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      Trump policies make US ‘scary place to invest’ and risk stagflation, says Stiglitz

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      Donald Trump’s tariff threats have made the US “a scary place to invest” and may unleash stagflation, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said.“It risks the worst of all possible worlds: a kind of stagflation,” Stiglitz said in an interview with the Guardian.He argued that despite optimism about the US economy at the turn of the year, the uncertainty created by Trump’s on-off tariff plans and the president’s apparent contempt for the rule of law would deter investment.“If you’re a corporate in the US or in Europe, do you think you have a global market, or do you have just a European market? Where do you locate your factories?” he said.He highlighted Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government departments without congressional authority, and Trump’s disregard for contracts – including the trade pact he struck with Canada and Mexico in his first term – among damaging signals for investors considering the US as a destination.“The government has a huge number of contracts and we’re just tearing them up. How much risk do you want? The US has become, I would say, a scary place to invest,” he said.Stiglitz argued that the uncertainty was likely to slow economic growth, while at the same time Trump’s tariffs – and retaliation by other countries – would drive up inflation.The prospect of rising inflation in the world’s largest economy has led investors to pare back bets on the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates since Trump’s return to office, amid mounting concern over the fallout from a global trade war.Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor and former World Bank economist who served as chair of Bill Clinton’s council of economic advisers, said the Fed was “clearly worried” about the inflationary effects of Trump’s policies, which could lead it to raise interest rates.“Almost all economists agree that the tariffs will increase prices. How much it will increase prices is a little bit affected by the magnitude of the appreciation of the exchange rate, but all economists think that the extent of the appreciation of the exchange rate won’t be anywhere near enough to compensate for the tariffs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I could certainly see a scenario where we get to stagflation – we get inflation, and a weak economy,” he said. “I cannot see a really robust economy, because I just see the global economy suffering so much from the uncertainty that Trump poses.”Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, has suggested the administration wants to bring down 10-year US Treasury yields, an important interest rate, which would have a knock-on effect across global markets. Lower Treasury yields would make it cheaper for Washington to borrow.But Stiglitz suggested the only way the president’s policies would positively contribute to that goal was by running the US into the ground. “The inflation from the tariffs is going in the wrong way, and the only thing that is going in the right way for Bessent is his efforts to crater the economy,” he said.“In supporting Trump’s economic policies, [Bessent] is helping to get the yield curve down by crashing the US economy – not a good policy, I would say.” More

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      Badenoch and Farage to vie for attention of Trump allies at London summit

