John Lyotier

@Sportsnet really? As seen outside Rogers Arena. Taunting #canucks fans.

3 weeks ago I argued the US goal in Iran is to seize the global oil spigot. Venezuela in January -> Iran in February. Neutralize every supply channel outside the dollar system within 90 days. Achieve a compliant successor government and complete energy dominance. The oil thesis was the obvious layer. However, when you zoom out & view the last four years as a single sequence rather than isolated geopolitical events, the architecture of the grander US plan becomes visible. 1st was Europe, which laid the groundwork. The Ukraine conflict provided the justification for sanctions that collapsed Russian pipeline gas from 150 billion cubic meters to 40. Then Nordstream was destroyed, which rewired the entire European energy system permanently. The US went from supplying 28% of Europe's LNG in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million MTs, the 1st country in history to break 100 MT. Europe was transformed from a customer with options into a captive market now purchasing its survival in USD. 2nd was Syria. The fall of Assad severed the critical node connecting China's Belt & Road Initiative to the Mediterranean. The trilateral railway linking Iran, Iraq & Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was completely destroyed. This isolated Iran geographically & cleared the path for what came next. 3rd was Venezuela. In January the US effectively took control of the world's largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast has the most advanced refining complex on earth, specifically built for heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero & the rest are now positioned to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude daily. The US captured a massive strategic reserve & solidified its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, an industry worth $110 billion in 2025 alone. Venezuela & Iran were the two major oil supply channels that existed outside the dollar system. Both produce heavy crude sold primarily to China & evaded US financial supervision. Both now being neutralized within 90 days, which leads us to.. 4th is Iran & the Middle East energy shock. Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar's Ras Laffan, the single largest LNG facility on earth, responsible for a fifth of global supply. QatarEnergy's own assessment is that 17% of export capacity is gone and recovery will take up to 5 years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices spiked 70%. Asian spot prices doubled. The only remaining scaled supplier? The United States. If Iran falls & a successor government is installed that the US controls or influences (the Delcy model described weeks ago) then roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million is effectively under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the US coalition is now the marginal producer. Now add the gas dimension & it goes beyond oil. This war is solidifying the petrodollar system as it evolves into a hybrid petro/LNG-dollar. The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long term contracts & regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply relationships for decades. Europe & the Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) cannot pivot away as there is nowhere left to pivot to. They're now locked into the US energy system. The market confirms this. DXY went from 96 to 101. Gold down ~20% from its January all time high. Bitcoin down 20% on the year. Brent above $100. European & Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and crypto to buy dollars because they need dollars to buy the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy in American currency. The dollar is now being weaponized through energy dependency. The structural repricing is happening regardless of how the conflict resolves. But the US grand strategy goes deeper.. Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily provided by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium & rare earths. By choking the Strait of Hormuz & crippling Middle Eastern LNG & helium production, the US is systematically degrading China's ability to power its data centers & fabricate semiconductors at scale. The US is energy self sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves & expanding Gulf Coast capacity running on domestic gas. On the other hand, China is import dependent & every joule it imports effectively now transits chokepoints the US Navy controls.. Iran was the Belt & Road's overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized that corridor is severed. China faces a world where its compute infrastructure competes for scraps on a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy. Russia is next in the sequence. A post-war Iran reopening under US influence competes directly with Russia for the same refineries in China & India at lower cost. Iran's production costs are lower. Russia loses its last structural advantage in heavy crude & its economic lifeline. Additionally, under the Iran war cover, Ukraine has been opportunistically destroying Russian energy infrastructure & all signs point towards Russia being at the end of the line. The message from Washington becomes very simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to get crushed, sign the Ukraine deal. Then Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. Complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG-dollar fortified, Iran cleared, Russia cornered, & China facing the Malacca Trap fully closed with no remaining energy bypass. Israel & the GCC are absorbing the kinetic cost of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, counter to the mainstream narrative, is actually America (First). Qatar offline for 5 years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of US exporters for the remainder of the decade. The Gulf states face years of rebuilding. Europe faces its 2nd energy crisis in four years. Sure, the average American might face temporary moderate inflation & higher gas prices. But if you are the architect of the US empire & you view the rise of China & Chinese ASI as an existential winner takes all scenario, the collateral damage is acceptable cost. Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls the monetary system & the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that determines which civilization builds ASI first. The US is seizing all 3.

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You may take our sticks. You may take our pucks. You may even take our Zamboni— BUT YOU WILL NEVER TAKE OUR HOCKEY!!!

