As we are immediately in the wake of American-instituted regime change in Venezuela, what are your thoughts on the likelihood of American-instituted regime change in Canada? Unlikely, or are you quietly making plans to move elsewhere?
So far, I think PM Carney has done a pretty good job in walking very fine lines.
Unlikely as the Venezuela was a dictatorship which is always vulnerable to a decapitation operation. Functional democracies are less vulnerable that way.
Before getting worried about Greenland or ourselves, the one thing the US Military is NOT set up to do and is frankly terrible at is long term occupation with guerrilla warfare. It did them in in Vietnam, it did them in in Afghanistan and it will do them in in Venezuela. There is only so much they can do without putting lots of boots on the ground for a very long time and that is likely to prove the real limitation here.
From what I can see, oil companies are very hesitant to invest in Venezuela when they see they could could lose their entire investment to nationalization in a few years after the US stops paying attention.
Unlikely as the Venezuela was a dictatorship which is always vulnerable to a decapitation operation. Functional democracies are less vulnerable that way.
Yeah, I suspect that if something like this decapitation had happened under a president viewed by the world as more of a normal person, it might be seen as morally and legally questionable, but wouldn't be producing mass panic. See Noriega 1989.
But, just 'cuz I'm unclear about your meaning here...
Before getting worried about Greenland or ourselves, the one thing the US Military is NOT set up to do and is frankly terrible at is long term occupation with guerrilla warfare. It did them in in Vietnam, it did them in in Afghanistan and it will do them in in Venezuela. There is only so much they can do without putting lots of boots on the ground for a very long time and that is likely to prove the real limitation here.
Are you suggesting that the US will try to do a long-term occupation of Venezuela, but it won't last due to the incompetency of the American military at such things?
From what I can see, oil companies are very hesitant to invest in Venezuela when they see they could could lose their entire investment to nationalization in a few years after the US stops paying attention.
And the typical Trump voter is likely, shall we say, disengaged enough to believe that the USA now controls all the oil in Venezuela, if that's what Trump tells him, regardless of what the actual reality is.
As we are immediately in the wake of American-instituted regime change in Venezuela, what are your thoughts on the likelihood of American-instituted regime change in Canada? Unlikely, or are you quietly making plans to move elsewhere?
So far, I think PM Carney has done a pretty good job in walking very fine lines.
There are so many imponderables in the Trump administration that it’s hard to make any prediction about anything with any kind of confidence.
But that said, I’m inclined to agree with SPK that Trump or at least his Administration taken as whole* has at least a very basic Realpolitik level understanding of the difference between the two situations. Maduro’s government was (is) widely regarded as illegitimate and additionally Maduro and Chavez are widely regarded as having gratuitously made a mess of Venezuela for however many years. In the circumstances the international response was understandably muted. It’s crossing a whole different line to violate the territorial integrity of a NATO alliance member… as Denmark has been at pains to point out lately.
(*the relationship between these two entities being one of the imponderables I was referring to…)
Trump reminds me a bit of what I call the kamikaze style of litigation, which is where a litigator with no respect for facts or law manages to get surprisingly good results through brazen sociopathy. It’s the sort of thing that works until suddenly it doesn’t. The problem is that there is no way of knowing when things will fall apart and how much damage will have been done in the interim.
But that said, I’m inclined to agree with SPK that Trump or at least his Administration taken as whole* has at least a very basic Realpolitik level understanding of the difference between the two situations. Maduro’s government was (is) widely regarded as illegitimate and additionally Maduro and Chavez are widely regarded as having gratuitously made a mess of Venezuela for however many years. In the circumstances the international response was understandably muted. It’s crossing a whole different line to violate the territorial integrity of a NATO alliance member… as Denmark has been at pains to point out lately.
If the USA starts grabbing territory from other NATO countries, that will be the imediate de facto, and probably the eventual de jure, end of NATO. The people around Trump would have to be absolutely sure that that is in America's interests.
My fellow Canadians all doubtlessly know that anti-foreign aid demagoguery is a tried and true theme on the Canadian right. I do get the impression that, for a lot of the American public, NATO increasingly gives off the same sorta vibe that the alphabet-soup brigade of international co-operation and development agencies give to "the fed-up taxpayers of Canada". Buncha trashy foreigners milking us for cash and dragging us into problems we don't give a shit about.
