As the Aug. 19 deadline for a new round of tariffs to be imposed by U.S. president Donald Trump looms, the Canadian negotiation team has been ensconced in Washington, D.C., in “intensified” talks that could see some kind of resolution to the ongoing trade war. I’m dubious there will be any kind of actual resolution—no agreement made with Trump is worth the paper it’s written on, and he will continue to make threats and go back on his word. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his trade team have been signalling that they are willing to capitulate on another group of supposed trade irritants that the U.S. has identified, never mind that many of them were retaliatory in the first place, and that the Trump administration threw the first punch. But if Carney is prepared to make more concessions to a bully when it comes to trade, what else is he willing to relent on?

Now that he’s been in office for over a year, we can see the various ways in which Carney has proven that he is not exactly a principled man. One of the most glaring examples has been when it comes to the environment. He wrote a book about the value of combatting climate change, and getting markets on board and leveraging capital to reduce emissions, and was named a United Nations special envoy for climate and finance in 2020. And yet, since he’s become prime minister, he has steadfastly rolled back environmental protections in this country across the board, and given himself what are known as “Henry VIII powers” to quite literally circumvent existing environmental laws when he deems it necessary. He is hell-bent on building another oil pipeline to the West Coast, in spite of a global supply glut depressing prices (before the Strait of Hormuz was closed, but that glut will likely return once the Strait is reopened), and he has undermined the environmental process at every turn, including reducing the carbon capture and storage commitment of the Pathways Project from 22 million tonnes per year to six million. For context, in 2024, the oil sands produced 92 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

There’s more than just the environment that he has been willing to compromise on. He has been undermining Charter rights consistently over his time in office, stemming from a combination of trying to look tough, while also being deeply incurious (and indeed, credulous) when he is being told by law enforcement what they claim they need. Crime rates in this country continue to fall, yet Carney has spent much of the past year ramming through supposedly tough-on-crime legislation that does little to actually make the public safer. He has pushed through legislation to “toughen” bail conditions, with no data to show a link between increased criminality and being on bail. Justice-system actors have known for years that the problem is not the law of bail (which is grounded in the ancient democratic right of the presumption of innocence), but rather in the fact that the provinces have consistently under-resourced their justice systems, and bail has become a victim of that overburdened system. He’s also going to undermine the right to a trial in a reasonable time period, thanks to ill-conceived measures in his other tough-on-crime bill, but he insists on them passing anyway because he wants to playact at being tough.

@xtramagazine Canada Post has released a new series of stamps to celebrate Pride Month and Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ history. The new issue of Places of Pride features four illustrated postage stamps commemorating places and events from four cities across Canada that are pivotal to the country’s queer history. One of the stamps highlights Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium. Founded in 1983 by Bruce Smyth, Jim Deva and Barb Thomas in Vancouver, Little Sister’s was targeted by Canada Customs for distributing “obscene” materials—like information about queer sexual health. That led to a lengthy legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled in the bookstore’s favour. Another stamp depicts the 1978 Metamorphosis festival, which is considered to be Western Canada’s first celebration of queer culture. Organized by the Saskatchewan Gay Coalition, Metamorphosis took place over Thanksgiving weekend in Saskatoon and brought 200 people together for four days of dancing, live music and workshops. The stamp series also pays tribute to The 519. Founded in 1976, the vital community hub is the first City of Toronto agency run by and for the LGBTQ2S+ community. In addition to being a safe space for Toronto’s queer community, The 519 also provides space and resources for other like-minded organizations. The last stamp honours the Turret, the queer nightclub in Halifax operated by the Gay Alliance for Equality from 1976 to 1982. The Turret was a dance bar as well as a vital gathering place for LGBTQ2S+ organizing efforts. The Turret frequently hosted meetings and workshops as well as conferences like the 1977 Atlantic Gay Conference. #lgbtqnews #lgbthistory #queerhistory #canada #canadapost ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine

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One of the most egregious examples of his incuriosity and desire to do the bidding of law enforcement is with Lawful Access, which is the ability for law enforcement to look up a person’s online activities either without a warrant, or to get a warrant with a threshold that is lower than police would need to enter a person’s house. Carney’s Lawful Access legislation is looking to force telecom providers in this country to turn all cellphones into tracking devices that the police can access (with a warrant, but under a threshold of mere suspicion), because police chiefs from across the country told him they needed these powers. The Supreme Court of Canada has twice ruled that Lawful Access laws are unconstitutional, but Carney and his ministers seem to have decided that they don’t care, and are going to pass it anyway, and invent justifications for doing so, such as the police being unable to trace the calls of extortionists. (Note: I had, at one point, spoken to a retired judge who had signed off on a number of wiretap authorizations for suspected terrorists, and she told me they are no problem so long as the police have their evidence in order; police at the justice committee studying the Lawful Access bill essentially admitted that they didn’t want to go through the steps). So, your privacy rights are now up for grabs because Carney couldn’t stand up to law enforcement.

There are more examples. His digital safety bill, which includes the ban on social media for minors, also includes age verification for all explicit materials online, which is going to translate into internet surveillance, destroying digital privacy. This will disproportionately affect queer and trans people because even innocuous material will be age-gated out of an abundance of caution. It’s unworkable and experts say it’s unconstitutional, but he’s going to try anyway, because he’s both too uninterested in standing up against the Helen Lovejoys of this country (“Won’t somebody please think of the children!”) while also capitulating to the tech bros who don’t want to do the work of moderating the content on their platforms.

As another example, he has attacked the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, and has scapegoated migrants and refugees for the problems that provincial premiers created. It was provinces who allowed scam strip-mall colleges to flourish over the past decade, and post-lockdowns, premiers like Danielle Smith and Doug Ford begged for more cheap immigrant labour and did nothing to ensure adequate housing or healthcare, and then blamed the federal government for bringing in too many immigrants. Carney then started employing far-right language like Nigel Farage’s, with phrases like “Taking back control” of immigration. (It was never actually out of control).

So, with all of this in mind, I am forced to ask where Carney will capitulate next, and to which pressure group? As we enter into an era where trans rights are under attack by provincial governments unafraid of using the Notwithstanding Clause to shield their unconstitutional laws, and where queer rights are very likely next on the chopping block, will Carney actually stand up for those rights? Or will he make excuses, as he has already tepidly done so while he quietly lets the funding for LGBTQ2S+ organizations lapse? When Trump makes new demands around people crossing the border into this country, particularly queer and trans people—which is all too real of a possibility given the trajectory we are on—will Carney do anything? Will he say anything? Or will he decide that it’s not helpful, like he decided it’s not helpful to say anything about the rights abuses in the Gulf states he’s sucking up to, and make another concession to Trump? Given his track record so far, I am no longer confident that he’s going to do much to stand up for anyone’s rights, especially if he doesn’t see the economic upside in doing so.