National Post (Opinions) Archives

On May 1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a bombshell 409-page

laying bare the troubling state of paediatric gender medicine. This moment presents yet another opportunity for Canada to reckon with a medical scandal that has long gone unaddressed.

The HHS report highlights the exceptionally weak evidence used to support puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for youth who identify as transgender, exposing how ideology dominates over science in the field of gender medicine. Its conclusion is damning: the medical establishment has failed vulnerable young people.

The review was commissioned by an

executive order

from U.S. President Donald Trump, whose directive was laced with politically charged and inflammatory language. In sharp contrast, the

report

itself is measured and grounded in evidence. Its recommendations echo the

cautious, evidence-based approach

to gender-affirming care now taking hold across much of Europe, contradicting the ideological positions of all major medical associations in the

U.S.

and

Canada

Acknowledging the political controversy surrounding the issue, the as-yet anonymous authors move past slogans and ideology to deliver a methodical, yet scathing, assessment of the current state of paediatric gender medicine. At the heart of the report is an “umbrella review” that synthesizes all the existing systematic reviews for these interventions, including those conducted in Sweden, Finland, England, and Canada. Unsurprisingly, like every one of those prior systematic reviews, the HHS review concludes that the evidence is of “very low” quality.

That’s because the research in this field, particularly surrounding claims that hormonal and surgical interventions improve mental health or reduce suicidality, is methodologically weak, lacking control groups or long-term follow-up. Meanwhile, the known risks of such interventions — infertility, reduced bone density, disrupted psychosocial development, and impaired sexual function — are not theoretical. They are documented outcomes of these interventions.

Until now, the typical response to this lack of evidence has been to call for more research, but the HHS report makes clear that, given what we already know, further research cannot ethically be justified. It does so by invoking the Nuremberg Code — the bedrock of international research ethics — citing that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment — and the Belmont Report which report emphasizes that no trial should proceed unless the intervention has a “favourable risk/benefit profile.” In paediatric gender medicine, every systematic review to date has found that the risks outweigh any potential benefits, making further research unjustified.

One of the most important sections of the report centres on psychotherapy. In a cultural climate where

talk therapy is often dismissed or derided

as being equivalent to gay conversion therapy, the HHS report makes a strong case for this non-invasive approach to replace life-altering medical interventions.

Echoing the U.K.’s landmark

Cass Report

, the authors call for gender dysphoria to be “de-exceptionalized,” meaning therapists need to approach treating these young people in the same way they would any other distressed patient. Instead of viewing them as “transgender adolescents” in need of powerful hormones and drastic surgeries, the report suggests that therapists should help these young people “develop self-understanding, engage with emotional vulnerability, and build practical strategies for managing distress.”

This therapeutic approach mirrors what has been implemented by leading

European health authorities

. It reflects a

growing awareness

that gender dysphoria among adolescents, especially girls, is a complex symptom of deeper psychological distress. And yet, while these developments are reshaping care standards across Europe,

Brazil

, and now the United States, one country remains notably absent from this evolving consensus: Canada.

Despite mounting evidence that a major medical scandal is unfolding, Canada has yet to launch a review of the practices in its paediatric gender clinics.

Canadian guidelines

remain closely aligned with those of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (

WPATH

), an organization that has been discredited for prioritizing ideological commitments over scientific rigor. To date, only Alberta has

taken concrete steps

to shield vulnerable young people from a medical establishment that has abandoned science and basic ethical principles. In December 2024, the Alberta government banned puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for youth 16 and under and placed restrictions on access for those age 17 and 18.

Canadian activists may

insist

the science here is settled, but that claim is becoming increasingly untenable. Science does not respect national borders. Canada has witnessed the same

dramatic surge in referrals

, the same

demographic shift

from mostly young boys to predominantly adolescent girls, and our gender clinics were

among the earliest

and

most enthusiastic

in adopting these experimental medical interventions. If other countries lack solid evidence or ethical justification for this treatment, the same holds true for Canada.

And yet,

calls

for a Canadian Cass-style review have so far gone unheeded, and the political environment continues to render even cautious scepticism as taboo.

Canada’s inaction on this issue has already brought shame on the nation. There are two

lawsuits

underway, and there will undoubtedly be many more over the coming years as

the number of detransitioners steadily rises

. Our government should take the publication of the HHS’s sobering report as a cue. If the rest of the world, including our closest neighbour, can reassess the science and revise their standards accordingly, there is no excuse for Canada to remain on autopilot. In the face of mounting international consensus and rising domestic concern, doing nothing is its own action — one that puts ideology before evidence and vulnerable youth in harm’s way.

Mia Hughes specializes in researching pediatric gender medicine, psychiatric epidemics, social contagion and the intersection of trans rights and women’s rights. She is the author of “The WPATH Files” and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

National Post

Click here for more Alberta

Various Indigenous leaders have complained vocally about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s roundabout way of engaging with the province’s separatist movement by making it easier for organized citizens to arrange for referendums.

But the moment they have me nodding along in understanding, they pull their own sovereigntist card: arguing that the numbered treaties situated in Alberta are a higher, purer form of authority; that secession talk violates treaty rights; and that treaty land is literally their property and thus untransferable.

