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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump listen in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 15, 2025.

President Donald Trump and his gang have always appealed much more to the authoritarian wing of the American conservative coalition than to the libertarian wing. He talks as good a game on “freedom” as any other Republican — freedom of speech on university campuses 

has been a major preoccupation

, for example — 

but many doctrinaire libertarians can’t stand the sight of him

. His obvious affinity for “strong man” leaders like Vladimir Putin and the 

most generous Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Al-Thani

 understandably rankles.

Some days, though, it seems like Team Trump is inviting the libertarian wing to jump ship entirely. Monday was such a day. In 

an extraordinary podcast interview

 with conservative commentator Katie Miller, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, blamed Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week in Utah in part on a poisonous atmosphere on American college campuses. And she vowed some sort of crackdown.

“We’ve been fighting these universities left and right, and we’re not going to stop. There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech,” said Bondi. “And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.”

Inquired Miller, disturbingly: “Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech, and putting cuffs on people so we show them that some action is better than no action?”

Replied Bondi, more disturbingly: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything.”

This has not gone over well. Kirk of all people “would want a word” with Bondi about all this, the Wall Street Journal trenchantly observed 

in a scorching editorial

. “Progressives have spent years trying to create and define a category called ‘hate speech’” in the U.S., the editorialists noted — but so far in vain. There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, of which Kirk, love him or hate him, was a staunch and consistent supporter.

Asked the Journal: “Is a basic understanding of the First Amendment too much to expect from the nation’s attorney general?” Indeed, it’s not much less sacred to American conservatives than the Second.

Bondi is now frantically attempting to row back to the boathouse, amending

her remarks to specify she would target speech that

“crosses the line into threats of violence.” But whatever the fallout ends up being, this kerfuffle could have interesting salutary effects in Canada. We are having our own free-speech and “hate-speech” debate, notably

with respect to the right to protest

(which is to say, in practice, the right to protest Jewish institutions, businesses and neighbourhoods) and the right not to be intimidated or obstructed, or otherwise to have one’s day ruined, by such protests.

That debate is a mess, punctuated by piffle like “hate speech isn’t free speech” and “there is no place for antisemitism in Canada” (which unfortunately is a bit like saying “there is no place for gravity”), as well as overly broad interpretations of deliberately narrow existing laws against fomenting hatred. And we get often-redundant legislative proposals like 

the one Justice Minister Sean Fraser is currently teasing

. A forthcoming bill, expected this week, would guard religious institutions against “obstruction and intimidation.”

Never judge a bill before you can read it. But both of those things 

are already illegal

. The problem is they are enforced, or more likely not, entirely at the whims of police forces over which the federal government has no control and that provincial and municipal governments seem loath to bring to bear.

What Bondi said was, in fact, extremely (and amusingly) Canadian. Not knowing who she was or that she was talking about Kirk’s murder, many Canadian progressives might have nodded along to those comments in agreement. Knowing who she is and what she was talking about, I wonder if the sheer anti-Trump contrariness among Canadian progressives might give them pause to reconsider their demands for some kind of “hate speech” crackdown.

This is Trump’s attorney general, after all. Most Canadian progressives would rather gently comb and braid her hair than agree with her about anything.

I’m being churlish: Canadians are unlikely change their minds about free speech and hate speech just to spite Trump. Mind you, American liberals that Canadian progressives tend to appreciate have joined the backlash.

“Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself, that law school failed,” Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor (a president Barack Obama appointee) 

told an audience at New York Law School on Tuesday

.

(For the record, Bondi attended Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., which U.S. News and World Report 

ranks 99th among American law schools

.)

The key point is that Canadians don’t need to “change their minds” on free speech so much as they need to accept that we already have the laws we need. The standard for actual criminal hate speech in this country is very high — 

higher than many progressives think

. That’s by design; it has been tested and vouched safe by the courts. And it really has very little to do with people blocking streets, impeding day-to-day life and making fellow citizens’ lives miserable. Those are much more prosaic crimes than “hate speech,” but they’re far more likely to be enforced and prosecuted. Encouraging that is a far better use of everyone’s time than mucking around with a serviceable balance on free speech.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com


Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

The pressure is building on Mark Carney from the progressive wing of his own party as he pursues his “grand bargain” with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on the development of Canada’s resources.

Former environment minister Catherine McKenna told 

the Toronto Star

 that the Trudeau government tried to make a deal with the fossil fuel industry “and we failed.”

