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Comment by throwpoaster | Hacker News Reader

I weep for my country (Canada).

This is a large, obvious, mistake.

> This is a large, obvious, mistake.

It seems quite rational a response to the decisions taken by a larger neighboring nation’s state unexpectedly increasing hostility.

Responding to hostility with hostility is emotional, not rational.

The geographic reality is that Canada derives substantial, permanent trade and defence advantages from our position as neighbours. Realignment towards China and Europe for emotional reasons squanders those advantages.

> Responding to hostility with hostility is emotional, not rational.

And how do you classify to responding to hostility with submission?

Besides, Canada isn't even being hostile. A divorce is very different from abuse or harassment.

If the US is no longer interested in being a good-faith partner, what alternative does Canada have?

Do you think it is a mistake because you disagree with Carney’s reasoning? Or do you think it is a mistake because of the risk it opens? Or do you think it is a mistake for some other reason?

As Canada is separating from the US, it is growing closer with China. This makes Canada a threat to the US. This makes the US a threat to Canada. This makes the US more likely to grab Canada's arm and pull it back in its circle by force. Canada just did a model of how long it could last against a US invasion and the answer was that its defenses would last 2-5 days.

It's all unnecessary and will just cause pain to end up where it started.

Military action would be brutal, but you can only say that it's unnecessary if the alternatives are better. If not now, then how many years down the line? The claims Carney are making are not light in their own right.

> As Canada is separating from the US, it is growing closer with China. This makes Canada a threat to the US. This makes the US a threat to Canada

But didn't you get the order of events precisely wrong?

Isn't it America who threatened Canada (become a state of the US)? Isn't America who threatened Canada with extreme tariffs? Etc.

No, I didn’t.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93China_relations

yes, Tump did quite clearly

The USA has a long history of bullying Canada, long before tRump. He's just more blatant and obvious about it.

There is such a concept of carrot and stick. If the USA wants Canada to be a "good" (in the eyes of America) neighbour then for the love of God why don't they start using a carrot instead of the stick?

Unfortunately, the stick is still behind their backs.

> This makes the US a threat to Canada.

Don't fool yourself. The US of late has been making it perfectly clear that it's a threat to Canada regardless of what Canada does.

2-5 days is very generous.

I think if America started at 0dark30 they would be done by lunch and home for supper.

It would be like Iraq, they would quickly have Trump fly onto an aircraft carrier with a “mission accomplished” banner, then the Canadians would commit to guerrilla warfare for a few decades.

Canadians would commit to guerrilla warfare? For decades? Have you met Canadians?

Yes, yes I have. I've known a lot of Canadians over the decades. They would totally commit to guerilla warfare to defend their nation, same as most other people would. They'd be damned good at it, too.

If you think there's something about Canadians that would stop them from getting down, dirty, and vicious, then you don't know Canadians very well (and have never seen a Canadian hockey game).

Could they hold out alone over the long term? Probably not, but maybe. Smaller, less capable nations have pulled off such feats.

But also, they wouldn't be alone. They'd have quite a lot of support.

Would be hard to do if the people aren’t alive long enough to do it.

I guess, if your mental model is Command & Conquer.

Youre saying dont do a Ukraine?

I think Carney is an intelligent, well spoken, well educated, diligent, competent person.

Because of its geography, Canada reaps huge benefits from proximity to and friendship with America. That cannot be replaced by China and Europe.

I think Carney is pursuing a strategy based on economic models that have diverged from reality in important ways.

If you read his recent WEF speech critically these contradictory ideas are readily apparent. He surfaces some of those tensions in the text but does not end up resolving them.

> economic models that have diverged from reality in important ways.

Can you expand on this?

Postwar, Western governments used straightforward economic models based on the three-part identity between exchange, interest, and inflation rates, all mediated by growth. They did this in order to make market environments stable to facilitate rebuilding Europe (juicing the growth term).

Inflation, for example, is obviously not a scalar.

All models are approximations. As we reach the limits of these models we must extend them.

There's no contradiction to resolve, Trump decided CAN should no longer benefit from proximity. That's the geopolitical reality under current US admin. There's nothing left to do but hedge and move on or wait for new US admin. Ontario auto is 2.5% of gdp, Alberta crude is 5.5%, other exports to US is 9%... i.e. 17% of CAN gdp. CAN US imports is 16% of GDP - it's reasonably balanced, and TBH US got better deal since that 5.5% crude is massive discount, CAN could be selling it for more if US meddling didn't prevent CAN from refining for decades. But broadly those are Canadian exposure. Really all CAN can do if US doesn't to trade without retarded geopolitical conditions is to hedge by diverting 17% export to other buyers and minimize the 16% imports from US (ideally circular Canadian substitution between provinces). Really if US/Trump throws hissy fit over reasonable economic rebalancing (not strategic shift, CAN not replacing NORAD with PLARF) with most of worlds' largest trade partner, then not much Canada can do but wait for next annexation attempt.

The contradiction is that Carney says in his speech that multinational organizations have stopped working, so Canada is doubling down on them.

He said legacy / naive multinational orgs where hegemons with disproportionate influence and exceptionalism can game the system to subordinate smaller countries, especially in stacked bilaterals. He propose variable geometry which is scoping down from "universal" multinational orgs to "exclusive" minilaterals of medium sized countries come together to hedge on issues against hegemons to avoid being on the menu. It's not a contradiction, it's proposing we move from rule based, to power based, i.e. like-minded medium countries need to bandwagon to leverage as bloc, which means entails being exclusive / eliminate weak links / prevent capture. It maybe wishcasting but it's a different arrangement than legacy system.

Round one 12 months ago was a mistake. Elbows up when everybody else caved and went elbows down was a mistake.

Carney learned the right lesson, though. As Europe has learned, elbows down is also a mistake. The right approach is elbows up as a unified response.

The only mirage of 'elbows down' I've seen is pen to paper, elbows on desks. Action through words.

There's been lots of true action

- tariffs on American goods - embargoes of American liquor - trade deals with China and other nations - travel to the US down substantially

Can you elaborate for those of us who aren't as familiar with Canada what the obvious nature of this mistake is?

I'm not from Canada, but my take is that given Canada's economic reliance on the US, any "divorce" would cost them more than anything they could find anywhere else. However, I also don't think the PM there can simply separate his country from the US by simply giving a speech, although he can work to foster closer ties with others while still trying to make it work with the US.

They are working on making themselves less dependent. They kind of expect USA to try to invade them after it invades Greenland.

It is divorce in anticipation of a bout of domestic violence.

Canada will suffer greatly, and possibly much more than the US. But appeasing US, in the position of Canada, is akin to trying to reason with a wife beater.

You don't reason. You remove the victim from the hands of the aggressor.

It will cost a lot of money, and the Canadians will suffer greatly. But the alternative is to join America, which Canadians have stated don't want to.

I’m still waiting for an offer. :)

If you watch his speech and the follow up interview you he answers that directly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMyeGQm3NA @ 17:50). It's a good watch, better than the past 10 years of daily coverage by American media of what their dumb president and ex president is ranting about.

I am in the start up community in Canada. I can tell you that after the first threat from Trump every federal program to help tech start ups immediately pivoted to Asia and the EU. Before he started yapping, we were connected to Canadian representatives in the US, meeting about markets and opportunities. Now all programs are directed at forming partnerships elsewhere.

Canada has a dysfunctional domestic trade economy where it’s often easier to trade across borders with the U.S. than it is to trade across provinces.

Simply eliminating a lot of those domestic trade barriers would create more economic wealth than what Canada would lose by ending trade with the U.S. completely.

Of course in practice it won’t be that easy and the finances don’t usually materialize that easily, but the point is Canada has options for growth that are fully under its control.

The only sector where this is generally true is liquor. This is significant, but not massive.

Inter-provincial trade barriers for labor, especially licensed labor are also quite onerous. But it's still easier for a Quebecois tradesman to work in Ontario than it is for that same tradesman to work in the US.

Your logic is exactly why Trump's gambits always work. Everyone knows that individually standing up to a bully is a good way to get the raw end of the deal; so nobody stands up and the bully continues racking up wins.

It's certainly not guaranteed, but taking an aggressive defensive stance is the ONLY possible way to stop having your lunch money stolen.

We are beside America geographically. It is impossible to replace our market, defence, and cultural integration with America by cobbling together a trade bridge between China and Europe.

Yes, but that integration is turning into a vulnerability as Trump tries to leverage it for monetary or territorial gains. We won't retain the prosperity we built together by appeasing him. The prosperity is going away regardless. The choice for Canada is to keep our dignity or not.

Also, calling this a bad move presumes that the US isn't going to fall much, much further than it is now, which is seeming quite plausible. When your dance partner is heading for a cliff, you need to stop dancing with them.

So you are happy that our "friend" decided on a whim to wanting to invade our other friend? Despite all of us being part of the same friend group? Despite canadian and danish blood being spilled in Afghanistan right after our "friend" decided to call article 5?

Fuck off.

Speak for yourself. I've haven't felt this proud to be Canadian in a long time.

(voted for Poilievre btw).

Thanks for your vote and keep voting Conservative. Jamil is who we should have talking to the Americans.

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