Tag Archives: Tariffs

Was it really always “Plan A”?

Posted on by
Reply

Over the long weekend, prime minister Mark Carney released another one of this “Forward Guidance” videos, to talk about the current moment we find ourselves in with the trade war. Some of this was a good bit of history in that one of the reasons for confederation was to guard against American predation, though he didn’t fully spell out that Sir John A Macdonald was very concerned that a newly militarized US post-Civil War would turn their attention northward. And yes, American tariffs did force the newly-united Canadians to better develop their own internal markets because yes, we did a lot of north-south trade at the time as well. He brought up the “iron spine” of the trans-Canada railway with some lip-service as to the human cost of it (more than he has in the past), but from there his metaphors started to drift again. The thing is, that “iron spine” has weakened considerably since free trade, and it’s been a whole lot of north-south trade once again, and his trying to say that the new north-south iron spine would be around energy, both electricity and crude oil, didn’t really make a lot of sense.

More than that, however, Carney was engaging in some revisionist history of his own, insisting that building up our industry domestically and to export to more markets was “always Plan A” didn’t really mesh with his stated desire during negotiations to have a stronger security and defence relationship with the US. He lamented in the video that the Americans were trying to force dependency, but Carney’s own goals included a stronger comprehensive relationship, so it feels a lot like he’s trying to play both sides here. He also said that there’s no going back to “normal” with the US, but again, this has been his whole strategy up until two weeks ago. It feels like he’s only just started saying things he was supposed to be saying all along two weeks ago, and is now pretending like it’s what he was always saying.

And then, of course, he brought up digital asbestos, because it’s “important,” and insisted that Canada would be maintaining its values and sovereignty with it. Erm, really? How? This is just lip service while he continues to swallow the CEO hype around it rather than waking up to the fact that this is garbage tech that is burning cash and the environment, and like he’s trying to be the last guy in before the bubble bursts. It’s getting cringey how much Carney and Evan Solomon are still enthralled by the false promises, like their lives depended on it.

My Latest:

  • For National Magazine, I got some reaction to the news that the Ontario Courts’ case management system suffered a hack.
  • My weekend column wonders if it’s time that we get serious about domestically-built EVs, as the age of the integrated North American auto industry appears to be over.
  • My column on the Conservatives on the Remain side of the Alberta referendum trying to have it both ways by blaming Liberals, playing into Separatist hands.

Continue reading →

Pinky-swearing data centre expectations

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday morning, minister of digital asbestos, Evan Solomon, was in Markham to announce that the government had created a new framework of “key expectations” for building data centres in Canada, and that 23 major digital asbestos companies had signed on. It all sounds good, until you realise that this is a voluntary code of conduct made with bad faith actors, and that the federal government has pretty much no levers to enforce any of these promises that these companies make, because so much of the regulation is either a provincial or municipal responsibility. So what you have instead is Solomon once again putting on a performance for the cheap seats at the community theatre, and is expecting applause and bouquets for said performance. It’s like we’re back in the Trudeau era of “the announcement is the policy.” This is not serious governance, and governance is the cornerstone of digital sovereignty—that thing that Solomon keeps claiming to care about.

Non-binding 'expectations'? Solomon & Carney are not serious about governing data centres in Canada; they're offside w/ the large & growing anti-data centre public sentiment. These companies won't comply w/ voluntary 'rules.' They have lied about energy & water use. This is weak & shameful.

— Natasha Tusikov (@ntusikov.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T18:53:05.383Z

In technical terms, this is referred to as a "pinky swear." And it's just as binding and effective."The responsible development principles do not include any compliance mechanism or penalties for broken pledges."This is not serious governance.

— Blayne Haggart (@bhaggart.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T17:01:43.644Z

@ntusikov.bsky.social and I wrote this oped about social media regulation, but its main point stands here. Regulatory theory tells us that voluntary agreements don't work with bad actors. The companies listed above are some of the least trustworthy of the past several decades.This is just empty PR.

