Poilievre does have a plan- to make Canada strong, attractive and resilient instead of a place where woke reigns.
Is Canada woke under Trudeau and suffering economically? Here’s an example: federal funding for faculty positions in computer science at Waterloo University (birthplace of BlackBerry and Musk’s alma mater) are available only to
BIPOC or LGBT+ candidates. Is that any way to attract the best in the field?
UnHerd Reader
6 days ago
The politicians have destroyed Canada.
I have a large Canadian family, primarily of Scottish origin, but now containing many European nationalities.
50 years ago it was a Nation of Europeans with their own cultures but integrating to build a nation by the name of Canada. I can only speak of Western Canada but this dream has been totally destroyed by untrammelled 3rd world immigration. In all the major cities there are enclaves of various nationalities with absolutely no intention of integration.
Vancouver and its surrounding cities are major examples of this. Take a car journey and you are in China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan etc. The shop front lettering reflects the nationality without any pretence to either English or French.
In short, Canada is now a disaster.
It was the Liberal Party under Trudeau the first that pushed hard for multiculturalism – ostensively to shore up relations between Ottawa & Quebec, while at the same time throwing a bone to the various (mostly) Eastern European groups that had settled Western Canada in the late 19th early 20th century (it was an attempt to keep it out of American hands).
Pierre Trudeau’s multiculturalism policy was a cynical rebuttal to the hysterical English-Canadian (ie.Anglophone) reaction to his implementation of the previous Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s proposals for Canada as a Bilingual and Bicultural state (which Trudeau implemented). Multiculturalism was then offered as a sop to the Anglos freaking out about having to read French on their Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes, with Anglo sub-ethnics such as the Ukrainian and Icelander descendents on the Prairies demanding some kind of recognition of their languages and cultures vis-a-vis the French. The same bone was thrown to the newly incoming “New Canadian” immigrants of the time. Before you knew it, Ottawa was funding Ukrainian language courses for Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry.
Well Canadians have themselves to blame also, we now have one of the lowest birthrates in the world, last time I checked we were at 1.0 which is a disaster when we need over 2.0 just to keep population stable.
It’s a problem in much of the western world.
Aging populations are a demographic disaster, and a major economic problem.
We need people to fill jobs, support the social safety net and pay taxes. Otherwise our economy will wither away with no growth and decling population in their productive years. And the Immigrants won’t come from Europe, they have the same problems.
This is just a talking point from businesses that want low wages and captured employees who can’t complain about working conditions. After Covid we had a pretty tight labour market that would have been good for Canadian workers – instead Trudeau flooded the country with kids from India to suppress wages.
LindaMB
6 days ago
The capital of Canada is located in Ottawa (formerly Bytown) rather than Toronto, Kingston or Montreal because it was further away from the US border. America has invaded Canada-officially-twice, plus various incursions (Hunters’ Lodge, the Fenian Raids) and they had a plan as late as the 1920’s to invade Canada (should the US go to war with the UK). It is a reminder that countries have no friends, only interests.
UnHerd Reader
6 days ago
Mr. Ledger-Lomas conflates anti-American sentiment in Canada with fear of “annexation.” The former is real and has been at the core of Canadian identity since confederation. It is rooted in a certain envy of American economic and cultural heft. But it also comes from a loathing of the abrasive, reckless, disordered, vainglorious face that America often presents to the world. Fear of actual US annexation has not been a serious concern in Canada since the 19th century. (Yes, elections have been fought over proposed free trade agreements and naturally the issue of national sovereignty is debated) But Trump’s graceless effusions about Canada as the 51st state evoke nothing but disgust among the vast majority of Canadians across the political spectrum.
Greg R.
True, hard to tell if this was a bad joke, but I suspect many other countries will have to deal with this type of targeting in the next 4 years.
It’s only beginning. Canadians need to not overreact to silly comments and outrageous tweets from Tariff Man
The best response to Trump is to laugh at him. The one thing he positively cannot abide is ridicule.
Evan Heneghan
6 days ago
To be fair, Trudeau seems to have started the annexation himself by trying to turn Canadian cities into the same drug fuelled homeless infested murder holes the Democrat cities in America have become. I have visited San Francisco and you wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain how bad it is there.
I would. People in other countries just have nooooo idea, because the PR machine is so good.
Martin Goodfellow
6 days ago
The United States has dominated Canada economically for years, and there is no way out of that. The political systems are different, but only provide superficial terms. If America says “jump”, Canada can only respond with “how high?” Trump’s hot air pronouncements are just that. He doesn’t have to change anything, because he has already won.
Trump will back down if we boycott orange juice, De Santis will call Trump and give him hell
Josef Švejk
7 days ago
Canada with unfettered immigration and drug abuse now so resembles the “crack house” beneath it that it would make little difference to it’s inhabitants to lie within the borders of the US rather than without. They would though have to abandon their bilingualism, which would not be a great problem.
