Glen Patchet

Amateur middle-ager, here for the long haul. Creator at CenturyRide on YouTube. Watch here 👇

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@BBCWorld Davos Man is way over his skis.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@JM1365121463 @Trustintrump47 One of the easiest things they could have done is fix interprovincial trade barriers (in addition to a trade deal with the US). But no, we're talking about some kind of "EU associate membership" with Europe that nobody knows what it contains. Crazy.

[Conrad Black @ConradMBlack]

It is with great concern for some of my fellow countrymen, inching precariously toward the edge of utter lunacy, that I write this post.

Prime Minister Mark Carney this week, in an interview with the New York Times, went on record saying it would be “irresponsible” not to plan for the possible contingency of a military invasion of Canada by the United States. Unfortunately, Mr. Carney didn’t misspeak or fall victim to a cherry-picked quote taken out of context. His concern was later reiterated by Defence Minister David McGuinty and Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Soloman.

We all know that Donald Trump has a colourful history of spouting off some truly outrageous whoppers from time to time, but even he has never disseminated something as fatuous, dangerous or dishonest as this. And while he seldom backs down from his outrageous claims, whenever he pushes the envelope too far, at least his entourage goes on damage control to walk back some of his excesses – Carney’s guys are doubling down.

Despite these idiotic statements, these are intelligent men. The odds that all three of them would simultaneously become afflicted by the same psychotic delusion is infinitesimally small. The only rational conclusion, therefore, is that they believe, or rather their polling data shows, that enough Canadians are so possessed by Trump Derangement that engaging in such asinine demagoguery is politically expedient.

Sadly, they may be right. The vast coalition of useful idiots and true believers after effectively having their intelligences insulted by their dear leader, are coming out of the woodwork to express gratitude online for the Prime Minister’s caution in preparing for all, including the most remote, contingencies. Others are retreating slightly to hold the line at the fall-back position articulated by Minister McGuinty that, this kind of paranoid delusion is perfectly normal and, “all militaries in the world spend time analyzing risk scenarios.”

I assure you, this is not normal.

Back on planet Earth, the situation is tense and acrimonious (and there is plenty of blame to go around for that), but this is not the more than two centuries of peace along the 49th parallel that followed the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1815 drawing to an end. Trump has imposed tariffs on $20 billion (or 2% of the $400 billion per year) of Canadian exports to the US. In other words, amid this unnecessary, escalatory, and foolish trade dispute, the United States will still purchase 200% more Canadian goods and services this year than the rest of the world combined. This situation is like a restaurant’s picky regular customer complaining about an overcooked steak to a prideful chef who, fortified in his own mind by the knowledge he cooked the steak perfectly, refuses to comp the entree. This is not the start of World War III. We are so far removed from a military incursion at our southern border that we may as well be strategizing the response to the equally plausible threat of Santa Claus leading an invasion of elves from the north.

If we woke up tomorrow in some parallel reality where the United States actually was contemplating a full-scale military campaign against Canada, with all due respect to our brave men and women in uniform, the only preparations to be made would be negotiating the terms of our unconditional surrender. Some brave and patriotic Canadians may refuse to submit and instead choose to conduct, as a matter of principle, a brutal and bloody guerilla warfare campaign against the strongest conventional and nuclear military force in the history of the world. Unfortunately, they would be in the precarious position of having to rely on our miserly European allies, or countries like Russia or China, whose recent actions have been significantly more hostile and provocative challenges to our sovereignty than the US tariffs, to supply us with weapons, and they would not remotely be adequate. It’s all so desperately preposterous.

But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that Donald Trump was indeed the terrifying bogeyman haunting the dreams of the most extreme and hopeless sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome and its frightful sister affliction, Andrew Coyneism, a rare and especially acute form of tweet-induced psychotic maladjustment. Even in this scenario, why would Trump use the military to annex Canada? All he would have to do is offer Alberta statehood, liberation from transfer payments, excessive regulation and carbon taxes, carte blanche to exploit its natural resources, a generous welcome bonus in the form of a $100,000 tax credit to every adult Albertan and replace their Canadian dollars with equal amounts of US currency. They would effectively be acquiring Alberta for the knock-down bargain price of roughly 1x annual GDP.

