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Bonnie Critchley.

OTTAWA — Bonnie Critchley is used to breaking the mould.

A trailblazer in uniform,

Critchley

was just 17 years old when she became the second woman ever to serve as an armoured crewman in her unit. She and reservist dad Steve later made history as the first father–daughter gunnery crew in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps.

She’s now looking to take out Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in one of the safest Conservative ridings in Canada, running as an independent in the upcoming Battle River—Crowfoot byelection.

Critchley, who’s been traversing the rural Alberta riding for about a month, says she sees a path to an upset victory over Poilievre.

“Honestly, a good result for us would be a win,”

Critchley told the National Post on Wednesday.

She said that Poilievre is starting off on the wrong foot after yanking popular incumbent MP Damien Kurek out of the seat and

creating a hefty byelection

bill for taxpayers.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of ‘small-c’ conservatives around here who aren’t thrilled that the ‘big-C’ Conservatives are spending an extra two million dollars on a mulligan for a guy who failed in his duty to his constituents and was fired,” said Critchley.

Poilievre lost his Ottawa-area riding to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy by a five-point margin in April’s federal election, after holding the seat for two decades.

Critchley also says that the Calgary-born Poilievre has put off residents by donning western-style cowboy attire in his visits to the riding.

“Whether it’s

the backwards cowboy hat

at the Wainwright Stampede or sitting in a truck in Drumheller, it just isn’t landing,” said Critchley.

A 22-year army reservist who later rode her bike across Europe to raise money for veterans and first responders, Critchley has a CV that would be attractive to any major political party.

She says she’s running an an independent because she’s grown disillusioned with partisan politics.

“One of the things that I think we’re having issues with is team politics. It’s my team versus your team, and it doesn’t matter what my team does or says, my team is better than your team,” said Critchley.

She added that she’s finds it especially concerning when party politics prevents constituents from being properly represented, pointing to the Poilivre-Kurek switcheroo as a prime example of this problem.

Critchley calls herself a centrist and says she objects to “performative policies” on both the left and right.

She was one of many who welcomed the termination of the Liberals’ consumer carbon tax, calling it more symbolic than substantive.

“I’m not going to offer soft, easy answers to complex questions,” said Critchley.

She’s also said that she’ll work to repeal Trudeau-era gun control laws if elected to Parliament.

Critchley, who is a lesbian, says she also objects to right-wing points of view on trans issues.

She said that a

recent Alberta court injunction

stalling the province’s ban on transgender medicine for minors was “good news.”

“The (previous) supports for trans youth were in place to prevent youth suicides,” said Critchley.

Critchley said that she’ll be spending the next few weeks convening town halls to hear from voters in the riding.

She’s pre-emptively putting out an invitation to both Poilievre and Liberal candidate Darcy Spady to join her at one of these town halls.

“I will be welcoming those two for sure,” said Critchley.

Critchley has been less welcoming to some other potential candidates, though. She

released an open letter to the Longest Ballot Committee

— an activist group protesting former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s broken 2015 election promise on electoral reform — asking the group to “not come here and muddy the waters further.”

The group, which

gets headlines by swamping the ballot

with dozens of candidates, also targeted Poilievre’s Ottawa-area riding of Carleton during the federal election in April.

Critchley said the “tomfoolery” would only make it harder for a candidate like her to knock off Poilievre in  the August byelection.

National Post

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TORONTO — Ontario is expanding the delivery of publicly paid orthopedic surgeries through private clinics in an effort to reduce wait-lists.

Ontario is investing $125 million to add upwards of 20,000 orthopedic surgeries at community surgical centres over the next two years.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones says the expansion will reduce wait times for hip and knee replacements.

The province opened up a call for applications for new licences to be issued in 2026.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government first introduced sweeping changes to the delivery of health care in 2023 in response to a massive surgical and diagnostic test backlog.

Liberal health critic Adil Shamji says he supports the idea under the right circumstances, but adds the province has nowhere near enough guardrails in place to ensure the system will operate safely.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2025.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press


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EDMONTON — Two former members of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party are resuscitating the province’s once-dominant Progressive Conservative Party.

Former infrastructure minister Peter Guthrie and legislature member Scott Sinclair were booted from caucus earlier this year for pushing back against the Premier Danielle Smith’s government and now sit as Independents.

Sinclair says the province’s two-party system has become too divisive, and they want to galvanize support from Albertans who feel they don’t have a political home.

