Today's News: Poilievre's humble pie, Carney's strategic approach to tariffs, plus some apt comments about America

Now that Pierre Poilievre has his job back, for the next several months at least, he is desperately trying return to his usual schtick of slamming the Liberals about everything all the time. 

I think Canadians are sick of it.

Poilievre’s problem isn’t just that Carney is well-liked - it’s that Poilievre isn’t. Simply waiting for Carney to shed popularity is more like a hope than a strategy for the Conservatives. bruce728.substack.com/p/let-pierre...

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— Diane (@dianeellison.bsky.social) August 25, 2025 at 8:55 AM

The Planet Democracy: Unfiltered North

Doug Ford Threw Pierre Poilievre Under the Bus...Again
Pierre Poilievre's victory lap lasted about 5 minutes. His welcome-back present from Doug Ford was a public warning to put 'Team Canada' ahead of partisan games. The conservative cracks are showing.
Well, that was fast. Pierre Poilievre hadn’t even unpacked his boxes in his new Alberta riding before the biggest conservative premier in the country served him a hot slice of humble pie.
...When reporters on Parliament Hill asked what advice he had for the returning Conservative leader, Ford didn’t offer congratulations. He offered a warning.
“Work with the prime minister,” Ford said. “It’s Team Canada, let’s put our political stripes aside and let’s start working together collectively.”
He didn’t stop there. While praising Carney for his collaborative approach to dealing with Donald Trump, Ford made it clear who he was working with “right now.” It wasn’t Poilievre. It was the Prime Minister, who Ford said is doing a “really, really good job.” This is a shot across the bow.

“I challenge anyone to try to deal with Donald Trump, myself included. He's a different type of cat. But we're united.” — Doug Ford

...Ford’s “advice” is a public plea for Poilievre to not import the divisive, rage-fuelled politics that have consumed the United States.
When a premier tells the leader of the opposition to “co-operate with the government,” he’s really saying, “Don’t be an obstructionist for the sake of headlines.” He’s signalling that his brand of conservatism is about getting things done, not just tearing things down.

But Poilievre is not capable of being this kind of leader - he doesn't know how to "get things done" because he never has.

'Sometimes PP is too negative, sometimes he's too goofy' vt.tiktok.com/ZSAUAtaVC/

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— Jeff's Fact Checker (@thunderbayed.bsky.social) August 25, 2025 at 1:00 AM

Apparently Poilievre, and by extension the CPC, do not have any actual ideas. They are very good at complaining, though.

— Charles Cooper 🇨🇦 (@charlescooper.bsky.social) August 25, 2025 at 8:13 PM

Moving on, here's an interesting point of view about Carney's tariff strategy that I hadn't seen before, but it makes sense: 

Leni Spooner / Between the Lines

Carney’s Quiet Strategy: How Canada Lifted Tariffs Without Losing Leverage
Why Ottawa quietly lifted U.S. tariffs — and why your choices still matter
When tariffs first became headline news earlier this year, Canada responded with a familiar playbook: retaliatory tariffs aimed at specific U.S. products. The point wasn’t just dollars and cents. These lists were carefully designed to target politically sensitive constituencies in the United States — Florida orange juice, Wisconsin dairy, Kentucky bourbon.
But Ottawa also made a quieter move in February 2025: a “pause” that delayed Canadian counter-tariffs from taking effect until our own growing season was well underway. That meant fresh Canadian produce could carry more of the household food basket before higher prices on imports started to bite.
Through the spring and summer harvest season, the tariffs were in full effect, maximizing pressure on U.S. exporters while Canadians could lean more heavily on domestic supply. Now, as the harvest winds down and winter approaches, the government has announced that CUSMA-compliant counter-tariffs will be removed. The official reasoning is framed in terms of compliance and trade consistency. But the timing suggests another motive: shielding Canadians from sharp winter price increases on value-added goods like juice, peanut butter, wine, and processed foods that still flow heavily from the United States. For Canadians on fixed incomes, those increases could have been punishing.
What Stays, What Goes
Removed: Many everyday consumer goods under CUSMA rules (e.g. orange juice, peanut butter, appliances).
Remaining: Autos, steel, and aluminum — sectors where tariffs remain a strategic lever.
The result is a split strategy: remove tariffs where consumers would feel it most in winter, but keep pressure on areas where industrial and political leverage matters more.
... Shopping Strategically — Without Punishing Hardship
No one expects Canadians to shoulder punishing hardship just trying to get by month to month. Tariffs and boycotts are blunt tools, and they work best when paired with common sense. The goal isn’t perfection — it’s progress.
That’s why shopping strategically matters. Boycott where you can, and it will still make a difference. Every skipped bottle of Florida orange juice or U.S. bourbon is a small but real act of pressure. But if you need something that Canada no longer produces, or where there’s no realistic substitute, don’t feel guilty. Canada imports billions in value-added products from the U.S. each year, and in many cases, we no longer make an equivalent product here at home. The point is simple: where you do have a choice, choose Canadian — or, failing that, a trusted ally’s product — and know those choices add up...

