Your middle-of-the-week umbrella ...
Canada is the emperor in fairy tales, the one who labours under the impression that he is important, faultless, and that the world needs him.
That is no longer the case and hasn't been since sinking into irrelevance in 2015:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently declared on CNN that in Canada, U.S. President Donald Trump is the “most disliked politician in the world . . . because he has attacked his closest family member.” In January, just before Mark Carney announced his leadership bid for the Liberal Party, he appeared on The Daily Show and told Americans that Canada and the United States could be “friends with benefits.” Are prominent U.S. leaders making time for media appearances to defend Canada as their “closest family member”?
Believing that trading partners are family, or friends even, betrays our leaders’ wide-eyed view of the world that not even historical precedent appears able to shake. It has invited complacency and deepens the damaging economic consequences when trade relationships evolve or break apart.
If there is one long-term takeaway for Canadian leaders from Mr. Trump’s assault on Canada’s access to U.S. markets, it’s realizing that countries we trade with are neither family nor friends, but jurisdictions that do business with us – business that is transactional, situational and evolving. …
The world isn’t made up of countries that want to trade with Canada because they are our family or friends. It’s comprised of countries who only value how Canada can serve their economic needs and political agendas. It’s time we admitted to that reality. Doing so will at the very least reduce the shock when trade deals go sideways.
If I am wrong, point out one trade deal that has benefited Canada or one spearheaded by Canada that works for all parties.
When the government in place cares more about taxing its population than making its industries work for them, you know that the country is on a downslide.
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Canada isn’t even at the kid’s table in Washington, D.C. In fact, we aren’t there at all as European and NATO leaders accompany Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. ...
Meanwhile in Washington, those who are serious about international matters, and who are taken seriously, will be at the White House.
That includes, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary-General, Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, and Alexander Stubb, President of Finland.
Canada is a member of NATO, just like all the countries there. We have the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. We have invested significantly to support Ukraine, but still no invite.
So much for Carney’s comments that “We are the most European of all non-European countries.”
Despite Carney’s decision to sprint to Europe to meet Macron and Starmer just after winning the Liberal leadership and becoming PM. Despite a return trip just after the election to tell the Europeans that we are pivoting towards them. Despite Carney signing a new “Security and Defence Partnership” agreement this past June, we simply aren’t on anyone’s radar.
We are alienated in Washington, ignored by Europe when it counts, and still involved in trade wars with China and to a degree India.
Things are going swimmingly.
Some may argue that Canada's presence (or, rather, absence) is irrelevant as more domestic issues take precedence.
No one listens to a country that is economically and politically weak. Try standing up to China or India or even the more amenable United States when the most one can muster is ... nothing.
Carney isn't even taking care of matters at home (which is not his home anyway as he has lived abroad for so many years that he regards himself as European).
He is an absentee landlord at best.
Somewhat related - we have some really clever people handling global matters:
The Canadian Embassy in Washington hired a US$2,000-an hour consultant for tips on how to talk to Americans, records show. It followed then-Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s boast that Canadian diplomats had expertise that “goes deep at different levels of American society.”
Haven't Canadians learned that only the government can handle disputes with an iron fist?:
In a lawsuit filed on Monday, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) — which represents over 750,000 members including Air Canada flight attendants — laid bare its outrage towards the airline and the Liberal government.
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The Canadian Union of Public Employees is asking that a federal judge cite Labour Minister Patty Hajdu for unlawful misuse of her powers to quash a legal strike by 10,500 Air Canada flight attendants. Hajdu yesterday did not comment but earlier told reporters she did not like strikes: “Is your government anti-union?”
Not that anyone cares because it's vacation time.
Whatever.
Wait until the government violently puts down bread riots.
Oh, yes - that can happen.
At least Carney isn't losing out:
The Liberals are ordering Air Canada back to be work and placing binding arbitration.
— TheRealMrBench (@therealmrbench) August 16, 2025
Guess who owns a large portion of Air Canada stock??
Brookfield. And this by default... Mark Carney. https://t.co/uXx7ViGThP pic.twitter.com/sXbXMdbLzM
We had the third largest navy at the end of the Second World War:
According to the survey, 74 per cent of respondents want young people to have to give a year of their lives to bolstering our failing, structurally unsound socialized medical system. Respondents were also in favour of mandatory service in support of the environment (73 per cent), “youth services” (72 per cent), whatever it might be, and “civil protection” (70 per cent). But when it comes to (ugh) national defence, just 43 per cent supported it, with 44 per cent opposed.
