Mark Carney must have mixed emotions today.
He is ecstatic after winning Monday’s election. When the calendar flipped to 2025, the Liberal Party of Canada seemed more doomed than Romeo and Juliet. Justin Trudeau was less popular than gonorrhea. The early prediction markets called for a Pierre Poilievre landslide. That poor bastard ended up losing his own seat. That’s like choking to death on a macaroon at your bake sale.
But this Canadian election was always a reflecting pool into America.
Carney emerged as something of a national security blanket, an avuncular fellow who would stare down the erratic gargoyle in the White House. He came across as our best bet in a time of unnatural orange disaster.
As for the mixed emotions, the PM is probably on a group chat with world leaders of countries who once believed they were also U.S. allies. It’s like discovering a BFF is trying to sleep with your wife and embezzle your RRSP.
So now comes the hard part: Carney must pilot Canada through the extreme turbulence of the Most Idiotic Trade War in History and, as he put it in his acceptance speech, this “American betrayal.”
“As I have been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” said Carney, at risk of getting on a U.S. no-fly list. “But these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.”
His resolve is admirable. Now Ottawa should take the fight to Washington.
On Tuesday, Trump celebrated the first 100 days of the most ghoulish sequel since “Hellraiser: Revelations.” President Pinhead marked this milestone with the worst approval rating of any president in 80 years. And, somewhere, a half-soused Pete Hegseth was sharing classified military plans by belting them out at a karaoke bar as Kristi Noem twerked in Madonna cosplay while pantomiming a chihuahua shooting at point-blank range.
Here’s the cliché I want Carney to embrace: the best defence is a good offence.
During a recent podcast interview, he jokingly invited host Scott Galloway to move to Canada. This is actually a great idea. Carney should assemble a Brain Drain Task Force and put out a giant welcome mat for American scientists, professors, influencers, researchers, entertainers and anyone else who wants out of a banana republic that is about to triple the price at Banana Republic.
I hear from Americans every week. They are apologetic and in disbelief. They can’t believe how quickly everything went sideways. They view their president as a Komodo dragon that keeps biting toddlers at a birthday party.
But this Trump poison is an opportunity for Canada.
The parent company of CBS is meddling with “60 Minutes” to protect a desired corporate merger? Fine, CBC should hire everyone at that venerable newsmagazine and start a new “90 Minutes.” You think Trump hasn’t instructed his lapdogs at the IRS to target Taylor Swift? She should move to Toronto. This is something several American luminaries have already done, including Yale historian Timothy Snyder, author of the brilliant “On Tyranny.”
Hollywood is mired with regulatory snafus in California? We should offer new tax credits and incentivize migration to create an enduring Hollywood North. Trump wants our resources? Let’s take America’s brightest minds, the ones who hate his guts. Trump’s war on expertise means 99 per cent of the Harvard org chart would gladly relocate to Montreal or Vancouver.
Invite them. Make it easy-peasy. Fight America by co-opting America.
Why are we letting Trump dictate the terms of our breakup? We didn’t sign a prenup with this abusive spouse. If he wants to ramble incoherently about turning Canada into “the 51st state,” let’s poach America’s top cancer researchers and experts in climate change.
As he tanks today’s global economy, let’s draft America’s captains of industry to help build our tomorrow. Everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos clearly now has buyer’s remorse after sucking up to a dipstick who turned out to be bad for business. I bet you Melania dreams of starting over in Manitoba. At this point, even Elon Musk must regret leaving Canada.
The best defence is a good offence. Carney should dangle opportunities and passports and the promise of fast-tracked citizenship to every American mover and shaker. They’d all prefer to live under Carney instead of a carny barker.
Roll out the red-and-white welcome mat.
After just 100 days, Trump has turned America into the Bay: the closing sale is here and Carney should scoop up discounted buys. Trump is selling the next generation of whiz kids? We’ll take some. Trump has no use for culture that does not blindly cheer on his incompetence? We’ll take some. He can keep Fox News and we’ll take some of everything else.
Mark Carney is already smarter than Donald Trump.
Now he needs to be more ruthless.