— Blayne Haggart (@bhaggart.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T17:01:43.645Z

Later in the day, prime minister Mark Carney announced via press release the launch of Digital Transformation Canada, which aims to “refine how the government develops, buys and uses technology.” While this could be a good thing, particularly if it means developing home-grown digital solutions that would get us off of American platforms, that was not really mentioned in the release at all. Instead, it was more about the CEO bullshit around digital asbestos, with “eliminating duplication” and “improve outcomes,” which just sounds like more hype that Carney has swallowed. We have real needs when it comes to our digital sovereignty, but if there is any consideration about how to do that, it doesn’t appear to be coming from this plan as outlined.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-09-03T13:08:02.353Z

Programming Note: I am taking an extra-long weekend, so posts will resume later in the week. Enjoy!

Continue reading →

Ignore the toddler meltdown in the cereal aisle

Posted on by

The Trump administration players continue to try and spin their own versions of how the talks collapsed, with Trump insisting that we’re “nasty” and the “worst” (because we won’t just submit), we also saw Howard Lutnick claim that Carney has manufactured all of this because of the Quebec election and the Alberta referendum, and that once those over, Canadian officials will come flooding back to Washington to resume talks. Sure, Jan. Meanwhile, Dominic LeBlanc has taken notes of their denials over certain files, and is taking those as assurances that the “trade irritants” they keep identifying won’t be brought up any longer and publicly saying so. Clever.

Lutnick accuses Mark Carney of "manufacturing" a controversy over trade so Alberta doesn't secede from Canada

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-27T18:18:00.166Z

Meanwhile, Trump’s continued tantrum saw him sign an executive order to demand that the US Department of Interior change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, which is going to be another loyalty test for MAGA adherents going forward. And of course, we had a bunch of Canadian media outlets falling all over themselves to try and get reactions to this (and a certain CBC guest host was extremely cringey about it), when we don’t need to respond to this. We can just ignore it, guys. Take Shannon Proudfoot’s advice here, and treat this like a toddler having a meltdown in the cereal aisle. He’s trying to get attention, and if you don’t give it to him, he’ll move on to something else, and you won’t have to make an ass of yourself trying to “get reactions” to this bit of nonsense. Nobody wins by taking this seriously, so just stop.

The last time the Americans tried to claim Lake Ontario in 1813, we intentionally lured them into Fort York and then blew up our entire gunpowder magazine to kill as many Americans as possible.A foundation part of Toronto history is "blowing our own fort to smithereens rather than being American"

— ℳatt (@matttomic.bsky.social) 2026-08-27T18:15:24.761Z

I mean this very, very seriously: It is absolutely an option for us to ignore his idiotic Lake America stunt. We can do that. We can just tune it out like you would block out a child howling at you in the cereal aisle, recognizing that to do anything else would be to give the whiner what they want.

— Shannon Proudfoot (@sproudfoot.bsky.social) 2026-08-27T17:54:13.273Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-27T19:08:03.250Z

My Latest:

  • My column takes note of where we’re at with the trade war, and the fact that Carney spent a year-and-a-half making concessions for a deal that was never real.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take points to the difficulties about sacrificing the Online News Act for a deal that didn’t come to pass, which would be a Pandora’s Box.

Continue reading →

Greer’s version and his telling non-denials

Posted on by

The info war aspect of our trade war is heating up, both in terms of childish tantrum—see Trump’s Instagram post of the bald eagle attacking the Canada goose (neglecting that in the end of that particular exchange, which was caught on video a couple of years ago, the goose eventually prevailed and drove the eagle off), but also American officials giving their version of what happened. Jamieson Greer was on CBC to insist that everything was fine on Tuesday night when Trump and prime minister Mark Carney spoke on the phone, and then at the last minute, the Canadians had new demands, presumably coming from the premiers. But there were some interesting omissions and non-denials in that interview, both ignoring the involvement of Howard Lutnick, and shrugging off disagreements around implementing that agreement, which is a pretty important detail. When the details of implementation include expanding just what is covered by auto tariffs, that’s a big detail, for example. And Greer did not deny that the point of this is to destroy the auto industry in Canada, trying to recast the Auto Pact and previous trade agreements as Canada somehow taking advantage of the American industry, which is hardly what happened. That non-denial spoke volumes, pretty much confirmed that this is the goal. (For more, Jennifer Robson goes through his responses and annotates them here).

