We have new deals with the UAE, India and Australia, but who cares...

Carney's mixed bag of results on his latest foreign trip, Poilievre's new campaign manager and Doug Ford looks to end cashless bail.

Who cares?

I’m not sure Mark Carney could have picked a worse way to end his trip to the G20 than saying who care about him talking to Donald Trump. Let’s face it, Carney had some wins on this trip including investments and trade issues.

He got a commitment from the United Arab Emirates to invest $50 billion USD in Canada, that works out to about $70 billion Canadian. It’s all a little vague as to exactly what they will invest in but the Emiratis have the money, so we can be sure that something is coming our way.

From Carney’s statement on the deal.

In a more divided and dangerous world, Canada is securing new deals with new partners. Our agreements with the UAE will attract billions of dollars in investments into Canada, open new markets and opportunities for our workers and businesses, and create high-paying careers across the country. Canada is diversifying our trade and finding new investors to fuel our plans to build Canada strong.

Diversifying our trade is difficult but necessary work. You can ask Stephen Harper who did more than any PM to secure new trade deals for Canada. He got the EU deal, the TPP, in total, deals covering more than 50 countries and still most of our exports head south.

I don’t discount this agreement with the UAE, but it is hard work.

Here is part of their statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, the UAE will invest in energy, artificial intelligence, logistics, mining and other priority national and strategic industries in Canada, benefiting the peoples of both nations.

Those are all critical industries for Canada, so while this will take time, in the long run it’s a good thing.

Last year, the UAE had almost $9 billion USD invested in Canada, our investment in their country was just shy of $250 million USD.

India, Australia and Canada oh my…

Carney also sat down with Narendra Modi and Australian PM Anthony Albanese to sign what they are calling the Australia-Canada-India Technology and Innovation (ACITI) Partnership. It’s a mouthful but basically it boils down to critical minerals, green energy and cooperation.

This has incredible potential for Canada not only in critical minerals, but also LNG exports to India, large scale nuclear and small modular reactors for that energy thirsty country. It’s a good thawing of relations after nearly a decade of distrust between India and Canada under Trudeau that predated any claims that India killed a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

We need this relationship to work on so many levels. I’ve been arguing since 2005 that we should pivot towards India and away from China.

Neither country is perfect, neither are we, but India is a much more reliable partner for Canada than China is in the long term.

A shoutout to Rupa Subramanya who many of you will know, she’s the Ottawa based writer who covers Canada for the Free Press. If you aren’t following her then you should.

She points to a Financial Times article from 2022 when Carney was asked long on China or long on India and his answer was India. I still have concerns about how close he is with China and how close he wants Canada to be with China, but I’m happy to hear this.

And now back to who cares…

I certainly care about the relationship between Canada’s PM and America’s President. They don’t have to be best friends, but they need to be able to work together.

Which is why Carney’s answer to a legitimate question on the weekend is annoying.

From my Toronto Sun column:

CBC reporter Ashley Burke asked Carney whether Trump had “returned your calls or texts,” before going on to also ask about what kind of red line he might have for doing business with less scrupulous countries as Carney seeks to pivot away from the United States. He answered the second part of the question at length, but he didn’t answer the first part, which caused Burke to follow-up and ask about whether he was talking to Trump.

“Who cares? I mean, it’s a detail. It’s a detail,” Carney said. “I spoke to him. I’ll speak to him again when it matters.”

Well, as I explain in the column, lots of people care, especially those working in steel, aluminum, autos and other tariff impacted sectors. Those people are losing jobs, having hours cut back, they are worrying about paying their bills and having a PM say “Who cares?” is a kick in the shins.

And yet, I’ve had plenty of people email me, comment on social media and direct message me to say they don’t care either and I should support our PM, hate Trump more and have nothing to do with the United States ever again.

Inevitably, these folks are retired and Carney voters, their elbows are still up even if their leader long ago lost his.

I’ve been clear, I want Carney to succeed on this trade file because if he doesn’t people suffer and I will not put partisan considerations above the well being of my fellow Canadians. Seems, based on the emails and messages that I get that many Canadians would do that.

They don’t care about people losing their jobs, their businesses, they just want to tell Trump off.

From Ed Langella:

More Brian Lilley pro-Trump propaganda. Ignoring all the many dismissive insults, high school level jokes and false statement made about our great country by Jackass Trump, but always attacking PM Carney. Again and again, whose side are you on?

I mean, I’m not on Trump’s side, more than 70% of our exports still go to the United States and while these deals by Carney are great, they will take time to execute. In the meantime, real people with real bills to pay are hurting.

Not that this matters to the elbows up crowd.

From Steve Kerem:

The Sun behaves as though Poilievre is our saviour. You are just as negative as PP MAGA. What do you suggest we Canadians do? Suck up to Trump so we can be in a better position to negotiate. Your rag of a paper is all about criticism without anything positive to say about Carney.
Let me know where I can mail you a Trump Dunce cap.

Look, again, I’m worried about the jobs of Canadians and Mark Carney should be as well. I’m sure he is, but him making comments like “Who cares?” or insulting the United States or Trump at every turn doesn’t help us get to a deal.

Carney needs to be the bigger man for the sake of the country and get to down to work. We can’t wait out Trump in these vital sectors.

Fix the regulatory burden in Canada…

As I wrote last week, it’s one thing for Mark Carney to head to the UAE to get deals when at home Canadian companies are investing stateside rather than here.

As my friend and colleague Lorne Gunter writes, Nutrien’s decision to invest in an American port rather than a Canadian one is a major blow to Mark Carney and his Major Projects Office.

On top of all of that, because of potash’s essential role in agricultural production and because of Canada’s dominant position in its production, potash is one of the best levers our country has in trade talks and negotiations. And since Carney as pledged to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports from about $300 billion a year to about $600 billion, it would seem a no-brainer for the Liberal government to refer the terminal to its MPO.

However, in the spring, Nutrien even offered to build in either Vancouver or Prince George if the Carney government wanted to prove its commitment to unleashing growth in the Canadian economy and attracting investment in resource industries and critical minerals.

According to the company, the Liberals weren’t interested.

Do read the whole thing and share it on social media.

Liberals playing games with the military again…

Spoke to military historian David Berccuson and Alan Williams, the former head of procurement for the Canadian military about the F-35 vs Saab Gripen debate.

Both men said buy the F-35, it’s a no brainer. With the elbows up crowd, not so much, they are still just angry at Trump even though most of these jets will be delivered after he leaves office.

Enjoy the chat.

The Conservatives have a new campaign manager…

Jenni Byrne is out as campaign manager for the Conservative Party of Canada and Steve Outhouse is in. This was the news that I broke on Sunday morning as most people were sleeping.

To be fair, I was sleeping when it went live but it was timed to go live early in the morning, just like a nice juicy nugget that will go live on the Sun website tomorrow morning.

Outhouse has a good track record of winning as of late including with Danielle Smith in Alberta and Tony Wakeham in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Read the column to get a bit of a sense on who he is.

Doug Ford calls for an end to cashless bail…

If you’ve followed any American politics of late you’ve heard about the disaster that is cashless bail. You get bail but don’t need to actually pay, so guess what happens - people don’t show up.

Well, just like the horrible bail reforms in the United States, we went down this road in Canada and now, Doug Ford says he’s going to end it. Oh, and he also wants to bring back the practice of perps paying for their own ankle bracelet if they get house arrest or bail with that as a condition.

Both good moves in my view that I wrote about here.