Another senior Liberal suggested the climate caucus is on the verge of revolt. “I think it’s getting to the edge, frankly,” he said.

Fortunately for Carney, the NDP is in disarray but others are looking to pick up disillusioned Liberal voters motivated by the climate issue. On Sunday, Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet warned Carney is “wallowing in the Western Canadian oil fantasy.” The Bloc has said it is against any more oil pipelines and pledged it will be the party that is responsible when it comes to climate change.

McKenna said experience suggests the oil and gas industry will not act. “Giving them more money or incentives as part of some grand bargain, when they haven’t done the minimum now…is a real problem,” she said.

It’s not true that the industry has been befouling the environment with impunity. Emissions in the oil and gas industry peaked in 2014 at 228 megatonnes but by 2023 they had fallen nine per cent or 20 megatonnes. Meanwhile, in the same timeframe, production of crude increased by 41 per cent and natural gas by 27 per cent.

However, it’s true that we have not yet seen the major investments in decarbonization that will be needed if Canada is to hit its goal of net zero by 2050.

The bad news for advocates of more action on climate who are disillusioned with the direction in which the government is heading is that things are likely to get worse for them.

Smith and the energy industry have called for Ottawa to repeal a number of Trudeau-era policies that they claim are a drag on the economy, including the oil and gas emissions cap, the Impact Assessment Act and the tanker ban off the West Coast.

There is every prospect that Carney will bend to Smith’s will in pursuit of his ultimate prize: a well-functioning industrial carbon market, where the price of carbon credits rise from the current $95 a tonne to closer to $150 a tonne over the next decade.

Carney has agreed in principle with Smith that the federal government will support a new pipeline that ships “decarbonized” crude to the Pacific Coast. The oil would be decarbonized by the giant Pathways Alliance carbon capture project that is likely to be 60 per cent funded by federal investment tax credits, but also requires a much higher carbon price than $95 to be viable.

The problem is that Alberta has indefinitely frozen its industrial carbon tax, cancelling the planned increase to $110 a tonne next year, which was keeping in line with federal rules. If the freeze is not lifted, Alberta will be in breach of its compliance agreement.

The options for Carney are to strike a deal that would strengthen Alberta’s Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction industrial carbon pricing program, or attempt to impose the federal price, which would be a declaration of war on the province by Ottawa and an end to Carney’s efforts to repair the divisions in the federation.

“If we actually had an effective system, we would see an inflection point in the investments in decarbonization,” said Michael Bernstein, chief executive of Clean Prosperity, a climate policy organization working on decarbonization. “The previous government had a whole series of climate policies and it seems almost inevitable that there has to be some rationalization of the framework, as part of actually moving ahead alongside the provinces. So, you focus on the thing that is basically an order of magnitude more important than anything else to get a deal.”

For Carney, that thing has to be unfreezing the industrial carbon tax and raising the stringency of the rules.

Alberta brought in new rules for its industrial carbon price on Tuesday that are likely to have precisely the opposite effect. Companies will be able to avoid paying provincial fees for emissions by investing in their own emissions reduction projects.

Not all the details are clear yet but there are concerns that it may result in “double counting”: giving companies relief from the carbon levy and then allowing them to monetize the credits generated when the carbon is captured. That inevitably weakens the system by creating an oversupply of carbon credits, eroding their value.

Carney has already jettisoned a consumer carbon tax that he had called “a model for others” in his book Value(s). He has suspended the electric vehicle mandate that

obliged automakers to buy credits from Elon Musk

.

He looks set to ditch an emissions cap introduced by the former environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, as a way to cut oil and gas production by stealth.

But if Carney is to achieve his goal of maximizing jobs, profits, exports and tax revenues, while lowering emissions, he cannot abandon the industrial carbon pricing system.

As Clean Prosperity advocates, the best way to unlock billions of dollars in low carbon investment is for the two levels of government to agree to joint carbon contracts for difference, effectively an insurance policy on the future price of carbon credits that gives businesses a degree of predictability and the confidence to invest in technology.

“If you want to make progress, this is the path forward,” said Bernstein. “We have got to have a pricing system and Pathways, and you also support the industry. That seems like a win-win-win.”

In the federal government’s favour, polls suggest only 

one in seven

 voters wants Ottawa to prioritize emissions over competitiveness.

Canadians still care about the environment but most want the government to pick an approach that does not prove to be a drag on the economy.

