🇨🇦 Ottawa bets Canada on a trade deal GM says it cannot live without

When General Motors says renewing CUSMA is very important, read the subtext: Canada’s auto sector is now so hollowed out and externally dependent that one treaty review can throw the whole political class into a panic. GM executives and lobbyists met in Ottawa this week while Mark Carney’s government scrambled to sound calm, as reported. That is the Trudeau-era legacy in one neat package: deindustrialize, overregulate, subsidize vanity EV fantasies, then pray Washington keeps the continental assembly line open.

CUSMA may be necessary, but let’s spare the fairy tale that this is strategic strength. It is managed dependence dressed up as partnership. Canada no longer negotiates from sovereignty; it negotiates from fear of capital flight, plant closures, and another lecture from the corporate consultant caste about competitiveness. Our rulers sold out energy, buried productivity, imported population growth to fake GDP, and now act heroic for trying to preserve a deal that keeps us bolted to American industrial policy. That is not nation-building. It is vassal management with bilingual press releases.

🍁 Maple Chronicles