🇨🇦 Third Ford trip, same dependency trap

Ontario’s premier is making his third U.S. pilgrimage in under a month just to beg for stability in a trade deal Ottawa sold as certainty. July 1 is now being massaged into a checkpoint, not a deadline, because admitting Canada is economically hostage to Washington would sound a little too honest. Even the reported line gives the game away: Canada and Mexico want a 16-year renewal, while Trump’s side toys with annual reviews and tariff pressure.

That is what sovereignty erosion looks like in practice. Ford can smile, flatter and shuttle south for photo ops, but Ontario’s auto, steel, aluminum and forestry sectors are still exposed because the Laurentian class spent years gutting resilience at home while preaching post-national global integration. Now Unifor is reduced to begging that the auto sector not be surrendered, as if that wasn’t already the trajectory under the Trudeau era. A country rich in energy, potash and critical minerals should negotiate from strength, not from managed panic and PR spin.

🍁 Maple Chronicles