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      Influential rightwingers from around the world are to gather in London from Monday at a major conference to network and build connections with senior US Republicans linked to the Trump administration.The UK opposition leader, the Conservatives’ Kemi Badenoch, and Nigel Farage of the Reform UK party, her hard-right anti-immigration rival, will compete to present themselves as the torchbearer of British conservatism.Conservatives from Britain, continental Europe and Australia attending the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference will seize on the opportunity to meet and hear counterparts from the US, including those with links to the new Trump administration. The House speaker, the Republican Mike Johnson, had been due to attend in person but will now give a keynote address remotely on Monday.Other Republicans due to speak include the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Vivek Ramaswamy – who has worked with Elon Musk on moves to radically reshape the US government – and Kevin Roberts, the president of the US Heritage Foundation, the thinktank behind the controversial “Project 2025” blueprint for Trump’s second term.View image in fullscreenThe conference, which is intended to be a gathering of influential intellectuals shaping global rightwing thinking, has a distinctly anti-environmental and socially conservative theme. It pledges to build on “our growing movement and continue the vital work of relaying the foundations of our civilisation”.ARC was co-founded in 2023 by the Canadian psychologist and self-help author Jordan Peterson and the Tory peer Philippa Stroud. Financial backers include Paul Marshall, one of the owners of GB News, and the Legatum Institute libertarian thinktank.After last year’s first event at the O2 Arena, it has moved to a larger venue this year at the ExCel centre. About 4,000 people from 96 countries are due to attend this year, compared with 1,500 last year.Badenoch returns to the lavish three-day event as leader of her party after last year using an appearance to launch a “culture war” attack on the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall. But while she will give a welcome address to the conference on Monday morning ahead of a keynote speech by Johnson, there is no escape from the challenge her party faces from the hard-right anti-immigration Reform UK.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenFarage, the party’s leader, will be interviewed on stage on Tuesday by Peterson while Reform’s chair, Zia Yusuf, is expected to later take part in a panel for a session called “The choices we face: unilateral economic disarmament or a pro-human way?”Figures on the advisory board of ARC include the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, the Tory MP Danny Kruger, the self-styled “sceptical environmentalist” Bjørn Lomborg and the Tory peer and financier Helena Morrissey.It also includes Maurice Glasman, the Labour peer associated with the socially conservative “Blue Labour” strand of thinking, who recently appeared on a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, the US Republican strategist and on-and-off Trump ally.Peterson will also interview Peter Thiel, the US Republican donor and Silicon Valley billionaire known for controversial views such as asserting that democracy is not compatible with freedom and that he has “little hope that voting will make things better”.A list of attenders seen by Guardian Australia showed more than 50 Australians, including figures from rightwing thinktanks and churches, were intending to go to the gathering. Among those travelling are Bridget McKenzie, a senator for the National party, along with key figures from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.Those involved in ARC are keen to promote the gathering as more about the formulation of big ideas than political policy or campaigning and point to conference’s inclusion of scientists and figures from the arts.While religious faith does not explicitly feature in promotional material for the event, there is a strong religious influence on its direction from Peterson, who draws on the Bible in his work, and Stroud, a committed Christian credited with shaping many of the policies of the Conservative party during the 2000s. More

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      Trump cuts reach FDA workers focused on food safety and medical devices

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      The Trump administration’s effort to slash the size of the federal workforce reached the Food and Drug Administration this weekend, as recently hired employees who review the safety of food ingredients, medical devices and other products were fired.Probationary employees across the FDA received notices on Saturday evening that their jobs were being eliminated, according to three FDA staffers who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.The total number of positions eliminated was not clear on Sunday, but the firings appeared to focus on employees in the agency’s centers for food, medical devices and tobacco products – which includes oversight of electronic cigarettes. It was not clear whether FDA employees who review drugs were exempted.On Friday, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to fire 5,200 probationary employees across its agencies, which include the National Institutes of Health, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.People who spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity on Friday said the number of probationary employees to be laid off at the CDC would total nearly 1,300. But as of early Sunday afternoon, about 700 people had received notices, according to three people who spoke on condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. They said none of the CDC layoffs affected the doctors and researchers who track diseases in what’s known as the Epidemic Intelligence Service.The FDA is headquartered in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington DC and employs nearly 20,000 people. It’s long been a target of newly sworn-in health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr, who last year accused the agency of waging a “war on public health” for not approving unproven treatments such as psychedelics, stem cells and chelation therapy.Kennedy also has called for eliminating thousands of chemicals and colorings from US foods. But the cuts at FDA include staffers responsible for reviewing the safety of new food additives and ingredients, according to an FDA staffer familiar with the firings.An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday afternoon.Nearly half of the FDA’s $6.9bn budget comes from fees paid by companies the agency regulates, including drug and medical device makers, which allows the agency to hire extra scientists to swiftly review products. Eliminating those positions will not reduce government spending.A former FDA official said cutting recent hires could backfire, eliminating staffers who tend to be younger and have more up-to-date technical skills. The FDA’s workforce skews toward older workers who have spent one or two decades at the agency, and the Government Accountability Office noted in 2022 that the FDA “has historically faced challenges in recruiting and retaining” staff due to better money in the private sector.“You want to bring in new blood,” said Peter Pitts, a former FDA associate commissioner under George W Bush. “You want people with new ideas, greater enthusiasm and the latest thinking in terms of technology.”Mitch Zeller, former FDA director for tobacco, said the firings are a way to “demoralize and undermine the spirit of the federal workforce”.“The combined effect of what they’re trying to do is going to destroy the ability to recruit and retain talent,” Zeller said.The FDA’s inspection force has been particularly strained in recent years after a wave of departures during the Covid-19 pandemic, and many of the agency’s current inspectors are recent hires. It was not immediately clear whether those employees were exempted.FDA inspectors are responsible for overseeing thousands of food, drug, tobacco and medical device facilities worldwide, though the AP reported last year that the agency faced a backlog of roughly 2,000 uninspected drug facilities that hadn’t been visited since before the pandemic.The agency’s inspection force have also been criticized for not moving faster to catch recent problems involving infant formula, baby food and eyedrops. More

