Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Roundup: Preparing the counter-tariffs

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The reverberations from Trump’s annexation comments continued yesterday, as Liberals held a caucus meeting in the wake of Trudeau’s announcement, and we seem to be back to the old issue of whether to take him seriously but not literally, or literally but not seriously. Cabinet ministers seem to be taking it seriously, and are letting it be known that we may be looking to do more than just the cutesy, targeted counter-tariffs from the last Trump presidency, and are starting to prepare some bigger guns. Former American ambassadors to Canada are warning not to overreact, but people in this country seem to keep forgetting (or ignoring) that lesson that we should have learned and internalised four years ago.

Update: this seems closer to where I'd suggest we set the tone for countering the bluster from the South. Good on Minister Wilkinson.www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/202…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T22:31:34.170Z

Where I'm coming from on this is that many are used to 'trade wars' where the other side is proposing some tariff on apples or something, so they're going to their usual targeted boutique response toolkit.Me, I think this is an entirely different category of threat, and timid cutesy won't work.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T23:15:11.012Z

While there is talk about “manifest destiny” re-emerging, it is important to remember that expansionist policies are part of the fascist project.

Territorial expansion is not a distraction from the fascist project. It is *part of* the fascist project. There are many examples of territorial expansion and internal "cleansing" going hand in hand. The fact that the figurehead has pudding for brains does not make this any less part of the project.

— Kate Heartfield (@kateheartfield.com) 2025-01-08T20:32:50.865Z

"Fascism sees in the imperialistic spirit — i.e., in thetendency of nations to expand — a manifestation oftheir vitality." – The Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini, 1932

— Kate Heartfield (@kateheartfield.com) 2025-01-08T20:37:23.137Z

Think of the time being wasted by diplomats and experts in Europe and Latin America, as they start planning how to counter American attacks on Panama or Greenland. Time that could be spent thinking about a unified response to Russia and China.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T13:53:03.796Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb attack killed thirteen people and injured at least 63 in Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine launched a long-range attack on a Russian oil depot that serves an air base for nuclear bombers. The UN estimates that 12,300 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion three years ago.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1877020292746191129

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Roundup: More threats about annexation

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It was yet another day that we have to become used to once again, where Donald Trump said something that was all at once boneheaded, insulting, and vaguely disturbing, as he talked about using economic forces to annex Canada (while also threatening Denmark/Greenland and Panama), and of course, that made every two-bit pundit and wannabe in this country light their hair on fire, yet again, because of course they did. And our political leaders were forced to respond, and I’m not sure what’s worse—Trump’s chaotic insanity, or the fact that our political leaders have to come up with something in response.

While threats to our sovereignty are one thing, it also goes to show that all of the obsequious scrambling to strengthen border measures—to say nothing of the boot-licking and obeying in advance of certain premiers—are pretty much for naught because Trump is not about to be mollified by any of this. He doesn’t have any tangible demands, because he wants a win, and today, he’s fixated on annexation as that win, but in a week’s time, he’ll likely move onto something else, because he is likely to lose interest, especially if something is difficult (and you’d better believe that annexation is incredibly difficult, particularly because it involves some near-impossible constitutional wrangling). It’s one of the reasons why we should probably be keeping our powder dry rather than freaking the fuck out every time he says something stupid and insane, but certainly be preparing retaliatory measures, and that’s going to likely mean the big guns like broad-based retaliatory counter-tariffs rather than selective ones like the last time, or export taxes on things like energy products, even if Scott Moe starts to throw a tantrum about it.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T03:42:32.469Z

Amidst this, there was no end to people who should know better throwing a tantrum that the prorogation should be “rescinded” (no, it doesn’t work like that) and that Parliament needs to be recalled over these threats. Which would do what, exactly? The government continues to function, and no, it’s not a “caretaker” government. What would MPs actually do about this situation? There is no legislation that requires passage to counter any of this. The most that we would get are a unanimous consent motion condemning Trump’s words (maybe, if certain parties don’t balk and say we shouldn’t antagonise Trump), or a take-note debate where MPs spend six hours reading prepared speeches into the record. Oooooh! That’ll show Trump!

Canada MUST recall our Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling respectively) during tariff negotiations & annexation threats by President-Elect & Former POTUS, Donald J. Trump.The risk is too high for some of our greatest national exports.

— Jon Liedtke (@jonliedtke.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T01:09:10.162Z

Ukraine Dispatch

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Roundup: Can you “reflect” without a sense of self-awareness?

