America Derangement Syndrome

 

A week or so ago, YouTuber JJ McCullough posted a video arguing that Mark Carney’s drive for “associate membership” in the EU made no sense. He almost immediately took it down, unable to stand all the hostile comments it elicited.

Canadians have America Derangement Syndrome, which is strikingly similar to Trump Derangement Syndrome. It may be the same underlying disease. But it has endured much longer in Canada.

To begin with, McCullough is obviously right. Carney’s initiative makes no economic sense. Canada already has free trade with the EU. So the only point of the exercise seems to be to annoy the Americans, our biggest trading partner. Like his recent cozying up to China. It is all reminiscent of the early days of Castro’s Cuba. Not a wise strategy.

McCullough is also obviously right that English Canada has far more in common culturally with the US than with the 27 members of the EU. Language, history, geography, customs, sports, music, legal traditions, blood ties. We are Americans—America Derangement Syndrome is a form of self-hate.

And maybe that explains Trump Derangement Syndrome too. Trump is not just too pro-American, but too stereotypically American, for self-hating Americans. A billionaire who has carefully crafted his persona as an incarnation of success in the free market—the American Dream. He is offensively blond—even making a display of his hair. He is, God forbid, a salesman, and actually proud of it: an occupation beneath the contempt of any proper European aristocrat. He is brash and straightforward in the way Europeans have always found Americans to be brash. He is impolite, undiplomatic. 

On becoming president in 1801, Thomas Jefferson made a point of not following protocol in entertaining the British ambassador. This was the new American way; Thomas Wolfe has described it as “the birth of the American idea.” European concerns with manners merely served the interests of a ruling class. 

Is there a cure for America Derangement Syndrome? It seems impervious to either evidence or reason.

Why Isn't Canada in Revolt?

RB Bennett

Someone asks recently online why, in the face of populist electoral rebellions in the US under Trump, in the UK under Farage and now Lowe, in Italy under Meloni, in the Netherlands under Wilders, in Germany, in France, in Scandinavia, Canada seems quiescent and content with the woke status quo.

I suspect this is mostly accidental. In 2021, Canada was leading the developed world in protest with the Freedom Convoy. The brutal and illegal crushing of that protest did much to cow opposition since; but that must mean it is simmering under the surface. Two years ago, it looked as though the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre were about to sweep into power, humiliating the woke Liberals. Poilievre had impressive rhetorical skills, like Farage or Trump, and talked a relatively hard line. It looked as though Canada was, in Canadian fashion, going to manage a relatively orderly transition to the populist right.

But then the Liberals benefitted from being able to run against the USA and Trump instead of Poilievre—forcing the electorate to rally round the flag. Carney looked like an apolitical technocrat who might be able to manage the crisis. And the Liberal government perhaps benefitted even more from the collapse of the NDP, the party theoretically to their left. A double stroke of luck for them, unlikely to be repeated. And this made the election actually in large part a rejection of the left. It is just that the electorate blamed the NDP, and saw Carney as something new.

In the prior two elections, under Justin Trudeau, 2019 and 2021, the Conservatives actually outpolled the Liberals; the appearance of support for wokeness was an anomaly of the Canadian electoral map.

Now there is a push in Alberta for separation—that is hardly quiescence.

It is true, and disturbing, that current federal polling shows the Liberals well ahead of the Conservatives. I can only account for this as a continuation of the “rally around the flag” impulse in continuing crisis. But unless the Liberals can come through soon with some solid solutions, that support is likely to evaporate. Just as it has evaporated for Keir Starmer in the UK after a landslide election win; just as it evaporated for Boris Johnson and the Tories before him. And just as it evaporated for RB Bennet after he won the 1930 election in the first throes of the Great Depression. Elected as a steady business mind to deal with the crisis, and failing to make a dent, he was crushed in 1935. And has been blamed for the suffering ever since.

I expect Carney to ultimately be such a figure. The bad news is, we in Canada are likely to go through some suffering first. Possibly Canada’s impoverishment, possibly its collap

Carney the Dime Store Pychiatrist

 

Canadian PM Mark Carney has decided, it seems, that the way to handle Donald Trump is to praise him lavishly in public.

