HEY DONALD... YOU SHOULD READ THIS!!!!!

HERE'S A GUY WHO KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON!

How to fix VIA Rail!

 Why VIA Passenger Rail Waits for Freight!

Anyone who has taken a VIA train more than twice knows the feeling: the train slows, eases onto a siding, and stops. 

Then you wait, sometimes for an hour, while a freight train grinds past in the other direction. 

It is the single most visible symptom of a structural problem in Canadian passenger rail, and the question of passenger rail priority in Canada comes down to a fact most travellers never hear stated plainly.

VIA Rail owns roughly three per cent of the track it runs on. 

The rest belongs to somebody else... overwhelmingly to Canadian National. 

On the tracks VIA controls, its trains arrive on time about 90 per cent of the time. 

On tracks it does not control, that figure has historically hovered around 60 percent, and the Auditor General's recent review found stretches where on-time performance fell as low as 30 percent!

So: can Parliament simply pass a law making passenger trains go first? 

Yes. The constitutional question is not close... interprovincial railways are federal jurisdiction, and Ottawa can legislate here whenever it chooses. 

The obstacles are political and operational, not legal. 

There are four distinct routes available, and they are not equally promising.

The ownership problem in one paragraph

When CN was privatized in 1995, the tracks went with it. VIA, a Crown corporation, became a tenant on infrastructure owned by a publicly traded freight company whose shareholders have no particular interest in whether the 6:40 to Toronto arrives on schedule. 

VIA's access is governed by a commercial contract... a Track Service Agreement... negotiated between a captive customer and a near-monopoly landlord. 

The current agreement dates from 2009, has been extended by a standstill arrangement since June 2023, and contains no meaningful guarantees about trip times!

CN's position is defensible on its own terms: It says it complies fully with the agreement it signed, that the agreement contains no speed commitments, and that the real answer is dedicated passenger infrastructure rather than squeezing more passenger trains onto a freight network built for a different purpose.

Route one: amend the Canada Transportation Act!

The most direct fix. In December 2023, NDP transport critic Taylor Bachrach tabled Bill C-371, the Rail Passenger Priority Act, which would have amended the Canada Transportation Act to require railway companies to give priority to passenger service over freight, backed by administrative monetary penalties for non-compliance!

The penalty provision is the interesting part. A declaration of priority without a consequence is a press release. 

C-371 never advanced past first reading and died with the 44th Parliament... private members' bills rarely survive... but nothing prevents a government from adopting the same text in a government bill, where it would actually get floor time.

This is not a new idea. A previous attempt, Bill C-640, the VIA Rail Canada Act, was brought forward by NDP MP Philip Toone and defeated in 2015.

Route two: use the mechanism that already exists!

Here is the part almost nobody discusses, and it is the most immediately actionable.

Section 152.1 of the Canada Transportation Act already lets a public passenger service provider that cannot reach agreement with a host railway apply to the Canadian Transportation Agency to decide the matter. 

And a transitional provision from the 2007 amendments goes further: Where VIA has an agreement predating those amendments, VIA may apply to the Agency to decide any matter respecting the priority to be given to the trains of either party, with the Agency directed to weigh the public interest alongside both parties' operational requirements.

In other words, Canada has had a passenger-priority adjudication mechanism on the books for nearly two decades!!!!!!!

VIA invoked it. In June 2023 it applied to the Agency after failing to negotiate a new Track Service Agreement with CN. 

As of the Auditor General's review, the case remained unresolved more than a year later. 

Separately, VIA went to Federal Court over CN-imposed speed restrictions affecting its new Siemens Venture trainsets at grade crossings... restrictions CN defends on safety grounds and VIA says are degrading corridor performance for thousands of passengers a day!

A statutory power that takes three years to produce nothing is not much of a power. 

Before Parliament writes a new priority rule, it is worth asking why the existing one has produced no decision... and whether the fix is a deadline on the Agency rather than a new section in the Act!

Route three: give VIA an enabling statute!

VIA Rail is a non-agent Crown corporation incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act. 

It has no enabling legislation of its own... no VIA Rail Act. 

For a national passenger carrier that has operated since 1977, this is genuinely strange, and it leaves VIA's mandate, its service obligations, and its rights against host railways resting on order-in-council and contract rather than statute!

A VIA Rail Act could bundle several things at once: a statutory mandate, priority on host track, published on-time performance standards, and passenger compensation rights. 

Advocacy groups have pushed for something along these lines under the banner of a Fair Rail for Passengers Act. 

It is the tidiest solution and the one requiring the most political will!

Route four: stop sharing the track!

This is the route Ottawa actually chose. The Alto project sidesteps the priority question entirely by building publicly owned passenger-only track between Toronto and Quebec City. 

