On Friday, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency officially labeled Alternative for Germany — the country’s most popular conservative party — as a “right-wing extremist” organization. The nationalist party surged to second place in February’s federal election, winning 20.8% of the vote. This new designation grants the ruling government expanded powers to surveil Alternative for Germany leaders and supporters and sets the stage for an outright ban.

Germany has now joined a growing list of Western governments that delay elections, disqualify candidates, and ban opposition parties — all in the name of defending democracy.

Democracy has become a marketing slogan — useful for justifying war and globalist expansion, but disposable when it interferes with ruling-class priorities.

To call Germany’s relationship with authoritarianism “complicated” understates the case. The country’s historical memory fixates on Nazism as the ultimate expression of right-wing extremism and mass atrocity. But that singular focus conveniently ignores the fact that the Soviet Union, which helped defeat the Third Reich, imposed its own brutal regime across East Germany until the Berlin Wall fell.

Modern Germany has seen tyranny from both the far right and the far left. Yet its national identity now orbits entirely around a rejection of right-wing politics. Anti-fascism has become something like a state religion. But when a country builds its identity on shame and self-repudiation, it risks cultural collapse. We’ve seen the same pathology infect America, where elite institutions push a national narrative defined entirely by slavery and racial guilt.

Every nation has dark chapters. A mature society learns from them. It doesn’t define itself by them forever.

While German history explains some of its deep aversion to nationalism, the trend of suppressing populist movements in the name of democracy has spread far beyond Berlin.

Brazil’s Supreme Court banned former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking office until 2030. Romania’s Constitutional Court voided its 2024 election, citing supposed Russian influence in the rise of populist candidate Călin Georgescu. And in the United States, courts came dangerously close to removing Donald Trump from the ballot — while the president now fights legal battles over whether he can exercise executive power at all under Article II of the Constitution.

This isn’t democracy defending itself. It’s ruling elites trying to outlaw their opposition.

Western elites justify their dominance by invoking democracy and individual liberty. That wasn’t always the case. The West once called itself Christendom — a civilizational identity grounded in faith, tradition, and truth. But it abandoned that foundation in favor of secular platitudes.

The United States has waged entire wars in the name of exporting democracy to places like Iraq and Afghanistan — nations that never wanted it and were never going to keep it. These projects were doomed from the start. Yet at least they wrapped American power in the language of benevolence.

Today, even that fig leaf has disappeared.

The modern West treats democracy as a branding exercise, not a principle. Leaders like Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, and Keir Starmer love lecturing the world about “liberal norms,” even as they jail political dissidents, censor speech, and turn domestic intelligence services against their own citizens. They condemn Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism while staying silent as NATO allies crush dissent at home.

Democracy has become a marketing slogan — useful for justifying war and globalist expansion, but disposable when it interferes with ruling-class priorities.

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both slammed the German government for labeling Alternative for Germany as extremist. On social media, Rubio went further, blaming Germany’s open-border policies for the Alternative for Germany rise and calling the state’s surveillance powers tyranny in disguise.

Germany’s Foreign Office issued a formal reply, insisting the decision stemmed from an “independent” and “thorough” investigation.

The claim is absurd on its face.

No government can “independently” investigate and condemn its most prominent political opposition — especially not when the accusation is “extremism,” a term that now means little more than holding views the ruling class finds inconvenient.

I’ve made no secret of my dislike of modern mass democracy. But the original concept, at least, had merit. Democracy once meant rule by the demos — the people of a particular nation, rooted in shared history, culture, and civic identity. Its legitimacy came not from procedure or process but from the bonds between citizens and their country.

Today’s ruling class has twisted that definition beyond recognition. As I’ve written before, globalist elites now use the word “democracy” to describe a system governed by unaccountable institutions they alone control. Populism, they say, is dangerous. Democracy, they insist, must be preserved. But in practice, they oppose the popular will and protect only the process they’ve captured.

Elections have become sacraments — rituals that legitimize the rule of bureaucracies, not expressions of the people’s will. The process is sacred, not the outcome. That’s why Western politicians now speak of “our sacred democracy,” which must be defended not from tyranny, but from actual democratic movements.

Western leaders still try to justify their global power by invoking freedom and liberty. But their credibility has collapsed. It’s farcical to hear men like Justin Trudeau or Keir Starmer preach about “shared Western values” while jailing political opponents and silencing dissent at home.