This is presumably based on the sophomoric assumption that Trump is a narcissist. Narcissists are notoriously susceptible to flattery.

Trump is not. Both Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott tried this in the VP stakes. Not only did they not get picked— but a few brief weeks for Ramaswamy, neither even made it into the administration.

Trump is just as immune from flattery as he is from insult. Showing, if it were not already obvious, that he is not a narcissist.

The last thing a narcissist would do is surround himself with subordinates who might steal the limelight. Instead, Trump picked a strong cabinet including charismatic people with their own followings: RFK Jr., Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rudio, Christie Noem, Tom Homan, Kash Patel. He is happy to give VP Vance prominence and camera time, for example in the public negotiations with Zelensky.

Narcissists are never creative thinkers; they fear the spontaneity that creativity requires. It means a loss of control. Trump is creative in government, full of new policy ideas, and able to speak for hours entertainingly without notes.

Narcissists also lack stamina. As soon as something seems hard, and they get a whiff of failure, they will quit. Trump is just the reverse of that, seemingly not even slowed down by political attacks, personal insults, legal attacks, deplatforming, attempted assassination, and electoral defeat.

Trump is the anti-narcissist. He seems to have absolutely no ego.

And Carney is showing himself to be painfully stupid.

So Long, Canada

 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?

I am not over the trauma of the Canadian election. The result was, on its face, the worst possible. Four more years of the Liberals with their growing totalitarianism, growing censorship, growing immigration, deliberate hobbling of the economy, growing taxes and deficits, supply management and trade war.

Worse, with a minority. This means they do not have a mandate to negotiate with Trump. There is no unified front. Sooner than expected, but just as I expected, Alberta is talking of secession.

Has God abandoned Canada?

He might have reason to love America more. America has after all been at the forefront of advancing human rights and human liberty. And it has assumed the task of defending it. What, by contrast, does Canada’s existence do for the world, for mankind, for human progress, by existing apart?

America is also at the forefront of reverence for God, of religious faith. Granted that there is much religious fervour in poorer nations, America stands without parallel as a rich and successful nation that nevertheless has preserved its faith. It shows the path forward, then. Within the Catholic Church, America is now seen as the home of the resistance to modernism. And reports are growing of a general revival, a new Great Awakening.

At the same time, Canada has been blindly arrogant. On the one hand, we have looked down on Americans, imagined we are superior. We have not been grateful for their decency and generosity as a neighbour. Instead, we show contempt. “We burned down your White House.” Which, of course, we did not. “We won the War of 1812.” Which we did not. We object to their new tariffs, and ignore our tariffs on US products, as though America owes us something.

On the other hand, we in Eastern Canada, the bulk of the population, have arrogantly ignored the concerns of Alberta and the West. We have looked down on them. We have expected them to send us regular tribute, and expressed no gratitude for it. We have treated them like a colony.

We have deserved some chastisement.

But have we been so awful that we deserve to be destroyed? Surely we have still been on the whole a moral people, better than most.

Yet God perhaps knows best. Carney promises the destruction of Canada. Poilievre promised a chance to hold the enterprise together.

Maybe it is best for all if Canada dies fast so that the suffering is not drawn out. The great apocalypse everyone fears is simply Canada being assimilated into the United States—a fate that most people in the world would consider the best thing that could happen to them.

Canadians can then expect greater wealth, lower taxes, more career opportunities, stronger guarantees for our freedoms, more security, more life choices. 

Will we feel nostalgia for the old Canada? There is no real reason to, as we can and no doubt will preserve our traditions. Just as Texas remains distinct within the US, or Louisiana, or New England.

On the Canadian Election Results

It is typical that the media are playing the just-finished Canadian election as a striking defeat and rebuff for Poilievre and the Conservatives. Warren Kinsella has a column out urging the Tories to get a new leader. Poilievre has failed.

Never take advice from your enemies.

It is sad that the Conservatives did not achieve power. It is sadder that Poilievre lost his own seat. But actually, the Conservative vote was at a near-all-time high. They missed the brass ring only because of the collapse of the NDP.

Carney could have an awkward time of it. The NDP ought to take the lesson that they lose by propping up the Liberals: doing so last time cut them down to below party status. To have any chance at a future, they must now distinguish themselves sharpy from the Liberals. 

