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Source: National Post (Opinions)
Prime Minister Mark Carney always said he would walk away from a bad deal and has now done so.
But as the prime minister urges us to rally round the flag — again — he also needs to give Canadians full details as to why the trade talks with the United States collapsed.
The Liberal government is pointing out that it was U.S. demands that led to the collapse of the latest round of trade talks. It may well be that it was the uncompromising American president and his negotiators who brought us to this point where we are about to engage in potentially catastrophic tit-for-tat tariffs.
But how exactly did we get here and why? How is it that Carney suspended trade talks after reports that we were close to a deal? It is not enough to point fingers. What Canadians need are the full details of what was being offered and why it was rejected.
In a late statement Friday night, the prime minister addressed none of those concerns.
“Canada has what the world wants. And we will not allow any nation to determine our future. We will set our own course to keep building Canada strong for all,” said the prime minister in his statement .
In a press conference Saturday, he repeatedly made the same refrain.
“We can’t control the storm that blows in from Washington,” he said in his introductory remarks. “We can, however, chart a new course by building Canada strong at home and diversifying our trading relationships abroad.
“We are masters in our own home and an excellent partner abroad.”
He later said, “Canadians will always take care of each other. We know we’re stronger together. In the last year and a half, Canadians have met this moment with resolve, with purpose, with strength.”
So here we are, back in Elbows Up territory. At least one good thing to come out of this trade war is that it will unite a majority of the country.
In his statement and his press conference, Carney said he decided to walk away from the trade negotiations because of unrealistic demands by the Americans.
“There were some things we wouldn’t do. We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or to undermine our key industries. We were not prepared to accept any compromise on our sovereignty, protection of the French language and our culture,” he said.
When pressed on specifics, Carney gave a few examples of friction between negotiators.
One was the auto sector. Earlier this week, the CBC reported that the U.S. was considering reducing auto tariffs down from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. But Carney said the U.S. wanted to limit the level of tariffs to cars only and exclude medium and heavy autos and light trucks. This would have made Canadian production “uneconomic,” he said.
Another major sticking point, said Carney, was the U.S. introducing at the last minute language that would have restricted Canada’s ability to make trade deals with other countries.
That was simply “unacceptable,” said the prime minister.
A third example, said Carney, was that the U.S. made “efforts to restrict our protections of our language, our culture, and in effect, our sovereignty.” The prime minister did not clarify what those efforts were or provide specifics details.
“In short, they asked too much and they offered too little,” said Carney.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. blamed Canada for the collapse of the talks.
The New York Times quoted U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as saying, “Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market.
“New demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days.”
Carney can expect that the majority of Canadians will be fully supportive of his decision to walk away if America was negotiating in bad faith or simply trying to bully us into a bad deal.
But it is Canadian workers who will bear the brunt of this decision and transparency demands the government release full details of the negotiations, the offers and counter offers, the last minute demands, as well as what we were prepared to concede and not.
Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs could lead to up to 90,000 job losses, predicted University of Calgary economics professor Trevor Tombe this week. But with Canada pledging to impose retaliatory tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the economic fallout will worsen, he tweeted on Saturday after the deal collapsed.
Meanwhile, Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said in a statement , “The impact on small businesses will be immediate and significant.”
Canadians who are going to suffer the consequences have a right to know just how bad of a deal was on the table.
National Post
If you need to blame Prime Minister Mark Carney for anything, be it for overpromising on his ability to get anything resembling an acceptable “deal” with U.S. President Donald Trump on trade, but his decision to walk away from negotiations Friday, based on what we know, was the right thing to do.
Leaked details of the tentative agreement that was reached earlier this week were bad enough. Apparently, according to media reports, Canada was conceding to permanent unilateral tariffs from the Americans on steel and autos, albeit at lower rates, while this country was expected to lift all tariffs, and make several non-trade concessions. These included scuppering digital legislation, a promise to complete the F-35 purchase and altering Canada’s supply management regime. Whatever one thinks of those policies, whether they are good or bad, they should be the purview of Ottawa, not Washington.
The fact that Canada was expected to make all these concessions while American tariffs remained in place is ludicrous. Not to mention that this little side deal already contravenes the existing Canada U.S. Mexico Agreement, which is somehow supposed to be renegotiated at some point.
