Elbows Up, Guard Down

“Elbows up” in hockey refers to a rough style of play where players raise their elbows to defend themselves or engage in physical altercations with opponents — like boxing. This phrase is associated with the legendary player Gordie Howe, who popularized this aggressive approach on the ice.

And now the new Prime Minister of Canada, the liberal-globalist World Economic Forum cultist, Mark Carney, who thinks himself the smartest man in any and all rooms, has adopted the phrase as his rallying cry to politically challenge one: Donald J. Trump, who apparently has become his personal nemesis.

The other week the deadline ran out on the re-negotiation of the CUSMA trade agreements between the two countries. After a year of deliberations and intense last-minute back-and-forth interaction, Canada decided to just literally walk away.

The result is 50% new US-imposed tariffs on an 18-page list of Canadian goods, valued at $20 billion, including everything from aluminum and steel to lumber, dairy, whiskey, and yes, hockey sticks. It will cost the Canadian economy 100,000-plus jobs and shave 1-2% off their economy, while sending a message of stupidity across the broader investment world.

Canada’s entire existence is tied North to South and the supply chains across industries prove the point. Can they be redone? Possibly, at enormous cost and over decades, and then only, perhaps. But why get in bed with the Chinese when your largest market is right next door, across the bridge, speaks the same language, and shares — or used to — most of your values? Unless you are transshipping goods and materials, including fentanyl, from China in the first place. Get your head examined.

The deal looked done and ready to sign and execute when literally at the last hour Canada demanded more concessionary addendums and showed an unwillingness to bow on silly items like French/Quebec language restrictions and what they already signed in 2018 regarding Free Trade Agreements with other countries, namely China.

Under Article 32.10 of CUSMA, a member country is allowed to pursue a free trade agreement with a non-market economy (the China clause), but it must follow specific rules, including advance notice, review, and penalties for noncompliance or disagreement. In other words, there are termination rights. Worse still, no future meetings or negotiations were scheduled, and PM Carney went on state-owned, biased CBC television and provocatively said, “we got attacked and are at war.”

Truthfully the Canadians have for too long had a too-good-to-believe relationship that no other trade partner has been afforded. It is a longstanding US partner and peaceful ally, but seemingly under arch-globalist Carney, a former central banker now turned leftist politician, it wants far more and is unwilling to compromise or bend. Carney has by-elections pending and is likely using his flex to appear strong to the public in his Liberal base so he can call a quick snap national election to solidify his power and margin in Parliament. It is a ploy for power but a dangerous economic decision. Above that, he is also gambling that he can affect the US midterm elections, as his new chief of staff is an American, Maia Johnson, a Democrat operative who worked for Hillary Clinton.

The Canadian rhetoric has gone extreme, which is uncharacteristic for typically “nice” Canadians, and they have even threatened to make the current US ambassador to Canada, former Republican Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra, persona non grata because he refuses to be Canada’s voice to Trump and instead acts as a US diplomat charged by Trump and Congress to represent our national interests abroad — what ambassadors do.

The US economy is 14 times larger than Canada’s, and Canada sends 75% of all its exports to the US. Who do you think is in the driver’s seat? The country has been failing for a decade and is in recession. No one wants to invest there, and even the PM’s private Brookfield investment fund (now in a blind trust) doesn’t drop a single Canuck dollar in his own economy. Why would anyone do so with such lackluster performance for over a decade of poor Liberal rule? While politicians like Carney boast about growth and “nation-building” progress, over 120,000 Canadians formally left the country last year — primarily educated, working-age adults. Let that set in. Canada is inoperable.

Canada has a free-rider problem, and America isn’t taking it any longer. The NATO member pays under 2% of its GDP for defense and has let NORAD go decrepit. The spending on Canada’s huge welfare system has meanwhile dramatically risen and accounts for 24% of national GDP. They have socialized medicine, assisted suicide, and social funds for everything in Canada. More than a quarter of all Canadians work for the public sector while the unemployment rate is close to 8%.

So, in a sense the US has been subsidizing Canada for decades — its defense and its generous public outlays. All the time we get no thanks, more and more anti-American sentiment, Trump Derangement Syndrome, a crybaby attitude about trade, and now globalist Carney out to form an alliance of so-called middle powers against America.

Maybe it is time to split Canada up. Two provinces at minimum want to leave the union, and there are no people at all in the frozen northern tundra. 51st statehood is laughed off, but statistically the northern lands above the 48th parallel would be far better off and more prosperous as US states, and their citizens would obtain a huge income, sales, and property tax break.

Carney has threatened, then instigated, dollar-for-dollar retaliation against the US on September 8th. Trump should lower the boom. We aren’t going to storm the border or go elbows or guns up against their Mounties. Recall, Sgt. Preston of Yukon was a great TV series. But how about these elbows, Davos Man and Globalist-in-Chief?

First, Trump should send Canada’s ambassador home to Ottawa. We should kick Canada out of NATO for delinquency of payments, and we can retaliate if you like war with a closed border for 60-90 days or until you come to your senses and accept what was on offer. Your feeble threats to drive us to hunger without your potash or to darken the US eastern seaboard by Ontario’s Liberal idiotic leader Doug Ford are real acts of war, and Trump should say they would result in total occupation by the US Department of War, i.e., our armed forces.

As Trump said, “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one.” We don’t need Canada; they need us. The proposed 50% tariffs in 2027 on all Canadian cars and trucks, auto parts, and steel are not nearly enough. And besides that, recall the US men and women both won Olympic golds in ice hockey and the National Hockey League has not had a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup since 1993, so hockey analogies are moot.

Watch what you call for. The Carney Doctrine will be put to the test. Ottawa is the only capital other than Peking engaging in trade hostilities with Washington, which really is a bad look. With allies like Canada, who needs enemies?