It’s important to emphasize one fact that seems to have been missed in this article…
The US poses the single greatest military threat to Canadian sovereignty right now. Anyone who isn’t taking the possibility that the US may suddenly decide to invade us, is hopelessly naive. Sure…cheap drones have proven effective at keeping even larger armies on their back foot…but, Canada doesn’t even have those ready for such an eventuality at the moment.
All this, “there’s so much more we could be spending that money on” and “diplomacy is always a better solution than force”, have apparently been living under a rock for the last year and a half. The US is gearing up for total dominion over the Western hemisphere…and we are right in the middle of their backyard, sitting on a pile of resources THEY need.
And yet everything that he is doing is doing the opposite of what is needed to harden Canada and Canadians against US invasion and occupation. Everything from the mass surveillance and privacy violating bills (in the name of public and child safety, even if the bills never mention children and predators against children) that directly works with Palantir and other US companies that are effectively an arm of the US government and military (before Palantir branched out to ICE, CBP, and corporations, they were purely a military contractor specifically made to fight against Iraqi and Afghani insurgents and counter their bombing campaigns… and they were fairly decent at their job, too).
Also I am going to say it… Mark Carney floated the idea of a civilianized defense force (or expanding a civil force to assist the military) that would have discharged soldiers or soldiers working among civilians in defense of the country… while also passing increasingly restrictive gun laws and prohibiting as many long guns as possibles. Something that has been tremendously expensive, unpopular, and has not received many prohibited firearms turned in. I hate to say it, but the way the US is acting means Canada might have to reorient to making sure as many civilians as possible can take up arms in defense of the country, and this does mean familiarity with weapons. Several European countries have decriminalized the AR-15 (like Sweden in the past couple of years) specifically out of fear of Russian invasion.
And due to the Beyond the Border Action Plan in 2011, any US cop can look up if a Canadian has a PAL or RPAL but may or may not have access to whatever firearms are registered in their name. I know this because when i was stopped in 2016 for failing to stop at a stop sign in the US, the cop called for backup and spent almost an hour talking to the RCMP and Canadian border guys if I had somehow brought an undeclared firearm with me because they say I had an application for an RPAL. It took me by surprise that they knew this.
I hate to say this, but if the US does start to invade Canada, I will abso-fucking-lutely be raided or interrogated by any occupying US forces to know what guns and ammunition I own or what would have became of them if they aren’t with me. This isn’t some paranoid gun nut conspiracy, this is what happens in every country that is occupied. When the US found an Afghan individual with a firearm, they took it from them. It didn’t matter if it was an AK or a single shot break-action shotgun. The British would literally threaten to kill anyone they suspected of storing any firearm in a community they were occupying.
But getting back to the increased monitoring and authoritarianism. The type of stuff like he wants in Bill C-22 and Bill C-34 which is likely to become law, will absolutely hand over tons upon tons of information on Canadians to the US that will make organizing a defensive war very, very bloody (for Canadians) and difficult. No matter how you look at it, there is no way the Canadian Armed Forces can stand up to the US military in a stand-up fight, meaning a guerrilla war is the only way it can go, and he is NOT preparing for that.
Iran is doing as well as it is because their entire strategy since 9/11 (or even prior) was to prepare for every possible way the US will attack it. Canada has not been doing the same and it is not going to do the same. Carney trying to go with the F-35 (a fighter I have been taking interest in since the early 2000s and I am shocked is still having that many problems) or a European fighter is not going to make a difference. Israel and the US have absolutely done major work to hack into Iran’s internet and security infrastructure and Iran is a country that absolutely would have tried everything they could to stop that from Happening. In the meantime for decades the US and Canada have been actively sharing information on one another’s citizens with each other, and their intelligence apparatus is STILL unified despite relentless threats against us by Trump.
If Carney is trying to keep Canada safe, I am sorry to say this, he is doing a piss poor job of it. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Mark works for capital and the banks. He has done things to favor the US that did nothing to change Trump’s attitude towards us.
I think you have the entire reasoning behind those bills, backwards. What Canada is trying to achieve through that legislation, isn’t closer integration with the US intelligence apparatus…it’s intended to build a Canadian version that is separate and distinct from it. Those bills are literally meant to make Canada less reliant on US sources for their intelligence, not more. Canada would have their own version of Palantir, exclusively under Canadain control, specificaly so that we no longer need Palantir, itself. One criticism that the US has about them, is that now Canada will have the ability to spy on US citizens that happen to interact with Canadian telecommunications systems, as well as US systems that operate in Canada. That would be instrumental in anticipating any coordinated insurgency attempts by the US into Canadian territory.
Which segues directly into the other topic you bring up…weapons. There are an unfortunate amount of people in places like Alberta that would probably end up fighting for the US, rather than defend against them. This is just a sad reality, right now. There is a concerted effort being made by US conservative groups to actively turn Candian Conservatives against their own country. Canadian intelligence has been aware of these efforts for years now, and that influence is growing more openly now that Trump is in charge. Separating the Canadian intelligence apparatus from the US, while requiring a more detailed regstry of who owns what kinds of firearms, just seems like a common sense preparation for that possibility.
