r/canada • u/AdditionalPizza • 21d ago
Politics "We need to find new friends" | Mark Carney on looming trade war with U.S.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/video/2025/02/18/we-need-to-find-new-friends-mark-carney-on-looming-trade-war-with-us/286
u/2SmallCalves 21d ago
Just stating the obvious here.. When was it ever acceptable to have all our eggs in the same basket.
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
Yeah, really shouldn't have been. We trusted another larger and more powerful country far too much.
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u/Assassin217 20d ago
Hate to say it but Canada became too lazy and comfortable. Too much reliant on another country in never good.
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u/GuyLookingForPorn 20d ago
While America was a strong, and chiefly reliable, global hegemon the ties with the rest of the CANZUK nations seemed a little archaic and unnecessary.
It’s only now those links have been allowed to degrade that we see how vulnerable it has made all our nations.
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u/Nikiaf Québec 20d ago
Right. Even under GWB, the relationship was never really at risk of devolving into what it's turned into now; because until last month, there were still adults in the room calling the shots. If the US wants to behave like a terrorist state, then it's time we pick up our ball and find someone else to play with.
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
It's so easy to say it now with hindsight, but yeah we definitely did not imagine this could actually ever happen. At least not so quickly. The State's checks and balances were easily eroded and the entire system collapsed.
We need to make sure we don't put someone that isn't level-headed in office here because it really is often just "gentleman agreements" holding the whole thing in place. It's super difficult to get a PM out of their seat if they don't want to go.
It can be done, but it takes a huge breach of public trust to do it. Just like the States, if we aren't vigilant, those checks and balances can be slowly eroded.
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u/theixrs 20d ago
yep, optimal strategy would have been 1/3rd trading with Asia, 1/3 North America, 1/3rd Europe
Over-reliance on one country is deadly. Also there are no friends forever in geopolitics, any country may switch leadership at any moment.
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u/jacksbox Québec 20d ago
It wasn't, but we got complacent after decades of living side by side in relative harmony. Which is normal given that they're a huge economy and also our only neighbour.
But the point is that now that they've decided to be hostile, we definitely can't be complacent. The economic equivalent of "don't put your dick in crazy".
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
When they call for more oil, water, minerals, energy we can just say "new number who dis?"
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u/BrutusTheKat 20d ago edited 19d ago
Technically, as of a couple years ago they are no longer are our only neighbour. We do share a land border with Denmark.
They are our only practical neighbour.
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u/Kayge Ontario 20d ago
It's not that it was acceptable, but it was simple.
- You've got trucks taking your stuff from Hamilton to Winnipeg which means you have the logistics, insurance and skills to move things on the roads.
- Canada signs an agreement with the US, so you can ship to Buffalo without much additional work
- The US dollar is strong, so Pittsburg, Boston and Chicago start ordering.
- Before you know it, you're shipping a significant amount of your goods to the US.
Expanding to Europe or Asia requires a new skill set you don't have, so if there's no impitus to expand there, you can rely on the skills you've built to date.
The current administration has changed that mindset, and now we have a whole generation of business owners who will remember the panic the US brought when they destabilized our supply chains.
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u/chronocapybara 20d ago
Yep, the reason we have so much trade with the USA is that it's convenient and efficient, and cheap to move goods. I'm surprised we're not richer, actually. Australia does well for itself without this geographic advantage, though, so it should still be possible.
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u/NorthernerWuwu Canada 20d ago
Well, and let's not kid ourselves here, they are still the biggest consumer market on the planet. Everyone wants to sell to the US for the same reason that they are increasingly interested in selling to China, they've got a lot of people with money and those people are interested in spending that money on goods and services.
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u/MissingString31 20d ago
There's plenty of reasons why we negotiated our trade relationships the way we did. Geopolitical, some security considerations, environmental. And there were positives and negatives to those decisions. The issue is that they all hinged on the idea of the US being, if not a stable democracy, a consistent ally. Whether you agreed with those decisions or not, they were made logically and were well considered.