We get statements like the one by Grand Chief Greg Desjarlais of Treaty 6, who

wrote

that Smith’s referendum-friendly amendments were a “direct violation of the Treaty relationship that exists between our Nations and the Crown,” adding, “Our Treaties are internationally binding, solemn covenants and cannot be broken by any province or political party…. These Lands were never ceded, nor surrendered.” What he meant by “internationally binding” wasn’t clear, and he certainly wasn’t correct about cessation. Treaty land is by definition ceded land — it was surrendered in exchange for benefits provided by the Crown.

Meanwhile, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs took greater liberties in

explaining

their view of the law, making the case that Alberta isn’t a “nation” at international law, but that First Nations are, per the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Provinces, says the assembly, are “administrative regions within the Canadian federation and do not possess the right to self-determination,” while First Nations have sovereignty and self-determination rights.

It’s a nearly malicious retelling of how Canada works: First Nations aren’t sovereign — they’re Crown subjects like anyone else; provinces have a large degree of self-determination power, which is detailed in the constitution. The fact that UNDRIP validates the existence of Indigenous groups around the world doesn’t make other levels of human organization illegitimate.

Similarly, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations released a

statement

arguing that “Any process of separation that fails to honour the true spirit and intent of our treaties would violate both constitutional and international law.”

Their frustrations make sense. Constitutional protection and the stability of a long relationship with Ottawa and hammered-out expectations are worth a lot. Plus, it’s the federal government that provides funding and benefits while laying off on the thorny matters of financial disclosure. The current federal government has been generous in signing billion-dollar settlements,

including

one for $1.4 billion last year in Alberta.

But in voicing their arguments, they often run high on emotion. In truth, it’s incredibly hard to predict the fate of the numbered treaties and the federal responsibility for Indigenous matters in a secession scenario.

When Quebec was rushing for the exit, the Supreme Court in 1998 weighed in on the requirements for legitimate separation; the Indigenous issue was brushed upon only lightly, concluding it was “unnecessary to explore further the concerns of the aboriginal peoples in this Reference.”

Scholarship has since tried to brainstorm what secession looks like on the Indigenous front, but it’s all speculation without the real thing, or at least, a real court decision that does explore the issue further. Bradford Morse, a legal scholar and former land claims negotiator who went on to become the dean of law at Thompson Rivers University,

covered

the what-ifs in a 1999 essay: it could be that Independent Quebec would inherit its treaties with the First Nations from the feds; it could be that Independent Quebec would have to re-negotiate them; or it could be something else. There were too many unknowns to be sure.

“Firstly, lawyers would have a field day debating the many procedural as well as substantive aspects that directly flow from secession generally, not to mention the added complexities that arise in the Aboriginal law context,” Morse concluded. “Secondly, dramatic and far-reaching arguments would be made, many of which cannot be dreamt of yet, given the uncertainties surrounding how the secession might occur and on what terms…. The last thing of which I am certain is that it will be a mess.”

Weighing in on Alberta, Dwight Newman, a constitutional law professor, Indigenous rights expert and Canada-Research-Chair-holder at the University of Saskatchewan, told me the treaties would raise “genuine issues” were the province to separate.

“It would seem plausible that there could be a state succession to a treaty…. People generally haven’t suggested that Quebec would be incapable of separating due to treaties,” he wrote in an email Wednesday.

“At a broad level, Alberta could likely take on the obligations associated with the treaties to ensure that they continue on. I do see it as appropriate that Indigenous peoples are part of the conversations.”

As for what involvement the federal government would have, Newman said that the duty to consult would be triggered “when there is a decision under contemplation that could affect Indigenous rights” — this could include early decisions and even negotiation stances. Obtaining actual consent from the First Nations for enabling separation would be ideal, he added, but he saw “little in law to say that it would be absolutely mandatory.”

The numbered treaties, however, haven’t been treated as international treaties. Newman noted that if they were, that would make everything a lot more straightforward, “as there are established rules on state succession to international treaties that have been applied in cases of secession.”

For me, it’s hard to take either side all that seriously. The most extreme parts of the Indigenous side have been arguing for ethno-sovereignty for years, embracing the freemen-on-the-land-like “land back” movement and urging for an expansion of unique treatment under Canadian law. They use UNDRIP, memetic news stories, and “reconciliation” as levers to pull for even more state benefits and permissions, and the current federal government almost never says no.

Their exaggerated understanding of Indigenous sovereignty — on display in their statements about separation — and their hold on Canadian land is voraciously lapped up by our own media, which often presents these views without counterpoints, giving them the appearance of legitimacy. Sure, they claim to love the Crown now, but just wait until it’s convenient to once again blame it for all their woes.

The Alberta separatists, too, put blind faith in the UN — in particular, a treaty that appears to guarantee port access for landlocked states (but in practice, does not). They, too, have outsized claims about their hold on these lands, drunk on nostalgia for a libertarian utopia that will never exist because the majority of the province doesn’t indeed want it. The provincial government doesn’t tell them to buzz off, and instead amends its laws to better accommodate their desires.

Though both are exercising their rights, they’re also antagonistic to the Canadian project. If only they used their voices to do something productive instead of trying to carve out bits of territory for their own.

National Post

Click here for more Alberta

Last spring’s anti-Israel encampments on university campuses across Ontario forced Jewish students, faculty and staff to navigate a climate of hostility. These protests, often framed as calls for justice, frequently gave way to exclusionary rhetoric and the vilification of Zionists (Jews). The calls for universities to divest from Israel were not simply about foreign policy — they were part of a wider campaign to delegitimize Jewish identity on campus.

