The leadership at Shopify has been more vocal on the political front in recent weeks. This has caused some left-leaning media to draw a parallel with the Musk-Trump alliance in the US and suggest something similar is happening with Pierre Poilievre and the Shopify leadership. I want to show support to Tobi & Co. by painting them as a bunch of ineffectual, wishy-washy policy dilettantes without an ounce of courage.
Here's a sampling of potshots that Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke has taken against Justin Trudeau and his government in recent weeks:
But in 2018, when Trudeau was at the the height of his global fame, Tobi was happy enough to invite him to a Shopify conference.
Now that everyone realizes that mass immigration is not sustainable, Tobi pipes up:
Here he is being a little vague:
In Canada, we have the benefit of learning from many European countries that have tried mass immigration. For example, the 2016 Brexit vote was largely a reaction to mass immigration that resulted from the EU's freedom of movement laws. In 2017, Tobi was an eager signatory of a petition that called for the Canadian government to "institute an immediate and targeted visa providing those currently displaced by [Trump's Muslim travel ban] with temporary residency in Canada." That seems a little rash, no? That letter, also signed by Shopify president Harley Finkelstein, reaffirms various bro-mides, like "diversity is our strength". Trump's Muslim ban might well have been clumsy, blunt, discriminatory. But anyone who understands the basics of immigration policy knows that this is unavoidable. Just think of your travel options as a tourist and those of someone from a less developed country. As a Canadian citizen, you can travel visa-free virtually anywhere. Can nationals of African countries travel visa-free to Canada? That's discrimination based on your nationality. Trump used the same discriminatory framework - Christians or atheists were banned too if they originated from the targeted countries.
Tobi was at the time hog-wild, you might say, about multiculturalism.
Tobi on Canadian multiculturalism.
Embarrassing. I would say Canadians are probably the most inclusive people on Earth, but I don't know what's so special about Canadian multi-culturalism. Any free and democratic country enables multi-culturalism. Are there no kebab shops in Tobi's native Germany? In 2010, Angela Merkel said that multi-culturalism had utterly failed and that immigrants needed to do more to integrate. She is hardly an extremist, she would go on to welcome a million Syrian refugees a few years later. In the Canadian context, Quebec nationalists will say that multi-culturalism was a scheme by Pierre Trudeau to relegate French-Canadians to just one among many people in Canada and that mass immigration, as practiced by Justin Trudeau, is a scheme to dilute Quebec's voting power in Parliament.
I understand that Tobi has been very busy building billions in value, so he doesn't have much time to learn the finer points of policy. Also, as an employer, he has an interest in lowering barriers to skill-based immigration. Ironically, Tobi likely would not have met the criteria for being a skill-based migrant. He is mostly a self-taught coder and a graduate of an apprenticeship program that is common in Germany, but that was probably not recognized here at the time. In fact, he has said that when he got a local job, he couldn't sign on due to lacking a work permit, so he decided to start a business. Tobi probably got Canadian permanent residency as a common law partner of his now wife Fiona McKean. This seems like a very permissive immigration route. Between 2002 and 2006, Tobi was in Canada working remotely for a German company and he then started a snowboard e-commerce company that eventually morphed into Shopify. I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of the boyfriend immigration route.
Many people have built their identity around being anti-Trudeau, I worry how they will rebuild their lives once he is gone. Pierre Poilievre seems like a reasonable fellow, maybe the most promising conservative leader in decades. But I have been disappointed many times before. The UK had 14 years of Conservative rule until last summer, but the economic mood is just as morose there as it is here. There are some worrying signs with Pandering Pierre Poilievre. Here's Pandering Pierre appeasing a micro-constituency, made up of his Venezuelan wife and in-laws:
Tobi complains about Trudeau sending international aid to Jordan. Pandering Pierre supports sending military aid to Ukraine. The same principle is at stake: whether it's right to confiscate money from Canadian taxpayers to solve problems on the other side of the world. Also, until about 3 minutes ago, Pandering Pierre was not even willing to talk about cutting immigration numbers.
Bashing Trudeau in 2024 and thinking that Poilievre is some sort of saviour is very much an example of "I support the current thing" behaviour.
The only party that has shown foresight on these matters and true dedication to the cause of freedom is the People's Party of Canada ("PPC"). They advocate that every migrant should be screened for values compatibility via a face-to-face interview. Again, I am the first to say this is pretty clumsy. I imagine a sample question will be "How do you feel about people blowing up buildings." But at least, they have the courage to attack problems head-on. Today, this party polls at around 2.5% - worse than the Greens. But these things take time. Did you know that Trump first ran for the presidency in 2000? He dropped after polling at 7%. Any dedicated Trump scholar will know that he truly put in the work over decades to take over his party and reshape it for his purposes. Trump's equivalent in the UK won a seat in Parliament this year after previously failing 7 times!
The PPC was the victim of an orchestrated smear job painting them as racist, apparently by political operative Warren Kinsella at the behest of the Conservative Party. This is the standard tactic of weaponizing the charge of racism against anyone you disagree with. I am the second least racist person in the world! How could I possibly associate myself with racism? I should mention, if you don't know, that I am - tragically - an ethnic minority. Specifically, I am Sri Lankan. I don't mention this to assert some sort of immunity, I am just setting up a joke. I have a poll going on Twitter on whether I should be deported, my status is on a knife's edge:
Tech luminary Marc Andreessen took note of the Poilievre / Shopifolk connection.
The original "broligarch", Elon Musk, has endorsed Pierre Poilievre, along with Bill Ackman.
But he has been much more vocal in the UK and Germany, endorsing underdog parties. His official endorsement of the Alternative for Germany ("AfD") via a recent oped is especially bold. All I knew about this party from mainstream press coverage is that they are "xenophobic" or "neo-Nazi." In other words, illegitimate. But thanks to Elon's intervention, I found that AfD is led by a far-right woman with a PhD in Economics, who speaks Mandarin, worked at Goldman Sachs, and is in a same-sex relationship with a woman born in Sri Lanka. Wow 😍😍😍! That deserves a permanent place in my spank bank! I don't know enough to endorse them politically though.
Elon went all-in on Trump when he was no better than a 50/50 proposition. He spent more than $270m on the 2024 campaign. He went up to the legal line by setting some sort of disguised bribe for voters who were likely to support Trump. All these political maneuverings are quite likely to turn off millions of people, which could affect his business interests. Meanwhile, Tobi is taking baby steps bashing the least popular prime minister in decades. Tobi says: "I've got one vote just like everyone else." Poilievre has been coasting towards victory for more than a year, I don't know if he will feel beholden to these Johnny-come-latelies.
Here's Tobi appeasing Jagmeet by offering that he is "happy to chat."
Some broligarch! I probably shouldn't be too harsh on Tobi, considering how timid the other Canadian moguls are. Most business people are pragmatists. You will recall that Trump once invited Hillary Clinton to his wedding, so I can't hold Tobi to a higher standard. The good news is that the Overton window is shifting. I am doing my part for a more combative and polemical world.