Canada

How Canada can move away from its ‘whack-a-mole’ national security strategy

Carney – Unhappy Warriors

Months ago, as Prime Minister Mark Carney was embarking on his marathon negotiations with the U.S. government, he indicated that he preferred dealing with trade and security as a package.

In practice, the paths that have developed seem to be trade talks that focus on tariffs and security decisions that focus on a significant increase in defence spending. For the short term, this approach is entirely reasonable and practical, but for the long term it will not advance Canada’s broader national security. Rather, it represents a form of “whack-a-mole.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Trump’s Greenland gambit exposes Canada’s Arctic vulnerability

OTTAWA — Just when Canada thought it was getting its military house in order by finally meeting NATO spending targets, President Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland have exposed the vulnerability of the vast, underpopulated and undergunned Canadian Arctic.

Trump’s Greenland threats have turned the Arctic from a distant, long-term concern into an urgent strategic test for Canada, exposing how a region long treated as remote is now entangled in disputes over shipping routes, sovereignty and alliance politics.

Successive Canadian governments have long understood that melting polar ice has left the Arctic more accessible — and more vulnerable to Russian and Chinese interest — but have done little to counter threats traditionally seen as unlikely.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Separatist sentiment resurfaces in Alberta and Quebec as Ottawa urges unity

As Prime Minister Mark Carney emphasizes national unity, separatist sentiment is gaining renewed attention in more than one part of the country.

In the small central Alberta town of Innisfail, the quiet of Main Street contrasts sharply with the intensity of opinions surrounding the issue.

Jeff Olson, owner of Innisfail Bowling and Entertainment, says he is fully behind separation, arguing Ottawa has long treated Alberta unfairly.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada

The increasingly awkward case of Canada’s demilitarized Arctic

At last week’s World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that his weeks of threats to annex Greenland had yielded fruit.

“We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Jan. 21. “This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

NORAD pact would change if Canada pulls back from F-35 order, warns U.S. ambassador

U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Canada is warning of consequences to the continental defence pact if Canada does not move forward with the purchase of 88 F-35 fighter jets.

“NORAD would have to be altered,” U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra told CBC News in an exclusive interview at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

He says the United States would likely need to purchase more of the advanced fighter aircraft for its own air force, and would fly them more often into Canadian airspace to address threats approaching the U.S.

I think Canada will come to resemble the Albania of the Soviet era.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Norad, USA

Is Canada on Trump’s Hit List? Let’s Do the Math

U.S. President Donald Trump’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his declaration that the United States will now “run” Venezuela are deeply concerning on a number of levels: political, legal and moral.

But we should not forget, either, about the environmental cost of Trump’s plan to ramp up production of Venezuelan oil. Nor should we ignore what Trump’s growing hunger for other countries’ natural resources might mean for Canada in the coming years.

I think it will be a relatively painless and selective annexation if it happens.

h/t Mauser

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Smith Says Alberta Separatists Not Seeking to Join the US

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she doesn’t think supporters of the Alberta independence movement want their province to join the United States. Her comments came a day after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent weighed in on the separatism movement during a Jan. 23 interview on the American network Real America’s Voice.

Smith said Albertans have been “frustrated” with the federal government but have not indicated to her that they want the province to join their southern neighbour.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAlberta, Canada

What’s eating Canadian consumers the most? Try grocery prices

To many economists, the affordability crisis is an illusion.

The financial pressure weighing so heavily on Canadian households over the cost of living doesn’t really show up in the numbers.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, incomes have grown faster than inflation. Average weekly wages have risen by 29 per cent since the end of 2019, according to Statistics Canada. The Consumer Price Index is up by 21 per cent over the same period.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada

Has Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Made the Dissolution of Canada a Done Deal?

At the annual shindig in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made himself the folk hero of the anti-Trump crowd (that would be basically everyone). In remarks billed as receiving a “standing ovation” but which look pretty tepid on video, Carney proclaimed that Canada was going its own way because the “American hegemon” could no longer be trusted.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Trump hasn’t backed off his takeover threats, and Canada’s allies have been readying themselves. What about us?

CAF Makes The Arctic Safe For Sexual Mutilation Fetishists – Watch Out Trump

After the Cold War, Canadians lived under the comfortable delusion that security was a service to be provided by someone else. We treated national defence like a subscription — one we underpaid for, assuming the United States would provide the muscle and our geography the shield.