They would also have to allow virtually unfettered gun ownership and the exponential increase in gunshot deaths to follow.
P Carson
7 days ago
Trump is a bully and his super power is spotting weakness. He sees the weakness of Canada after 9 years of Trudeau and the more recent collapse of his government. Trump cannot resist bullying. But there is a kernel in there- he wants to assert dominance. We are a weakling due to Trudeau.
The Liberal Party, of which Trudeau is still the leader, is known for the “efficiency” of its ability to win ridings (electoral districts) by focusing campaign efforts on those in which opposition parties divide up a major share of the votes. That often leaves the Liberals with a plurality, not a majority. If the prime minister were directly elected, it’s unlikely that Trudeau would have retained power after the first election.
Richard Ross
6 days ago
Musing about buying Greenland, or making Mexicans pay for a wall that’s protective to the US, or incorporating the second largest country on earth into the 50 states – these are the kind of things I hear regularly from elderly men who meet every morning in a Tim Horton’s donut shop (Canada’s version of a local pub). When these retired truckers and tradesmen half-joke about putting all the sex offenders and jihadis on an island and letting them have a grand old time fighting it out, it’s recognized as aspirational joking, a slightly-foul way of venting their feelings about the ills of society. They, and we, know that there’s a Canadian snowball’s chance in hell of these things happening, but it’s a chance to self-identify, spray a little testosterone.
In the unlikely event that any of these gentlemen found themselves in high office, their joking would be muted, because they were never serious; even they know the many roadblocks to implementing their pipe dreams and they’re easily ridiculed when they’re brought into serious discussion.
But what does Trump – famously low-brow and a fan of the donut himself – care about ridicule? The man’s been vilified, insulted, impeached, slandered, threatened and shot. Now he’s risen to the position of being able to topple governments (Trudeau’s) and send prime ministers and presidents running for cover with a word. Let him have his jokes. Enjoy the show.
Trump hasn’t toppled anyone, Trudeau was toast months ago, he should have left the scene 6 months ago, and an election done and over with so we could have had a stable government to deal with the Tariff Man, but no, JT could not accept that he’s done and now we are in this position.
Agreed; JT was being crushed by the weight of his own incompetence. Trump’s trolling was just the symbolic finger-flick at the right moment. I overstated for effect.
How did Trump topple Trudeau? He stopped being President of the USA in April 2021, and he doesn’t start again until the week after next. And, BTW, Trudeau’s government is still there.
Surely a simpler theory for Trudeau’s exit would include: he’s been PM since 2015 and nine years is a long time in office; very few make it that far, and that he was always a lightweight chosen on name-recognition and never had ability or vision.
Agreed; JT was being crushed by the weight of his own incompetence. Trump’s trolling was just the symbolic finger-flick at the right moment. I overstated for effect.
P Carson
2 days ago
Canada has been comfortably drifting towards the reef under the Liberal party policy of self-harm.
Will D. Mann
6 days ago
Canada has a health system and social welfare much closer to those in Europe than the USA, I’m not sure how many in Canada would be happy to give up on these.
My wife was told last week that the waiting period for a routine cancer test is two years. The Canadian medical system is essentially broken. Joining the US would simply force us to fix it.
Andrew Roman
7 days ago
Canada’s next prime minister should make the opposite annexation joke to Trump. His country could become Canada’s 11th province, and he could be its provincial premier. As there are no term limits in the Canadian constitution Trump could stay in office for as long as his voters wanted to elect him.
Should just troll Trump by reminding him that Canada is bigger than the US by total area. Amusingly, Canada + US would be slightly larger even than Russia (without needing Greenland).
If you think the Ukraine is a problem, stay tuned.
I’m sure that Russia, whose interior mainland is separated by only a few hours airtime over the Arctic Ocean from North America, would just LOVE the prospect of the US annexing Canada.
Matt M
7 days ago
The time for CANZUK is here! A Union of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Free trade, free movement and an integrated military between 4 of the closest allies in the world. We should then negotiate a joint agreement with the USA.
I’m sure a deal could be done – though Trump would require some sort of penance from Canada – perhaps upping defence spending to 5% and buying a load of F-35s.
As an Australian I couldn’t think of anything worse than being tied socially or politically to the UK or Canada. The former are too class based and the latter are too woke. Possibly NZ if they all attended elocution lessons first.
That’s rich Josef. Australians obviously can’t read as they don’t know there is an “l” in their county’s name. Just listen as they say “Straya” every time, and that’s from the PM down, or in his case should that be ‘up’.
UK
US
Poilievre does have a plan- to make Canada strong, attractive and resilient instead of a place where woke reigns.
