Doldrums

It has been a glorious summer on Vancouver Island. Sunny, not too hot, with just enough rain to keep things green. COVID has largely passed the Island, especially the south Island, by. We never were in “lock down” but people stayed home in April and May, over the summer they have been venturing out. Social distancing has become second nature and about half the people you see are wearing masks indoors. (I am not. But, then again, I am almost never in stores or other indoor spaces.)

From a business perspective, this summer has been as quiet as most other summers are. Working with the junior mining industry you get used to the rhythm of the seasons. Right now, the majority of our clients are out drilling, mapping and soil sampling. They will have news in September and then we will get busy. As I have worked from home for a couple of decades COVID has made next to no difference to what I actually do with my days.

Having said that I cannot help but notice that COVID and its economic consequences seem to have befuddled the politicians and the markets. In Canada we have seen a 30% plus crash in the GDP but, with the exception of the March crash, our stock markets just motor ahead. Our Federal politicians have thrown fiscal caution to the wind and are heaping money on a grateful populace. Where is this money coming from? Well, the simple answer seems to be “The Future”.

The logic is that in an emergency it makes sense to keep things going by borrowing and then counting on future earnings to repay the debt. Interest rates are at an effective zero so this is, in principle, costless. More importantly, no one seems to be looking too carefully at the various programs designed to keep people and businesses going when there is no work and no trade.

Does this make sense? Can it make sense? I am reading a wonderful book on Keynes, The Price of Peace, and my sense is that the later Keynes would be fine with this unfettered spending. After all, the alternatives are too bleak to be contemplated.

Which is worrying because it means that there does not seem to be a plan to deal with the economic consequences of this exercise in emergency spending. What happens when interest rates go up even a little? What happens when mortgage deferrals end? What happens when the CERB runs out? If no one goes to the office but instead works from home, what happens to downtown infrastructure, businesses and buildings? What happens when the stock markets notice a 30% drop in the GDP?

There is a whole literature devoted to both the last summer before WWI and the last summer before WWII. I don’t think we are on track for war but I do think we are going to have the answers to the questions above in the next few months and we are not going to like them at all.

To some extent these questions will be asked in all the Western, developed, economies and the answers will differ significantly. Unfortunately, Canada, while having avoided a really awful COVID outcome, does not seem to have thought through how we rebuild our economy. Worse, at the federal level, we have a minority Liberal government which seems to think the coming economic distress will be ideal for resetting our economy along greener (and possibly, more gender/race inclusive lines). The idea that it might be useful to put as many people back to work as quickly as possible does not seem to have occurred to the Liberal government.

Regardless of government action, the “Market” is, eventually going to have something to say about how Canada has responded to and will respond to the economics of COVID. A 30% drop in GDP will not mean nothing; but it is hard to anticipate what will actually happen. Especially as our trading partners have, in many cases, experienced a similar collapse.

As they say in the stock market, things are looking “toppy”. Thrilling as Tesla and Apple’s share price rises have been, it is not unreasonable to think that parabolic is not sustainable. Solid as the Canadian bank share prices have been, as mortgage payment deferrals roll over into defaults, you have to think there will be some contraction. Real estate is hitting new highs with the abundance of cheap money available for mortgages, but if people do not have jobs, how can they pay those mortgages?

Modern economies are built on certain key assumptions. The most basic of those assumptions is that, more or less, production and consumption are in rough balance. While states and central banks have tinkered at the fiscal and monetary margins, until relatively recently, massive interventions were pretty much reserved for wartime emergencies. That restraint has now vanished.

Which is interesting as a matter of policy but what will its actual effects be on the day to day reality of economies. In a wartime emergency, spending big is not done to stimulate the economy, it is done to fight the war. Money is spent on war fighting tools which are very quickly consumed without leaving any trace in the overall economy. (Yes, wages for war work will rise but that usually reflects the scarcity of “manpower” which building armies and navies creates.)

The present circumstance is very different. Money is being spent and created at a wartime pace, but there is no wartime economy to finance. In fact, there is only a 70% peace time economy.

The consequences of the GDP collapse may be able to be postponed for a few months or a year, but, eventually they will begin to show up. Personal income will fall, tax revenue will drop: but there will still be the debt taken on during the COVID emergency.