Or at least, this administration and its allies are talking and acting as if they think there's a big market for anti-NATO posturing among the American public.
Just noticed an article from early last month, about Doug Ford defending the sale of "armoured vehicles" to ICE by a company in Brampton.
I suspect that even after the events today, he doesn't see any problem with that. In fairness, he wouldn't be the first Canadian politician of either party to overlook basic morality when facilitating the sale of military hardware.
Just noticed an article from early last month, about Doug Ford defending the sale of "armoured vehicles" to ICE by a company in Brampton.
I suspect that even after the events today, he doesn't see any problem with that. In fairness, he wouldn't be the first Canadian politician of either party to overlook basic morality when facilitating the sale of military hardware.
Just noticed an article from early last month, about Doug Ford defending the sale of "armoured vehicles" to ICE by a company in Brampton.
I suspect that even after the events today, he doesn't see any problem with that. In fairness, he wouldn't be the first Canadian politician of either party to overlook basic morality when facilitating the sale of military hardware.
I see nothing wrong with that, either.
Is that because you approve of what ICE is doing generally and are happy to see a Canadian company contribute to their efforts; or because you think sales of military equipment should be carried without moral judgement as to their eventual use?
FWIW, I would disagree with the first opinion, and am undecided as to the second. I have actually been thinking about the morality of arms sales the last little bit.
Supreme Court Justice Sheila Martin has announced she is retiring in May. May be a bit of a surprise to some (she was 5 years before mandatory retirement) but she’s been on the Court for 8 years and I can well imagine someone deciding that at age 70 that’s enough. It will be interesting to see who Carney appoints to replace her.
Re Legault, I can’t say I’m sorry to see him go - see my comments on last year’s thread - though it sounds like an open question whether the most likely alternative will be an improvement.
Is that because you approve of what ICE is doing generally and are happy to see a Canadian company contribute to their efforts; or because you think sales of military equipment should be carried without moral judgement as to their eventual use?
Is that because you approve of what ICE is doing generally and are happy to see a Canadian company contribute to their efforts; or because you think sales of military equipment should be carried without moral judgement as to their eventual use?
I think he's prob'ly just passively regurgitating rhetoric from the anti-TikTok crusade a while back.
Doug Ford is kind of understandable if you think of him just as the salesman repeating stories that he picked up at a trade convention in a nearby town.
I found Mark Carney's speech at Davis impressive (text and video here: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/full-text-video-mark-carney-180109294.html) and am curious about what Canadians think. The Globe and Mail is paywalled. I can't find anything about it on the CBC website. I found an opinion piece at the Toronto Sun - Mark Lilley criticized Carney for not noting that Russia and China abandoned the rules-based global order long before the US did, which rather misses the point IMO, and then I realized the Sun is a conservative tabloid and thought I'd be better off asking here.
I found Mark Carney's speech at Davis impressive (text and video here: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/full-text-video-mark-carney-180109294.html) and am curious about what Canadians think. The Globe and Mail is paywalled. I can't find anything about it on the CBC website. I found an opinion piece at the Toronto Sun - Mark Lilley criticized Carney for not noting that Russia and China abandoned the rules-based global order long before the US did, which rather misses the point IMO, and then I realized the Sun is a conservative tabloid and thought I'd be better off asking here.
Personally, I take Canadian Liberal PMs speaking at global fora like Davos with a grain of salt. Just one example, you may recall Justin Trudeau during COVID predicting a "Great Reset", but as far as I can tell, everybody has pretty much gone back to living the same way they had been living before the pandemic hit.
That being said, I will concede that, IF you believe that Trump is in the process of radically altering the global order for all eternity, Carney's speech, from what I read of it, might be a pretty accurate description of where we're heading, and how we need to prepare for it.
But I suspect a lotta people had already decided what the future holds before they heard Carney's speech, so their opinion of it might be a foregone conclusion.