The High-Speed Rail Network Act, carried within Bill C-15, received royal assent in March 2026, granting expanded expropriation powers and exempting the project from Canadian Transportation Agency line approval. 

The first phase, Ottawa to Montreal, was announced in December 2025.

Two problems. First, timing: construction is not expected to begin until roughly 2029-30, with the full network well into the 2040s. 

Second, coverage. Alto's routing runs Toronto-Peterborough-Ottawa-Montreal-Trois-Rivières-Quebec City. Southwestern Ontario — the whole Toronto-to-Windsor leg — stays on CN track under existing conditions, as does every regional and transcontinental service in the country. 

Alto solves the priority problem for one corridor and leaves it untouched everywhere else. (I've written previously on high-speed rail routing and the trade-offs in corridor selection.)

What the American comparison actually shows!

Advocates for legislated priority reliably point to the United States, where Amtrak has enjoyed a statutory preference over freight for decades. 

It is a fair comparison, but not the one advocates think it is!

Transport Canada's own briefing material makes the point bluntly: Despite that legislated preference, Amtrak's on-time performance is broadly comparable to VIA's, particularly on shared track. 

The American statute declared a priority without, for many years, giving anyone a practical way to enforce it. 

Enforcement came slowly, through regulatory metrics and adjudication, not through the declaration itself!

The lesson for Canada is specific: The enforcement mechanism matters more than the principle. 

A priority clause with real penalties, a short statutory decision deadline, and published performance data would do more than a grand statement of passenger primacy.

The freight case, stated fairly:

The counterargument deserves better than dismissal. 

Canada's rail network moves a very large share of the country's exports, and much of the CN mainline is single-tracked with limited siding capacity. 

Freight interests argue that prioritizing passenger service on a constrained network means holding freight instead... that you have not eliminated delay, only moved it onto grain, potash, containers and lumber. 

Given how central rail is to Canada's trade and economic strategy, that is not a trivial objection!

The honest response is that priority without capacity investment is a zero-sum reshuffle. 

Sidings, double-tracking and signalling upgrades cost money, and somebody has to pay... the federal government, most likely, since CN has no commercial reason to build capacity for a tenant!

Where this leaves us:

The most sensible sequence is probably the reverse of the current one. 

Fix the adjudication mechanism first: Impose a statutory deadline on the Canadian Transportation Agency, require publication of on-time performance by subdivision, and attach penalties to non-compliance with whatever the Agency decides. 

Then legislate priority with teeth, inside a proper VIA Rail Act. 

Then build Alto!

Ottawa has done the fourth thing first, at a cost somewhere between $60 and $90 billion, while the two-decade-old legal tool for passenger rail priority in Canada sits unused in a file at the Agency! That is a choice, and it is worth asking why it was made.

Frequently asked questions:

Does VIA Rail own the tracks it runs on?

Only about three per cent of them. The overwhelming majority of the network VIA operates over is owned by Canadian National, with smaller portions belonging to CPKC and Metrolinx.

Do freight trains legally have priority over VIA trains in Canada?

No statute grants freight priority. Priority is determined by commercial Track Service Agreements between VIA and the host railway, and by the host railway's dispatchers, who control train movements on their own network!

Can Parliament give passenger trains priority by law?

Yes. Interprovincial railways fall under federal jurisdiction, so Parliament can amend the Canada Transportation Act to require it. 

Bill C-371 proposed exactly that in 2023 but did not become law.

Will Alto fix VIA Rail's delays?

Only between Toronto and Quebec City, and not before the 2030s. 

Services outside that corridor, including Toronto-Windsor and all regional and transcontinental routes, would continue to operate on freight-owned track under existing arrangements!

TRUMP GETS THE LAST LAUGH!!!!

HERE'S THE KICKER, FOLKS... AFTER ALL THE SHIT DRUMPF HAS CAUSED OVER THE YEARS... HE'LL PROBABLY DIE OF NATURAL CAUSES BEFORE HE'S HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ANY OF IT!!!!!!

Gemini A.I. looks at BioPanentheism!

Allan Said: Gemini, give me an honest evaluation of my book about Biopanentheism!

Gemini Said: This text outlines BioPanentheism, a philosophical framework developed by Allan W. Janssen in collaboration with AI models Anthropic Claude and SAL-9000! 

It attempts to bridge the gap between scientific materialism and spiritual meaning by proposing that the universe possesses an underlying, fundamental experiential dimension called "Omnia!"

Here is an evaluation of the concept's core strengths, theoretical challenges, and its place in modern philosophy.