I am taking my young dog down to Moses Point for a bit of a frolic. In 1914 and 1939 anyone with any awareness at all realized that war was imminent. Mary Wesley’s The Camomile Lawn, Anthony Powell’s, The Kindly Ones capture the sense of a last, good, summer. The water sparkles in the sun, the boats cruise by, but best to take a jacket because the cool breeze of fall is blowing and Moses Point is quite exposed.

Depression, Inflation, I’m so confused!

The Weimar German Mark…Not just Zimbabwe – Log scale

The numbers are ugly. Something like 1 in 5 Canadians out of work. Mortgages deferred, rent unpaid, bills falling in arrears without a regular pay cheque. The 2K a month CRED money is lovely but it does not actually cover most middle class people’s mortgages, car leases, minimum credit card payments, hydro, taxes, more taxes, and, well, food.

So, economically, I think it is fair to say that we are already in a depression. GDP growth will crater, unemployment will balloon. Cash will evaporate.

But it may be worse than that. The reality is that most Western countries have said, “The Hell with the deficit and national debt, we need to helicopter money in, stat.” The problem with this idea is that to do it you need to print money. Lots of it. Billions for Canada, trillions for the US. Which, if you have your own central bank is easy to do and, initially, costless. After all, what is money? It is a book entry and if you double the total what could go wrong?

If you flood enough money into an economy that economy will look robust. It will look normal even with a fifth or a third of its citizens not actually working but still being paid.

Here is picture of a meth addict:

A country which decides to simply make all the money it needs right now is jumping on the meth train. There is a temporary high where all looks grand and then a terminal decline.

The COVID-19 crisis – if it is a crisis – has given our federal government the social licence to start shooting economic meth. The fact is that the economic meth won’t work. Real estate is going to crash. Asset prices generally will crash. The end of demand is, well, the end of demand. Without demand prices drop and, hey, pretty soon, you have a recession and, perhaps, a depression.

Depressions can be survived. They are nasty and stimulating the demand which takes you out of one is tough.

But now imagine a depression proceeded by a huge currency inflation. Where a government, in a panic, floods the market with paper currency unbacked by any actual GDP. In a matter of a year, the savings of a nation as well as the assets of a nation, can be rendered worthless in paper money.

Here’s a gent buying eggs in the Weimar Republic:

A grand inflation in front of a depression is pretty much the end of an economy. If the government prints money in serious quantities and issues debt in more or less unlimited quantities the game is over. The gold bugs will have won.

A rather smart investor named Rick Rule once said, “We don’t want to live in a world with $10,000 an ounce gold.”

Right now there is a greater than zero chance that this will be exactly the world we live in.

Peak Panic

Are we there yet?

States of Emergency, daily Presidential Briefings, fatality numbers, businesses closing, TP shortages, no meat, social distance, markets yo-yoing and everyone looking to “flatten the curve”: COVID-19 is scary and people are responding with varying degrees of terror and reason.

I took this graph from PowerLine. It is interesting and as John Hinderaker observes there we want to be like South Korea. He was referring to the US. Canada is not even on this chart because we are a few days away from the starting point of 10 deaths. Health Canada indicates 4 deaths as of March 17 at 10:30 Eastern. We’ll get to 10 but, with luck, a little more slowly.

There is a lot of skepticism about the Chinese numbers but, apparently, new cases and new deaths have fallen significantly in the past few weeks. We’ll see if that holds as China goes back to work.

There are plenty of reasons to treat COVID-19 seriously beginning with the fact that we lack infinite medical resources to deal with the very real possibility of broad scale infection. We currently lack effective therapies for people unlucky enough to catch CV. We are at least months away from any sort of vaccine.

Panic has been useful in alerting people to handwashing and staying out of crowds. It has given social licence to people who simply want to stay at home. And those basic things may very well reduce the overall incidence of the infection. We won’t know for a while.

What we do know is that testing for COVID-19 is confirming cases across Canada. Here is the weekly case graph to the 8th of March:

So far, so good. However, I have to suspect that there will be surges in these numbers in the coming weeks as more and more people are tested.

If something like this graph holds, even with surges, Canada will have the time needed to reconfigure its medical resources to deal with the challenges presented by the virus. We will also have the time to test potential therapies: yes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – but it would be helpful to have some cures available.

There are also purely environmental effects to look forward to. We don’t know if heat and humidity will kill the virus but there is evidence that they slow its spread.

Spring is around the corner in Canada.

As we get a better handle on the virus, its spread, its effects and, with luck, its treatment the urge to panic will vanish. It will be replaced by an understanding of what it takes to avoid contracting the virus.

