Canadians may not be paying attention, but Donald Trump’s hardline trade tactics — while painful for Americans in the short run — are strategically timed to secure long-term U.S. economic dominance. Because Trump acted early in his term, Canadian industries are heading toward a severe reckoning… if they even survive the fallout.
Meanwhile, Mark Carney is pushing his vision for an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)-driven economy. The problem? ESG has proven to be unprofitable in real-world markets. Its survival depends almost entirely on government incentives, contracts, and narrative control — not genuine market demand. Economically, ESG is a non-competitive, politically engineered model that struggles without taxpayer funding.
ESG: Great for Bureaucrats, Terrible for Investors
I know this from experience. Years ago, I bought shares in Brookfield, partly due to the hype around ESG nearly a decade ago. Today, they remain some of my worst-performing investments. ESG may sound virtuous on paper, but in practice it’s an exercise in dependency — on government money and carefully managed public messaging.
Al Gore once dominated the climate change narrative, but that era is fading. The public appetite for his prescribed “solutions” is drying up. Mark Carney, often portrayed as a financial heavyweight, turns out to be more of an academic millionaire — worth roughly $5–6 million. By private-sector standards, that’s comfortable but far from the kind of wealth held by high-performing entrepreneurs or even many professional athletes.
His reluctance to sell certain holdings reinforces my view that he lacks the real-world business grit that only comes from surviving — and thriving — in the private market without government safety nets.
The Larger Strategic Play: Trump’s Canada Squeeze
What many Canadians fail to see is Trump’s broader strategy to make Canada economically irrelevant in the U.S. market. This isn’t new — I’ve warned for over a decade that austerity is Canada’s eventual destination. But before that day comes, expect things to get much worse.
Canadian socialism is deeply embedded in the national culture. The country runs on price controls and artificial cost inflation — measures that have masked our poor business climate for years. Those same mechanisms are now setting the stage for stagnation and eventual collapse.
If austerity is avoided, the inevitable outcome will be runaway inflation and a weakened Canadian dollar. What remains unclear is how foreign exchange markets will respond. It’s possible for the Canadian dollar to lose significant value domestically while still holding some purchasing power internationally — but that is far from guaranteed.
If I were running the Bank of Canada, I’d raise interest rates when the crash comes, force austerity, and defend the currency at all costs. If the dollar collapses completely, it’s game over.
The Aluminum Case Study
The aluminum sector is a perfect example of how Canada has boxed itself into a corner. Canadian manufacturers import and dump aluminum into the U.S. at prices made possible only because wages here are artificially inflated by government policy. This is partly why Canada has ramped up immigration — to keep feeding the system despite its inefficiencies.
Trump’s tariffs and trade restrictions directly threaten this model, and American CEOs are openly thanking him for stopping Canadian aluminum dumping. This is exactly the kind of structural change that will accelerate Canada’s reckoning.
Why the Cycle Repeats
In Canada’s socialist-democratic mix, voters demand welfare and politicians deliver — regardless of long-term consequences. Left-leaning voters rarely ask for details; they simply want benefits, and governments oblige. This is why austerity isn’t just likely — it’s inevitable.
If nothing changes, Canada risks becoming a modern-day Argentina under Peronism — only worse. At least Argentina gave its broken system a name. In Canada, socialism has been absorbed into the culture itself, disguised as “just the Canadian way.” This cultural blind spot is now a cancer on the economy.
Anyone who still believes this can be “better managed” without painful cuts is deluding themselves. That era is over. Austerity will come. The only unknown is how long it will take to arrive.
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