The moral authority of liberal democracy is crumbling. And the cause isn’t Putin or China. It’s Western leaders who’ve gutted the electoral process and replaced it with rule by managerial elites.

The Trump administration should continue to expose this hypocrisy. But it also must act. That means offering political asylum to dissidents facing persecution in places like Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Americans rightly recoil at repression in Russia. They should feel the same revulsion when it comes from our “allies” in Berlin, Ottawa, or London.

Justin Trudeau's own brother says Canada is RUINED

Justin Trudeau’s lineage has long been a topic of debate, as many conspiracy theories have swirled around who his father really is — but who his brother is is not up for debate and neither are his brother’s feelings on Trudeau himself.

His brother, Kyle Kemper, sat down with Alex Stein on “Prime Time with Alex Stein” this January to tell him how he really feels about the former prime minister of Canada.

“In your opinion, did your brother do permanent damage to Canada? Did he really make it a worse place?” Stein asked Kemper.

“Oh, I think so,” Kemper replied. “He was the spokesperson, leading the script, being the lead actor in the, you know, multi-trillion dollars of wealth transfer from sovereign Canadians into moving up the chain.”

“Right at the end of the trucker thing, too, that’s when all of a sudden the Ukraine narrative popped in,” Kemper continued, noting that right after Trudeau froze bank accounts, suspended drivers' licenses, and even threw some truckers in jail — it was, “Ukraine, we love you.”

“Everybody put a Ukraine flag in your bio, because this is serious. We will stand with you forever,” he mocked.

However, at the time of the interview, right-wing Pierre Poilievre had thrown his hat in the ring to take Trudeau’s spot as prime minister of Canada — but that spot has now been filled by Mark Carney.

But Kemper never had much hope for the country anyway.

“The way that the politics works, it’s literally just, you say ‘up,’ I say ‘down,’ game. It’s literally nonstop in the House of Commons,” Kemper tells Stein. “Nobody answers questions. It is absurd. It is an affront to the intelligence of all Canadians. It is no longer truly representative of it.”

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No choice for Canadian voters when it comes to sending billions to Ukraine

Say what you will about Donald Trump — he knows how to drum up publicity. He's even managed to interest Americans in Canada’s upcoming federal election, now less than a week away.

The president's influence on the contest was all but guaranteed last month, when he made good on his threats to levy a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum — with further duties on lumber and pharmaceuticals a possibility.

Despite his ostensible Canada-first outlook, Pierre Poilievre has been in lockstep with the Liberal government policy on Ukraine for over three years.

Prior to this movie, Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party was strongly favored to unseat the reigning Liberal Party, led by Justin Trudeau successor Mark Carney.

Not so today.

Agreeing to agree

The Liberals have benefited from a surge of Canadian antipathy toward Trump, to the extent that they now seem to be running more against the American president than the opposition Conservative Party — something that the American media has not failed to notice. For his part, Trump has actually endorsed Carney.

With the April 28 election looming, what has become a two-party race between Liberals and Conservatives remains close.

While the vote may serve as a referendum on Trump's economic policy, another issue has proven depressingly uncontroversial: support for Ukraine. For all of their differences, Canada's four major political parties all share a turgid and demented determination to continue to pour billions of dollars into the black hole of Kyiv.

This despite Trump’s repeated pledge to end the Russia-Ukraine war. While saying he could do it in a mere 24 hours may have been typical Trumpian hyperbole, it's clear that securing peace remains a priority for the president.

Biden's folly

One need only look at what happened under the previous administration to understand why. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a regular visitor to the Biden White House, always clad in his odd mixture of combat gear and activewear — and never leaving empty handed.

The engagement of U.S. and NATO military personnel alongside Ukrainian soldiers, as well as the use of American and British missiles to strike the Russian heartland, brought America perilously close to nuclear war with Russia. Seeing the horrible potential for a third world war, both Trump and then-Senator JD Vance urged caution and encouraged peace.

Incredibly, Canada seems not to have taken the hint.

Alone and outgunned

Even as Trump slowly but surely extricates the U.S. from supporting Ukraine and distances itself from NATO members who delusionally believe they can either take on Russia in a conventional war or somehow survive a nuclear one, Canadian political leaders talk about going it alone against Russia without America.

