Countdown on for Carney and Trump to get a deal...

Plus the truth on dairy, politicians working together and Canada's justice system.

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This Friday is when Donald Trump’s new 35% tariffs on Canadian goods and services kick in. If you don’t have a deal says Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, there will not be an extension.

If you were hoping for a TACO (Trump Always Chicks Out), it may still happen, but they are trying to telegraph that this time they are serious.

The full impact of this policy, if it is implemented, isn’t known yet, but suffice to say that jobs are at stake. This is why we need to be concerned, this is why it is a necessity to seek a deal that doesn’t appear to be coming.

Last Friday, before leaving for Scotland to open his new golf course, and it seems finalize a deal with the European Union, Trump went off on a rant against Canada.

I’ve detailed time and again that Canada is playing games we shouldn’t be playing in these negotiations. I’ve had that intelligence and my reporting verified by multiple sources in government and industry.

We have the wrong negotiating team in place, we are using the wrong tactics, we should change up the roster and the game plan.

Of course, every time I write on this issue and point out these problems I get a barrage from the “Elbows Up!” and “Screw the Americans” segment of Canadian society.

“Lilly, why don’t you just move to the states you traitor. You are blaming Canada for not getting a deal done with the gangster wannabe Trump,” wrote Darren Durocher via email, getting my name wrong in the process.

“You can’t negotiate with this convicted felon but you always seem to make excuses for Trump.”

Meanwhile comments here on Substack also contained plenty of this sentiment.

“This is garbage ‘reporting’ kowtowing to American hedge fund ownership. Orange Shitler doesn’t have deals with anyone else,” wrote someone with the handle Brick Top.

I think he has bricks for brains.

You can only hold thinking like this if you are retired or have no skin in the game and won’t lose your job or income due to this.

Saying that we can do a better job is not being a traitor to Canada or kowtowing to the Americans. There are too many Canadians though who only want to fight the Americans in response to every issue.

This is also the attitude of many who have a juvenile jealousy of the United States and inferiority complex about Canada.

Secondly, several world leaders have stood or sat next to Trump to announce these deals that you want to claim don’t exist or amount to nothing. You want our leader to throw a temper tantrum while other world leaders are ensuring their people have a better deal that Canada.

And if you are still yelling that, “WE ALREADY HAVE A DEAL!” and are upset that Trump is breaking it, grow up. Life isn’t fair and we have to live in reality and in reality, he’s demanded changes and is enforcing them.

We can sulk and watch unemployment go up or we can do what is best for Canadian workers.

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So about Trump’s plan to destroy supply management…

I’ve long said the Americans don’t want to dismantle supply management, they don’t want to flood our market, but they do want some access. So thank you to Mike Crawley at CBC for solid reporting on this out of Washington.

Mike is normally stationed out of Queen’s Park covering Ontario politics but has been sent down to cover the American capital this summer. He’s confirming what I have been saying, writing and broadcasting for months.

His latest story states that the American dairy industry doesn’t want quota rates changed or tariff rates changed either, it just wants Canada to change how quota is allocated to live up to the letter and spirit of the current trade agreement.

Much of the quota volume is allocated to major Canadian-owned dairy processing companies such as Saputo and Agropur. Industry analysts on both sides of the border say such companies have little incentive to import U.S. products that would compete with their own.

According to the U.S. producers, this restricts their access to the Canadian market.

Their evidence for that claim: Canadian trade statistics showing tariff-free imports from the U.S. have almost never reached the quota limits in any category.

Yes, American imports have increased over the past several years, but nothing close to what was negotiated in the CUSMA deal. Neither Saputo nor Agropur, nor any other Canadian dairy processor, wants the Americans to come close to their 3.5% quota.

At the same time, the Americans say we are dumping milk proteins, like powdered milk, into the international market at ridiculously low prices.

The Americans have taken us to trade tribunals over the quotas twice - winning once and losing once - and are currently in the middle of a trade dispute process over the milk proteins. We are no saints on this file but try to portray ourselves in this light.

The fact is, the Canadian dairy industry is even disliked by other exporting industry sectors within Canada which see them as problematic to getting a deal here or with other markets like Britain. In fact, dairy is the entire reason trade talks with Britain broke down meaning we don’t have a full trade agreement with them at the moment.

I’m hearing increasing concerns from industry types that Carney may be putting the entire trade deal with the Americans at risk to keep a few thousand dairy farmer happy.

Putting steel, aluminum, auto, manufacturing and of course other agriculture jobs at risk over the dairy industry’s ridiculous demands would be foolish.

Carney is no conservative…

The debate rages on as to whether Mark Carney is governing, or attempting to govern, like a conservative. The Globe and Mail editorial board recently made that claim even going so far as to make Carney out to be the second coming of Brian Mulroney.

Michael Taube at National Post is having none of that.

Don’t be fooled, everyone. Carney isn’t a conservative or progressive conservative leader. It’s the same old left-wing, progressive Liberal agenda without Trudeau at the helm.

Taube goes deep into the thinking and governing styles of various political movements in Canada and states clearly that Carney is in the Liberal fold and not that dissimilar from Trudeau even if the tone is different.

I haven’t made up my mind yet and much has yet to be settled including what Carney actually does instead of what he talks about doing.

Leave your thoughts below.

Should politicians get along…

Hardcore partisans say no and they will show up in the comments here, but most voters are fine with seeing politicians work with other elected leaders of different stripes.

We talked about that and some gossip from the Council of the Federation meeting last week as Adrienne Batra and Warren Kinsella gathered with me for another episode of Batra’s Burning Questions.

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Canada’s justice system is bringing itself into disrepute…

One-day sentences for aiding and abetting the Islamic State terror group, a few short years for murder, but possibly more if you’re an anti-vaccine trucker: these stories and loads of others from recent Canadian court cases seem to be undermining the public’s faith in our justice system. Brian chats with Postmedia columnists Jamie Sarkonak and Brian Lilley about how things went so wrong and what to do about it. They also discuss the recent acquittal of the five hockey players for sexual assault, and how the judge’s exceptional handling of the case shows that all is not lost if we want to fix the system — if anyone in government is ever willing to try. (Recorded July 25, 2025)