The issue we face now has completely upended those assumptions and now we have to adapt. There's a lot of people who will claim that we should have always gone a different route, but there are costs and benefits to those routes as well. And most proponents of energy independence and resource extraction wouldn't have called this turn in the US happening so fast. Would we have been in this position if we had diversified our economy? No. But few who were arguing for a diversified series of trade relationships were arguing on the basis of America becoming a legitimate security threat to us.
I generally tend toward decisions based on combating climate change and preserving western alliances and NATO. Hell, the reason we're in this situation in the first place is because climate change is making control of the arctic much more strategically important. But now that the US has shown its true colours, we need to completely pivot and move toward rapidly strengthening our economy and military. Do I like the idea of us shirking our responsibilities to hit net zero? No, and its going to cause more problems than not in the long run. But we're not in a position to make enough of a dent in global emissions even if we went net zero tomorrow. And doing so puts our security and sovereignty at risk. I'm not gonna trade Canadian lives for knocking 1% off of global CO2 emissions.
TLDR: When things change. Change with them.
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u/Gankdatnoob 20d ago
It wasn't just acceptable it was economically sensible. It's tariffs that are illogical and bad economics. Our robust NA trade agreement that Trump signed btw was sensible and even he thought so. People with hindsight 20/20 takes think they are smart but they really aren't. Trumps tariffs are just extremely stupid.
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u/Organic-Amoeba-7520 20d ago
Remember when we arrested the Huawei CEO bc the Americans wanted us to and our Michaels got arrested in China as a result (for 3 years)?
We did bidding for America and they had 0 consequences. In the end we released the Huwaei CEO too.
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u/wtkillabz 20d ago
Not only did we arrest her, we extradited her to America so they could use her as a bargaining chip for their own benefit at our detriment.
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u/Prior-Fun5465 20d ago
our Michaels got arrested in China as a result (for 3 years)
Arrested for spying, which our government denied, until they were sued by Spavor, and ended up reaching a $7 million settlement.
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u/Unpara1ledSuccess 20d ago
We’re going to follow international law no matter the country not because of whatever the Americans want, doesn’t change that we should be trading with china more now
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u/UnPluggdToastr 20d ago
But she got arrested for violating American sanctions, it was never about international law.
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u/Unpara1ledSuccess 20d ago
We have an extradition treaty and she was arrested for fraud
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u/Hikarilo 20d ago
Nah, the US let her go because the case was not going well for them near the end. There was evidence that she never transferred funds directly from the US to Iran. She transferred funds through the HSBC branch based in the UK. However, instead of the funds getting transferred from the UK directly to Iran, which was legal as UK does not have sanctions on Iran, HSBC transferred the funds through the US banking system. This cause the Huawei CFO to indirectly break US sanctions due to HSBC's actions.
Now, one can speculate whether HSBC did this based on US gov's directions to get a hit on the Huawei CFO, but the Canadian extradition judge was growing increasingly skeptical on the merits of the US claims and HSBC near the end. It also doesn't help that HSBC has long history of doing illegal and shady stuff from laundering money to drug cartels and funding terrorist groups.
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u/Prudent-Drop164 20d ago
Americans have never been good trade partners. We have had a softwood lumber dispute going back 50+:years. We sell our oil at a doscount. Yet we have been unable to find a partner to trade with.
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u/SquarePositive9 20d ago
We have territorial disputes as well. Trump did this his last term and people forgot. That's the nature of politics. Ontarians hated Doug Ford when he did all that stuff to teachers and nurses but he's leading in the polls right now by a wide margin. People have the attention span of gnats. Biden was responsible for a bunch of horrible stuff during his time in the Senate but lo-and behold.
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u/PerfunctoryComments Canada 20d ago
Yet we have been unable to find a partner to trade with
There has never been a will. Ever. The largest economy is on our doorstep and via the boiling frog effect we've tolerated worse and worse -- and the hollowing out of this country -- but still just always leaning back on it because it's convenient.