This is beyond ludicrous. Canada does not have a single operational tank left after giving all of its working Leopard models to Ukraine. It has yet to replenished the vast quantities of armaments it has given Ukraine; in fact, it is unable to do so. The U.K.’s military is also a shell of what it was, say, in 1982, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went to war over the Falkland Islands.

Besides, the war is effectively over. Ukraine cannot continue to furnish more troops for the battlefield even if it continues to abduct recruits from the streets and bars. Anyone who advocates the continuation of the war is, knowingly or not, arguing for the killing of an entire generation of Ukrainians. It is a consummation that might have already occurred.

Not up for debate?

Canadians should demand to know why all four party leaders at the English-language leaders’ debate in Montreal last Thursday stood foursquare behind that policy.

Yes, such painful pandering should be expected from Carney, as well as Bloc Quebecois (separatist) chief Yves-Francois Blanchet and New Democratic Party boss Jagmeet Singh. But Poilievre?

Despite his ostensible Canada-first outlook, the politician has been in lockstep with the Liberal government policy on Ukraine for over three years.

When asked how a Conservative government would respond to Zelenskyy’s continued demands for money and armaments, Poilievre responded, “I believe we should continue to support Ukraine. Our party supported donating missiles that the Canadian military was decommissioning. We supported funds and other armaments to back the Ukrainians in the defense of their sovereignty.”

Knowing full well how unpopular this view is with his conservative base, Poilievre quickly tried to change the subject, emphasizing the need “to rebuild our own Canadian military, because the Russians want to make incursions into our waters."

"We'll be buying four massive Arctic ice breakers," Poilievre continued. "I'll be opening the first Arctic base since the Cold War in Canada, CFB, Iqaluit.”

Fleshing it out

That wasn’t good enough for the debate moderator, who pressed Poilievre to “put a little more flesh on the bone of what you think Canada could do for Ukraine.” His response:

My answer is that we should continue to support Ukraine. We don't need to follow the Americans in everything they do when they're wrong, then we will stand on our own and with other allies and with respect to Ukraine, that includes support with intelligence equipment, armaments, but it also includes defunding Putin. Right now, Vladimir Putin has a monopoly on the European energy market because, frankly, the liberals blocked exports of Canadian natural gas off the Atlantic coast. They blocked multiple projects. I would rapidly approve those projects on national security grounds, so that we can, we can actually ship Canadian natural gas over to Europe, break European dependence on Putin, defund the war, and turn dollars for dictators back into paychecks for our people.

Nice try, but it still adds up to flaky policy based on a perceived need to appease the Ukrainian-Canadian vote that is preponderant in many key constituencies across Canada — a vote that generally goes to the Liberals.

Poilievre's words may also alienate Conservatives to the point that they decide not to vote at all — or to give their vote to the one Canadian party that opposes aid to Ukraine: Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada.

Maxime effort

People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier campaigns in Edmonton April 18. NurPhoto/Getty Images

A libertarian alternative that has fielded candidates in every Canadian riding and could actually capture one or two this election, the PPC lacked the 5% share of national voters necessary to participate in the debate.

Nevertheless, Bernier continues to speak for all Canadians fed up with their country's involvement in this endless and expensive quagmire.

As he told Align:

The war in Ukraine is not a conflict between good and evil, or autocracy versus democracy. It’s a longstanding conflict over border territories between these two countries that has been amplified and turned into a proxy war by NATO and the imperialist warmongers in Washington and other western capitals.

It doesn’t concern Canada and we should have nothing to do with it. Russia is not our enemy. The only reason Canada is so involved is that the establishment parties are pandering to Canadians of Ukrainian descent.

It's a message that deserves a wider hearing and could resonate with Canadians fed up with the endless and expensive quagmire.

Canadian feds to sieze iconic 'Big Red' as Freedom Convoy persecution rolls on

On Friday, Saskatchewan truck driver Chris Barber took to X and posted a photo of "Big Red," his 2003 Kenworth W900Lr. With it, he included a reminder of Canada's upcoming federal election April 28.

"This is my livelihood, the breadwinner that has kept my family fed for years, and the crown seeks to destroy my life and future because we took a stand against tyranny. Government overreach at its finest. Our Canada under #Liberal rule!!!!! Vote smart #Canada"

The Convoy was the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history, and these proceedings now hold the title of longest mischief trial in the history of the nation.

