On the NATO scorecard, Donald Trump wins — and our budget loses
Prime Minister Mark Carney holds a closing press conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand, left and Minister of National Defence David McGuinty following the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Sean Kilpatrick The Canadian Pre
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Toronto Sun
an hour ago
- Toronto Sun
KINSELLA: Digital Services Tax a bad idea concocted by Trudeau gang
And PM Mark Carney pushing ahead with the tax has prompted U.S. President Donald trump to retaliate (L/R) US President Donald Trump looks on as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney tells the press they are not taking questions, following their one on one meeting and before the expanded bilateral meeting during the Group of Seven (G7) Summit at the Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada on June 16, 2025. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) Swing, batter! This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Full disclosure and I confess: I campaigned for the Democrats. Now, not every Democrat lacks a soul. Many of them are decent. But quite a few of them, as recent events make clear, have become willing hostages of Jew-hating, democracy-destroying, Hamas-fetishizing crypto-Nazis. As a volunteer on Democratic presidential campaigns – for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024 – I was on the team that played against Donald Trump several times. In so doing, I learned three important things. One, Trump campaigned on killing free trade, and he's doing just that. He's got a mandate to kill free trade, in fact, from 77 million registered voters. Two, he may have written a book called The Art of the Deal, but he never, ever does a deal where he doesn't come out on top. Ever. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Three, he loves making the elites look bad. Those are the guiding principles in Donald Trump's political career, and – along with my friends Hillary, Joe and Kamala – I've never forgotten them. Despite his penchant for fibbing, Trump is pretty transparent about the big picture stuff. He is who he is. (Unfortunately.) Read More Which brings us to Friday afternoon, and Prime Minister Mark Carney learning the above-noted Trump Truisms ™ the hard way. It's unclear, at this point, whether Carney's political popularity is going to take a hit. But there's no doubt that the Liberal Leader has just experienced his first major policy and political failure. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. On Friday afternoon, Trump posted this on his Truth Social platform: 'We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Here we go again. Next stop: yet more '21st state' talk and Mike Myers pep talks. A screenshot from video posted to social media of Mike Myers, left, and Mark Carney. Photo by @MarkJCarney / X What's the 'Digital Services Tax,' you ask? Well, it's an attempt to squeeze revenue out big online service providers like Meta or X or TikTok. It's a tax grab, yes, first concocted by the Trudeau gang about a year ago. It was always a bad idea, as my colleague Brian Lilley has detailed in a kajillion opinion columns, because (a) the online elf-lords were simply going to pass along the cost of the tax to Canadian consumers, (b) it was going to create lots of red tape and government bureaucracy, and (c) it was going to place Canadian exports at risk, because the Americans had repeatedly said they were going to retaliate. And now, Donald has. Tariffs, back. Trade deal, gone. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Carney wanted a shiny new trade pact with Trump, which was never going to happen. Carney somehow convinced himself it could and would, however. So he sent off secret teams to negotiate with the Trump administration, and side-stepped assorted Trump landlines – unlike his predecessor, who had a talent for landing on them. The American media was impressed – over on CNN , Christiane Amanpour gushed that Carney was 'the Trump whisperer.' RECOMMENDED VIDEO Well, actually, no. Not even The Donald's immediate family are 'Trump whisperers.' And so, now, we are back to square one, with Trump attacking us, lying about our trade practices, and threatening even more tariffs. Carney, meanwhile, has become the George Brett of politics – terrific at hitting the ball, but marooned for eternity on third base. Like the retired Kansas City Royal, Carney was so close but oh so far. Is it game over? With Trump, it's impossible to predict. One thing is for sure: next time Mark Carney steps up to bat, he'd be well-advised to remember the Trump Truisms ™ up above. And who knows? Next time he might even get to home base. NHL Sunshine Girls Toronto Raptors Sunshine Girls Canada
Toronto Star
5 hours ago
- Toronto Star
On the NATO scorecard, Donald Trump wins — and our budget loses
Prime Minister Mark Carney holds a closing press conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand, left and Minister of National Defence David McGuinty following the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Sean Kilpatrick The Canadian Pre Opinion articles are based on the author's interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
Globe and Mail
6 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Mark Carney, and the return of the progressive conservative
As Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a massive and immediate boost to defence spending earlier this month, he talked about the importance of using those new funds prudently. 'Every taxpayer dollar is precious,' he said in passing, later adding that his government would not be looking for new sources of revenue to pay for the defence buildup. 'We just cut taxes, we're not raising taxes.' It's easy enough to imagine a Conservative prime minister uttering similar sentiments – much easier than, say, envisioning former prime minister Justin Trudeau waxing on about the need to pinch pennies in the federal budget and making a no-new-taxes pledge. That Mr. Carney was going to drag the Liberal Party back to the centre after years of an NDP-lite government under Mr. Trudeau was to be expected. Two months after the election, the extent of that metamorphosis is becoming clearer – and it is remarkable. Part of that change is atmospheric. There are no more breathless lectures from Mr. Trudeau; they have been, mercifully, replaced by Mr. Carney's boardroom staccato. Unlike his predecessor, the current Prime Minister boasts of being 'laser-focused' on economic growth. And Canadians, happily, have no idea what kind of socks Mr. Carney likes to wear. But more than mannerisms have changed. Since April, the Prime Minister has cut personal income taxes, boosted defence spending dramatically, pledged to cut the cost of the federal bureaucracy, tightened immigration rules, eliminated federal barriers to internal trade, created a framework for breaking the stasis on big national projects and signaled that he will dismiss underperforming top bureaucrats. That's an agenda that Brian Mulroney could have endorsed. In fact, it overlaps a good deal with the actual governing record of his Progressive Conservatives. Mr. Carney is a Liberal but, in the early going, he looks to be governing much like a Red Tory – a progressive kind of conservative. Mr. Carney's agenda is one that the Liberals, in their Trudeau-era incarnation, would have most likely loudly denounced. Indeed, some left-leaning Liberals in the current caucus, including former cabinet minister and leadership contender Karina Gould, have already voiced their disquiet on legislation to speed up megaproject approvals. House approves Bill C-5 to fast-track projects, Carney pledges summer consultations with Indigenous leaders That could portend problems not that far down the road for the Liberal coalition that gave Mr. Carney his minority government. The Liberals corralled the progressive vote, with support for the NDP and Greens plummeting from the 2021 campaign. Will those voters stick with the Liberals if Mr. Carney continues his rightward sidestep? And will Mr. Carney stick with his agenda if his progressive supporters bolt? Another (large) caveat is how Mr. Carney's agenda adds up in the fall budget. Broad statements on finding efficiencies in the public service are enough for now. Canadians will see in a couple of months whether the blue-tinged Liberals will actually reduce the bloated head count of civil servants. Similarly, it's encouraging that Michael Sabia, two days before he was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council, mused about the 'pancake' of regulations that were stifling economic growth. But what will he and Mr. Carney do to reduce the height of the pancake stack? Biggest of all, the swirl of mist surrounding Mr. Carney's fiscal plans will be necessarily dissipated once that budget is tabled. How will the defence buildup be paid for? Will the deficit fall or rise from the groaningly high levels that Mr. Trudeau bequeathed to his successor? The answers found in the budget will determine if Mr. Carney has truly broken from the fiscal recklessness of the Trudeau Liberals. Longer term, there is the open question of how aggressively the Carney Liberals will push badly overdue structural reforms of the economy. Broad tax reform, lowering of foreign ownership barriers, radically paring business subsidies and reducing the regulatory burden: all of those changes are needed to reinvigorate Canada's economy. At the moment, Mr. Carney doesn't look to be abandoning the dirigiste propensities of the Trudeau Liberals, who were unable to see that millions of minds in the private sector might do a better job than a government department. In less than four months, Mr. Carney has reinvented and reinvigorated the Liberal brand, delivering a progressive feel to conservative governance. Canadians will find out soon enough if that is a mere marketing exercise.