See her article for more details about strategic shopping choices. 

Carney is playing the long game, I think:

We have to think about the long term. Even when he finally dies, we still can't trust the US Electorate to not do this again. We blame the politicians for this shit show, but it's the people who are to blame. Never forget that. www.ctvnews.ca/business/art...

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— 🇨🇦Truth Matters with Tom from Canada🇨🇦 (@daddo21.bsky.social) August 25, 2025 at 2:17 PM

And here are some reactions to what is happening now in America:

 

Many of us wonder why no one is “doing something” about the nightmare engulfing us all in the United States right now. I think I know why. Let me explain. It’ll take a minute. Grab some tea. Get cozy. I was once on an airplane, a Delta shuttle from Boston to New York City, that lost its entire hydraulic system as it was about to land at LaGuardia Airport. We’d already been told to fasten our seatbelts, turn off our electronic devices, and put our tray tables up. The plane was on its way down. I was seated over the right wing. When the pilot tried to lower the flaps and wheels, there was a hollow clicking and sickly whirring sound beneath my seat. The pilot told us the truth. He was calm as he said it. But the news was terrible. We had no wheels, no flaps, no brakes, and, once we were on the ground, no steering. We circled four hours over Manhattan, and out to sea, and back, to burn fuel, so that in the event we caught fire when we finally crash landed somewhere, the fireball would be minimized. He told us all air traffic to LaGuardia was being rerouted to JFK and Newark so that they could prepare a runway at LaGuardia for our crash landing. No, I am not kidding. Now, before I experienced this, I imagined people would be screaming, crying, praying, begging God at the tops of their lungs in such a situation. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the cabin was eerily silent. I was in the window seat. The middle seat was empty. In the aisle seat was an older businessman, reading the Wall Street Journal. I asked him if I could hold his hand. He rolled his eyes, scoffed, and said, “This stuff happens all the time. It’s fine,” and kept reading. “Please?” I said, and he relented. I held his hand. Despite his rolled eyes and unworried words, his hand was cold and slick with sweat. He, too, was afraid. Eventually, the captain was able to get one of two emergency hydraulic systems up and running, but, he told us, we were still without steering on the ground. He would have to land perfectly straight, or we’d tip right into the water. Everyone stayed quiet. The plane landed. The pilot landed it perfectly straight. The sides of the runway were lined with rescue vehicles and TV news crews. We did not die. Then and only then did people begin to cry, and clap, and hug each other, and thank their Gods. What I learned from this is that there is a period of time between realizing you are crashing and actually crashing when, as long as the plane still appears to be okay, people cling to hope more than terror. Even though we all knew the plane had no hydraulics and we were burning and dumping fuel, and they’d closed the airport down and mostly evacuated it so we could crash there, we all still held on to hope. I think that’s where the people of the United States of America are right now. In that place where trustworthy pilots of history, sociology and political science have all told us just how bad this is. We’re circling, and burning off all the fuel. The news gets worse by the minute. Soon, we will crash or crash land or land. The human heart hangs on to hope until there’s no other choice. People will not fight back in the ways that will work, until they realize there is no other choice, until the only other choice is their own imprisonment or death, or that of someone they love. For many of us, that moment is already here. But for most of us, it’s not. Yet. This has to be a survival mechanism. Freeze. Fawn. Flee. We try all of those first. And only when they’ve failed, do we fight.

- Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Read on Substack

And another one:

Holy smokes! Just saw this on Facebook. Kinda wallops you right in the heart, doesn’t it?

- Joanne Pettis

Read on Substack

And this:

Even as an onlooker from another country, I cannot possibly believe that American citizens are sitting back and watching this unfold on tv and social media without doing anything.

- JBO

Read on Substack