As I’ve mentioned before, even though I’m Canadian I don’t cover a lot of Canadian stories unless it has broader international interest. That said, I do think it’s worth the effort for non-Canadians to occasionally get some insight into what new insanity is going on above the 49th Parallel. The Rewrite has a helpful summary of recent news from the Maple Gulag that may be of interest:
For a Canadian blog, I get a lot more non-Canadian visitors.
It looks like Canadians are about to cheerfully reconnect with what they were taught for a decade is their unforgivable colonial past. First, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), primarily citing unnamed sources, reported that Prime Minister Mark Carney was hoping to make Canada an associate member of the European Union. But then CTV News, quoting a senior PMO official, reported Canada wasn’t seeking EU membership “in any capacity.” Paul Wells wrote a column explaining how WSJ had torqued the story and then Carney, who tends to get truthy under pressure, as Brian Lilley pointed out, told reporters he wasn’t seeking anything called membership but something something else something something. A couple days later, EU President Ursula von der Leyen disagreed with that line when she declared in a speech that she wanted to join with Canada at the “highest level possible” and she’d be happy to welcome Canada as an “associate member.” In response, the Financial Times reported other EU leaders were thinking, uh, not so much about the whole thing but good luck Canada and the Daily Mail chimed in with news Brussels was in an uproar. Then, proving it was right all along, WSJ quoted a Canadian official saying “We were the ones who proposed associate membership”, which Carney and his office had denied.
US President Donald Trump said if Canada joins the EU with a hostile intent (the qualifier having been omitted in some Canadian reports), the USA will bring in more EU tariffs. Our PM recaptured headlines with a speech promoting an undefined but aspirational union and flew home to a nation that polls indicate is now wildly enthusiastic about embracing settler culture even while the Daily Telegraph said the whole thing was already unraveling.
The challenge for journalists was to make sense of all this prestidigitation while wondering if maybe they should have taken the time to ask who Carney was hanging out with during his recent vacay in Tuscany. Many were left wondering if PMMC could do this without Parliamentary approval which, as every working journalist should know, he can, partly because they let him. When it comes to treaties, it’s a one-man show. Credit the Toronto Star‘s Althia Raj for noting in regards to Carney’s plan to further privatize major airports that “The Liberal government has no mandate to do this”.
While The Line‘s Jen Gerson and others were taking umbrage with the PMO’s preference for foreign media, John Ivison was getting some decent insider dirt for National Post on how vigorously bureaucrats are resisting the PM’s need for speed — a concept with which they are notoriously unfamiliar.
A further chapeau to Brian Passifiume for the scoop on how, while Carney is urging us to buy Canadian, his government hired an American company to run his Toronto investor match making sessions.
I have frequently pointed out that the mystery of why Germans supported Hitler and the National Socialists in the 1930s comes down largely to the value of non-stop propaganda: ordinary Germans read the newspapers and listened to the radio and the messages they got were increasingly co-ordinated to praise the party and the work of its leader and to demonize enemies of the state. What brought it home to me was just how efficiently Canadian relic media spare no effort to praise our very own Dear Leader and belittle the opposition or private citizens who don’t automatically wave their elbows on demand:
Putting on the neuroscience hat for a minute.
When people are called “traitors” simply for saying Canada should negotiate a workable deal with the United States, something interesting is happening psychologically.
The brain has a fast threat-response pathway and a slower regulatory pathway. The amygdala can detect a perceived threat almost immediately and trigger a stress response.
When people feel they are losing control or fear social judgment, cortisol can rise. Under enough perceived threat, slower prefrontal-cortex functions such as weighing evidence, considering alternatives and regulating emotional reactions can become less dominant.
Now add politics.
If Trump, the United States, Canadian sovereignty and national loyalty become emotionally loaded symbols, a disagreement over tariffs can stop being treated as an economic question. It becomes: “Are you with us or against us?”
That is where tribal thinking can take over.
Calling somebody a traitor because they want negotiations is the fast response. The slower question is: What outcome produces the least economic damage for Canadians? What does retaliation cost us? What can Canada realistically gain through negotiation? What happens to workers, farmers and businesses if there is no deal?
You can oppose a deal after doing that analysis. You can support one. The important part is how you reached the conclusion.
I saw much the same psychological process during COVID. Questions that should have involved evidence, probabilities, costs, benefits and changing information often became tests of political identity and loyalty. Once that happens, people defend the tribe first and examine the evidence second.
The neuroscience doesn’t tell us which political side is automatically correct.
It does tell us why fear, loss of control, social judgment and group identity can push people toward rapid emotional responses, while stepping back and deliberately examining evidence requires more cognitive regulation.
Sometimes the most rational thing you can do is refuse the loyalty test and ask the boring question:
What actually works?