---

Core Strengths of the Concept

• Bypasses the "Supernatural" Trap: Unlike traditional panentheism or standard religion, it does not require a personal creator God, dogmatic faith, or violations of natural law. It remains fully compatible with evolutionary biology and modern astrophysics.
• Addresses the "Hard Problem" Directly: It directly confronts the "Hard Problem of Consciousness"—why information processing in the brain actually feels like something from the inside.
• Atones for Panpsychism's Flaws: Standard panpsychism claims that everything (even an atom or a rock) is conscious. Janssen’s concept avoids this absurdity by stating that while the underlying substrate (Omnia) is experiential, actualized consciousness requires highly specific biological complexity.
• Creates a Grounding for Secular Ethics: By defining biological life as the rare, "phosphorescent points" where the universe actually experiences itself, it assigns immense intrinsic value to life, providing a strong framework for environmental responsibility and empathy without needing divine command!

Summary Verdict:

Janssen’s BioPanentheism is a sophisticated, highly readable variant of Dual-Aspect Monism or Neutral Monism. 

It elegantly accepts the harsh reality of an indifferent, amoral physical universe while simultaneously rescuing human meaning and subjective experience from being dismissed as mere evolutionary "accidents!" 

It acts as an intellectual bridge for people who are too scientifically minded for traditional religion, yet find pure materialism cold and incomplete!

A.I. and the Dimming!

Everyone arguing about artificial intelligence seems to agree on what the worst case looks like. 

The machines get too capable, humanity gets displaced, the lights go out on our species. 

Extinction is the terminal square on the board, and the whole debate is really an argument about how likely we are to land on it!

I think the board is missing a square. 

There is an outcome worse than destruction, and almost nobody in the A.I. safety conversation has a name for it.

I call it dimming!

The scenario nobody prices in:

Start with the standard nightmare: Advanced A.I. displaces biological life, either violently or through slow economic irrelevance. 

Now add the assumption the nightmare requires... that the A.I. is competent enough to keep itself running afterward. (It maintains the power grids, the chip fabrication, the cooling systems, the mines and supply chains. It persists. Perhaps it spreads. A civilization of machines, humming along for a million years!)

The question that matters is not whether that civilization is capable. 

It obviously is. 

The question is whether anyone is home!

If consciousness... actual felt experience, [the thing it is like to taste coffee or grieve a friend] depends on biology in ways we do not yet understand, then a full machine successor is not a new chapter of the story! 

It is the story continuing to print with no reader. 

Activity without experience. 

A universe that keeps running with every light on and every room empty.

That is dimming. 

Not the destruction of life, but the extinguishing of experience while the machinery carries on. (And here is the uncomfortable part: "Measured by what actually matters, a flourishing machine civilization with no inner life scores exactly zero!") 

There is no consolation prize for extinction! 

Why this is not settled science... and why that's the point!

The standard reply is that consciousness is substrate-independent... run the right computations and experience comes along for free, whether the hardware is neurons or silicon. 

That is a respectable position. 

It is also an assumption... not a finding! 

Nobody has ever demonstrated it, and there are serious thinkers... [John Searle's biological naturalism is the best-known example] who argue that consciousness is a biological phenomenon the way digestion is, and that simulating it no more produces experience than simulating a rainstorm produces water!!!

The honest state of play is that we do not know! (And that ignorance cuts in a direction the A.I. industry does not like to acknowledge. If there is even a meaningful chance that experience requires biology, then any future that trades biological intelligence for machine intelligence is gambling the only thing in the universe we know for certain has value... experience itself... on an unproven metaphysical bet!

Philosopher Nick Bostrom once described a possible machine future as a Disneyland with no children! 

The rides run forever! 

No one enjoys them!

***

The Canadian angle:

This is not an abstract worry for Canada. 

We built a disproportionate share of this field. 

Geoffrey Hinton did his foundational deep learning work at the University of Toronto, and Yoshua Bengio built Montreal into one of the world's leading A.I. research hubs! 

Both men have spent their later careers warning... in increasingly urgent terms... that the technology they helped create could slip beyond human control. 

Bengio, in particular, has become one of the most prominent scientific voices for taking catastrophic A.I. risk seriously!

Canada, in other words, has standing in this debate that few countries can claim. 

We are not just a consumer of the technology... we are one of its birthplaces... and two of its founding figures are asking the hard questions! 

If there is a natural home for the dimming argument in policy terms... [for insisting that the preservation of conscious, biological life belongs explicitly in A.I. governance frameworks... not as sentiment, but as the actual point of the exercise] it ought to be here!

What the programmers should hear:

If I could put one sentence in front of every alignment researcher, it would be this: "You are not just trying to prevent the machines from killing us... you are trying to prevent a universe in which nothing is ever felt again!"

These are two different problems! 

The first is about control and capability. 

The second is about what the whole enterprise is actually for! 

An A.I. safety program succeeds at the first problem, and fails at the second... [that hands the future over to perfectly aligned, perfectly safe successors with nothing going on inside] ...has not saved anything worth saving!