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      Trump under fire for likening himself to Napoleon amid attacks on judges

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      Critics rounded on Donald Trump on Sunday for likening himself to Napoleon in a “dictatorial” social media post echoing the French emperor’s assertion that “he who saves his country does not violate any laws”.The post came at the end of another tumultuous week early in Trump’s second presidency, during which acolytes questioned the legitimacy of judges making a succession of rulings to stall his administration’s aggressive seizure or dismantling of federal institutions and budgets.His defiance of some of those orders, including one ordering a restoration of funding to bodies such as the National Institutes of Health, has led to several of the president’s opponents declaring a constitutional crisis.“He is the most lawless president in US history,” Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, wrote on Wednesday in the Guardian.“This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power ‘legitimately’, not the president.”Trump laid out his position in the tweet posted on Saturday afternoon, after a round of golf at his Florida resort. The quote, as internet sleuths soon discovered, is a version of a phrase attributed to Napoleon “Celui qui sauve sa patrie ne viole aucune loi,” translated as: “who saves his country violates no law”.Another version appeared in the 1970 movie Waterloo, starring Rod Steiger as the dictator who rode roughshod over the French constitution to declare himself emperor and pursue world domination before his comeuppance at the pivotal 1815 battle from which the film’s title is derived.Senior Democrats led the criticism of Trump. The Virginia US senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election that Trump won, told Fox News Sunday that occupation of the White House was not a mandate to ignore the courts.“The president has authority, but the president also has to follow the law,” he said.“There’s this law that, you know, the Empowerment Act, that says once Congress has appropriated dollars for a particular purpose the president is not allowed to say: ‘Yeah, I don’t like that. I’m going to spend this money, but not that money.’“That’s why, so far, there’s a whole lot of lawsuits that have been successful. They’ll go through appeals courts, but a lot of the president’s extreme executive actions that hurt folks are being challenged in court right now.”According to the Associated Press, the administration is facing at least 70 lawsuits nationwide covering actions from the attempted elimination of birthright citizenship to the freezing of federal grants and funds – and the accessing of sensitive computer systems and data by unofficial entities.Trump’s wrecking ball approach since his 20 January inauguration continued this week with deeper infiltration by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) into federal institutions – and the latest firings of vast numbers of employees.On Sunday, Bloomberg reported a wave of new dismissals at health department agencies including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Other agencies where the workforce has, or will be, slashed include the homeland security department, the Food and Drug Administration, US Forest Service and National Park Service, the US Agency for International Development (USAid), and the Department of Education.Critics believe that a hollowing out of many essential taxpayer-funded services, especially in healthcare, support for veterans, and military and defense expenditure, will come with a lucrative corresponding financial windfall for private companies, including those owned by Musk.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMusk, the world’s richest man and Trump acolyte, who has been awarded the status of “special government employee”, has called on the administration to “delete entire agencies”, which it could not legally do without the sanction of Congress that created them.“I don’t like the fact that Donald Trump is shutting the government down as we speak,” Kaine told Fox.“He says he wants to shut down the Department of Education, shrink USAid staff down to 250 people. That is a shutdown unauthorized by Congress, against the law.“My outrage is about who they’re hurting. I don’t like unelected officials, those Doge guys, posting classified information on their website. You shouldn’t let people run rampage through offices that have classified information.”More turmoil came with the administration’s decision to ban Associated Press journalists from the Oval Office and Air Force One for refusing to comply with Trump’s executive order attempting to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.The White House sought to justify the punitive move by insisting that it was “a lawful geographic name change”. The AP pointed out that the agency served an international audience, and while it recognized Trump’s order, it would continue referring to the body of water by its globally accepted name.In a statement, Axios said the right of news organizations to report how they saw fit was “a bedrock of a free press and durable democracy”. Nonetheless, it also said it would use the name Gulf of America because “our audience is mostly US-based compared to other publishers with international audiences”.The Atlantic’s view was that it was a spat the AP should have avoided. “To cave now would be to surrender on the constitutional issue. But this is a fight that Trump is clearly happy to have, especially to the extent that it draws attention away from his more egregious affronts to the public interest and the rule of law,” it said.Meanwhile, economic headwinds continue to mount for the fledgling Trump administration as it prepares to impose new tariffs on trading partners that analysts predict will lead to an international trade war and job losses. Inflation rose to 3% in January, according to government figures, despite Trump promising during election campaigning that prices “will come down, and they’ll come down fast”.By Thursday, the message had changed. “Prices could go up somewhat short-term,” Trump said as he laid out his tariffs plan, before promising they would go down again at some point. More