Meanwhile, back in Canada, Scott Moe again roared that he didn’t want any hint of export taxes on energy or potash, nor is he going to take US booze off the shelves in the province—but he will subject it to an additional 50 percent tariff, which is the most useless symbolic gesture since most people are boycotting it of their own accord. As for Danielle Smith, she held a press conference and gave a dire warning about the effect of any export taxes, that it will force Americans to import heavy oil from Venezuela and it will cause a chain reaction and destroy the Canadian economy. I am dubious, not the least of which is that if you paid any attention to the discourse around the American kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, that the state of the oil industry in that country is so dire that it would take a decade of sustained investment to bring them back up to an export capacity that would threaten us, and no major oil company wants to invest because of their past investments being expropriated. So, I’m really not sure that Smith’s scenario is all that credible. I’m not saying there wouldn’t be retaliation, because you can bet there would be, but her scenario comes off as abject nonsense (while she continues to counsel capitulation). Smith also rejected the calls to cancel her referendums because of the trade war, like the Parti Québécois leader promised to hold off on. Smith claimed it’s because she’s following her “citizenship initiation” law, but she gamed those rules to ensure there would be a referendum, so this is her putting her own party problems above the nation, once again.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-26T19:08:03.507Z

My Latest:

Continue reading →

Unveiling the counter-tariffs

Posted on by

The government announced the details of their dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs yesterday, and it was a fairly broad list, but largely focused on protecting domestic markets than extracting a price from the Americans—there is a whole explanation of defensive versus offensive tariffs here. In many cases, these are things where there are domestic alternatives available, which means that it creates a price incentive to buy the Canadian alternative, which is laudable. And there does seem to be some distribution where the effect of those retaliatory tariffs does seem to disproportionately impact swing states, which is also not a bad thing. Of course, that’s not to say that there isn’t a discussion to be had about whether we shouldn’t be trying to maximize the political price for the Americans, particularly as the midterms approach, whether that is export taxes or otherwise on things like potash or energy, which is particularly fraught, because it could invite even harsher retaliation from the Americans. However, if this is indeed an economic war and we are fighting for our sovereignty, that could mean using bigger economic guns, and ensuring that the burden faced by Canadians is more evenly shared than it is right now (especially by Alberta and Saskatchewan).

Where do Canadian retaliatory tariffs land? Based on all affected products on Sept 8 (including pre-existing tariffs), here's the value of exports times tariff rates as a share of each state's GDP. #cdnecon #cdnpoli

— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe.bsky.social) 2026-08-25T18:50:14.657082Z

Also announced were some of the tweaks to EI to support workers, but it’s not a lot of tweaks as they do nothing about the hours worked requirements. I will also note that this government promised EI reform years ago, and did a lot of work on it (and I can personally say that a friend of mine worked on the file and did a tonne of work that has apparently never seen the light of day), and nothing came of it, whether it was because it was too politically unsaleable, or some other reason we don’t know.

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3mtwaluxa2k2g

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3mtwalvxp4k2g

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre continues to demand that the “text” of the trade deal be released, when there may not have been a finalized text, and it’s a Cabinet confidence in any case, and shouldn’t be released because it can point to particular pain points in future negotiations. Poilievre is also calling for his economic “plan” to be adopted, with its tax cuts, environmental law repeal and his bizarre notion about zero tax on capital gains being reinvested in Canada, which I will remind you Jim Flaherty tried to implement in the Harper era and gave up because it was way too complex to manage. But Poilievre has one set of ideas (doubling-down on trickle-down), and he’s going to keep swinging that hammer for every problem under the sun, no matter how inappropriate it may be. And then there’s Danielle Smith who wants negotiations to resume right away, even though there is no trade deal to be had because the Americans are not interested in trade, only in subjugation. Unbelievable, but also unsurprising, that she is so keen to be a Vichy premier.