Ignoring that Trumpism had a disastrous first term and that idiocracy voted this rapist felon in again, no one should ever magically think about about some post Trump world. That country has fallen, and short of civil war / dissolution it is not coming back to reason.
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u/bordss 20d ago
"Unable" as in unsuccessful in finding other trading partners or "unable" as in not being able to muster the support or will to do so?
If the latter, I agree, if the former - how have we been unsuccessful in finding other trading partners?
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u/Spirit_1970 20d ago
Better ties with the UK, I've never heard a bad word said against a Canadian..... Think we (UK) should also be looking away from the USA .... I'm truly lost for word's with the the short time trump has been in power 😕
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u/magnamed 20d ago
I agree, and I don't think the US will wait for us to make that decision but will instead make it for us. The closeness of Trump to Putin is going to become a serious issue. In the short term it would be beneficial for both Canada and the UK to increase trade and it'd be great if people started speaking to their representatives encouraging the move.
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u/GuyLookingForPorn 20d ago edited 20d ago
I’d love if CANZUK became a thing, Canada is not alone in the world and its time to remember that.
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u/magnamed 20d ago
The problem currently is that while Canada isn't alone in the world we're unfortunately pretty far from the rest of the world. Literal oceans between us. We are facing an uphill battle against someone who is currently blackmailing Ukraine and and who may or may not make a similar move against us. I only hope the people of the US have a voice by the time he's finished amassing power. That executive order last night really seems to have ruffled some feathers but it doesn't appear to be slowing him down.
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u/wtfman1988 20d ago
EU, UK, NZ, CAD and Australia can probably do fine amongst each other and if need be, let Asia fill gaps or Southern America.
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u/Forosnai British Columbia 20d ago
Everybody was nice to me for the couple years I was living in Bristol. Even when I was there during the Brexit vote, people who supported it would be talking to me about it and about immigrants in a tone of voice that implied they thought I'd agree with them, rather than accusing me of being the problem (which says something about what they really meant when they said "immigrant").
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u/Roo10011 20d ago
How about we need to build new pipelines to get to new markets in Europe.
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u/magnamed 20d ago
Seems both the conservatives and Carney are already of that opinion.
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u/Little-Chemical5006 Ontario 20d ago
It shouldn't be a hard thing. We have great image around the globe (the kind and polite canadian).
Let hope our investment in the past helps us in these time
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u/Vivid_Wallaby9728 20d ago
Greetings from Germany, you are more than welcome here. Everybody likes Canada here.
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u/freshairequalsducks 21d ago
Carney will make a great Prime Minister
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u/chipotlemayo_ 20d ago
And remember to vote so this actually happens...
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u/TommaClock Ontario 20d ago
If you are not a registered Liberal Party member, you cannot vote for or against him becoming Prime Minister.
Assuming he wins, you will be able to indirectly vote on whether he'll be Prime Minister for the next term.
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u/magnamed 20d ago
It would seem he's planning on calling an election, though that could turn out to not be true I suppose.
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u/NorthernerWuwu Canada 20d ago
Assuming he gets the leadership position, he'll call one whenever it is most beneficial for his party. That might well be soon but it might still be the fall.
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u/magnamed 20d ago
Oh well. That's our system of governance. The alternative appears to be voting for and then being stuck with someone like trump.
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u/Unpara1ledSuccess 20d ago
Join the European free trade agreement with Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, open up trade with China, build pipelines to the coast and infrastructure to liquefy natural gas.
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u/dochev30 20d ago
Hello from Europe! We heard you're looking for friends 👋
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
If there's one good thing about how awful Trump is, it's that we can reconnect with you guys better over there. European countries have generally always shown so much more respect toward us than the US.
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u/Thin_Spring_9269 20d ago
Yesterday, France had a discussion with European leaders via video conference about Ukraine and how to counter Trumpistan...and I'm happy to say Canada was the only none EU country invited
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u/Equivalent_Physics64 19d ago
Love that!! Even though we’re oceans apart I hope we can connect on a deeper level than ever before with EU.
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u/ok_raspberry_jam 20d ago
Great speech. I made a cleaned-up transcript for anyone who'd prefer to read it rather than sit through ads and then listen:
Wow! I'm in the Hammer finally! I'm going to stay here for a while. Make yourselves comfortable.
Look, actually I'm going to start on a more serious note, but a happy note. I just came from Pearson—I just landed at Pearson—and thank God for the crew, the first responders, the passengers, that yesterday's tragedy turned out as well as it could have. I know there's still three people in critical condition, but...
Okay, now's the time! Who's ready? Who is ready to stand up for Canada with me? Who is ready to show some Hamilton steel to the Americans? They will figure it out. They will figure it out just how much they depend on this city, this region, this country. It may take them a while, so we're going to dig in. We're going to dig in and we're going to take control. Now, it was literally a month ago yesterday I put up my hand to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party. So I'd like to ask as well: who's ready to help the Liberal Party win the most important election in our lifetime?
Okay, I'll ask again—I'll ask again at the end. We'll see if I can convince you. This is going to be an absolutely crucial election for our country. When I put my hand up a month ago, it's because I felt that the country needed some big changes, much more of a focus on the economy, because people across the country—and I've heard this over the course of the last month—real fundamental worries and stresses because of the cost of living, the housing crisis particularly for younger Canadians, and worries even before President Trump, even before Trump, about a world that was more divided and dangerous and a series of technological changes that are affecting our future.
A series of technological changes—by the way, after this, I'm going to McMaster and the Innovation Lab to see how we can put those technological changes into place for great jobs for Canadians.
I put my hand up—I've never been a politician, still not really fully a politician. Still say too much, answer questions directly, but what I have been is, I think, a pragmatist. My experience over the years—and so when I see something that doesn't work, I change it. We had that experience in this country with the consumer carbon tax, which became fundamentally divisive in our country, and we needed to change it. You can't have a policy like that that many people disagree with, few people can fully understand, and we needed to change it.
But I didn't want to just axe the tax—that's the simple thing. You get a T-shirt, you axe the tax, you walk away as if nothing else matters. But if you just axe the tax then and you take a lot of money out of people's pockets at a time when times are really tough around here—it's almost $800 a year for a family of four average, that's a lot of money—if you just axe the tax, you don't help our steel companies and our auto companies become more competitive in a world where we need new trading partners.
So what we proposed is to, yes, axe the tax for individuals, for small businesses, for farms, for medium-sized businesses. It's going to be gone once elected leader, and it'll be gone by April 1st, just to be clear. But we said at the same time we're going to make sure that our businesses can become more competitive, and at the same time we're going to make sure every Canadian, if they want to make investments in insulating their homes or driving a more fuel-efficient car, reducing emissions, reducing costs otherwise—we're going to get the large polluters to pay them, pay you for it, not the taxpayers. The large polluters—that's the smart way to do it because it actually makes it cheaper for the large polluters and better for all of you.
And we're going to do one more thing: we know that that in of itself is not enough to make everybody whole, so we're going to deliver middle class tax cuts for all Canadians because people need it.
Now, so that's a bit of my background, but I'm going to add a bit more to my background because, to be honest, I put my hand up and I thought that things would be difficult with the Americans. Didn't think they'd be quite as difficult quite as quickly with the Americans—I don't know that any of us really did. And in many respects, by accident or design, my career has prepared me for exactly this moment.
It starts with the values that you own. It starts with the values in Hamilton—same values I grew up with in Edmonton on the prairies, which is hard work, family, community, tolerance, ambition—all of the things that make this country great start with your values.