If Carney and Smith can find the political path forward, there remains the prospect of a happy ending in the unlikeliest love story in Canadian political history.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca


Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, speaks to a little girl wearing a hardhat following a press conference announcing his new housing strategy on Sunday.

Nearly six months after

promising

to “build twice as many homes every year,” on Sunday, Prime Minister Mark Carney followed the path laid out by virtually every other left-leaning politician in the country by launching a

new government bureaucracy

intended to increase the stock of affordable (read: socialized) housing throughout the country.

You’ll be forgiven if you’ve heard this one before. Promising affordable housing is a

favourite pastime

of the federal Liberals, largely because most of the impediments to building new homes fall outside Ottawa’s jurisdiction. It’s far easier to spend gobs of taxpayer money and create giant new bureaucracies than to actually deal with the reasons why Canada’s housing supply has failed to meet demand.

In 2017, the Liberals launched a $40-billion “National Housing Strategy” (NHS), which has since

more than doubled

in size, with the

goal

of building 125,000 new public housing units, refurbishing 300,000 and cutting homelessness in half within a decade. In the lead-up to the

2021 election

, the government set aside an additional $2.5 billion to create 35,000 affordable units. And the 2024 budget and fall economic statement

earmarked

an extra $8.3 billion for various affordable-housing initiatives.

How successful were these strategies? The proliferation of homeless encampments in our major cities clearly show that, eight years into its 10-year plan, the Ottawa isn’t anywhere close to cutting homelessness in half. Indeed, a

report

last year from Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada found that the homeless population increased by 20 per cent between 2018 and 2022.

Counting the number of homeless people is notoriously hard. Quantifying the affordable housing stock should be relatively easy. But unfortunately, even that is too much to ask of this country. According to

a 2024 report

from the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, “There is no official estimate of the size (absolute or proportion of total) for Canada’s social or non-market housing stock.”

The government will brag that the NHS has “supported or committed to the creation of 134,707 new units and the repair of 272,169 units,” but how many of those have actually been completed is far less clear.

Enter Mark Carney with his “

bold new approach

” to solving the housing affordability crisis: spending “unprecedented” amounts of money to fix the problem that the previously unprecedented amount of taxpayer-looted wealth failed to address. His government is launching a new federal bureaucracy — unimaginatively called Build Canada Homes (BCH) — with $13 billion in initial funding.

At the outset, BCH intends to build 4,000 new affordable homes on federal land in Dartmouth, N.S., Longueuil, Que., Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto. But construction isn’t supposed to even get underway until sometime next year, and it could be years before any of those homes are occupied.

To spearhead the new department, Carney tapped

Ana Bailão

, a former Toronto city councillor who was on the board of Toronto Community Housing and chaired the planning and housing committee. While the prime minister

hailed her

as a “seasoned leader with deep experience in affordable housing,” her track record on the file is less than stellar.

According to data from the

Low-end of Market Rental Housing Monitor

, Toronto’s stock of non-market housing actually decreased during Bailão’s tenure on city council, from 77,742 units in 2010 to 72,143 in 2022. Even according to the

city’s own numbers

, half way through its 10-year plan to build 65,000 rent-controlled homes between 2020 and 2030, it has only completed 1,242.

The city maintains a running tally of its progress toward its affordable-housing target, which shows that the vast majority of projects are stuck in the pre-planning and application-review stages. And herein lies the problem: even purpose-built government housing initiatives do not have the inertia necessary to cut through the mounds of red tape that municipalities have built up over the years.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre identified this problem long ago, promising to use the federal purse strings to coax cities into relaxing zoning rules and reducing bureaucratic overhead. By hiring a former city planner who presided over an ever-worsening real estate market to head the new housing department, Carney is virtually ensuring that it will be business as usual for Canada’s overbearing city councils.

Worse still, this week’s announcement does nothing to increase the supply of market housing — the type that productive members of society aren’t forced to subsidize through their tax dollars. Based on

promises made

during the election, that plan is still to come, but it will also involve the BCH acting “as a developer” and require significant amounts of public funding.

Carney has clearly failed to learn the No. 1 lesson of the past 10 years of Liberal rule: you can’t solve problems by throwing truckloads of money at them. If the $82-billion NHS failed to bring house prices and homelessness under control, it’s hard to see how the $13-billion BCH is going to fare any better.