In China it appears people are going back to work and production is resuming. Or so it is claimed. South Korea seems to have resumed a relative normalcy. Europe seems, at the moment, to be in the grip of the first wave where the death count shoots up and the case load is overwhelming. They have hit lockdown and there seems to be some improvement in the number of new cases in Italy at least.

Panic grabs people’s attention but it is useless unless it leads to clam, rational, action. Which is what we are beginning to see in Canada.

It’s not the racism, it’s the hypocrisy

I fear I can’t get all that outraged about Justin Trudeau’s black, er brown, face. It was a party with a theme and he dressed and made up. (The black marks on the brunette’s clavicles may be a little more suspect but unless she was a student, in bounds.)

Scheer’s reaction was, I fear, the measure of the pasty faced man.

Max, on the other hand, got it right:

 

I’m not going to accuse @JustinTrudeau of being a racist.

But he’s the master of identity politics and the Libs just spent months accusing everyone of being white supremacists.

He definitely is the biggest hypocrite in the country.

— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) September 19, 2019

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What amazes me is the fact that the MSM, the NDP and the great and the good seem to think our black and brown and other shaded citizens are going to be outraged by Trudeau’s behaviour seventeen years ago.

Is this a campaign issue? Not the thing in itself, but the sheer hypocrisy of the man and his party accusing all sorts of Conservatives and People’s party candidates of “wrong think” for standing on the same patch of ground as alledged white supremacists will rankle.

Elections often turn on the question of “moral high ground”. Trudeau’s claim to that ground has just collapsed in a heap. He can apologize until the proverbial cows come home. His moral position, his sunny ways, are done.

The biggest winner? Maxime Bernier. Because now the Libs and the Cons have no racist stick left to beat him with. Try to use that stick – outrageous as it is – and Max points to Trudeau and his hypocrisy.

The way fifth parties become third parties is when they expose the lies the leading party and its “lite” version are based upon.

Trudeau gave the People’s Party a gift and Max is bright enough to exploit it.

 

Happy Canada Day!

My little town on the Saanich Peninsula really puts on a show for Canada Day weekend. Because of the competition from Victoria’s Inner Harbour, we have our fireworks on Canada Day Eve. My youngest son, a fireworks enthusiast, rode his fixed gear bike the five miles in and five miles back. Tons of fun. Today there will be a parade, concerts and a general sense of a holiday. There are Canadian flags everywhere – we are not quite American with our flag mania, but there are a lot of them on display. Curmudgeons such as myself make sure our kids know that the real name for July 1 is Dominion Day and all that.

Meanwhile, the CBC has been polling Canadians and found that “nearly 80 per cent of Canadians either strongly or somewhat agree with the statement: “My country is divided between ordinary people and elites.” CBC At that link there is a long article suggesting that populist politicians are making use of the term “elite” in a derogatory way and that no one really quite knows what “elite” means.

Given that, in democracies, there is a certain amount of delicacy which surrounds frank discussion of elites, it is not surprising that no one is able to precisely describe what makes up an elite. The CBC and the guy on the street they interview are clear that it is not “money” per se. In fact, culture is more important than money in determining a person’s elite status and that culture, while in principle accessible, is, in practice, exclusionary. And it is exclusionary in very subtle ways.

To give an example, a million years ago I arrived for my first day at a very elite law school. It was actually, on the numbers, harder to get into than Havard Law. If ever there was an elite in embryo it was the hundred and fifty young men and women in that class. After a silly welcoming speech, there were cocktails and we set about getting to know each other as only a group in which fully 50% had been their high school president can. After a while, it got a little tedious as people humble-bragged about going to a “Boston area college” and how doing a triple honours degree set them up for the rigours of a legal education. My mind wandered and I began looking at the actual appearance of this class. There were virtually no fat people. In general, both the men and women seemed a bit taller than average. There were few, if any, people of colour. There were lots of WASPs and lots of Jews (the school shut down for Jewish High Holidays). There were lots of what I later came to understand were “good” hair cuts and the clothes were casual but lots of Ralph Lauren. But what was most striking were the teeth. So far as I could see there was exactly one person in that class who had not either been born with perfectly straight teeth or had access to orthodontry from an early age.

Now, having straight teeth does not make you a member of the elite, not noticing how unusual it is for a group of a hundred and fifty people to have straight teeth, does.

