On her Substack, Melanie in Saskatchewan wonders what is going on in Mark Carney’s world whenever the United States comes up. At times, you would assume he hates the US, yet the vast majority of his personal wealth is invested there. His family members live there. It’s a paradox:
AI-generated image from Melanie in Saskatchewan
I’m starting to think Mark Carney has a passionate, personal hatred of America.
And I don’t mean Donald Trump. Plenty of people hate Donald Trump. I mean America itself, or at least the enormous role America has played in Canada’s economy for generations. Because the longer I listen to Carney talk about where he wants Canada to go, the more I wonder whether Trump caused this economic divorce at all … or whether he was simply the spectacular act of infidelity Carney needed to finally file the papers.
Maybe hate is too strong. Maybe geopolitical jealousy has stages too: irritation, resentment, righteous indignation and finally whatever stage comes after, “I’d love to go out sometime, but unfortunately I’ll be washing my hair indefinitely”. Whatever stage Carney has reached, I’m increasingly convinced this is about considerably more than Donald Trump.
Because we can document Carney publicly talking about a changing world order more than fifteen years ago. How long he had been developing those ideas before putting them into speeches, I have no idea. We don’t need to invent an origin story. The public record is interesting enough.
I can’t prove Carney hates America. Maybe he loves it. Maybe there’s a Louisville Slugger sticking out of a Davos swag bag somewhere between six conference lanyards, a King Charles commemorative tea towel and a couple of those luxury Normandy butter cups that apparently require their own travel arrangements. But if Mark Carney loves America, somebody should probably tell America the relationship is still on.
He certainly never seemed troubled by American money. His disclosed investments included hundreds of companies, many of them American. And I don’t begrudge him that. If American companies offered a good return, invest away. What makes it interesting is that while his money was quite comfortable in America, Carney had already spent years publicly describing a world becoming considerably less centred on American economic power. Donald Trump didn’t inspire that. He came crashing through the front door years later, apparently oblivious to the fact that Carney had already furnished the room.
Canadians have since been handed a wonderfully tidy explanation for everything happening now. Trump returned. Trump threatened tariffs. Trump called Canada the 51st state. Trump made governor jokes. CBC, our publicly funded national broadcaster, and a Canadian media industry operating alongside various government support programs amplified every provocation until everybody knew exactly which Trumpism could send Canada through the ceiling.
He said “51st state”. Canada erupted, so he said it again. Trump noticed. The media noticed. And I have a very hard time believing Liberal strategists somehow failed to notice the political value of an issue resonating that powerfully with Canadians.
But heaven forbid an opposition MP or ordinary Canadian asks to see where our money went. Suddenly negotiations, contracts and records disappear behind confidentiality, redactions and “national security”. Apparently telling Canadians what our own government is doing requires security clearance, but advertising precisely which Trump taunts are working required something closer to a neon sign: YES, DONALD. RIGHT THERE. THAT BUTTON!
Why not circle the red button, write DO NOT PRESS across it and explain exactly what happens when he does? Because if humanity has established anything about a big red button labelled DO NOT PRESS, it’s that nobody has ever wanted to press that bastard more.