As one of the faces of 2022's Freedom Convoy, the largest and most effective populist uprising in recent history, Barber has been subject to three years of vicious lawfare from the Liberal-controlled Canadian government.

And now that same government wants to take "Big Red," which has become a symbol of the Convoy.

The truck stops here

On Thursday, April 3, a ruling came down in an Ottawa courtroom against Barber and another prominent Convoy protester, Tamara Lich, a grandmother and musician from Alberta.

Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey gave her final judgments on a number of charges stemming from the three-week protest in February 2022, where Barber, Lich, and thousands of others exercised their once-cherished rights to freedom of expression, hurting no one and causing no property damage as they demanded to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his underlings and negotiate an end to Trudeau’s punishing COVID regime.

Perkins-McVey acknowledged the peaceful nature of the protest in her ruling, despite presiding over 45 days of government testimony spread across 20 months in a Kafka-esque show trial where the government argued over the minutiae of TikTok videos and the meaning of slogans such as “Hold the Line!”

Court-sanctioned 'mischief'

This entire situation has been one for the record books. The Convoy was the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history, and these proceedings now hold the title of longest mischief trial in the history of the nation.

Prosecutors failed to convince Perkins-McVey of most of their cases against Lich and Barber, who were found not guilty of intimidation, along with other fraudulent and spurious charges.

Lich and Barber were, however, found guilty of mischief, and Barber additionally was found guilty of disobeying a court order regarding the honking of truckers’ air horns, which became a rallying cry of the protest and an instant online meme. Barber had made a video telling his followers to honk their horns in defiance of the order if, and only if, their trucks were approached by a large group of police officers. This context didn’t move Perkins-McVey.

The problem with mischief, as a criminal charge in Canada, is that it is a “property” crime, and a conviction can land you in prison for a maximum of 10 years.

What was the property here? The public property of the streets of Ottawa.

Hamas exception

In a very peculiar part of the ruling, McVey asserts that the public’s enjoyment of the use of city streets took precedence over the Convoy’s right to protest. It ought be noted that since the tragic events in Israel in October 2023, supporters of Hamas have protested every single week, unencumbered by the government, nor have they been accused of interrupting the enjoyment of those streets.

At the conclusion of the ruling, Justice Perkins-McVey sought to issue sentencing the following day, but on the objection of the prosecutors, a later date was set to … set another date.

Prosecutors wanted time to assemble more victim impact statements, as if three years of hearing from Ottawa’s bureaucrats about the delusions of phantom honking wasn’t enough to assemble them all. Maybe they needed to hear about the honking again, just one more time. In case anyone forgot.

'Red' notice

On April 16, we found out the punishment that the crown seeks against Lich and Barber is two years in a federal clink, and, in a request that is clearly vindictive and requires an essay of its own to unpack, the crown is seeking to seize “Big Red.”

Barber’s rig had become a symbol of the Freedom Convoy, featured in thousands of pictures, videos, and memes, as it led the Western Canadian Convoy to Ottawa. Barber has owned and operated that truck since 2003 and put 3.4 million kilometers (roughly 2.1 million miles) on it, mostly hauling heavy agricultural equipment across his home province of Saskatchewan and picking up new equipment from factories in America for his customers.

In the 22 years Barber has owned and operated that truck, he has raised his children in it over trips too many to count, and when his dog Buddy was approaching the end of his life, the poor old dog was put down while lying on the passenger seat: Buddy's favorite place to be.

With the mischief conviction, Barber may not be allowed back into the United States to serve his customers, a pretty major blow to his business — and punishment enough, in a way.

A new low

What justice is served in this move by the Canadian government? In all the hundreds of prosecutions of other Convoy protesters, many of which remain ongoing, never has the government sought to seize anyone’s property.

Perhaps authorities did enough of that during the protest itself, when they froze hundreds of people’s bank accounts and locked them out of economic life altogether, something that likewise happened to Barber. The actions of the banks were so comprehensive that drivers working for Barber’s small company were calling him when the bank freezings started, to tell him the fuel cards for their trucks no longer worked.

It seems like the government is trying to send a message to every Canadian that dissent will not be tolerated at all and that if you defy the government diktat, the authorities will crush you, your family, and your very own business.

Barack Obama famously dismissed the efforts of American business owners with his comment, “You didn’t build that.” It seems that the Canadian government, under the Liberal Party of the very recently departed Justin Trudeau, is building on Obama’s attitude.

