Canadians themselves.
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that → become → anyone
If it was worth producing, the government wouldn’t need to force Netflix or Amazon to fund it, or to alter their algorithms to promote it.
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government → produce → it
The Liberal party’s commitment to controlling the internet is just as obnoxious as its commitment to any number of ill-advised ideas, such as the party’s almost religious devotion to the supply management system of tariffs and quotas for eggs, poultry and dairy, which is another irritant for the Americans.
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which → control → Americans
Whatever one thinks of U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions, particularly on trade, the critics of the Carney government who point to how it has handled the bilateral relationship with the U.S. are, it must be said, absolutely right.
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it → think → U.S.
The Liberals always seem to prioritize the interests of the party over the country, unless it is something that affects Quebec, while leaving other regions (read: Alberta) neglected.
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that → seem → regions
As the New York Times reported on Tuesday, Carney and Trump had discussed resurrecting the “Keystone XL” north-south pipeline, now known as the “Prairie Connector.”
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Carney → report → Connector
But, according to the Times, the Liberals did not view the pipeline, which would be a boon to Alberta, and which Trump wants, as a trade win for Canada, but rather as a concession to the Americans.
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Trump → accord → Americans
Carney said, the Times summarized, that “for the right deal on tariffs, Canada would consider bringing its side of the pipeline back to life.”
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Canada → say → life
Ultimately, “A Canadian official said that the trade deal on offer was not good enough to make the pipeline make sense.
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pipeline → say → sense
If the report is accurate, it’s strange that a government viewed increasing tariff-free exports of a key Canadian resource as a concession, rather than a goal.
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government → ’ → concession
Except the Liberals have spent the past decade trying to strangle the Alberta-based energy industry.
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Liberals → spend → industry
The Liberals have clearly benefited politically from conflict with Trump, creating legitimate skepticism about why Canada walked away from trade negotiations.
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Canada → benefit → negotiations
Take Carney’s behaviour over the past year, with him wildly over-promising on his ability to achieve a deal with the U.S, and variously presenting himself as the Trump whisperer, or leader of the anti-Trump resistance.
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him → take → resistance
He fashioned himself as the only candidate capable of reaching a deal with the U.S., while also being the right person to lead the world’s middle powers, if you believe the tripe in his Davos speech.
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you → fashion → speech
He at once promises to work with Trump, while seeking to usurp him, all out in the open, and all at once.
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He → promise → open
This approach has been particularly popular among Canadians over 65 and those who work in the public service, while doing very little to improve Canada’s economic position.
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who → work → position
This country is still saddled with onerous taxation and regulatory regimes, and as blessed as we are with natural resources, getting the infrastructure in place to extract and ship them to market is nearly impossible.
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getting → saddle → market
The government rides anti-Trump vibes to high poll numbers, while much of the country stagnates.
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much → rid → country
However, regardless of how poorly conceived our cultural and regulatory policies are, and how unserious the prime minster’s actions have been, the government has every right to behave this way, and to implement every transparently terrible policy it wishes.
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it → have → policy
That doesn’t mean, of course, that the Liberals should be free of consequences.
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Liberals → mean → consequences
In fact, if this was merely a regular trade deal being negotiated with the Americans, and the Canadians were behaving this way, it should have been the U.S. side that walked way, but these aren’t normal negotiations, with normal concessions being offered and received.
Even if Trump has good reason to want to have a say over who Canada can sign a trade deal with, or over our cultural and regulatory policies, his administration offered virtually nothing in return.
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administration → negotiate → return
Not only would it maintain high tariffs on Canadian imports, it reserved the right, according to media reports, to unilaterally change its trade policy towards Canada at any time.
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it → maintain → time
And all of this was happening while CUSMA is still in effect and supposedly up for renegotiation.
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CUSMA → happen → renegotiation
The outcome of these talks would merely be a prelude to those negotiations, and would mean entering them after already making massive concessions.
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outcome → mean → concessions
So no, despite the government’s obnoxiousness, Canada is not more to blame for this mess than the United States.
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Canada → blame → States
Trump has been busy launching tariffs against the entire world, turning friendly countries all over the place into rivals.
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Trump → launch → rivals
If the president wanted to get Canada, Europe and its East Asian allies to align against China, for instance, economic aggression was the wrong approach.
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aggression → want → instance
Unfortunately, Trump’s attitude towards his supposed allies has permitted the Liberal Party of Canada, at virtually no cost to itself, to embrace all its worst instincts.
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attitude → suppose → instincts
