Evan Scrimshaw writes One Year Of Carney: Thank Fuck For Him
...the truth that is self-evident to me watching Carney - even at his most angering - is that it is so much better having an imperfect Liberal government than any flavour of a Conservative one. We want a perfect government, and we want to defend the one we support to make it seem like it’s perfect, but it’s not. But at the end of the day this government is far far better than the alternatives, because it is a government that will at least listen to the left and respond to criticism. And that, even more than a government that is closer to my ideological project, is what we need to be grateful for.In the Toronto Star, Althia Raj writes I spoke to over 30 sources about Mark Carney’s first year as prime minister. This is the picture that emerged (gift link):
Carney’s government has fixed a lot of Canada’s problems - we’re moving away from a bail system that’s not working, we’ve stabilized an economy that was expected to be in recession, we’ve achieved real progress in expanding our export markets, and we’re doing it all in a set of circumstances that are far harder than anything Trudeau dealt with outside of COVID. It’s also happened while making the Liberals the strongest they’ve been in any of our lives in the trio of Prairie provinces and defusing the looming national unity crisis of a recalcitrant Alberta with another Liberal PM.
Carney’s done all of this without a Parliamentary majority and a crazy person leading the US, two facts that need to be understood as constraints on his position. And despite those constraints, he’s been remarkably effective. Carney has to be judged through the strain that he was and is under, and by that test he’s been about as good a PM as he could have been....
... As the prime minister marks his first anniversary, the Star spoke to 33 sources to review his freshman record. The picture that emerges is of a leader driven by his goal to reset Canada’s economy; a leader in a hurry, focused on what gets from A to B in the shortest period of time. This week’s floor crossing, by NDP Nunavut MP Lori Idlout, is an example. Carney’s least onerous route to a majority is by courting opposition MPs — demonstrating, at the same time, his government’s broad appeal.Paul Stewart II writes Mark Carney’s First Year as Prime Minister: The Scorecard
The new prime minister has made genuine strides on his agenda. But as he pursues it, he’s also shown a willingness to sidestep both Liberal orthodoxies and democratic constraints.
Carney is nothing if not complex. He is widely respected and praised for his intellect, often described as a leader seized with the challenge of the moment, but one who grinds his people and can be thin-skinned and imperious. He enjoys governing, can be charming and funny, and has proved to be a better politician than his opponents expected. He is a prime minister open to new ideas, who likes to keep his options open, who learns from his mistakes and is accessible — notably by text message....
...The strongest finding in this Scorecard is simple: the government appears to have completed nearly all of its true Year One items. That is unusual in politics.Two from Wesley Wark -
The second finding is that the major open files are mostly the kinds of files that should still be open: housing, major projects, critical minerals, defence procurement, AI and compute capacity, and trade negotiations. Those are not short-cycle tasks. The relevant question is whether they are materially advanced or progressing on schedule. On the record so far, they are....
Mark the Builder
...In announcing a big tranche of money, nearly $35 billion in total, for military basing infrastructure in the Arctic, the PM described this investment in two ways. Mark Carney suggested it demonstrated that his government had a bigger vision for Arctic security and sovereignty than any of its predecessors. More importantly, he stated that Canada would now take full responsibility for the defence of the Canadian Arctic, without, he announced “the help of allies.” [i] Whoa. This suggests that the Carney government is looking to a long-term future in which the essential underpinning of Arctic, and indeed North American, defence, for decades provided by the NORAD alliance with the United States, would be superseded by a much more independent Canadian military capability. The death of NORAD was not being announced, but its diminishment as the strategic framework for Canada and the beginning of the end of Canadian defence over-dependence on the US, was.Mark the Warrior-Watcher
PM Carney visited northern Norway to witness some of the activities involved in a major NATO exercise in the Arctic region, called, fittingly, “Cold Response.” Norway hosts this exercise every two years.And here's an interesting piece from a new substack writer, Steve Miles Net - The Carney Doctrine Why Pragmatic Leadership is Canada’s New Superpower
This year’s version of Cold Response is among the largest exercises ever. It will run from March 9 to 19, and involves a total of 32,500 military personnel from 14 countries....
But what is in it for a busy Canadian Prime Minister, especially a globe-trotting one? I think there are lots of potential answers to this, on a sliding scale of significance. It gives the PM some face time with the Canadian armed forces; it underscores Canada’s commitment to Arctic security capabilities; it aligns with Canada’s desire to see NATO take its northern, or “Arctic “ flank seriously; and it reinforces a Canadian policy that seeks to project Canada’s strengthened Arctic security posture as a core capability commitment to the NATO alliance....
But there remains a missing piece, ...This is the question of what role Canada will play in a new NATO mission called “Arctic Sentry.” ... Arctic Sentry was stood up in February 2026 with the avowed mission to strengthen the Alliance’s Arctic deterrence capabilities, clearly threatened by Russia and Russian hybrid warfare activities. The unavowed mission was to act as a deterrent to any unilateral exercise of force by the US to seize Greenland...
...The old “globalist” critique suggests that international cooperation comes at the expense of sovereignty. Carney has flipped this script. His 2026 Davos address—a historic “rupture” speech that received a rare standing ovation—argued that true sovereignty is the ability to feed, fuel, and defend oneself.