Ultimately, our leaders need to realize that more socialism is not a cure for past socialist excesses. Only a free housing market unencumbered by zoning and other laws that prevent densification and urban sprawl can provide Canadians with the housing they need at prices they can afford. Creating a new federal bureaucracy run by a career urban planner is not going to achieve that goal.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/accessd


Cells within the Detainee Management Unit (DMU) at the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) Northwest Division Station, in Edmonton Friday May 30, 2025.

Following a summer of horrific crimes — a fatal domestic
assault
in the street by a man on release, the
stabbing
of a grandmother in front of a grocery store, the
execution
of a loving father in front of his children during a break-in, to name a few — the Liberals want you to know that they’ve got a plan for justice reform. 

It involves reforms for bail, domestic violence and hate crime — which were already reformed a few years back. Justice Minister Sean Fraser is coming into the fall session with the same old dusted-off stack of ineffective ideas that his predecessors already implemented. 

The Liberals have made changes to bail laws
twice
: in 2019 and again in 2023. 

In 2019, via Bill C-75, the Liberals codified the
principle of restraint
in the Criminal Code, a principle that was first brought into law back in
1972
, and has since been mandated by the Supreme Court on multiple occasions. It requires offenders to be released with the fewest conditions possible to ensure community safety. Practically, the Liberals didn’t change anything. 

More substantial was the Liberal addition of
racial considerations
into bail, primarily aimed at reducing the disproportionately higher prison populations of Black and Indigenous people. While it was marketed as a fairness measure, it was actually the opposite: it became easier for those in groups that most often find themselves in jail to receive bail thanks to this new identity bonus.

And to reduce the number of people being charged with bail condition violations, the Liberals added an option to hold a “judicial referral hearing” instead of laying a new charge when accused persons miss, say, a court appearance. But to the
disappointment of defence lawyers
(and probably the approval of almost everyone else), this provision is not being used in practice. Another illusion of change.

Finally, the Liberals helped along their feminist image by supposedly making it more difficult for domestic abusers to get bail — but only in the slightest sense. For those who had already been convicted of domestic violence, they created a presumption against granting bail, also known as a “reverse onus” provision, that makes jail in the lead-up to trial the default position of the court. Presumptions can be overcome with relative ease, however; they’re a bit like a speed bump in a parking lot.

By 2023 the Liberals learned they could just continue expanding reverse onus provisions to more crimes — various firearms and weapons offences — to create the appearance of progress. And so they did, with
Bill C-48
. Then came another trompe-l’œil of domestic violence reform: instead of just having a reverse onus favouring bail for repeat convicted abusers, this would be expanded to those who have also been discharged (found guilty, but not convicted) for domestic violence. That’s an incremental change of microscopic value. 

They also began
requiring
judges to consider the safety of victims and the community in their bail decisions — which, again, was already the case. How effective was all that? Nothing changed because it wasn’t a real change.

Even more reverse onus provisions are coming to bail in a fall bill, Fraser
says
— which just shows how little thought is actually being put into the justice file. Expect it to be just as inconsequential. This is just spinning tires in the mud while claiming to be getting somewhere. 

As for hate crimes, it’s a similar story. An offence
called
“Mischief relating to religious property, educational institutions, etc.” was created in 2017 with the assent of
Bill C-305
. It expanded the crime of mischief to religious property, which has been around
since
at least 2002, to daycares, schools, sports facilities, seniors homes, etc., used by minorities. It’s there to give the appearance of doing something — but it doesn’t, because regular mischief is an offence that already exists and works just as well. Indeed, it’s more likely to be used because it’s more established in the law, more flexible and more familiar to prosecutors and police. 

The Liberals followed that up with an update to the
old law
against obstructing clergymen, as well as disturbing religious services and gatherings for a “moral, social or benevolent purpose” — which they
actually considered repealing entirely in 2015
— by making the wording of the offence gender-neutral. Their reforms amounted to changing various instances of “he” to “they.” This happened in 2019 with
Bill C-51

Now, the Liberals are
expected
to propose legislation this week that will create a new intimidation offence to ban people from scaring others away from accessing religious properties, and another offence that will criminalize — for the nth time — the obstruction of religious property. 

So, that’s the Liberal formula for dealing with hate crimes: take something that was already illegal, create a redundant provision that makes it doubly or triply illegal, and pat yourself on the back. Meanwhile, hate crimes have surged against Jews in particular, their synagogues becoming absolute magnets for Molotovs, bullets and heckling crowds. 