I think it’s significant perhaps not so much for its content in the abstract but for the fact that it is being said at all and by whom. The Trump administration has benefited up to now from a business-as-usual approach from other governments, which has made sense up to a point because frankly business-as-usual would be a much better option for everyone if it were a doable thing. But the explicit recognition that business-as-usual is no longer looking like a viable option means that the rules are potentially going to change radically very soon for everyone. What that could look like is anybody’s guess and not a happy story for anyone. Which is something that some people in Washington at least really need to know right now.
Well there are fictions and then there are fictions. The whole concept of international law as binding independently of the consent of state parties has always been a fiction, and everyone has always known that. But as my international law prof used to say, although IL is not binding it is sticky. Which is to say that if a state party decides to throw its IL obligations out the window there are going to be consequences even if that state party is the USA.
There's a certain irony in only admitting a fiction after you've ended up on the wrong side of it.
[For anyone not familiar with the speech, I assume chrisstiles is refering to Carney's line: "We knew the story of the old international rules-based order was partially false."]
I think you could take it as a rhetorical trope, meaning something like "It was always obvious that the system didn't work according to the exact model 100% of the time." He later goes on to talk about how weaker countries were at a disadvantage against more powerful ones, regardless of the supposed equality of the system.
But, yeah. A world-leader probably wouldn't put it so bluntly in a case where his country was benefiting from the system, because it would sound to the less well-connected nations like gloating.
There's a certain irony in only admitting a fiction after you've ended up on the wrong side of it.
[For anyone not familiar with the speech, I assume chrisstiles is refering to Carney's line: "We knew the story of the old international rules-based order was partially false."]
I think you could take it as a rhetorical trope, meaning something like "It was always obvious that the system didn't work according to the exact model 100% of the time." He later goes on to talk about how weaker countries were at a disadvantage against more powerful ones, regardless of the supposed equality of the system.
Yes, "the anti-imperialists were right, but that was good actually", and getting plaudits for admitting that now the "bargain no longer works" for him personally.
People get that Carney’s speech mentions ‘great powers’ and ‘intermediate/middle powers’ but not the implied third category, don't they?
It's just racist crap with several extra steps, and is liberalism laid out bare.
Missed the edit window, Ta-Nehisi Coates was right, there's a direct line that leads from discrediting UNWRA and the UN, attacking institutions like the ICJ and ICC and the current conjuncture.
None of us will be free unless all of us are free.
There's a certain irony in only admitting a fiction after you've ended up on the wrong side of it.
[For anyone not familiar with the speech, I assume chrisstiles is refering to Carney's line: "We knew the story of the old international rules-based order was partially false."]
I think you could take it as a rhetorical trope, meaning something like "It was always obvious that the system didn't work according to the exact model 100% of the time." He later goes on to talk about how weaker countries were at a disadvantage against more powerful ones, regardless of the supposed equality of the system.
Yes, "the anti-imperialists were right, but that was good actually", and getting plaudits for admitting that now the "bargain no longer works" for him personally.
People get that Carney’s speech mentions ‘great powers’ and ‘intermediate/middle powers’ but not the implied third category, don't they?
It's just racist crap with several extra steps, and is liberalism laid out bare.
So IOW, it's kinda like "First they came for the Communists...", minus the redeeming moral regret.
There's a certain irony in only admitting a fiction after you've ended up on the wrong side of it.
[For anyone not familiar with the speech, I assume chrisstiles is refering to Carney's line: "We knew the story of the old international rules-based order was partially false."]
I think you could take it as a rhetorical trope, meaning something like "It was always obvious that the system didn't work according to the exact model 100% of the time." He later goes on to talk about how weaker countries were at a disadvantage against more powerful ones, regardless of the supposed equality of the system.
Yes, "the anti-imperialists were right, but that was good actually", and getting plaudits for admitting that now the "bargain no longer works" for him personally.
People get that Carney’s speech mentions ‘great powers’ and ‘intermediate/middle powers’ but not the implied third category, don't they?
It's just racist crap with several extra steps, and is liberalism laid out bare.
And this surprises you? Keeping in mind that Canada has a multiparty political system, not a duopololy, it should be no surprise when Carney says right-wing things. The Libersl Party of Canada is a brokerage party, not an ideological party.
Carney and a large part of the business establishment in Canada are still smarting from Trump's cancellation of NAFTA. They don't know what to do now. They ordered their whole world around that agreement.
