What we are witnessing is not the triumph of religion or secularism, but the cynicism of power using both.
If we fail to act with coherence and conviction, Canadian firms will bear the cost. But if we get this right, this country can do more than withstand the pressures of others. We can stand up and stand out.
Annual filings under S-211 contain a wealth of data that could assist border officials in identifying suspect shipments. We must fully operationalize our supply-chain legislation, and strengthen Canada’s position in future negotiations.
The U.S. seems to have either no strategy or several competing ones. The principal one seems to be to bomb everything. This didn’t work in Vietnam, Afghanistan or in either the Gulf War or the Iraq War in the sense that matters most: winning the political game. Whatever happened to learning curves?
The economic approach emerging under Prime Minister Mark Carney recognizes that competitiveness increasingly depends on effective risk governance. Business and human rights are not peripheral to that agenda. They are among the tools that will determine whether Canada succeeds. Now is the time to make that clear.
When citizens lose faith that institutions operate in good faith, democracy does not collapse in a single dramatic moment. It erodes gradually, in the dark, as its subtle, but essential conventions fall away.
Donald Trump’s preferred methodology has always been chaos. Every day is a tariff day. Different targets, different sectors, relentless pressure until capitulation. It is exceedingly difficult to hold a country together while chaos is deliberately stoked at home and abroad to distract from chaos within.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has explained the Carney Doctrine to the elite of the world. Now he needs to explain it plainly, repeatedly, and locally.
Canada’s bargaining position with China is not strong, but it has a deeply troubling human rights record, including the odious practice of forced labour. Looking the other way only lasts so long, and after a while, we are complicit.
The signal has been sent: any state with sufficient military capability (especially one armed with nuclear weapons) may take what it wants, when it wants, with or without plausible legal justification.
Canada cannot get out of the way after two centuries of economic integration and cultural interdependence with the U.S. But we cannot afford blind loyalty, either.
National defence and economic sovereignty are inextricably linked, and we must begin treating them as such.