North American Update

Yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a snap election on April 28. As a reminder, Canada is a parliamentary system and the PM will be elected by a majority of Parliament. Here’s where the polls stand now, with editorial comment:

The party colors in Canada are the opposite of the US. So the Liberals are red, the Conservatives are blue, Bloc Quebecois is baby blue, the New Democratic Party (NDP) is orange, and the Greens are green (of course). This projection shows that the Liberals may be able to form a majority government, and if they don’t, my guess is that the NDP will join them to form a minority government, as they did in 2022.

The editorial part of the graph is to emphasize how terrible the left-leaning NDP is doing under their current leader Jagmeet Singh. The NDP peaked under charismatic leader Jack Layton, who died in 2011, and they haven’t been able to recover. (Jack’s widow, Olivia Chow, is currently mayor of Toronto.) The prediction is that Liberals will vote strategically and only vote for the NDP candidate if they’re absolutely sure they can win the riding.

As Dr. Johnson said, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Canada sincerely believes they’re about to be attacked by the US. Carney lacks the charisma of either of the Trudeaus, but he’s a solid, serious guy, and my guess is that the Tories are going to take a drubbing in a little over a month.

Let’s turn to Mexico, where a once-in-a-generation politician, Claudia Sheinbaum, continues to run her ongoing master class in how to deal with Trump. (By the way, the last once-in-a-generation Canadian politician was Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s dad. Maybe Obama in the US, maybe. LBJ, probably. FDR, certainly.) Just for fun, here’s one of thousands of pictures of Claudia wading fearlessly into crowds with no visible security:

The editor of Mexico News Daily has a good summary of Claudia’s strategy towards Trump, which is pretty much the opposite of Canada’s. She hasn’t announced retaliatory tariffs. She hasn’t reacted to every one of Trump’s statements — she delegates trade negotiations to her subordinates, most notably Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard, former head of Mexico City government (as were Claudia and AMLO). Both Canada and Mexico have strong hands in the trade war, and the MDN summary is worth visiting if you want the details on Claudia’s smart, measured response.

Still, there’s a lot that the US can do to damage Mexico. Most recently, the US denied a diversion of Colorado River water to Tijuana. The history of water in the West is absolutely beyond my comprehension, but the gist of this seems to be that a 1944 treaty mandates the amount of water that both countries will share with each other. The request for Tijuana is due to an ongoing drought in Baja. It’s a discretionary request, not mandated by treaty, but of course the petty fuckers in the Trump administration are going to do their petty things.

Mexico has a real problem with water. Not only are states like Baja/Baja Sur deserts, they also waste a bunch of water — Mexico City loses an estimated 40% of the water than enters the system due to leaks and theft. I imagine Tijuana is no better than Mexico City, and is probably worse. In Baja, tap water is undrinkable except in high-end hotels, so everyone gets water at an agua purificada, where reverse-osmosis purified water is available (it’s cheap).

Claudia is in the 7th year of Morena’s reform of Mexico. The country is recovering from nearly a hundred years of corrupt government. She has to deal with internal issues like 100,000 disappeared persons, which she is trying to address with 6 reforms named earlier this month. There are many pressure points where Trump could derail the reforms that the country so desperately needs. She doesn’t have the luxury of the “elbows up” response of Canada, she knows it, and she’s playing her hand as best she can.