He built that

It doesn't matter that Chris Barber did build something. Never mind the time and blood and sweat and sacrifice he put into his successful small trucking company. Our leaders can come and take it all away with the swipe of a pen.

Truly and terribly evil — and unbecoming a once supposedly free country.

Lawyers for Barber have filed for a stay of proceedings. It’s a pretty long shot, but if granted, this gross abuse of state power and capricious message-sending will be stopped.

Meanwhile, in a TikTok video thanking his supporters, Barber paid tribute to "Big Red:"

I bought this truck brand-new in 2003, November 26 to be exact, and I've got 3.4 million kilometers on this truck as of today. I have raised my children in this truck. I have trucked all over North America with this bad boy. It is a piece of me. It even has the little foot marks from where Jonathan as a toddler used to kick the dash with his little winter boots in the car seat.

Click here to watch the message in its entirety.

A version of this article previously appeared on the Autonomous Truck(er)s Substack.

What does Trump see in Canada's pro-China prime minister?

President Donald Trump seems wonderfully comfortable with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. He calls the Liberal leader “Mark” and “prime minister of Canada.”

Remember when it was “governor of the 51st state” for Trudeau?

Carney’s Jackson Hole speech flatly demanded that central banks collaborate and replace the US dollar to rectify its 'domineering influence' on trade around the world.

Trump has actually predicted that Carney will win the upcoming Canadian federal election and that he will be quite pleased with this result.

But the president is headed for a grim disappointment, because Carney is unlikely to do anything about an issue that Trump is viscerally concerned about: the fentanyl crisis.

Border disorder

Way back in late November 2024, Trump began to complain about Canada’s lax border security and the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. across that border and threatened to slap a 25% tariff on all Canadian products if these matters weren’t rectified.

Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government responded with a laughable $1.3 billion border security plan that was spread over six years with most of the funding only being available in years four through six. Trudeau also appointed a fentanyl czar who had previously worked as security adviser to the prime minister.

Of course this was all a bit of window-dressing, since, as investigative journalist Sam Cooper has noted, shipments of fentanyl precursors continue to arrive at the port of Vancouver and the containers are ignored.

Trudeau part deux

If Trudeau has done nothing to stem the tide of fentanyl, why should we believe that Carney will do any differently, especially when he is even more beholden and more in awe of China than his predecessor?

Where Trudeau once infamously said that he admired the “basic dictatorship” of China because it could force its population to follow climate change policies “on a dime,” Carney is a constant acolyte of the People’s Republic and has been for years.

So why has Trump endorsed Carney as his choice to win the April 28 Canadian federal election? Does he really believe that Carney will either bolster border security or take the fentanyl crisis seriously? Does he not believe that Carney’s principal opponent, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, is not serious about rectifying border security and eradicating fentanyl abuse when he has made both part of his election policy package?

Just how beholden is Carney to China? The evidence continues to emerge during an election campaign that Carney has virtually walked through so far, ahead in virtually every poll after Trudeau took the Liberal Party to record lows before he announced his intention to resign on January 6.

Poilievre protests

Poilievre expressed outrage on March 26 that Carney had the gall to meet with Chinese central bank officials in October 2024 to negotiate a loan for the Carney-chaired Brookfield Assets Management.

Why the fuss? Carney was working as a special economic adviser to Trudeau at the time, and he was in Beijing to ostensibly represent Canadian interests, not personal or business ones. Carney left with a 1.96 billion yuan or $276 million (CDN) loan.

Poilievre called China “a hostile foreign regime that we have since learned executed four Canadians and took numerous Canadians hostage for a lengthy period of time” and wondered how Canadians could know if Carney was “not going to act against our interests in favor of his financial interests.”

The Conservative leader suggested it would be difficult for the new prime minister to “stand up to foreign interference when he is so financially compromised.” He described Carney as:

a weak, out-of-touch leader so terribly compromised and conflicted, whose interests go against our national interests. … Mark Carney will never be able to protect our national interests because he has massive financial conflicts of interest overseas. What we need now is not to give the Liberals a fourth term with a weak and compromised leader. What we need is a prime minister who will put Canada first for a change.

That was only the latest revelation of Carney’s double dealing.

