Latest news with #GOLDSTEIN
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GOLDSTEIN: 'Elbows up' was Liberal rhetoric while policy was 'quietly fold' on tariffs
As it turns out, Prime Minister Mark Carney's election strategy of publicly talking tough about taking on U.S. President Donald Trump in his tariff/trade war, while practising a far more conciliatory approach behind the scenes, was hiding in plain sight all the time. Ian Bremmer, president of New York-based Eurasia Group, a political risk analysis firm with close ties to Carney, accurately predicted this strategy in a March 26 column titled, 'The end of the transatlantic relationship as we know it.' Unlike Mexico, which took a more conciliatory approach, he wrote, 'Canadian leaders have a political incentive to put up a bigger fight because Trump's threats toward Canada's economy and sovereignty have sharply inflamed nationalist sentiment north of the border in the run-up to the April 28 elections. However, I expect Ottawa will quietly fold shortly after the vote to ensure that ongoing relations with the U.S. remain functional.' This now appears to have been the Liberals' successful election strategy all along. LILLEY: Carney dropped most tariffs the day after meeting Trump KINSELLA: Anita Anand seems to side with Jew-and-Israel-haters in propaganda war GOLDSTEIN: Carney, like Trudeau, thinks big deficits are the answer to tough times GOLDSTEIN: Honda decision raises doubts about Canada's $52.5 billion bet on EVs Carney initially said 'dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs by Canada' against the U.S. 'should be a given' during the Liberal leadership race – 'elbows up' as the popular saying went. But after becoming prime minister, Carney said this was unrealistic given that the Canadian economy is 'a tenth the size of the U.S.' According to a Bloomberg News report in the National Post last week, on May 7 – the day after Carney's cordial meeting with Trump in the White House and nine days after Carney won the election – 'Canada … effectively suspended almost all of its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products,' having 'announced a six-month tariff exemption for products used in Canadian manufacturing, processing and food and beverage packaging, and for items related to health care, public safety and national security. 'Automakers got a break, too: companies that manufacture in Canada, such as General Motors Co., are allowed to import some vehicles into Canada tariff free.' (The finance department announced these moves in a little-noticed April 15 news release becoming effective, as my Postmedia colleague Brian Lilley reported, when they were published in the Canada Gazette on May 7.) Tony Stillo, of Oxford Economics, told Bloomberg that based on his firm's calculations, Canada's tariff-rate increase on the U.S. is now 'nearly zero,' adding, 'It's a very strategic approach from a new prime minister to really say, 'We're not going to have a retaliation.'' That's very different from Carney's messaging during the campaign. Was Bremmer able to predict the Liberals' strategy in advance because of the close ties between Carney and Eurasia Group? Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to prime minister Justin Trudeau and an adviser to the Carney campaign, is vice-chairman of the Eurasia Group. Evan Solomon, the newly-elected Liberal MP for Toronto Centre, is a longtime friend of Carney, who appointed him as Canada's first minister of artificial intelligence last week. Prior to that, Solomon was publisher of GZERO Media, a Eurasia Group subsidiary. Carney's spouse, Diana Fox Carney, joined Eurasia Group in 2021 as a senior advisor on climate and energy policy. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner noted these connections in a March 27 substack column where she asked, 'Why is a firm closely related with Mark Carney and the Liberals telling the world to expect that Canada will acquiesce to American demands after the election … did Bremmer arrive at his conclusion Canada would 'have to accept Trump's terms eventually' and 'Ottawa would quietly fold shortly after the vote' from discussions with any of these people? Should it be taken as the Liberals' post election plan for tariffs should they form government … it's a question worth asking.' 'That's because … it's not a stretch to imagine that after tricking the Canadian electorate into giving them a fourth term, the Liberals would, in fact, simply capitulate to Trump's demands,' Rempel Garner said while noting, 'Trump's recent comment that he'd prefer the Liberals to win because it would be better for him.' Responding to such observations on social media, Bremmer said on X on March 27 that his commentary, 'assumes (Pierre) Poilievre wins the election (our base case, but it's close)' because 'he is more ideologically aligned with Trump,' even though polls in late March showed the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives. There's nothing surprising about the Liberals pursuing one strategy in public and a different one in private for political gain. And while the economic threat posed by Trump's tariffs hasn't gone away, he appears, for now, to be backing off the most severe sanctions aimed at Canada. That said, Carney's 'elbows up' rhetoric during the campaign appears to have been done mainly for show. lgoldstein@
Toronto Sun
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Sun
Trump team mulls suspending the constitutional right of habeas corpus to speed deportations. Can it?