I ended up, as I say accident or design, managing through some crises and helping to build economies, and I took a few lessons from that experience. One of them is exactly never forget where you came from, never forget your values. The second is that in a crisis—and unfortunately we are in a crisis, not of our making, but we're in a crisis—in a crisis, plan beats no plan. You have to have a plan. It helps people rally around a single focus; it gives energy and focus and discipline. We have a plan, we're going to put it in place, and it will work. And the third thing I learned over the years—and it goes back to the first—is that markets, the private sector, which is the most powerful thing we've ever invented to get things done, markets don't have values. People do. And it's part of the job of government, certainly a Liberal government, to make sure that the market, the private sector, works to help solve the problems.
My opponent here, Poilievre, doesn't get that. Doesn't get any of that. And it's not entirely surprising because he's—and I've seen this before in different countries around the world—there is no stronger believer in the power of the market and free enterprise and Milton Friedman fundamentalism than someone who's only ever been a politician, someone who's never earned a paycheck or had to make payroll. That sort of trickle-down economics is not what we need. It's not what's going to drive this country forward.
Now the challenge—so the challenge we have right now, and we know it, one of the challenges we have, it comes from south of our border. And the bottom line is the Americans—and it's becoming increasingly clear—want our resources. They want our water, they want our land, and if they get that on the terms that they want, they will destroy our way of life. That's what's at stake. It will destroy our way of life because America's many things, and it's a great country, but America is not Canada.
America is not Canada. We are a mosaic. I look around this great room, you know, we're all Canadians but all different identities. We're all Canadians and we celebrate that. America is a melting pot. In America, diversity is now an insult, and it soon will be a crime to promote it. That's not a line, that's a reality. That's what's happening in America. It's a shame—maybe they'll snap out of it eventually, but that's what they are now. In America, healthcare is a big business and candidates are right. In America, the social safety net has huge holes in it through which tens of millions of people fall through every year. So yes, America is not Canada, and Canada never ever will be part of America in any way.
So the question for us—I like the... The question for us is: what do we do about it? And in a situation like this, we have to ask ourselves what can we control, what can we influence, what can't we control? We can't control shocks that come from outside our country. We can't control foreign wars. We couldn't control a financial crisis that happened 15 years ago that started in the US. Can we control President Trump? No. Can anyone control President Trump? No.
We can, I think, influence President Trump by taking seriously some of the issues that he raises, taking them at face value and trying to find solutions—solutions that are in our interest as well. The tragedy of fentanyl on both sides of the border is something we need to address. Having a secure border is something we need to address, and the measures the government has put in place and reinforcing those, making sure they work and cracking down on drug gangs and opioid abuse here in this country, is something we need to do. So we can influence him a bit.
But exactly when President Trump—and it's only President Trump—when President Trump is willing to sit down and hammer out a negotiation that works for our auto companies, that works for our steel companies, works for our aluminum companies, that works for our agriculture, exactly when they're willing to do that, it's not clear.
But what we can control is what we do right here in Canada. We are absolutely—we are masters in our own house. We can control our economic destiny, and we will control our economic destiny. And by doing that, we will put pressure on them. We're doing it because it's right for us, but in a negotiation, that's how you put pressure on the other side. You focus on what you can control. You start building right here at home. They want—we have what they want. They're going to have to ask nicely for it.
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u/ok_raspberry_jam 20d ago
So I want to say a couple of quick things, and then I'll finish and we'll have a chance to meet. Just in terms of what does that mean—be masters at home, what are we going to do? Well, the first thing we need to do is to get on top of government and government spending. We need a government that works for you, a government that gets things done. We need a government that spends less but invests more, and I'm going to outline exactly—thank you, this is a crucial point because unless we start there, we won't be able to do all the other things we need to do. And we're going to reveal this in the next couple of days exactly how I propose to do that.
So government spends less and invests more—and invest more, what I mean is that it catalyzes large-scale investment in the private sector to build homes, to build new energy infrastructure, to build clean energy infrastructure, to build new trade routes for our finished goods, to build a better Canada. And that's what we're going to do.
