You do realize that this will impact the car industry and jobs in Canada, right? Even a not-so-good deal with the usa would be much better that this overall!

Who wants to be a trade partner with the US these days? I honestly ask people who aren't fully indoctrinated or already have ties established?

Its a dependency that I have to think almost all countries/businesses are evaluating. How do you do business and set up long term supply chains in a country can't trust that the economic policy of today exists in 3 months, they are actively trying to undermine their currency and the system of law is under heavy pressure to the point of failure.

It is tough to be supportive of the United States under this administration or that the future state of the US will be more sound. Having their formally closest trade partner looking over to China for trade is a massive signal.

The trade off is the market is large and strong financial (availability of capital) foundation - but I fear thats changing.

Anybody who knows what a huge market US is, filled with tons of millions of people that spend big, even when financially unsound.

But an unstable market which is not what companies want

Faustian bargain.

It's a bit more than a quarter (25.6%) of the whole world's GDP, so pretty much everyone.

Non political leadership in the US is getting rattled. I don't know if you watched everyone freak out about WH targeting of the fed last week.

Rank and file GOP got rattled with that one.

Same reason everyone wanted to get into the China market. The size of the market and potential to make money.

I think the niche for EV's in Canada will be regional-ish transportation... I would love to see a network of chargers that fully cover the Trans-Canada Highway, but there are still some pretty significant gaps, for example Hwy 17 - If even one of the stations goes down you'd be stranded.

But in that niche I can really see cheap EVs taking off. I know several people who live in Toronto whose cars have never been more than ~80 KM from home, and rarely been over 100 KM/h. That's a perfect EV user.

And a huge plus would be to get rid of the monster American trucks & SUVs that take four parking spots and two lanes at a time...

As a Torontonian that last part is honestly what I'm most excited about. Massive American cars simply do not belong in most of our streets in this city, and if this starts the long process of getting them out that's going to be amazing. I've seen Cybertrucks zooming down streets that are about a Cybertruck and a half wide and it's an untenable situation.

The issue on massive cars comes from your own government not it being american and chinese. Look at what ford builds in europe: same style of cars as the europeans because tax and regulatory environment favors smaller cars.

Massive trucks are useful for construction. You should get better transit so less people have cars.

> Massive trucks are useful for construction.

No, trucks are useful, but a massive modern pickup truck is much less useful in the urban context than a standard pickup truck from 30 years ago. The bed size has remained the same, the outside envelope of the vehicle has ballooned massively.

> You should get better transit so less people have cars.

Toronto has a very high (for north america) transit mode share

I'm not disagreeing smaller trucks are normally better, but massive trucks are useful unlike cars.

Toronto has good transit for North America, but there are plenty of ways to improve it.

I can run faster than the TTC streetcar

faster is one good way to improve. There is a long list of othersi

> I can run faster than the TTC streetcar

Yeah, so can I - doesn't mean much. The streetcar is not where TTC excels in ridership, the subway and buses are.

Here's a video I wish I could make every American watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

It provides a deep-dive video into the history of how we got to the situation we're in today with American cars exploding in size. It actually has its origins in Obama-era legislation for emissions standards that made an exception for "light trucks". SUVs are legally classified as light trucks so the industry has massively pushed these tanks onto the consumer promising more safety.

It has led to a dramatic decrease in public safety and pedestrian deaths that is unique to the US. One contributor to these deaths is literally parents running over their own children in their own driveways. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT IS HAPPENING IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY.

The video goes over the visibility issues with these trucks, how our safety regulations fail to account for them (light trucks only need to be tested in collision with other light trucks) and also covers how modern trucks have the same carrying capacity as pickup trucks from 30 years ago (the main thing that's increased is the hull and cabin size) while being harder to use for actual work since the bed is higher offer the ground

This is a much longer running issue than the Obama administration.

Market distortions favoring heavy trucks include:

* The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), enacted in Congress in 1975 under the Ford administration in reaction to the Arab oil embargo, with its tiered structure on passenger vehicles vs. trucks.