In an effort to bring down the temperature, many university administrators agreed to undertake a review of their investment policies. Those deliberations have been ongoing since the fall. Now, in a welcome and principled development, several of Ontario’s leading universities have formally rejected the idea of divesting from Israeli companies and those that that do business with Israel.

Queen’s University, McMaster University and the University of Waterloo have each undertaken their own reviews of investment policies and found that divestment demands were lacking in both substance and fairness. These decisions mark not just a defence of academic freedom, but a decisive stand against the antisemitism that too often animates the BDS movement.

At Queen’s University, principal Patrick Deane’s review committee for responsible investing “recommended against divesting Queen’s pooled endowment and investment funds from companies conducting business with or in the State of Israel.” At McMaster, the university reaffirmed that investment decisions must be grounded in financial responsibility — not ideological pressure.

And last year, administrators at the University of Waterloo stated that, “The call to boycott, divest and sanction universities from one country is antithetical to our mission,” and that Waterloo “has not supported movements to unilaterally divest or boycott from any country or company outside of national security concerns or without guidance or direction from government.”

Each of these statements, while couched in careful administrative language, reflects a broader recognition that the BDS movement has contributed to an increasingly unsafe and exclusionary environment for Jewish students, and that it is contrary to core Canadian values.

On many campuses, BDS campaigns have been accompanied by calls to silence Jewish or Israeli speakers, exclude Jewish campus organizations and disrupt events and university business with chants equating Zionism with racism or genocide. In some cases, Jewish students who express support for Israel are harassed, shouted down or accused of complicity in war crimes.

This is not theoretical. In fact, just last month, a young man from Waterloo, Ont., was arrested and charged with uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm after he allegedly sent more than 100 antisemitic death threats through an online form on Hillel Ontario’s website.

Let’s be clear: targeting the world’s only Jewish state for economic punishment — especially while ignoring or excusing the abuses of countless other nations — is not a principled stand for justice. It is a selective, obsessive hostility that crosses the line into bigotry.

The campaign to isolate Israel in academic, economic and cultural arenas is not merely a misguided protest, it is a modern manifestation of Jew-hatred, repackaged for unsuspecting audiences.

The Ontario universities that have rejected calls to divest from Israel represents yet another public rebuff of the antisemitic BDS movement.

National Post

Jay Solomon is the chief advancement officer for Hillel Ontario.

Click here for more Canada

Prime Minister Minister Mark Carney cannot be trusted with our Charter-protected right to free expression.

The man has been clear: during the election campaign, Carney spoke scornfully of our most essential freedom, our speech, from which all our other freedoms flow.

Carney has hinted that his Liberal government will bring back some iteration of Trudeau’s tyrannical — there is no other word for it — Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which was killed when the former prime minister prorogued parliament this January. You will recall that this now-defunct legislation would have granted judges the ability to mete out life sentences for hate speech, and would have created a government “Digital Safety Commission” to police Canadians’ speech, and impose life-destroying fines upon those whose speech was deemed hateful by our government censors.

It was frightening legislation. But not, apparently, to Prime Minister Carney.

In April,

at two of

Carney’s

rallies in Ontario

, he announced his government’s proposed plan to tackle crime and improve public safety. “Large American online platforms have become seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hate — in all its forms. And they’re being used by criminals to harm our children. My government will act,” said Carney.

Sound familiar? It should.

We have heard this before: Carney is using the same tactic of his predecessor. It was Justin Trudeau who first attempted to manipulate Canadians with fear for our children’s safety as a means to sneak in repressive, anti-free speech legislation.

Consider then-prime minister Trudeau’s words from a February 2024 news conference in Edmonton: “We know and everyone can agree that kids are vulnerable online, to hatred, to violence, to being bullied, to seeing and being affected by terrible things online. And we need to do a better job as a society to protect our kids online,” Trudeau said,

one week before tabling Bill C-63

And now, back to Carney last month: “New online platforms have created new threats, including and perhaps especially for children… And as much as we, as parents, want to protect our kids, we can’t always be there. We can’t always be looking over our kids’ shoulders to see what they’re doing, or what they’re exposed to online. And so while protecting children is, first and foremost, a parent’s responsibility, it is also a collective responsibility. And with the support of Canadians, my government will act to protect children online and bring those who seek to harm them to justice. We will first introduce legislation to protect children from online exploitation and extortion.”

Using Trudeau’s old manipulation tactic, Carney has found an additional excuse to promote and justify government censorship. He revealed it at his April rally in Hamilton: “One of the issues we’re dealing with… misogyny, antisemitism, hatred, conspiracy theories — this sort of pollution that’s online that washes over our virtual borders from the United States… and, that’s fine… I can take the conspiracy theory and all that, but the more serious thing is when it affects how people behave in our society. When Canadians are threatened going to their community centres or their places of worship, or their schools,” said Carney.

Much like Trudeau first weaponized child safety to push for censorship, so too is Carney is using Canada’s despicable rise in antisemitic hate crimes, since the October 7 attack on Israel, to try to convince Canadians that what we really need protection from is, first and foremost, words on the internet.

Do not fall for it.

Carney has no proof that online discourse — our free expression — is directly responsible for hate crimes or violence on our streets. And even if he did have the proof, it still would not justify censorship. Nothing does.

In the introduction to his book Free Speech, Danish human rights lawyer Jacob Mchangama reminds us that the powerful have good reason to detest new technology, or, in Carney’s case, “new online platforms”: “New communication technology is inevitably disruptive and every new advancement —from the printing press to the internet — has been opposed by those whose institutional authority is vulnerable to being undermined by sudden change,” Mchangama writes.