Canada's last great political shift was the Free Trade Election of 1988. On the left that election fatally wounded the nationalist, union-based economic left who stood and died against Free Trade. Perhaps they were correct after all.
There's a certain irony in only admitting a fiction after you've ended up on the wrong side of it.
[For anyone not familiar with the speech, I assume chrisstiles is refering to Carney's line: "We knew the story of the old international rules-based order was partially false."]
I think you could take it as a rhetorical trope, meaning something like "It was always obvious that the system didn't work according to the exact model 100% of the time." He later goes on to talk about how weaker countries were at a disadvantage against more powerful ones, regardless of the supposed equality of the system.
Yes, "the anti-imperialists were right, but that was good actually", and getting plaudits for admitting that now the "bargain no longer works" for him personally.
People get that Carney’s speech mentions ‘great powers’ and ‘intermediate/middle powers’ but not the implied third category, don't they?
It's just racist crap with several extra steps, and is liberalism laid out bare.
And this surprises you?
It doesn't surprise me that Carney says it. I find it bitterly ironic that liberals praise him when he says it.
...it should be no surprise when Carney says right-wing things.
I wouldn't call Carney's comments right-wing, in the sense of consciously trying to push a right-wing agenda. More like an "I'm alright, Jack" mentality, where it's not so much that you actively work to institute inequality because you think inequality is good, but you just don't bother fighting inequality because the issue doesn't really affect you.
Kinda like the comfortable suburbanite who doesn't care about police brutality because all the cops he deals with are nice guys, and even when he does hear the occasional complaint, chalks it up to "Oh well, nobody's perfect." Then, when the cops start shaking HIM down for dubious traffic tickets, he's all like "Okay, I knew there were some problems before, but this is going way over the line, and boy, am I pissed off now!"
Canada's last great political shift was the Free Trade Election of 1988. On the left that election fatally wounded the nationalist, union-based economic left who stood and died against Free Trade. Perhaps they were correct after all.
Tangential, but it's always struck me as funny that Quebec, supposedly the most left-wing province with the most worker-friendly labour laws, was second only to Alberta in giving its popular vote to pro-FTA parties, and second also in seats won by pro-FTA parties. And, yes, I am aware that Quebec unions opposed the deal, but their political allies(the PQ etc) were another story.
Keeping in mind that Canada has a multiparty political system, not a duopololy, it should be no surprise when Carney says right-wing things. The Libersl Party of Canada is a brokerage party, not an ideological party.
And I'll read into the record that Doug Ford has now given "100%" endorsement to Carney's Davos speech. Though probably not for any specifically right-wing ideas presented in the speech, more just apolitical economic boosterism.
Gavin Newsom has given an interview at Davos, saying how much he loved Carney's speech.
However, later in the interview, the host asks him if he agrees with Carney's assertion that the global rupture with the USA is permanent, and Newsom replies that that's hyperbole, we shouldn't think in such either/or binaries etc.
Which kinda makes me wonder what exactly it is that Newsom did agree with in the speech, since, AFAICT, the gist of it was that the shift should be considered permanent.
(Newsom also repeated several times his own pornographic metaphor for European leaders' supposed milktoast opposition to Trump. Guess he figures he's on a roll with that one.)
My sense is that part of the point is acknowledging that things have changed and part of it is an attempt to prevent things from changing further. It’s the sort of conversation you don’t have unless things have gone sideways but the whole point of having the conversation is to prevent things from going further sideways.
Anecdotally the speech appears to have been well received from many points of view across the political spectrum in Canada. Not that everyone agrees with Carney on everything but the sense being that he was saying something that needed to be said.
... you may recall Justin Trudeau during COVID predicting a "Great Reset", but as far as I can tell, everybody has pretty much gone back to living the same way they had been living before the pandemic hit.
...
What JT meant was massive over-spending by the government, incredible over-reach into personal lives, speech and thought of all Canadians, and a 1984-style rewriting of history. That hasn't changed.
... you may recall Justin Trudeau during COVID predicting a "Great Reset", but as far as I can tell, everybody has pretty much gone back to living the same way they had been living before the pandemic hit.
...
What JT meant was massive over-spending by the government, incredible over-reach into personal lives, speech and thought of all Canadians, and a 1984-style rewriting of history. That hasn't changed.