At the same time, the Liberals will likely pay a price in the rest of Canada for making any deals with the BQ, an avowedly separatist party. And there is nothing in such cooperation for the Bloc either. The Liberals are their main opponents in Quebec. Strategically, they hardly want to make the Rouge look good by forcing them into new programs popular in Quebec. The credit in the popular mind is liable to go to Carney, not Blanchet and the Bloc.

So I see a good chance that Carney will soon be unable to command the support of the House. Meantime, the Liberals’ environment policies seem bound to alienate Aberta into at least talk of separation. And some economist has argued that whoever wins this time is unlucky, because the tariffs and trade war are going to lead to hard times soon. They will be blamed. Or they are going to have to cut a deal with Trump, and they will be tarred with inconsistency if not duplicity.

There will be good incentive soon enough among the other parties to bring down the government, and not be seen to prop them up. This may only be the first round.

The State of the Race

 

I am profoundly depressed by the state of the polls in the Canadian election. Careny and the Liberals are projected to win a majority government, and I believe this will be the end of democracy in Canada; even the end of Canada. See my last post.

It would be divine justice for the arrogance of so many Canadians: thinking they are better than Americans, and better that Albertans and Saskatchewanians, and those guys had better just give us what we want, or else…

Narcissistic thinking.

Too many Conservative commentators are relying on the polls being wrong. That is an irrational, delusional, thought. That too is narcissistic thinking: as though the world is obliged to conform to my desires.

I think it is rational, at least, to hold out some hope for the upcoming debates. Because he is leading in the polls, all the other parties will be attacking Carney. And leaving each other alone. Blanchet is masterful in debate; and his party's current situation gives him every reason to go for broke and try for the knockout. Poilievre is masterful. Singh is desperate. Carney’s French is limited. And he has little experience in debate. He was not challenged in the Liberal leadership debate. He has been prickly even taking questions from essentially friendly reporters. He is not good at taking criticism. He is liable to blow his cool, or look a fool, or be caught lying.

I think the drip, drip, drip of scandals may also catch up with him. I overheard on the bus a few days ago one guy trying to convince others that Carney’s ties to the CCP are too sinister. Now there is the scandal of dirty tricks at a Conservative event. There is the issue of using tax havens. There is the issue of lying about moving his corporate headquarters to the States. There is the issue of possible conflicts of interest, and lack of transparency on what he owns. There has to be a tipping point.

We can pray and hope.

Reasons Not to Vote Carney

 

As a public service, here are a few reasons not to vote Carney and Liberal in the upcoming Canadian election:

Carney, like Trudeau, seems to be run by China. He seems to be cooperating with Beijing, naming candidates with known connections to the CCP; and refusing to remove candidates known to have such ties. We know the CCP is backing him on social media. His hostility to the US looks like China’s bidding. He looks, in short, like a Manchurian candidate.

We know there is foreign interference in our electoral process. We know there is foreign interference from China specifically. We must know what candidates are compromised. The Liberals have been doing whatever they can to suppress this information, and Carney seems even worse on this than Trudeau. 

In order to find out what is going on, and ensure the security and legitimacy of elections, we must get the Liberals out of power now so we can have an open investigation. 

We seem to be entering a new Cold War, between China and the United States. Carney seems to side with China against the USA. He has declared the US a “national security threat.” Do we really want to side with China in this global conflict? Leaving aside the obvious rights and wrongs of this, we are too vulnerable to attack from the US to contemplate turning on them. It would be fatally arrogant.

Carney has said he will impose even stricter censorship in Canada—making it more like China. “We announced a series of measures with respect to online harm… a sea of misogyny, anti-Semitism, hatred, conspiracy theories—the sort of pollution that's online that washes over our virtual borders from the United States. My government, if we are elected, will be taking action on those American giants who come across [our] border.” Under Trudeau, we have already largely lost freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a free press. Carney plans to push further down this road. He must admire China’s “basic dictatorship.”

Carney says he will not repeal the “no new pipelines” bill. He says he will not force a pipeline on Quebec. He and his cabinet want to hobble the oil and gas industry, with their “net zero carbon” program. He has made this a cornerstone of his personal philosophy, in his book “Values.” 

This, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith warns, will trigger a “national unity crisis.” Scott Moe in Saskatchewan is also threatening action. The mechanism to separate is available to them, established through the Quebec referenda. They can vote to leave, and if to their advantage to join the United States. Doing so, they avoid both tariffs and equalization payments. If Alberta merely pulls out of the Canada Pension Plan, they theoretically have the right to take half the fund with them. Canada may be split in two, and without Alberta shovelling cash eastward, much poorer. It is suicidally arrogant for voters in eastern Canada to ignore Alberta’s concerns and vote Carney.

Justin Trudeau, having declared the Emergency Act and frozen bank accounts without legal justification, needed to be so utterly rebuked no future government would ever again try such a thing. Unfortunately, Trudeau resigned without facing a vote. Therefore, we must rebuke his successor Carney, his party, and the cabinet and caucus who supported Trudeau in his actions. Under Carney they remain in power. For the sake of Canadian democracy, they must be thrown out. Every Liberal vote is an act of treason.

While both Carney and Poilievre are foolishly (or cynically) calling for a trade war against the US, this is suicide for Canada. But now that Trump has delayed most tariffs until after the election, in order to negotiate with a new government, Poilievre is at least better placed to negotiate that new trade deal. A new government can more easily reset the relationship and avoid responsibility for the belligerence of the past. It helps that Poilievre is broadly aligned politically with Danielle Smith and Doug Ford, the two premiers who have been most active and most flexible in talks with the Americans. It helps that Poilievre is, like the Republicans in power in the States, a conservative.  Ford, for all his initial bellicosity, has already proposed the obvious solution, reciprocal complete free trade and a shared defense perimeter.

Carney is the perfect globalist. He holds three passports. He has lived and held high government positions abroad. He has declared himself a European. He moved his businesses offshore. There is no reason to believe he holds any great allegiance to Canada. His allegiance is to the globalist elites and their agenda. This may not be in our interests. We need someone who will speak for us to international fora, not speak to us for international fora.

As a high-level investment banker at Brookfield and manager of investment funds, Carney has huge possible conflicts of interest. He is dodging questions about this. He seems even to have suspended his campaign or a few days to avoid questions about this. At a minimum, we must get a good look at the books, his tax returns, and his Cayman Islands and Bermuda addresses before we give him the PM chair for four years. 

He has, he says, put everything in a blind trust. But can he really remain blind to what, for example, Brookfield is invested in day by day? It’s probably in the papers. And in his memory. And, assuming he stays honest, what good is a Prime Minister who must recuse himself from most government decisions?

In modern times, democracies are gradually being taken over by the bureaucracy, the “Deep State,” the “blob.” This becomes an unaccountable ruling class. To forestall this, we must insist always on civilian oversight, on final power remaining always with out elected representatives.

Carney, unfortunately, is the personification of the bureaucratic mind. Voting in a bureaucrat to oversee bureaucrats is surrendering our democracy.

Over the past ten years, under Liberal stewardship, Canada’s GDP per capita has stagnated. Government debt has skyrocketed. The loonie is at a 50-year low against the dollar. We are slipping into the Third World. Carney was economic advisor during half of that time. We already know his policies are a disastrous failure. We must pull out of this nose dive.

Over the past ten years of Liberal leadership, mass migration and multiculturalism have badly damaged Canada’s social fabric, and produced shortages in housing and health care—essentials for life. At the same time, we are being warned that many low-skilled jobs will soon be obsolete due to automation, and a UBI may be needed. Meaning all these new immigrants are likely to be a growing burden to the taxpayer. 

Carney is committed to continuing these policies: mass migration and multiculturalism.

I discover that a Parliamentary committee has, with full support from both the Liberals and the NDP, called for withdrawing tax-exempt status from religious charities. This will further erode our social fabric, and withdraw the most effective support for the poor. 

Carney has been caught lying to the public repeatedly. He plagiarized his doctoral thesis. He has promised new laws that are already on the books. Would you buy a used car from this man?

Would you buy a used government?

So Long, Canada. We Hardly Knew You

 

Big Pink

The world is mad. It has always been mad, but something snapped around 2020.