In Carney’s case, his institutional authority is indeed vulnerable. It’s not merely that he rules via a minority, made possible only by the collapse of Canada’s New Democratic Party, but that the entire political agenda of Canada’s left is on shaky ground. Our youth are moving right. But it’s more than that: on climate, fossil fuels, immigration, race, gender, identity politics, and free speech, too — leftist social justice perspectives on each of these topics, which were orthodox throughout the Trudeau era, are falling out of favour.

Carney knows this.

We mustn’t be lulled into a false sense of security with Carney’s promises to end child exploitation, antisemitism, or any other devious or violent crimes — if only his government can control the information we have access to. Such promises have nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with power.

While Canada’s economy can likely withstand four more years of asphyxiating Liberal policies, I’m not certain that our country can survive such a sustained attack on our freedom of expression.

National Post

Click here for more Canada

A staple of Mark Carney’s stump speech during the election was the line that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the kind of politician who has never changed his mind since he was 17.

“Who hasn’t changed their mind since they were 17?” the Liberal leader would mock.

The attack was validated by Poilievre’s own words in his

interview with Jordan Peterson

in December, in which he said he has been “saying precisely the same things” since he was a teenager.

The Conservative leader’s supporters portray that as relentlessness; his detractors say it illustrates his intransigence and obstinacy.

Now, Poilievre’s ability to adapt to changed circumstances will determine his political future, and perhaps whether he even has one.

This week’s Conservative caucus meeting

gave the leader the benefit of the doubt. But it is fair to say that doubts continue to hang over him like a sword suspended by a single horsehair.

The caucus reaffirmed its commitment to the Reform Act, which gives it the power to replace the party leader.

One Conservative MP, who said he heard on the doorsteps that people didn’t like the leader, said caucus has given Poilievre the chance to “show a bit of humility” and admit that changes are needed.

If changes happen, he will be allowed to stay on. “But if he goes back to the old ways, where we have to ask to use the washrooms or are forced to use the slogans, then he’ll have a problem,” the MP said. “There is definitely an undercurrent of people being pissed off because we lost a 25-point lead and picked fights with other conservatives,” he added, referring to provincial premiers Tim Houston and Doug Ford.

A common thread repeated by numerous MPs and veteran Conservatives is that Poilievre and his campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, are “not nice people,” and are more inclined to scorching earth than building bridges.

There is

an active backlash against Byrne

(a former girlfriend of Poilievre’s) who made herself the hub to which all spokes were connected and is now being blamed for the campaign’s strategic and organizational shortcomings.

“Ana wants her out,” said one senior Conservative, referring to Poilievre’s wife, Anaida, who multiple sources suggest is not comfortable having Byrne running his political career.

Another MP said that Poilievre can be reasonable and businesslike, but has insisted on being his own attack dog.

“When you’re a leader, your inner circle matters and Jenni does not encourage Pierre’s more compassionate side,” said one source.

Poilievre has preferred to emphasize the additional 23 seats Conservatives won in the election, with the party’s highest share of the vote since 1988. Both he and Byrne are said to stand by the decision to keep the media off the campaign plane. “They believe the best team lost,” said one person familiar with internal discussions.

Poilievre told caucus he acknowledges a change in tone is required. The question among those who have known him over his two decades in federal politics, is whether he is capable of changing, and whether 2025 might prove to be a ceiling of support, rather than a floor.

“I think Pierre believes this (post-election challenge) is about ticking off things on a checklist. But it’s not. It requires an entire mindset shift,” said one veteran Conservative.

Poilievre’s supporters in caucus point to the platform, which was well received and was very much Poilievre’s brainchild.

They say he is committed to “personal growth” and refer to two episodes that showed his more tender side: the moment in the leaders’ debate when he said he regretted not being able to spend more time with the people he met at Conservative rallies who told him their stories and struggles; and an appearance on the Knowledge Project entrepreneurship podcast with Shane Parrish in which he discussed how becoming

a father to a child with special needs had made him a more empathetic person.

Poilievre positively lit up when talking about his non-verbal, six-year-old daughter, Valentina, and has never appeared more vulnerable than when he talked about his concerns for her future.

But that is not the side of him that most voters saw.

To his detractors, the Conservatives were the Nasty Party and Poilievre embodied its narrow sympathies.

The consequence was opinion polling that on the eve of the election showed the Liberals with commanding leads among the over-60s (typically a strong voting cohort for the Conservatives); among women; and, among people with a university education.

post-election survey

by Abacus Data suggested Carney was favoured on just about every metric of perceived competence and leadership, except “meanness,” where Poilievre had a 2:1 advantage.

The Conservative game plan was designed to disrupt the status quo and speak to frustrations about affordability. As the Tory leader pointed out in his concession speech, the party “won the big debates of our time” on the carbon tax, inflation, housing and crime, forcing the Liberals to match Conservative policies.

But the campaign failed to adjust and address the existential fears about the country being absorbed by Donald Trump’s expansionism that emerged after the U.S. president’s inauguration.

A plurality of Canadians wanted a trusted captain to restore order, not a rabble-rouser intent on disrupting it.

That failure to accommodate shifting circumstances is prompting questions inside the party about whether a 45-year-old man can truly change.

As someone for whom that relatively spritely age is in the rearview mirror, I’d suggest that Poilievre has softened and matured from the cartoonish figure who won the leadership three years ago.