Today, Canada announced its divorce from America. I'm not kidding. Every January since 1971, thousands of business leaders, politicians, journalists, economists, policy experts, and celebrities have gathered at a mountain resort in Switzerland to discuss the most pressing global issues of the day in hundreds of sessions scheduled over the better part of a week. The conference, organized by the World Economic Forum, has come to be nicknamed after its Alpine host town: Davos. The annual gathering in Davos has been criticized in many corners over the years for its exclusive nature, which is somewhat fair and somewhat reductive. Progress does emerge from these sessions among the assembled players, but so, too, does the feeling of window-dressing for what is mostly supercharged networking. This weekend, while talking with friends who have attended in the past, I asked if they had experienced anything extraordinary during the scheduled sessions, or if Davos is more of an opportunity to meet influential people and kibitz about preferred projects? Well, today could not have delivered more of an empathetic answer to that question. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, gave a magnificently powerful speech before the gathered elites that will be discussed many years from now. Decades, likely. It was, essentially, an eloquent and poignant announcement that Canada is divorcing the United States. Over sixteen minutes, Prime Minister Carney called upon the world to recognize that the current global framework in which superpowers run the show is stale, destructive, and unnecessary. Right out of the gate, early in the speech, he took a direct shot at Trump and Putin and Xi—but mostly directed at Trump—with a searing anecdote from an essay written by Václav Havel, the late president of the Czech Republic (remarks italicized): In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. And in it, he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself? And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He doesn’t believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. This was the first applause break, and the tone was immediately set. You can feel people sitting up in their seats and thinking: Oh, damn, this is gonna be good. He then briefly outlined the current system of geopolitical power: the strongest nations (United States, Russia, China, etc.) chart the course for the rest of the world, typically through international organizations, and the rest of the world accept this in exchange for security, predictability, and a practical trajectory for their own prosperity. He pointed out that the rest of the world have always known this is a “partially false” framework and that the strongest nations are never held to the same standards they expect of everyone else. But still, it’s what they had, and even if frustrating (and infuriating at times), it mostly worked in the past. He then says this: This fiction was useful. And American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. This is the diplomatic equivalent of a wronged spouse telling their partner: No, I am not asking for a break or a trial separation. It’s time to move on. He then got to the heart of the matter: all these instruments supposedly existing for global policy based on mutual cooperation—the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, NATO, etc.—only work if the superpowers who have the most leverage within them are engaging in good faith. What, then, are the current incentives for the rest of the world to trust the United States and other superpowers? He delivered this devastating summation: But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. […] And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions — that they must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. He basically called out Trump’s fecklessness and isolationism and toddler antics while the rest of the world has bent over backwards to placate Trump’s nonsense: And the question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to the new reality — we must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls or whether we can do something more ambitious. Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumptions — that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security — that assumption is no longer valid. […] Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights. For a big chunk of the speech, he outlined all the reasons Canada is ready to stand strong with the rest of the world in this New Order as it leaves the Old and Stale. He talked about his nation’s economic development and diplomatic strides and growth as a trusted partner all over the world. This is PM Carney saying: Canada knows its worth, and we know this current relationship is complete bullshit. We’re not taking it anymore. We’re done: Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu. But I’d also say that great powers can afford, for now, to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. We shouldn’t allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield them together. Hey, middle powers, we don’t need these dickhead superpowers, he says with far more eloquence. The writing is on the wall. It’s time to ditch these assholes and foster the network of relationships between nations who engage in good faith. He then closed with more pride in Canada and made it clear they’re ready to start this new chapter with every middle power who’s tired of this shit: Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but. A partner that builds and values relationships for the long term. And we have something else. We have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But we believe that from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers. The countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine co-operation. The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us. He finished his speech and received the rare standing ovation of the gathered elites at Davos and deservedly so. Because guess what? The rest of the world is tired of America’s bullshit — problems that existed before Trump but were largely manageable enough to fall in the realm of pragmatic working relationships have now worsened exponentially in the past year. Trump has pissed off one of the nicest countries on earth—our northern neighbors, who have faithfully stood by us in times of great calamity and never wronged us—so much that their leader told the world today that enough is enough and the United States and other superpowers should understand what has been done cannot be undone. As an American watching this, I felt tremendous guilt and embarrassment over what Trump has done to our global reputation, when even our closest allies are thoroughly and openly repulsed at the thought of working with us, so much so that nothing can repair the damage inflicted by this coward and his enablers in the Republican Party. But I also felt hope watching the Prime Minister. For the first time in a long time, I was struck with a sense of optimism over how much more outside pressure is being applied to the fascist clowns currently running our government. Let this be a wakeup call, indeed. We can’t fix all that has been broken, but there is still time to save what can be fixed. It doesn’t have to be this way. Thank you for galvanizing us, Prime Minister Carney. ---- Link to full essay available here for easier sharing: charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/canada-annou…