Chinese democracy

Carney was the chairman of Brookfield when he announced that the company was moving its headquarters to New York City. That was just before he announced that he was running for the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Despite telling the Trudeau government to push net zero policies at the expense of Canada’s energy sector and to oppose the construction of pipelines, Carney operated Brookfield in an inverse fashion, investing billions in fossil fuels and pipelines not associated with Canada.

Carney has consistently promoted net zero policies while praising the environmental stewardship of China. As the United Nations special envoy for climate change and co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, Carney actually suggested that the world should look to China for climate change policy inspiration — and not look at the preponderance of coal-fired plants in that country.

"China has made a huge contribution to the fight against climate change, not only in terms of its massive investment in clean technologies and exporting them to other countries, but also in actively developing the financial system needed for the green transition," he said.

Yuan to grow on

It might also interest Trump that Carney has also been an advocate of the Chinese yuan replacing the U.S. dollar as the global currency. At the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium in 2019, Carney advocated for both the Chinese currency and also a "new synthetic hegemonic currency," to be used to replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Carney’s Jackson Hole speech flatly demanded that central banks collaborate and replace the U.S. dollar to rectify its “domineering influence” on trade around the world.

In the same speech, Carney bemoaned the booming economy that America was experiencing under Trump. “Now that the United States’ economy is doing better than most, pushing the dollar higher, smaller countries are suffering more than they should. Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and elsewhere are adding to the dollar’s strength as well, making matters even worse.”

Carney went on to say:

And the most likely candidate for true reserve currency status, the Renminbi (RMB), has a long way to go before it is ready to assume the mantle. The initial building blocks are there. Already, China is the world’s leading trading nation, overtaking the US at the start of this decade. And the Renminbi is now more common than sterling in oil future benchmarks, despite having no share in the market prior to 2018.

So while Carney is campaigning in front of a podium that reads “Canada Strong” and is somehow satisfying a U.S. president who supports America First, it will be China Strong and China First under this globalist, environmental extremist central banker whose election this month would be toxic for both Canada and the United States.

Trump tariff boosting Trudeau's successor, Conservatives warn ahead of fed election

As the campaign to determine Canada's new prime minister continues, one issue remains at the forefront: President Donald Trump and the United States.

Locked in a close race with the Conservative Official Opposition, the governing Liberal Party got a vote of confidence from Trump himself, posted Friday, March 28, on X and Truth Social that he had phoned Carney and had “an extremely productive call.”

'I am now off to the US yet again to try and speak to Americans ... to convince their president to change course on tariffs against Canada.'

“I just finished speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney, of Canada. It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors, that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Liberal leader Mark Carney, who only became prime minister just over a week before calling a snap federal election for April 28, was initially highly combative toward Trump as the president continued to threaten to impose a 25 % tariff on all Canadian products with the exception of oil and gas, which will be subject to a 10 % tariff.

However, Canada was not subject to any new tariffs when Trump expanded his program on April 2.

Dropped call?

Initially, Carney said that Trump wouldn’t talk to him. The confession was apparently inadvertent because Carney almost immediately tried to walk back the statement.

“The president is waiting for the outcome of the election and to see who has a strong mandate from Canadians or who has a mandate from Canadians. Is it someone … who is in sync with him, or is it someone who is going to stand up for Canadians? I am going to stand up for Canadians. I hope Canadians will back me, and then we'll have a discussion,” Carney told reporters on March 24.

“Did you say that President Trump is waiting to talk to the prime minister of whoever wins this election?” one reporter responded.

“Well, that's an interpretation, but I think it's a reasonable interpretation. I'm available for a call, but you know, we're going to talk on our terms as a sovereign country, not as what he pretends we are and on a comprehensive deal,” Carney said, not adding that Trump has said he would prefer to deal with a Liberal government under Carney than a Conservative one under Poilievre.

'Unjust and unfair'

The escalating trade war has divided provinces from the federal government, with Alberta’s Conservative Premier Danielle Smith, who was invited to the Trump inauguration, asking the president to hold off on the tariffs because the conflict is helping Carney and the Liberals to overtake the Conservatives in the election.

Smith, who has reached out to much of conservative U.S. media, recently told Breitbart that the “unjust and unfair tariffs” have “actually caused an increase in the support for the Liberals. And so that's what I fear, is that the longer this dispute goes on, politicians posture, and it seems to be benefitting the Liberals right now,” she said.