It’s trite at this point, but the problem lies with policing and prosecution — not enough charges laid on Islamist agitators, and, of the few that actually make it into existence, too many being snuffed out by Crown prosecutors.

The next few months will see another slew of disappointments of a similar theme. Fraser told media
last week
that his new hate crime bill will be coming forward very soon; yet another bail bill is likely coming next month; finally, “later in this parliamentary sitting,” we should expect a bill on domestic violence. 

It’s the fall; Parliament hasn’t sat for all of 2025 save for a few weeks, and Liberals are using their precious time remaining to ban criminal activity
that was already banned long ago
.

National Post


U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump exit Air Force One after arriving at London Stansted Airport for a state visit on Sept. 16, 2025 in Stansted, Essex. The Trump administration is souring attitudes among would-be friends and becoming more vulnerable to the machinations of would-be foes, writes Derek H. Burney.

As the recent military parade and meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Beijing demonstrated, the global power structure is unravelling. The magnetic pull of the western alliance is cracking while that of our authoritarian adversaries is intensifying. In the

words

of the Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov, the image of China’s Xi Jinping, flanked by leaders of fellow nuclear powers Russia and North Korea, as ICBMs rolled through flag-waving crowds in Tiananmen Square, “marked a new phase in the redrawing of the international order.”

The impulsive, increasingly self-absorbed and often contradictory U.S. leadership of western alliances in Europe and Asia contrasts sharply with the newfound solidarity among China, Russia and North Korea. Formerly putative U.S. allies like India, Brazil, Vietnam and South Africa are increasingly attracted by the certainty, stability and less abrasive manner of China as opposed to the punitive tariffs and often insulting rhetoric from Donald Trump that antagonize governments and their people alike. It is, as Fareed Zakaria

described

on CNN, “the greatest own goal in modern U.S. foreign policy.”

Erstwhile U.S. NATO allies are being bludgeoned by Trump’s unlawful tariff measures. Most have bent their knee to accommodate the U.S. president in the hope of achieving some stability in what, for each, is a major, if not vital economic partnership.

The “America First” lunges by President Trump are stirring similar populist sentiments across Europe. In Britain, Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party lead the governing Labour Party in polls by 11 points. The faces and voices at Reform’s most recent convention had a distinct Trumpian ring, appealing to those who are tired of the government in power and fed up with being told what they should think by the establishment about immigration, multiculturalism, transgenderism, etc. Above all, they fear losing their country to those who despise them.

In France, yet another centrist government has fallen. The new prime minister will be the fourth in one year, and the chaos is only making things easier politically for the party treated as a pariah by the media — Marine Le Pen and her National Rally. As Gerard Baker

notes

in the Wall Street Journal, Le Pen’s designated successor, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, “has worked with her to detoxify the brand, dispelling its old stench of antisemitism and Nazi-adjacent ideology.”

In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is attempting to stave off growing public anger but is hamstrung by his dependence on the Social Democrats and is losing ground to the far-right, populist Alternative for Germany party.

The Europeans chose not to fight over tariffs, even though they had the economic power to resist. They chose to flatter and appease the U.S. president while trying to rekindle political, strategic and even economic dependency on Washington. But, following hapless concessions and humiliation, the European public must be increasingly indignant. It is time to strengthen the political union, put an end to the “vetocracy” that allows Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to block EU military assistance to Ukraine, and build Europe’s own defence system — a coalition of the willing — that is not completely reliant on the U.S. and can instil some fear in the Kremlin.

European leaders are trying gamely to fill the vacuum created by Donald Trump on the Russian–Ukraine conflict. Their fear of Russia is palpable. But, thus far, their new sense of unity and resolve falls short. Trump is now urging his European NATO members to join in secondary sanctions against countries buying cheap oil and gas from Russia. By repeatedly pausing to impose sanctions, Trump simply encourages more of the same from Vladimir Putin.

Events in Anchorage provided an unwarranted moment of glory for Putin but delivered nothing for the U.S., the West and certainly not for Ukraine. Poorly planned and executed, it revealed the shallowness of U.S. geopolitical capabilities. Before even beginning peace negotiations, the U.S. made unilateral concessions to Russia’s demands. Trump’s real goal on Ukraine remains obscure. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian people suffer escalating missile and drone attacks. Putin obviously believes that Ukraine’s army will break before his economy collapses, and every day without concrete U.S. action makes that more likely. Meanwhile, the 85 U.S. Senators committed to stronger sanctions against Russia sit supinely on their hands awaiting approval from the White House.