That era has ended. With U.S. President Donald Trump determined to acquire Greenland, and with talk of Canada’s own annexation becoming dangerously mainstream, we are no longer just a neighbour; we are a target. We are in the midst of a geopolitical crisis, and according to our military’s assessment, we are uniquely vulnerable. This will become especially true when we contribute troops to NATO exercises in Greenland, as we must do.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, USA

US seeks to use Alberta to destabilize Canada

The threat has shifted. While Europeans breathed a sigh of relief at US President Donald Trump’s recent retreat on Greenland, Canada has now become the target. The US administration has set its sights on the province of Alberta, an energy hub in western Canada that accounts for 90% of national oil production. “Alberta is a natural partner for the US,” declared Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on January 22 during his visit to Davos, Switzerland, as if referring to a fully sovereign state. Notably, he was responding to MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec, a prominent Christian nationalist. “People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the US has got,” Bessent noted.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAlberta, Canada, USA

Can Middle Powers Like Canada Exist Between America and China?

As Donald Trump rampaged about in his first term, leadership of the free world was transferred, by general liberal acclamation, to Angela Merkel of Germany. She was cast as the embodiment of internationalist virtue: prudent, broad-minded, diplomatic, multilateralist and expertise-driven above all.

Then Trump left office, Merkel left office, and suddenly it was possible to notice that her leadership of Germany had been well-nigh disastrous.

The mismanaged eurozone crises that followed the crash of 2008 and her open door to Middle Eastern migrants both contributed mightily to the collapse of the very firewall against far-right parties she was supposedly maintaining. Much worse, she accepted, for enlightened environmentalist reasons, her country’s deindustrialization and an ever-increasing reliance on Russian oil and gas. And when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, it suddenly became clear that Merkel’s legacy wasn’t a strong alternative to Trump’s America; it was a weak European core threatened by and dependent upon an authoritarian rival to its east.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, USA

While Canada Cozies Up to China, Mexico Imposes Harsh Tariffs Due to Chinese Auto Dumping

In an attempt to figuratively poke Donald Trump and the United States in the eye, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney just announced that Canada is cozying up to China by slashing tariffs on imported Chinese EVs. The new tariff rate will be just 6.1 percent, opening up his country to 49,000 Chinese vehicles initially, and increasing to 70,000 in the coming years. China “reciprocated” by dropping the tariff on Canadian canola oil to 15 percent. Carney’s determination to strike a deal with China clearly put the Chinese in a very favorable negotiating position. It would behoove Mr. Carney to have a talk with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum about the perils of economic surrender to China, especially as it relates to Chinese auto imports.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canada - USA Tariff Wars", "EV's - Electric Vehicles", Canada, Mexico, USA

From brutal blitz to guerrilla warfare: Imagining what a U.S. invasion of Canada might look like

There’s “effectively zero” chance the U.S. would invade Canada — but we must prepare for that contingency anyway, experts say.

The U.S. invasion of Canada would likely begin with a brutal blitz, before rising to a defiant insurgency.

Over the course of mere days, a co-ordinated series of surgical strikes by the U.S. military could decapitate Canada’s leadership, cripple its military, compromise key communication channels and paralyze the nation, national defence experts tell the Star.

But despite its early victories, the States would find it near impossible to hold Canada for long — especially if a hostile population decided to resist.

A defiant insurgency? And just who will take that on? The Hindus? The Mohammedans? The Sikhs?

Trump may be on your street soon!

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, USA

How Trudeau Liberals’ DEI obsession helped kill Canadian culture

Former CBC exec says DEI wasn’t meant to be a punishing exercise in ideological purity but to celebrate what had been arbitrarily suppressed

Set for release Jan. 27, Lament for a Literature is the new book from Richard Stursberg, in which he laments the decline of Canadian literature, for which he blames multiple factors. In this excerpt, he addresses the impact of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, arguing they took over a badly weakened cultural sector from the Harper Conservatives and threw money at it without addressing the difficult structural issues affecting it, only making things worse. The government, he said, did not understand “that as Canadian media eroded and Canadians embraced the new foreign digital platforms, they walked away from Canada itself. They no longer consumed Canadian news, laughed at Canadian comedies, read Canadian books, watched Canadian documentaries, or heard the opinions of Canadian experts on domestic social, cultural, political, economic, or historical issues. They effectively left the national conversation and moved to another amorphous, filter-bubbling virtual country.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada