Any "understanding" between the governments of Canada and Alberta will be hard won

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Liberal government of Canada and the United Conservative government of Alberta was never going be an easy thing. There is very little common ground between the Liberals and Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party, although Prime Minister Mark Carney is in the process of dragging the Liberals much further to the right in his determination to kick-start Canada's economy, for example by avoiding awkward environmental reviews and such like.

There was lots of talk about "hinge moments" and "inflection points" and other such trendy buzzwords, and Carney and Smith were like a couple of giggling schoolkids at the official signing ceremony. However, the agreement may not actually be worth the paper it was written on.

This so-called "grand bargain" involves Ottawa giving the green light to a new pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific, a major sop to a fractious and trigger-happy Alberta. The only stipulations for Alberta are rather vague ones about pursuing carbon capture technology, stricter industrial carbon pricing rules, and of course getting the buy-in of British Columbia and First Nations, through whose territory the pipeline would run (which will not be easy, if indeed it is even possible). 

Carney is still insisting that it will all happen in a spirit of "cooperative federalism", in which "all stakeholders have to agree", including the province of British Columbia and several affected First Nations, but that seems naïve to me. He also seems to think that Alberta can still achieve its greenhouse gas emissions targets by 2050, apparently not realizing that Alberta has no intentions of chasing any such target.

Quite how Mr. Carney hopes to achieve this feat is not clear, and a lot of other people are equally skeptical. Many British Columbia Liberal MPs and their constituents are strongly opposed to the proposed carve-out of environmental protections for the ecologically-sensitive North West coast. Many First Nations rights holders are strongly opposed to a pipeline through their territory, and the transportation of oil through the pristine fjords and inlets of the BC coast. The exemption of Alberta from Canada's Clean Electricity Regulations has also raised the hackles of other provinces.

All this has driven a substantial wedge within the Liberal Party, because there are still many MPs in the Liberal caucus from the old environmentalist days of Justin Trudeau, including some MPs like Steven Guilbeault that were instrumental in drawing up some of the key environmental legislation that Carney is apparently now all too happy to trample over.

There have been some rather testy discussions between the Prime Minister's Office and Liberal MPs like Mr. Guilbeault and others, and particularly with many of the British Columbia Liberal MPs, who are having to explain this volte face to their electorate. BC Premier David Eby, whose province was inexplicably not included in talks, remains implacably opposed to it, particularly over the prospect of the federal government using its recently acquired power to grant exemptions to the current BC oil tanker ban. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, as well as various individual Indigenous groups, issued a strong statement indicating their continued opposition to such a pipeline.

Carney and Smith are publicly portrating this as a done deal, even though no "private proponent" has yet shown any willingness to take on such a contentious project, and even though there are loud rumblings of discontent within the Liberal Party itself. Maybe Mr. Carney sees this as a way to reset fractured federal-provincial relations but, in attempting a rapprochement with Alberta, he has alienated other provinces, mainly BC and Quebec (which issued its own statement about how iniqutious it finds the Alberta deal, calling it the day Canada's commitment to climate action died).

So, is Mr. Carney just being naïve and idealistic by putting such a great emphasis on this deal with Alberta? He is normally a very pragmatic man, but in this case he seems to have let his heart rule in his head. Or maybe it's all just political theatre? Is Carney only pretending to want a new pipeline, as some have suggested. Either way, this is a vague promise not a practical plan, and promises can be broken or just fall by the wayside. The reality is: a pipeline to the BC coast seems no closer to reality than it was before the MOU, and Mr. Carney may have damaged relations with other provinces, and even his own caucus, in the process.

UPDATE

It's probably no surprise, but Steven Guilbeault, a lifelong environmental advocate, has resigned from the Liberal Cabinet over the Alberta deal. He will continue to represent his Montreal riding, but will no longer serve in Cabinet as Minster of Canadian Identity and Culture. 

There seems to be an irreparable rift between Carney snd Gilbeault over the environmental repercussions of the Alberta MOU. Kudos to Mr. Guilbeault for having the guts to stand up for his principles. Carney, once a stand-out apologist for climate action financing, seems to have drunk the Trump Cool-aid and gone all-in on fossil fuels and abandoned his old zeal for sustainable clean energy. You can see why Guilbeault reached the end of his tether.

Exposing false claims of native heritage is surely counter-productive

The latest Indigenous Canadian to be outed as not being Indigenous at all is successful author Thomas King.

King seems to have honestly believed all his life that he was of Cherokee ancestry. But he was recently presented with genealogical evidence to the contrary, a finding that has profoundly shocked and depressed the 82-year old author of popular books like Indians on Vacation and The Inconvenient Indian. He has withdrawn the publication of his next novel, due out in May 2026, and his whole life and legacy is in disarray after the revelations.

He was outed by a "whistle-blowing organization" called the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, based in North Carolina. The organization exists, it seems, to expose false claims of Native heritage in America and Canada. Because - just like with Joseph Boyden, Buffy Sainte Marie and Michelle Latimer, before King - they wouldn't want people thinking that these successful artists and personalities, who have spent most of their lives trying to promote and boost Indigenous peoples, were Indigenous, would they?

I'm sure, where the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds and similar groups are concerned, there is a matter of principle involved here, even if that principle is exclusionary and bigoted and a bit fanatical. But I can't help but think that they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

US "peace plan" for Ukraine is a complete sell-out to Russia

The United States has come up with a 28-point "peace plan" for Ukraine, which is suspiciously similar to Russia's surrender offer from over 2 years ago. In fact, there are suggestions that it was literally authored by Russia and handed over to the US to push through. The plan was hatched by US "special envoy" Steve Witkoff (actually a property developer) and Russia's "special envoy" Kirill Dmitriev (actually a Moscow businessman, often described as "ruthlessly ambitious"); Ukraine was not asked to contribute.

Some US senators are saying that this is nothing like the US's agreed plans for Ukraine, and that Trump is just pushing any old thing to get any sort of "peace", even if it favours the aggressor, just like his plan for Gaza. Trump still wants that elusive Nobel Peace prize, at almost any cost. He is trying to get it by bullying and blackmailing Ukraine into a disastrous "peace" by threatening to withhold American arms and other assistance in this illegal war.

Roughly, the Trump-Witkoff plan involves:

• Official US recognition of Russia's hold on Crimea and the whole of the Donbas region, including parts that they do not even hold militarily after two-and-a half years of war, plus those parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions it currently holds.
• Russia rejoining the G7 group, from which they were ejected after the annexation of Crimea.
• Full amnesty for Russian war crimes throughout the war, and a dropping of the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Putin on war crimes charges.
• The capping of Ukraine's military at a level much lower than currently (so that they are less able to respond to future Russian incursions?)
• A vague promise of a family reunification plan for the thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia during the war.
• The lifting of restrictions on Russian television channels in Ukraine, and on the influential Russian Orthodox Church.
• Prohibiting Ukraine from joining NATO.

(Here's a more comprehensive list of the provisions.)

Does Ukraine get anything from this deal? Some ill-defined "reliable security guarantees" from the US, is about all. And would you trust the Trump administration on that?

If you thought that Trump's bromance with Putin was over, you might want to think again: this is another love letter to Putin. It is a  veritable rubber-stamping of Russia's wish list with regard to Ukraine. It is a much worse deal for Ukraine than any previous offers, and the pressure to accept is ramped up. Ukraine is left with a stark choice: accept a deal that looks very much like total surrender, or continue to fight a war it is slowly losing.

And the timing? Deliberately to take advantage of a corruption scandal in Zelensky's inner circle, that puts Zelensky on the defensive, and makes his acceptance of any old deal more likely (although still very unlikely - if he were to sell Ukraine out to Trump's deal, his presidency is toast).

JD Vance picks some Canadian cherries

US Vice-President JD Vance felt the need to weigh in on Canada's standard of living on X the other day. While I have little to no confidence in JD Vance's critical thinking abilities - or anything else published on X, for that matter - his post merits comment for its sheer fatuity.

His comments are in response to a post by some other right-wing geezer who happened to get hold of a graph produced by Ice Cap Asset Management, an obscure but outspoken Nova Scotia investment portfolio management company, comparing Canada, UK and USA's inflation-adjusted GDP per capita.

Vance's conclusions (not necessarily Ice Cap's, although one of its analysts did publicly agree with them)?

While I'm sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into "diversity is our strength, we don't need a melting pot we have a salad bowl" immigration insanity than Canada.

It has the highest foreign-born share of the population in the entire G7 and its living standards have stagnated.

Whew! Where to start.

Ignoring entirely the complicated causes he mentions, Vance plucks a "cause" out of thin air. Immigration = Poorer Standard of Living. Obvious, right? No evidence, or even logic, needed.

And, hold on, since when did GDP per capita become the sole measure of standard of living? A country's standard of living is usually tracked using a much wider range of data. For example the UN uses a Human Development Index, which combines GDP per capita, life expectancy at birth, and years of schooling for children. This index shows Canada pretty much in lockstep with the US and UK.

In terms of "quality of life", which includes such factors as access to food, housing, quality education, healthcare, employment, etc, Canada does much better than either the UK or US. 

So, it really depends on which statistics you want to cherry-pick. But the chutzpah of the Trump administration seems to know no bounds. Put out some vaguely cconvincing-sounding cherry-picked data and the party faithful will lap it up, and even expand on it some. No need for accountability or accuracy or any of that crap; they are past all that. And, soon enough, that cherry-picked, even blatantly erronious, data becomes the conventional wisdom. Voilà. Job done.

Does eveyone hate the USA?

I started with the question, "Do Amercians know or care that most of the rest of the world hates them?" I still don't really know, but presumably the answer is that it depends on their politics, and perhaps their education level. So, most Democrats are cringing at the moment, embarrassed at the image the USA is broadcasting to the rest of the world. Most Republicans - at least the MAGA end of the Republican spectrum - insofar as they have even thought about it, probably just don't care. It's all a part of the selfish and insular mindset that characterizes the MAGA movement that the attitudes of others are just irrelevant.

But then I wondered, " Does the rest of the world actually hate America?" For that question, there is some data available. It's a few months old now, but Pew Research Center has produced a very detailed survey of international attitudes towards Donald Trump and the USA in general. Dating from June of this year, it looks at attitudes towards a whole host of related questions in 24 major countries across the world.

Unsurprisingly, the citizens of most countries have an increasingly unfavourable view of the man and the country. But there are a few interesting anomalies.

• General confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs is low with an average of 62% having no confidence in the man. Canada, Australia, Mexico and Turkey are the least confident, along with Scandinavia and most of western Europe. Hungary, India, Israel, Nigeria and Kenya, though, seem quite confident in Trump. (This was back June remember, before most of the administration's tariffs began to bite, and before some of the more recent poor decisions, failures and flip-flops.) Across the board, women have less confidence in Trump than men. 
• Favourable and unfavourable opinions of the USA roughly follows that, but less extreme. For instance, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Turkey and western and northern European countries tend to have the most unfavourable views; Israel, African countries, but also Asian countries like South Korea, Japan and India, have the most favourable opinions. On average, it is about 50-50. 
• 
• In most countries, opinions of the USA have become much more unfavourable over the last year, particularly in countries like Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia. Interestingly, attitudes in the UK, Hungary, Argentina, South Africa and India have hardly moved over that period, and in Israel, Nigeria and Turkey they have even improved a little.
• Over the last 25 years at least, overseas confidence in US presidents has hugely favoured Democrats, with Obama and Biden polling well, Trump and George Bush polling poorly.
• Predictably, supporters of right wing populist parties in Europe have a much more favourable view of Trump than opponents of such parties.
• On average, respondents in the 24 countries polled have little or no confidence in Trump's ability to handle US immigration policies, the Russia-Ukraine war, US-China relations, global economic problems, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and climate change, with their confidence dropping further with each of those listed issues (i.e. climate change is the issue people are least confident about).
• Trump is seen as arrogant and dangerous, but also a strong leader. He is NOT seen as diplomatic, able to understand complex problems, well-qualified, and, more than anything else, he is not considered honest.
• Only Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are seen as worse than Trump in terms of confidence to do the right things regarding world affairs.
• Views on democracy in the USA tend to follow the political inclinations of the countries. For example, countries like Hungary, Poland, Israel, Nigeria and Kenya see US democracy as strong, while most other countries do not, particularly the more liberal countries like Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, etc.

So, of course, to say that everyone hates America is trite. Many people - most people - hate Trump and what he has turned America into. But, don't forget, at least half of Americans facilitated and empowered him. It's hard not to hate them for that.

Little Curaçao qualifies for the 2026 World Cup

The tiny country of Curaçao has become the smallest country to ever qualify for the World Cup.

With a total population of about 156,000 souls, the Caribbean island's improbable qualification for the 2026 World Cup is quite a feat, beating out the previous smallest country, Iceland, which has about 350,000 inhabitants. When you consider that about half the population is female, and an estimated 17% are under the age of 15 and 16% over 65, that leaves an adult male pool of roughly 50,000 by my estimate.

There are mitigating factors, though. Curaçao is technically an autonomous territory of the Netherlands, and not really a country in its own right. Many of its players were actually born and raised in the Netherlands, a world-class soccer nation, but choose to play for Curaçao. (They were granted permission from FIFA under its nationality rules, so there is nothing underhand going on here.)

And, credit where credit is due, Curaçao finished top of its qualifying group, above Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Bermuda. They did have a substantial measure of good luck, with Jamaica hitting the post three times and having a penalty waved off during the two team's last qualifying match. But luck is part of the game too.

I'll be cheering for Canada in the World Cup next year. But there's still a piece of my heart rooting for Curaçao.

Trump's latest flip-flop comes with the usual nonsense

Most things Donald Trump says are ridiculous, and a great many of them are deliberately misleading or just plain wrong. 

It's no great surprise, then, that Trump's latest flip-flip, on a vote to release more files from the investigation into notorious sex-traffficker Jeffrey Epstein - files that are widely believed to include some incriminating evidence against Trump himself - came with more unsupported claims, distractions and sleight of hand, in an attempt to get ahead of what is widely seen to be an unavoidable development.

"It is really a Democrat problem", he blustered, "The Democrats were Epstein's friends, all of them. And it is a hoax, the whole thing is a hoax." 

Wow. "ALL of them"? What a ridiculous man.

And, in case you have your suspicions that Trump is finally coming to his senses over publicly releasing the Epstein files, you should remember that Trump never does anything without an ulterior motive. If he is now, all of a sudden, encouraging Republicans to vote to release the files, after months of doing the opposite, then you should know that there is a plan in place to shield him in some way.

Yes, Trump's apparent change of heart is partly so that he doesn't have to admit that at least half of his party was going against his express instructions (and he does like to appear in control). But more likely, there is a plan to stop most of the incriminating parts of the files being publicly released anyway, despite the vote. 

The most likely candidate for this is a plan to use the files to incriminate Democrat politicians and supporters (as he has already hinted at). If the files are evidence in an ongoing investigation, they cannot be made public. If that investigation goes on long enough, they may NEVER be released (or at least not until Trump is safely out of the presidency). In fact, the "transparency" bill just voted on explicitly specifies that the Justice Department can hold back any files "that jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, providing that such witholding is narrowly tailored and temporary".

Also, even those files that ARE released could be subject to redactions. Again, the bill specifies that the attorney general can "withold or redact" records that "would consitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy". Like Trump's name, for example? Those files that have already been released have had many names and phone numbers blacked out, supposedly to protect privacy. Which makes a bit of a mockery of the "transparency" that the bill is supposed to ensure.

Either way, you can bet that Trump and his tame Justice Department will make sure that there is nothing released that could possibly incriminate Trump.

Fun and games in the Canadian Parliament

Another major test in Parliament for the minority Liberal government yielded a show of faux brinkmanship. 

Today's vote on the 2025 federal budget was a confidence vote, and a failure could have resulted in a new election just six months after the last one. Given that pretty much no-one - from the official opposition Conservatives to the much-reduced and leaderless NDP, the Bloc and the Greens, to the Canadian voting public in general - wants an election right now, or any time soon for that matter, all parties had to be quite careful about how they voted. Neither the Conservatives nor the NDP are in any position to fight a new election at the moment.

Yes, of course, the oppositon parties wanted to demonstrate to their voting base their opposition to the government, but they didn't want to do it in such a way that the Liberal government was brought down, thereby triggering an election. The Liberals are two seats short of a majority, so a straight party line vote was not an option. The vote also came hard of the heels of the Conservatives' loss of two of its caucus, one crossing the floor to the Liberals and one resigning completely.

In the end, two NDP members and two Conservative MPs abstained from the vote, thus allowing the Liberals a slim victory of 170-168, while still allowing the opposition parties to say that they voted against the bill. The sole Green MP, Elizabeth May, agreed to vote in favour of the bill after a last-minute agreement with Prime Minister Carney to beef up the Liberal's climate change agenda, which Carney has been gradually trashing since he assumed power. The result of all this wheeling and dealing is that the budget bill passed by a slim two-vote margin, with no Christmas election is in prospect.

You could call it smoke and mirrors. You could even call it a travesty of democracy. Or you could call it realpolitik and democracy in action, depending on your predilections. Yes, it was a rigged vote, but a vote rigged with the explicit permission of all parties. It's anybody's guess what would have happened if MPs had actually voted with their consciences, but this vote was all about optics and little else. Conscience just didn't come into it.