Saturday Morning Confusion: Carney!

 ALLAN SAID: Claude, what is the long-term effect of a middle power expansion... possibly with Mark Carney as the head?

Claude responded: Hello, Allan.

This is a rich and timely question. Carney's middle-power strategy is already actively unfolding, so there's real substance to analyze... not just speculation. 

Here's a structured look at the long-term effects:

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The Strategic Foundation

At Davos in January 2026, Carney declared the end of the rules-based international order, framing it as "a rupture, not a transition," and called on middle powers to build strategic autonomy, diversify partnerships, and reduce vulnerability to economic coercion from great powers. 

This approach... emphasizing cooperation with middle powers through what he calls "variable geometry," meaning specific coalitions formed around specific issues... is largely a modernized version of traditional Pearsonian internationalism, a long-standing pillar of Liberal foreign policy. World Economic ForumNAOC

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Near-Term Actions Already Underway

Carney's tour of India, Australia, and Japan was the first real test of that vision in practice — each country being a major Indo-Pacific democracy facing the same core dilemma Canada does: how to maintain ties with the U.S. while building greater resilience and strategic agency in a volatile world. Asia Pacific

With India specifically, Canada launched negotiations toward a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, with an ambitious target of completion by end of 2026, alongside agreements covering critical minerals, digital trade, and energy cooperation. Asia Pacific

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Long-Term Effects — The Real Picture

1. Structural Trade Diversification If sustained, this repositions Canada away from dangerous over-dependence on the U.S. market. The critical minerals angle is particularly strategic... Canada becomes a necessary partner for democratic industrial powers rather than a peripheral one.

2. Geopolitical Leverage Carney's argument is that diversification internationally is not just economic prudence... it's what earns a country the right to take principled foreign policy stands, because it reduces vulnerability to retaliation. 

Long-term, this could give Canada genuine moral and political authority it has often lacked. World Economic Forum

3. Institutional Leadership The Carney vision includes helping rebuild the WTO without U.S. participation, stepping up support for UN specialized agencies, and taking an active role in shaping the World Bank, IMF, and regional development banks. 

This positions Canada as a builder of the post-American-hegemony order... a significant historic role. Policy Options

4. Defence Realignment Carney launched a review of Canada's F-35 contract shortly after taking office, with calls to either break it or pursue a mixed fleet including European fourth-generation fighters...  a symbolic as well as practical signal of strategic reorientation away from reflexive alignment with U.S. defence procurement. NAOC

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The Core Risk

Canada's economy and security remain so deeply dependent on the U.S. that rupturing that relationship is not yet a viable option. 

The long-term danger is that middle-power expansion becomes a posture rather than a transformation... impressive diplomatic optics that don't translate into durable structural change before the political window closes. Policy Options

The success of the strategy ultimately depends on whether trade agreements and coalitions forged now survive future Canadian governments less committed to the vision!

EXTRA... EXTRA!

 

SATURDAY MORNING CONFUSION # 2!

THE RESULTS OF DRUMPF's TRADE WAR!

 

Saturday Morning Confusion!

Guest Post: 

ALLAN:

For the Canadian haters out there that enjoy being against everything Carney does:

You seem to forget who Mark Carney actually is.

This is the guy who kept Canada out of the 2008 financial meltdown:

• Only G7 country that didn’t need bank bailouts

• Faster recovery than the US and Europe

• IMF used Canada as the stability model

Even Harper wanted to make him his Finance Minister.

Then the UK hired him as the first foreign Governor of the Bank of England in 300 years:

• Held inflation steady through the Eurozone crisis.

• Guided the UK through Brexit without a banking collapse.

• Earned the trust of every serious financial institution on earth.

Now here’s the part nobody wants to talk about: The fucking mess he inherited in Canada.

He walked into a country with:

• Some of the worst productivity growth in the OECD.

• A housing crisis caused by years of underbuilding and red tape.

• A permitting system so slow that investors literally avoid us.

• Delays in energy, mining and infrastructure that scare off capital.

• Population growth with no matching capacity build-out.

• Business investment fleeing to the US.

• Inflation was already elevated before he touched a thing.

• A government machine that insiders said was disorganized and unfocused.

That’s the starting point. Not a clean slate. A long-term mess.

And here’s what he’s been pushing since stepping in:

• A real productivity plan instead of slogans.

• Targeted investment that actually increases output.

• A national build-out of housing, energy, AI infrastructure and critical minerals.

• Fixing the broken permitting system so projects get approved in months, not geological time.

• Fiscal discipline that supports the Bank of Canada... instead of fighting it.

Markets have already reacted calmly to his signals because they trust he knows what he’s doing.

And here’s the part the public never sees.

I know people high up in the government. They all say:

• The place hasn’t been this organized in years.

• Carney runs a tight ship.

• He cuts through noise and forces execution.

• The internal standard jumped the moment he arrived.

What I find funniest is that Carney governs from the centre-right.

If he were actually a conservative, all the haters would love him.

That’s the human condition; we’re programmed for tribalism.

People love being “against.”

It’s easy.

Running an economy through global inflation, supply chain shocks and a decade of structural decay is not.

Let’s take a step back. Canada finally has someone at the wheel who’s actually done this before.

Twice!

Maybe instead of tearing him down for sport, we cut the man some slack and let him cook.

If you don’t like him, then don’t vote for him at the next election.

For now, it’s in all of our interests for him to succeed, especially when he’s the one flying the plane!

By Tony Young

TARIFFS!

How will the Canadian government spin the fact that Canada will not be able to trade with the US without any tariffs?

