> I'm fairly certain the Canadian government has more strength, more endurance, and more defendable resources, then all tech companies on Earth, combined, if they fully set all their efforts in that direction.

This seems like a weird point to bring up in this context. The only thing that matters for a tech company to "defeat" Canada over this regulatory bill is whether the population cares enough to make this topic a voting issue. Canada's GDP and mineral resources don't really help it win this kind of "war". I don't really think we expected Zuckerberg to lead the Meta-Battalion across the 49th parallel just to get CBC articles on Facebook sans-tariff.

> The only thing that matters for a tech company to "defeat" Canada over this regulatory bill is whether the population cares enough to make this topic a voting issue.

No, Canada does not operate on the US system in terms of politics, it's much more like the UK in that regard.

Though even in the US voters have close to zero say when it comes to super sensitive topics like where to put nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities, how they are staffed, and so on.

We may wear different colored suits, but Canada and the US are both plutocracies and honestly Canada is much more severely so.

Take just about any industry in Canada and there's between one and five major enterprises that the government is VERY in bed with and fights tooth and nail to keep out competition.

it is very much falling in line with US politics -- speaking as someone in Canada who used to hear conversations about what a bitch Hilary is while at the YMCA.

I got stuck in traffic behind an anti-vax convoy that had "don't tread on me" flags. saw at least one confederate flag. on big Ford or Dodge trucks, too.

Alberta even had a real push for a second to ban gay marriage. wouldn't have survived a federal charter challenge, but it's there. Ontario has a mini-Trump (Ford #2) who is actively trying to privatize everything.

there may be a parliamentary style gov, but the tone, tenor, and driving factors like the urban-rural divide are much closer to the US.

> Canada's GDP and mineral resources don't really help it win this kind of "war".

The USA would like access to those resources, and during trade negotiations, some industries need to be sacrificed (impose tariffs) in order to get access to them.

Amazon's yearly revenue is already more than 1/4 of Canada's GDP...

I think you're underestimating tech companies and overestimating Canada and severely underestimating the influence of money in politics.

US Senators have been found to be bought for as low ten-thousand dollars.

Seriously - if you took the profits from a single tech company ($60 billion for Google in 2022), you'd be able to single-handedly influence every major election in Canada to the point of basically picking the winners. The organizational power of Canada doesn't really matter when the entirety of it can be bought and sold by a single tech company.

I think everyone is intentionally deluding themselves here. Fair elections basically aren't and have never been a thing. In any society. Ever.

The winners have always been picked by a different process than the actual voting. It's like forcing a card in close up magic.

It's the false pretense of fairness and our votes mattering that we need as glue to maintain order.

I am only familiar with US elections, and I agree that it's a rigged system but it does still function a little bit in terms of if things were actually really, really bad, the election system would still work to improve things back to the admittedly sort of crappy status quo. The main reason it fails to work aside from the way its systemically rigged is voter apathy, misinformation, and a lack of critical thinking.