So you don’t see a distinction between the Great Orange One intentionally trying to crash the Canadian economy while unintentionally also weakening his own due to his arrant stupidity, versus Carney trying to protect against the threat to the Canadian economy through the Keynsian principle of deficit spending when economically necessary? No? I thought not. Maybe take off those partisan blinders.
Taxpayers spent $34B on a pipeline vs cutting the red tape to allow the private company to build it as originally planned with zero public dollars spent. Now they have announced similar for other pipelines. And a whole host of other projects and solutions that can only seem to be built using your tax dollars.
How was anything built previously I wonder without the heavy hand of government?
The person wearing blinders is the one that doesn’t recognize that Canada is in this position because of its own choices and it doesn’t need government bailouts to fix it. It just needs government to remove the barriers to investment and get out of the way. Cost zero.
Moderating:
In the last mod note I mentioned that further hijacks were going to be moderated with less tolerance. @uzi, your hijack is one you have repeated in every Canada-facing thread, and predates the most recent USA/Canadian trade agreement, which is, again the subject of this thread.
Since you cannot stay on topic, despite three notes so far, I’m banning you from this thread. Do not post in it further.
Again, to all, please stay on topic, or spin off a related thread as needed.
I simply do not understand why anyone on either side of the border believes or trusts what Trump and the Republicans are saying about the breakdown in the trade negotiations, nor about Canada ‘taking advantage’ of the United States!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gop-republicans-canada-tariffs-trump-9.7329848
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-president-donald-trump-bank-of-canada-9.7329878
A good column by journalist Jen Gerson about the recent Trump and co. idiocy:
If the goal of all this bullshit was a better trade deal, then the administration would act rationally and in ways that would increase the likelihood of a better trade deal. Instead, it has chosen to double down on all of the behaviours that exacerbate political hostility.
Which means either that these people are very, very stupid, or that this isn’t about trade at all.
Either way, we’re beyond merely not being able to trust them. It’s increasingly difficult to even respect an America that permits this to continue in its name.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he wouldn’t return to the negotiating table until the U.S. administration got serious.
“Stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough,” he said.
I’ve noted before that Canadians and Americans have very different communications styles, despite sounding the same. When Americans heard Carney, they understood: “We’re not negotiating until you stop doing memes.”
What the Canadian was actually saying was:,“We are not returning to the table because we know very well that you can’t stop doing memes.”
And this next quote, I am going to bold for emphasis:
I’m sure a lot of decent Americans exist, and they feel very bad about all of this, just not bad enough to do anything to stop it.
What should we do? Serious question.
All very good observations…and sadly true.
Start here - but don’t wait three decades to do it.
It wouldn’t kill them to study the history of banking in North America, to understand why Canadian banks have had an advantage.
For many years, US banks were restricted from operating across State lines, while Canadian banks could operate nationwide. In fact, a lot of US banks were local affairs, operating in just one city or town. Thus, despite our smaller population, our banks actually had far more money on deposit, enabling them to engage in far more loans and other investments, which is where banks make their most profits.
So when we opened up cross border banking, Canadian banks had the resources to expand, while many US banks didn’t.
The fact that America can function through its daily banalities in the face of fascist rule is educational to Canadians. Once Trump started with his private army roaming the streets of cities everything should have been shut down by popular protests. The protests should not have stopped until Trump and his administration were arrested on corruption charges.
That we still see daily exercise of executive power from a madman and his fascists without the slightest bit of fear of the American public is educational. To this day Americans are largely ignorant, or deluded, or dissociatively amused by Trump’s insanity. “Crazy stuff. gets on with day”
Honestly (to the extent they now know…) I’m shocked Americans are even aware they are in a trade war with Canada. And they only are THIS aware because Trump went on a Stalinist renaming scheme. Americans largely are zoned out.
Did anyone watch the 2005 Firefly film Serenity?
It ends by the hero releasing footage of the Alliance (a over controlling, fascistic galactic government) experimenting with drugs and causing a Space Zombie outbreak. This act sets into motion a series of reforms “All the President’s Men” style.
This film wouldn’t have survived being released today. Such an ending is laughably naive by today’s standards. Today’s America is a bad Star Wars script with incompetent scene chewing baddies and a wildly docile public.
This has shifted from “decent, troubled but insufficiently motivated Americans” to “ignorant and deluded.”
Someday I hope we Americans can avoid another hellscape by developing the bravery you Canadians so clearly possess. I now skulk from the thread in shame.
Jesus Christ, be pissed. I am too. Enough with the “why haven’t you stormed the Bastille” bullshit. Why? Because I’m an elderly retired, scared guy. Thanks for the contempt.
I’m not certain what you wanted me to say differently?
I think you were very clear.
As a non-American I think Orcenio is being a bit, just a bit mind you, unfair.
It’s not easy to fight the government, and if Canada was in the U.S. situation I doubt they would react very differently.
On the other hand, of course, Canada didn’t vote (twice!) to be in that situation…
In Argentina we have a Trump-like president and while we may have done a bit more kicking and screaming the idiot is still in power, whether or not he’ll be reelected is still in doubt but I won’t point fingers until (at least) he has been rejected in the polls.
I’ll point out again that this was triggered by a broadside at the decent, troubled American souls who won’t get off their asses to do…something. IOW, people who did NOT vote for Trump and who are aware of the horror our country has become.
What have I done? I’ve manned the phone banks during elections in support of the Dems. I’ve mailed postcards encouraging the vote. I attended rallies (stop family separation, no kings). During Trump’s first term I began teaching ESL for a few years in a desperate attempt to do SOMETHING in support of immigrants and refugees.
Do I often feel like it’s spitting in the ocean? Yes. I am appalled at what we’ve become. But I gotta say, this exchange feels particularly shitty. We’re allies. Not our government. We the people who weep at where we are.
Why does this exchange feel shitty? It seems like you are merely restating what I had said above. Perhaps you feel shitty because it was a non-American passing the judgement? Understandable.
Honestly if there is a better way of saying it, I’ll listen. But I’m not certain what that is.
Also let me say this. You are doing good work. For your fellow Americans and humanity. Mere survival, itself, is a form of resistance. What you did/do is “above and beyond.” I want to acknowledge that.
Read it again.
ETA: Thanks for your last comment.
That really sounds like a weird criticism from someone who participates in conversations with Americans on this board.
It seems that Trump’s drumming of hate towards Canada is working for Republicans. Years of threatening to annex Canada and waging economic war on us is having an impact.
National Post: Republicans split on Canada as Trump’s trade war escalates
Americans are becoming increasingly divided on their feelings about their northern neighbours and the freshly stoked trade war, according to new polls released this week.
Polling conducted by YouGov for The Economist found that 38 per cent of Republican voters “now view Canada as unfriendly or an enemy, by far the highest level in the past decade” and up from 22 per cent in February polling. Only 12 per cent of Republicans felt the same way in April 2024, before U.S. President Donald Trump began his second term.