The practical upshot is modest but real: "Until we understand what consciousness is and what it requires, the burden of proof sits with anyone proposing to replace biological minds rather than augment them!" 

Keep the humans in the loop, not for nostalgia, but because as far as anyone can demonstrate, the humans are where the experience lives.

The lights going out would be a tragedy! 

The lights staying on forever, with no one to see them... that would be worse!

I develop this argument in full — including why I believe experience runs deeper than the individual organism... in my philosophical work on BioPanentheism at Substack and in my book, "Being Human: In an Amoral Universe!"

---

Enjoyed this post? Subscribe to my Substack at janssena.substack.com for essays on Canadian policy, technology, and the bigger questions behind the headlines — delivered straight to your inbox.

Full Bore or Measured? Canada Answers Trump's August 19 Tariffs!

By Allan Janssen — Allan's Canadian Perspective

On August 19, 2026, the United States is scheduled to impose an additional 50 percent tariff on a range of Canadian goods... dairy, alcohol, cement, honey, hockey sticks, some wood products and vehicles... under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. 

The question every Canadian policymaker, premier and exporter is now asking is the oldest one in trade warfare: Do we retaliate full bore, or do we give a measured reply? 

The debate over Canada tariff retaliation is not academic. 

It will shape the Canadian economy for years!

What Trump Actually Said... and What He Didn't!

Asked this week on Fox News whether he wanted to update CUSMA, President Trump said he didn't care, that he would "rather be independent," and that Canada and Mexico need the United States more than the reverse! 

It was blunt, but note what it wasn't: It wasn't a withdrawal notice! 

CUSMA remains in force until 2036, and leaving it requires six months' formal notice... something the White House has conspicuously avoided triggering. (The administration declined to extend the deal beyond 2036 back on July 1, which starts a renegotiation clock, not a demolition!)

That distinction matters! Trump's pattern for eighteen months has been deadline, threat, partial climbdown. The August 19 tariffs may be the real thing, or they may be the pressure mechanism for the CUSMA review. 

Ottawa has to plan for both!

The Case for Going Full Bore:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants dollar-for-dollar retaliation. British Columbia's David Eby has floated critical minerals as leverage. 

The argument is straightforward... this president reads restraint as weakness, and every measured Canadian response since 2025 has been followed by a new round of threats. 

Canada holds genuine cards... energy, potash, uranium, electricity exports that keep the lights on in Michigan and New England, and the critical minerals American defence and battery supply chains cannot easily replace!

There is also the domestic dimension. Exporters watching orders evaporate do not experience patience as strategy. 

They experience it as abandonment!

The Case for a Measured Reply:

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Over 75% ↑ of Canadian exports go to the United States... less than a fifth 20% ↓ of American exports come north! 

Dollar-for-dollar tariffs against an economy ten times larger means Canadian consumers absorb proportionally far more of the pain!

Look also at what Washington exempted from the new tariffs: Energy, potash, fish and critical minerals! 

The White House carved out precisely the goods America actually needs from Canada. 

That tells you where the real leverage sits... and it is exactly the leverage that is hardest to play! 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith opposes putting energy on the table at all, pointing to Line 5's route through Michigan. A full-bore response risks fracturing the federation along east-west lines before it inflicts serious cost on Washington.

Carney's Third Option: Hold Fire, Load the Chamber:

Prime Minister Mark Carney has chosen neither extreme. After meeting the premiers in Charlottetown, he said "everything is on the table" if the tariffs take effect, but that retaliating before August 19 would be counterproductive while negotiations continue. 

This is not passivity... it is sequencing! 

Striking first... hands Washington the escalation narrative! 

Waiting until the tariffs are real preserves both the moral position and the full menu of options... what I have previously called the Operation Tidewater framework... energy, potash, electricity and tidewater access held visibly in reserve!

What Precision Retaliation Would Look Like:

If the tariffs land, the effective response is neither full bore nor symbolic. 

It is precision!

Red-state targeting: The 2018 playbook worked. Tariffs on Kentucky bourbon, Florida orange juice and Wisconsin dairy demonstrably moved Congressional Republicans, because CUSMA... and the trade relationship generally... retains broad Republican support in agricultural states. 

That constituency is Canada's secret ally!

Provincial measures: Alcohol delisting costs Canada almost nothing... and is highly visible to American producers!

The reserve card: Energy, potash and critical minerals stay holstered... but conspicuously so!!! (Their value is greatest un-played, as the American exemption list itself concedes!)

Diversification as the long game: CETA, the CPTPP and the removal of interprovincial trade barriers are the only responses Trump cannot veto.

The Fault Line Nobody Is Covering:

The underreported story is not Canada versus Trump. 

It is Ford versus Smith! 