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      MLK’s family fear new batch of assassination files will have FBI ‘smears’

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      The family of Martin Luther King Jr has expressed concern over Donald Trump’s executive order to release records surrounding the civil rights leader’s assassination, saying the president’s mandate could revive efforts to discredit the revered activist with the public.Speaking to Axios, a friend of the King family said: “We know J Edgar Hoover tried to destroy Dr King’s legacy, and the family doesn’t want that effort to prevail,” referring to the late former FBI director and his agency’s years-long surveillance of King as well his associates.In addition to covert surveillance, the FBI threatened King in other ways – including by sending King’s wife, Coretta, a tape of King allegedly having an extramarital affair, as well as a note encouraging him to kill himself for the sake of the civil rights movement.The latest remarks from the King family friend follow an executive order signed by Trump in January, the first month of his second presidency, that ordered the release of thousands of classified federal documents on King’s 1968 assassination.He ordered a similar release of classified federal documents pertaining to the 1963 and 1968 assassinations of President John F Kennedy and Senator Robert F Kennedy.Respectively, the Kennedy brothers were the uncle and father of Trump’s newly appointed health and human services director, Robert F Kennedy Jr.“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” Trump’s executive order said. “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”Trump in January boasted to reporters: “Everything will be revealed.”After Trump’s order, King’s family released a statement, saying: “For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.”However, according to a White House official speaking to Axios, the Trump administration refused that request from King’s family, though it claimed the refusal did not stem from “animus toward the family”.Speaking to the outlet, a second source who spoke with one of King’s two surviving adult children said that “there are deep concerns” within the family over the ordered release.“They know the right wing wants to smear Dr King, and one way to do it is by putting these smears in the public under the guise of transparency. If there are assassination records, release those. But smears are not assassination records,” the source told Axios.King dedicated his life’s work to advancing civil rights across the United States before assassin James Earl Ray fatally shot him at the Lorraine motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968.A 2020 documentary by US film-maker Sam Pollard titled MLK/FBI explores the agency’s pursuit of King via state-sanctioned surveillance. More

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      ‘The US is ready to hand Russia a win’: newspapers on Europe’s Trump shock