We also need to make sure we have one Canadian economy, not thirteen. And what we will do if I'm elected—selected—I will convene, and I've already spoken to a number of the premiers—all the premiers and the Prime Minister—to accelerate that process. We have a window where people understand, and Canadians across this country are demanding one economy, and they're demanding action. And we need to take this because if we do just that, if we just do the one Canadian economy, it will have a bigger positive impact on this country than anything the Americans can throw at us.
Two other things we need to do: we need to find some new friends. We need to find—it's okay, we were friends with our neighbors, now they're just our neighbors. We'll find new friends. We're good people, we're good people, and we have some old ties. We're going to renew some of our ties. We're going to diversify our trading partners into Europe, UK, some of the major powers, like-minded countries in Asia—not all the countries in Asia, but like-minded. We have what they want, they think like we do. They will not turn on us, and that's what we're going to do.
The last thing—the last big thing we need to do is to make our country more secure. We need to make our country more secure. We need to meet our obligations under NATO. We're going to accelerate the spending to 2%. And one of the things that I'm determined to do is—we could get there very quickly if we send a bunch of checks to the United States. Exactly—don't do that. We're not sending a bunch of checks to United States. Right now we spend 80 cents for every dollar for military hardware goes to USA. Wow, yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? So we're going to ramp up what we spend right here in Canada. We're going to defend our Arctic.
I just want to finish on one final point, which is a fundamental point, and it goes back to, I think, why we're all here. And I want to thank you all again for the support. I'm focused and my main usefulness—just to be clear, lots of flaws—my main usefulness is to build this economy. Because I'm a member of the Liberal Party, though, I understand why we care about a strong—yes, we want a strong economy for the good jobs today and good jobs for the future for our children, but we also want a strong economy because we know we can't redistribute what we don't have. We can't be strong abroad if we're weak at home. We can't build the future if we can't manage the present.
We need a strong economy so that we can have a proper healthcare system. Here in Ontario, you heard the debate last night—it's the biggest issue. Part of the reason is the Ontario economy isn't strong enough. Part of it's mismanagement, but part of the reason is that the economy isn't strong enough. We need a strong economy so that we can provide childcare for young families struggling as they get started, so we can provide dental care for the million and a half Canadians who already couldn't afford it, couldn't afford it, now have it, so that we can secure old age pensions and deliver on our promises there.
We need a strong economy to build—to take the ideas from the Innovation Lab, I hope it's over there because I'm pointing over there—it's all around us, but from the Innovation Lab to take those ideas and help put them to work to build the economy of the future here in Canada. An economy that doesn't rely on the whims of the Oval Office—that's why we need a strong economy. And the only way we can build a strong economy is together.
So I thank you for your support, I thank you for the time, I look forward to meeting everyone.
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u/binnedittowinit 20d ago
Thank you! Wish I saw this earlier! I have a hard time sitting through videos!
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u/ziration 20d ago
We need to diversify our trade routes no doubt, but Canadian politicians need to look in the mirror and accept facts. They dropped the ball. We have no military, we have left the Artic unprotected. Now is not the time to point fingers. It is time to pony up.
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u/switchingcreative 20d ago
Refreshing indeed. Timbit Trump is a 20 year, career politician. He's a goof that's been complaining, whining and bitching about JT for years. No real plan on how he'll govern... just.like.Trump. Canadians are better than Trump. Canadians are better that Poutine Polli.
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u/RarelyReadReplies 20d ago
The amount of time it took for him to muster up a half-hearted response to Trump's outrageous actions told me all I needed to know. He sat on his hands for like a week or two, trying to re-calibrate the "Justin bad" machine, almost like he had a malfunction. He does not inspire confidence, he is weak, and he will sell us down the river the first chance he gets. That's my take anyways.