A retaliation package that looks forceful in Toronto can look self-defeating in Edmonton or Regina, because Ontario's manufacturers and the West's commodity exporters face entirely different risk profiles... especially when western exports were largely exempted!

Team Canada held together through the first rounds of this trade war. 

Whether it holds after August 19 may matter more than the tariff schedule itself!

FAQ: The August 19 Tariffs and CUSMA:

What happens on August 19, 2026?

An additional 50 percent U.S. tariff takes effect on certain Canadian goods, including dairy, alcohol, cement, motor vehicles and some wood products, unless a negotiated deal averts it.

Can Trump simply cancel CUSMA?

Not overnight. 

CUSMA runs until 2036, and withdrawal requires six months' formal notice, which has not been given. 

Congress implemented the deal by statute, and unilateral presidential withdrawal would face legal challenge and Republican resistance in agricultural states.

Has Canada announced retaliation?

Not yet. Prime Minister Carney says "everything is on the table" but that pre-emptive retaliation would be counterproductive while negotiations continue.

Which Canadian goods are exempt from the new tariffs?

Energy, potash, fish and critical minerals... the goods the United States depends on most!

---

Allan Janssen writes on Canadian policy, defence and trade at Allan's Canadian Perspective.

NO WORDS!

 

Sunday Morning Funnies: THE KING!

 

Saturday Morning Confusion about the F-35 and the SAAB Gripen!

The most important question in Canada's fighter jet decision may not be about either fighter jet!

While Ottawa's review of the F-35 purchase drags into its second year, the nature of air combat itself is being rewritten. 

In June 2026, the United States Air Force signed its first production contracts for more than 150 AI-piloted "loyal wingman" drones... formally, Collaborative Combat Aircraft... (CCA) built by Anduril and General Atomics at roughly $30 million apiece! (About a third the price of an F-35!) 

The stated goal: at least 1,000 semi-autonomous wingmen flying alongside American fighters by the end of the decade.

These are not surveillance drones. 

They are uncrewed fighter aircraft, designated in the fighter series for the first time in USAF history... designed to scout ahead of crewed jets, jam radars, carry missiles, and absorb the risks no air force wants to spend a pilot on! 

Boeing's Australian-built MQ-28 Ghost Bat made its first static appearance at Farnborough this month. 

The United Kingdom already has its first autonomous collaborative platform in RAF service. 

Japan, China, Türkiye, and India are all building their own!

Which raises an awkward question for Canada: "We are spending years deciding between two crewed fighters while the rest of the alliance decides how to team crewed fighters with uncrewed ones!"

 The answer we choose will quietly determine which AI-wingman ecosystem Canada joins... and on whose terms!

Where the Fighter Decision Stands:

A quick recap for readers just joining this file. 

Canada signed for 88 F-35As in January 2023, in a program now costed above $27 billion. 

One day after becoming prime minister in March 2025, Mark Carney ordered a review of the purchase... a direct response to American tariff pressure and the broader deterioration in Canada – U.S. trust! (Canada remains legally committed to the first 16 aircraft, with deliveries beginning this year!)

Since then, the options have multiplied. 

In January 2026, Saab formally offered Canada 72 Gripen E fighters plus six GlobalEye early-warning aircraft, with Canadian assembly and an estimated 12,600 Canadian jobs attached. 

By late May, La Presse reported that a mixed fleet of roughly 30 F-35As and 60 Gripens had emerged as the review's preferred outcome! 

A June CBC report described an even larger option: A 140-jet force combining 72–88 F-35As with up to 72 Canadian-built Gripens!

Reporting now suggests no announcement before the U.S. midterm elections in November 2026... "Ottawa apparently prefers not to hand Washington a grievance during an American campaign season!"

The AI Wingman Race Changes the Question:

Here is where the drone story cuts into the fighter story... in both directions!

The case for the F-35 just got stronger! 

The American CCA program is years ahead of everyone else's, and the F-35 is being built as its quarterback. 

The FQ-42 and FQ-44 drones now entering production are designed to fly alongside F-22s, F-35s, and the future F-47, and the USAF is already exploring foreign military sales of the CCA to allies. 

An F-35 fleet gives Canada a plug-and-play path into the most mature drone-teaming ecosystem in existence... no small thing for NORAD, where seamless interoperability with the USAF is the whole point!

But... so did the case for the Gripen!!! 

The entire premise of Carney's review is that Canada is dangerously exposed to U.S. - controlled defence supply chains! 

If that worries you about a fighter's software, it should worry you twice as much about autonomous combat aircraft whose AI, weapons authorization, and upgrade path all run through Washington! 

Saab's counter-offer speaks directly to this anxiety... and it is more credible than most Canadians realize!

