It was yet another day that we have to become used to once again, where Donald Trump said something that was all at once boneheaded, insulting, and vaguely disturbing, as he talked about using economic forces to annex Canada (while also threatening Denmark/Greenland and Panama), and of course, that made every two-bit pundit and wannabe in this country light their hair on fire, yet again, because of course they did. And our political leaders were forced to respond, and I’m not sure what’s worse—Trump’s chaotic insanity, or the fact that our political leaders have to come up with something in response.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.
Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 7, 2025
Canada will never be the 51st state. Period.
We are a great and independent country.
We are the best friend to the U.S. We spent billions of dollars and hundreds of lives helping Americans retaliate against Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks. We supply the U.S. with billions of dollars of…
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) January 7, 2025
Cut the crap, Donald. No Canadian wants to join you.
We are proud Canadians. Proud of the way we take care of each other and defend our nation.
Your attacks will hurt jobs on both sides of the border.
You come for Canadians’ jobs, Americans will pay a price.
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) January 7, 2025
President-elect Trump’s comments show a complete lack of understanding of what makes Canada a strong country.
Our economy is strong.
Our people are strong.
We will never back down in the face of threats.
— Mélanie Joly (@melaniejoly) January 7, 2025
While threats to our sovereignty are one thing, it also goes to show that all of the obsequious scrambling to strengthen border measures—to say nothing of the boot-licking and obeying in advance of certain premiers—are pretty much for naught because Trump is not about to be mollified by any of this. He doesn’t have any tangible demands, because he wants a win, and today, he’s fixated on annexation as that win, but in a week’s time, he’ll likely move onto something else, because he is likely to lose interest, especially if something is difficult (and you’d better believe that annexation is incredibly difficult, particularly because it involves some near-impossible constitutional wrangling). It’s one of the reasons why we should probably be keeping our powder dry rather than freaking the fuck out every time he says something stupid and insane, but certainly be preparing retaliatory measures, and that’s going to likely mean the big guns like broad-based retaliatory counter-tariffs rather than selective ones like the last time, or export taxes on things like energy products, even if Scott Moe starts to throw a tantrum about it.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T03:42:32.469Z
Amidst this, there was no end to people who should know better throwing a tantrum that the prorogation should be “rescinded” (no, it doesn’t work like that) and that Parliament needs to be recalled over these threats. Which would do what, exactly? The government continues to function, and no, it’s not a “caretaker” government. What would MPs actually do about this situation? There is no legislation that requires passage to counter any of this. The most that we would get are a unanimous consent motion condemning Trump’s words (maybe, if certain parties don’t balk and say we shouldn’t antagonise Trump), or a take-note debate where MPs spend six hours reading prepared speeches into the record. Oooooh! That’ll show Trump!
Canada MUST recall our Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling respectively) during tariff negotiations & annexation threats by President-Elect & Former POTUS, Donald J. Trump.The risk is too high for some of our greatest national exports.
— Jon Liedtke (@jonliedtke.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T01:09:10.162Z
Ukraine Dispatch
⚡️Large fire reported at oil depot in Russia's Saratov Oblast following drone attack.
A large fire engulfed an oil depot overnight on Jan. 8 in the city of Engels in Saratov Oblast, various Russian Telegram media channels reported.https://t.co/FUJi8n1AxP
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 8, 2025
Russia keeps on advancing in eastern Donetsk Oblast, taking hold of Kurakhove, which would become the first major town to fall into Russian hands in 2025.https://t.co/4pw7WkxQMW
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 7, 2025
Good reads:
- Justin Trudeau has invited the premiers to meet next Wednesday to discuss the next steps in Canada-US relations.
- For greater clarity, the CRA will continue to collect the capital gains changes announced, as that is the established convention before measures are legislated.
- First Nations in Ontario plan to negotiate their own child and family welfare agreement with the federal government, apart from the AFN.
- A Liberal party spokesman says they’re not planning any membership/“supporter” rule changes ahead of the leadership contest in spite of interference concerns.
- Several former Liberals discuss what they think the leadership contest should look like (and this is exactly why we should have Westminster selection by caucus).
- Gerald Butts muses about Trudeau’s fall from grace in the public eye.
- Pierre Poilievre is, naturally, saying that the next Liberal leader will be “just like Justin” in order to keep his prepared attack lines going.
- The NDP are trying to field-test a “Jagmeet Singh unfiltered” tactic, which is why he’s acting with even more performative toughness these days.
- Kevin Carmichael makes some salient points about the lack of solid implementation as part of Trudeau’s economic legacy (but he also lets the premiers off the hook).
- Charlie Warzel and Mike Caulfield look at online disinformation not as brainwashing, but as a way to rationalize and justify existing batshit beliefs.
- Anne Applebaum describes how pseudo-spirituality has infected the far-right, and has become a conduit for authoritarians.
Odds and ends:
#cdnpoli
All of it. https://t.co/vAcIHrICNn— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 8, 2025
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Annexation would be a lot of work but so will the reast of Trumps agenda. Look at all of Trump’s business failures . When the going gets taough, Trump gets out.
President-elect Trump is proposing invading and seizing Panama, attacking Canada economically with the intention of annexing it, and invading and seizing Greenland. It sounds like an ambitious program for his first week in office but the man is a brilliant diplomat.
Mr. Trump may not have noticed that both Canada and Denmark are in NATO and Denmark is a member of the European Union. An invasion of Greenland activates Article of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty and Article 47(7) of the Treaty on European Union. So in one swoop, Trump puts the USA at odds, more or less at war, at with 35 countries including Canada, its next door neighbour, and Türkiye, usually described as having the second largest army in NATO.
I have not checked trade figures but if we take the EU, plus those NATO countries not members of the EU, such as Canada and Türkiye, I suspect we are talking real money.
The USA and Türkiye are already fighting a nasty little proxy war in Syria and President Erdoğan, probably, still holds a bit of a grudge about the US–sponored coup attempt back in 2016.
A lot of former colonies whose people fought and died for independence might not be wildly enthusiastic to see the USA re-colonizing Panama. There has been talk in the USA of invading Mexico to attack the drug cartels. I am sure Mexico has fond memories of the Mexican–American War and of General Pershing’s escapades chasing Pancho Villa in 1916. All of Latin America must be reassured by this talk.
This leaves aside the reactions of the rest of the world to naked aggression or statements of aggression against any country, let alone allies.
Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty
Blast it. I need a copy editor.