Now we know that the deal on the table was evidently worse or became worse, than even all that. The Americans, according to Carney on Saturday morning, wanted to not only keep some tariffs on the auto sector, they wanted to exclude medium and heavy duty trucks from the deal altogether. Most galling of all, again, assuming the prime minister’s characterization of events is accurate, is that the U.S. wanted to restrict Canada’s ability to sign trade deals with other countries.
In other words, the plan was to turn Canada into a Western version of Belarus, where it is nominally independent but controlled from a foreign capital. Incidentally, what the Americans seem to want Canada to give up is not much different from what would have to be conceded if we joined the European Union, where Ottawa would also be prevented from signing independent trade deals and expected to align its regulatory regime with other members.
So walking away from negotiations, even if it leads to a protracted trade war, was the right thing to do. It may have been the most important moment for Canadian sovereignty in generations, and much credit to the prime minister for having the nerve to stand up.
That said, the fact the Liberals benefit politically from conflict with Trump is notable, but eventually Carney will have to account for any prolonged economic pain that might result from this.
The larger challenge now is reversing decisions taken in Canada over decades that have made it uniquely vulnerable to the treatment it is currently facing from Trump. Living next to the most powerful and richest nation in history, which was somehow uniquely benign, and, until now, largely friendly, allowed successive politicians the luxury to delude themselves into thinking Canada was morally superior. The U.S. spends money on the military and is the home of ravenous capitalism, while Canada is a nation of health care, peacekeepers and multiculturalism.
This country’s entire national mythos since the 1960s has only been possible because the Americans had not been a genuine military threat since at least the Civil War, and possibly not since the War of 1812.
Additionally, given how wealthy the U.S. is, there has never been much pressure on Canada to ensure it is a business friendly country. No matter what happens, the massive market to the south allows us to have a minimum standard of living almost by osmosis. When twinned with the fact that Canada’s inherent French-English divide absorbs unending federal resources, you have the makings of an unserious country unconcerned with national defence and generating wealth and opportunity for citizens.
So, instead of permitting competition and foreign investment, Canada protects cartels, often for regional political reasons, in banking, airlines, telecommunications and agriculture.
Instead of leaning into Canada’s comparative advantage in critical minerals and oil and gas, those industries are strangled with endless taxation and regulation that can only be described as predatory.
The auto manufacturing and dairy industries are never given the opportunity to mature so they can compete internationally. Instead, they are propped up and protected with subsidies and quotas. It is unsurprising that these are the sectors that create the most tension in trade talks.
If this wasn’t the reality of Canada, if Ottawa leaned more into its role as guarantor of national security and defence, and less into micromanaging all aspects of the economy, these periodic American shifts into protectionism would be a challenge, but hardly existential. Canada is a on the backfoot, but it was never inevitable that this would be where we landed.
It is up to Carney to ensure this isn’t where Canada stays.
National Post
The aftermath of the Hamas massacre of October 2023 has reshaped the Middle East, including the current Iran war and its assorted consequences. One aspect of the new reality that has received relatively less attention is the rise of settler violence in the West Bank. It is a moral crisis for Israel, one in which the current leadership is the problem, not the solution. Former Israeli leaders are trying to correct that.
The phenomenon of Jewish settlers in the West Bank resorting to violence earned swift condemnation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government last year, after they set an Israel Defence Forces security facility on fire .
Yet when violence, intimidation and harassment is directed at Palestinians in the West Bank, Netanyahu’s government is quick to downplay it.
Jewish “terrorism” against Muslim and Christian Palestinians is a strong term. Yet it was repeatedly used by two former Israeli prime ministers and dozens of high-ranking former IDF and security officials in a June letter to Netanyahu, professing their shame at what extremist Israelis are doing in the West Bank.
Armed settlers are, often with impunity, terrorizing Palestinians villages, setting their houses and property on fire, uprooting olive trees, destroying crops, stealing livestock and visiting violence upon Palestinians themselves. It is a campaign aimed at preventing a future Palestinian state and making life so dangerous that Palestinians in the West Bank might simply leave.
The extremists are a moral blight on all Jews who live in the West Bank and, because they are tolerated, if not supported, by the Netanyahu government, they have stained the reputation of the entire country.