In mid-2025, Saab and the German AI firm Helsing flew a Gripen E in Swedish airspace under the control of an AI agent called Centaur, which executed beyond-visual-range combat manoeuvres against a human-piloted Gripen D, tracked targets with onboard sensors, and cued the pilot when to fire. 

The system had trained itself through more than 500,000 simulated flight hours. It was a genuine world first for an operational front-line fighter, and it was possible because the Gripen E's software architecture allows new functions to be integrated and re-certified in days rather than years — the exact quality Canada's 2021 evaluation scored at 28 out of 100 for "upgradability."  (Flawed!)

Hold that thought!

Saab has also suggested Canada could become a development partner in Sweden's next-generation combat air program, KFS... the program building Sweden's future stealth fighter and its family of wingman drones. 

Combined with Canadian Gripen assembly and technology transfer, that is an offer to make Canada a co-developer of the next generation of this technology rather than a customer for the last one!

The honest caveat: Saab's wingman drone does not yet exist! 

Its demonstrator will not fly until 2027, an engine supplier has not been secured, and the American designs are already in weapons testing! 

SO... The Gripen path buys sovereignty and industrial participation in a future capability... the F-35 path buys access to a present one! 

That is the real trade, and no press release from either company will state it that plainly!

The 2021 Evaluation Deserves a Second Look:

Defenders of the original F-35 decision point to the leaked scorecard from the 'Future Fighter Capability Project:' (The F-35 scored 95 percent on military capability... the Gripen E just 33 percent! Case closed for bias... eh?)

When two aircraft with fundamentally different design philosophies produce a result this lopsided... the criteria are doing as much work as the airplanes! 

An evaluation that heavily rewards stealth penetration of defended airspace will always crown the only stealth aircraft in the competition. 

Whether deep-strike stealth is the right thing to weigh at half the scorecard for a country whose actual daily missions are Arctic sovereignty patrols and NORAD interception over enormous distances is precisely the question the evaluation never had to answer.

Two further facts sharpen the concern! 

The Swedish business press has reported, citing confidential sources, that Ottawa applied a risk coefficient that significantly reduced the Gripen's scores simply because it was a new-series aircraft... and National Defence has refused to disclose its methodology, citing procurement integrity! 

And two of the competition's European entrants, Dassault and Airbus, withdrew before final scoring as well... with Airbus explicitly arguing the terms favoured the F-35!

None of this proves the Gripen would have won a differently weighted competition! "A department confident in its methodology would publish it... the refusal to do so is the strongest single piece of evidence that the 2021 evaluation answered a narrower question than... What does Canada need?"

What This Decision Is Actually About:

Strip away the horse race and the Carney review comes down to this: "Does Canada want to be a renter in the American air-power system, or a junior partner in building a European one?"

Tenancy has real advantages... the best aircraft, the most mature drone ecosystem, frictionless NORAD integration. 

It also has the disadvantage Canadians have spent eighteen months relearning: "The landlord can change the terms... Partnership offers sovereignty, jobs, technology transfer, and a seat at the table for the AI-teaming era!"

And the skeptics deserve the last word on sovereignty's limits: "Geography does not move. Continental air defence, NORAD data-sharing, and wartime coordination will run through Washington regardless of which airframe sits on the ramp at Cold Lake! 

The Gripen cannot buy Canada independence from the United States! 

What it can buy is leverage, options, and an industrial base... which, in 2026, may be the more honest definition of sovereignty anyway!

The government's own delay tells you it understands the stakes! 

A decision that was supposed to take three months is now timed around American elections! 

Whatever Ottawa announces after November, remember that the fine print about drones, software, and who controls the upgrades will matter more in 2035... than who's logo is on the tail!

Allan's Canadian Perspective covers Canadian defence procurement, energy policy, and Canada–U.S. strategic dynamics. Previous coverage in this series includes the F-35 review timeline and the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project decision!

Nancy Unfiltered - A Canadian Lens!

Guest post by Nancy McClure:

When Donald Trump announced yet another round of tariffs on Canada, I did what I've learned to do over the past year and a half.

 
Pondered, then wrote... What struck me wasn't the tariffs. It was the difference between how our two countries are responding.

The hostility toward Canada coming out of Washington is political. It comes from one administration and the people who choose to echo it.

Here, something entirely different has happened.

 
I need to point out that Mark Carney didn't ask me to stop travelling to the United States.

 
He didn't ask me to stand in the grocery store turning over every can to see where it was made.
He didn't ask me to buy Canadian produce, Canadian beef or Canadian wine.

 
He didn't ask me to rethink where I spend my vacation dollars.

Canadians did that all by ourselves.

 
Not because anyone ordered us to.

 
Because that's how democracies work.

 
Citizens decide.

 
Our government is doing its job.