* The "Chicken Tax", tariffs on light trucks enacted by Lyndon Johnson as a reaction to French / West German tariffs on chickens. While much of this trade war was repealed, the light truck tariff never was.

* Section 179 tax deductions, which are biased in favor of heavy vehicles. As I understand it, this particular deduction was inserted into the tax code via the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 under Reagan, for the purpose of aiding small businesses that might rely on such.

So it's been, from my perspective, a fairly non-partisan desire from all of US politics, with protectionism as perhaps part of the goal, but perhaps due to other goals that had unintended effects.

Personally, I think that government regulations can only explain so much. Even with the market distortions, trucks tend to be rather expensive compared to smaller vehicles sedans, and that's before factoring in the bad gas mileage. My presumption is that America's vastly more rural landscape contributes just as much to the preference for trucks as government policy.

I do surmise from articles, though, that the above US policies have impacted the ability for lighter pickup trucks to entering the market. I suspect that some smaller pickups, like the small "kei trucks" that seem to have a bit of a following in the US even with all the regulatory hassle, would be much more present if a lot of these protections were removed.

I wish I could buy a cheap ford ranger from 1990 just to have for home improvement things. Go pick up furniture, sacks of dirt, lumber. These massive trucks are just so expensive and gigantic.

How truck is more useful than a van like ford transit?

That is a false question. They both have their place. Depending on what you are doing sometimes a van is better, sometimes a truck is better. I wouldn't want some chemicals in the van with me, but the ability to have everything inside the van that walk in also has advantages.

Massive trucks are useful for construction when they are used for construction. The ones that are used for leisure are the trucks the poster was likely referring to.

If you need to use a truck daily for work an F-150 is an awful choice. The beds of these things are the same size or smaller as pickup trucks from 30 years ago while the bed is also much higher off the ground making it more impractical to regularly load on and off. The bed is only 37% of the truck! The main thing that's increased the size of these trucks is an increase in hull width and cabin size.

According to this study, most F-150s on the road are not used for work

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/most-pickup-truck-owners-...

Cranes are also useful for construction, doesn’t mean every fourth house on my street should have one

I wish I could examine your brain to understand how you think "Massive trucks are useful for construction" is a good counterargument to people using them as daily drivers.

Transit is the alternanive for daily drivers not cars.

No city ever builds transit infrastructure to tempt people out of their cars, they make the experience of driving shittier and shittier to force people off the road, all the while lambasting drivers for making the city dirty and dangerous.

The experience of driving in cities is inherently shittier as cities get larger.

Not really... Most F150s have a 5.5' bed which is pathetically small. You can't fit a sheet of plywood or a 2x4 in there without having the tailgate down. You can only really buy full-sized long box trucks if you're part of a fleet program.

Most professional builders drive big Savannah vans, which can not only carry full sheets of plywood, but also keep them dry. Plus, the front blindspot is less than one meter.

I don't disagree about transit though.

> You can only really buy full-sized long box trucks if you're part of a fleet program.

This is why the folks I know personally who are actually in the position to need to haul dimensional for work all seem to drive white pickup trucks that they bought from resales of leased fleets.

The _useless_ short bed trucks are driven mostly by young men who were too eager to pile on the personal debt in a show of vanity.

I do know quite a few people with expensive trucks who insist they "Need one" that I rarely see doing work with them.

Most people buying massive trucks (at least in the US) aren't using them for construction.

Also, somehow other countries in the rest of the world seem to get by just fine without these massive trucks.

Ah yes, trucks with empty beds are clearly being used for construction. Not like pavement princesses are a thing.

So get those people on transit and leave trucks to people who use them as trucks.

I don't understand why you think I disagree with that.

i don't understand why you replied to me in the first place then.

I bought my first car in SF, a 2016 Spark EV. Tiny subcompact, 135 km range, perfect for our family of 4 (including dog + daughter).

I literally can't buy any subcompact car these days in USA or Canada, since Spark (petrol) was discontinued in 2022, Prius C (subcompact hybrid) discontinued, and Bolt EV (bigger but still small) discontinued and will be replaced with something even bigger.

