The Hills Are Alive
Is the G7 meeting a destination wedding from hell?
On Sunday, world leaders come to Alberta to enjoy the choking smoke clear blue skies and beautiful views. The membership of the G7 only offers up one autocrat, and he’s still an autocrat wannabe.1 And so, Canada’s new prime minister has livened up the guest list with a diverse group of actual autocrats, as well as leaders of various middle powers and one genuine hero.
Carney is a smart guy, and maybe he’s playing three-dimensional chess here. Maybe there’s a seating chart that makes sense of the whole endeavour. The Australian Prime Minister will convince the President of Mexico to take a message to the President of South Africa, who will unleash a proposal that will cause Donald Trump to stare deeply into Volodymyr Zelensky’s eyes. Trump will have an epiphany, throw America’s full support behind Ukraine and drop all the tariff nonsense, effective immediately. I mean, I’ve seen movies with plots like this…
I want to believe that Carney has a plan that helps navigate us out of the god-awful mess that Trump is making. I really do.
But then there’s this report from The Economist. It reports that Canada is “on the verge of cementing its place in the vanguard of Trumpian geopolitics. It may soon become the first country to emerge from the bewildering thicket of tariffs and threats with a sweeping new pact on security and trade.” The deal makes the tariffs on Canadian exports go away, in return for giving the Americans “right of first refusal” on Canadian resources, including rare earth minerals. Which makes sense of why both Ontario and the federal government are passing laws to expedite approvals of new projects in the provincial/national interest. And why Carney announced this week that we would increase defense spending, effective immediately.
Maybe Carney has invited all these heads of government to come to Kananaskis as wedding guests, to witness Canada and the US renewing their vows.
In this movie, Canada is the spouse who left for a few weeks, talked smack about their ex, imagined a whole new independent life seeing other people, and then had a change of heart. “He’s promised he’s changed. He really means it this time. And anyway, I couldn’t find a decent apartment on my salary. And he’s been super reasonable about the new pre-nup. I know he won’t rip this one up.”
All joking aside, I can see why Carney would think that Canada has no choice but to enter into some kind of deal with the United States. Pluck can’t defeat geography. But if the G7 meeting really is the site for us to renew our vows, we need to understand that we’re getting back into bed with a guy who’s throwing himself a giant military parade as a bachelor’s party. We won’t be the 51st state, but we will be America’s vassal state, ‘til death do us part.
I mean, arresting opposition politicians and then letting them go right away is amateur autocrat behaviour, right?
UPDATE: An on-the-ball reader has pointed out that the Economist has taken the article that prompted this post down from its website.
I expect the PM to reach out to other countries and try to open doors for Canadian businesses. The USA is an erratic trade partner and new prospects need to be developed. Relations between Canada and India should be better given our Indian Population. Sharing military procurement with Australia makes sense. Mexico is a big economy near us and our free trade with Mexico is in tact. These are very strategic moves that are good for Canada.