Well, whatever our respective value judgements about the situation before COVID, we both seem to agree that the world has more or less returned to that status quo. Whereas the maximalist interpretation of what Trudeau said(*) imagined a new level of regulation and global-centralization beyond anything previously imagined.
(*) Mostly held by his detractors on the far-right and Convoy-style. I don't many of his supporters, much less the floating-middle, even remembered that speech beyond the day it was reported.
Okay, "truth" you say. Canadian historians from different Schools and different time period have written from differing points of view. The sum total of that would constitute the landscape of Canadian historiography. Precisely what additions to this historiographical landscape constitute JT's "1984 style re-writing of history"?
Which kinda makes me wonder what exactly it is that Newsom did agree with in the speech, since, AFAICT, the gist of it was that the shift should be considered permanent.
Newsom agrees with whatever seems politically expedient today.
I'm a New Democrat. That was hardly balance. As a Canadian historian, I found the 1984 comment to be the height of hyperbole.
Comparisons with literary dystopias are almost always hyperbolic, arguably by definition. My main issue with them is that people need to get more creative with their choices. I find the general setting of 1984 to be of limited utility in portaying anything much beyond the americanized/stalinized version of late 1940s Britain(*) that Orwell was worried about.
For the overly-regulated, health-obsessed world that conservatives might fear Trudeau was announcing, I think the movie Demolition Man might be a better fit. Minus the counter-thematic Taco Bell product placements.
(*) To be sure, 1984 is very useful for interpreting that particular time and place.
Which kinda makes me wonder what exactly it is that Newsom did agree with in the speech, since, AFAICT, the gist of it was that the shift should be considered permanent.
Newsom agrees with whatever seems politically expedient today.
Unlike some of my left-wing American friends(who call him "Newscum"), I can see how his happy-warrior style might have some appeal, and while I dislike his shift to the right on certain social issues, I won't deny it might be electorally clever.
His praise of Carney's speech followed almost immediately by effective disagreement with Carney's main point really gave the impression of mindless bsndwagonning, but that too can be electorally advantageous, if he's appealing to people who liked the fact, if you will, of Carney's speech, without really analyzing the specifics.
Thank you all for comments on Carney's speech.
On behalf, I hope, of everyone who contributed, you're welcome.
I'm a New Democrat. That was hardly balance. As a Canadian historian, I found the 1984 comment to be the height of hyperbole.
Not hyperbole: truth.
You calling me a mouthpiece was not very nice.
As an outsider living in Canada I am always interested to hear what people here think of their country and where it is going. Sharkshooter - can you tell us what would be your ideal vision of Canada's future? What would it look like, understanding that we don't often achieve our ideals?
Canada's parliament resumes today after its 6 week winter break. We will see what tack PP will take in Question Period especially with his leadership review coming up this weekend.
Comments
As we are immediately in the wake of American-instituted regime change in Venezuela, what are your thoughts on the likelihood of American-instituted regime change in Canada? Unlikely, or are you quietly making plans to move elsewhere?
So far, I think PM Carney has done a pretty good job in walking very fine lines.
Before getting worried about Greenland or ourselves, the one thing the US Military is NOT set up to do and is frankly terrible at is long term occupation with guerrilla warfare. It did them in in Vietnam, it did them in in Afghanistan and it will do them in in Venezuela. There is only so much they can do without putting lots of boots on the ground for a very long time and that is likely to prove the real limitation here.
From what I can see, oil companies are very hesitant to invest in Venezuela when they see they could could lose their entire investment to nationalization in a few years after the US stops paying attention.
Yeah, I suspect that if something like this decapitation had happened under a president viewed by the world as more of a normal person, it might be seen as morally and legally questionable, but wouldn't be producing mass panic. See Noriega 1989.
But, just 'cuz I'm unclear about your meaning here...
Are you suggesting that the US will try to do a long-term occupation of Venezuela, but it won't last due to the incompetency of the American military at such things?
And the typical Trump voter is likely, shall we say, disengaged enough to believe that the USA now controls all the oil in Venezuela, if that's what Trump tells him, regardless of what the actual reality is.
There are so many imponderables in the Trump administration that it’s hard to make any prediction about anything with any kind of confidence.