Former NDP premier Rachel Notley ended the PC’s 44-year dynasty in 2015, prompting conservatives to merge the Wildrose and PCs into the United Conservative Party.

Sinclair told the Ryan Jespersen podcast that Smith has morphed what was supposed to be a mainstream, big tent party into a separatist party.

Guthrie said on the podcast that Smith has turned her back on accountability while spending too much money on a growing, bloated bureaucracy.

The two are aiming to gather the 8,800 signatures needed to register as a political party with Elections Alberta.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2025.

Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press


OTTAWA — Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy is accusing Prime Minister Mark Carney of taking a “bootlicking” approach to U.S. President Donald Trump at the expense of Canadian values.

“You have to be principled, you have to be tactical, you have to be pragmatic. But you also have to be tough and know what you stand for,” Axworthy said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“Flattery is always part of the game, but you can take it to the point where you actually become unctuous.”

Axworthy spoke to The Canadian Press after issuing an online broadside last Sunday against the Carney government.

Axworthy, whom prime minister Jean Chrétien appointed as foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, oversaw the Ottawa Treaty that banned landmines in numerous countries. He has been a prominent voice on international relations, including through advocacy with the World Refugee and Migration Council.

In a blog post following the NATO summit — where alliance members agreed to Trump’s demand for a massive increase in the alliance’s defence spending target — Axworthy accused Carney and other world leaders of bending a knee to Trump.

“NATO now risks letting one craven, mendacious man set the tone for a strategy of unrestrained militarism,” Axworthy wrote, arguing it’s dangerous to let defence policy be decided by “the abusive, racist bullying of Donald Trump.”

He also argued that the summit did not adequately push to ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and instead committed alliance members to a level of defence spending that will lead to cuts to social programs and likely foreign aid.

“A pattern is now set: Trump harrumphs, we comply. What else will we quietly surrender? Cultural industries? Environmental standards, agriculture security, Arctic sovereignty?” he wrote.

In the interview, Axworthy singled out NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s exchange with Trump during the NATO summit — which saw Rutte refer to the president as “daddy” — as an “embarrassing” moment.

He also said his concerns have been further bolstered by Carney’s decision to rescind the digital services tax that targeted American tech giants, as the prime minister and Trump undertake what he calls “secret” trade negotiations with no parliamentary scrutiny.

“When do we stop pretending it’s all part of some clever negotiating strategy that justifies bootlicking in hopes of tariff concessions?” he wrote in the blog post.

Trump suggested in March that the U.S. might sell allies fighter jets that lack the same capabilities as those used by the U.S. military. Axworthy told The Canadian Press it’s unwise to accept a situation where “the Pentagon controls the black boxes in your airplanes and your destroyers.”

Axworthy said he sees the Carney government pushing ahead with foreign policy and domestic legislation focused on economic security, while ignoring the need to invest in diplomacy to prevent conflicts and defend Canadian values abroad.

Instead of solely focusing on military spending, he said Ottawa could mobilize investment and governments of various countries to have better freshwater management, because numerous countries are on track for major droughts that can lead to armed conflict.

Axworthy said Carney’s major-projects legislation, Bill C-5, has undercut reconciliation efforts with First Nations and the government “ignored” Indigenous Peoples in its rush to get the bill passed.

“It’s way past (just) being consulted. They have to be partners. They have to be involved. They’re basically the third pillar of this country,” the former Manitoba MP said of Indigenous Peoples.

“You’re going to get the machinery working, but you’re going to leave a lot of roadkill along the way.”

The government fast-tracked the sweeping legislation and opted against shortening the 12-week summer break to give it more study.

Carney’s office has not yet responded for a request for comment.

The prime minister himself was extolling the virtues of Canadian democracy Tuesday.

“We find ourselves in a situation where our values are being tested by attacks on democracy and freedoms — attacks that we must resist,” Carney said in his Canada Day remarks.

“In a world that’s fraught with division … we’ve decided not to pull apart and fight, but to come together and to build.”

Axworthy noted that Carney came from a life outside politics and said that’s among the reasons why he endorsed Chrystia Freeland instead of Carney in this year’s Liberal leadership race.

“I don’t think he’s ever knocked on that door or gone to a constituency meeting until he became a leadership candidate,” he said in the interview.

Axworthy repeated an idea he floated in January — that Ottawa should work with the countries Trump has talked of absorbing to mount a campaign to promote rules-based trade and peace in the Arctic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2025.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press


LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses President Donald Trump’s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California during an ongoingimmigration crackdown that has put the region “under siege.”