Looking forward to inexpensive BYD Seagulls flooding Canada and hopefully encouraging dealers to bring in existing subcompacts that they sell everywhere else in the world.

The other is the two car family. One can be EV, leaving the other for trips.

Try to gas up at night in Saskatchewan without a coop card. Had to pitch my tent next to someone's field and gas up in the morning after being unable to prepay at 3 gas stations. In a similar situation with an EV I would've knocked at doors in the morning and politely asked to charge on one of their outlets. I bet I would've been offered breakfast and made friends while my vehicle slowly charged.

A bit of nuance: yes, Carney said that but he didn't just offer up the opinion unprompted - it was in response to a direct press question about if China or the US is a more predictable partner right now.

And even then, he didn't lead with "China is!" but wandered his way into offering the assessment.

The context makes his comment on this seem less nakedly provocative (not that it'll matter either way - the headline will be the headline, and the Trump admin will use it however they see fit as usual).

China doesn't do friends - thats for sure. However if you have a transactional trade relationship with clear boundaries that don't get undermined due to random temperaments you can build on that. The other is impossible to build on - especially threatening to own the country.

This is an eye opening event.

Yeah. Nations need reliable partners more than they need unreliable friends.

China and their famously steady temperament would never be so bold as to try to own a dependent country or strategically weaponize trade. These are real things Canadians believe - talk about eye opening!

Sure but still better than USA.

Better how?

If a country tries to strategically weaponize trade that's something you can predict. That's what makes it strategic.

A predictable relationship is preferable to one where you need to keep wondering whether this week's threat of military action that could draw you into a war, is one of the ones that might actually happen.

Not currently making "jokes" about annexing the country?

Two years ago the same party that currently holds Canadian government and just made these concessions to China completed a report [0] that found

>[China’s actions] collectively "undermine our democratic institutions, our fundamental rights and freedoms, our social cohesion and our long-term prosperity.”[343] [and] the need to consider the threats in the context of an increasingly assertive PRC. Accordingly, Minister Garneau stated that various countries, including Canada, are reassessing their relationship with the PRC in light of its authoritarian and coercive actions.

But yeah a little chirping about Canada’s own unfair trade practices must be DEFCON 3 for US-Canada relations.

[0] https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/44-1/CACN/report...

And what would such a report about the US authored today look like?

Two years ago Trump wasn’t President. The math changed, massively.

neither does America, and they're much closer and dangerous to us at this time.

The US is currently threatening multiple of its NATO partners and serious people don't expect NATO to be around by the end of 2028. I am a less serious person I guess, because I expect it to break up within a year.

I'm glad you have so many cool 80 year old anecdotes to tell yourself, but things change.

> The U.S. does NATO and foots the majority of the bill and human resources for North Atlantic defense. That includes Canada

For how much longer? NATO won't survive this administration.

> China has never done anything like that in its multi-thousand year history.

I mean, China's perspective on at least one of your examples is that it saved North Korea from decades-long rule by succession of military dictatorships that ruled in South Korea. Which isn't entirely unfair.

NATO is basically dead at this point.

The idea that any country does 'friends' is, frankly, incredibly naive. Besides, Carney doesn't want to be friends with China, he wants to open up the market between the two countries. Of course, everyone here was better off when the trade flows crossed the natural north/south border, but this dependence created a weakness in a situation where our neighbourly hegemon decided to not be so neighbourly anymore. Turns out we weren't friends either.

predictability != friendship

And America currently does neither.

Does the US “do friends?” Does France? Does any country?

Shared values do have meaning and an importance. They used to mean a fair bit especially when you needed to fight an aggressor.

Yeah, that's why we're also leaning into our relationship with Europe. We were fooled by Americans but we clearly do not in fact share values, and they're the aggressor we need to fight off here.

There's only a small subset of Americans who think this way, but they happen to be in power right now.

I would not blame people in US as I do not blame those in Russia or North Korea (or those in my country - which include myself). But unfortunately that is not relevant here.

Im not, I'm explicitly saying its the people in power who are small subset of the population.

