During prime minister Mark Carney’s meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping yesterday, a “strategic partnership” was signed that will see access for a limited number of Chinese EVs into the Canadian market in exchange for the promise to remove some tariffs on canola, along with the tariffs on Canadian pork and seafood, but only for the remainder of this year, maybe. In addition, there’s talk about cooperating on combatting drug trafficking (given the fentanyl issue), but some other vague language that is likely to be used by China to demand people to be extradited for trial. None of this is terribly great, but this is the result of months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy. If you listen to Michael Kovrig, he is pointing out the language in the agreement and that China is using, and that it’s really a test that aims to employ diplomatic gatekeeping instead of reconciliation.

Two immediate thoughts1. We have conceded a lot for promises of relief – not actual relief. Thanks, I hate it.2. This is a clear sign Carney is expecting very little to come of US trade talks this year. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic…

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2026-01-16T13:22:38.846Z

Trump basically shrugged off the news of this deal—or at least he did today, and that may change again. Scott Moe and Danielle Smith are happy with the deal, while Doug Ford is spitting mad. Pierre Poilievre is clutching his pearls, but is also asking the very relevant question of how Carney went from saying China is the country’s greatest threat to signing a “strategic partnership” with them in the space of less than a year. And frankly, Carney and his minister have been completely evasive on the issue, and the issue of human rights in China (remember how just last year Parliament voted on a motion that said that China was executing a genocide of the Uyghurs?). Because apparently “pragmatism” means we can’t have values anymore.

This all having been said, frankly, it was incompetence on the part of Carney and his ministers to let a group of frankly bad actors frame this issue of EVs versus canola into some kind of west-east dispute around how the federal government was protecting the auto sector at the expense of the west—a bullshit assertion given that western canola producers were warned not to let China take as much market share as they did, but they were both greedy and lazy, and China exploited that. Do I think that’ll change now with this deal? Nope. They’ll continue to rely on this to keep their Chinese market share overly large so that the next time China is mad about something, they’ll come up with another excuse to ban or tariff canola, and the sector will be right back in this same situation, because they’re greedy and lazy. And with regards to the auto sector, frankly it bears a share of the blame as well for dragging their feet on producing more and cheaper EVs, or charging infrastructure, or anything else, knowing that the market was shifting—while they demanded that the federal government do everything from funding the transition to demanding they set up the charging infrastructure. (Did the federal set up gas stations across the country back at the turn of the last century? No. Why should they now?)

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims to have taken two villages—one in Donetsk, one in Zaporizhzhia. In the wake of all of the attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine is currently only able to meet sixty percent of its electricity needs.

Good reads:

• Mark Carney has accepted Trump’s offer to join the Board of Peace for Gaza.
• Gary Anandasangaree is expected to unveil the details of the national federal gun buyback programme today.
• The government is signalling that they will hold firm on the Online News Act in the face of pressure from the Trump administration.
• Here is a breakdown of layoff notices in the federal civil service so far.
• Pierre Poilievre’s new campaign manager is looking to mend fences with Doug Ford and Tim Houston after the acrimony that meant a lack of support in the election.
• Jamil Jivani says he wants to help the government deal with Trump, but there is a whole lot of scepticism around the offer.
• Richard Warnica witnesses the deteriorating situation in Minneapolis, and the very real sense that Trump’s federal forces are trying to provoke a violent conflict.
• Stephen Saideman remarks that was the week the Americans’ “allies” moved from dodging Trump’s punches to taking action on Greenland and China.
• Marty Patriquin weighs François Legault’s economic legacy in Quebec.
• Justin Ling goes through the history of American piracy and imperialism in the western hemisphere, and applies that lens to Venezuela, Iran and Greenland.
• Susan Delacourt takes note of the Americans currently treating Canada as irrelevant, as it keeps us off their radar for the time being.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I delve into reactions to the Federal Court of Appeal decision on the government’s use of the Emergencies Act.

Jason Kenney yesterday: Why don't we take away the Charter Rights of the accused to the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial?Jason Kenney today: As premier, only I defended Charter Rights from the Emergencies Act.He doesn't have any self-awareness of his own hypocrisy.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-17T01:10:08.404Z

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