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If there’s a theme in the fallout from Chrystia Freeland’s resignation, it’s a complete lack of self-awareness as to what is going on. While Justin Trudeau apparently spent the day “reflecting,” he gave a speech at the big Liberal Christmas party that…was basically his usual stump speech, prefaced with the line “Like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays. But of course, like most families, we find our way through it.” It’s completely tone-deaf for what just happened, and pretends that he didn’t reward his deputy with betrayal and telling her that he was going to replace her with Mark Carney when that apparently wasn’t even fully lined up (which would have been incredibly unworkable as Carney doesn’t have a seat, and would be waaaaaay too busy as finance minister at this particular moment to run in a by-election, particularly given that the Liberals no longer have safe seats). Trudeau is bad with contrition, but this is next level. Oh, and then he cancelled all of his year-end interviews with news outlets, so he doesn’t want to face any questions for everything that went down either, whether that’s because he wants to convince himself that everything is still fine, or he knows it’s not and doesn’t want to he reminded of it. Either way, it’s just one more sign of how the wheels have come off, and it’s time to go.

https://twitter.com/journo_dale/status/1869165335854923954

Meanwhile, there are MPs and former party operatives who think that Freeland should be the leader, because she is an intellectual heavyweight, and while I don’t disagree that she has the brains, she has proven to be a charisma black hole, and lacks the retail politics instinct that leadership requires. (And for the record, I don’t think that Mark Carney possesses the retail politics qualities either, or the patience to lead the party through the wilderness of opposition years and rebuilding).

And it wasn’t just Trudeau and the Liberals who are without any self-awareness. Poilievre held a press conference in Mississauga, and gave the line “if you hire clowns, you get a circus.” I mean, has he looked at, or listened to himself or his caucus? Ever? We are so screwed as a country.

Refers to pretty much everyone right now in #cdnpoli.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T15:50:37.076Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has been intensifying their attacks both in the parts of Kursk region that Ukraine occupies, and along Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Ukrainian intelligence apparently killed a Russian general responsible for the use of chemical weapons in a “special operation.” Ukraine also says they uncovered twelve agents working for Russia trying to determine the locations of their F-16 fighters and other air defences. And NATO is taking over coordination of military aid for Ukraine from the US, before Donald Trump comes to power.

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QP: Out not with a bang, but with a conspiracy theory

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For the final QP of 2024, the PM was elsewhere, licking his wounds and “reflecting” on the damage his actions caused him and his party, and he no longer has a deputy as a result. Pierre Poilievre was off in Mississauga, though a couple of the other leaders were present, because why not? That left Andrew Scheer to lead off in English, and he decried what happened yesterday and lamented the “gut-punch” of the deficit number, and demanded a “strong leader” with a new mandate to head off tariffs. Dominic LeBlanc thanked Scheer for his “heartfelt congratulations on my new role,” and wanted to tell him how proud they were of the statement because it speaks to growth, to supporting Canadians, and a declining debt-to-GDP ratio. Scheer congratulated him on being the fourth finance minister in 24 hours (building a narrative around things that did not happen yesterday), and moaned that more is spent on interest on the debt than healthcare. LeBlanc said that Canadians expect the government be focused on their wellbeing and the border issues, and that he had great conversations on the topic yesterday, which the economic statement supported. Scheer mocked that the government was so proud of the statement that they tabled it and ran away, and again listed economic issues that he blamed the government for, and LeBlanc again praised the investments the government made, and that it was the opposition trying to run the House into chaos. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French, kept up the Mark Carney conspiracies, and demanded an election. LeBlanc praised the economic statement, and how it plans for growth and responsible use of taxpayer money—somewhat ironic given the GST “holiday” issue. Paul-Hus read portions of Freeland’s letter, and LeBlanc responded with the debt-to-GDP ratio and that this was the time to support Canadians “responsibly.”

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, decried the deficit in the fiscal update, and demanded an election saying the government doesn’t have confidence. LeBlanc said that they just tested the confidence of the House and got it. Blanchet retorted that they don’t enjoy the confidence of the House, they enjoy the weakness of the NDP, and again demanded an election. LeBlanc raised the dinner he had at Mar-a-Lago and the conversations since.

Jagmeet Singh lambasted the government being focused on their own interests and not Canadians, and demanded the prime minister’s resignation. Karina Gould reminded him that they tested confidence last week, and they are focused on Canadians and the relationship with the U.S. Singh tried again in French, and got the same answer from Gould.