But Poilievre is as responsible as anyone for the polarization of our politics.

On the one side, we have the censorious bullies of the left, who reject nuanced debate, in favour of accusations of bias, racism and bigotry.

On the other side, there is an angry group of people who feel they are the losers of culture wars that have imposed values on their country they don’t share. They marshal facts that confirm their prejudices and diminish evidence that contradicts them. Rules and institutions are demonized and the national interest sublimated to tribal concerns.

This is the party’s most hardcore base, and I suspect Poilievre cannot evolve to be the calm, serious leader he needs to be because he is one of them.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Click here for more Canada

The late Pope Francis was canny enough not to let history write his legacy, deciding instead to ensure it continued after his death.

The election of an American, Cardinal Robert Prevost, as Pope Leo XIV, is a surprising first, but many Vatican watchers will see the hand of Francis at work.

Of the 133 cardinals who elected Prevost, 108 had been appointed by Francis — the equivalent of stacking the deck with liberals.

Francis also appointed Prevost as head of the Dicastery of Bishops in Rome two years ago, a powerful position which meant he would have spoken and engaged with many of the world’s cardinals. This familiarity would have boosted his prospects.

Leo has already signalled that he intends to continue Francis’s legacy, thanking him profusely in his speech from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica and talking of his “courageous” voice.

While that may delight many it will also anger those who felt the late pope was destroying the moral foundations of the papacy and the Church.

In his speech Thursday, Leo promised to be a bridge builder.

“We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to receive like this square with open arms. Everyone — everyone who needs our charity, our presence, dialogue, and love.”

One of the key phrases was a “synodal church” — a church where lay people play a greater part. And this is the legacy Francis wanted to ensure. A synodal church was Francis’s greatest reform, his dream.

It was also the reform that left conservatives angry on the basis that the Church isn’t a democracy.

In his speech, Leo pledged to receive and welcome everyone, but it’s not going to be that easy.

Even supporters of Francis were dismayed that he never went as far in his reforms as they wanted. Women deacons and gay marriage were too much for Francis as they almost certainly will be for Leo.

Some of the biggest opponents of Francis were American conservative clergymen and Leo will be well acquainted with them. Like Francis, he will know his enemies.

Some people will see changes such as synodality as “inside baseball” but if the reforms can be long lasting and made institutional they could have a remarkable impact. Women deacons and gay marriage? Maybe not today, but tomorrow?

Leo has already supported some liberal initiatives including allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion and allowing same-sex blessings.

Leo is also relatively young and healthy at 69. If he were to reign two decades that would be a long time to make Francis’s reforms permanent and transformative.

But there is another aspect of the papacy and one that speaks to a wider audience: how human, how approachable, will this pope be?

Francis was one of the people, a jovial pope who lived in the papal guesthouse and shunned the Apostolic Palace. He was known for occasionally cooking his own meals and making his own bed and for taking the bus while in Argentina.

His austere, simple lifestyle and his care for the poor generated stories that he crept out of the Vatican at night to visit the homeless. It was a myth, but one people wanted to believe.

Such stories would never have circulated about his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, a man of intense intellectual rigour and seen as somewhat severe.

Leo has been variously described as mild-mannered, calm, measured, discreet and thoughtful.

But will he be distant? Francis utterly changed how he was viewed — and how his papacy would be seen going forward — with a single comment made at the back of a plane shortly after being elected: “Who am I to judge.”

It was a simple and humble statement made in relation to gay priests, but it defined Francis for the public.

Francis was elected as the first Latin American pope and in many respects Leo is the second, despite being born in Chicago. Leo has Peruvian nationality and spent ten years as a pastor and teacher at a seminary in Trujillo in northwestern Peru before becoming Bishop of Chiclayo.

Like Francis, Leo places great emphasis on serving the marginalized and the poor, one of the central tenets of the Augustinian order, which Leo led for 12 years.

In Francis’s first speech in 2013, he said, “Let us pray for the whole world that there might be a great sense of brotherhood.”

Leo seemed to echo that when he told the thousands of people before him Thursday that he hoped peace “may enter your hearts, reach your families, all people, wherever they may be, all peoples, the whole earth.”

With any new pope, you never know what you will really get. Only time will tell. But Leo XIV looks a lot like Francis II.

National Post

Click here for more Canada

Progress has erupted in Toronto. At the request of city council, municipal staff this week delivered

a 27-page report titled “Improved Active Transportation and Water Access to Toronto Island Park,”

in which they contemplated heresy: A permanent link between the 240-hectare isle and the city’s mainland, which would involve constructing a bridge or tunnel across roughly 250 metres of water.

For the record, the Channel Tunnel between England and France is more than 50,000 metres long.

A “fixed link,” as we call the idea here in Toronto for some reason, would have many benefits. No more interminable queues at the ferry terminal on beautiful summer days. No more having to pay $28 for a family of four to visit the city’s greatest park — arguably the city’s greatest

thing

— while still having to subsidize the ferry operations. (In 2019, the ferry service’s operating expenses exceeded its operating revenues by $1.3 million.)

If this bridge-or-tunnel endeavour were taken to its natural logical conclusion, the city could get out of the ferry business altogether. (There are already many private water taxis.) Privatization would liberate the ferry service from city council’s insane decision-making.

Because the city’s current ferry fleet is ancient and decrepit,

in 2020 council approved the purchase of two new ferries

from a Romanian shipyard. Naturally they had to be electric ferries. Also, the ferries would have to be cosmetically similar to the current old-timey ferries.

