Shattered interdependence

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatens to cut critical minerals and electricity to the former US over Trump's forthcoming tariffs. {AP 24 August}

https://apnews.com/article/canada-trade-trump-ontario-53c4f83c8365c14b372b314396ae8179

FTA: In the AP interview, Ford said Trump had “declared war, economic war against his closest friend and ally” before invoking Reagan, whose opposition to tariffs Ford previously featured in a television advertising campaign aimed at Americans.

Ford noted that Trump keeps a portrait of Reagan near his desk.

“He’d be throwing up on him from the picture if he knew what was going on, spinning around in his grave right now,” Ford said. “He should maybe take that picture off the wall and move it somewhere else. Because right now, Ronald Reagan would be disgusted with President Trump.”

Ford’s comments came after Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from trade negotiations with the Trump administration late Friday, saying Washington demanded too much in exchange for tariff relief. The United States imposed 50% tariffs Saturday on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, while Carney announced dollar-for-dollar retaliation beginning Sept. 8.

Ford said “everything is on the table” if the dispute worsens, including cutting off electricity and critical minerals from Ontario. He also called for Canada to consider using oil and potash as leverage.

“I’ll cut them off,” Ford said of critical minerals. “You won’t get a grain of sand out of Ontario.”

Critical minerals are increasingly important to U.S. national security and manufacturing. The Pentagon has sought more secure supplies of minerals used in military aircraft, missiles, munitions and electronics as Washington tries to reduce reliance on China, which dominates the mining or processing of several strategically important minerals.

Ford specifically cited high-grade nickel shipped to the United States and uranium refined in Ontario.

“What would they do without the high-grade nickel that we ship down to the U.S.?” Ford said.

Ford said Canada should consider increasingly severe retaliation if Trump continues targeting Canadian industries, including oil and potash, while Ontario could raise electricity prices or stop sending power south.

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” Ford said. “Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The friendship bridge meets an unfriendly era

Getty Images

The Gordie Howe International Bridge opens, connecting Detroit and Windsor, as Trump continues to cause needless tensions. {AP 27 July}

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/gordie-howe-bridge-opens-detroit-trade-rcna589486 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The wildfire didn't need a passport

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Trump, Michigan Republicans theatrically and performatively threaten Canada over wildfire smoke covering US regions. {NYT 17 July}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/weather/trump-canada-tariffs-wildfire-smoke.html?smid=url-share

Ontario Premier Doug Ford provides the best comeback to the latest display of nationalist hysteria, that Canada should be held liable for acts of God. Have they considered those times the shoe hath been on the other foot?

FTA: Earlier on Friday, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, was visibly frustrated with complaints from American lawmakers about the smoke.

“As for other elected officials in the U.S., I have to remind the American people, when there was wildfires in California, we had our water bombers on standby,” Mr. Ford, a conservative, told reporters, listing other American disasters that Ontario has helped with. “If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help, because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends. And that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

The answer to my own question is obvious… these smug #MAGA creeps simply do not care. When America's actions harm Canada or any other nation, they merely shrug. When the roles are reversed, they scream to the heavens and demand retribution (though they will not acknowledge any actual victims beyond invoking them as political props). They are bullies, thugs, and entirely emblematic of who and what the former United States of America hath become in its afterlife. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Trudeau finally shows some backbone, as police clear Ottawa of belligerent truckers protesting vaccine mandates

Reuters

Disrupting industry, blocking critical infrastructure, and threatening violence against anyone opposed to their agenda will never be legitimate forms of protest, and the police should have authorized to suppress this insurrection from the very first day the convoys began amassing. The protests against COVID mandates and the Capitol Hill insurrection of January 6, 2021 are emboldening nationalist populists (also known as Fascists) the world over to impose their anti-intellectual, anti-science, and various other deluded beliefs onto others. It is America – the nation that once brought down European Fascism and liberated millions – that is leading the world into a new totalitarian nightmare. It is the ones who shout the loudest about their ‘freedom’ that are most set on bending society to their will, by any means necessary. Via the New York Times - 

OTTAWA — Police officers on Saturday cleared out the central area of a sprawling demonstration in Ottawa, moving from truck to truck and arresting protesters as they continued to subdue the occupation that has disrupted the Canadian capital for weeks. 

Starting about 10 a.m., police advanced on trucks that had been parked on Wellington Street, the thoroughfare in front of the Parliament building, drawing guns on some vehicles and banging on doors as they searched for any people inside. They arrested several as other demonstrators shouted “Shame on you!” from nearby. In the heart of the main encampment on Saturday, the police pushed people back with batons and irritant spray and made more arrests. 

One demonstrator, David Paisley, a HVAC technician who has spent the protest broadcasting updates from a fishing shack on the back of a flatbed truck known as “the shed,” described the moment an officer entered the vehicle to arrest him. 

“He had a big military rifle, he pointed right at my chest, he yelled at me to get down, on the ground,” said Mr. Paisley, 33, who captured the moment of his arrest on a recorded livestream. “It was like a movie scene.” 

A recording played in French and English, as the police advanced. “You must leave,” it said. “Anyone found in the zone will be arrested.” 

The police operation appeared to be a final salvo in the government’s belated effort to break up the occupation. In recent weeks, the demonstrations, which began with truckers rallying against vaccine mandates, have attracted a variety of protesters airing grievances about pandemic restrictions, claims of government overreach and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s stewardship of the country. 

By midmorning, police had cleared the demonstrators from what had been the occupation’s core, Wellington Street, and set up barricades. The Ottawa Police said that as of Saturday evening, 170 people had been arrested and that 46 vehicles had been removed.  The police declined to discuss their tactics but in a tweet on Saturday, they asked the public to stop calling emergency phone lines “to express displeasure about the police action” to end the protest, noting that making unnecessary calls to 911 was a crime. 

While significantly throttled, the protest was not completely disbanded. As police pushed demonstrators away from Parliament, some congregated on side streets while police warned that there were children in the crowd. “We are seeing young children being brought to the front of the police operation,” the Ottawa police said on Twitter. “This is dangerous and it is putting the children at risk.” (Read more)

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Canadian authorities begin regaining law and order, shutting down trucker protests that closed the Ambassador Bridge border crossing

Robin Buckson/Detroit News

About time law enforcement pushed back against these petulant assholes. Via the Detroit News -  

Windsor — Canadian police removed protesters camped nearly a week near the Ambassador Bridge, a critical U.S.-Canadian border crossing, and regained control Sunday. 

The bridge had been blocked to traffic in Canada since Monday evening, when a protest at the Capitol in Ottawa spread to other cities across the country. The protesting over COVID-19 restrictions and a trucker vaccine mandate has threatened the economies of both nations, the countries' leaders have said. The bridge remained closed Sunday night as authorities continued to crack down on the remaining scattered protesters. 

"Today, our national economic crisis at the Ambassador Bridge came to an end," Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkins said. "Border crossings will reopen when it is safe to do so, and I defer to police and border agencies to make that determination."  

Windsor Police Service Chief Pam Mizuno said 25-30 arrests were made during the crackdown and 12 vehicles were seized that were in or near the blockade on Huron Church Road near the bridge. Authorities did not disclose how many police officers were deployed. 

Despite the crackdown, there was no immediate time frame when the bridge would reopen. "We are working as fast as we can to restore traffic flow and reopen the bridge, and as soon as we can make that happen, we will," Mizuno said. (Read more)

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The White House puts the screws to weakling Justin Trudeau, demands Canada crackdown on trucker blockades at the border

Cole Burston/Getty Images

Disrupting the lives of ordinary citizens is not a legitimate form of protest. Rather, it is terrorism, and these truckers ought to be treated as terrorists. But pretty boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has his thumb up his ass, sitting back and doing nothing. These petulant bullies are already causing great harm to the economies of both Canada and the United States, and they are beginning to inspire copycat protests in the U.S. and around the world. It has to be stopped. -  

The Canadian government is coming under increasing pressure from the United States to resolve anti-vaccine mandate protests that are impacting the economy in both countries with border blockades, including a 5-day shutdown of the vital Ambassador Bridge. 

The “Freedom Convoy” by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, mirrored by the U.S. government, began with the occupation of the Canadian capital, Ottawa. The truckers then blocked the Ambassador Bridge earlier this week, and shut down two other smaller border crossings. 

The closure of the bridge, North America’s busiest international land border crossing and a key supply route for Detroit’s carmakers, has halted some auto output and left officials scrambling to limit economic damage. (Read more)

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Memo to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: Stop being a coward, take charge of your country, and crack down on the convoys

Reuters/Mathieu Belanger

Fascists continue to disrupt life in Ottawa and other Canadian cities with almost complete impunity, while nurses who are counter-protesting are being told they cannot wear their scrubs in public, and ordinary citizens are being physically assaulted for wearing masks. Justin Trudeau is a weakling if I ever saw one. Declare Martial Law, send in troops and clear the streets by whatever means necessary. Do you, Mr. Trudeau, want your country to be a right-wing  s**thole as America has become in the Trump era? Take it from an American, Canada should not want to emulate us. It’s time to bring a full stop to all this Covidiocy everywhere. From Reuters -  

TORONTO/OTTAWA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Thousands of people demonstrated in Canadian cities, including the financial hub Toronto, on Saturday as mostly peaceful but noisy protests against vaccine mandates spread from Ottawa, the capital. 

The "Freedom Convoy" began as a movement against a Canadian vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers, but has turned into a rallying point against public health measures and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government. 

“We're all sick and tired of the mandates, of the intimidation, of living in one big prison,” said Robert, a Toronto protester who did not give his last name. "We just want to go back to normal without having to take into our veins the poison which they call vaccines.” 

Protesters have shut down downtown Ottawa for the past eight days, with some participants waving Confederate or Nazi flags and some saying they wanted to dissolve Canada's government. 

"The protesters in Ottawa have made their point. The entire country heard their point," said Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, who urged protesters to "go home and engage elected officials." 

Ottawa police said hate crime charges were laid against four people and they were investigating threats against public figures jointly with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

The well-organized blockade, which police say has relied partly on funding from sympathizers in the United States, saw protesters bring in portable saunas on Saturday to combat frigid temperatures. 

One man rode through the area on horseback, carrying a Trump flag, social media videos showed. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken out in support of the truckers against "the harsh policies of far-left lunatic Justin Trudeau who has destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates." (Read more) 

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