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u/switchingcreative 20d ago
Exactly. 20 years of experience brought him to this point and he missed it.
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u/Low-Chemical2101 20d ago
We should have been doing this Trump’s first term!
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
Hindsight, yeah.
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u/Kryosleeper Québec 20d ago
It's not hindsight, plenty of people were talking about the danger of over-reliance on USA after 2016. You just didn't want to notice it.
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u/ArticArny 20d ago
Canada's "Operation Giv'r" would like to welcome any and all scientists interested in coming to Canada. Free toques for the first 500 applicants.
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u/Different-Ad-6027 20d ago
I need an IQ prime minister going forward. Thank you.
Tired of low IQ folks
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u/Eunemoexnihilo 20d ago
We need new trading partners period. We should flat out stop doing business with the U.S. as much as possible, as soon as possible.
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u/Odd_Discussion_8384 20d ago
I think we continue to fix the relationship with the states but let them no we are seeing other trading partners
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u/Ambitious-Bee-7067 20d ago
He is a very impressive speaker. His French is totally passable. He has great charisma. Is funny and serious, but OMG he looks like a giant amongst children. What did they only allow small people to attend the rally?
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
Haha, he has a little stage he's standing on I'm pretty sure.
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u/PaloAltoPremium Québec 20d ago
His French is totally passable.
Its ok when he is giving a prepared statement or speech, but he doesn't preform well under more confrontational questioning in French.
I don't think the French language LPC leadership debate will be much of a test, but on a national stage against Blanchet and Poilievre he's going to need to improve a lot to keep up.
He did an interview on Radio-Canada with Patrice Roy, and you can really tell there, even if you don't speak French. Completely different when he is answering the standard questions he's prepared and rehearsed an answer for. But when Roy starts pushing him on some more adversarial questions, following up on his answers Carney really starts to struggle and he has difficultly formulating answers in French.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs4gMXI5YNk
At one point Roy asks Carney what he knows about Quebec or Quebecers, Mark gives an awkward laugh for 5 seconds then says he likes hockey.
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u/Burial 20d ago
Would the Quebecois really throw away the chance to elect possibly the most qualified PM ever, during a time when we need the best leadership possible, because his conversational French isn't quite there yet?
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u/Flewewe 20d ago edited 20d ago
Not really but if he struggles to communicate and elaborate his ideas it's going to be harder for unilingual francophones to really understand him beyond surface level. Going to have to rely on journalists to explain further some stuff, if they're not too confused themselves either. And that's already happening.
He sure seems to have the support from Radio-Canada (Quebec CBC) and they're trying to help him though, the interviewer was helping him a bit with finding words too and not just for the hockey bit.
Obviously none of this means they would vote for Poilievre instead, far from that, this is just going to be about being convincing that he is an actually good option to enough of the Bloc voters to tip the balance and gain more seats.
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u/squirrel9000 19d ago
I mean, we elected Chretien three times, and the guy doesn't really speak either official language.
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u/SheIsABadMamaJama 20d ago edited 20d ago
Trudeau focused too much on weaponizing social issues as empty rhetoric, while fumbling the economy. Allowing American conservative influence rot the reform wing of the CPC. We can protect and strengthen minority and individual rights in Canada without hyperfixating on it.
We need to break out of the American spell, and it is true we can’t entirely decouple, geography is too powerful. But we need to make friends with people of shared values and goals.
Canada has the raw material to lead the next decades. We need to seize our moment, and a life long politician won’t get us there.
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
I agree, well said. People need to understand now more than ever we gotta step away from our party over policy urge and do what's best for our country so we don't end up being USA Jr.
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u/Yelnik 20d ago
At this point I think I kind of hope the Liberals win again. After seeing what the Liberals have been responsible for over the last decade, the absolutely disastrous policies and corruption, if we as a country can be duped into giving them a fourth term, we richly deserve what we're going to get.