“For the love of God,” you might ask, “why”?

Well, see, most Toronto city councillors, having ample backyards of their own, if not cottages as well, view the Toronto Islands less as an important civic amenity for parks-starved downtown residents than as a sort of twice-a-summer nostalgia trip — like a day out on a steam train that comes with a souvenir conductor’s cap. They

like

that it’s inaccessible.

In any event,

it recently emerged that plans for the new electric ferries

, which are already (you’ll never believe it) nearly three times over budget — $92 million for two stupid boats — had not hitherto included any provision for

charging

the ferries. D’oh! Another $50 million down the drain for that, subject to cost escalations.

Torontonians don’t get much for their 27-page “fixed link” report. Most of it just rehashes year after year of council decisions with respect to the ferries and the park, including a new recent “master plan” for the Islands that managed not to contemplate a “fixed link.” Staff do go into great detail explaining why this idea is probably doomed to fail, though.

The most convenient link to the island, the quickest and closest to downtown, would be across the western gap of the harbour — except Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport (which has its own roughly 250-metre tunnel) lies on the other side of that gap, and you can’t have people traipsing across an active runway.

The report considers the eastern gap of the harbour, which doesn’t have that problem, but it’s also further from downtown — a 15-minute-or-so bike ride from Union Station — with no reliable current public transit links.

A bridge would either need to be high enough to allow commercial shipping underneath, but not so high as to disrupt flight paths to the airport; or, more practically, it would have to swing open or lift to allow boats through.

But, staff warn: “A lack of predictability in harbour access would potentially drive recreational and commercial users away from the harbour entirely.”

Really? Redpath is going to shut down its incongruous sugar refinery on the Toronto waterfront, after 65 years, just because boats might have to wait 20 minutes to enter the harbour? The Royal Canadian Yacht Club is going to up stakes and move to Scarborough? It reeks of quintessentially Torontonian conservatism: any change is probably bad.

As for staff’s concerns about transit links, well, if this is a “generational project,” as the report hilariously calls this endeavour, then surely said links could be improved, and future plans modified, while the world’s top engineers rack their brains in search of a feasible solution to this 250-metre conundrum. (For the record, regarding “generational projects”: digging for the Channel Tunnel began in June 1988. Passengers were whizzing through it, sipping Champagne, in November 1994.)

There are many problems with the “fixed link” discourse in Toronto: The aforementioned belief that the Islands, unlike a normal park, somehow

should

be gatekept both physically and financially; the wildly outsized political influence of the few full-time residents on Ward’s Island, who would fight any bridge or tunnel proposal tooth and nail; and, when it comes to the bridge idea specifically, the obvious enthusiasm many proponents have to build some kind of selfie-worthy landmark structure — something with “tourist appeal,” as the staff report puts it, as if a 250-metre sidewalk and bike path might someday rank with the Golden Gate or Sydney Harbour bridges.

In any event, a tunnel obviously makes much more practical sense — especially if it costs roughly the same as a bridge, which staff shruggingly suggest it probably would … while admitting they have no real expertise in the matter, and no way to judge. They suggested around $100 million, give or take … which, interestingly enough, is less than Toronto is paying for its antique electric ferries. Perhaps there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Staff recommend further study, and quite rightly. But in Toronto, so often, the future never comes. The future means change, and we can’t have that.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha
Kheiriddin
get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Click here for more Canada

The Ontario government has announced

an array of new crime policies

that will feature prominently in next week’s provincial budget. Naturally, they are being described by the government as “tough on crime” moves.

For politicians, it’s easy to talk tough on crime, but harder to be smart on crime. The latter means running an efficient and cost-effective system to catch, prosecute and convict people guilty of criminal offences. That’s the province’s core crime responsibility.

Being smart on crime also means focusing resources on crimes that can potentially affect large numbers of people rather than those that provide the maximum outrage.

By those criteria, how does Premier Doug Ford’s approach to crime stack up? It’s a mixed bag with some good new ideas and slow progress on significant, systemic problems.

Let’s start with the good news: The Ford government is quite rightly focusing a lot of attention on cybercrime and auto theft.

The number of cybercrime incidents reported to police in Ontario

grew by just over 60 per cent

between 2019 and 2023, according to Statistics Canada. Ontario’s cybercrime rate is 196 incidents per 100,000 people. That’s slightly below the national average, but identity theft, online fraud and ransomware attacks are still far more likely to affect the average person than, say, mass murder.

One of the problems Ontario police forces face is the increasing sophistication of cybercriminals. To assist them, the government has announced a new cybercrime and cryptocurrency prosecution team that will support police investigations and prosecute major cases that result from them. Part of the focus will be on human traffickers, drug dealers and illegal firearms sellers who lurk on the dark web.

The Ford government has already taken a similar approach on auto theft, with a prosecution response team focused on hotspot cities across the province. Ontario auto theft numbers actually dropped in 2024 compared to 2023, down to 25,000 from 30,000.

That’s not the only dimension to the problem, though. The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports that auto

theft claims in Toronto alone in 2023 amounted to $372 million

, up 561 per cent since 2018. In Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Oakville and Richmond Hill, claims are up more than 700 per cent over five years.

What’s worse, drivers across the province are being penalized whether their car was stolen or not. Insurance companies are

charging extra premiums

of between $500 and $1,500 to owners of frequently stolen vehicle models.