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Roundup: Being precious about participating in the gong show

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Fewer things make me roll my eyes harder the NDP being precious about decorum or the dysfunction within the House of Commons, and it is no exception when Charlie Angus despairs about the gong show happening day-in and day-out. As much as they like to pretend that they are the “adults in the room”—and Peter Julian likes to go on television to say that whenever he’s invited on—but adults in the room don’t heckle constantly (and both Julian and Angus are amongst the very worst—remember the pledge that they were never going to heckle in 2011?), nor do they engage in constant petty insults in order to make themselves look tougher than they are, but that’s what the NDP does day-in and day-out.

The thrust of the piece linked above, however, remains the current filibustered state of the Commons (for which the writer does point out the problems with the motion without going as far as actually calling what it is—banana republic tactics that will have severe consequences in the future if a precedent is allowed to develop), and that if anything is going to get things back on track, it’s going to have to be the NDP who comes to some kind of agreement with the government in order to break the logjam so that important legislation can start moving again. What the piece doesn’t go into is how this has been an ongoing problem in the past two parliaments, since the Liberals lost their majority in 2019. That was when the Conservatives began a campaign of procedural warfare that the Bloc and NDP gleefully participated in because they would do anything to embarrass the government—right up until the end of the sitting, every December and June, and suddenly realize they had bills they wanted to pass, so they started to cooperate. The Supply-and-Confidence agreement mellowed this out a little, but only slightly, as committees continued to get worse, and the NDP were hit-and-miss on whether they wanted to make things work or not.

I am somewhat ruefully reminded of the litany of books and articles that used to constantly come out to praise minority parliaments, and how great they were because they would force parties to work together to get things done for Canadians. That hasn’t been the case for a long time now, and given that the NDP proved themselves to be bad faith actors in how they ended the supply-and-confidence agreement, it’s going to be a long time before they are awarded any trust again, at least not until they have a new leader who can earn it back. But if they do want to make the remainder of this parliament work, they have a lot to answer for, and it would be great if more people could call them on their bullshit.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces say that Russians are using North Korean troops in significant numbers as they conduct assaults in the occupied regions of Kursk. Ukrainian drones conducted an overnight attack Friday and hit a crucial Russian oil facility in the Oryol region, and Ukrainian special forces destroyed a Russian train carrying 40 cars of fuel to Russian troops in the Zaporizhzhia region.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1868270966528201142

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Roundup: A grubby way to extend a non-story

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The Globe and Mail’s ongoing pursuit of this story of alleged “tensions” between Chrystia Freeland and the PMO amidst the courting of Mark Carney continue to confound. While none of the substance of these stories actually make sense if you think about it for more than twenty seconds, as I point out in my weekend column, what I find particularly grubby is the way the Globe has been carrying on the story.

To recap, they started with this rather bullshit non-story about these “tensions,” which weren’t actually news because there are always tensions between a PM or Cabinet and a finance minister, because they have to say no to all kinds of grand spending plans. It as a non-story based on gossip and some “strategic” leaks that don’t actually serve any purpose, but they insisted this had ten sources, so it must be credible, but it’s hard to get a sense of what they actually said that would make this something that is actually news. The Globe then followed up with a story saying there’s a fresh attempt to recruit Mark Carney amidst these “tensions,” and the Conservatives put two and two together, and created this delusional scenario about Trudeau somehow throwing Freeland “under the bus” before he replaces her, which was not in the story, but they created this fever dream while simultaneously policing feminism, belittling Freeland while claiming Trudeau was bullying her (and also claiming that they don’t do tokenism in their party, which is laughable). It was pretty gross to watch.

So, what does the Globe do? Write up these fevered delusions as though they’re actually news, and then sends reporters to Freeland’s presser to have her respond to these bizarre, delusional accusations the Conservatives dreamed up, extending the non-story even further. In essence, they set the cat among the pigeons and then spend days writing about the aftermath, all of which is chasing phantoms, rumours, delusions, and frankly, misogynistic outbursts. I have a really hard time with this kind of “journalism,” which feels more masturbatory than it does ethical or in the service of educating the public. I get that they’re doing this for clicks, but it’s pretty icky, especially given how much misogyny has flowed from it.