“So I would hope that we could put things on pause, is what I've told administration officials, let's just put things on pause so we can get through an election. Let's have the best person at the table make the argument for how they would deal with them, and I think that's [Conservative leader] Pierre Poilievre.”

Smith went on to say that Poilievre “doesn’t believe in any of the woke stuff” and that his perspective “would be very much in sync with, I think, the new direction in America.”

Pot calls kettle black

Liberals castigated Smith for asking the U.S. to “interfere” in the Canadian election — an ironic accusation since the Liberals have clearly been campaigning more against Donald Trump and the perceived American menace than even their Conservative Party opponents.

Smith appeared on Ben Shapiro’s podcast almost two weeks ago, and before leaving, the popular and populist premier defended that decision in the Alberta legislature.

“I am now off to the U.S. yet again to try and speak to Americans, this time through the second-largest podcaster in the world, whose audience is made up of exactly the people we need to persuade, to convince their president to change course on tariffs against Canada," Smith said. "And what does Team Carney want me to do? They want me to abandon my post, remain in Alberta, and do absolutely nothing to defend our province."

“They want me to cower in the face of eastern media pundits and politicians who favor political grandstanding to effective diplomacy. I'm fiercely criticized for going into the lion's den to change the hearts and minds of the very Americans that we need on Canada's side to avoid a trade war with the most powerful economy on Earth,” she continued.

Smith resolved that “this lady” may be expected to “just sit down and shut up” but that she is resolved to do otherwise.

“I will not be silent. Alberta will not be silent. We will not be pushed around and called traitors for merely having the courage to actually do something about our nation’s and province’s predicament, other than merely indulging in self-righteous tantrums.”

Dumb and dumber: New Canadian PM could be worse than Trudeau

Canada's incoming prime minister seems to have picked up on major leadership lesson from his predecessor, Justin Trudeau: When in doubt, blame Trump.

In his acceptance speech for the leadership, new Liberal Party leader Mark Carney wasted little time before attacking President Donald Trump.

Carney recently stated that in order to implement his agenda, he would have no problem invoking 'emergency powers' — the same powers that Trudeau used in his persecution of the Freedom Convoy.

Promising to keep “retaliatory tariffs” against the U.S. — even though Trump has deferred his 25% across-the-board tariff until April -- Carney cranked up the anti-Trump tough talk, invoking the full name of his nemesis three times.

There's someone who's trying to weaken our economy: Donald Trump. Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, as we know, has put, as the prime minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living. He is attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed, and we won't.

...

The Canadian government has rightly retaliated and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada. My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.

Carney won the March 9 to become the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He will soon replace Trudeau as prime minister after what Trudeau has suggested will be a short period of transition.

Post-Trudeau bump for Libs

Canada is set to have a federal election this October. The Liberals were polling anywhere from 20 to 25 percentage points behind the Conservative Party of Canada until Trudeau announced his intention to retire as Liberal leader on January 6.

Since then, the Liberals have taken a two-point lead over Conservatives, with one recent poll suggesting a Liberal Party under Carney could win a majority government.

Much of this boost in popularity is thanks to the Liberals' demonization of Trump. But while Carney has been happy to espouse a Canada First message, his record is that of the ultimate globalist.

'Climate cartel'

The former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Carney's last job was as the United Nations’ special envoy on climate action and finance.

As that background would suggest, Carney brings with him a whole host of policies influenced by the climate change agenda and the Green New Deal. While at the U.N., Carney launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, an NGO designed to pressure corporations and banks to succumb to the net zero demands of the Paris climate accord; opponents have called it a “climate cartel."

Carney recently stated that in order to implement his agenda, he would have no problem invoking "emergency powers" — the same powers that Trudeau used in his persecution of the Freedom Convoy. Carny was Trudeau's economic adviser at the time.

One of those policies is a carbon tariff that Carney euphemistically refers to as the “carbon border adjustment mechanism.”

The idea is to impose a carbon tax on foreign companies that exceed Canadian net zero standards. The reality could be an exodus of businesses to the U.S.

'Embracing who we are'?

As if that weren't enough to instill unease, Carney also plans to "cancel" Trudeau's carbon tax on individuals — scheduled to increase by another 21% April 1 — by simply aiming it at Canadian corporations instead.