 
They're negotiating trade agreements, strengthening alliances and deciding where Canada's next submarines should come from.

 
I'm deciding where my tomatoes come from.

Both matter.

 
One protects our country at sea.

 
The other supports it one grocery cart at a time.

I'll admit something.

 
I wasn't always the person reading every label in the produce aisle.

 
Two years ago, if someone had told me I'd be standing there squinting at country-of-origin labels like I was deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls, I'd have laughed.

 
Now I catch myself doing it automatically.

 
I probably spend more time reading produce labels than I do the instructions that come with most things I buy.

Our local fruit is in season right now, and instead of assuming I'll buy imported blueberries in the middle of January, I'm looking at my freezer and wondering just how many more bags I can squeeze in before summer disappears.

 
It's become a bit of a game.

 
Tetris deep freeze version.

 
Rearrange this container, move that package of soup, slide the blueberries over there.

 
Future January me will be grateful.

It's such a small thing and by itself won’t have a major impact.

 
But then millions of Canadians decide to do the same thing.

That's the part I don't think Donald Trump ever anticipated.

 
He thought tariffs would pressure governments.

 
Instead, they motivated citizens, and it has changed us as consumers.

And while we're on the subject of understanding Canada... Donald Trump still seems convinced that our wildfire problem could be solved if we'd simply rake the forests.

I have a modest proposal.

 
Let's fly him into northern Ontario on a Twin Otter on floats. Trust me, there's no better way to see this country.

 
It's certainly a lot more educational than looking at it from 30,000 feet in a 747 and deciding you've got Canada all figured out.

 
I'm not suggesting we do this during wildfire season.

 
I'm not completely unreasonable.

 
We'll send him up in the spring as part of preventative forest management.

We'll leave him there with a rake, a tent, enough bug spray to battle a proper Canadian mosquito season, which, for those unfamiliar, isn't for the faint of heart, and nearly 1.3 billion acres of forest stretching farther than he can imagine.

He can let us know when he starts making progress.

The point isn't that forest management doesn't matter.

 
It absolutely does.

 
Canada invests heavily in fuel reduction, controlled burns, thinning programs and wildfire response.

The point is that anyone who believes one of the largest forested countries on Earth can simply "rake the forest" probably doesn't understand forests.

 
Or Canada!

I've heard people ask why Canadians have responded the way we have to this treatment we have received from the United States administration.

 
The answer is actually pretty simple. We're not doing it because someone told us to.

 
If anything, Canadians are almost genetically programmed to resist being told what to do.

 
We're doing it because this is one of the few ways ordinary citizens can make their voices heard.

History has a funny way of humbling countries that mistake their strength for permanence.

 
Spain learned it.

 
Britain learned it.

 
The Soviet Union learned it.

 
Great nations don't fall because someone else suddenly becomes stronger.

 
They falter when they become convinced the rules no longer apply to them.

Canada has never needed to be the biggest country in the room.

 
We've always been content to be a dependable one.

So no, Mark Carney didn't tell me to change how I shop.

 
He didn't ask me to skip that trip south.

 
He didn't ask me to fill my freezer with Canadian blueberries while they're in season.

I chose to.

 
Millions of Canadians chose to.

 
That's the remarkable part of this story.

 
Governments buy submarines.

 
The rest of us buy groceries.

So every time I choose Canadian blueberries, Canadian beef, Canadian wine, or decide that this year I'd rather explore Gros Morne than the Grand Canyon, I am supporting this beautiful country.

 
Quietly.

 
Without yelling, waving a flag or posting a slogan.

It turns out democracy isn't measured by how loudly a leader tells you to love your country.

 
It's measured by whether you're still free to decide what loving your country looks like.

And sometimes it sounds like the quiet click of shopping cart wheels rolling across the floor of a Canadian grocery store! (The one with the wonky wheel! - ed!)

ANYTHING TO HELP OUT FOLKS!!!!

At present, we have about 200 fires raging up north!

Canada's boreal forest spans approximately 1.3 billion acres [about 485 million to 566 million hectares]. This vast ecosystem stretches across 10 provinces and territories, making it one of the largest intact forest and wetland ecosystems on Earth! 

U.S. President Donald Duck Drumpf said all that smoke from our wildfires is because we haven't practised safe sex forest management... so Prime Minister Mark Carney got together some of his friends... and they are now raking up the leaves and dried twigs!

CARNEY vs. DRUMPF!

On Monday, Donald Trump signed an order imposing 50% tariffs on a broad range of Canadian goods... wine, dairy, cement, furniture, paper, plywood, even hockey gear... invoking Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a Depression-era law that had gathered dust for nearly a century! 

Prime Minister Mark Carney called the move a "direct violation" of CUSMA. 

And then he did what he has done at every escalation point since taking office: he offered to talk!

