The Counter-Revolution and Canada

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By James Pew

As the closest neighbour and biggest trading partner to the United States, Canada can absolutely remain a sovereign nation. We are unlikely ever to become an American state — the 51st or otherwise. But what will remain unacceptable to the Americans, is Canada being or becoming a rogue nation. The Americans can no more tolerate a renegade Canada hellbent on installing the latest globalist brand of leftist managerial authoritarianism — which is but a modernization of the Marxian principles long-animating what was once known as Soviet-led international communism (today, we can refer to it simply as globalism) — than it can tolerate a communist Venezuela, or Cuba oppressing citizens and ensuring those economies never grow and life never improves, regardless of how beautiful the beaches may be. Among other things, it does not look good if the most powerful nation on earth cannot influence its neighbours in a way where those neighbours might not become awful countries.

The Carney government’s insistence on preserving, and perhaps resurrecting the principles of the recently outmoded international progressive project with its global system — the DEI and climate obsessed elite agenda which functioned historically in the so-called post-WWII “rules based order” — is the thing enraging president Trump and straining Canada-U.S. relations. It is telling, as cited recently by American diplomats, that along with China, Canada is the only other nation to “fight back” against Trump’s tariff regime.

Carney’s insolence is not working, and regular Canadians are paying the price for it’s failures. According to Conrad Black, who wrote on Saturday in the National Post, Carney “has shown no recognition of the principal requirements for increasing economic growth and narrowing the unprecedentedly large gap that has arisen between the per capita income of the United States (US$94,000) and Canada (US$60,000, behind, inter alia and with no acceptable excuse, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Israel, Austria, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom).”

Canadians should be furious with Carney and the Liberals. It is shocking that so many of us are still waving our elbows around, are still hung up on Trump’s rhetoric, on his politeness (or lack thereof) towards us humble and kind Canadians, the disrespect shown to our leaders, and his extemporaneous way of getting under our over-sensitive skin. However, and simply because we think far too highly of ourselves, we feel it prudent to turn up our noses at often legitimate grievances put forward by the Americans. We don’t listen! And because we don’t, we are not better than the Americans. We think we are, but all the numbers that measure prosperity decidedly tilt towards them. In fact, and in spite of the manifest delusions experienced by so many Canadians concerning our national character, we are rapidly becoming a country of unlikeable smug snobs, if not fully unhinged, irresponsible, and dangerously petty left modernists (aka demon-possessed globalists, or at least apologists thereof). Unless there is a hard turn into sensibility, successful nations will not work fruitfully with us. We will drag everyone down into our loathsome pit of despair. The world is changing for the better, so what the hell is our problem?

It’s not just populism surging in the West, but Nationalism as well. Authentic nationalism that doesn’t involve elbows. And while this is occurring, it matters not what Canadians would prefer. We may not like it, and as unlikely as it may have seemed a mere decade ago, the orange man is the most consequential world leader of our times, and in spite of his rudeness, impatience and impertinence towards admittedly frustrating Canadians, his agenda, very much inevitable, will lead to a better world. The Liberal’s resistance is not only wasting time, but squandering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Carney’s constant demurring concerning Canada’s new, or soon to be new and reset relations with the U.S., and the American led system of global political economy, is why our country is suffering, why we are not creating prosperity, why new 50% tariffs from the U.S. are soon to be imposed, and why the Americans have placed us in the same category of hard-to-deal-with problem nations as China.

There are no voices in Canada that might help Canadians deal with their derangements concerning Trump and his MAGA project. Even Conrad Black, who is both a friend and supporter of President Trump, is susceptible to the malady. Lord Black’s Saturday NP column (which I have already quoted above), was titled Trump’s unfair tariffs are an opportunity for Canada. While it made many good points, I feel it is a mistake to add fuel to the fire by characterizing Trump’s tariffs as “unfair.” Similarly, on July 25th, Lord Black penned a column titled Canada must not accept disrespect from the Americans. In that somewhat combative piece he proclaimed, “We were the only country that was unjustly treated by Trump’s tariffs.”

Unfortunately, neither of Lord Black’s opinion pieces addressed significantly Canada’s “unfair” treatment or “disrespect” of Americans. Of which recently, on both files, there has been plenty. These somewhat novel sentiments by Black, in my view, are approaching perilously close to the “elbows up” foolishness that has been, at least in part, fueling the animosities between Canada and the U.S. Lord Black is much more useful to Canadians when his commentary takes the approach of interpreting the actions of Trump, and offering hardheaded advice on how Canada should respond — normally that advice is sensible, pragmatic and diplomatic. I concede fully that much of the words and actions coming from Washington, aimed at Ottawa, are both counter-productive and infuriating, if not also unfair and disrespectful. However, I see no advantage in taking the bait. As I’ve stated before in these pages, we should be entirely focused on the minutia, on the boring bits only the trade wonks care about.

