"It just goes to show you, it's always something — if it’s not one thing, it's another."

(I made this cartoon using ChatGPT)

I really have to feel for our Prime Minister Mark Carney these days.
Canada had one hell of a summer didn't we, with a thousand wild-fires, and those Trump threats and tariffs, and US trade negotiations blowing up.
(On a side note, doesn't it feel like the World Cup and the Olympics were in the ancient past?)
So here we are finally in October.
And Carney finally gets Danielle Smith and her stupid referendum out of the way. Whew!
But now he finds he has to deal with egotistical temper tantrums from the new Quebec premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Plus he must be worried that those white supremascists and residential school denialists in the new BC premier Lorne Doerkson's party will screw up economic development for BC First Nations.
And we all still have to listen to opposition leader Poilievre confuse painfully-dated Seinfeld references for sparkling repartee in Question Period.
Lord, give Carney strength!
Our Prime Minister must be starting to wonder if Canadian politics are always going to be like this.
The short answer is, likely yes!
Because it just goes to show you, it's always something — if it’s not one thing, it's another, as Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say.
But Carney isn't letting it get him down.

 
In the last week, he has announced partnerships with Türkiye and with the United Arab Emirates, as well as convening a major meeting with premiers and First Nations leadership to organize a First Nations Sovereign Wealth Fund and to begin discussions on dismantling the Indian Act.

 
On Monday, Finance minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the founding of the Defense, Security and Resilience Bank

🛡️ Canada and eight other countries, including Ukraine, will sign the founding agreement for the Defence, Security & Resilience Bank (DSRB) in Luxembourg on November 30, 2026. militarnyi.com/en/news/ukra...

[image or embed]

— Militarnyi (@militarnyi.com) October 29, 2026 at 3:38 AM

For some reason nobody knows, England has said it isn't going to participate in this bank but is going to set up its own version.

(It wouldn't surprise me to find out someday that the new British PM Andy Burnham was trying to mollify Trump and/or some British bankers.)

On Wednesday Carney issued a new plan for a national security strategy.
Here is Tod Maffin commenting on it, raising some concerns:
But here is what Wesley Wark says about the strategy, and he is quite confident with the direction being taken:

The “Plan for a Stronger Canada” elevates national security as the ruling concept that must govern the country’s approach to all elements of its sovereignty and national interest protection including foreign policy, defence, economic security, public safety and intelligence.
These five elements become the pillars of the strategy and more detail about each is promised in a set of follow-on strategies to come, starting, we are told with a new foreign policy strategy and a new defence strategy. The whole suit, with the “intelligence enterprise strategy” likely to be last out of the gate, is meant to be published by the early months of 2027. It is hugely ambitious, the Carney government moving to do big things at its vaunted rapid speed. One senior official described it as a “rolling thunder” approach.
the focus of the national security strategy is on Canadian requirements and strategic Canadian capabilities. It is framed around two objectives. One is creating greater Canadian strategic autonomy, meaning reduced dependence on an unreliable U.S. ally, new partnerships in line with Mark Carney’s middle power “variable geometry,” and increased strength to contend with any hegemonic threats posed by other adversaries. A second objective is enhanced national resilience. The two are meant to go hand in hand and coalesce in the framework strategy around a list of eight strategic capabilities....
Emerging technologies (including quantum computing and AI)
Critical minerals
Defence
Energy
Transportation systems
Pharma and biotech
Food security
And, finally, “Payments, settlements and Investment”
This list does not fully align with the list in the Defence Industrial strategy, which may need some sorting out. We are told that transportation systems were a late addition and the last capability may be hard to parse. Not sure what “payments, settlements and investment” exactly means but it seems to gesture towards strong foreign investment scrutiny, and an ability to have fully reliable and secure international payment systems, including to deal with money laundering, organized crime, sanctions evasions, and export controls.
A challenge that hangs over this, that will be a work in progress, is how to embed these priorities for strategic capabilities fully in the five pillars: foreign policy, defence, economic security, public safety and perhaps especially in intelligence, which will require a clear expansion of the horizons of its work....
... This represents, let’s be clear, a radical rethink of the Canadian approach to national security. The success of Canadian national security strategy will depend on an integrated approach across all domains of power projection, and will require a fundamental reorientation of how we think of some key aspects of our policies, perhaps above all foreign policy. But remember one of the Prime Minister’s favourite lines: ‘it’s not just above the strength of our values, but the value of our strength.’ This strength will take time to build across all the five strategic pillars, it will take money, in some cases bucket loads, it will require some profound institutional changes in how national security is organised and led, allies and partners will need convincing, and it will take public buy-in. It’s a steep climb over years of effort.
But in the current state of the world, which is likely to persist, it must be done. A weak Canada in a world of what PM Carney has called predatory hegemons, including one poised on our southern border, cannot be sustained.

