Today's News: Trudeau says farewell; Carney says hello; commentary from Scrimshaw on Gould, and from Mérand and Ling on Europe; and another great Canadian video

It was Pi Day (3.14) and a day of calculated change for Canada - Trudeau resigned, Carney was sworn in:

First, Trudeau says goodbye 

"Justin, we hardly knew ye..."

Whoa! This photo is really tugging at the strings today. Phew! 🥺❤️🥺 pic.twitter.com/5egHIDEdAh

— Crystal 🇨🇦 (@BluenoserGalNS) March 14, 2025

Thank you #PrimeMinister #JustinTrudeau. No govt is w/o errors but you guided us through #CERB & #FreedumbConvoy, gave middle-class tax cuts & programs to benefit working families w/$10 daycare & lifted so many kids out of poverty. History will be kinder than the present moment.

— Ed the Sock (@EdtheSock) March 15, 2025

Next, Carney says hello, and dishes it out:

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And isn't this just ducky? I was hoping Trump would forget about us for a while:

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Joly is badass too - I'm so glad she will continue as Foreign Affairs minister:

Next, some commentary on the events of the day:

I'm seeing some criticism online because Carney didn't put Karina Gould in his cabinet. For myself, I liked her during the leadership campaign, but she started using too many zingers against the other candidates during her interviews, and I just couldn't take her seriously. Neither could the Liberal voters. 

Evan Scrimshaw / Scrimshaw Unscripted

Carney, Gould, And The Future Of The Liberal Party
On Gould’s Cabinet Omission
...Gould offered a mix of economic progressivism and a progressive moral high ground in the leadership race, which is both in line with Trudeau but also the Democratic left circa 2019. The problem is, the results are in, and it’s not what the world wants right now...
...The future of the Liberal Party cannot be a candidate who claims to believe in progressive values and then advocates a regressive tax cut. There is no constituency in either the country or the party for faux economic populism paired with invoking your gender as some contrast to Trump. (Freeland did this way more than Gould did, but she did so as well.) There cannot be a place for a candidate deciding they are the true gatekeeper of what is proper Liberalism, and that Mark Carney failed to meet it in some way.
...A significant reason the Liberals are in the place they are is because of the failure of the politics Gould advocated for. She isn’t the candidate of the future, she’s the candidate of the recent past, or more accurately the candidate of the worst parts of the fever dream that gripped a lot of the progressive left in recent years. If you think I’m acting like I wasn’t gripped by it, I’m not - I absolutely let myself believe progressive shibboleths from that time, and it’s a process to figure out which of those lessons are correct and which were hopes we pretended to be more.
It is inarguable to me that the future of the Liberal Party cannot be Gould. It cannot be pedantic nonsense about how “when you say households I say families”. It cannot be the worst excesses of Trump 1.0 social progressivism. It also cannot be the post-truth politics we condemn the right for either.
The future of the Liberal Party cannot be Christy Clark-infused centrism either. It has to be dynamic, nimble, and in many ways beyond the trite ideological fights that we let our politics be about. We need to embrace the realities of our present circumstances and stop pretending that we have no reassessment or introspection to do. Gould’s brand of politics nearly handed the Conservatives a massive majority. How on earth is she then the party’s future?
I don’t want to say this, but fuck it, it needs to be said - there’s a class of commentators who misunderstand the purpose of the Liberal Party. The purpose of the party isn’t to indulge ideological purity, it is to stop the Conservatives from stripping this country for parts. That doesn’t mean there’s no bridge too far - and I will push back against those efforts with everything I have - but the Liberal Party has to be about winning. It has to be ruthless about that....

Carney's first trip will be to Europe, not the United States. I wonder if he saw this map:

Here's an interesting article in Policy Options about various ways for Canada to get closer to Europe:

University of Montreal professor Frédéric Mérand / Policy Options

How Canada could get much closer to Europe
In the face of economic tensions with the United States, Canada must explore new alliances. Would applying to join the European Union be a viable solution?
As Canada faces an economic aggression backed by an existential threat to its sovereignty, we know we need options. One idea floating around is to become the 28th member state of the European Union.
Why not? After the defection of the U.S., Europe remains the only club of liberal democracies and multilateralism, two core Canadian values. It is a prosperous region where, thanks to our history and contribution to NATO, we have reliable allies. Becoming the 28th EU member state rather than the 51st U.S. state would act as a hedge for our economic security while keeping our political sovereignty.
Now, Canadians will naturally be hesitant to join an often-demonized organization whose centre of gravity is firmly across the Atlantic. But even if we never joined the EU, there is still a strong case for applying for membership now. As we begin a conversation with Brussels, we will open up paths that, short of full membership, would also get us much closer to Europe… and a bit more removed from the U.S. ...

The whole article is worth reading. As is this next one from Justin Ling:

Justin Ling / Bug-eyed and Shameless

There Is No Land Unhabitable, Nor Sea Innavigable
Can science and propaganda win a trade war? Lessons from the Empire Marketing Board
...Countries around the world are already descending into ‘buy local’ propaganda.
As a way to reject American goods, it’s a perfectly fine idea. But it risks self-harm.
The basic fact is that no economy can or should produce all its own goods. Canada can not build a next-generation fighter jet, France can’t grow pineapples, and Australia can’t field a decent Eurovision entry.
Instead of jingoism, the liberal order should forge something akin to the Empire Marketing Board: A global effort to prioritize economic trade with nations that respect the rules-based order, prioritize human rights, and which want to pursue economic, diplomatic, and scientific efforts to make the world a richer place.
While America’s slide into protectionism and chaos may be temporary, these tactics will also do well to counter-act the growing neo-colonialism practised by Russia, Iran, and China — the three are using debt-trap diplomacy, mercenaries, and technology-sharing as a way to expand their illiberal block and impose their own backwards ideologies on the world. A strong liberal trading bloc can and should offer the Global South a better deal.

Finally, here is today's Great Canadian video:  

By the way, this video now has 4K+ comments on YouTube, mostly positive, and it has been praised by Neil Young himself!

Here are some Canadianisms you should know:

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