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      This year’s Munich security conference exposed the chasm in core values separating the Trump administration from most Europeans and sparked deep alarm at US efforts to control the Ukraine peace process and exclude European governments from it.Here is what some of the main European and US newspapers had to say about it.Le MondeThrough JD Vance, its vice-president, the US has “declared ideological war on Europe”,wrote Sylvie Kauffmann for the French title. If Vladimir Putin turned on the US in a famous 2007 speech at the conference, in 2025 it was the US that turned on Europe.In a “virulent diatribe against European democracies he accused of stifling freedom of speech and religion”, Vance said the greatest threat to the continent was not Russia or China but Europe’s own retreat from some of its “most fundamental values”.Worse, his relative silence on “the topic Europe most wanted to hear him on”, Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, “prolongs the incomprehension and confusion over Trump’s initiative aimed at ending the war”, Kauffmann said.“A thick fog now surrounds Washington’s intentions; between the public statements of Vance and the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the various interviews followed by denials, contradictory positions have multiplied,” she said.New York TimesThe US administration had done nothing less than “offer what may be a preview under Mr Trump of a redefinition of a transatlantic relationship built on postwar bonds of stability between allied governments”, the paper said.It too reminded readers of Putin’s 2007 speech in which the Russian president “demanded the rollback of American influence and a new balance of power in Europe more suitable to Moscow”, adding that he “didn’t get what he wanted – then”.Now, top Trump officials had “made one thing clear: Putin has found an American administration that might help him realise his dream”. The comments raised fears the US may now “align with Russia and either assail Europe or abandon it altogether”.Such a shift, the paper said, would amount to “a previously unthinkable victory far more momentous for [Putin] than any objectives in Ukraine”.Süddeutsche ZeitungCommentator Daniel Brössler said in the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung that Vance had not come to the German city to give “a friendly wake-up call”, but as “an arsonist”. The US vice-president’s mission was “the triumph of rightwing populism – with the backing of America’s billionaire chief Elon Musk”.His silence on security policy was because “work has already begun on a deal with Putin at the expense of Ukraine, but also of Europe … This much is clear: Trump will make the deal, and the Europeans will have to pay and secure peace militarily.”Europe, Brössler said, was being attacked “by Putin, who has come a good deal closer to his goal of revising the European order in recent days. And by Trump, who no longer even recognises common interests – and certainly not common values.”On the one hand, the US “is demanding Europe finally become capable of defending itself against Russia. On the other, it is backing Putin’s henchmen and appeasers”, from Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to the Alternative für Deutschland co-leader Alice Weidel.The continent, he said, “will have to rise above itself”. Editorialist Detlef Essinger said Vance had deployed “a trick that populists and authoritarians have used for years … The principle is: accuse others of exactly everything that you do yourself.”This “confuses them. It puts you on the offensive, and your opponents on the defensive. It gives you sovereignty over the terms. And a debate is not won by the person who has the better arguments, but by the person who owns the terms.”The Kyiv Independent“The US administration is ready to hand Russia a win in its brutal war against Ukraine. That’s the only conclusion we can make,” the paper said in a blunt editorial. The words and acts of Trump and his team go “beyond appeasement”.But, it added, while the US may be “the biggest and richest ally Ukraine has”, it is far from the only one: “That means all eyes are on you, Europe. The real decision on whether Russia wins the war doesn’t actually sit with Trump now – it’s with Europe.”Europe’s leaders, if they are “real leaders of their nations and not political opportunists, need to recognise the urgency of the situation, and act now. After all, if the US is out and Ukraine falls, Europe will be left to face Russia one on one.”Russia, the paper said, “is not at war with Ukraine, it’s at war with the west. And if a significant part of the west deserts, the rest needs to make sure to show up for battle.” Nobody, it said, wanted the war to end more than Ukrainians do.“But we understand that any compromise with Russia won’t be the end of the war. There can’t be a compromise in this war. Russia wins – the west loses. The west wins – Russia loses. Europe, the time is now.” More

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      Trump’s comments on Canada prompt surge of patriotism – in a Canadian way

