The head of Ottawa-based Shopify says it is “simply the wrong choice” for the federal government to impose counter tariffs on U.S. items, as a trade war begins between Canada and the United States.

In case you weren’t aware of where Tobias (Tobi) Lutke’s views lay.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
    6·
    5 hours ago

    These are things that every Canadian wants its government to do, too. These are not crazy demands, even if they came from an unpopular source.”

    They are 100% “crazy demands” in that a fake national emergency is declared in order to rip up trade agreements. The amounts of drugs from Canada are extremely small, and more illegal immigrants enter Canada from US rather than other way around. If Fentanyl is a problem, the US can do a lot more to curb US production, and hospital use. Another approach would be to simply eliminate heroin, since all deaths occur as a result of mistaken contamination/substitute of heroin, and fentanyl is “cheaper per dose” as reason for hospital use. Making opiate pills “highly available” would also remove fear/events of overdoses.

    A fake national emergency, with other pretexts for tariffs. “small trade imbalance, and opportunity to extort Canada by destroying its economy” makes it a declaration of war. That Shopify would have more sales if Canada just surrendered, is an overly selfish perspective to say out loud, and in my opinion, treason for both him, and media that doesn’t shout it down as treason, instead of being CIA funded mind control of Canada as a US colony.

    The “crazy demands” disqualifies the US from being a trusted military partner. Canada needs to stop adopting US enemies as its own, and instead realize that the US is its enemy, and it needs new friends that are powerful enough to stand up to US.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
    50·
    15 hours ago

    So… Are we supposed to just bend over and take it?

    The fuck?

    I can’t say I’m surprised though. Some corpo advocating for something that will help them profit? What a surprise.

    • Ulvain@sh.itjust.works
      29·
      14 hours ago

      Reminder and PSA: it’s never been about race, or about American versus Canadian, or about poor vs middle class - it’s always ever been the Uber rich governing class vs the 99%

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caOP
    82·
    19 hours ago

    Replies to a challenge that he’s just looking out for his bottom line with this:

    Shopify is unaffected by all this.

    The Canadian small businesses that run on Shopify are the ones that are not so lucky. They are the bedrock of our economy providing 70% of all jobs. We all ought to fight for them.

    I’m dumbfounded. He must think Canadians are so stupid they can’t see the contradiction in this statement.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
      4·
      5 hours ago

      Canadian small businesses that are not simply resellers of US products, actually gain from tariffs on US competition. The US tariffs on Canada hurt them, but the retaliation directly helps them.

  • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
    44·
    19 hours ago

    I wasn’t aware of this guy at all. ty. We should assume he’ll be bitching about our banking systems next (Trump’s next nonsense goalpost). Looking at his wiki page - absolutely sickening he was awarded the Meritorious Service Cross for his tech work in Canada.

    tl;dr - A German-born white billionaire douchebag techbro doesn’t approve of Canada defending it’s sovereignty and has no idea what the country has already done or is doing about the drug killing people addicted to painkillers, but has decided to loudly support whatever Trump says he wants, and to repeat the version of reality Trump claims.

  • nman90@lemmy.world
    22·
    19 hours ago

    American here, yeah trade wars never lead to anything good, but neither does laying down and taking it. I’m more of the mindset of I will absolutely fuck myself over just to spite you if you wrong me, so I am 100% for Canada’s response because what trump(read Dump) is trying to do is wrong and I am 100% against it.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      8·
      17 hours ago

      Russia was upset Ukraine fought… It sucks what else a weaker country supposed to do? Take it?

      Make another fake deal?

      Too Many similarities and it is uncomfortable

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caOP
      111·
      18 hours ago

      It’s not just about spite or fighting. If we don’t tariff back, our firms get fucked by American tariffs, unemployment increases, our society pays for a part of those tariffs. Adding Canadian import tariffs transfers reciprocate some of this to the other side of the border, and we then can use the revenue to negate the social cost of the American tariffs. Otherwise we’d end up in part subsidizing them.