Surveying the #cdnpoli landscape:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-13T14:33:23.449Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a massive aerial attack on Ukraine on Friday, with 93 cruise and ballistic missiles, and more than 200 drones, targeting more critical infrastructure. Russian forces are also continuing their march toward strategic city of Pokrovsk. Ukrainian drones hit a fuel storage facility in central Russia, while the new head of Ukraine’s ground forces says he plans major improvements to troop training, management, and recruitment to help deal with manpower shortages. Ukraine also announced it was planning to send food aid to Syria because Russia has cut them off from the aid they were providing.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1867521042912325739

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QP: Fantasizing about a “collapsing” economy

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Wednesday, the final proto-PMQ of the year, and the prime minister was indeed present and ready to respond to all questions put to him, while his deputy was elsewhere. All of the other leaders were also present today, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and again cited the Globe and Mail story about the supposed tensions between Freeland and Trudeau over the size of the deficit, and demanded to know why he pushed her to break her promise on capping it. Justin Trudeau said that Poilievre was dramatizing things to distract from his voting against programmes that help people, and that he muzzles his MPs to prevent them from speaking out for their communities, or get his security clearance. Poilievre again demanded to know why Trudeau forced his finance minister to break her promise and Trudeau responded with a list of things Poilievre voted against. Poilievre switched to English and repeated his first question on the Globe story, and Trudeau once again called these little “dramas” a distraction from his record of voting against supports for Canadians or refusing to get his security clearance. Poilievre accused a Trudeau of bullying Freeland, said that he is too weak to control his own caucus, and then Poilievre proclaimed that he leads by inspiration and that Trudeau leads by intimidation. Trudeau said that Poilievre likes to claim things are broken because he keeps breaking them. Poilievre  mocked this, and then claimed that Freeland was going to be humiliated by reading a fiscal update authored by Mark Carney, and Trudeau accused Poilievre of using Canadians’ struggles for his own gain but that he won’t lift a finger to help them.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, complained about a committee study, and wondered what the PM would say to the thousands of Muslims who are happy to assimilate into Quebec. Trudeau praised diversity and rights. Blanchet then wondered if Trudeau was defending religious “indoctrination” at certain Quebec schools, to which Trudeau praised the Charter, and then said it was the responsibility of those schools to hire the best teachers they could.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, said that Trump was a bully and that Trudeau was too weak to stand up to him. Trudeau said that they were taking a measured approach, working with leaders across the country, and were not freaking out like the NDP were. Singh exclaimed that Trudeau’s job wasn’t safe either, and then repeated the same question/demand in French. Trudeau reminded him that they defeated Trump tariffs in the past.

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Roundup: Sympathy work for the far-right

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There are times when it becomes glaringly obvious that legacy media still has no idea how to cover the far-right, whether in the US or here in Canada, and once again, we have been let down precipitously. Yesterday, the CBC published a long sympathy piece about the two main ringleaders of the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” full of lots of photos, and it just once again goes back to how this continues to normalize these narratives. (And no, I’m not going to link to the piece for the sake of giving it hate clicks).

Big feature story by CBC doing sympathy work for those Convoy fucks, normalizing the far-right. Fuuuuuuck that.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2024-12-09T12:36:10.705Z

A lot of this falls back to the constant need by legacy media to both-sides everything, providing equal time and weight to narratives and concepts that don’t deserve or require equal weight, because it’s false or misleading, and doesn’t call anything out that can’t be couched in “opponents say” rather than just declaring that something is false, misleading, or batshit crazy. And this kind of sympathy work of showing that people who do very bad things are just misunderstood or are suffering because of the consequences of their actions just goes to make what they did more acceptable. It was the same with reporter who tracked down people who attacked them on January 6th and spent time with them, and did similar sympathy work, which just muddies the waters of the unacceptability of their actions, particularly if they feel a level of justification for their actions—in the case of these convoy organizers, they’re showing the boxes of thank-you cards they got from their adherents. Again, this is not only normalizing the far-right, but it is showing it in a sympathetic light. This is dangerous for legacy media to be doing, and there seems to be absolutely no critical thinking (or ethical considering) in what they think they’re doing, and what they inevitably end up doing is contributing to the erosion of democracy.

Meanwhile, the Star has a very good look at how far-right influencers have weaponized Canada as their cautionary tale, and how that has also in turn been changing perceptions in this country about ourselves, and most especially about the current government and the state of things. (I have a column on this later today). This was far better coverage of the far-right, but is still a bit tepid in the dangers of what these narratives can represent, particularly when it starts to normalize and excuse racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, and how that is very much playing out in several provinces right now. This stuff needs to be explicitly called out, and nobody can do it effectively.

With a quick comment from me near the bottom. Canada has always been of a weird funhouse mirror for US politics. When Americans talk about Canada, they are almost always really talking about themselves. And some Canadian far-right influencers use that for their grift.