To deter car theft, the province has also announced a change in legislation so that police

can seize devices used to illegally open a vehicle

, but that seems more like a BB than a silver bullet.

The Ford government is also actively attacking issues in the tricky trifecta of courts, bail and jail. Problems in all three areas are inter-related and difficult to resolve.

Ontario is notorious for its court delays, a factor in a

sharply declining rate of criminal conviction

. Since 2020, a majority of charges have been withdrawn, dismissed, stayed or discharged before the accused gets to trial, according to Statistics Canada.

That makes a mockery of the legal process. The latest government anti-crime plan announces the addition of 17 new judges to help reduce this problem, along with a plan to speed up selection. Good idea. The Ford government announced 25 new judicial positions a year ago, but only eight of those jobs have been filled.

Just stop jailing criminals? The absurd odyssey of Canada’s catch-and-release justice system

The government is also keen to tackle the problem of people committing crimes while out on bail. Two years ago, it committed $112 million to stronger enforcement of bail conditions, and it has lobbied the federal government for more restrictive bail provisions, without notable success.

The

latest moves

continue to support existing prosecution teams that focus on dangerous criminals seeking bail, but it drops off from there. One of the proposals is to institute a user fee for people who are ordered by courts to wear a GPS monitoring device.

The province wants to keep more people in jail awaiting trial, but it’s a costly and inefficient approach. About

80 per cent of all those in provincial custody have yet to be tried

, and Ontario’s jails are over capacity.

Ontario’s solution is to build more prisons. The province is spending $500 million on new or expanded jails. When completed, that will enable Ontario to jail even more accused people awaiting trial at a cost of $350 a day per prisoner. It would be smarter to spend the money on speeding up the courts instead.

Ford often criticizes the decisions of judges and the provisions of the federal Criminal Code, areas he does not control. It would be better to fix the problems he can attack. His government is making a good effort, but there’s a long way to go.

National Post

randalldenley1@gmail.com

Click here for more Canada

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

TOP STORY

Despite campaign promises by Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada can dodge U.S. tariffs with an “all in Canada” auto sector, a new C.D. Howe Institute report claims that the only realistic future for Canadian auto manufacturing is to make nice with the Americans.

“To maintain our manufacturing base, Canada must either exponentially expand its share of the domestic market or achieve healthy sales across the larger North American market,” reads the new report written by Stephen Beatty, the recently retired corporate secretary of Toyota Canada.

“That leads to the inevitable conclusion that Canada must cut a new deal with Washington.”

The highly integrated North American auto sector has been one of the industries most conspicuously impacted by a wave of import tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Just last week, General Motors laid off 750 workers at its Oshawa assembly plant, in what union leaders said was a direct consequence of U.S. tariffs.

Since April 3, the Trump administration has imposed 25 per cent tariffs on imported autos and auto parts, but with carveouts for parts covered by CUSMA, the North American free trade agreement negotiated in Trump’s first term. A 25 per cent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum also remains in place.

In the first days of the federal election campaign, Carney proposed to get around U.S. trade barriers by building an “all-in-Canada auto manufacturing network.” As Liberal Party literature described it, “Canadian steel” would be assembled by “Canadian workers” into cars to be purchased by Canadians.

The problem is that Canadian auto manufacturing has become so specialized under free trade that much of the sector would cease to exist if it’s not able to work in tandem with auto manufacturers in Mexico and the United States.

Currently, just nine per cent of new cars purchased by Canadians are assembled in a Canadian factory. Meanwhile, Canada has become dominant in some auto parts categories — such as dyes and moulds — that would be decimated if denied access to the U.S. market.

“If you try to change the supply chain, something’s going to suffer. Quality could go down. Delivery could go down,” Peter Frise, director of the Centre for Automotive Research and Education at the University of Windsor, told National Post in March.

Beatty has previously written that “the self-sufficiency game has highly uncertain outcomes.” And in this latest report, he writes that Canadian auto manufacturing is “inextricably linked to suppliers and consumers south of the 49th parallel.”

As such, Beatty’s proposal is that Canada’s best hope is to rejig its trade policies to remain within the U.S. orbit, while respecting the Trump Administration’s wish to “restore and anchor production in North America.”

“Tariffs are like castle walls … in the simplest terms, Canada needs to aim to be on the inside of that tariff wall,” he wrote.

Beatty’s basic pitch is that any U.S. tariffs on Canadian cars should be countered with an equivalent Canadian surtax on imports of U.S. vehicles. With the twist being that manufacturers would be given exemptions from the tax “proportionate to their Canadian production.”

So, if a manufacturer builds 100 cars in Canada, they’re allowed duty-free import of 100 cars (or enough parts equivalent to equal 100 cars).

Then, Canada would push to negotiate a new Auto Pact wherein both the U.S. and Canada enshroud their respective auto sectors with tariffs of up to 25 per cent, but give exemptions to one another based on the formula of one duty-free import car for every car manufactured domestically.

Calling his plan the “New Auto Pact,” the idea is that both the United States and Canada would keep their existing auto sectors in a “self-balancing” formula while also meeting the U.S. goal of shutting out China.

“The strategy aligns with U.S. reshoring goals and addresses strategic risks from Chinese imports,” wrote Beatty.

All the while, the U.S. would retain access to the “critical mineral and battery supply chain base in Canada,” and avoid the massive increase in U.S. vehicle prices anticipated if the Trump administrations were to detonate the integrated North American auto sector altogether.

