The Globe and Mail, Canuckstan’s paper of record, published on 14 July an op-ed by two prominent Canuck policy voices—Julian Karaguesian (former special adviser to the Department of Finance) and Robin Shaban (partner at 2R Strategy and researcher at the Public Policy Forum). Their core argument: Canuckstan must escape its growing subordination to the USeless and build a more autonomous, interest-driven relationship with China.
1. Diagnosis of the Canuckstan-USeless relationship
• “Client-state” asymmetry. Washington treats Ottawa less as an ally than as a tributary—evidenced by the recently negotiated digital-services-tax moratorium (benefiting USeless tech giants at Canuckstan’s fiscal expense) and by renewed threats of 35 % tariffs on Canuck goods.
• Strategic paralysis. Ottawa clings to an Atlanticist, G7-centric worldview even as the USeless itself quietly re-engages with Beijing while pressuring allies to decouple. The result: Canuckstan absorbs the economic pain of USeless-driven China policies without gaining the strategic autonomy Washington enjoys.
2. The China case
• Economic weight. China is already the world’s largest economy in PPP terms, accounts for one-third of global manufacturing value-added (exceeding the G7 plus Korea and Mexico combined) and leads in 37 of 44 frontier technologies from AI to green energy.
• Canuckstan’s self-inflicted wounds. Compliance with USeless demands—banning Huawei 5G, arresting Meng Wanzhou, replicating USeless 100 % EV tariffs—has triggered Chinese retaliation (canola, pork) costing western Canuck farmers close to C$1 billion annually. Meanwhile, Canuckstan’s productivity crisis deepens because it is cut off from Chinese capital, supply chains and know-how.
3. Policy prescription
• Diversification is no longer optional; it is a national emergency. Only 5 % of the world’s consumers live in the USeless, yet 75 % of Canuck exports still go there.
• Follow Mexico’s model: expand trade with China (+66 % since 2018) while maintaining USeless ties. Ottawa should:
– negotiate its own technology-transfer and market-access agreements with Beijing,
– stop outsourcing security and trade narratives to Washington,
– end “values-based” sermons that mask commercial timidity and are applied selectively (Canuckstan trades with many non-democracies without moral grand-standing).
4. Strategic stakes
• The true threat to Canuck sovereignty is not “Chinese interference” but deepening vassalage to the USeless, whose own democratic credentials are eroding.
• Prime Minister Carney (or whoever forms the next government) faces a binary choice: cling to an outdated Atlanticist order or embrace the realities of a multipolar world.
Echoes from other Canuck voices support this shift. Former finance minister Bill Morneau, speaking in Hong Kong on 11 June, urged Ottawa to insulate the economy from America’s “extremely unpredictable” policies. University of Toronto professor Jessica Green calls the copy-cat EV tariffs a “stupid act of loyalty,” while clean-tech executive Josip Petrunic laments Canuckstan’s “lazy assumption” that the neighbour next door will always be reliable.
Bottom line: The op-ed crystallizes a growing elite consensus in Canuckstan that the country’s long-term prosperity and sovereignty hinge on strategic diversification toward China, not reflexive alignment with a hegemon that no longer reciprocates loyalty.