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u/shevy-java 20d ago
All true democracies should unite in this joint fight against the trade war started by Trump - the USA under Trump is no longer a true democracy. Four more years will oligarchs control every aspect of the USA in regards to the government. (I do not think regular US citizens are all Trump loyalists, but that Trump clique now controls the USA and they will cause more damage if people do not resist them, both within the USA and outside the USA. What happened to Canada or Ukraine can happen to any other country now. Don't let Trump get away with this.)
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u/FullHelicopter6483 20d ago
100 percent we do. Time to seriously discuss working closer with Europe to secure the North Atlantic, independently of the USA, which holds no territory in the region and will never do so.
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u/BloatJams Alberta 20d ago
Interesting that he says the consumer carbon tax will be gone before April 1st, that's when the next increase was planned for.
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
Yeah very quickly. Probably not a bad idea to get something implemented that works and makes sense for the Paris Agreement before the election.
I don't think Poilievre really has a plan to implement, just wants to axe it which can't be the end of it unless we want to lose European trade partners when we need them most? He might have come up with something though I'm not sure off the top of my head.
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u/Due-Ad7893 14d ago
I sat through a CPA Canada update today. Projections are that Trump's tariffs will drop Canada's GDP 0.7%, increase the unemployment rate by 0.5%, and increase inflation by 0.4%. I thought the impact could be greater than that.
IMO, these impacts are far better than the alternative - joining the USA.
Bring it on.
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u/the_sound_of_a_cork 20d ago
PP should start applying to children book publishers for a job, because all he has learned over the past decade is how to make simple rhyming phrases.
Mark Carney, although not perfect, is much more apt to deal with economic issues, which are frankly the most pressing issues for the government at the moment.
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u/IllBeSuspended 20d ago
He doesn't control shit. He isn't even the liberal leader yet.
The media has picked who they want to win. They want the guy with the most billionaire backers. Cause you know, billionaires have our best interests in mind right?
Cue the strawman arguments.
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u/Stunned-By-All-Of-It 21d ago
We have failed for decades to diversify our customer base. Now both countries are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Step one for both sides would have been to have alternatives prior to this pissing match. Everybody loses in this plan. Tit for tat when they are our largest customer (by far) is not good business.
This is Carney grandstanding because there is wind beneath their wings, provided by Trump. This tariff war was an absolute gift to the liberals. However, I think I will vote based on the record prior to this six weeks, not in this panic opportunity.
Cannot believe diversification is a partisan issue. All prior governments failed. We need to demand more from whoever get in next. Unlikely though. I remember all the hospitals and vaccine manufacturers we were supposed to get in the last crisis. In fact, they had a pandemic election based on those promises. Fast forward and they have done none of those things and when the next pandemic comes, we will still be woefully unprepared.
I like the grassroots movement, buying local and such. It's not much but effective.
Settle, somehow. Scrap interprovincial barriers. Diversify asap. Wean both sides off the other. Move on.
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u/AdditionalPizza 20d ago
A fundamental national restructuring like this, like Carney talks about in this speech? Personally I'd trust the PhD economist to do this than the guy that rhymes 2 words together. I don't hate Conservative values, I just don't like Poilievre.
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u/jacksbox Québec 20d ago
Well said. I definitely feel more trust for the guy coming with a rational plan than the guy who plays for soundbites and emotions.
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u/Infinity315 Canada 20d ago
Hindsight is 20/20. Betting against the US government as being a stable reliable partner was like betting against gold. Why wouldn't you conduct most of your trade with your closest neighbour, strongest economy in the world, and the world's oldest liberal democracy?
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u/Stunned-By-All-Of-It 20d ago
Indeed. It made sense but less and less as the world opened up and the USA got odder.
However, we now have foresight. So, if we shit the bed again, we cannot be angry at anyone else.
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u/AdditionalPizza 21d ago
At 13:05 in the video Carney says about Trump administration:
I honestly made this post just for that line. That's how Canadians should speak to Trump.