Mark Carney: Why I Rejected Trump’s Trade Deal
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
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"But the US narrow merchandise trade deficit only exists because the US buys so much of its energy from Canada. Canada fuels American growth, supplying 99 percent of their natural gas imports, 85 percent of their electricity imports, 60 percent of their crude oil imports. I don’t think they want us to stop sending any of that energy."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
Well that's something I didn't know. Doesn't make Canada the good guys though.
(1/?)
A sensible country would be working towards energy independence based on renewables. Maybe with a bit of back and forth energy trade with neighbours, for years where one of them has insufficient generation for their needs and others have a surplus.
But outsourcing their energy needs to their neighbours fossil fuel reserves is neither sustainable or desirable. The neighbour making bank off such exports, is profiting from making it politically viable to avoid supporting renewables.
(2/?)
"We’re moving rapidly to build major infrastructure. We’ve already referred twenty-seven nation-building initiatives to the new Major Projects Office: new ports, mines, energy corridors from every region of the country that now represent $500 billion in new private investment—projects that will help Canada build bigger, move faster, and trade more with the world."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
This doesn't sound unambiguously good either.
(3/?)
This sounds pretty good on the face of it;
"Through Build Canada Homes, we are accelerating the construction of affordable housing. In just a few months, this new agency has committed to building nearly 17,000 homes through seventeen partnerships. We are building the local infrastructure Canadians rely on through the new Build Strong Communities Fund, representing an investment of $51 billion."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
But the devil's in the details.
(4/?)
Can anyone in Canadia tell us what projects funded under Build Canada Homes and Build Strong Communities Fund look like on the ground? Especially from the perspective of indigenous peoples whose ancestral land sits within modern Canada, or adjacent to it.
(5/?)
"Just last Monday in St. John’s, the governments of Canada, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador launched the single largest investment in Canada’s history to build the largest clean-energy project in North America ever ... It will produce enough clean electricity to power every single vehicle in Canada."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
Yay! But also ...
(6/?)
"A second James Bay."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
"The young Waskaganish Chief Billy Diamond and his father, former Chief Malcolm Diamond took leadership in organizing the Cree response to the James Bay Project. In 1972, anticipating great impacts on their livelihood, the Cree and Inuit sought an injunction from the Superior Court of Quebec, 'the longest temporary injunction hearing in Canadian history'.”
https://waskaganish.ca/the-james-bay-project/
Potentially not so 'yay'? Also ...
(7/?)
"We’re building our economy while taking charge of our security by investing half a trillion dollars into our defence, expanding our shipyards, growing our aerospace industry, increasing our cyber capabilities, and we’re realizing Canada’s full potential as an energy superpower in nuclear, LNG, renewables, and low-carbon oil and gas."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
Definitely not so 'yay', except for the renewables bit, but see above.
(8/?)
Also, WTF does "low-carbon oil and gas" mean? On the face of it, this sounds like dry water.
"But Angela Carter, a researcher in equitable energy and governance and Memorial University political scientist, said Carney's reference to low-carbon oil raises a red flag.
...
'Low-carbon oil is not a thing. It doesn't exist. It's an impossibility', Carter told CBC News Thursday."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/carney-low-carbon-oil-comments-1.7631526
So Carney is trying to sell us dry water.
(9/?)
"... the first Canadian Investment Summit in Toronto ... is attracting the world’s largest investors, who collectively manage over $100 trillion in assets .... We are cutting taxes, putting down barriers, and accelerating our efforts to transform our economy ... We are delivering faster, more predictable approvals and investing alongside the private sector."
#MarkCarney, 2026
https://thewalrus.ca/mark-carney-why-i-rejected-trumps-trade-deal/
Standard corporatist bullshit.
(10/?)
The rhetoric Carney is selling might seem desirable by comparison to the actual fascists in charge across the border. Don't be fooled. Given 2 options I take the third, and I suggest Canadians consider doing the same.
Carney's warmed-over neoliberal talking points may sound comfortably reminiscent of an Obama or a Clinton (either of them). But it's worth noting the left fought these people tooth and nail, for good reasons, like those discussed upthread.
(11/?)
Besides, the neoliberal project is over.
It was consistently challenged through the late 1990s and early 2000s by the "anti-globalization" movement. Which was, in fact, a global movement against the imposition everywhere of neoliberal policy.
It was dealt a death blow in the late 2000s by the Global Financial Crisis. Which conclusively proved that underregulated markets are a terrible idea.
(12/?)
Electoral politics since the GFC - and particularly since the public square occupation movements that followed - has been a battle over which political framework will replace the Washington Consensus (another name for the neoliberal project).
Major parties have responded mainly offering us a choice of neoconservatives; Romney or Obama? Trudeau or Carney? Sunak or Starmer? Morrison or Albanese? In Aotearoa, Cluxon or Hipkins.
A lot of people now see this for the false choice it is.
(13/?)