Spending on comfort while barbarians undermine the city walls lacks prudence as well as dignity. As I observed in a long-ago graduate-school debate about American national security, it didn’t matter how wonderfully progressive the Dutch social welfare system was in 1940 when the Nazis came calling. And we too seem to have our priorities backward.
If I might confuse the government by discussing principles of political economy, there are good reasons why national defence is considered a binding duty on those able to contribute to it. First is the “free rider” problem that everyone benefits from successful protection of the community, especially, at least in a narrow and hedonistic sense, if you send some other chump to die for your freedom while you recline comfortably at home.
Canadians support systems because they are systems and you have systems.
In short, doing the done thing without examining why it is done and how to keep it running properly is not in this country's post-national character.
No one questions how feasible and endurable our social safety net is (don't even think of asking Canadians where the money comes to pay for it all). They certainly don't care about even having borders and defending them.
No one wants to do the heavy lifting, even as the US grows weary of doing it for Canada.
And what is there to defend anyway?
We are not important to anyone. We do not root out foreign interlopers. We don't reign in our government. We will not use our natural resources (or are allowed to). We won't even make parents monitor the cell phones they give to children as toys.
Why put a body in a uniform for nothing?
We are near the zenith of moral and national laziness.
Only Justin can wear blackface:
An arbitrator has ordered that a white Toronto teacher who was terminated after he showed up at school in blackface for Halloween and told people he was dressed as a zombie should be reinstated and compensated for all wages and benefits lost in the last 20 months.
Gorian Surlan showed remorse for his actions, according to an arbitrator, who substituted a nearly two-year suspension for the high school teacher’s penalty. Surlan, who had been teaching for 19 years, came to work at Parkdale Collegiate Institute in black face makeup and black clothing on Oct. 29, 2021.
It's not what is done but who does it.
Why we cannot deal with Hamas as we would any legitimate organisation:
Ohad Ben Ami had previously described being held “30 meters underground, in six meters of concrete and sand without air to breathe. We slept close together on a thin, damp, and wet mattress, with the same blanket that had been used as a sheet for over a year,” adding, “insects in the tunnel would get into our noses, mouths, ears, and everywhere else possible.”
“A high-ranking (Hamas) commander comes in, takes the Kalashnikov from the wall, inserts a magazine, cocks it, and says, ‘Choose three people that I’m going to kill and three people that I’m going to shoot in the knee.’ And he’s standing there with the Kalashnikov, ‘Come on. Come on. Hurry up. Come on,’” Ben Ami recalled.
“We’re six people, and no one wants to die,” he continued. “We start having discussion among ourselves. Nothing. And he’s like, “Come on. Come on. ‘Meanwhile, from the other side, our (Hamas) commander sees we’re not reaching a decision, so he draws lots. Then he says, ‘You, you, and you: sit here. You, you, and you: sit there. These three, I’m going to shoot them in the head, and these three, I’m going to shoot them in the leg.’”
“Then, at some point, he says, ‘Okay, I’ll give each of you a chance to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,’” he recalled. “And we’re all shaking; people are also crying. They start crying, bursting into tears, because they’re about to die any moment.”
“Suddenly, he changes it up,” Ben Ami stated. “He says, ‘Wait. He convinced me, so you switch places with him.’ And he swaps you around. Then, after an hour of all this back-and-forth, he suddenly unloads the weapon. ‘Get them out of here.’ Meaning, ‘I spared you.’”
Giving people a state (read: Israel) is rewarding this cruelty.
Also - if they found out that Jesus was one of the tribes ... :
While it's PA policy to insult, mock and misrepresent Jewish tradition and Jewish history in the land of Israel whenever possible, this week it was Christian traditions' turn to be insulted and denied by the PA.
In the words of the official PA daily columnist, Christian traditions of the Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Grail are "nonsense," because Jesus doesn't belong to Christian tradition but belongs to the Palestinians. In his words:
Official PA daily columnist Hassan Hmeid: "During the Crusades, when kings, princes, robbers, and the poor marched, they came to - of course, it was a lie and nonsense - "save the Holy Sepulchre" [from the Muslims]. They wanted to search for the Holy Grail, and so on. They forgot that Jesus is our son, he is a Palestinian and one of us.
Yes, dear. Whatever you say.
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