But that said, I’m inclined to agree with SPK that Trump or at least his Administration taken as whole* has at least a very basic Realpolitik level understanding of the difference between the two situations. Maduro’s government was (is) widely regarded as illegitimate and additionally Maduro and Chavez are widely regarded as having gratuitously made a mess of Venezuela for however many years. In the circumstances the international response was understandably muted. It’s crossing a whole different line to violate the territorial integrity of a NATO alliance member… as Denmark has been at pains to point out lately.
(*the relationship between these two entities being one of the imponderables I was referring to…)
Trump reminds me a bit of what I call the kamikaze style of litigation, which is where a litigator with no respect for facts or law manages to get surprisingly good results through brazen sociopathy. It’s the sort of thing that works until suddenly it doesn’t. The problem is that there is no way of knowing when things will fall apart and how much damage will have been done in the interim.
If the USA starts grabbing territory from other NATO countries, that will be the imediate de facto, and probably the eventual de jure, end of NATO. The people around Trump would have to be absolutely sure that that is in America's interests.
My fellow Canadians all doubtlessly know that anti-foreign aid demagoguery is a tried and true theme on the Canadian right. I do get the impression that, for a lot of the American public, NATO increasingly gives off the same sorta vibe that the alphabet-soup brigade of international co-operation and development agencies give to "the fed-up taxpayers of Canada". Buncha trashy foreigners milking us for cash and dragging us into problems we don't give a shit about.
Or at least, this administration and its allies are talking and acting as if they think there's a big market for anti-NATO posturing among the American public.
I suspect that even after the events today, he doesn't see any problem with that. In fairness, he wouldn't be the first Canadian politician of either party to overlook basic morality when facilitating the sale of military hardware.
I see nothing wrong with that, either.
Is that because you approve of what ICE is doing generally and are happy to see a Canadian company contribute to their efforts; or because you think sales of military equipment should be carried without moral judgement as to their eventual use?
FWIW, I would disagree with the first opinion, and am undecided as to the second. I have actually been thinking about the morality of arms sales the last little bit.
Thanks.
I think he's prob'ly just passively regurgitating rhetoric from the anti-TikTok crusade a while back.
Doug Ford is kind of understandable if you think of him just as the salesman repeating stories that he picked up at a trade convention in a nearby town.
They spy on iPhones, so why not?
Personally, I take Canadian Liberal PMs speaking at global fora like Davos with a grain of salt. Just one example, you may recall Justin Trudeau during COVID predicting a "Great Reset", but as far as I can tell, everybody has pretty much gone back to living the same way they had been living before the pandemic hit.
That being said, I will concede that, IF you believe that Trump is in the process of radically altering the global order for all eternity, Carney's speech, from what I read of it, might be a pretty accurate description of where we're heading, and how we need to prepare for it.
But I suspect a lotta people had already decided what the future holds before they heard Carney's speech, so their opinion of it might be a foregone conclusion.
[For anyone not familiar with the speech, I assume chrisstiles is refering to Carney's line: "We knew the story of the old international rules-based order was partially false."]
I think you could take it as a rhetorical trope, meaning something like "It was always obvious that the system didn't work according to the exact model 100% of the time." He later goes on to talk about how weaker countries were at a disadvantage against more powerful ones, regardless of the supposed equality of the system.
But, yeah. A world-leader probably wouldn't put it so bluntly in a case where his country was benefiting from the system, because it would sound to the less well-connected nations like gloating.
Yes, "the anti-imperialists were right, but that was good actually", and getting plaudits for admitting that now the "bargain no longer works" for him personally.
People get that Carney’s speech mentions ‘great powers’ and ‘intermediate/middle powers’ but not the implied third category, don't they?
It's just racist crap with several extra steps, and is liberalism laid out bare.
None of us will be free unless all of us are free.
So IOW, it's kinda like "First they came for the Communists...", minus the redeeming moral regret.
And this surprises you? Keeping in mind that Canada has a multiparty political system, not a duopololy, it should be no surprise when Carney says right-wing things. The Libersl Party of Canada is a brokerage party, not an ideological party.
Carney and a large part of the business establishment in Canada are still smarting from Trump's cancellation of NAFTA. They don't know what to do now. They ordered their whole world around that agreement.
Canada's last great political shift was the Free Trade Election of 1988. On the left that election fatally wounded the nationalist, union-based economic left who stood and died against Free Trade. Perhaps they were correct after all.
It doesn't surprise me that Carney says it. I find it bitterly ironic that liberals praise him when he says it.
I wouldn't call Carney's comments right-wing, in the sense of consciously trying to push a right-wing agenda. More like an "I'm alright, Jack" mentality, where it's not so much that you actively work to institute inequality because you think inequality is good, but you just don't bother fighting inequality because the issue doesn't really affect you.
Kinda like the comfortable suburbanite who doesn't care about police brutality because all the cops he deals with are nice guys, and even when he does hear the occasional complaint, chalks it up to "Oh well, nobody's perfect." Then, when the cops start shaking HIM down for dubious traffic tickets, he's all like "Okay, I knew there were some problems before, but this is going way over the line, and boy, am I pissed off now!"
Tangential, but it's always struck me as funny that Quebec, supposedly the most left-wing province with the most worker-friendly labour laws, was second only to Alberta in giving its popular vote to pro-FTA parties, and second also in seats won by pro-FTA parties. And, yes, I am aware that Quebec unions opposed the deal, but their political allies(the PQ etc) were another story.
And I'll read into the record that Doug Ford has now given "100%" endorsement to Carney's Davos speech. Though probably not for any specifically right-wing ideas presented in the speech, more just apolitical economic boosterism.
However, later in the interview, the host asks him if he agrees with Carney's assertion that the global rupture with the USA is permanent, and Newsom replies that that's hyperbole, we shouldn't think in such either/or binaries etc.
Which kinda makes me wonder what exactly it is that Newsom did agree with in the speech, since, AFAICT, the gist of it was that the shift should be considered permanent.
(Newsom also repeated several times his own pornographic metaphor for European leaders' supposed milktoast opposition to Trump. Guess he figures he's on a roll with that one.)
Anecdotally the speech appears to have been well received from many points of view across the political spectrum in Canada. Not that everyone agrees with Carney on everything but the sense being that he was saying something that needed to be said.
What JT meant was massive over-spending by the government, incredible over-reach into personal lives, speech and thought of all Canadians, and a 1984-style rewriting of history. That hasn't changed.
As opposed to the JT/MC one. There should be some balance to the comments here, shouldn't there?
Not hyperbole: truth.
You calling me a mouthpiece was not very nice.
Well, whatever our respective value judgements about the situation before COVID, we both seem to agree that the world has more or less returned to that status quo. Whereas the maximalist interpretation of what Trudeau said(*) imagined a new level of regulation and global-centralization beyond anything previously imagined.
(*) Mostly held by his detractors on the far-right and Convoy-style. I don't many of his supporters, much less the floating-middle, even remembered that speech beyond the day it was reported.
Newsom agrees with whatever seems politically expedient today.
Thank you all for comments on Carney's speech.
Comparisons with literary dystopias are almost always hyperbolic, arguably by definition. My main issue with them is that people need to get more creative with their choices. I find the general setting of 1984 to be of limited utility in portaying anything much beyond the americanized/stalinized version of late 1940s Britain(*) that Orwell was worried about.
For the overly-regulated, health-obsessed world that conservatives might fear Trudeau was announcing, I think the movie Demolition Man might be a better fit. Minus the counter-thematic Taco Bell product placements.
(*) To be sure, 1984 is very useful for interpreting that particular time and place.
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Unlike some of my left-wing American friends(who call him "Newscum"), I can see how his happy-warrior style might have some appeal, and while I dislike his shift to the right on certain social issues, I won't deny it might be electorally clever.
His praise of Carney's speech followed almost immediately by effective disagreement with Carney's main point really gave the impression of mindless bsndwagonning, but that too can be electorally advantageous, if he's appealing to people who liked the fact, if you will, of Carney's speech, without really analyzing the specifics.
On behalf, I hope, of everyone who contributed, you're welcome.
As an outsider living in Canada I am always interested to hear what people here think of their country and where it is going. Sharkshooter - can you tell us what would be your ideal vision of Canada's future? What would it look like, understanding that we don't often achieve our ideals?