That is a grievous failure of the Netanyahu government in the analysis of the signatories of the June letter. I have spent decades advocating for both Israel and Jews, and it is distressing that Israel now faces an urgent moral threat from its own government. That is the considered judgment of senior officials who have devoted their professional lives to Israeli sovereignty and security.
The June letter got less attention than it deserved. It was not released publicly in its entirely, but leaks were reported upon by Haaretz and the Guardian newspapers. It was also overshadowed in June by the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding with Iran, the failed attempt to salvage the status quo ante of the Iran war, namely free passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
The June letter was sent confidentially to Netanyahu and other senior government and security officials and its leaked contents were reported on June 18.
The Guardian reported that signatories included two former prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, four former ministers whose portfolios included defence and justice, and more than 30 former security commanders including two chiefs of staff of Israel’s military and heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet and the police.
The signatories accused the Netanyahu government, which includes the most hateful elements of right-wing extremism, of supporting a campaign of terror to achieve “ethnic cleansing” and “annexation” of the West Bank. The language is unsparing.
“This is not solely a military and police failure, but the implementation of an overt policy by the Israeli government and its prime minister in general, and by the relevant ministers in particular,” the letter said, accusing them of ordering “the military, the police and Shin Bet (the internal security agency) to enable the terrorism of Jewish criminals, because this horrendous phenomenon serves well the current government’s ideology of carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the territories of Judea and Samaria to facilitate their future annexation.”
That such prominent Israelis, whose commitment to Israel is beyond question, would condemn the Jewish violence in their midst is a sign that these settlers are not the true face of Israel. But they are one of the masks that the Netanyahu government is content to wear to preserve its electoral coalition.
The June letter threatened legal action if the Netanyahu government did not act against the violent settlers, though it is not clear what those actions would specifically be. Yet with an election coming in two months in Israel, it is also an invitation to voters to reject this government.
National Post
Edmonton, as occasionally happens , became a laughingstock of the world last week . Normally I would pause here to flip a coin and decide whether to defend or prosecute, but I’m afraid this is a hopeless case. On Sunday the city closed Jasper Avenue and other important streets — roads already badly strangled by ill-planned summertime construction — for the annual Edmonton Marathon . The event is an important late-season opportunity for ambitious runners to record qualifying times for major international events, particularly the springtime Boston Marathon, and it incorporated a half-marathon that doubled as the Canadian national championship for that distance. What could go wrong?
The answer is “math.” Ain’t it always? As soon as the race was over, elite competitors began complaining that the course definitely seemed a touch too long given their race time and effort. Experienced local observers noticed that top times were, indeed, unexpectedly slow. Dozens of amateurs with GPS-equipped watches echoed those complaints, showing that their devices indicated both the full race distance and the half-marathon course to be anywhere from a half-kilometre to a kilometre too long. Some people who didn’t even run the race turned to Google Maps, plotted the half-marathon course, and found that it seemed to be about 700 metres longer than the correct 21.1 km.
The immediate response from the race organizers and Athletics Canada amounted to “Don’t you imbeciles think we measure the course? Of course we measure the course! Our course measurer is one of the best course measurers there is!” Etc., etc. But Rory Linkletter, a Calgarian who had just won the men’s half-marathon, refused to be gaslit. As Linkletter argued on social media , it was easy to see what had gone wrong if you had run in the 2025 version of the Edmonton half. ( He had won that one too .)
Nobody hitherto writing about this has bothered to exhibit or link to the actual map of the course , so it’s the least we can do for readers who have been wondering whether some non-Euclidian quirk of Edmontonian geography is involved. The issue is that participants in the half-marathon, which goes from the Convention Centre around a bend of the North Saskatchewan River and doubles back, would normally run straight across the old Wellington Bridge on 102 Ave. (On the map that’s the northernmost part of the route.)
That bridge, which crosses a big ravine, is now about halfway through demolition and replacement. So in this year’s race there was a new detour through the posh Glenora neighbourhood, adding — by Linkletter’s math — an extra 680 or so metres to the course.
The organizers’ correction for this was simple. The course for the half-marathon went from point A (the Convention Centre) to point B (a suitable spot in the western river valley) and back to A. (Competitors in the full marathon then continued eastward to C, in the east, and again back to A.) So they scooched the 2025 turnaround point B backward so that it was about 330 or 340 metres closer to point A, saving runners the 680 or so extra metres imposed by the detour.
And they just plain forgot that those runners would be taking the detour again on the way back .
Within hours of being shamed by the winner of their own race, organizers were forced to issue an “updated statement” withdrawing claims that critics were all mistaken or insane and confessing that the race distance had in fact been 674.4 metres too long . (The meticulous inclusion of that extra 40 centimetres is a nice touch, ain’t it.) Unfortunately, the update is arguably uglier than the original denials, which, race director Tom Keogh says, were “issued with the best information” available at the time. A “detailed review” apparently arrived at the same findings others reached by glancing at Google Maps. “The event owns this error, and we take full responsibility,” Keogh added, not at all suggesting that anyone might have to step aside from a job.
The Updated Statement says that Athletics Canada and Keogh are trying to figure out how results of the mismeasured marathon “can be recognized,” but the association that runs the Boston Marathon has already announced that they can’t be and won’t be . Plenty of competitors lost chances at personal bests or even national records, having been told in the meantime that their GPS watches and their brains must have been on the fritz . Corporate sponsors of the race must be wondering at least a little about public confidence in their own accounting. Some runners are muttering that they will think twice before returning to Edmonton, despite the attractive course and the friendly volunteers. Others, as a balm to their injured spirits and tissues, are congratulating each other on accidentally becoming ultramarathoners .
National Post
They must have thought English speakers across the rest of Canada would never notice the slogan. On the podium sign at a Conservative campaign event in Quebec ahead of the upcoming federal Chicoutimi-Le Fjord byelection, it read: “Plus d’argent pour nos aînés.” More money for our seniors.
The same seniors who are currently, by far, Canada’s wealthiest demographic and also, by far, the federal budget’s single largest line item. Seniors benefits represent approximately one in five federal dollars spent each year, beating out spending on housing, national defense, and even health care.
The campaign sign may as well read, “more money for the rich.”
By nature, slogans are short, pointed, and will never convey the full context or depth of a party’s policy proposals. However, this wasn’t a case of bad comms or missing details. Rather, the details behind the sign are only more confounding and infuriating.
The CPC isn’t proposing to shift more spending to seniors living in poverty, who do need more support as cost-of-living continues to soar. They want to funnel more taxpayer dollars to all seniors, not based on need, and regardless of wealth. And they want to do it twice!
They both resurfaced an ill-advised 2025 election promise to remove federal income taxes for seniors on the first $34,000 they earn, and also now pledge to increase Old Age Security (OAS) for seniors ages 65 to 74.
To say this is a slap in the face to younger generations, who are by far bearing the brunt of the housing crisis, elevated inflation, historically high unemployment, and outdated tax brackets that treat today’s middle-class earners as though they were luxuriously wealthy, is a gross understatement.
How bleak is the economic situation for millennials and Gen Z? So bad that many feel they can’t afford to have the kids they would otherwise desperately want , a major driver behind Canada’s ultra-low fertility rate. The notion of taking more money from the nation’s young and transferring it to older generations should be so far outside the Overton window you can’t even glimpse its silhouette.
In fairness, the CPC proposal to increase the tax-free income threshold is actually a good idea — if they weren’t gatekeeping the change to seniors at the expense of struggling younger workers. But, instead of ensuring everyone keeps more of their paycheque, this policy instead uses younger workers’ tax dollars to subsidize tax cuts for seniors regardless of their wealth or income level.
Yet it’s their promise to boost OAS that’s the most egregious from just about every angle you examine it from — generational equity, class equity, and fiscal responsibility. OAS currently accounts for one in six federal dollars spent each year, totalling between $81 and $89 billion annually and is projected to surpass $100 billion annually by 2030.
OAS isn’t funded like a pension that’s invested through individual worker or employer contributions. It has no connection at all to employment history. Rather, it’s paid out using general tax revenues, transferring wealth from younger workers to older seniors, with laughable means testing that only begins for individuals at incomes of $90,997 a year. Couples aged 65 to 74 who earn up to $181,994 annually can receive full OAS payments, and couples over 75 who make up to $308,392 annually can do the same. Asset wealth plays no role.
In comparison, the Canada Childcare Benefit limits payments by using family income rather than individual income to calculate benefits, and additionally begins means testing once that income exceeds a mere $37,487 — ironically just above the income amount Conservatives would like to tax exempt for seniors.
