The Road Ahead

I recently read an article raising the alarm that younger generations have become more disconnected from traditional media to get their news...relying most heavily on social media like Tik Tok, Instagram, X as well as podcasters targeting their demographic. While some ‘real’ news does get passed along through these channels it’s served up right next to foreign and domestic propaganda, deep fake videos and AI generated content that’s difficult to distinguish from actual news.

Here’s where we are:

Asked by the News Literacy Project for one word to describe today’s news media, 84% of teens responded with something negative — “biased,” “crazy,” “boring,” “fake, ”bad,” “depressing,” “confusing,” “scary.”

Yikes!

Curiosity and critical thinking skills have never been more important to navigate what’s about to hit us all sooner than we think.

On top of that rather disturbing tidbit.. we’re all dealing with the most front-of-mind issue that slaps us in the wallet every day...the high cost of living, now commonly referred to as the ‘Affordability Crisis’. This is particularly hard on seniors, low income households and millennial & Gen Z cohorts priced out of the housing market. The long-term impact means potentially delaying or giving up on raising a family for some. It’s nearly impossible for a government to bring down prices but extremely easy to get punished at the polls by them.

Kitchen table issues like affordability, health care access and other local issues obviously garner most of the attention in the news and social media. The everyday stresses of getting through the week or month have ramped up steadily since the Covid Pandemic shutdown in 2020. In this era of constant digital noise and demands for our attention, people are worried, tired and have run out of bandwidth to take in the more distant signals growing louder around the world.

When you hear Prime Minister Carney referring to a ‘rupture’, he’s talking about the bigger picture that many Canadians may not even have on their radar.

It’s been 11 months since Donald Trump made his comeback as US President...horrifying the world that America had elected him again after his disastrous and chaotic first term. Once again...this very disturbed and increasingly demented man is wreaking havoc on the world...including on his own country enabled by a compliant Republican Congress.

It started with his trade war on both allies and others...with the notable exceptions of Russia and North Korea...under the guise of protecting US ‘National Security’. As the year has unfolded it’s become increasingly obvious Trump is taking an isolationist stance similar to the original ‘America First’ movement in the 1930’s. And we all know how that went.

The 2025 Halifax International Security Forum was held in the late November. This annual event is a gathering, funded by NATO includes defence officials, senior military leaders, media, think tanks and other organizations within the zone of national security issues. Normally this event has a distinctly ‘American flavour’.

According to a Substack article by Matt Gurney, that definitely wasn’t the case this year. With a few exceptions America was notably absent this year. I recommend reading the full article to get a better sense of exactly how different the world’s security situation is under Trump 2.0.

Here’s a except that reveals where we are now...

I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.

America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.

The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.

Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”

The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.

This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”

If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.

In December the White House released it’s 2025 ‘National Security Strategy’ which raised eyebrows around the world. I’m not even going to attempt to explain it but you can get the gist from the screenshot image above along with these three excerpts...

How Trump’s new National Security Strategy targets Canadian sovereignty

The National Security Strategy issued by the Trump administration last Friday isn’t merely a restatement of “America First” principles; it is a codified assertion of unilateral American power within the Western Hemisphere, carrying serious implications for Canada.

The strategic heart of this declaration lies in the commitment to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine” in the Western Hemisphere. Although the doctrine’s historical association is with Latin American stability and stemming unwanted migration, its “Trump Corollary” expands the scope to explicitly include preventing “non-Hemispheric competitors” from controlling “strategically vital assets” and, crucially, ensuring America’s “continued access to key strategic locations.”

To execute this mandate in the North American Arctic—an area of rapidly intensifying geopolitical and economic competition—the Trump administration is creating the national security justification to take another step towards formalizing Canada’s satrap status, this time by forcing a permanent change in the status of the Northwest Passage.

The report is full of “tells” that this is where an “America First” foreign policy is headed, and likely faster than we think. The most aggressive language is found in its operational directive demanding “establishing or expanding access in strategically important locations,” backed by the requirement for a “more suitable Coast Guard and Navy presence to control sea lanes… and to control key transit routes in a crisis.”

Kremlin hails Trump’s national security strategy as aligned with Russia’s vision

The Kremlin has heaped praise on Donald Trump’s latest national security strategy, calling it an encouraging change of policy that largely aligns with Russian thinking.

The remarks follow the publication of a White House document on Friday that criticises the EU and says Europe is at risk of “civilisational erasure”, while making clear the US is keen to establish better relations with Russia.

“The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Sunday. He welcomed signals that the Trump administration was “in favour of dialogue and building good relations”. He warned, however, that the supposed US “deep state” could try to sabotage Trump’s vision.

This sobering assessment of the current situation was given by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a recent speech in Munich

We need to be ready because at the end of this first quarter of the 21st century, conflicts are no longer fought at arms-length. Conflict is at our door. Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured. Imagine it, a conflict reaching every home, every workplace, destruction, mass mobilisation, millions displaced, widespread suffering and extreme losses. It is a terrible thought, but if we deliver on our commitments, this is a tragedy we can prevent. NATO is here to protect one billion people, on both sides of the Atlantic. Our mission is to protect you, your families, your friends, and your future. We cannot let down our guard, and we won’t. I count on our governments to keep up with their commitments, and go further and faster because we cannot falter or fail. Listen to the sirens across Ukraine, look at the bodies pulled from the rubble, and think of the Ukrainians who might go to sleep tonight and not wake up tomorrow. What is standing between what’s happening to them, and what could happen to us? Only NATO.

The good news is that cracks are starting to appear in Trump’s support from even his most loyal supporters. This is due to the collection of snowballing disasters resulting from his incompetent administration, an economy that’s hammering everyone… particularly farmers and small business… due to tariffs, legal blowback for killing shipwrecked Venezuelan survivors and of course the drip, drip drip of the Epstein ‘pedo-files’.

And then there’s his repeated episodes of falling asleep while his Cabinet Secretaries fawn over him at levels that would embarrass Kim Jong Un.

Donald Trump never has to run for election again...but his Republican Senators and Congress members do, along with their State counterparts. Recent local elections in certain States have signaled a five alarm fire for the Republican party with Democrats trouncing their opponents in districts the Trump won by large margins. Republicans are scared...some are running for the exits to distance themselves from Trump or quitting Congress before the mid-term elections in fall of 2026.

Democrats are currently favoured to take control of the House (which would effectively stall his agenda and almost instantly impeach him for the third time. That’s not the end of MAGA but it will lead to a battle foe succession that will determine where the country lands in the 2028 presidential race.

As we approach the end of a very chaotic and disruptive year, we’ll be looking forward spending time with friends and family over the next few weeks of the holiday season. We should all take the time to relax and recharge our batteries whenever we can.

The road ahead...by every indicator...is going to require some measure of sacrifice... and a level of resolve and commitment to keep Canada safe and prosperous for the next generation... as our grandparents and parents did for us.