By some estimates, the average cost of a U.S. vehicle would go up by as much as $12,000 if the Americans were to stay the course with blunt tariffs against Mexico and Canada.

Writes Beatty, “Canada does not have many shots at such renegotiations, and the Canadian government needs to build as much leverage as it can during that window.”

IN OTHER NEWS

The NDP had a relatively easy time selecting their interim leader, as they only have seven MPs now. The new leader is 61-year-old Don Davies, who won his Vancouver Kingsway riding by a fraction of a per cent (37.23 per cent compared to the Liberals’ 36.61 per cent). Davies’ new position prompted former MP Kevin Vuong to

note the NDPer’s reaction to meeting Chinese Leader Xi Jinping in 2013

. “

President Xi shook hands with us. When shaking hands, I felt the great power emanating from this leader’s body,

” Davies

wrote of the trip

Although Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has

moved to drop the threshold by which Albertans could trigger a separation referendum

, she stated in an address this week “

I do not support Alberta separating from Canada

.” Rather, she said the goal is a “strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.” As to what that would look like,

her government’s premier demand

is for a “guaranteed corridor and port access to tidewater off the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic coasts for the international export of Alberta oil, gas, critical minerals and other resources in amounts supported by the free market.”

Get all of these insights and more into your inbox by signing up for the First Reading newsletter here.

Click here for more Alberta

Canadians know better than anyone just how much the United States dominates cultural industries. Our theatres are filled with American movies. All the best TV shows, even on Canadian channels, have always come from the U.S. Most of the streaming services are owned by U.S. studios and tech companies. Those that aren’t are filled with American content. The

Canadian Billboard charts

are generally populated with American talent. And our sports channels rely heavily on games taking place south of the border.

So of course U.S. President Donald Trump would

claim

that the American film industry is dying “a very fast death,” which he preposterously calls a “national security threat,” and float the idea of instituting a “100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

It’s an odd gambit given that the industry itself isn’t exactly thrilled that the president is looking to significantly increase their costs, either by taxing films or forcing studios to shoot in the U.S., which is often significantly more expensive than filming in places like Canada. As one unnamed “industry insider”

told CNN

, this “would represent a virtually complete halt of production.”

Nor does Trump have a warm relationship with liberal Hollywood. When China announced last month that it was reducing the number of American movies it will import in response to Trump’s tariffs,

the president responded

, “I think I’ve heard of worse things.”

As some “industry executives” mused to CNN, this whole proposal may be yet another way for Trump to punish his favourite whipping boy, Canada, due to the

generous tax breaks

we offer movie and television studios. But I wonder if it’s not a means of hurting both Canada and the Hollywood elite who never miss an opportunity to bash Trump and the people who voted for him.

Regardless, Canada has a lot to lose, especially provinces like British Columbia and Ontario that have large film industries and regularly welcome American production. According to

a report

from the Canadian Media Producers Association, foreign production represented 56 per cent of Canada’s $12-billion film and television industry, with foreign companies investing nearly $8 billion into Canadian production in 2023.

Of course, like most of Trump’s outlandish proposals — how’s that waterfront resort in Gaza shaping up? — his Sunday post on Truth Social floating the film tariff idea should be seen as little more than an opening gambit. By Monday, the president was trying to reassure industry executives, saying that he’s going to meet with them and “make sure they’re happy about it.” And a White House spokesman said that “no final decisions” have been made and that “all options” are on the table.

Keeping its options open would seem prudent, given that no one actually knows how such a scheme would work. Unlike physical goods that cross a border, movies are considered services. The money made from selling them stems from the intellectual property rights the owners have over the films, not any physical media on which they’re transported. The proposal thus sounds more like a tax than a tariff, but questions remain about what exactly would be taxed.

Would all foreign films be subject to a 100 per cent tax, or just those that are shot overseas by American production companies? Would the tax apply to the total cost of producing the movie, or ticket sales within the United States? What happens if only part of the film is shot in a foreign country, or if the editing is done in the U.S. but the special effects are designed in Canada? And what about movies that are set in Europe, Asia or elsewhere in the world?

Given the logistical challenges, and the fact that most of Trump’s tariff announcements end up getting significantly watered down following backlashes from consumers and industry, the Ontario government is right to take a “

wait and see

” approach.

But for Prime Minister Mark Carney, this is yet another sign that despite growing opposition to Trump’s economic policies and the negative impact they’re starting to have on the American economy, the president continues to think tariffs are the best idea he’s had since he bought the

Miss Universe pageant

to gain access to the dressing room.

It shows how determined he is to use tariffs and taxes to give American companies an edge, even when the industry he’s supposedly “protecting” doesn’t need any help — according to the Motion Picture Association of America, the U.S. ran a US$15.3-billion (C$21-billion) trade surplus with foreign markets in 2023.

It also shows that Ottawa cannot continue to drag its feet as Trump systematically attempts to destroy our economy. We need an economy that’s competitive enough to attract international investment; a creative industry that can sustain itself without taxpayer subsidies and rules forcing TV networks and streamers to create lame Canadian content; and leaders who will stand up for free markets and globalization in the face of the Bond villain who’s currently occupying the White House.

And we needed these things yesterday.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/accessd

Source: National Post (Opinions)

Click here for more Alberta

Click here for more Alberta

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Just stop jailing criminals? The absurd odyssey of Canada’s catch-and-release justice system

Click here for more Canada

TOP STORY

IN OTHER NEWS

Click here for more Alberta

Click here for more Canada

loonie politics

premium content