Carney's cash! His assets revealed and why no deal with the Donald...

Plus, the many ways the NDP could be in big trouble.

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We finally have some insight into Mark Carney’s financial assets, well, beyond offshore funds via Brookfield Asset Management. His ethics disclosure was released last week, and it included a list of hundreds of companies – mostly American – that he had shares in, plus a list of 103 entities that he must recuse himself from dealing with in government.

Anyone remember him saying he had no potential conflicts of interest?

My latest column for the Toronto Sun is up now, and I encourage you to check it out. Of course, given that the Sun pays me, I encourage you to read all my stuff there!

All the links to the original document are in the Sun column.

A review of Carney’s investments prior to becoming prime minister of Canada would show that he has very little invested in Canada or Canadian companies.

From the column:

He is, or was, however, invested in Airbnb, Amazon, Doordash, Netflix, and Uber, all companies that could have been hit by Canada’s proposed Digital Services Tax. It may even have applied to Stripe – the company Carney was on the board of until he entered politics. All of these companies could have been facing the Digital Services Tax, had it gone forward instead of being stopped by Carney at the last minute.

That decision alone, though the right one, would benefit Carney’s holdings – though those companies – other than Stripe – are not on the list of companies he must recuse himself from making decisions on.

It simply would have been better for Carney to release all of this information as soon as he became PM instead of after, but of course the media, the Conservatives and the NDP all would have raised questions. One thing we know about Carney, he doesn’t like being questioned on this issue, or on much really.

Look inside yourself Mark!

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Still no deal with the Donald...

Late last week, Trump announced a further 35% tariff on Canada if there isn’t a deal by August 1. I tackled that issue here in my Sun column and here in the newsletter.

We really should have had something in place by now and the fact that we don’t is problematic.

On Sunday, one of Trump’s top economic advisors, Kevin Hassett, was on This Week on ABC and was asked about potential deals, and why we haven’t seen them with Canada, Mexico and the European Union and why those letters were sent.

Here’s the video and the transcript of the answer.

I think that we've got a deadline that's coming up in early August. And the thing about President Trump, if you go back and look at his history, that he became one of the most successful, if not the most successful, businessman and the 20th century, because he was able to squeeze everything out of every deal that he made. And right now we've got that guy who wrote the art of the deal making deals for the American people, and we've got to see where the dust settles. The bottom line is that he's seen some sketches of deals that have been negotiated with Howard Lutnick and the rest of the trade team. And the President thinks that deals need to be better, and to basically put a line in the sand, he sent these letters out to folks, and we'll see how it works out.

So, sketches of deals, but they aren’t good enough for Trump. Are they any good for us?

Would be good to know what is happening inside those negotiations between Ottawa and Washington.

Full Comment Podcast…

The latest episode of the Full Comment Podcast is out and it features me talking politics with Conservative strategist Ginny Roth and recovering Liberal Warren Kinsella.

We discussed how Carney is performing as PM so far, his trouble with Trump, the changing political landscape in Canada and the headwinds Poilievre is facing.

Get the podcast mic that I trust and use, the Shure MV7+ with XLR and USB C.

The NDP’s future is in doubt...

The NDP is a mess, and that could be bad news for the Conservative Party of Canada going forward. Are we headed towards a two-party system or effectively a two-party system as they have the United States?

It could happen for a number of reasons ranging from poor NDP performance of late, the party’s horrible financial standing after the last election and their increasing radicalism.

The party, or at least parts of it, want to fully embrace radicalism, which will not help them win over more voters.

Last week, the NDP’s Heather MacPherson announced that she and the party would be nominating Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Francesca Albanese has stood up for human rights, peace and international law since the beginning of her mandate as UN Special Rapporteur,” said McPherson.

““She has travelled the world to share what she has witnessed on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories and has urged us to take action in the name of justice and the rule of law.”

The reality is, Albanese is an antisemite and a radical. She’s just been sanctioned by the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio over her activities.

The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur. Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West. That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Albanese is unfit for the job that she’s in, which has morphed into a U.N. sanctioned ongoing campaign against Israel.

Beyond this craziness, the NDP Socialist Caucus is trying to get Yves Engler, another person who spends all their time obsessed with Israel and bashing Jews, to be leader of the NDP. This is part of a disturbing pattern of antisemitism in the party that neither Jack Layton nor Tom Mulcair put up with, and that Ed Broadbent would have been appalled at.

Disgusting as all that is, the bigger threat to the NDP is actually their financial distress.

As Fred DeLorey points out in one his recent Substack posts, the NDP could end up defaulting on the debt they have from the last election. DeLorey is a Conservative, he has run federal and provincial campaigns, and he knows this finance stuff really, really well.

Fewer than 50 of 343 NDP candidates reached the 10 percent vote threshold needed to qualify for a campaign expense rebate from Elections Canada. That’s not just an embarrassing stat, it’s financial ruin. Those rebates, worth several million dollars collectively, are normally how the NDP repays its election loan. No rebates means no repayment.

Fred then goes into detail on how this could lead to the NDP having to declare their loans from the banks as a donation which would be against the law, how they may need to sell their Jack Layton Building HQ and more. The NDP is used to being in financial stress; they haven’t faced a test like this before.

Read Fred’s whole post here.