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2024-12-10T01:55:07.552Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2024-12-09T14:08:01.821Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that he has approved increased funding for drone production for the war effort. Zelenskyy also says that Ukraine is open to having Western troops provide security once the fighting has stopped, provided that Ukraine is accepted into the European Union and NATO.

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Roundup: Tariff threats still inbound

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There were a few bits of Canada-US relations over the weekend, starting with the re-opening of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, where François Legault secured an invite, and managed to get a few minutes with Donald Trump as a result, and allegedly spoke about the border issues and tariffs. (Incidentally, all of the people who complain about Justin Trudeau’s foreign travel also complained he didn’t attend this event, because of course they did). Trump then went on Meet the Press and extolled the virtues of tariffs, claimed that the trade imbalance somehow means that America is “subsidising” Canada (what?!) and he’s still talking about annexing Canada and maybe turning it into two states (huh?!), because of course he is.

My favourite thing that happened all week was when the premier of Quebec said he wanted to ban public prayer and then flew across the ocean to attend the re-opening of a church.

— Paul Wells (@inklesspw.bsky.social) 2024-12-09T03:21:45.529Z

Meanwhile, several Conservatives including Jamil Jivani went to the IDU conference in Washington DC, and Jivani had dinner with his old friend JD Vance, as well as UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. Poilievre insists that every Conservative is telling Americans that tariffs are a bad idea…yet they are also saying that Trump is right about the border and fentanyl, so do they not make Trump’s case for him? Again, does anyone think about anything they say these days?

And senior public servants are warning Trudeau that the size of America’s debt and deficit are going to have knock-on effects to our economy because they are so closely tied, particularly when it comes to interest rates on the bond market—higher interest on US treasury bonds also drives up the rates on Canadian government bonds. Take that for what it’s worth.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainians shot down 28 out of 74 drones Sunday night, with a further 46 “lost” likely from electronic warfare. No word yet on damage or casualties. Following a meeting with President Zelenskyy at the Notre Dame re-opening, Trump called for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict, along with usual schtick about making a deal, which meant that Russia has sent along their conditions. (Why does this give me a sinking feeling?)

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Roundup: Getting worked up over an obvious troll

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Because apparently, we have nothing better to occupy our time with, today everyone was obsessed with a remark Trump made about annexing Canada. Dominic LeBlanc assured people it was just a joke, but that didn’t stop endless hyperventilating about it, from media and the pundit class most especially, as though this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing Trump loves to do to get us all riled up, and we not only fall for it, but certain elements of the media lean into it, because how better to drive clicks?

Some useful context bsky.app/profile/gmbu…

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2024-12-03T12:45:21.255Z

Canadians: there is much to worry about. Annexation by Trump's US is not one of them.Things to worry about:-tariffs-asylum requests by those Trump is targeting-Trump's reaction if Canada provides asylum-end of NATObut not annexation.

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) 2024-12-03T12:53:29.665Z

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau held a briefing for opposition leaders yesterday afternoon about what went down at Mar-a-Lago, and one of the asks was that they not try and fight or negotiate in public, or amplify the erroneous notions coming from the US, and weaken Canada’s position in the eyes of the incoming Trump administration. So what did Pierre Poilievre do as soon as the meeting was over? Run to the cameras to repeat his slogans about “broken borders,” and continuing to make Trump’s case for him. Because who cares about a common front in the face of a pretty major (potential) crisis when you could be scoring cheap points even though you’re already twenty points ahead in the polls.

In terms of border action, the RCMP says that they have “contingency plans” that could include deploying cadets along the border if the situation demands it, but boy howdy does that seem like an ill-considered idea considering the existing shortage of personnel (and the fact that the RCMP is a broken and toxic institution that needs to be disbanded).

This is completely insane. The federal policing side of the RCMP is operating with HUNDREDS of vacancies. We just passed the most extensive national security legislation to combat foreign interference. And now we are going to redirect again in a panic?! www.cbc.ca/news/politic…

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T01:37:52.154Z

Like it would be adorable that we are trying to fix things* with a throughly broken federal police force if it wasn’t so tragic. *things = vague threat in a truth social post.

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T01:39:34.910Z

Why yes, I do cover Canadian politics.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T02:09:25.678Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Here are more details about the critical infrastructure damaged in Russian drone strikes on Ternopil and Rivne regions resulting in blackouts. These attacks on electrical stations are driving a transition to things like solar in Ukraine. President Zelenskyy is calling for more reinforcements for the eastern front after steady Russian advances in recent weeks.

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