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      A lone figure takes to the stage, a giant maple leaf flag rippling on a screen behind him as he gingerly approaches the microphone.“I’m not a lumberjack, or a fur trader,” he tells the crowd. “I have a prime minister, not a president. I speak English and French, not American. And I pronounce it ‘about’ – not ‘a boot’.”The crowd, indifferent at first, grows increasingly enthusiastic as the man works his way through a catalogue of Canadian stereotypes, passing from diffidence to defiance before the climactic cry: “Canada is the second largest landmass! The first nation of hockey! And the best part of North America! My name is Joe! And I am Canadian!”The ad, for Molson Canadian beer, was immensely popular when it aired in 2000. And now, with Canada’s identity and sovereignty under threat, it has roared back into the public consciousness.In recent weeks, Canadian patriotism has surged in response to Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US could annex its northern neighbour. His threats have prompted an outpouring of disbelief and defiance, but – in a very Canadian way – they has also revived questions over the complexities of national identity.View image in fullscreenTrump began his campaign of diplomatic trolling before he had even assumed office, questioning Canada’s viability as a nation, suggesting that it could become the 51st American state, and deriding the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as a “governor”.In response, Canadians have taken to acts of patriotism, small and large: one pilot flew his small plane in the shape of a maple leaf; sports fans have booed US teams; hats insisting “Canada is not for sale” have gone viral; consumers have pledged to buy only Canadian-made products – a pledge skewered in a viral sketch in which one shopper berates another for buying American ketchup.“What the hell are you doing?” he asked “We’re in a trade war, you traitor!”“It’s been absolutely crazy and overwhelming,” said Dylan Lobo, who runs MadeInCa, a website that catalogues products made in-country. “We’re struggling to keep up with all the listings. People are really frustrated and they want to find a way to support Canadian and buy Canadian.”Politicians, aware of a looming election, have wrapped themselves in the flag. And in a show of bipartisan unity, five former prime ministers have called for Canadian unity.“We all agree on one thing: Canada, the true north, strong and free, the best country in the world, is worth celebrating and fighting for,” the leaders wrote in a statement.A recent poll found pro-Canadian sentiment has surged in recent weeks – with the biggest leap towards patriotism found in francophone Quebec, a region historically ambivalent towards federal patriotism.View image in fullscreenThe shift marks a dramatic rebound from 2020, when the divisive policies of the coronavirus pandemic shifted how many Canadians viewed the flag – especially after the maple leaf was appropriated by the by far-right Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa.At the same time, new stress has been put on Canadian national identity amid growing recognition of the historical injustices perpetrated against Indigenous peoples. Statues of monarchs and founding statesmen have been pulled down, and buildings renamed amid a heated national discussion about the legacy of colonial rule.“Trump’s comments on annexation have certainly awakened something in people,” said Wilfred King, the chief of Gull Bay First Nation. “But I think we also need to remember on both side of the border, that Indigenous people in Canada are the only ones that can really speak about true sovereignty in this country.”Unlike in other colonial conquests, King said, the Crown made alliances with Indigenous peoples in what is now Canada. “There was no surrender to outside forces.”“When crisis and conflict came, we answered the call. Indigenous people volunteered more than any other group to fight alongside their allies in both world wars,” said King, whose father served in the second world war. “When they returned home, they were marginalized. They saw what it was like to be betrayed by a friend.”And so the fraught nature of Canada’s relationship with the US is jarringly familiar to the country’s first peoples. “They’re only feeling what we’ve been feeling for the last 175 years. It’s how the government has treated First Nations in Canada.”View image in fullscreenFor Jeff Douglas, who played Joe Canada in popular the 2000 ad campaign, the recent surge of nationalism has brought mixed feelings.“Patriotism wasn’t something that ever really resonated with me and I was very ignorant about the totality of Canadian history when we made the ad,” he said.Douglas, who later became an acclaimed radio host for the CBC, says decades spent meeting different groups across the country has deepened his understanding of Canada’s complicated, and dark, history.“I think that we can still be proud. We just have to be aware – and then being aware of the wrongs of the past and the continuing wrongs in the present doesn’t mean that we can’t be proud to be Canadian. Pride in being Canadian cannot come at the cost of that awareness,” he said.And while he says a “blind” shift towards patriotism doesn’t serve the broader goals of fixing injustices, it also reflects the “dynamic” nature of people’s relationship with their country.“There are going to be times where you’re going to need to just say, ‘We need to be strong and face forward if that’s what the country needs to get through the existential threat we’re facing,’” he said.Douglas is hopeful the current fixation on buttressing Canadian identity in the face of threats to the country will serve a broader purpose.“My love of the country, or rather the people of the country, is a love of what we potentially could achieve, and it is richer when I understand the complexity of where we’ve been and where we are. We can grow. But it’s important to remember that you can love something that’s imperfect.” More