Comments about the passing scene - Mark Carney, Ukraine, Stelco, Chrystia Freeland, Evan Scrimshaw, Mark Jacob, Keith Law

Here are a few useful posts and interesting comments about the issues of the day. 

From Mark Carney
"the most low-key troll I have ever seen. 🤣"

October 13 is the anniversary of the The Battle of Queenston Heights in the War of 1812 and PM Carney highlighted Major General Isaac Brock and that Battle during his first Forward Guidance video address to Canadians in April.

And yes, the subtlety of this post is outstanding.

About Ukraine
Moving on to the 21st Century, I noticed that this weekend Carney criticized Trump's diesel deal with Russia but praised the possibility of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Paul Wells found this puzzling but I didn't.

🇨🇦Canadian Prime Minister Carney says the u.s.-ruzzia diesel deal hurts Ukraine's peace efforts. PM Carney spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today about Chump's🍊💩 diesel fuel supply arrangement with ruzzia. #TraitorUS #Wrldpoli🌐 #CanadaSky🇨🇦 www.ctvnews.ca/canada/artic...

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— Black Panther🍁💪🦫🇨🇦 (@blackpanther25.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 3:37 AM

President Zelenskyy: Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it is important that Russia supports it as well. "I just spoke with Mark Carney, Alex Stubb, and Mark Rutte. We discussed the energy ceasefire announced by President Trump.

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— Anton Gerashchenko (@antongerashchenko.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 10:36 AM

Note Carney's wording here:

Carney spoke with Trump

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— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com) October 11, 2026 at 2:41 PM

Trump is revising his "energy ceasefire" into a "refinery ceasefire" only (helping only the Russians), so this is Carney in conjunction with Zelenskyy saying it needs to go both ways by pushing (with Zelenskyy) for use of this term. Otherwise all pressure and blame falls on Ukraine alone.

— Dave Tait (@davetait.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 4:47 PM

And on a side note, here is retired US Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg bringing the fire:

“What would I tell President Zelenskyy. I’d tell him to burn down every one of the goddamn refineries that Russia has today, take them all out, it’s a military target. Make them pay the price, take it home.” Keith Kellogg — retired U.S. Army lieutenant general

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— Being Liberal ®🗽🏳️‍🌈 (@beingliberal.bsky.social) October 13, 2026 at 4:05 PM

Ukraine is not waiting

The internet has dubbed Ukraine’s attacks on Russian data centers “Operation Quiet Piggy”—as Russian bots go silent. It looks like Operation Quiet Piggy might be in full force tonight, with reports of multiple explosions in Balakovo—the city where Sberbank has a major data-center project. This could be a massive blow to Putin’s war machine, as Sberbank is Russia’s largest bank and relies on this data center to keep its banking systems running. 

- Don Knight

Read on Substack

About Stelco
Carleton professor Jennifer Robson writes:

...this is a coordinated play between Cleveland-Cliffs and the Trump administration to get Canadian policy change on tariffs on steel, particularly galvanized steel, coming in from China (including re-exports via Mexico). They feel good about the hot-rolled part of the business, but not the galvanized side. As laid out in the same earnings call, the firm thinks there’s an immediate $500 million windfall for Cleveland Cliffs if the North American market effectively closes to Chinese steel and they need Canadian policy change to make that happen. The same call shows that volumes of product sales are down, but prices are up so they are going for another round of sellers’ inflation (price > volume)!
In that context, one would think that Goncalves might be willing, happy even, to divest of a part of the business that isn’t delivering on investor value by raising prices in lieu of boosting sales volumes. Particularly if he’s convinced that his efforts at… what should we call it…. corporate diplomacy? No that sounds too polite. What about privatized policy strong-arming… let’s go with that for now… if those efforts don’t look likely to bear fruit in a reasonable planning horizon, then a good move is to get a pay day some other way - like selling off the part of the business where prices aren’t rising and seem unlikely to.
So, here’s an awkward thing: Goncalves keeps referring to these layoffs as temporary. That may be just to shape the record for a potential lawsuit. It may be that he’s still thinking that the Government of Canada may change its steel import tariffs in the direction the White House would like to see.
But I would find it hard to imagine that the Government of Canada is going to be willing, in the current context, to be seen to have taken international trade policy dictation from the White House via a U.S. business owner. ...

Jen is spitting facts. Of course the government should look at transitions to employee ownership. We need to start using more tools in this unprovoked war that was launched on us. Jen’s point is a very good one: for Cleveland-Cliffs, if there is a choice between the American interest and the interest of its workers in Canada, the choice is clear. And that’s why ownership matters and why we need to start using the powers we have under the Investment Canada Act. I get that our policy and decision-makers grew up in an era where if capital decided to buy something, it was assumed that was good and created value and economic activity and all it trickled down eventually. That era is dead. We need to catch up. The state needs to care who owns key strategic assets, infrastructure and industries.