In his last speech as Liberal leader, Trudeau vowed that Canada would continue to "[show] what it is that makes us Canadians, not by defining ourselves by who we’re not, but by proudly embracing who we are."

Like Trudeau, Carney has made it clear what he thinks Canada should be. Time will tell if the people he seeks to govern have a different understanding of the national identity.

If Canada turns down US statehood, what about just oil-rich Alberta?

If Canada won't take Donald Trump up on his offer to become the 51st state, one Canadian has a counteroffer: What about just Alberta?

Foothills, Alberta, lawyer Jeffrey Rath says he and a lot of Albertans have “had it” with the Trudeau government and, increasingly, even with Canada itself. He says if Canada isn’t interested in becoming the 51st state, then Alberta should accept President Donald Trump’s invitation.

'We're fed up, and we see no reason to continue being governed by complete idiots from Ontario and Quebec who don't even know where their oil comes from.'

As he wrote in a recent Substack post:

With the election of Donald Trump, Alberta has a unique opportunity to shed its inferior status as a Canadian "province" (effectively a colony of Ontario and Quebec) and become an American state.

There is no doubt that President Donald Trump would happily announce Alberta statehood as the greatest real estate deal since the Louisiana Purchase as the culmination of the American 250th anniversary celebration.

First steps

Rath has organized a blue-ribbon committee to move Alberta first on the road to independence and then to join the United States.

“We've had, I've said, several steering committee meetings today. I mean, I'm working with people. We're putting together a package of materials and briefing notes and those types of things," he told Align.

"We don't want to go down there [to Washington] and come across as anything other than serious professionals with a serious professional message that we want to deliver."

Although the immediate catalyst for Rath's plan was Trump's offer — as well as the current tariff crisis and trade war with the U.S. — Rath said he’s “been feeling this way” for three years at least.

Remember the Freedom Convoy

“I have to say, it really came to a head for me when [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau unnecessarily declared the War Measures Act against my fellow Albertans who simply went to Ottawa to peacefully protest,” Rath said, in reference to Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act to crush the Freedom Convoy, a trucker-based protest against the COVID-19 mandates that was centered in Canada’s capital of Ottawa in February 2022.

Rath called Trudeau’s draconian measure "an anti-Canadian unconstitutional violation of our rights. … You know, we need to take our dirty, smelly diesel trucks and our dirty, smelly oil and go home, or face 10 years in an Ontario prison.”

Rath is also furious over the federal government's talk of using Alberta oil and gas to fight Trump’s tariff — despite Canadian law giving provinces jurisdiction over their natural resources.

"We're fed up, and we see no reason to continue being governed by complete idiots from Ontario and Quebec who don't even know where their oil comes from."

Ignorant threats

As evidence of this ignorance, Rath cited the federal government's threat in January to cut oil exports from Alberta to the U.S., a move that rankled local leadership.

"They were all too dumb to know that their own oil comes from Alberta, goes down through Michigan, up through Line 9 Illinois, and then back into Ontario and Quebec. So if they shut off Alberta oil, they would effectively be doing what a lot of Albertans suggested that we should do [in the first place] … let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark."

Rath also slammed Ontario Premier Doug Ford for his continued threats to shut off the electricity to the U.S., saying doing so would constitute an "act of war."

"If you crash the northeast power grid, there's going to be at least 500 or 600 deaths, whether it's from traffic lights going out or ventilators [at hospitals] failing."

COVID all over again?

Rath compared the current euphoria over counter-tariffs against the U.S. to the pro-vaccine groupthink that dominated the country's media and government during the COVID pandemic. Like the vaccine, counter-tariffs are not the cure for what ails Canada.

For that, Rath suggests Canadians look closer to home.

“Everybody keeps forgetting that the Trudeau junta is preparing to slap us all with a 21% increase in the carbon tax in April."

Rath said this carbon tax would likely cripple the Canadian economy far more than any of Trump's tariffs. "It's right across the board on all energy, all home heating, trucks, cars, anything people need to go to work,” Rath told Align.

“And maybe the reason that Trudeau is so mad about this and thinks it's the end of Canada is because he doesn't want to back off on his 21% carbon tax. He's already booked that and cooked that into the books.”

Check out the full interview with Rath below:

Scott Bessent Says Tariffs Will Go Up For Any Leader Acting Like ‘Numbskull’ Justin Trudeau

'I am happy to have a discussion'