Pierre Poilievre demands that the PM adopt his economic plans, no matter how nonsensical they actually are. Because he has one set of solutions for all of Canada’s problems, and he will not be dissuaded.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-08-25T17:06:31.112Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-25T19:08:02.395Z

Continue reading →

QP: Demanding a firm commitment on Yazidis

Posted on by

All leaders, permanent or interim, were present for QP today, and it feels like a while since that has been the case. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, demanding to know how many Yazidi refugees the government would bring to Canada in the next 120 days. Trudeau thanked her for her leadership on the file, and committed to doing so, but didn’t provide a number. Ambrose asked about the call for Chancellor Merkel in Germany to create security zones in Iraq, and Trudeau committed to more aid for refugees. Ambrose moved onto CETA, and demanded Trudeau get on a plane and do anything necessary to get the deal signed. Trudeau reminded her that they already made progress on getting ISDS, and he expected good news in the coming days. Ambrose changed topics again, raised the Medicine Hat by-election as a pronouncement on the carbon tax schemes, and Trudeau promised more visits to Alberta. Ambrose then moved again, this time onto “cash-for-access” fundraisers, and Trudeau reminded her that the low personal limits in Canada ensured that there were no ethical problems. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and tried to go after the same issue, and Trudeau reminded him that looking south of the border, our system was well above and repeated that the low limits meant there were no ethical issues. Mulcair tried again in French, got the same answer, and then moved onto the situation at Muskrat Falls and the health of those Aboriginals who rely on fishing in the area. Trudeau reminded him that the provinces were working on the issue, and he trusted them, and they went one more round in English.

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/790982900221091841

Continue reading →

Roundup: Trading one set of problems for another

Posted on by

Day three of the electoral reform committee, and it seems to be the first time that we actually got a bit of pushback from a witness list that is stuffed full of proponents for reform that refuse to either properly examine our system as it currently exists, or who dwell on fantasy versions of electoral systems. (Kady O’Malley’s liveblog here). In particular, one of the experts, Andre Blais, showcased his research to show that different voting systems had little impact overall on things like voter turnout or satisfaction with the system, which is not surprising at all. So many of the arguments that reform proponents will put forward about how changing the system will fix these woes without realising that every system has their own set of problems and you just wind up trading one set of problems for another (but given that they tend to focus only on delusional, unicorn-filled happiest possible outcomes, this is not a surprise). Likewise, Blais’ research didn’t indicate that there was any greater spirit of compromise in other systems that relied on coalitions, because it’s not like other systems are all around a circle singing Kumbaya.

There were a few other gems, like this one:

The NEP has become this cultural myth in Canada where everyone assumes that something or another would have prevented it. For the longest time, it was the assumption that a Triple E Senate would have been powerful enough to stop it, and now the argument is PR. These theories ignore the basic math of the sheer weight of the proportion of the country that was in favour of the Programme versus the weight of Alberta, no matter whether they had more votes in the Commons or the Senate. But by all means, mythologise away.

This one is more self-explanatory – in some PR countries like Germany, you can’t vote out governments. Central parties stay in power for decades and simply shuffle around coalition partners, and that makes accountability a very difficult thing under those systems, which is another reason that I don’t think they’ll actually solve anything because the ability to remove a government or a party is as important as how you vote them in – if not more so. Accountability matters.

Meanwhile, the Elections Commissioner is recommending a number of changes to election laws to bring them up to date with our social media age, and part of the piece is devoted to that jackass in Nova Scotia who got charged for posting a photo of his marked ballot as though the secret ballot doesn’t exist for a reason. It’s the same reason why online voting will never be able to guarantee that one’s ballot is actually secret, and we might as well surrender ourselves to the return of rumbottle politics if we start making it acceptable to post photos of marked ballots.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Let’s ignore the Bedford decision!