Instead of rhetorical elbow checks, public comments from elected leaders and respected columnists like Lord Black, should be indicative of Canada’s old, perhaps phony reputation of being nice and easy to get along with. We should say sweet sugary things, but then bore them to death with the details and intricacies of trade policy — that is a smart strategy for an out-leveraged opponent, one which would get Canada a good deal. Instead though, Carney has shown little interest in even engaging in negotiations, it appears not as some sort of grand strategy, but simply out of apparent cowardice and a lack of a workable plan that would be mutually commensurate with the desiderata of our southern cousins.

Lord Black's strongest argument, which he has made several times in his published commentaries, compares the advantage gained by American firms from Canada regarding crude oil. In fact, according to Forbes, in 2025 Canada supplied 61% of all the crude oil refined in the U.S. In short, the Americans receive the unrefined Canadian input, according to Black, at a “knock down” price, and after refinement resells it mostly domestically at a considerable profit. While this may be true, much of the “knock down” price offered to the Americans is the result of investment in infrastructure. U.S. refineries are specifically built to process the heavy crude that comes from Canada, as well Canadian pipeline networks efficiently supply the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. This discount is structural, not incidental.

According to The Real Economy Blog, “the oil trade between the two countries is a function of geographical proximity, efficiency, cost and infrastructure concerns.” While Lord Black’s economic reasoning still holds together — that Canada’s abundant and cheaply provided crude oil essentially erases the American trade deficit with Canada — the arrangement concerning crude has been made more complex by the efficiencies gained from such large levels of infrastructure development, which were required for such a system to exist. There is more nuance than Black’s rhetoric reveals on its face. Do Canadian oil companies not profit even after offering knock down discounts, considering the knock out volumes sold?

In fact, and I am not claiming this negates Lord Black’s economic argument, but Canadian companies, in spite of the generous discount offered to American oil refineries, have made out quite well under the deal. Far from marginal or breakeven results Suncor reported Q3 2025 net earnings of C$1.62 billion and Canadian Natural Resources reported C$1.29 billion.

Instead of handwringing over such trivialities though, why not focus on the addressable sides of Trump’s grievances? Supply management is a big one. A recent study was not the first to outline the economic harm of supply management, however this new paper quantifies the harm to individual Canadians — namely, that it costs each of us roughly $244 per year. Cancelling the supply management system would be a major bargaining concession helping to give Trump the winning deal he is after, while at the same time helping financially strapped Canadians, and reforming our economy for the better. This would be easier to do if elites embraced the transformative moment — as Carney himself characterized the Trump presidency — instead of complaining about perceived unfairness and disrespect.

Simply and somewhat factiously put, we must bend our elbows in an entirely different direction. We must stop the constant reaching for theatrical and overly emotional rhetoric. When Lord Black, one of Canada’s most sober-minded and accomplished men of letters, appears to be raising his elbows, even slightly, we better pray that it is to scratch some sort of previously unfelt itch, because if he, of all the down-to-earth and practical types among Canada’s formidable intelligentsia, who is respected by Canadians from coast to coast, loses control of the motor circuitry connected to that movement-allowing hinge which separates upper from lower arm, then Canada is truly finished.

It is my view that during this critical moment the analysis should be of the self-examining sort. We are too small a player to be heard or taken seriously by the leading nations of the planet. And the Americans have much bigger fish to fry anyway. We need to cool our jets, and re-holster our pistols. We are becoming an insufferable nuisance to the Americans — a thorn in the side of MAGA (who are the only group on the planet, leading the only movement that offers an effective counter-revolution against the leftist globalists, the world’s tyrannical power elite).

I have long considered Conrad Black to be one of the most sure and sensible Canadian voices. I will continue thinking of him that way, in spite of the somewhat unfortunate turn his columns have recently taken — in all fairness though, and not to belabour the point, both of Black’s recent columns quoted in this essay contain many drops of wisdom, along with sound and coherently argued reasoning. However, my goal with this piece today and many others written recently, is to reorient the Canadian mind concerning all things America. I can think of perhaps nothing more important than to work positively to remake and repair the damage done to the existentially consequential relationship Canada has with the United States.

On that note I leave readers with a short 12-minute video that American academic Victor Davis Hanson produced for the Daily Signal. Hanson explains that Trump is “a true counter-revolutionary,” who is “trying to undo the entire half-century progressive project within 4 years.” In the following Hanson examines the counter-revolutionary nature of the MAGA movement. This is the type of analysis that Canadians most need: Trump Is Undoing a Destructive Revolution 50 Years in the Making.

If one finds Hanson’s analysis intriguing, let it be known he has a new book to be published on September 8th called The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement — which can be pre-ordered on Amazon by clicking the preceding link.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Lawful Access vs. Privacy for James’ examination of Canada’s contentious Bill C-22. Or, for more comparative analyses between Canada and America: Carney’s Spark Fizzles While Trump’s Fuse Ignites A Nation.

Also, James has recently published the first bits of a series of essays explaining Trump’s agenda for Canadians. There are three essays so far (and lots more to come this fall):

1. Canada Recedes While America Booms.

2. The American System vs. The Rules Based Order

3. The History of the American System

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