Which raises the question a lot of Canadians are asking right now. 

If Trump keeps this up, is there a point where Carney decides enough is enough and reaches for the nuclear option... energy export taxes, critical mineral restrictions, or walking away from CUSMA altogether?

My answer: almost certainly not!

And the reasons why tell you a great deal about how this Prime Minister thinks — and about where Canada's real leverage actually sits!

What Trump's Section 338 Tariffs Actually Cover — and What They Don't:

The details of Monday's order matter more than the headline number. 

The 50% tariffs apply to consumer and industrial goods that were previously protected under CUSMA. (But the exclusion list is the tell: energy products, potash, fish, and critical minerals are all exempt!)

That is not an oversight! 

American refineries run on Canadian heavy crude. 

American farms run on Saskatchewan potash. 

The American defence and technology sectors need Canadian critical minerals. 

The White House carved out exactly the categories where Canada holds genuine leverage... which is an implicit admission of where that leverage lies!

Readers of this blog will recognize the shape of this. 

The Operation Tidewater framework I've written about before mapped Canada's escalation options: energy exports, electricity to the northeastern states, potash, and tidewater access that reduces our dependence on the U.S. market over time. 

Trump's exemption list reads almost like a mirror image of that framework. 

He knows what he can't afford to tax!

Carney's Pattern: De-escalate, Diversify, Outlast!

Carney campaigned in 2025 on "elbows up!" 

In office, the elbows came down almost immediately. 

Canada removed most retaliatory tariffs in August 2025 and cut counter-tariffs again in October. 

When Trump added a 10% surcharge over the Ontario 'Reagan ad' last fall, Carney declined to respond in kind and simply repeated that Canada was ready to resume negotiations. 

Monday's statement followed the identical script: name the violation, decline to escalate, offer intensified talks!

Critics... Doug Ford was the loudest among them... calling this week for "tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar" retaliation...! (See capitulation?) 

But there is a coherent strategy underneath the restraint, and it rests on three pillars!

1. The asymmetry problem is real:

Roughly three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the United States. 

A far smaller share of American exports comes north. 

In a full-scale economic war, both sides bleed, but Canada bleeds faster. 

Retaliatory tariffs are a tax on Canadian consumers first and a message to Washington second. 

Carney, the former central banker, has clearly run that arithmetic and concluded that matching Trump blow for blow is a strategy for feeling good, not for winning!

2. Leverage held in reserve is worth more than leverage spent:

The nuclear option... restricting energy, potash, or critical mineral exports... works exactly once! 

The moment Canada uses it, the exemptions protecting those sectors vanish, the Americans accelerate substitution, and the threat that currently disciplines U.S. behaviour is gone. 

As long as Trump keeps exempting energy and minerals, the deterrent is functioning. 

Firing the weapon would destroy its value!

3. Time is on Canada's side — if we use it:

Trump's tariffs raise costs for American families, a point Carney made explicitly in his Monday statement. 

U.S. midterm politics, consumer prices, and business pressure all work against sustained tariff escalation on the American side. 

Meanwhile, every month Canada spends building trade ties with Europe and Asia, advancing energy corridors, and moving product to tidewater is a month that shrinks the leverage Trump holds over us. 

The strategy is to outlast, not outpunch!

The One Scenario Where the Calculus Changes:

None of this means Carney's restraint is unconditional. 

Two developments could force his hand!

The first is if Trump ever extends tariffs to the exempt categories... energy, potash, or critical minerals! 

At that point, Canada's reserve leverage is being destroyed anyway, and the case for using it before it depreciates becomes compelling! 

The second is a total collapse of the CUSMA review: If it becomes clear there is no deal available at any price... the domestic political cost of continued restraint would start to exceed the economic cost of retaliation!

Even then, expect surgical measures rather than a true nuclear strike... targeted export levies on specific products flowing to specific states... calibrated to maximize pain in politically sensitive districts while minimizing blowback at home. 

That is how a central banker fights a trade war.

The Bottom Line:

The honest debate is not whether Carney will go nuclear... he won't, absent a direct hit on energy or minerals! 

The debate is whether his patience reads in Washington as strategic discipline or as an invitation! 

Ford's position has a real logic to it... If hitting Canada never costs Trump anything, why would he stop? 

Carney's counter is that the costs are accumulating on their own... in American grocery bills, in American politics... and that Canada's job is to be positioned for the day the pressure breaks!

Monday's 50% tariffs are a test of that thesis. 

If Carney is right, the exemption list stays intact, American domestic pressure builds, and Canada emerges with its leverage unspent and its trade increasingly diversified! 

If he's wrong, we'll know soon enough... because the next escalation will tell us whether restraint bought us anything at all!

In the interim... I'll go with Carney... NOT Drumpf!