- Matthew Mendelsohn

Read on Substack

From Chrystia Freeland
A fascinating article in The Walrus interviewing Chrystia Freeland. Some excerpts:

...we simply cannot capitulate to President Trump. With some people, maybe you make a compromise, and that’s how you get the relationship off to a good start. That is not Trump. He doesn’t read capitulation as a generous gesture in the service of relationship building. He reads it as capitulation and submission, and he pushes even further.
[Some Canadians] felt that you can kind of sweet-talk him into something. They feel that if we’re too aggressive with him, we’ll just set him off; it’s the “don’t poke the bear” idea. I’m in favour of not operating at a high emotional pitch with the US administration. I want us to be very sensible and level-headed but also very firm and clear. For example, I don’t think it was the right decision to drop the Digital Services Tax. I don’t think it was the right decision to drop some of the retaliation. I think a view a lot of people had was “Oh we’ll do this, and then he’ll be nice to us.” That we’ll be able to charm him into a good relationship. But he doesn’t work that way.
...I think he divides the world into two categories. The first are vassals. Vassals must totally submit—and you see that with Venezuela. And you see it with the Republican Party; there is no level of degradation to which Republicans will not be subjected to if they want to be in the court of President Trump. The other category is people and countries who he sees as legitimate partners. But to get to that, you have to get through some tough times with him, because he only elevates you to partnerhood if you’ve stood up to him. I don’t think this is a great way to negotiate, but that’s how he operates....
...Mark Carney ultimately walked away from negotiations, saying the Americans “asked too much and offered too little.” Knowing Trump as you do, was walking away the right move?
I was so happy and relieved when that happened. I think that was absolutely the right thing for Canada to do. I was quite anxious in the days before, and I gave an interview to Bloomberg on the Thursday before that Saturday-morning deadline when it looked as if there would be a deal. We had heard from a lot of people that a deal was happening. I said in that interview that I was concerned that the deal that was on the table then would not be in Canada’s interests and would be crossing the Rubicon from free trade to managed trade and that it would be particularly harmful to Canadian manufacturing.
...Let’s be honest: I think this is a very dark time. We shouldn’t be in denial about that. We need to recognize that this is not a “business as usual” moment in the life of Canada and the world.
But there are reasons to be hopeful: I’m hopeful when I see opinion polling in the US and see how Americans think about Canada and this trade war. I’m hopeful when I see opinion polling in Canada and see how strong Canadians are. I also have to really give a shout-out to Canada’s premiers: I think that they have played a really important role. I think of Wab Kinew, in that week before things broke down, when he said “You can’t do a good deal with a bad person.” I thought that was really well said, and I think it influenced people a lot. Premier Doug Ford has been a really important voice for Canada. It’s important for Americans to see that a small-c conservative leader also thinks capitulation is wrong.
When a country is successful in doing a hard thing, it’s usually because the whole country wants to do it. Even though this is a dark time, I’m proud to be Canadian...

From Evan Scrimshaw on Canada's economy

Mark Carney is not presiding over a particularly good economy.
I’m not saying that to be critical of him, and I’m sure the Liberal staffers who read me won’t like that first sentence, but in the grand scheme of modern Canadian history it is a lukewarm at best economy. It is tepid growth and a mediocre growth rate, and in any other context, it would be a political problem for the government. But right now Carney is flying in the polls, almost entirely on Canadians’ confidence in him to handle the economy. Why?
And no, it’s not because Canadians are stupid, or brainwashed, or any other insult, it’s because Canadians are smart. Canada has a weak economy because of two men’s failures - Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau - and Canadians are smart enough to understand that Carney’s government ran and got a mandate on the idea of being fundamentally in opposition to those failures. And so, Canadians are giving him grace for now. But that grace won’t be endless, which is why it’s important the government understand the nature of that mandate, as implicit as it was, and how to not overstay their welcome...
...Canadians have shown themselves to be intelligent people willing to listen to a complicated idea in the national interest. Carney needs to trust them here again to embrace a pro-growth agenda that will actually deliver the cash to fund our progressive ambitions, instead of worrying that voters will believe in the vain indulgences of Trudeau-era Liberalism where the cash could be found if only you said the right progressive buzzwords.

From Mark Jacob retired Chicago Tribune editor writing about Trump and the Mid-Terms

When is a dictator most dangerous? When he sees his political magic wearing off. So be optimistic about the midterms, but take nothing for granted. Vote, vote, vote. Pay for truth-telling media. Support voting rights groups. And get set to resist if Trump tries another coup. My latest newsletter.

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— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) October 13, 2026 at 2:07 PM

Some excerpts from the Jacob article:

...Trump has already tried to overthrow democracy once. He didn’t succeed, but he wasn’t punished either, so why wouldn’t he try again? He has built ICE up into a dangerous thug army and installed even more compliant underlings, including a defense secretary who specializes in performative violence. Both the 2021 attempt and a potential new one would be what is called a “self-coup”: when a sitting leader overturns an election result or makes another power grab to retain or expand their power....

Among the actions Jacob lists to safeguard democracy, these two are the most alarming

...-Don’t assume that the resolution of individual election disputes in court will be the end of the problems. Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig has warned that Republicans might refuse to seat some Democrats when the new session of the House begins on Jan. 3.
-Get psychologically prepared for the possibility that Trump will invent some sort of national emergency to delay or disrupt the voting or the seating of a new Congress. If that happens, it will be time for concerted resistance. University of California, Berkeley, professor Neil Abrams wrote an article for The New Republic about how “nonviolent rebellion” worked in Serbia and Minnesota and could work if Trump tries to steal this election.
I’m not trying to be alarmist, but I am trying to be realistic. This is an opportunity for us to be the kind of Americans our descendants will be proud of.

Finally, a short digression about baseball
I don't know if you are following the baseball playoffs, but I thought this was a particularly good summary of the division contests this year, from baseball writer Keith Law:

so the final four are * a team that has never won the World Series in its 28 seasons * a team that has never won the World Series in its 57 seasons * a team that hasn’t won the World Series in 77 seasons * Dodgers

— Keith Law (@keithlaw.bsky.social) October 10, 2026 at 8:51 PM

If you're not a diehard fan, his list refers to the Tampa Bay Rays, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Cleveland Guardians. The Los Angeles Dodgers have won the World Series nine times in the last 70 years - including last year's heartbreaker against our Blue Jays. 

And yes, there is crying in baseball.