The court filing in U.S. District Court alleges that federal agents have violently and indiscriminately arrested people without probable cause while carrying out “immigration raids flooding street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites, day laborer corners.”

The lawsuit asks the court to block the Trump administration’s “ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law” during actions in and around Los Angeles.

”These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly and we want that particular practice to end,” Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, told the Los Angeles Times.

In addition, the complaint claims that those arrested are held in “dungeon-like” conditions without access to lawyers.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in an email that “any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE.”

McLaughlin said “enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence” before making arrests.

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” she said.

The complaint centers around three detained immigrants, several immigrant rights groups and two U.S. citizens, one who was held despite showing agents his identification. It comes days after the Trump administration sued Los Angeles to overturn what it called an “illegal” sanctuary city law.

Tens of thousands of people participated in recent rallies over immigration raids and the subsequent deployment of the National Guard and Marines. Los Angeles prosecutors have charged more than 40 people in connection with protest-related violence and vandalism. Among the latest people charged were a man and woman accused of assaulting police horses and a 17-year-old boy who faces felony counts, including attempted murder and assault against an officer.

At least 14 people are facing separate federal charges on allegations of assaulting police officers with cinder blocks and Molotov cocktails, and conspiracy to impede arrests.

The Associated Press


Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for the New York mayoralty, poses for a selfie with a supporter on July 2 in New York City.

It may not have garnered a lot of attention in Canada, but America’s largest city and global financial centre appears set on choosing its very own version of Justin Trudeau as its next mayor.

Zohran Mamdani is a man with a

brand

, a New Yorker with a remarkably similar look, sound and feel to Canada’s ex-prime minister. Handsome as all get-out, in a particularly boyish, non-threatening sort of way, he’s young, hip, well-coiffed and strategically-attired, his

wardrobe

carefully selected to suit the setting and deliver the message he’s chosen to project that day. Born in Uganda to a pair of glam

parents

— his father a professor of post-colonial studies, his mother an Oscar-nominated filmmaker — he fizzes with energy, has an excellent smile, is absolute murder at selfies.

At 33, Mamdani is made for magazine covers. He excites the young, is thoroughly left wing, thinks

billionaires

shouldn’t exist and promises a cornucopia of popular

goodies

for the city’s struggling middle- and working-classes should he be elected New York mayor as expected in November. Free buses. Frozen rents. City-owned grocery stores stocked with lower-priced offerings, paid for by higher corporate taxes and levies on the wealthy.

What could go wrong? Not much, as far as the coalition of youth, migrants and educated leftists who pushed Mamdani to a stunning victory in the Democratic mayoral primary — and thus the favourite in the fall election — are concerned. His meteoric rise to political stardom — a year ago he was a little-known member of the state assembly — carries broad echoes of the dramatic burst of popularity that carried Trudeau to the prime ministership in 2015. His meticulously calculated social media strategy, online presence, branding, logo, videos and even the wild colours of his campaign materials — dreamed up by a pair of Philadelphia designers — blew the competition away. It didn’t hurt that the “competition” came in the form of the stodgy, discredited, 67-year-old former governor Andrew

Cuomo

.

If anything should have been clear to Democrats following their disastrous presidential defeats of 2016 and 2024, it’s that chaining themselves to tattered scions of outdated family dynasties is anything but a formula for political triumph in the current state of U.S. politics. But no, after watching Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris crash and burn, establishment Democrats went ahead and bet their fate on Cuomo, son of another former governor, just four years after he

resigned

when investigators concluded he’d sexually harassed at least 11 women since being elected to the state’s highest office.

While Canadians may not see New York’s choice in mayors as particularly relevant, even with the city’s US$116-billion

budget

and a population bigger than all but two provinces, Mamdani’s rise signals that U.S. Democrats are nowhere near sorting out the dilemma of Donald Trump and the never-ending diet of disruption he represents well beyond U.S. borders.

Clinton, Biden and Cuomo were all dyed-in-the-wool representatives of a moderate, centrist, middle-of-the-road sort of politics that looks to be dead and buried among Republicans and increasingly feeble within America’s only other major party. A successful takeover of Democratic leadership by its more radical representatives would all but guarantee an escalation of today’s ruthless partisanship to levels hitherto unimagined.