Let's keep the Maple Leafs' series lead in perspective after OT loss GOLDSTEIN: Carney, like Trudeau, thinks big deficits are the answer to tough times Trump team mulls suspending the constitutional right of habeas corpus to speed deportations. Can it? Photo by Veronica Gabriela Cardenas/Pool Photo via AP, File / AP Article content WASHINGTON — White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller says President Donald Trump is looking for ways to expand its legal power to deport migrants who are in the United States illegally. To achieve that, he says the administration is 'actively looking at' suspending habeas corpus, the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government. Advertisement 2 Story continues below 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 or Sign in without password View more offers Article content Article content tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Trump team mulls suspending the constitutional right of habeas corpus to speed deportations. Can it? Back to video tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Play Video Article content Such a move would be aimed at migrants as part of the Republican president's broader crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border. 'The Constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,' Miller told reporters outside the White House on Friday. 'So, I would say that's an option we're actively looking at,' Miller said. 'Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.' What is habeas corpus? The Latin term means 'that you have the body.' Federal courts use a writ of habeas corpus to bring a prisoner before a neutral judge to determine if imprisonment is legal. Habeas corpus was included in the Constitution as an import from English common law. Parliament enacted the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which was meant to ensure that the king released prisoners when the law did not justify confining them. Your Midday Sun Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. There was an error, please provide a valid email address. Sign Up By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Your Midday Sun will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Article content Advertisement 3 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The Constitution's Suspension Clause, the second clause of Section 9 of Article I, states that habeas corpus 'shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' Has it been suspended previously? Yes. The United States has suspended habeas corpus under four distinct circumstances during its history. Those usually involved authorization from Congress, something that would be nearly impossible today — even at Trump's urging — given the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate. President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus multiple times amid the Civil War, beginning in 1861 to detain suspected spies and Confederate sympathizers. He ignored a ruling from Roger Taney, who was the Supreme Court chief justice but was acting in the case as a circuit judge. Congress then authorized suspending it in 1863, which allowed Lincoln to do so again. Advertisement 4 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Congress acted similarly under President Ulysses S. Grant, suspending habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, it was meant to counter violence and intimidation of groups opposing Reconstruction in the South. Habeas corpus was suspended in two provinces of the Philippines in 1905, when it was a U.S. territory and authorities were worried about the threat of an insurrection, and in Hawaii after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, but before it became a state in 1959. Writing before becoming a Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett co-authored a piece stating that the Suspension Clause 'does not specify which branch of government has the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ, but most agree that only Congress can do it.' Could the Trump administration do it? Advertisement 5 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content It can try. Miller suggested that the U.S. is facing 'an invasion' of migrants. That term was used deliberately, though any effort to suspend habeas corpus would spark legal challenges questioning whether the country was facing an invasion, let alone presenting extraordinary threats to public safety. Federal judges have so far been skeptical of the Trump administration's past efforts to use extraordinary powers to make deportations easier, and that could make suspending habeas corpus even tougher. Trump argued in March that the U.S. was facing an 'invasion' of Venezuelan gang members and evoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority he has tried to use to speed up mass deportations. His administration acted to swiftly deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua to a notorious prison in El Salvador, leading to a series of legal fights. Advertisement 6 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Federal courts around the country, including in New York, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania, have since blocked the administration's uses of the Alien Enemies Act for many reasons, including amid questions about whether the country is truly facing an invasion. If courts are already skeptical, how could habeas corpus be suspended? Miller, who has been fiercely critical of judges ruling against the administration, advanced the argument that the judicial branch may not get to