At a bare minimum, eligibility for both programs should be standardized. However, just about every economist and policy expert under the sun agrees OAS needs to be clawed back for higher income earners, not inexplicably increased.
It’s not just about generational fairness. For every tax dollar taken from younger workers and gifted to seniors who are already financially comfortable, there are additional costs paid by the entire country when it comes to productivity, entrepreneurship, the population replacement rate, and overall economic growth, which by extension limits quality of life.
Moreover, we literally can’t afford the luxury. Canada’s federal and provincial debt is expected to hit $2.9 trillion by the end of this year. The federal government’s Spring Economic Update estimated the 2025-2026 fiscal year that recently ended at $67 billion. Spending beyond our means again burdening younger and future generations with paying off massive debts incurred today.
OAS is the biggest source of new federal spending growth behind ballooning deficits and debt. It isn’t the “good” type of debt either— it’s not an investment in needed infrastructure or economic opportunity. It’s purely discretionary spending, funneled to a cohort that largely doesn’t need it, against any reasonable definition of discretion.
Canada desperately needs bold tax and benefits reforms, but the ones presented by Conservatives this week have lost the plot so entirely the page may as well be blank.
National Post
We have known for nearly three years now that antisemitism is rampant on Canadian university campuses, and this month two studies have confirmed it. The “Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences” report indicates that 96 per cent of Jewish students on Canadian campuses “experienced or witnessed at least one instance of antisemitism over the previous 12 months,” while retired Ontario Court of Appeal justice Mary Lou Benotto’s review of Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) found that “numerous students, faculty and staff stated that they no longer feel safe openly identifying as Jewish” on campus.
Another thing many of us are quite sure of is that these reports won’t lead to any serious reforms. Of course, there will be official statements about doing better, and faux handwringing about how to stop the hate that is festering at our universities. But as with other recent studies of antisemitism in Canada, that is likely where the response, if you can call it that, will end. Indeed, TMU has established a task force to respond to campus antisemitism, but not until 2027 — and, as Michael Geist notes , “nearly half of the committee’s members have signed public petitions opposing some of the recommendations.”
As usual, it is left to Canadian Jews and our allies to figure out what to do. So, here’s an idea: it’s time for a Canadian Jewish university.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel here — only to adapt models that are already working elsewhere to our national landscape. Take, for example, Yeshiva University, which offers a dual Jewish and secular curriculum and is ranked in the top 100 best universities in the United States. Yeshiva has seen a significant increase in transfer demands since October 7. So many students are looking to move there, often from Ivy League and other prestige campuses, that the university is now offering accelerated pathways for students fleeing antisemitism at their current schools.
Likewise, Touro University’s Lander Colleges have seen a 35 per cent rise in new students and a 60 per cent increase in transfers due to campus antisemitism .
In contrast, Brandeis University, another historically “Jewish” school, has seen no increase in enrollment since October 7. Unlike Yeshiva and Touro, Brandeis is avowedly non-denominational, and while Students for Justice in Palestine is not allowed on campus, the Jewish Bund is, and has organized several pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
There is already anecdotal evidence that some Canadians are looking to Jewish schools south of the border. In fact, the 2025 valedictorian at Touro’s Lander College for Men, is a Torontonian who chose the school because of its “rigorous academics alongside an environment that supported personal and ethical development.”
While cost is undoubtedly a barrier for many Canadians considering Jewish schools in the U.S., there are other, potentially more cost-effective, options open to them in Israel. And the data suggests many are already considering Israeli universities, which are, in several cases, already adapting to the phenomenon.
In 2025, the Technion in Haifa established a new undergraduate program specifically as a response to campus antisemitism. One Canadian Jewish student who had already been accepted to the University of Toronto chose the Technion instead, specifically because of the situation on Canadian campuses.
Meanwhile, Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba now has a dedicated unit designed for the increasing number of new immigrant students resulting from the global rise in antisemitism.
In the U.S. and Israel, universities with strong Jewish values are becoming refuges for Canadian students fed up with, and afraid of, rampant antisemitism on campuses here.
For Canada, the risks should be obvious. While the increasing talk among this country’s established Jewish community of moving to friendlier climes is worrying, the possibility of losing students is even more so: families selling homes and moving businesses is bad enough, but a generational brain drain is much worse — not only for Canada, but for the future of our Jewish communities here.