Among mainstream Americans, and in dozens of foreign capitals, a hope has persisted that some day the Trump presidency would end, the spark of the MAGA movement would fade and the world could return to something resembling “normal.” But a headstrong and energized U.S. left bent on battle with the hardened forces of Trumpism would all but guarantee normality had nothing to do with the political future.

The Democratic establishment was in turmoil well

before

the Mamdani

surprise

came along. Former vice-president Harris’s loss to Trump in November left it in disarray, with no clear successor and no obvious plan. The New York Times reported its national committee was “in chaos … plagued by infighting and a drop in big donations.” The party is so busy battling within itself it had little energy to spare for Republicans.

The few signs of life have belonged to its most extreme elements. Firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders have headlined a series of well-attended rallies targeting the rich and old guard. Mamdani, like Sanders, identifies himself as a democratic socialist, and

overcame

Cuomo’s once-healthy lead despite Cuomo’s overwhelming support among the party’s senior figures.

Current New York Governor Kathy Hochul, head of the state’s Democrat apparatus,

withheld

her endorsement and repeatedly mispronounced Mamdani’s name. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who ran for the presidential nomination as a Democrat, gave US$8.3 million in Cuomo’s support. City developers were said to be “gripped by hysteria” at Mamdani’s plan to freeze some rents, while Wall Street was reported as

seized

by

panic

at the

prospect

of a socialist running the city.

Given he would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, Mamdani faced predictable anti-Islam

attacks

and allegations of antisemitism. Though he

supports

the Palestinian movement and has harshly

criticized

Israel, accusing it of war crimes, he denies being antisemitic and received support from a number of Jewish leaders. That in itself reflects the fissures troubling Democrats as the party’s traditional sympathy for Israel comes under strain over its actions in Gaza.

Mamdani still has to win the election, but as the Democratic nominee in the heavily Democratic city he would need to suffer a monumental collapse to lose. Cuomo is keeping his

name

on the ballot even without official sanction. Current mayor Eric Adams is running again, but as an independent after his backing collapsed amid a series of scandals. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, is a radio talk-show host and paramilitary

enthusiast

who

twice

tried unsuccessfully to launch a citizen-based anti-crime

squad

in Toronto. Not much competition there.

It’s difficult to believe a detour into glitz, glamour and left-wing economics is the route to a better and more stable U.S. It certainly didn’t work for Canada, and there’s no sign that a quorum of Americans is open to socialist theorems that have failed again and again elsewhere. A credible opponent offering a menu of common decency, civility and shared purpose would seem a better antidote to Trumpist exhibitionism and greed. But America as yet doesn’t seem to have such a person, and New York isn’t America.

National Post


The exterior of a circa 1913 building with gothic and Tudor revival features with a sign outside that says Canada Revenue Agency, National Headquarters. Connaught Building.

Companies that paid the now-defunct digital services tax will have to wait for Ottawa to pass new legislation before they can get their refund, the Canada Revenue Agency has confirmed.


Peter Guthrie wears a grey suit and is surrounded by reporters holding microphones inside the Alberta legislature.

Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair, ousted from Danielle Smith’s caucus, hope to relaunch Tories as opposition group in fall.


WINNIPEG — The former head of Manitoba Hydro was paid just over $881,000 last year, despite being dismissed six weeks into the year.

Jay Grewal’s earnings in previous years, where she had worked a full year, ranged from $500,000 to $546,000.

The amount last year, revealed in an annual Manitoba Hydro compensation report, suggests a large lump sum payment when Grewal was let go as president and chief executive officer.

Crown-owned Manitoba Hydro is not releasing details, saying only that Grewal was paid out according to the terms of her contract and that no severance was issued.

Grewal was appointed by the former Progressive Conservative government and ruffled feathers last year when she said Manitoba would reach out to independent producers to supply power from wind and other sources.

The NDP government said new energy resources would have to be publicly owned.

The two also appeared to be at odds over the government’s aim of having Manitoba Hydro at net zero emissions by 2035.

The NDP replaced the Manitoba Hydro board soon after winning the October 2023 election, and the board parted ways with Grewal.

Grewal, who could not be reached for comment, was replaced by Allan Danroth in the summer of last year.

Danroth was paid a total of $192,454 for the months he worked, the compensation report says.

The Canadian Press applied under Manitoba’s freedom of information law last year for details of Grewal’s package after she was let go.

The request was refused under a section of the law that allows the government to not release personal information about a third party.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2025

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press