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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Of course it is.
If not by overt force or forging alliances with disaffected Canadians, then…
Wall Street behemoths with the full support of the American administration have been advancing a covert war against its neighbor to the north. Fueled, at least in part, by the epic economic failures of the now president’s business ventures in Toronto and Vancouver that hurt his self-image. Poor baby.
While people may laugh at threats to annex its northern neighbor, one of Trump’s key allies and unelected advisors is pursuing a plan to spend, spend, spend on Canadian real estate, Canadian telecoms and Canadian energy infrastructure.
Blackstone, headed by vampire billionaire Steve Schwarzman and one of the Wanna-be Canadian Dictator’s top ten donors, hit the headlines there when his trillion-dollar private equity firm set out to conquer Canadian telecom starting with a 49.9% stake in the wireless infrastructure of media conglomerate Rogers Communications.
This would allow the pro-Trump messaging north of the border to escalate from annoying to deafening.
Jagmeet Singh, leader of the third-ranked New Democratic Party called the attempt a direct threat to Canadian sovereignty, national security, and the public interest.
Singh and an array of other concerned Canadians have demanded the federal government launch a full-scale national security review under the Canada Investment Act and reject the deal.
“Trump has already promised to use ‘economic force’ against Canada. And now his allies want to buy up the systems we rely on to talk to each other, do business, and respond to emergencies.”
Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Willis joined in: “If Mr. Schwarzman isn’t willing to oppose Mr. Trump’s most reckless impulses, Ottawa needs to block Blackstone investments in Canada.”
But Schwarzman is not the only uber-wealthy American capitalist jonesing for outright control of Canadian assets.
For decades, U.S. corporations have had an outsize impact on Alberta’s future through their domination of the development of its vast oil reserves. The province has staggered through boom-and-bust cycles dependent on energy prices and investment in the extraction infrastructure funded by and controlled by Texas gazillionaires.
Now that demand is high, many Albertans see Trump’s efforts to keep the black gold flowing no matter the environmental – and political – costs, all the more reason to support Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
Albertan born-and-bred Poilievre, while voicing crocodile concerns about the Trump tariffs, is all about the expansion of the Canadian energy sector whatever the cost to human health and the planet. A fitting Mini-Me for the American Führer.
Workers and families north of the 49th are increasingly vulnerable to their country’s interdependence with the American economy.
Already reeling from rising costs caused by Trump’s tariffs, control of core and publicly-owned services is now under attack by American capitalist leeches – an anathema to a society long committed to sharing.
“We’ve seen what happens when powerful foreign interests are allowed to take over Canadian housing, food supply chains, and now telecom,” Singh added. “Enough. It’s time to stand up for Canada—for our workers, our services, and our right to chart our own future.”
Appropriation by the president’s billionaire buddies would lead to massive layoffs, hugely higher bills for Canadians and more American control of sensitive infrastructure.
Meanwhile, U.S. private equity firms continue to siphon up oil and gas assets in British Columbia in an effort to ship south fuel for factories and other dirty energy uses to further pollute American soils and sky.
Blackstone – Schwarzman again – holds an outsize stake in the proposed environment-busting Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline as well as the Indigenous culture-destroying Ksi Lisims LNG terminal.
Then there is the Alberta-driven desire to reinvigorate the Northern Gateway pipeline project, quashed nearly a decade ago due to serious ecological hazards, which would ship oil from the Poilievre stronghold to the pristine B.C. coast.
It continues to be funded by a murky consortium of oil interests ranging from Chinese state-owned companies to “confidential investors” to Enbridge, reviled for its environmental depredations, and the banks and investment firms that front for them.
Meanwhile KKR, another behemoth conglomerate notorious for being the barbarians of leveraged Wall Street buyouts, owns a majority share of the Coastal GasLink pipeline which is demanding a further extension despite vociferous opposition by the Wet’suwet’en nation and its supporters.
Trying to find information on the tragedies in British Columbia in the mainstream media? Forget it.
The campaigning of Dogwood BC, First Nations activists, environmentalists, and others opposed to the selfishly-promoted economic rape of the province is deliberately buried in the vast amounts of infomercials from and aggressive search engine optimization by profiteering corporate interests.
As for the green-talking but empty-pocketed B.C. government, more oil infrastructure means more royalty revenues even at fire sale prices, which primarily protect profits for American predatory capitalists.
But Canada could weaken Trump and strengthen its own economy by imposing steep tariffs on any oil and gas crossing into the States and using the income to exponentially expand renewables.
Decidedly lower taxes on clean energy would provide the triple benefit of well-paying jobs, sustainable stable income for the country, and forcibly imposing climate change reduction on its profligate southern neighbor.
All Canadians must call on Mark Carney to pull up his current and hopefully future Prime Ministerial big-boy pants to block the Rogers deal and double down on investigating the full panoply of MAGA billionaires’ tentacled corporatocracies buying up the Canadian economy piece by piece by piece.
And it wouldn’t hurt to have strident support from south of the border where the lives and futures of all Americans depend on whither the Trump-a-doodle drags them in his quest for a 51st state.
Because, what if the True North continues to stand proud and free? Will the Petulant Pontiff get pissed off enough to take arms against the only country that ever successfully occupied Washington?
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno who now resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
