Canada well-placed to keep shovelling sh!t for Uncle Sam

So how is our newly-minted “serious” PM doing in diversifying Canada’s trade relationships away from the USA? Well, it looks to me as though progress is, to say the least, somewhat tentative. We are allegedly well-placed to become an energy super-power. The world is itching to buy more of our liquified natural gas. Unfortunately, the natural gas itself is not well-placed, and instead dwells in hard to reach places like the Mackenzie River valley and the Arctic. We’re also well-placed to become a rare earths powerhouse. Once again, the rare earths are themselves not-so-well placed, requiring all manner of pricey infrastructure, and you know how Canada does infrastructure! Then there’s the further complication of the myriad sovereign First Nations well-placed to obstruct anything and everything that runs under, over, or anywhere near their territories. The PM has also touted the pioneering “small modular reactor” currently under construction at Darlington. Canada could be a world leader in exporting SMRs. Two problems with that. In the first place, China already has a functioning SMR and is working on mass production, so we’re not pioneering anything. Secondly, the Darlington build involves American technology and American contractors, so it’s not exactly going to get Trump’s boot off our neck. All is not lost, however. Carney was well recieved on his recent trade-diversification mission to the Baltics and Poland combined. Alas, their combined purchases of Canadian goods in all of 2024 was less than what we sell into the US on any given day. There’s a long, long way to go! While Canada flails about pretending it’s an independent country, the game of international posturing must go on. To that end, one of the dimmer holdovers from Fluffy’s cabinet, the hapless Anita Anand, posted two news releases just minutes apart on October 1, both celebrating the “snap-back sanctions” engineered by the E-3, Israel’s leading cheerleaders in the EU. That’s where one can find the following quote: “The E-3 and the United States have repeatedly offered diplomatic avenues in good faith to Iran to avoid the snapback and reach a durable and comprehensive negotiated resolution.” Ah yes! Isn’t that just like the US, constantly going the extra mile in good faith and diplomacy! Nowhere is it mentioned that it was Trump who unilaterally ripped up JCPOA in 2018, and Trump unilaterally bombed Iran just three months ago!