The CBC interviewee, Tony Laino, at Fordfest, said describing elites, “”Those that think they’re better than me,” he said. “Because I don’t espouse their beliefs.”

Which misses the point. Elites really don’t think of guys like Tony Laino at all. Largely because, as Charles Murray points out in Coming Apart, the new upper class rarely, if ever, meets the Tony Lainos of the world. Murray was writing about white people in America but much the same social bi-furcation is taking place in Canada. Murray looks at education, wealth, marriage, access and what he refers to as the rise of the super-zips, areas where highly educated, well connected, well off people live with others of their class and kind. It is an accelerating phenomenon in the US and it is plainly visible in Canada. Murray quotes Robert Reich as calling this, “the segregation of the successful”.

Inside elite communities “the issues” look very different than they do in the more pedestrian parts of the country. A few pennies extra for gas or heating oil or natural gas to fight the universally acknowledged menace of “climate change” makes perfect sense if your income is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It is downright terrifying if you are making $50K. Only bigots and racists could be anti-imigration when you, yourself, live in virtually all white, old stock, Canadian enclaves and welcome refugees and migrants who you will never see.

The populist moment has not yet come to Canada and, if Andrew Scheer’s brand of Liberal lite wins in October, there will probably be another decade of elite consolidation before a proper populist movement gets off the ground. Whether it will be right populism a la Trump and Farange, or left populism with a firebrand NDP leader, is hard to say. However, as the Canadian elite grows more insular and disconnected from the ordinary life of Canada and Canadians, that populist moment draws closer.

Happy Canada Day!

 

 

Here’s Hoping

Holy Cow!!! It is now strongly getting said that Canada is going to take the knee and give up protectionist tariffs on their dairy, telecom, aeronautics, and banking industries in order to save their auto-industry. Total and complete acquiescence to U.S./Mexico Demands. pic.twitter.com/xoegWXIB2H

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) August 29, 2018

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Sundance is a remarkably well informed American commentator who pays attention to trade. The above is not confirmed but if that turns out to be the Canadian position the politics will be fascinating.

A complete capitulation to Trump would make Trudeau look like the wimp most of us already think he is. It would also give us a chance to catch the tailwind of the current American economic boom.

It would, I suspect, cause the left in Canada to implode simply because it would suggest that their hero Justin takes business more seriously than posturing. And when you give up posturing what does the left have left?

As Trump would say, “We’ll see what happens,” but real Canadian patriots have to hope that common sense prevailed and that we are on the road to genuine free trade with our friends to the south.

[Note seeing much action on the CDN/USD front. If the above is true I would expect a fairly sharp rise in the value of the Canadian dollar.]

Milk Fight

The Donald seems obsessed with Canadian Dairy tariffs. As well he might be as they can go as high as 290%.

Over the next week or so, Canada and the US are going to have to climb down from their rather silly positions on everything from aluminium to felt pens.

A good place to start is with Canadian dairy. Why not announce a zero tariff on hormone/antibiotic free milk? It is a tiny percentage of American dairy production but a huge percentage of Canadian dairy is both hormone and antibiotic free.

Trump seems to be attracted by shiny objects and a “win” on dairy is very shiny indeed.

Interests

“No nation has friends only interests.” (Charles de Gaulle)

As I write the estimable Nikki Haley (2024…you go girl) tweeted to the assorted thugs who are ambassadors to the UN,

“At the UN we’re always asked to do more & give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us. On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names.”

Oh my…

Here’s a suggestion to the ethically challenged (and frankly, what a crock) Prime Minister of all the Canadas…Pay attention.

Canada has no skin in the game as to the location of the US Embassy to Israel. And we have no reason to believe that the capital of Israel is anywhere other than Jerusalem. While we are certainly “Yah, Peace.”, recognizing reality is a very important step to that peace.

But we have all manner of issues on the table with our American cousins. NAFTA, F-35s, border security, softwood lumber, pipelines.

From a Canada First perspective, who matters more? The US or a rag tag bunch of intransigent Palis and their European enablers?

Justin has the opportunity to end Trump’s isolation on the Jerusalem issue. We can vote with our American friends. We can announce that we are seriously looking at moving our Embassy.

The fact is that The Donald wants to be liked. He wants friends. He wants “respect”. We can take an issue which is literally of no consequence to Canada’s interests and run up points in Trumpland.

The Donald is a guy who remembers his friends.

Canada needs to be a friend.

It is in our interest.