On Thursday Carney was negotiating a new association with Europe - and no, its not exactly crystal clear what the relationship is going to be called and who cares as long as it happens:

EU's Kaja Kallas: "In the world that has changed, the majority of countries are really looking for a world that is based on some kind of rules. And they are looking to European Union and Canada and like-minded partners to actually drive that forward."

- Scott Robertson

Read on Substack

Carney introduced the Canada-EU Summitt:


Dean Blundell provides all the background and summarizes what Canada and the EU are doing:

...Strip away the fight over the label and look at the list, because it’s the list that makes Washington nervous.
A finished Digital Trade Agreement for faster, cheaper, secure cross-border transactions, plus a plan to physically link Canada’s and Europe’s next-generation payment systems. A deal between competition regulators. A European Investment Bank framework, being signed Friday by Champagne, so European money can flow into Canadian critical mineral projects that Europe currently sources mostly from China. Updated nuclear cooperation. Canadian researchers and companies get access to European supercomputers, and von der Leyen said this morning that Canadian firms will be able to train AI models on that infrastructure, with both sides building AI rules together specifically so neither ends up dependent on a handful of American giants.
Then it gets pointed. Talks to bring Canada into Galileo, Europe’s version of GPS, and IRIS², Europe’s planned secure satellite network. The stated purpose, per officials, is to give governments and businesses a communications option that doesn’t run through American or Chinese systems. Joint subsea cables linking Europe, Canada and Asia. “Associated country status” for Canada under Europe’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, which means Canadian companies can bid on EU cloud and AI contracts normally closed to outsiders, and means Canada’s digital rules will be built to work with Brussels, not Washington, at the exact moment the Trump administration treats European digital regulation as a trade barrier.
On defence, Canada already became the first non-European country inside the EU’s SAFE procurement program back in February. The first deal is a Montreal company building tactical radios for Poland’s cyber command. Carney was the first non-European leader at the European Political Community summit in May. The 50 De Havilland water bombers that were in the early draft got shelved, which is a bad day for Calgary, and I’d watch whether that comes back Friday.
On people, the drafts talk about easing mobility for young workers and skilled professionals, recognizing qualifications across the Atlantic, and bringing Canada into Erasmus+, the student exchange program with a budget around $41 billion. Canadian officials say joining a program like that is the only place Canada actually takes on a financial commitment. Carney has said visa-free travel is on the table. Horizon Europe research funding. LNG to Europe.
And on structure, an EU official described a common governance body with Canada getting regular invitations to EU summits and ministerial meetings. Not a seat at the table. A chair pulled up next to it....

Worth your time to read the whole thing.

Also on Thursday, Carney announced that Canada will be buying an equity stake in Cohere

Canada is now a shareholder in an AI model maker. Cohere said on 29 October it made an initial close of a Series E that targets up to C$7 billion, which it says would represent a C$35.7 billion valuation. Prime Minister Mark Carney said Ottawa would invest up to C$1.6 billion, Reuters reported. The money comes through a Crown corporation, in stages, with “jobs and revenue targets” key, AI minister Evan Solomon told BetaKit. By my arithmetic, that is about 23% of the round. In return, Carney said Cohere will invest at least C$1.7 billion in computing infrastructure in Canada by 2030, about 1.06 times the stake. Washington has been buying stakes in chipmakers; Ottawa is buying one in a model maker. https://businessengineer.ai/p/the-ai-capex-map-and-the-state-of

- Gennaro Cuofano

Read on Substack

The government press release describes Cohere:

...Founded in Toronto, Cohere builds secure AI systems for businesses and governments. Its technology gives organisations greater control over where sensitive data is stored, how it is used, and who can access it. The government’s planned landmark investment will enable Cohere to scale and compete in the global AI market. Cohere will now be able to develop far more advanced models and products, scale up its computing infrastructure, and expand its Canadian workforce to serve more businesses and governments in Canada and around the world. Building this capability at home ultimately means that Canadian businesses and governments will have more choice in how they adopt AI and greater control over their sensitive information.
Cohere is a Canadian success story that is projected to be a leader in sovereign AI...

Wow, that was a week! And its not quite over. Stay tuned for the wrap up of the Canada-European Union Summit.

Finally, on a side note, please enjoy Fox News freaking out during this interview with a man they thought was MAGA.

this is fucking wild

- Adam Parkhomenko

Read on Substack

Apparently Trump has now cancelled all his rallies that had been scheduled before the Mid-Terms.
Maybe we can look forward to another "is he dead?" weekend - alsays such fun