Is Canada woke under Trudeau and suffering economically? Here’s an example: federal funding for faculty positions in computer science at Waterloo University (birthplace of BlackBerry and Musk’s alma mater) are available only to
BIPOC or LGBT+ candidates. Is that any way to attract the best in the field?
The politicians have destroyed Canada.
I have a large Canadian family, primarily of Scottish origin, but now containing many European nationalities.
50 years ago it was a Nation of Europeans with their own cultures but integrating to build a nation by the name of Canada. I can only speak of Western Canada but this dream has been totally destroyed by untrammelled 3rd world immigration. In all the major cities there are enclaves of various nationalities with absolutely no intention of integration.
Vancouver and its surrounding cities are major examples of this. Take a car journey and you are in China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan etc. The shop front lettering reflects the nationality without any pretence to either English or French.
In short, Canada is now a disaster.
It was the Liberal Party under Trudeau the first that pushed hard for multiculturalism – ostensively to shore up relations between Ottawa & Quebec, while at the same time throwing a bone to the various (mostly) Eastern European groups that had settled Western Canada in the late 19th early 20th century (it was an attempt to keep it out of American hands).
Pierre Trudeau’s multiculturalism policy was a cynical rebuttal to the hysterical English-Canadian (ie.Anglophone) reaction to his implementation of the previous Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s proposals for Canada as a Bilingual and Bicultural state (which Trudeau implemented). Multiculturalism was then offered as a sop to the Anglos freaking out about having to read French on their Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes, with Anglo sub-ethnics such as the Ukrainian and Icelander descendents on the Prairies demanding some kind of recognition of their languages and cultures vis-a-vis the French. The same bone was thrown to the newly incoming “New Canadian” immigrants of the time. Before you knew it, Ottawa was funding Ukrainian language courses for Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry.
MCGA!!
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Well Canadians have themselves to blame also, we now have one of the lowest birthrates in the world, last time I checked we were at 1.0 which is a disaster when we need over 2.0 just to keep population stable.
It’s a problem in much of the western world.
Aging populations are a demographic disaster, and a major economic problem.
We need people to fill jobs, support the social safety net and pay taxes. Otherwise our economy will wither away with no growth and decling population in their productive years. And the Immigrants won’t come from Europe, they have the same problems.
This is just a talking point from businesses that want low wages and captured employees who can’t complain about working conditions. After Covid we had a pretty tight labour market that would have been good for Canadian workers – instead Trudeau flooded the country with kids from India to suppress wages.
The capital of Canada is located in Ottawa (formerly Bytown) rather than Toronto, Kingston or Montreal because it was further away from the US border. America has invaded Canada-officially-twice, plus various incursions (Hunters’ Lodge, the Fenian Raids) and they had a plan as late as the 1920’s to invade Canada (should the US go to war with the UK). It is a reminder that countries have no friends, only interests.
Mr. Ledger-Lomas conflates anti-American sentiment in Canada with fear of “annexation.” The former is real and has been at the core of Canadian identity since confederation. It is rooted in a certain envy of American economic and cultural heft. But it also comes from a loathing of the abrasive, reckless, disordered, vainglorious face that America often presents to the world. Fear of actual US annexation has not been a serious concern in Canada since the 19th century. (Yes, elections have been fought over proposed free trade agreements and naturally the issue of national sovereignty is debated) But Trump’s graceless effusions about Canada as the 51st state evoke nothing but disgust among the vast majority of Canadians across the political spectrum.
Greg R.
True, hard to tell if this was a bad joke, but I suspect many other countries will have to deal with this type of targeting in the next 4 years.
It’s only beginning. Canadians need to not overreact to silly comments and outrageous tweets from Tariff Man
The best response to Trump is to laugh at him. The one thing he positively cannot abide is ridicule.
To be fair, Trudeau seems to have started the annexation himself by trying to turn Canadian cities into the same drug fuelled homeless infested murder holes the Democrat cities in America have become. I have visited San Francisco and you wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain how bad it is there.
We’re catching up, no worries.
I would. People in other countries just have nooooo idea, because the PR machine is so good.
The United States has dominated Canada economically for years, and there is no way out of that. The political systems are different, but only provide superficial terms. If America says “jump”, Canada can only respond with “how high?” Trump’s hot air pronouncements are just that. He doesn’t have to change anything, because he has already won.
Trump will back down if we boycott orange juice, De Santis will call Trump and give him hell
Canada with unfettered immigration and drug abuse now so resembles the “crack house” beneath it that it would make little difference to it’s inhabitants to lie within the borders of the US rather than without. They would though have to abandon their bilingualism, which would not be a great problem.
They would also have to allow virtually unfettered gun ownership and the exponential increase in gunshot deaths to follow.