 

Well, we can’t have that!

Regular readers and friends will know that I wrote a book last year entitled “Start and Run a Marijuana Dispensary or Pot Shop” (yes, hit the link and buy the book…I make about a buck). The book was written in anticipation of Trudeau’s legalization strategy here in Canada and the likelihood that many more American states would legalize recreational or medical marijuana in the November elections.

I don’t have a particular axe to grind in the pot wars. If I smoke pot I go to sleep in three minutes or less. So I don’t. If I had trouble sleeping, I would. But, politically, I think it is assinine to keep marijuana (and several other drugs) illegal. Doing media for the book I have chattered away on assorted Canadian radio programs and said, bluntly, that for the time being, opening a pot shop in Canada opened you to the business risk of “GOING TO JAIL”. My lovely publicist Hanna probably grimaces when she hear me say that but it is, absurdly enough, true.

Which was proven today.

Police officers in several Canadian cities raided illegal marijuana dispensaries linked to activists Marc and Jodie Emery on Thursday, charging them and several others with drug offences as part of an investigation led by Toronto police.

The raids were the latest attempt by local police forces to shut down pot shops that have been opening in cities across the country, even as the federal government prepares to fully legalize the drug with legislation this spring. It was also notable for the involvement of Vancouver’s police force, which has largely left dispensaries in the city alone, including those run by the Emerys.

The two were arrested at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Wednesday as part of a Toronto police operation called Project Gator. the globe and mail

Now, what is actually going on is that the prohibitionist faction in the Liberal Party, led by ex Toronto police chief Bill Blair, having lost the big argument to young Justin, is fighting a brutal rear guard action against the hippy libertarian pot people who don’t see the need for massively intrusive pot regulation. And there is no better place for such un-Canadian anarchists than court and then jail.

The game here is simple: legalization if necessary but not necessarily legalization. The dumbo Millennials who flocked to hip young Justin heard him say “legalization” and didn’t hear all the caveats. But Bill Blair did. And Bill Blair is not the sort of guy who likes any sort of disorder. (Disorder needs to be kettled in Blair world.) The emergence of a grey market in pot is disorderly. It means that the big money guys at Canopy and the other publically listed potcos might be cut out of a “bottom up” recreational marijuana market.

Blair said a day ago that Canada would not rush into the legalized recreational pot market. First there is the legislation which is expected in spring. Then there are the regulations to be worked out with the provinces…

Lawmaker Bill Blair — the former Toronto police chief leading Trudeau’s legalization effort — confirmed a bill is due in parliament this spring, but it won’t be the last hurdle as ample regulatory work remains. The federal government will take its time and work with provinces, territories and cities to build a framework and develop specific regulations, he said.

The government is also looking for ways to control production, distribution and consumption of legalized marijuana, while testing it for quality and keeping it out of the hands of minors, Blair said. bloomberg

All of which should give assorted police forces plenty of time to raid, charge and crush the emergent, unregulated, pot industry in Canada. (To save the children and ensure “purity” of course.)

Trudeau’s supporters are far too stupid to realize what is going on. In fact, Trudeau himself, who simply wants to legally be able to enjoy a joint after dinner, isn’t bright enough to realize the prohibitionists and the corporate pot guys are now running this show. He’s been played.

Marc and Jodie Emery are the go to people for media on the pot issue. Given the charges filed today, they may not be available much longer. Which is exactly what corporate pot in Canada has been pushing for.

 

(And…WTF? Vancouver too. Shame on you VPD.)

Update: 

Ottawa policeman raids pot shop

Ok, why the mask?

Masked police may make sense in terror situations but, so far as is known, pot shop owners don’t track down cops.

So why the mask. There are other pictures of the raids on Cannabis Culture with other masked officers. Why?

I can imagine the poor buggers are ashamed of themselves but that is no justification for wearing masks. I suspect the elephant gun is for taking down the maddened stoners frequenting the shops. But the mask?

The mask is about intimidation plain and simple. The hidden face of the big state showing those hippie libertarians who’s boss. Anti-terror cops sometimes wear masks although they shouldn’t because they should be proud of what they do. Secret police wear masks because they know they cannot be proud of what they do.

So, Justin, you might ask Bill Blair, just out of interest, why the masks?

 

Trump and the Canadians

Canadians’ views on American politics are generally fairly predictable. Being Canadian means a degree of smugness blended with a drop or two of envy and a fairly constant need to assert moral superiority. In a very polite, but persistent way.

