Wednesday Night #2287

If you live anywhere beyond Quebec’s borders, you may rightly be worried principally about IVG – Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, plus Israel, Gaza, Ukraine and other global hot spots.
« Être premier ministre a été le plus grand honneur de ma vie »
However, if you are a Quebec resident or within earshot of Quebec media, since 11 o’clock Wednesday morning, you would be forgiven for thinking that the only newsworthy event is Premier François Legault’s resignation; everyone has a comment about the consequences for Quebec politics, but there will be further developments for Canada.
NB Even The Guardian is following the story. Quebec premier François Legault resigns from post in surprise move – Legault’s abrupt resignation follows months of chaos that has rocked the governing Coalition Avenir Québec party.

Meanwhile, if you are concerned with developments in the rest 0f the world.
Be afraid — be very afraid
Of all the deplorable and /or fearsome statements from the White House, the worst is President Trump’s insistence in his NYT interview last Wednesday that his power as commander -in-chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world. [His] assessment of his own freedom to use any instrument of military, economic or political power to cement American supremacy was the most blunt acknowledgment yet of his worldview. At its core is the concept that national strength, rather than laws, treaties and conventions, should be the deciding factor as powers collide.
Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’

In Iran, despite the internet blackout, reports have emerged that at least 2,000 people have been killed during the demonstrations, with hundreds of protesters sustaining gun shot wounds to the head and eyes. The Iranian government has accused the US of seeking to manufacture a pretext for military intervention, as US president Donald Trump has pledged that “help is on its way”.

Republicans in Senate Block Effort to Check Trump’s Power in Venezuela
US plan to exploit Venezuela’s oil could eat up 13% of carbon budget to keep 1.5C limit
ClimatePartner analysis shows how move would risk plunging Earth further into climate catastrophe

As PM Carney travels to China, Qatar and on to Davos, Fen Osler Hampson warns that “he is also walking into a political minefield—one laid not just by the Chinese but also Washington.
The biggest minefield right now is the EV-Canola trade war.” The Trade Minefield of Carney’s China Visit
He writes “There is room for a deal in which Canada gradually reduces tariffs on Chinese EVs while China dismantles its canola (and pork and seafood products) barriers perhaps through a phased tariff‑rate quota arrangement.
But any bargain must navigate Ontario’s fears about its auto plants, which is precisely why the EV tariff was imposed, and intense pressure from the prairie provinces to reopen the Chinese market to their agricultural products.” Peter Frise will no doubt have comments.
Canada-China talks on reducing canola tariffs have been fruitful, Anand says

Diplomacy in the age of Donald Trump
Canada and the world are scrambling to figure out a new approach for engaging with the U.S. in light of the U.S. military strikes in Venezuela and the White House’s refusal to rule out the use of force to control Greenland. We answer your questions about diplomacy in the age of U.S. President Donald Trump with our guest Bob Rae, Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations.
Plus, Bob Rae writing in Policy: Thoughts on Tyranny, Justice, Sovereignty, and Politics When the president of the United States says “we can either do this (taking over Greenland) the nice way or the hard way” he is using the language of a Mafia don. The answer to this is not just words. It means building resilience, strengthening our economy and defences, working with other countries, and engaging candidly with Canadians about how much the world is changing.

Chris Neal notes that his biography of Carleton Beals, The Rebel Scribe, Carleton Beals and the Progressive Challenge to U.S. Policy in Latin America has suddenly acquired renewed timeliness as Trump brings back a discredited neo-imperialism to the Western Hemisphere.
The “Donroe Doctrine” launched with US capture of Venezuelan dictator Maduro, signals a return to the 20th-century US military interventions in Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba and Guatemala, all of which were covered—and criticized—by Carleton Beals,

Event Alert
WEF/Davos
19-23 January
Davos begins new era grappling with global order shaken by Trump
Trump to attend Davos as global cooperation cast into doubt
The World Economic Forum takes place next week “against the most complex geopolitical backdrop since 1945,” its chief executive said.

Varia
This Canadian explorer dove under the North Pole, discovered shipwrecks and helped a Hollywood director
Joe MacInnis, 88, has spent 6,000 hours beneath the world’s oceans
Make 2026 the year of ‘recombobulation’:
How an old word like ‘snollygoster’ can give people power over politics
Labelling something you fear with the right word can be ‘incredibly empowering’

Long reads, audio, video
Two Hours, Scores of Questions, 23,000 Words: Our Interview With President Trump
Four New York Times reporters pressed Mr. Trump about a range of topics in a nearly two-hour interview. Here is a transcript of their conversation.

Trump’s new world order is being born – and Venezuela is just the start
The US president has been quite clear that Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Greenland are in his sights. We must believe him
The logic of an oil grab, and much more besides, is laid out plainly in Trump’s recently published National Security Strategy.
The document accepts something long denied in Washington: that US global hegemony is over. “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country,” it declares with barely concealed contempt. “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” These are the strategy’s unceremonious funeral rites for US superpower status.

Trump is making China – not America – great again, global survey suggests
Exclusive: US is less feared by its traditional adversaries, while its allies feel ever more distant, results show

The Economic Toll of Trump’s Policies Will Soon Be Visible
Mainstream economists have underestimated the cost of all the confusion the administration has unleashed, particularly on trade and immigration.
Many forecasters and investors misinterpret what is happening in the American economy. Some believe the uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s trade and other economic policies is abating, while a loud and influential minority argue that the administration’s deportations and tariffs are not causing the predicted harm. Inflation increased only modestly before coming down in 2025, they point out, while the latest data show the economy growing at its fastest rate in two years.
These mistaken assessments are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how government-induced uncertainty affects the economy.

Jeremy Kinsman: America is Turning on the Rules-Based World Order. Can Canada Pivot?
Now, in a reversal begun in Donald Trump’s first term and accelerated in his second, the US is abandoning that role. This is not just episodic isolationism. This is aggressive unilateralism, directed also toward America’s closest allies.