So, out of the 2 countries situated north of Mexico, whose leader has taken a huge deviation from these "shared values"?

Is this a serious question?

Between the US and China, one is right now making active threats to invade and annex Canada, the other is not. "Who should we forge ties with" seems pretty obvious.

No one is making serious threats to invade Canada, that's ridiculous. We don't need maple syrup that badly.

> No one is making serious threats to invade Canada, that's ridiculous

Would you care to share a few actual quotes that show the obvious facetiousness of the US executive comments that have been made about invading Canada, and comparing them with the obvious seriousness of comments from the same administration about invading Venezuela?

This would be very helpful for foreigners who might have difficulties reading the difference between very public statements that seem quite similar from abroad.

Non-serious threats are just as bad.

A few weeks ago I'd have laughed at the idea of Trump stealing someone's Nobel Peace Prize. But here we are.

Geopolitical / economic activity doesn't happen on the basis of friendship.

The US has exploited Canada for decades. Sometimes it's been somewhat beneficial for some part of the Canadian working class. Other times not.

China will do the same. Just from a further distance.

Americans who like to convince themselves that the US has been doing charity work for us are delusional. They've benefited from discounted resources and cheap labour.

Now China will benefit from that instead, and the US will look internally for cheap labour of its own. American workers who think they'll get a good deal out of cutting Canada out of the equation... again, delusional. Their necks are first on the chopping block. First through paying more at the cash register because of tariffs, and next because the Trump admin will be coming after their salaries next.

Great news indeed. Canada sends money to help ukraine with their Russia problem. Canada then sends money to Russia's communist partner China on the other side.

I find it bizzare that liberals in Canada are happy about doing anything with China considering they are anti liberalism, anti west and have many examples of large scale human right abuse.

"sends money" doing a lot of lifting here

The enemy of my enemy...

I mean Canada's largest trading partner is the US, which also has many examples of large scale human right abuses.

As a Canadian, it's not really relevant to me that a country we trade with isn't liberal, and I don't agree with the premise that China is inheriently anti-west. Anti-western values, yes, but China does not threaten west violently in anyway that I can see. They mostly threaten western dominance economically.

IMO, Canada should just do what's best for its citizen, which is get good trade deals, and ensure that our values don't morph into something unrecognizable. What other countries do in their own borders is largely irrelevant.

> in the US, which also has many examples of large scale human right abuses.

Excuse me? Citation is needed here for present day human rights abuses in the US.

> Canada should just do what's best for its citizen, which is get good trade deals, and ensure that our values don't morph into something unrecognizable. What other countries do in their own borders is largely irrelevant.

It’s extremely relevant, if you believe in personal liberties and democracy you should to do business with societies that uphold personal liberties and democracy it’s that simple.

Sure, just a few examples off the top of my head:

- Abortion bans in the US constitute abuses of female reproductive rights and affect millions: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/08/usa-abortion-...

- The Iraq War, in my opinion: https://www.ecchr.eu/en/publication/the-iraq-invasion-is-a-c...

- Guantánamo Bay: https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/29/us-migrants-face-abuse-i... & https://www.amnesty.org.uk/guantanamo-bay-human-rights

- Yemen, broadly: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/10/yemen-us-air-...

- Depending on who you ask, you could also point to large-scale violations of the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, as well as the over-policing of minority populations.

The US also does not consistently uphold the same values that you say liberal democracies should. It does business with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others.

As for your second point:

“It’s extremely relevant. If you believe in personal liberties and democracy, you should only do business with societies that uphold personal liberties and democracy. It’s that simple.”

I would ask, why? I believe in personal liberties and democracy for my people, my community, and my country. If another country’s population does not hold those beliefs as a majority, why is that my concern? If we truly restricted trade only to countries that share our beliefs, our list of trading partners would be very small. What would the benefit be?

Additionally, given your request for citations, I suspect we would disagree significantly on which countries actually reflect our values. I am not sure we could arrive at a consistent list of partners that share our values. For example, I do not believe the USA has a strong democracy. It has a rather weak one. Should it be excluded as well?