decide. 'Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act which stripped Article III courts, that's the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases,' he said Friday. That statute was approved by Congress in 1952 and there were important amendments in 1996 and 2005. Legal scholars note that it does contain language that could funnel certain cases to immigration courts, which are overseen by the executive branch. Advertisement 7 Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Still, most appeals in those cases would largely be handled by the judicial branch, and they could run into the same issues as Trump's attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act. Have other administrations tried this? Technically not since Pearl Harbor, though habeas corpus has been at the centre of some major legal challenges more recently than that. Republican President George W. Bush did not move to suspend habeas corpus after the Sept. 11 attacks, but his administration subsequently sent detainees to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, drawing lawsuits from advocates who argued the administration was violating it and other legal constitutional protections. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Guantanamo detainees had a constitutional right to habeas corpus, allowing them to challenge their detention before a judge. That led to some detainees being released from U.S. custody. — Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report. Article content Share this article in your social network Read Next
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GOLDSTEIN: Reckless Liberal spending compromised our ability to fight tariff war
Liberal government misspending has left us ill-equipped to fight a tariff war with the U.S. – and one of the only alternatives the government has will be to increase taxes to do so. But don't take my word for it. Those warnings came from Chrystia Freeland when she was finance minister and from parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux. Freeland's warning in her Dec. 16, 2024 resignation letter to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau could not have been more clear. She said that having been overruled by Trudeau on keeping the federal deficit to $40.1 billion for the 2023-24 fiscal year – it came in at $61.9 billion, 54% above the government's own target – Canada lacked the fiscal fire power to fight U.S. President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on Canada effectively. GOLDSTEIN: Carney's carbon tax plan is modern day snake oil GOLDSTEIN: Only Poilievre and Conservatives unequivocally condemn antisemitism LILLEY: Carney didn't need to 'suspend' his campaign – he's hiding As Freeland wrote: 'Our country today faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25% tariffs. 'We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal power dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment … 'It is this conviction which has driven my strenuous efforts this fall to manage our spending in ways that will give us the flexibility we will need to meet the serious challenges presented by the United States.' Trudeau rejected that advice and, in Freeland's words, substituted 'costly political gimmicks,' referring to the government's GST/HST tax break on some goods from Dec. 14, 2024 to Feb. 15, 2025. This hasn't changed now that Mark Carney is the Liberal leader and prime minister. The reality is the Liberals have already severely compromised Canada's ability to fight U.S. tariffs through such measures as providing income supports to workers laid off as a result because, in Freeland's own words, (she's now transport minister in Carney's cabinet) it lacks the fiscal reserves to do so. The implications of this were addressed by the independent, non-partisan parliamentary budget officer in a Jan. 22, 2025 report on the Liberal government's fall economic statement that Freeland resigned over. Yves Giroux warned a number of factors including 'the larger-than-expected deficit in 2023-24 … would leave little capacity to deal with a decrease in revenue or additional expenses without raising taxes' and that 'given the uncertain and volatile global context, the government's economic scenarios downplay risk.' Indeed, a decrease in government revenues and additional expenses is exactly what will happen in a lengthy trade war with the U.S., leading to a recession. Silly slogans like 'elbows up, Canada' ignore the reality that Liberal government misspending has cut off our ability to fight Trump's tariffs at the knees, with one of the only alternatives left to fight it being to raise taxes. Giroux cited other failings in the Liberals' fall economic statement, raising concerns about the true state of Canada's finances. He said the demographic and economic assumptions underpinning it were 'not transparent, and likely inconsistent with government policy with regard to immigration levels.' He warned they were misleading because 'positive impacts of (its) new immigration policies are highlighted … while none of the negative impacts are mentioned.' Giroux warned expenses for contingent liabilities, largely to resolve payments for Indigenous claims, had increased from $15 billion in 2015, when the Liberals took office, to $76 billion in 2023 and 'are an increasing source of fiscal risk.' Based on that, Giroux said, 'There is a clear and pressing need for additional transparency in the government process for estimating contingent liabilities.' He said the Liberal government's 'ability (or willingness) to produce high-quality, timely financial statements continues to deteriorate' and that it had reached 'a new low' by not releasing its public accounts until almost nine months after the end of the fiscal year. 'Even worse,' Giroux wrote, 'the audited financial statements were inexplicably tabled the day after the fall economic statement, rather than prior to, or alongside, the government's economic and fiscal plan … 'As noted ad nauseam by the PBO, the timely publication of the public accounts is crucial for transparency and accountability in government finances.' As we know, shoddy bookkeeping, manipulation of data and delayed reporting of the government's public accounts contribute to wasteful spending and to political corruption in how taxpayers' money is spent. Given that the best indicator of future performance is past practice, it's reasonable to conclude a re-elected Liberal government, after a decade in power, will simply continue these reckless financial practices. lgoldstein@
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GOLDSTEIN: Carney's theft of Poilievre's platform has turned into a farce
If Mark Carney and the Liberals are best equipped to take on U.S. President Donald Trump in a tariff war, why have they stolen their election platform from Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives? This ongoing theft has reached farcical levels, given that the Liberals' economic record of their 10 years in power, as well as Carney's own statements before entering politics, indicate they don't believe in what they're promising and will abandon most if not all of it if re-elected. They've done it before. Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's father, mocked Conservative leader Bob Stanfield in the 1974 election for proposing wage and price controls to break the momentum of inflation, with the phrase 'Zap. You're frozen,' before bringing in wage and price controls in 1975 after he won. Then-Liberal leader Jean Chretien promised in the 1993 election to get rid of the GST and replace it with 'something else'? Chretien was PM for a decade and we're still waiting. Then-Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna assured Canadians before the 2019 election that Trudeau's carbon tax wouldn't go above $50 per tonne of industrial greenhouse gas elections when it reached that level in 2022. After winning that election, Trudeau boosted it to $170 per tonne in 2030. LILLEY: Mark Carney sounds more like a Conservative with each new promise GOLDSTEIN: The nightmare prospect of another Liberal majority KINSELLA: Federal election Mark Carney's to lose – at least for now How many times are we going to be a nation of Charlie Browns believing that this time the Lucy Liberals will hold the football for us so we can kick ourselves into prosperity via their campaign promises? Not when the primary measure of prosperity – real GDP per person – has contracted over the past two years, is almost 50% lower than in the U.S. and the Liberals have the worst record of economic growth of any Canadian government since R.B. Bennett during the Great Depression. The latest example of the Carney Liberals pilfering the promises of the Poilievre Conservatives occurred late last week, when Carney announced his government would cut the GST for first-time homebuyers of new or substantially renovated homes valued at under $1 million, saving then up to $50,000. Poilievre promised that in October, 2024 – pledging, 'You will pay no GST on new homes of under $1 million, saving up to $50,000.' During the Liberal leadership campaign, Carney said that over their decade in power the Liberals had lost control of immigration, the federal budget, deficits and debt, hired too many civil servants and overspent and overtaxed the middle class, and for that reason he's promising a middle class tax cut. Every one of those positions was advocated by Poilievre while Carney was in the private sector being the world's leading global corporate shill for higher carbon taxes and 'shadow' carbon taxes. This while now claiming he will scrap Trudeau's consumer carbon tax – another position he stole from Poilievre – but keep Trudeau's industrial carbon tax, which will raise consumer prices instead of the taxes on them. Poilievre also promised last week to scrap the industrial carbon tax while Carney is promising an additional new carbon tax – a tariff called a 'carbon border adjustment mechanism' – which will see Canadians pay higher prices for imported goods from other countries. Carney promises the Liberals won't go ahead with increases to the capital gains tax they announced in their April, 2024 budget – increases Poilievre opposed from the start. By contrast, then-Liberal finance minister Chrystia Freeland said at the time that the $19.4 billion it would raise over five years was needed to prevent Canada from descending into a dystopian nightmare. Or as she put it, a Canada where 'those at the very top live lives of luxury, but must do so in gated communities, behind ever-higher fences, using private health care and airplanes because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their less privileged compatriots burns so hot.' So, where are the Liberals going to get the money to prevent this nightmarish scenario? That was followed by the Liberals' fall economic statement in December 2024, where they overshot their deficit target of $40.1 billion for the 2023-24 fiscal year by 54%, coming in at $61.9 billion. This despite Freeland having described the lower deficit as a vital financial guard rail against excessive spending. Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux, in assessing the Liberals' fall economic statement, said their economic scenarios lacked transparency, downplayed risks and contingent liabilities facing taxpayers and made demographic assumptions likely inconsistent with government policies. He warned the Liberals' 'ability (or willingness) to produce high-quality, timely financial statements continues to deteriorate.' Based on their record, how can anyone believe Carney/Trudeau Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc who recently told Bloomberg Television that the Liberals are serious about reducing the size of government and spending less? Anyone who agrees with those principles should be voting for Poilievre and the Conservatives, who authored the positions Carney and the Liberals stole, and who actually believe in them. lgoldstein@