The consequences of the United States attacking / invading or annexing Greenland: Here’s just a few possibilities of how it plays out for the US. The geopolitical equivalent of committing state suicide. The first effect is this: The US seizing territory from a NATO country, won’t be letters of protest or Ambassador recalls. It will trigger the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which provides at its core - a treaty between member nations. At the heart and design of this treaty is the collective defence obligation “an armed attack on one, is an attack on all”. This treaty has kept the peace for over 75 years, and it will cease to exist immediately, as the aggressor is a member of NATO. The organisation will lose a principal ally, while creating a new enemy. Potential repercussions: If only a few of these materialise - it will be catastrophic for the USA.   Europe will immediately demand the closure of every U.S. military base on the continent. Ramstein in Germany, Aviano in Italy, Lakenheath in the UK. The US’s ability to project power into the Middle East and Africa vanishes overnight. They will be evicted from the very soil they helped liberate and defended for decades, and forced to retreat to their own shores as a fortress nation, isolated and friendless. Perhaps Trump may even forge new alliances with Russia and China.   Economically, the European Union is the largest single market in the world, and they will immediately be compelled to respond to it, under Article 47.2 TFEU - which is the EU’s own mutual defence treaty and framework. Europe will likely move to call in U.S. debt and dump their dollar reserves, sending the value of our currency into a death spiral. The U.S. economy, which relies on the dollar being the global reserve currency, will collapse. Inflation will make the post-COVID spikes look like a rounding error. US citizens savings will be worthless before the ink dries on the invasion orders.   Corporate America will face an extinction event. U.S. companies will be expelled from the European market. Apple, Google, McDonald's, and Tesla will see their assets seized or their operations banned. Trillions of dollars in market capitalization will be incinerated in minutes. The stock market will not just crash; it will close. We are talking about the complete de-globalization of American industry, cutting them off from the wealthiest consumers on the planet.   The skies will go silent. European aviation authorities will almost certainly ground all Boeing jets and ban U.S. airlines from their airspace. Transatlantic travel will cease. If US citizens are in Paris or Berlin, they are stuck there. The logistical arteries that feed our supply chains will be severed. The US will be cut off from European medicine, machinery, and technology. They will be an island nation in the worst possible sense.   The cultural isolation will be just as stinging. The International Olympic Committee and FIFA will have no choice but to bar the United States from competition, just as they did with Russia.   For individual Americans, the consequences will be personal and painful. Visa-free travel to Europe will end immediately. Americans currently living or working in Europe will lose their legal protections and residency status.   This is the end of trust, and it does not reset. You cannot invade a democratic ally and then say "my bad" four years later. The psychological break will be permanent. Europe will realize that the United States is no longer a partner but a predator. Europe will build its own defense architecture, their own financial systems, and their own alliances that specifically exclude the US. The West will continue, but the United States will no longer be part of it. This is by design of the Trump regime and it’s army of social media influencers acting as officially endorsed pseudo advisors.   Invading or annexing Greenland is not a show of strength; it is an act of national suicide.

@donwinslow newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/techn…

Page 184 of Project 2025 calls for “re-hemisphering.”

@NHL @FlaPanthers @Discover @NHL_On_TNT @StreamOnMax @Sportsnet @TVASports what are these pants @FlaPanthers you got the boys wearing!? #WinterClassic

@TheStanchion #Canucks

So what are we cheering and what is the hashtag? #AllinForGavin #NoWinForGavin #Winna4McKenna #Canucks

@Adamkblat Reminds me of this share.google/cxGUuwcvDJYIC2…

At this rate, they may need to play three on three mini sticks in the hotel conference room

Happy Thursday, Canada 🍁

Not for nothing, but didn't Henrik Sedin cut his finger tip off to return to the ice faster? #Canucks

@SahilBloom 100% agree. Target market is retired boomers who don't want to leave their house, yet the work is getting too much for them to maintain the upkeep or know how/who to contact. The work is outsourced to their busy kids who then have to do the management from afar.

There’s a huge opportunity in solving this problem: The friction of home ownership vs. renting. When you rent, you have a single point-of-contact for all problems. When you own, you have to somehow stay on top of the long list of recurring and one-off maintenance things. I’d gladly pay $500+ per month to have 24/7 access to a “home manager” who could be the single point-of-contact for my home. • Schedules all recurring services • Coordinates all one-off services • Consolidates all service costs into one bill It’s probably a local/regional business (probably hard to coordinate the service provider relationships at scale), but a huge opportunity nonetheless. Could be a franchise model with software at top and local franchises. It solves a real home ownership pain point, so I’d bet a young hustler could go door to door and probably sell 100 houses at $500 per month over a single weekend… I’m sure there are some people trying to do this, but I haven’t ever been pitched on it for my homes, so it clearly hasn’t scaled yet. It feels similar to the local/regional pest control business opportunity that has now become pretty saturated. What am I missing?

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@ThomasDrance can Braeden Cootes be recalled on an emergency basis? #Canucks

@stone_grace_ Smartours = Smarter Tours = Packaged Tours in the Age of AI When we travel, we remember the experiences (those things that 'tickle the senses') more than the place where we physically stay. We wanted a brand that spoke to this. But the organic profile was awesome too.

@lyotier Congrats, John. Always exciting to see your portfolio grow. What’s the vision behind adding this new travel brand?

The next site up in the line of growing travel brands in our portfolio.

@fr_aquilini In case you needed the introduction... #Canucks