Canada needs capacity, not hysteria When will Canada wake up? PM Mark Carney’s reported consideration of U.S. military action against Canada may be the moment his “elbows up” politics finally jumps the shark. The United States is not simply Canada’s neighbour. It is our largest trading partner, principal security partner, NATO ally and NORAD counterpart. Canada and the US operate the world’s most integrated bilateral economic relationship and share the world’s longest undefended border. To publicly elevate the possibility of an American attack is not strategic clarity. It is a political exploitation of public anxiety. Canadians have every reason to be unsettled. The US is changing structurally: it is using tariffs, industrial policy and national-security tools more aggressively; it is demanding more from allies; and it is pulling investment, supply chains and strategic capacity toward its own market. Those changes matter enormously to Canada. But the proper response is not fear. It is national renewal. For too long, Canada has neglected its extraordinary competitive advantages. It has allowed regulatory paralysis, internal trade barriers and interminable project approvals to frustrate investment. It has underbuilt pipelines, ports, electricity systems, housing and export infrastructure. It possesses abundant energy, critical minerals, skilled workers, political stability and proximity to the world’s largest market, yet too often cannot convert those assets into production, exports or national wealth. Canada should build pipelines to tidewater, expand port capacity, increase oil and LNG exports, develop critical-mineral processing, eliminate interprovincial barriers and accelerate approvals for major projects. It should also rebuild military capability commensurate with its geography and obligations. The irony, Carney holds a US passport and chaired Brookfield Asset Management when its board approved a move of the company’s head office from Toronto to New York. That makes his decision to amplify an American military scenario still more discordant. Canada does not need an imagined invasion to rediscover sovereignty. It needs the confidence to build, produce, trade and compete again.