By S.D. Hargreaves: THE Impolite Canadian! 

I think you’ve missed the point completely.

Canada doesn’t want to trade with the U.S at all anymore! 

Canada doesn’t need to spin anything, because Canada only deals in the truth and facts, a foreign concept to the Red-Hat Nazi Party running the U.S. 

The U.S. is untrustworthy and a highly volatile authoritarian regime, being run by Trump, the most corrupt, egotistical, serial liar in U.S. history. 

Maybe you should be thinking about that instead of all the delusional ways you can hurt Canada. We don’t obey your dictator, we don’t respect your dictator, we despise your dictator, and we are thoroughly disgusted by your dictator. 

U.S.-imposed illegal tariffs (yes, they are illegal, as deemed so by the World Trade Organization) and the subsequent illegal trade war are somewhat the least of Canada’s worries when you consider the very real threats made on our sovereignty, which Canadians need to take seriously. 

You need to understand that it isn’t that the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada, it’s that Trump’s regime doesn’t want to pay for Canadian exports anymore. 

Trump wants to amplify the U.S.’s already predatory nature, undermine our economy and simply take everything from Canada! 

By everything, I mean all our natural resources. 

Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods are nothing more than bullying and diversionary tactics. 

Two can play at diversionary tactics. As Trump turns the White House into a gaudy brothel, with gold-coloured paint everywhere, and paves over the famous White House rose garden, Canada is signing new trade deals around the world, deals that will end certain exports to the U.S. 

While Trump is busy playing army guy by putting nuclear weapons on the roof of the White House, we are expanding our military exponentially and buying military equipment and weaponry from countries other than the U.S. such as the Saab JAS 39 Gripen. 

We have even committed to producing our own military equipment, because we have all the resources needed to do so. 

We do all of this as we ignore Trump’s trade deal deadlines and continue to boycott U.S. goods/products and travel to the U.S. 

As for his tariffs, there is not one country that doesn’t incur some form of tariffs, taxes, duties or levies on exports.

In any case, those picking up the tab for tariffs aren’t foreign exporters like Canada, etc., but U.S. consumers. 

This could even include the very industries that the Trump regime wants to shield if imported raw materials and components end up costing more. 

And they are! 

Meanwhile, the hellscape the U.S. has become... continues to get worse. Masked ICE agents run racist raids with impunity, literally rounding up people simply because they are brown. 

Washington is crawling with the National Guard and military! 

Mass protests against Trump are popping up everywhere as he continues to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens and destroy democracy. 

Your economy is mediocre at best and heading towards a recession, inflation rates are steadily rising, all while Trump and his billionaire cronies get richer. 

Trump, sick with moral decay, breaks, defies and outright ignores the law, yet the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the entire free world, and still, the filthy scumbag and multiple-time convicted orange felon has never seen the inside of a jail cell. 

Trump sues media outlets when they call him out on his bullshit, tell the truth, or paint him in a negative light, as he absolutely deserves to be. 

I find that to be a particularly chickenshit move. 

Trump is a treasonous rat and traitor to your country. 

The U.S. used to hang people for treason; now you celebrate it like spineless cowards. 

Worst, and most disgusting of all, Trump is a filthy pedophile, a sexual abuser and a rapist, and MAGA seems just fine with that, creating and accepting lie upon lie to defend him. 

What a disgraceful and sickening fucking display. 

Nothing is the truth unless it comes out of Trump’s smug face, or the fork-tongued mouth of that Nazi Barbie, Karoline Leavitt, right? 

The U.S. is rotting from the inside. 

Rotten with hate, prejudice, discrimination, intolerance, racism, greed, corruption, indecency, deceit, misogyny and the list goes on, but you’re more worried about how the Canadian government will spin the fact that Canada will not be able to trade with the US without any tariffs? 

I think you’ve got your priorities really mixed up fella. 

Pay more attention to removing the rot and trying to salvage what’s left of your toilet of a country before running your mouth about others. 

Until then, there is no benefit or point to your question; it just makes you look truly stupid and embarrasses you!

S.D. Hargreaves:

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Which 10 states are considering joining Canada?

It doesn't matter what states are discussing joining Canada. All 50 can discuss it all they want, but it is extremely unlikely that Canada will accept any of them.

What Americans do not understand is that the two cultures are much too different for a union to make sense.

Canada is NOT interested in having one or more states as part of confederation. From an American point of view any state joining Canada would require fundamental changes on the part of the state.

For example, American states are constitutionally sovereign. As part of this sovereignty, they have their own criminal laws and court systems.

On the other hand, the Canadian system is one in which responsibilities are divided between the federal government and the provinces. There is only one criminal law and one court system.

For all intents and purposes there is no overlap between the federal and provincial governments although the federal government does often provide funding in provincial areas that have a national benefit such as healthcare and post secondary education.

Yet another lie from Don-the-Con is that Canadians would benefit by becoming part of the U.S. He cites healthcare and taxes as benefits.

In fact, those are two of the major reasons not to become part of the United States. At best, the U.S. insurance risk management system is rated 34th in the world. Canada is ranked much higher and has far better outcomes.

Canada's overall tax burden is among the three lowest of the developed countries, lower than the U.S.

Overall, Canada is moving forward, becoming one of the leading nations of the world. On the other hand, the U.S. is sinking, already a second level country heading for third-world status.

There are enormous advantages for U.S. states and Americans in becoming part of Canada. All the disadvantages accrue to Canada and Canadians.

Thanks for finally showing interest in Canada but it's too late. Canada isn't interested.

You elected Trump, now live with the consequences.

By Brenton Harding: