RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2025. As this summer weekend began (with a somewhat boisterous outdoor wedding party, on the lot immediately behind us, next street over), I suddenly stumbled across four quick notes on key current events in Canada and the wider global village today :

(1) “The world will adapt and improve itself by being less dependent on the Unstable States.” At 8:30 yesterday morning “Peter Ratcliffe, forever Canadian@PeterHRatcliffe” posted what strikes me as a wise and too-often-underplayed (if also perhaps somewhat radical?) position on Canadian international trade policy in the second Trump interlude : “Trump will ‘set his own tariff deals’. There was, now seemingly, never a point in negotiating with an authoritarian bully. He wanted all negotiations to fail, so he kept moving the targets … The world will adapt and improve itself by being less dependent on the Unstable States.”

(2) “Most of what our economy produces—close to 80%—never crosses a national border …it is produced in Canada, by Canadians, for Canadians.” The Ratcliffe position here reminded me of a provocative Toronto Star piece by the labour economist Jim Stanford, first published late this past March. Trump “has claimed Canada is ‘not viable’ as a country without exporting to the U.S. … This is false. Canada is the 10th largest economy in the world, with enormous human and natural resources … most of what our economy produces—close to 80%— … is produced in Canada, by Canadians, for Canadians … Trump’s trade war will cause enormous disruption.” But we can be “confident in our country’s ability to … ultimately thrive, even as we shift our orientation away from reliance on exports to the U.S. market.”

(3) “Weakness of Conservative commitment to Canada suggested by these polling numbers not confined to Manitoba” . These first two quotations help explain why some of us have been disappointed by PM Mark Carney’s recent Canada-US trade concessions.

I eg thought Carney just might have solid plans for navigating the future Canadian economic space suggested by Ratcliffe and Stanford. But right now (understandably enough, in some ways?) Canadian federal policy seems most concerned to save existing jobs (or try to), rather than build new conditions for new jobs.

Some reasons I nonetheless still broadly support Liberal PM Mark Carney are suggested in a recent X/Twitter post from fellow counterweights editors. It was inspired by a poll showing that in Manitoba when All respondents were asked whether they wanted to Remain in Canada or Leave (and become “independent”), 70% said Remain and 22% said Leave. But when the results were broken down by vote in the last provincial election (won handily enough by Wab Kinew’s New Democrats), they showed New Democrats 94% Remain and 2% Leave, with Conservatives 42% Remain and 52% Leave!

The counterweights editors briefly responded : “The weakness of Conservative commitment to Canada suggested by these polling numbers is certainly not confined to Manitoba in the middle of the country. And it is distressing, even with the solid pro-Canada majority in the All results. A Trumpian [w]edge?”

(4) On books in progress about democracy today. My last early summer quick note takes up another yesterday morning post from Peter Ratcliffe, forever Canadian@PeterHRatcliffe : “4 Years ago I started writing a book on revising democracy to better serve average citizens. I paused because democracy was changing so quickly. Today’s democracy was unimaginable even 4 years ago; now the book would be a crash cart for somehow saving democracy from itself.”

I too have been working on a book “tentatively entitled Children of the Global Village : Democracy in Canada Since 1497” — and for considerably longer than 4 years. But, with an online draft now almost complete (except for some not-quite-finished bibliographic notes) I feel that the longer I wait for any kind of hard-copy publication (while continuing to adjust the opening and ending chapters, as it were), the more relevant my manuscript becomes.

I’d concede this may just be an excuse for aged dawdling with the project in its final stages. Readers crazy enough to be interested could judge for themselves by looking quickly at the online drafts for “Prologue : too much geography” and/or “Epilogue : the near future.”

Generally, whatever else, I do think PM Carney is solidly enough in our long-evolving tradition of Democracy in Canada .

(Tho here as well I disagree with him strongly about what seems to be his position on the symbolic future of the British monarchy in 21st century Canada.)

With Liberal Party of Canada leader Mark Carney in office the deepest threats to democracy in Canada continue to come from the not-so-friendly giant next door.

(Tho again I would not personally say the same thing at all about the present leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who did lose his seat as MP in the last Canadian federal election!)