Canadians are in terminal Trump Derangement. They are prepared to burn down the country out of spite.

Trump and the USA of course have every sovereign right to impose tariffs at their border. This is not a hostile act. 

Trump is not threatening to annex Canada. That is paranoid fantasy.

It is insane for Canada to impose retaliatory tariffs. We cannot win a trade war with the USA. The sane course is to negotiate 100% free trade instead. But no Canadian politician dares say this. Instead, we will just stand there and pour gasoline all over ourselves, then light a match.

Unless things change dramatically in three weeks, Canada is about to re-elect the Liberals under Carney; with a majority government. 

Right-wing commentators are as delusional as everyone else, insisting that the polls must be wrong.

With the Liberals’ environmentalist agenda blocking the development and transport of Alberta’s energy resources, Alberta is then planning to hold a referendum on secession. 

It is likely to pass, with the Liberals in power. But Easterners all still insist on voting Liberal.

If Alberta separates, Saskatchewan is likely to follow. BC will probably need to go too.

If this happens, Eastern Canada will be left an impoverished rump. 

Trump gets his best case scenario: he can admit the resource-rich West to statehood, and get full access to their resources. He need not let in all those left-leaning voters in the East.

Congratulations, Canada. Darwin would be proud.

Canada Calls an Election

 

Can he ride a white horse?

Canada is heading into an election. Polls show the Liberals are ahead, and on track to form a majority government. And this time it really matters. This could end Canada.

Trump has played his cards well; or he is lucky. Trump having put out the welcome mat, Alberta  is scuffing its boots on it. Danielle Smith has issued a series of demands of the federal government, to prevent “an unprecedented national unity crisis”: 

1. guaranteed access to east and West coasts for Alberta oil and gas.

2. dropping restrictions on new pipelines.

3. dropping restrictions on oil tankers off the West Coast.

4. dropping emissions caps on oil and gas.

5. scrapping clean energy legislation.

6. lifting restrictions on single-use plastics

7. no export tax on oil and gas

8. no federal industrial carbon tax

9. better management of national parks—i.e., judicious pruning out of deadwood.

Smith has also said Alberta must stop subsidizing large provinces through equalization payments. 

The Liberals cannot agree to this. They would have to renounce their platform, turn on their environmentalist base, and alienate their Quebec base. It is Quebec that is blocking any pipeline east, and Quebec is the “large province” that benefits most from the equalization payments.

And if a Liberal government ignores her demands? Smith warns of an “unprecedented national unity crisis.” Unprecedented? That means something more serious than the Quebec separatist movements of the recent past.

The path is established by precedent: Smith can call a referendum on separation, as Quebec has. At least one poll showed 41% support for independence as of 2020. With the open offer to join the US on the table, the bite of tariffs, the explicit rejection of demands by Ottawa, official endorsement from the premier, and a charm offensive from the US, one can easily imagine that figure going over 50%. Alberta unbound.

Whether or not Alberta then joins the US, there goes Canada. Cut in half. No access to BC from Saskatchewan and East, and vice versa. Huge loss of government revenue. And everyone east of Saskatchewan loses their equalization payments.

If they do go on to join the US, Trump gets the oil and gas, and a relatively conservative voting base, for his new state. He may not even care about the rest of Canada and their troublesome liberal voters.

Without the equalization payments, without Alberta’s tax revenues, and without access to the rest of Canada, other provinces are likely sooner or later to come begging. And the Americans can pick and choose which it is in their interest to admit, and which to leave out in the cold.

Could the Conservatives save Canada? They can at least better afford to alienate Quebec by forcing through a pipeline; they do not much rely on Quebec as a base of support. 

Might Quebec then separate? Perhaps. But this is less likely. A pipeline across their turf is not so serious an issue. Quebec does not have Alberta’s easy fallback of joining the US: it would probably mean losing their distinct language and culture over time. And they would surely be poorer after separation, while Alberta would be richer. 

Conservatives would not be alienating their base by dropping environmental restrictions. That are all for deregulation in general, and killing he industrial carbon tax is a core part of their platform. Alberta’s insistence and Trump’s threats could be a useful excuse for what they want to do anyway.

If Trump wants to take Canada’s resources, Carney is his horse.