Posted on by

Well, it’s official – the government is not only going to emulate a version of the “Nordic model” around prostitution laws, but they’re explicitly going against some of the portions of the Supreme Court ruling in the Bedford case, such as communication. The new bill makes advertising illegal, and increases penalties if there is any reasonable assumption that young people will be in the area where prostitutes are soliciting. In other words, by pushing out of the public eye, they drive it further underground where sex workers are isolated and vulnerable to predators, and if they can’t advertise, then what good is it that they are now allowed to hire receptionists or bodyguards that would allow them to practice their trade off the streets? As for talk that police will be given discretion when it comes to the definition of “reasonable expectation” – such as near a school at 3 am – that should also raise red flags because it keeps that power to charge the sex workers themselves. Peter MacKay went so far as to talk about johns as “perverts” and sex workers as “victims” – thus denying them any agency – and the token $20 million being offered to help them exit the trade doesn’t actually address any of the fundamental problems for women who are in the trade for survival, or help those who are in it voluntarily in order to make them safer. As more than one person noted, it’s like they didn’t even bother reading the Bedford decision. Here is one analysis of the bill that pretty much shoots holes through its constitutionality entirely. Another analysis says that MacKay has reframed the terms of debate legislatively from controlling a nuisance to trying to eliminate the practice, which makes the legal challenge more difficult. Emmett Macfarlane notes the arbitrary provisions in the bill like the inclusion of “religious institutions” as a prohibited area – something that is likely to pique the Court – and that it demonstrates that the government is dealing with Charter rights behind the cover of an online poll.

Not surprisingly, the government rejected a BC study that said that the Nordic model does more harm to sex workers rather than protecting them. Their justification? That online self-selected survey they conducted that showed the Nordic model of criminalizing buyers was one the public preferred. Justin Trudeau is calling on those consultations to be made public. We’ll see if either of the opposition parties has the stomach to actually oppose the bill (though the fact that the government went against the Bedford decision may help), but this is going to be a ridiculous fight – especially when my own background sources have said that the government knew they were once again flouting the constitution. It looks like this is just going to wind up back before the Supreme Court under the very same grounds that the laws do more to harm sex workers, and the government can once again say that the Courts are being mean to them.

Continue reading →

QP: Budget Day eve

Posted on by

As the Olympics distract the masses, the Grand Inquest of the Nation carries on. Well, minus most of the party leaders anyway. Thomas Mulcair was present, and started off by asking about the newly reported debt figures, and demanded action on ATM fees and credit card interest rates. Kevin Sorensen accused the NDP of wanting to “pick the pockets of Canadians,” and that they were encouraging Canadians to be careful with their debts. Mulcair rambled on about budget shoes and slippers, and returned to the same demand, to which Sorensen touted tax cuts that the government had made. Mulcair moved onto the elections bill and the topic of voter identification cards. Poilievre insisted that there was a mistake in one out of six of those cards, meaning that they weren’t secure but there were 39 other form of acceptable identification. Mulcair dropped a non sequitur Olympic reference before returning to the bill and the issue of democracy promotion. Poilievre spoke about more advanced voting days. For his last question of the round, Mulcair decried the gagging of the Chief Electoral Officer, to which Poilievre quoted other sections of the act to disprove Mulcair’s point. John McCallum led off for the Liberals, asking about the tariff changes and Canada Job Grant out of last year’s budget, and if they would be corrected in this year’s. Sorensen touted all the wonderful things their government had done. Ralph Goodale asked about other budget items like job training and infrastructure funds, but Sorensen recited good news talking points.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Mayrand hits back

Posted on by

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand hit back against Pierre Poilievre’s slam against him that he is somehow wearing team jersey. Mayrand says the only jersey he is wearing are the black and white stripes – the referee – and the changes in the new Fair Elections Act will mean that he’s no longer on the ice. With time allocation on the elections bill looming, the NDP decided to spend the first half of the sitting day yesterday engaged in procedural warfare, trying to delay the debate on time allocation, with a series of votes that eventually delayed QP itself. With those hurdles now cleared, they are proposing a motion in Procedure and House Affairs committee that they travel around all regions of the country to consult with Canadians on the bill, though I have some concerns about some of the groups they want to hear from. After all, Fair Vote Canada is the largest voter suppression organisation in the country (who else goes around telling everyone that their vote doesn’t count?), and Democracy Watch is pretty much run by a crank that doesn’t have a clue about civic literacy. But hey, consultations!

Continue reading →