And a lot of folks who think Carney is being somehow capitulant to the US, seem to have forgotten that until we are prepared to defend ourselves, we can’t just turn completely hostile towards them. Especially with Trump in charge. His skin is so thin, that if Carney plays things too aggressively, Trump will pull the trigger on an invasion sooner rather than later…and we are not ready for that. At all. Until we are, we have to play nice, while quietly building up the infrastructure we need to defend ourselves against the possibility that we will inevitably become their next target.
You mentioned the F-35s. We already agreed to buy 30 of them, and were expected to buy 58 more…but are now looking to buy Gripens from Sweden instead. The obligations to buy those first 30 F-35s were already locked in, so going back on that contract would have resulted in severe retaliation from the US…but the rest were still under negotiation, so Canada is under no obligation to buy more. And it doesn’t appear that we will. Carney has been negotiating with the EU for almost everything we will be building, moving forward. This includes building our own home-grown drone industry, with no reliance on American supply chains.
I hate to agree with everything you’ve said. This is absolute fact-
Mark works for capital and the banks
Never forget that Canada was founded to protect the interests of a blanket retailer. He’s a very status quo PM which is a load of horse shit in a changing world.
Never forget that Canada was founded to protect the interests of a blanket retailer.
And the RCMP, too. It is kinda fucked that so many police forces around the world were founded for highly authoritarian reasons. The French National police and the police of many European countries have their origin in Nazi occupied Europe and many of the resistance crushing leaders remained in charge after the war. Maurice Papon sent many Jews to the death camps during WW2 and repressed his own countrymen and had resistance fighters arrested and executed.
Yet after the Nazis were defeated he forged papers to make himself look like a resistance member and he continued his life of crime, committing crimes in Algeria and the massacre of Paris. He only spent a few years in prison towards the end of his life when it all came down. He died a free man.
Probably our best bet would be direct action brought into their cities like Ukraine is doing. We have the advantage of having thousands of Canadians already there. A guerrilla war brought to the states would hopefully reciprocate the slaughter that a bangbang war in Southern Ontario would bring.
The only advantage for us is that we speak the same language and are already there illegally. But it would be a slaughter of innocents and horrible beyond measure. The only winners will be the people selling the weapons.
It’s important to emphasize one fact that seems to have been missed in this article…
The US poses the single greatest military threat to Canadian sovereignty right now. Anyone who isn’t taking the possibility that the US may suddenly decide to invade us, is hopelessly naive. Sure…cheap drones have proven effective at keeping even larger armies on their back foot…but, Canada doesn’t even have those ready for such an eventuality at the moment.
All this, “there’s so much more we could be spending that money on” and “diplomacy is always a better solution than force”, have apparently been living under a rock for the last year and a half. The US is gearing up for total dominion over the Western hemisphere…and we are right in the middle of their backyard, sitting on a pile of resources THEY need.
Do the math.
And yet everything that he is doing is doing the opposite of what is needed to harden Canada and Canadians against US invasion and occupation. Everything from the mass surveillance and privacy violating bills (in the name of public and child safety, even if the bills never mention children and predators against children) that directly works with Palantir and other US companies that are effectively an arm of the US government and military (before Palantir branched out to ICE, CBP, and corporations, they were purely a military contractor specifically made to fight against Iraqi and Afghani insurgents and counter their bombing campaigns… and they were fairly decent at their job, too).
Also I am going to say it… Mark Carney floated the idea of a civilianized defense force (or expanding a civil force to assist the military) that would have discharged soldiers or soldiers working among civilians in defense of the country… while also passing increasingly restrictive gun laws and prohibiting as many long guns as possibles. Something that has been tremendously expensive, unpopular, and has not received many prohibited firearms turned in. I hate to say it, but the way the US is acting means Canada might have to reorient to making sure as many civilians as possible can take up arms in defense of the country, and this does mean familiarity with weapons. Several European countries have decriminalized the AR-15 (like Sweden in the past couple of years) specifically out of fear of Russian invasion.
And due to the Beyond the Border Action Plan in 2011, any US cop can look up if a Canadian has a PAL or RPAL but may or may not have access to whatever firearms are registered in their name. I know this because when i was stopped in 2016 for failing to stop at a stop sign in the US, the cop called for backup and spent almost an hour talking to the RCMP and Canadian border guys if I had somehow brought an undeclared firearm with me because they say I had an application for an RPAL. It took me by surprise that they knew this.
I hate to say this, but if the US does start to invade Canada, I will abso-fucking-lutely be raided or interrogated by any occupying US forces to know what guns and ammunition I own or what would have became of them if they aren’t with me. This isn’t some paranoid gun nut conspiracy, this is what happens in every country that is occupied. When the US found an Afghan individual with a firearm, they took it from them. It didn’t matter if it was an AK or a single shot break-action shotgun. The British would literally threaten to kill anyone they suspected of storing any firearm in a community they were occupying.