Simultaneously, the US (including the newly acquired Alberta) would immediately cut off all trade with the rest of Canada. The net impact to Canada of this manoeuvre would be a cataclysmic economic collapse, while the newly composed United States would take a net GDP hit (loss of all trade with Canada, mostly offset by the acquisition of Alberta) of 0.8%. Next would come a full package of sanctions, a naval blockade, and when the rest of Canada became desperate enough, a Chinese belt-and-road style offtake of all of Canada’s resources at bargain prices, which by then, the Canadians would be desperate for. In the meantime, the US would revamp its immigration policy to recreate the brain-drain of the 1990s on steroids, welcoming the top 20% most productive Canadians to flee what had overnight become the third world. Harvard Alumnus Mark Carney might well be among those at the front of the line seeking this emigration opportunity, rejoining 91 percent of his own investments already located there.

There would, no doubt, be a fearsome contingent of Canadians refusing to bend or break in the face of American tyranny, and elbows would be flying up to vertiginous heights with such vigour that the Canadian healthcare system would be overwhelmed by millions of spontaneous emergency room visits of patriotic patients with dislocated shoulders.

I suspect many of you reading this are thinking to yourself that this is so completely far-fetched and absurd that, if serious, I must have lost my mind. Allow me to reassure you that while this is all bunk, it remains at least ten times more likely than the United States military executing a boots-on-the-ground invasion of Canada. Anyone who spends more than one second worrying about such an outcome should immediately proceed to the nearest sink to splash some cold water in their face and pull themselves together.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@iowahawkblog So much of Succession felt, or maybe was, ad-libbed which drove me nuts. Felt lazy to me.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@JonFraserTF @NDP NDP: Needles, Drugs, Poverty.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@MadelnCanada The majority of a fake poll? No.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@AlexpiersonAMP So Taliban values are Canadian values? 🤔

[Eights 🐾🤍 @88probs]

By popular demand, I present to you.. my magnum opus.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@Martyupnorth Cooked. We are cooked. And that's easy to say.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@jimcsek Exactly. Thank you for showing how undemocratic our country has become. This should be an eye opener.

[Justine Moore @venturetwins]

I’m crying of laughter - please let this be the model that solved Navier-Stokes

(this guy’s name is hayZee, we need to get him on here!)

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

Accredited Canadian journalists can't get an email response from our government, but they were welcomed to the White House Press Gallery. We don't have a functioning democracy. https://t.co/odNjC8VObE

[Jason Fried @jasonfried]

Been working on a real estate deal for a while.

Yesterday I was told something was going to take 3-5 days to turn around.

I asked why? Answer: Because that's how long it usually takes.

Then I asked: What would happen if you called them and told them you need it tomorrow?

My attorney said she'd try. So she did. And what do you know? They said they could turn it around in a day.

Yet another reminder that the first answer is just a placeholder for "usually". If you settle for that, that's what you'll get. But there's another option on offer: The option you want. And if you don't ask, you don't get. And if you don't do, it won't be done.

Everything can be compressed.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@ryangerritsen She needs her fish sticks to be carbon neutral.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@Garyor1989 Very sorry for your loss.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@GraemeMenzies C'mon, she needs her fish sticks to be carbon neutral.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@integrity_to Who's making the money on the courses? Follow the money.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@cbcwatcher @BobRae48 The Bernie Sanders of Canada.

[Bob Iaccino @Bob_Iaccino]

I’m officially done being scared of every crisis the news tells me I should be scared of. I’ve reached my crisis limit.

[Glen Patchet @gpatchet]

@junonewscom Dr. Doom. How long do we have to be told the sky is falling?