Under Carney, Canada has moved from a passive reliance on a single, increasingly erratic trading partner to a strategy of “strategic autonomy.” By diversifying trade—signing 12 major agreements across four continents in just six months—Carney is ensuring that Canada is no longer a “drop-off port” for great power rivalries, but a central hub of a new, values-based trading bloc....
TL; DW - Carney: "We are fully prepared, individually and collectively, to defend the Arctic and the high North."View on Threads
In other political news, Poilievre is off to Washington to show Carney how its done! (/sarcasm)
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Here's what I didn't know before about Lori Idlout and Nunavut:
US/Israel/Iran War update
That's what happens when you use a foreign war as a distraction from your problems back home.
— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 3:05 PM
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The war is going so well that the secretary of defense is spending his morning yelling at cnn
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 6:40 AM
Paul Krugman explains how oil prices could rise much higher before costs would reduce demand enough:
...If one looks at the state of global oil supply, it’s extremely dire. Around 20 percent of the world’s normal flow of oil is bottled up inside the Strait of Hormuz — and as we’ve seen in the past day, even tankers and oil facilities inside the Strait are vulnerable to attack. If this blockade persists, it will be a much worse shock to world oil supplies than the 1973 embargo, the 1979 Iranian revolution, or the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.The latest news is Trump's announcement on Friday - after the stock market closed - that the US is bombing the military installations on Kharg Island, where Iran ships its oil to China. The US is also moving thousands of troops to the Gulf now.
So what happens if the Strait remains closed for months? It’s a matter of supply and demand. If the quantity of oil supplied to world markets can’t rise — which, as far as we can tell, it won’t until the mullahs decide to let tankers through again — the price of oil will have to rise high enough to reduce the quantity demanded.
And how high would that price have to be? It would have to be high enough to persuade drivers to stop driving, trucks to stop trucking, airlines to stop flying.
In other words, the price of oil would have to rise enough to cause a global economic crisis even though the world is much less oil-dependent than it used to be.
Given time to adjust, the world can conserve oil in many different ways. For example, gas mileage roughly doubled in the decades that followed the 70s oil shocks — and that was before hybrid and electric vehicles. In the long run, the world economy could make do without Persian Gulf oil, at minimal cost in terms of global GDP.
But in the long run we are all dead. In the short run, the economic impact of a sustained loss of Gulf oil could be very ugly. In fact, it would have to get ugly to persuade the world to buy a lot less oil.
I’ve seen some alarmists warn that a long war in the Gulf could lead to oil at $150 a barrel. That looks low to me.
Trump bombing Kharg Island is a “red line” according to Iran. This is the most severe escalation yet that the US just unleashed. Expect Iran to obliterate every US business in the region (at the very least) & potentially go after Gulf oil infrastructure and desalination plants.
— Secular Talk (@kylekulinskishow.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 5:49 PM
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Here's a round-up of ideas for getting that oil past the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz:
The Strait of Hormuz is perfectly safe...
— Larry the Cat (@number10cat.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 1:58 PM
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slowly being driven mad by people suggesting tanker trucks to route oil around the Strait of Hormuz. it's like asking how many Honda Civics it would take to pack up Mount Everest and bring it to London. it's not practical and it isn't going to happen.
— Not That Rick Scott 🇨🇦 (@shadowspar.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 2:32 PM
The Strait of Hormuz is open for transit
— Élodie Marissa (@elodieexdeath.northsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 2:31 PM
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can this be a solution?
— cait (and adonis) (@cait.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:54 AM
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Can this be a solution?
— Papa Fazuul (@papafazuul.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 4:47 AM
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I think I may have cracked it
— Andy Clark, Nerdling Herder (@andycruns.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 8:42 AM
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— Maria Bustillos (@mariabustillos.com) March 12, 2026 at 1:54 PM
You can't make this up:
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Here's a terrific idea!
And on a side note:The Trump administration could really restore confidence by getting the entire Cabinet to ride a tanker through the Straits of Hormuz to show everyone how safe and easy it is now. They could bring along a lot of MAGA influencers and Fox News hosts to broadcast it all live!
— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 2:01 PM
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i feel like if i was tasked with not starting a war and bringing back US manufacturing jobs, i could have done a better job than this
— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Paralympics Catch-up
Natalie Wilkie's second gold medal!
In curling, Canada stole three in the final end to win the semi-final, so they will play China in the gold medal game on Saturday:🇨🇦 Canada's Natalie Wilkie captured her second gold 🥇 of the Milano-Cortina Paralympics on Friday, winning the women's standing sprint pursuit biathlon for her fourth medal in as many events. #Paralympics #Biathlon #TeamCanada www.cbc.ca/sports/paral...
— Visible Cricket 🇨🇦🇮🇪🎒🛶 (@visiblecricket.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 7:10 AM
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And in hockey:
CANADA 🇨🇦 FOR THE WIN The Canadian para ice hockey team defeats China 4-2 in a spirited semifinal battle at the Paralympics. And that means it’s once again Canada vs USA for para ice hockey gold on Sunday in Milano.
— Devin Heroux (@devinheroux.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 2:00 PM
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Ohhhh that’s REALLY good
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 6:30 PM
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