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GOLDSTEIN: New Statistics Canada data reveals standard of living on downward spiral
Buried because of the news about the Trump, Vance, Zelenskyy confrontation at the White House on Friday was the release of new economic data by Statistics Canada showing our standard of living has further deteriorated over the past two years. StatsCan reported that Canada's real GDP per capita, which measures economic output per person, adjusted for inflation, a widely accepted metric for measuring a nation's prosperity, fell by 1.4% in 2024, following a decline of 1.3% in 2023. This is part of a longstanding crisis in the Canadian economy that has accelerated under the Trudeau Liberals. It is unsurprising given outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's focus on redistributing income as opposed to growing the economy during his decade in office. Everyone from Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers, who has called it a 'break the glass' emergency, to Liberal leadership contender Chrystia Freeland, who called it the 'Achilles heel' of the Canadian economy when she was finance minister, has sounded the alarm. GOLDSTEIN: Detailing Liberals' carbon taxes for dummies Trudeau government wastes $10.7 billion this year on programs that don't work: Report GOLDSTEIN: Hiking carbon taxes during tariff war is economic madness The root problem is the low productivity of Canada's economy, which Freeland said in her 2022 budget speech, 'matters because (productivity) is what guarantees the dream of every parent – that our children will be more prosperous than we are' – a dream dying in Canada today. Low productivity doesn't mean Canadian workers are lazy but rather that they are not being given access to the latest economic tools and technological advancements to work more efficiently because of a lack of business investment in Canada. This is particularly alarming because of how far Canada has fallen economically behind the U.S. – our largest trading partner – just as we're about to enter a tariff war provoked by President Donald Trump, which will further damage our economy. Jake Fuss, director of fiscal studies for the Fraser Institute writing in The Hub last year, noted that real GDP per capita in Canada during the Trudeau years rose by 1.9%. In the U.S,. during the same period, it increased by 14.7%. University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe, also writing in The Hub last year, said that, 'if Canada had simply kept pace with the U.S. over the past two years our economy would be 8.5% larger – that's about $6,200 more income per Canadian each year.' He estimated that in 2024, the total gap in real GDP per capita between Canada and the U.S. was about $22,000 – $66,300 in the U.S. compared to $44,400 in Canada, in 2015 dollars. In 2024 dollars, he said, the gap was higher – roughly $28,000. 'Put another way', Tombe wrote, 'real GDP per capita in the U.S. was 43% higher than in Canada in 2023. And in 2024, I estimate this gap will widen to nearly 50%. 'Let that sink in for a moment. The U.S. is on track to produce nearly 50% more per person than Canada will. This stunning divergence is unprecedented in modern history.' Freeland warned in her 2022 budget that unless this trend is reversed, 'the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projects that Canada will have the lowest per-capita GDP growth rate among its member countries' from 2020 to 2060. That includes in the G7 to which Canada belongs – along with the U.S., U.K, Germany, France, Italy and Japan. Liberal apologists will try to camouflage this fiscal emergency by pointing out Canada's real GDP increased by 2.6% on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter of 2024, higher than expected. But that was largely because of the dramatic increase in immigration, which the Liberal government authorized, ignoring advance warnings from its own public servants that doing so would increase the cost of living and put added strain on already beleaguered public services such as heath care. Bringing in more people means there is more economic activity, but if it's not matched by economic growth it's bad for everyone – both Canadian citizens and immigrants – which is exactly what happened. Even Trudeau admitted – too late – that his government brought in too many people too quickly and is now belatedly trying to address the crisis by somewhat reducing immigration targets. Trudeau also knew about this crisis when he won the 2015 election, as the Fraser Institute's senior fellow Ben Eisen noted in The Hill Times in January, criticizing then-prime minister Stephen Harper for 'having the worst record of economic growth since R.B. Bennett in the depths of the Great Depression.' During the Harper era, real GDP per capita grew at 0.5% annually. Under Trudeau it's been 0.3%. lgoldstein@