But getting back to the increased monitoring and authoritarianism. The type of stuff like he wants in Bill C-22 and Bill C-34 which is likely to become law, will absolutely hand over tons upon tons of information on Canadians to the US that will make organizing a defensive war very, very bloody (for Canadians) and difficult. No matter how you look at it, there is no way the Canadian Armed Forces can stand up to the US military in a stand-up fight, meaning a guerrilla war is the only way it can go, and he is NOT preparing for that.
Iran is doing as well as it is because their entire strategy since 9/11 (or even prior) was to prepare for every possible way the US will attack it. Canada has not been doing the same and it is not going to do the same. Carney trying to go with the F-35 (a fighter I have been taking interest in since the early 2000s and I am shocked is still having that many problems) or a European fighter is not going to make a difference. Israel and the US have absolutely done major work to hack into Iran’s internet and security infrastructure and Iran is a country that absolutely would have tried everything they could to stop that from Happening. In the meantime for decades the US and Canada have been actively sharing information on one another’s citizens with each other, and their intelligence apparatus is STILL unified despite relentless threats against us by Trump.
If Carney is trying to keep Canada safe, I am sorry to say this, he is doing a piss poor job of it. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Mark works for capital and the banks. He has done things to favor the US that did nothing to change Trump’s attitude towards us.
I think you have the entire reasoning behind those bills, backwards. What Canada is trying to achieve through that legislation, isn’t closer integration with the US intelligence apparatus…it’s intended to build a Canadian version that is separate and distinct from it. Those bills are literally meant to make Canada less reliant on US sources for their intelligence, not more. Canada would have their own version of Palantir, exclusively under Canadain control, specificaly so that we no longer need Palantir, itself. One criticism that the US has about them, is that now Canada will have the ability to spy on US citizens that happen to interact with Canadian telecommunications systems, as well as US systems that operate in Canada. That would be instrumental in anticipating any coordinated insurgency attempts by the US into Canadian territory.
Which segues directly into the other topic you bring up…weapons. There are an unfortunate amount of people in places like Alberta that would probably end up fighting for the US, rather than defend against them. This is just a sad reality, right now. There is a concerted effort being made by US conservative groups to actively turn Candian Conservatives against their own country. Canadian intelligence has been aware of these efforts for years now, and that influence is growing more openly now that Trump is in charge. Separating the Canadian intelligence apparatus from the US, while requiring a more detailed regstry of who owns what kinds of firearms, just seems like a common sense preparation for that possibility.
And a lot of folks who think Carney is being somehow capitulant to the US, seem to have forgotten that until we are prepared to defend ourselves, we can’t just turn completely hostile towards them. Especially with Trump in charge. His skin is so thin, that if Carney plays things too aggressively, Trump will pull the trigger on an invasion sooner rather than later…and we are not ready for that. At all. Until we are, we have to play nice, while quietly building up the infrastructure we need to defend ourselves against the possibility that we will inevitably become their next target.
You mentioned the F-35s. We already agreed to buy 30 of them, and were expected to buy 58 more…but are now looking to buy Gripens from Sweden instead. The obligations to buy those first 30 F-35s were already locked in, so going back on that contract would have resulted in severe retaliation from the US…but the rest were still under negotiation, so Canada is under no obligation to buy more. And it doesn’t appear that we will. Carney has been negotiating with the EU for almost everything we will be building, moving forward. This includes building our own home-grown drone industry, with no reliance on American supply chains.
I hate to agree with everything you’ve said. This is absolute fact-
Never forget that Canada was founded to protect the interests of a blanket retailer. He’s a very status quo PM which is a load of horse shit in a changing world.
And the RCMP, too. It is kinda fucked that so many police forces around the world were founded for highly authoritarian reasons. The French National police and the police of many European countries have their origin in Nazi occupied Europe and many of the resistance crushing leaders remained in charge after the war. Maurice Papon sent many Jews to the death camps during WW2 and repressed his own countrymen and had resistance fighters arrested and executed.
Yet after the Nazis were defeated he forged papers to make himself look like a resistance member and he continued his life of crime, committing crimes in Algeria and the massacre of Paris. He only spent a few years in prison towards the end of his life when it all came down. He died a free man.
Probably our best bet would be direct action brought into their cities like Ukraine is doing. We have the advantage of having thousands of Canadians already there. A guerrilla war brought to the states would hopefully reciprocate the slaughter that a bangbang war in Southern Ontario would bring.
Say hello to concentration camps the instant a Canadian even thinks about doing anything like that.
The only advantage for us is that we speak the same language and are already there illegally. But it would be a slaughter of innocents and horrible beyond measure. The only winners will be the people selling the weapons.