The candidacy, nomination and election of Donald Trump gave the better class of Canadian plenty of opportunity to show each other just how intelligent and enlighted they were. The Coynes and Kinsellas competed with each other in the political snobbery sweepstakes. Trump was Hitler, the Republicans the Nazi Party, Steve Bannon was a badly dressed Goring or, more likely, Satan himself. Breitbart News was Der Stürmer, the alt-right was universally the SS, the Trump regime overnight transformed America – save for the brave “Resistance” – into an anti-semitic, racist, fascist, misogynistic state in which freedom of the press and human rights in general were crushed under the jackbooted heels of Trump’s evil to a man (and pretend woman) Cabinet.

It has been tons of fun to watch ostensibly rational, intelligent, people reach immediately for the white supremacist smear tool kit in the face of the unthinkable occurring in our neighbour to the South.  The fact that, one month into the Trump Presidency, the worst he seems to have done is be rude to CNN and the New York Times doesn’t deter our good and decent Canadians one bit. They just know that Trump is an evilton and, at any moment, will open the concentration camps and start rounding up Mexicans, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Women, Queers, NYT reporters and anyone else the human Cheeto and his henchmen find objectionable.

And, to make the entire thing even more ominous, there seems to be a belief that Trump was put into position by none other than Prince of Darkness, Vladimir Putin and that Trump is simply following orders. Or something.

Step by step refutations of all or some of this hysteria have next to no effect. the Canadian reaction to Trump is not a “political” reaction in any common sense of that term. It is far more visceral, more religious, more tribal: Trump could be a very good President, accomplish great things, improve the condition of black people, defend the 1st Amendment and preside over an economic boom lifting all boats and he would still, to the Canadian commentariat, be the Hell Spawn of Satan.

Now some of that commentariat, like Kinsella, are simply stupid partisans for whom nothing Trump says or does will ever be anything but evil. These were the people who, had they been Americans, would have eagerly voted for Hilly on her merits. (A touching act of faith performed by very few actual Americans – the “hold your nose for Hillary” voters constituted the bulk of her support.)

The mildly more rational, like Coyne, seem to see Trump as essentially impossible. Back before the election Coyne was rumbling on about not being able to see how anyone could support Trump. More recently, he is using the Trump re-alignment in American politics as a stick with which to beat up the Canadian conservative Manning Center conference for having rightish agenda items and some populist speakers.

The biggest worry, the nightmare scenario, for the Canadian media and political elite, is the possibility that Canada is not entirely unanimous in its fevered rejection of Trump and all he stands for. There is an awful possibility that we do not live to welcome refugees. And there seem to be some ungracious Canadians who believe that people who come to Canada should adopt Canadian ways and “fit into mainstream Canadian society”. Yikes!

There is some evidence that, once they realize what it costs and how little effect it will have, Canadians are not entirely willing to do whatever it takes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

There are even some Canadians who are growing a tiny bit suspicious that mainstream Canadian media might not be reporting objectively. In fact, when Macleans let a bunch of its staffers go a few weeks ago, there were nasty Canadians saying “good riddance”.

Despite the frantic efforts of the Kinsellas and Coynes of this world, there are disturbing signs not every Canadian is thrilled with rule by the Laurentian elite.

For all of his foibles, the late Rob Ford’s success in Toronto, worried Canadian elites. I mean it’s one thing to have yahoos in Alberta electing hard core conservatives, but this was Toronto.

The three leading contenders for the Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership are all running from the Right. Leitch because that gave her an edge in the early going; O’Leary because, well, who knows what goes on in that strange little man’s head; Bernier because he has run and been elected as a libertarian conservative for years.

Mainstream media is bleeding out, unable to compete with online, unable to adapt to the internet and unable to attract revenue. It is being replaced by everything from VICE and The Rebel to news and views delivered by social media. The cozy relationship between the Globe and Mail, CTV, CBC and the Ottawa political world is collapsing because ambitious politicians can by-pass the media elite.

If our commentariat thought about it for a bit they would realize that the actual reality of Trump is not that he is orange Hitler; rather he and the people around him have figured out how to culture jam traditional media, traditional politics and, perhaps, the deep state. Thinking about how Trump managed to do that would be more interesting than thinking crapping on him from great height somehow matters.

The people, the Canadians, who realize that Trump was actually about something important and transformative will have a clue about what is likely to go on in Canada in the next few years.