The problem is obvious, as is the institutional foot-dragging that will ensure the problem of antisemitism on campus is not solved in any useful way.
If we care about a Canadian Jewish future, one that our best and brightest young minds are willing to buy into, we will need to build the infrastructure that keeps them here. Perhaps we don’t need a dual-curriculum campus like Yeshiva or Touro (though, I believe Jewish study is instrumental to our existence). Maybe a non-denominational school along the lines of Brandeis could work in Canada because our Jewish community and historic background is different than America’s and less likely to be infiltrated by the far left, which is nowhere near as influential among Canadian Jews. Either way, we need a campus of our own because we are increasingly unsafe everywhere else.
When Canadian hospitals wouldn’t let Jewish doctors in, we built our own hospitals. When Canadian golf clubs shut their doors, we started our own clubs. We can, and should, do the same for higher education.
National Post
Here’s something we haven’t heard much about in Central Canada: Sales and therefore imports of American alcoholic beverages in Alberta and especially Saskatchewan, the heretic provinces that don’t maintain outright bans on Yankee liquor, have declined considerably.
Government data on liquor imports compiled by Carleton University political management professor Jennifer Robson , published this week, suggest sales in Saskatchewan might be down by two-thirds, and by roughly one-quarter in Alberta. In Alberta, according to reported figures from Alberta Liquor, Gaming & Cannabis (which owns the province’s monopoly liquor wholesaler), the biggest drops in U.S. imports from 2023 to 2025 were in wine (down 42 per cent) and beer (down 92 per cent).
This is relevant, surely, when you consider the downsides of the outright bans in the other provinces — which is something many of the bans’ most passionate proponents never really did.
Most of those proponents probably wouldn’t even consider them downsides now. Canada didn’t ban flights or travel to the United States in response to Donald Trump’s trade menaces, though it probably would have found remarkable support had it proposed it. But government-enforced patriotism is not the most compelling form of patriotism. Surely consumer-led action is more compelling as a nation-to-nation statement, and it’s not something the prime minister can direct like a stage play: “Elbows up! Now down! One up, one down!”
If Albertans and Saskatchewanians, reputedly among the most pro-American Canadians, are eschewing American booze on principle, that can only be a stronger political signal to however many American businesses rely on the Canadian market than what a government could deliver. A government position can be offered up as a bargaining chip. Public sentiment and spending cannot. And it can’t be altered on a whim by the prime minister, based on how the day’s negotiations have gone.
There is an obvious, longstanding and ongoing analogy.
I remember being quite skeptical that as many Canadians would avoid travel to the United States as said they would, initially, to pollsters. I was wrong. You can’t really deny the numbers now. They’re rebounding, according to Statistics Canada’s latest data drop . But still, 11 per cent fewer Canadians made a return crossing from the U.S. into Alberta in June 2026 than in June 2016, when the province only had three-quarters its current population. Not even two-thirds as many crossed into Saskatchewan, which is also considerably more populous than 10 years ago.
Jurisdictions in Florida, Nevada, Maine and other states have been reduced practically to begging Canadians to return. That wasn’t in response to the government voting with our dollars. It was Canadians voting with theirs.
I have no time, sub-zero, for those who would chide Canadians for visiting the United States. The sheer number of those scolds makes me nauseous.
But one of the interesting things about Trump is that he sometimes seems baffled, wrong-footed, by the level of pushback from countries and regimes he imagines he can just idly threaten, humiliate and subjugate through his “art of the deal,” which seems to boil down to “not living up to any deal.” (It’s understandable why this works for the President of the United States of America, somewhat less so why it would work for a real-estate magnate.)
Canada’s “government-first” approach to pushback projects mistrust of the very same people being asked to display solidarity. And once the allegations of “MAGA traitors” start winging around — as former NDP MP Charlie Angus called Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her supporters on his Substack — I think it’s safe to say we’ve made a net loss on gross collective patriotism and goodwill among Canadians.
If Saskatchewan and Alberta are the most America-friendly provinces, it’s not by much: A recent Angus Reid Institute poll measuring Canadians’ attitudes toward Americans and vice-versa found 54 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively, had a “favourable view of the American people,” while all the others were in the mid-to-high 40s except Quebec, at 38 per cent.