Trump is a bully and his super power is spotting weakness. He sees the weakness of Canada after 9 years of Trudeau and the more recent collapse of his government. Trump cannot resist bullying. But there is a kernel in there- he wants to assert dominance. We are a weakling due to Trudeau.
I have no sympathy for Canadians who are upset about this. You voted Trudeau in three times you ignorant clowns. Reap what you sow.
The Liberal Party, of which Trudeau is still the leader, is known for the “efficiency” of its ability to win ridings (electoral districts) by focusing campaign efforts on those in which opposition parties divide up a major share of the votes. That often leaves the Liberals with a plurality, not a majority. If the prime minister were directly elected, it’s unlikely that Trudeau would have retained power after the first election.
Musing about buying Greenland, or making Mexicans pay for a wall that’s protective to the US, or incorporating the second largest country on earth into the 50 states – these are the kind of things I hear regularly from elderly men who meet every morning in a Tim Horton’s donut shop (Canada’s version of a local pub). When these retired truckers and tradesmen half-joke about putting all the sex offenders and jihadis on an island and letting them have a grand old time fighting it out, it’s recognized as aspirational joking, a slightly-foul way of venting their feelings about the ills of society. They, and we, know that there’s a Canadian snowball’s chance in hell of these things happening, but it’s a chance to self-identify, spray a little testosterone.
In the unlikely event that any of these gentlemen found themselves in high office, their joking would be muted, because they were never serious; even they know the many roadblocks to implementing their pipe dreams and they’re easily ridiculed when they’re brought into serious discussion.
But what does Trump – famously low-brow and a fan of the donut himself – care about ridicule? The man’s been vilified, insulted, impeached, slandered, threatened and shot. Now he’s risen to the position of being able to topple governments (Trudeau’s) and send prime ministers and presidents running for cover with a word. Let him have his jokes. Enjoy the show.
Trump hasn’t toppled anyone, Trudeau was toast months ago, he should have left the scene 6 months ago, and an election done and over with so we could have had a stable government to deal with the Tariff Man, but no, JT could not accept that he’s done and now we are in this position.
Agreed; JT was being crushed by the weight of his own incompetence. Trump’s trolling was just the symbolic finger-flick at the right moment. I overstated for effect.
How did Trump topple Trudeau? He stopped being President of the USA in April 2021, and he doesn’t start again until the week after next. And, BTW, Trudeau’s government is still there.
Surely a simpler theory for Trudeau’s exit would include: he’s been PM since 2015 and nine years is a long time in office; very few make it that far, and that he was always a lightweight chosen on name-recognition and never had ability or vision.
Agreed; JT was being crushed by the weight of his own incompetence. Trump’s trolling was just the symbolic finger-flick at the right moment. I overstated for effect.
Canada has been comfortably drifting towards the reef under the Liberal party policy of self-harm.
Canada has a health system and social welfare much closer to those in Europe than the USA, I’m not sure how many in Canada would be happy to give up on these.
Not many
I am sure if you were seriously ill you would be happy with the US Healthcare system.
indeed – for those happy few with the money to pay for it!
My wife was told last week that the waiting period for a routine cancer test is two years. The Canadian medical system is essentially broken. Joining the US would simply force us to fix it.
Canada’s next prime minister should make the opposite annexation joke to Trump. His country could become Canada’s 11th province, and he could be its provincial premier. As there are no term limits in the Canadian constitution Trump could stay in office for as long as his voters wanted to elect him.
Should just troll Trump by reminding him that Canada is bigger than the US by total area. Amusingly, Canada + US would be slightly larger even than Russia (without needing Greenland).
If you think the Ukraine is a problem, stay tuned.
I’m sure that Russia, whose interior mainland is separated by only a few hours airtime over the Arctic Ocean from North America, would just LOVE the prospect of the US annexing Canada.
The time for CANZUK is here! A Union of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Free trade, free movement and an integrated military between 4 of the closest allies in the world. We should then negotiate a joint agreement with the USA.
Too late. Already “Trumped” by AUKUS.
Canada and NZ on the outside, where they apparently wanted to be.
I’m sure a deal could be done – though Trump would require some sort of penance from Canada – perhaps upping defence spending to 5% and buying a load of F-35s.
As an Australian I couldn’t think of anything worse than being tied socially or politically to the UK or Canada. The former are too class based and the latter are too woke. Possibly NZ if they all attended elocution lessons first.
That’s a shame.
Hahahaha an Aussie simultaneously decrying class and recommending elocution lessons. Classic stuff
That’s rich Josef. Australians obviously can’t read as they don’t know there is an “l” in their county’s name. Just listen as they say “Straya” every time, and that’s from the PM down, or in his case should that be ‘up’.
A global Anglosphere fortress. Stranger things have happened.
As a Canadian conservative I have no interest in integrating with any of those countries. They are all worse than Canada now.