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Canada's Long-Delayed Doom Is Visible At Last

Portfolio Armor's Photo
by Portfolio Armor
Friday, Mar 28, 2025 - 14:01
Justin Trudea kneeling before a statue of George Floyd.
Grok image inspired by then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kneeling for George Floyd

Mark Carney May Talk Tough...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has proclaimed the end of Canada's close ties with America, but he may be whistling past the graveyard. There is little logic or energy behind Canada remaining an independent country today, as our friend Peter Nimitz details in the post he has generously allowed us to excerpt below. 

Following that, we'll close with a brief market note. 

Excerpted from Nemets 

On The Historical Unity Of Americans And Canadians

“Canadians have relatively few binding national myths, but one of the most pervasive and enduring is the conviction that the country is doomed” – Andrew Potter

Looking from the year 2025, Canada appears to be a fluke of history. Her prime minister declared her to be a post-national state. Most of her provinces trade more with the United States than they do with the rest of Canada. The vast majority of her population lives within one hundred miles of the USA border, stretched out horizontally across cold regions united only by rail and road. The most natural geographical and hydrological center for Canada, the Saint Lawrence River Basin, is divided politically and linguistically into English Ontario and French Quebec. The utility of the Saint Lawrence River itself in allowing for shipping from the Great Lakes to the World Ocean was superseded two hundred years ago by the Erie Canal. Unnatural in geography, divided by language, opposing a concept of national pride, and bereft of a purpose; the conviction of doom is understandable. Canada exists purely from historical inertia, and could be swept away with ease should her mighty southern neighbor decide on a whim that she has outlived her usefulness.

[Skipping past a detailed history of Canada and the U.S. up to the 21st Century]

By the 2000s, Canadian politics were downstream of and reactive to those of the United States. Bush II’s invasion of Iraq drove a wave of anti-war sentiment even though Canada didn’t participate in the invasion. Canadians became reflexively supportive of their healthcare system despite prior complaints. Commitment to international law and institutions were allowed to supersede domestic interests to the point that Canada accepted partial responsibility for the Rwandan Genocide in 2010.

That trend accelerated in the 2010s and 2020s under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. While the United States saw a rise in anti-immigration sentiment, Canada invited in 13.7% of her population from 2015 to 2025. Canada enthusiastically embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, with Prime Minister Trudeau kneeling to George Floyd - an unprecedented act as Prime Ministers merely curtsy to the king or queen of Britain. Canada found her own parallel to BLM with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry as well as the supposed residential schools genocide. The inquiry found that Canada was actively committing genocide against Amerindian women as late as 2019. Trudeau accepted the findings of the inquiry, and tacitly supported the resulting burnings of churches which had been blamed for the supposed residential schools genocide.

Canada’s long-delayed doom is visible at long last. The inertia that has preserved the Canadian state has been dampened. Neither Pierre Poilievre nor Mark Carney, the two possible prime ministers, have the will, men, or vision to make a nation out of Canada. The Quebec issue threatens to flare up in 2026 with a pending provincial victory of the separatist Parti Quebecois – particularly if Poilievre and his Conservatives control the federal government. If Carney wins, the western provinces, particularly Alberta, will start a new constitutional crisis over control of provincial resources.  The ill-thought out multiculturalism policy has borne its bitter fruit with large anti-Semitic marches, a proliferation of ethnic self-aggrandizement, and a collapse in Canadian patriotism.

Most ominously, the long friendly United States, alienated by the naked abuse of intelligence sharing and designation of groups supportive of the president as terrorists, openly plots annexation. Perhaps an American, seeking to surpass his Revolutionary ancestors, will follow their path and sweep the old northern order away for all time. After all, why should Americans allow our own countrymen to live under a government hostile to our interests? Is not British Columbia an extension of our Pacific Northwest? Are not the Prairie Provinces - particularly Alberta - part of the Great Plains? Nova Scotia has always been an extension of Massachusetts, and New Brunswick was founded by Americans. Quebec alone of the Canadian provinces is alien to us.

Would You Like To Know More? 

If so, you can read Nemets's full post on his Substack here. You can also join his X space on Sunday, where he will elaborate and answer listeners' questions. 

No on to our brief market note. 

Liberation Day Beckons

As Simon Flint notes in a post shared by ZeroHedge ("Are Stock Markets Sleepwalking Into Tariff Turbulence?"), risks to equities are "skewed to the downside" ahead of "Liberation Day" next week, the implementation of President Trump's new tariffs. With that in mind, you may want to add some downside protection.

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Market Chaos Update

With the market tanking, we added bullish bets on a few top names unlikely to be impacted by Trump's tariffs. 

Blood in the streets, metaphorically.
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