Can Quebecers, Ontarians, British Columbians and Nova Scotians be trusted to drink less American hooch, without government intervention? Polls suggest they probably can. I’m not saying they should have to. But that pushback is a whole lot less compelling, I have to believe, than what’s coming from the legislatures. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew this week said Prime Minister Mark Carney had been nearly “begging” the premiers to put American booze back on shelves. That’s pathetic.
Kinew also called Trump a “bad person,” which is not something I have any interest in contesting. But I’m not sure that all added up to a win for the Carney agenda, or for Canadian unity and patriotism. I’m not sure any of this does.
National Post
cselley@postmedia.com
Wab Kinew just wants to watch the world burn.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney briefed the provinces on the details of the coming trade deal with the Americans, the Manitoba premier thought it wise to attack Carney and insult Donald Trump, while also taking credit for any deal in the first place. If Kinew really has designs on the federal Liberal leadership at some point, I suppose this is one way to kick off a campaign …
There is a credible case to be made for simply walking away from negotiations with Trump, given his unprovoked tariff war on the world, and legitimate concerns that he wouldn’t abide by any deal he signs, just as he hasn’t abided by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement that he himself wanted and negotiated.
But once a decision was made to negotiate with the U.S. president and, more importantly, agree to a tentative deal that would thwart new threatened tariffs and reduce existing ones, the premiers should have left Carney to it and refrained from any behaviour that could scuttle the agreement ahead of the Friday deadline.
Kinew had other ideas on Thursday.
A key complaint from the Americans has been provincial rules removing U.S. alcohol exports from the shelves of government-run liquor stores, and excluding American companies from public procurement.
So any deal was always going to require the provinces to restock American booze and adjust procurement rules. For all the complaints the provinces have about Ottawa interfering in provincial areas of responsibility, international trade unambiguously belongs to the federal government.
Even so, Kinew couldn’t wait to rush to a microphone to slag Carney over the deal. “I was told by the prime minister that he wants us to put the booze back on the shelves,” he told reporters. “I wouldn’t say that he was begging us, but what is a step before begging?”
He also said Trump was “weak” and a “bad” person, and said that Carney shouldn’t even finalize a deal that has already been tentatively agreed to. “I think if we kept pushing, I think that we’d probably get more,” Kinew said.
The premier added, “It’s the provincial action on procurement and alcohol sales that have commanded the attention of the American administration.”
This last point may prove to be true, that blacklisting American booze ultimately forced Trump to the table, but that doesn’t give license to the premiers to interfere in international trade. If the industries the provinces rely on are going to get any tariff relief, or be shielded from new tariffs, only Carney and his cabinet, or anyone he appoints, has the authority to negotiate here.
By some estimates, up to 90,000 jobs could be lost if the latest round of threatened Trump tariffs came into effect. It is one thing to theorize what may happen if Canada were to walk away, or hold out for a better deal, but it is quite another to consider the very real human costs of lives upended if Canada is flattened with a 50 per cent tariff rate.
Kinew should have said nothing, as Ontario Premier Doug Ford has done so far this week.
A more level-headed response came from Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, who told CBC, without any rhetorical flourishes, simply that Carney “asked for a couple things from premiers.” Houston also said the request to put the booze back on the shelves was “not even close” to begging.
Now it is possible that Kinew’s little outburst is the result of a blind spot on Carney’s part. How much effort has he put into herding the cats of Confederation?
That said, Kinew did say that he would reluctantly put American products back on the shelves. If he hadn’t, the prime minister is not bereft of tools to force the provinces into compliance. He could have used the federal trade and commerce power, or the peace, order and good government clause in the Constitution to federalize alcohol regulations. That would have invited provincial litigation, but would have solved the problem in the short term.
More aggressively extreme, Carney could persuade Manitoba’s lieutenant-governor to dissolve the provincial legislature and force Kinew into an election. Then the premier would be freed from the expectation that he behave with anything resembling class.
National Post
All of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “elbow’s up” bluster has not prepared Canadians for the inevitable — a compromise with our largest trading partner. Trade negotiations are not hockey games where you can let your emotions take over, throw punches and continue to leer at an opponent until the game is over. They necessarily involve compromise.
So far, we have heard no specifics from the Liberals about the negotiations, we have had to hear everything from either the United States ambassador to Canada or the U.S. president’s social media posts. The deal is not yet finalized, but the vagueness of Liberals’ statements this week, contrasted with the excited statements from the Americans, suggests concessions have been made, which, given the rhetoric so far, may shock and anger many Canadians who Carney prepared for a forever war with our neighbours to the south.
