Comment by footy
4 days ago
Good. Carney also remarked our relationship with China is now more predictable with our relationship with the states (wild shade coming from him) just to really make it clear to certain parties why this is happening.
Cheaper car options in this country will be nice, and I say this as a certified car hater who's yet to own one despite pushing 40.
Who wants to be a trade partner with the US these days? I honestly ask people who aren't fully indoctrinated or already have ties established?
Its a dependency that I have to think almost all countries/businesses are evaluating. How do you do business and set up long term supply chains in a country can't trust that the economic policy of today exists in 3 months, they are actively trying to undermine their currency and the system of law is under heavy pressure to the point of failure.
It is tough to be supportive of the United States under this administration or that the future state of the US will be more sound. Having their formally closest trade partner looking over to China for trade is a massive signal.
The trade off is the market is large and strong financial (availability of capital) foundation - but I fear thats changing.
Anybody who knows what a huge market US is, filled with tons of millions of people that spend big, even when financially unsound.
But an unstable market which is not what companies want
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It's a bit more than a quarter (25.6%) of the whole world's GDP, so pretty much everyone.
Non political leadership in the US is getting rattled. I don't know if you watched everyone freak out about WH targeting of the fed last week.
Rank and file GOP got rattled with that one.
Same reason everyone wanted to get into the China market. The size of the market and potential to make money.
I think the niche for EV's in Canada will be regional-ish transportation... I would love to see a network of chargers that fully cover the Trans-Canada Highway, but there are still some pretty significant gaps, for example Hwy 17 - If even one of the stations goes down you'd be stranded.
But in that niche I can really see cheap EVs taking off. I know several people who live in Toronto whose cars have never been more than ~80 KM from home, and rarely been over 100 KM/h. That's a perfect EV user.
And a huge plus would be to get rid of the monster American trucks & SUVs that take four parking spots and two lanes at a time...
As a Torontonian that last part is honestly what I'm most excited about. Massive American cars simply do not belong in most of our streets in this city, and if this starts the long process of getting them out that's going to be amazing. I've seen Cybertrucks zooming down streets that are about a Cybertruck and a half wide and it's an untenable situation.
The issue on massive cars comes from your own government not it being american and chinese. Look at what ford builds in europe: same style of cars as the europeans because tax and regulatory environment favors smaller cars.
Massive trucks are useful for construction. You should get better transit so less people have cars.
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I bought my first car in SF, a 2016 Spark EV. Tiny subcompact, 135 km range, perfect for our family of 4 (including dog + daughter).
I literally can't buy any subcompact car these days in USA or Canada, since Spark (petrol) was discontinued in 2022, Prius C (subcompact hybrid) discontinued, and Bolt EV (bigger but still small) discontinued and will be replaced with something even bigger.
Looking forward to inexpensive BYD Seagulls flooding Canada and hopefully encouraging dealers to bring in existing subcompacts that they sell everywhere else in the world.
The other is the two car family. One can be EV, leaving the other for trips.
Try to gas up at night in Saskatchewan without a coop card. Had to pitch my tent next to someone's field and gas up in the morning after being unable to prepay at 3 gas stations. In a similar situation with an EV I would've knocked at doors in the morning and politely asked to charge on one of their outlets. I bet I would've been offered breakfast and made friends while my vehicle slowly charged.
A bit of nuance: yes, Carney said that but he didn't just offer up the opinion unprompted - it was in response to a direct press question about if China or the US is a more predictable partner right now.
And even then, he didn't lead with "China is!" but wandered his way into offering the assessment.
The context makes his comment on this seem less nakedly provocative (not that it'll matter either way - the headline will be the headline, and the Trump admin will use it however they see fit as usual).
You do realize that this will impact the car industry and jobs in Canada, right? Even a not-so-good deal with the usa would be much better that this overall!
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"sends money" doing a lot of lifting here
The enemy of my enemy...
I mean Canada's largest trading partner is the US, which also has many examples of large scale human right abuses.
As a Canadian, it's not really relevant to me that a country we trade with isn't liberal, and I don't agree with the premise that China is inheriently anti-west. Anti-western values, yes, but China does not threaten west violently in anyway that I can see. They mostly threaten western dominance economically.
IMO, Canada should just do what's best for its citizen, which is get good trade deals, and ensure that our values don't morph into something unrecognizable. What other countries do in their own borders is largely irrelevant.
> in the US, which also has many examples of large scale human right abuses.
Excuse me? Citation is needed here for present day human rights abuses in the US.
> Canada should just do what's best for its citizen, which is get good trade deals, and ensure that our values don't morph into something unrecognizable. What other countries do in their own borders is largely irrelevant.
It’s extremely relevant, if you believe in personal liberties and democracy you should to do business with societies that uphold personal liberties and democracy it’s that simple.
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China doesn't do friends - thats for sure. However if you have a transactional trade relationship with clear boundaries that don't get undermined due to random temperaments you can build on that. The other is impossible to build on - especially threatening to own the country.
This is an eye opening event.
Yeah. Nations need reliable partners more than they need unreliable friends.
China and their famously steady temperament would never be so bold as to try to own a dependent country or strategically weaponize trade. These are real things Canadians believe - talk about eye opening!
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neither does America, and they're much closer and dangerous to us at this time.
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The idea that any country does 'friends' is, frankly, incredibly naive. Besides, Carney doesn't want to be friends with China, he wants to open up the market between the two countries. Of course, everyone here was better off when the trade flows crossed the natural north/south border, but this dependence created a weakness in a situation where our neighbourly hegemon decided to not be so neighbourly anymore. Turns out we weren't friends either.
predictability != friendship
And America currently does neither.
Does the US “do friends?” Does France? Does any country?
Shared values do have meaning and an importance. They used to mean a fair bit especially when you needed to fight an aggressor.
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Between the US and China, one is right now making active threats to invade and annex Canada, the other is not. "Who should we forge ties with" seems pretty obvious.
No one is making serious threats to invade Canada, that's ridiculous. We don't need maple syrup that badly.
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Geopolitical / economic activity doesn't happen on the basis of friendship.
The US has exploited Canada for decades. Sometimes it's been somewhat beneficial for some part of the Canadian working class. Other times not.
China will do the same. Just from a further distance.
Americans who like to convince themselves that the US has been doing charity work for us are delusional. They've benefited from discounted resources and cheap labour.
Now China will benefit from that instead, and the US will look internally for cheap labour of its own. American workers who think they'll get a good deal out of cutting Canada out of the equation... again, delusional. Their necks are first on the chopping block. First through paying more at the cash register because of tariffs, and next because the Trump admin will be coming after their salaries next.
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