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newscluestoday at 10:40 AM1 replyview on HN

I do realize that (am Canadian), but you are incorrect to say Carney and Trudeau have very different policies. Many of the cabinet members are the same, and as they say, people are policy. Perhaps the tone of messaging has changed, but it's the same government, with most of the same stupid policies.

Same party, same people, just a new leader, but it's the same direction. There was no 180 pivot for Canada, just a new "elbows up" slogan from another CCP puppet PM. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/china-allies-paid-2000-...


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jkaplowitztoday at 11:44 AM

CCP allies paying to attend a fundraiser co-hosted by an MP who was a Conservative until December does not contradict my point about Carney being economically a Progressive Conservative. I’m not saying that either Carney or that co-hosting MP belongs in Pierre Poilievre’s version of the Conservative Party of Canada. Certainly Carney doesn’t (I don’t know much about the other MP’s views). I’m saying that if the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada had not merged itself out of existence, Carney (and quite possibly also the other MP) would be in that party rather than the Liberals. With the current federal party configuration, Carney is indeed within the centrist big tent of the Liberals, but very much economically to Trudeau’s right.

To be clearer on the tangent I said was off-topic, I am not saying Carney is opposed to engaging thoroughly with China. He isn’t. But that’s more of a Conservative position than a Trudeau-style Liberal position.

Evidence: former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the one who signed a major free trade agreement with China which has a really long duration (for some purposes a full 31 years), which allows Chinese state-owned enterprises to sue the Canadian government like private investors, and which is in many ways asymmetrical in China’s favour. Not Trudeau. Look up 2014 FIPA if you want more info on that agreement.

The Trudeau quote you cited is real, but Trudeau’s actual actions have been far less pro-China than either Harper’s or Carney’s. Keep in mind that plenty of the criticism which Trudeau received over that quote came from within the Liberal party, meaning it isn’t like the Liberal party is disproportionately filled with CCP admirers. Some individuals will have that viewpoint in both major parties, but it’s certainly not accurate to say that it’s more dominant among the Liberals than the Conservatives.

Also be careful about assuming that the National Post will present things fairly. Like many (maybe even most?) well-known Canadian newspapers, they are part of Postmedia, which is majority-owned by an American financial firm with close ties to the US Republican Party. Their non-opinion news articles generally do avoid factual falsehoods, but they often use style and selective omission to present a very biased view of the truth in the service of right-wing messaging goals.