It’s safe to say that since running for the Liberal leadership, Carney has given the impression that such a deal would never come to fruition. This is going to come back to bite him in the arse.
Shortly after becoming Liberal leader in late March 2025, he told Canadians, “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operation, is over,” and that the U.S. is “no longer a reliable partner.” Suffice to say, this was never going to be fertile grounds for negotiations.
It was also around this time that the “elbows up” messaging began in response to Trump’s 51st state comment at a White House dinner in November 2024, which then-public safety minister Dominic Leblanc said was “in no way a serious comment.”
In his April 2026 prerecorded “Forward Guidance” video , Carney touted a statue of War of 1812 Gen. Isaac Brock, not so tactfully associating himself with a British war general who fought the Americans. And he did this during ongoing trade talks. (Of course, Brock was fighting for the British Crown at the time, not Canada’s sovereignty, which wouldn’t be achieved until 55 years later.)
Despite campaigning on being the best leader to deal with Trump and telling an American audience in May that, “Canada Strong will help make America great again” and that the partnership between the two countries is a “mutual strength,” he failed to walk back his talk of a permanent rupture.
The truth of the matter is that the negotiations likely soured from the get-go with former prime minister Justin Trudeau at the helm. Despite implementing a task force to deal with the Trump’s stated reasons for imposing tariffs on Canada, including fentanyl coming across the U.S. border, Trudeau released a statement calling the the tariffs “ unjustified. ” We, of course, know that fentanyl was being produced in Canada.
Another issue Carney is going to have to face is that the Liberals have consistently been tight-lipped about the state of the negotiations, leaving Canadians to believe that the U.S. is entirely unreasonable. After all, how could the Liberals be publicly at war with Trump, while telling Canadians that negotiations are actually progressing behind the scenes? They can’t, especially when they resurrected their party on Trump’s back.
This week, Carney told reporters that the “most important thing happening in Canada this week is today’s announcement,” referring to the Churchill Falls deal. This was an odd thing to say, as the economic relationship with the United States clearly outweighs it, and because Carney presented himself to the Canadian public as the leader with the “strength” to negotiate against Trump.
Yet throughout Carney’s tenure, Canadians, including the media, have not been informed about the substance of the negotiations and, more recently, have had to rely on the U.S. ambassador and Trump’s Truth Social and White House account for inklings of how the trade deal might shape up.
We had to hear from the U.S. ambassador what the sticking points were, such as provincial bans on U.S. alcohol. The Americans, for their part, never completely banned anything. Surprisingly, this was one of their top-ranking irritants. Others included supply management , digital streaming taxes and buy Canadian policies.
U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told CTV in June that they were close to a deal last October that covered oil, “uranium, auto parts, steel and aluminum.” Things appeared to be going well. Yet the only thing Canadians were told at the time by Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc was that talks were “successful,” “positive” and “effective.” This was until Hoekstra told the press that an anti-tariff ad commissioned by the Ontario government “burnt the bridges.”
On Friday, we received confirmation that Carney’s approach wasn’t working. U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance reportedly suggested to a crowd at a New York fundraiser that Carney made a fool out himself. Carney “comes in and puffs his chest out and says, ‘I’m going to, like, out-tough Donald Trump,’ ” said Vance.
This week, things seem to be going well again. We’ve heard no specifics from the Liberals, as usual, and we’ve had to hear from Trump that the deal may include reviving Keystone XL , which could be great for Canada.
But Carney has a problem. He’s nurtured anti-Americanism to such a degree that Canadians may not want him to accept the deal, even if it’s good for Canada. He’s claimed throughout his leadership that he would not make concessions on a number of issues, which will not likely be forgotten by his die-hard anti-American voters.
One Canadian journalist even suggested that accepting a deal other than the one that was currently in place would be folding to the U.S., and if Carney did so, that he “will denounce him to the end of days.”
It’s not surprising that he feels this way. Carney’s conditioning worked. But again, trade is not hockey. This deal isn’t about a journalist or Liberal voter’s longstanding anti-American prejudices, Confederation or Trump. It’s about improving the livelihoods of Canadians. And compromise can be a good thing.
National Post