The U.S. levied secondary tariffs on India, with which it has cultivated closer, even strategic relations for more than two decades, but spared China knowing that China has real power to retaliate, whereas India does not. But how does this make strategic sense for America?

Russia’s drone attacks on Poland were neither inadvertent nor accidental. They targeted NATO unity and confidence, testing western patience and its inability to act. Trump’s feeble response — “It could have been a mistake” — was swiftly rebutted by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who

said

: “It wasn’t, and we know it.”  But it may intimidate Europeans into prioritizing their own security, not Ukraine’s.

The lack of depth in U.S. geopolitical thinking is clear. Foreign policy is more performative than concerted, more in tune with America First dogma than principled alliance leadership. The Democrats nationally have little to offer. They are in abject disarray and, if their two far-left mayoral candidates win in New York and Minneapolis in November, internal divisions will intensify.

The assassination of youth conservative organizer Charlie Kirk was a severe blow to the civil discourse he championed and is sure to exacerbate already brittle political divisions in America.

Globally, the negative impulses and insults from America will not be quickly forgotten. Because the White House is unpredictable and puts more emphasis on self-serving transactions for headlines than on strategy, it is souring attitudes among would-be friends and becoming more vulnerable to the machinations of would-be foes.

For Canada in particular, there is no reason to believe that good relations with the U.S. are just around the corner. We need to remove the blinkers and make decisions urgently on policies that serve our national interest, not woke symbolism, attract investment and improve productivity. Increased self-reliance is essential together with close relations with others, including China and India, who seek more productive and less abrasive relationships.

National Post

Derek H. Burney is a former 30-year career diplomat who served as Ambassador to the United States of America from 1989-1993


PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon speaks as Alex Boissonneault is sworn-in as MNA for the riding of Arthabaska after a recent byelection at the National Assembly, in Quebec City on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025.

As the

Herald

’s incomparable Don Braid

reported on Friday

, there was an extraordinary moment of ecumenical outreach in Alberta last week, as Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the resurgent Parti Québécois, visited Calgary and pressed the flesh with some Alberta separatists. Plamondon was invited for a “fireside chat” by the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, and

rehearsed familiar arguments for Quebec separatism

. Quebec never asked for the constitutional settlement of 1982, or for that matter the one of 1867; the French language is, as ever, in precipitous decline on this continent; the federal government, unhealthily dependent on ethnic clientele-building, makes lunatic policy decisions and implements them crookedly, etc., etc.

Plamondon has, to a greater degree than past PQ leaders, followed a policy of aspirational proto-diplomacy, engaging with separatist groups abroad: and now he finds himself sweet-talking Alberta’s ragtag band of separatists, insisting that Alberta has a “genuine identity” and that its secession movement is “legitimate.” He conferred privately with the leaders of the Alberta Prosperity Project, which crowed about Plamondon’s anointment of them as the true revolutionary vanguard of Alberta separatism. (In the 1980s, genuine momentum for Alberta separatism died fast, partly because of political radicals’ inevitable tendency to splinter.) And he reminded Albertans that Quebec secession is the shortest road to eliminating fiscal equalization, calling it “toxic” and a hindrance to growth within Quebec itself.

There is an obvious possibility that fraternizing with Plamondon is a tactical error for the Albexit crew. As the PQ leader acknowledges, he has almost nothing in common ideologically with Albertans (which is all the more reason, logically, for the two provinces to cease being yokemates). He is, a little nonsensically, dismissive about pipelines as a source of conflict between Alberta and Quebec.

I’m not bullish about the future of Alberta separatism

per se

, which Braid always writes about with undisguised anxiety. What ought to be noticed outside Alberta is the possibility that Plamondon is sowing seeds for exterior support in a third Quebec referendum. Organized support from the rest of Canada was 99 per cent pro-federalist in 1980 and 1995: how sure are we that this would be true in 2028 or whenever?

It might not make much difference either way, but as a plain matter of fact, the motivating power of “national unity” as an ideal is not what it once was. For a decade our federal government treated the national flag as a source of disgrace, Canadian history as a genocidal conspiracy and immigration policy as an infinite source of discounted labour. And even the claims of the Canadian state to be a source of win-win economic-scaling arrangements have become depressingly threadbare. It’s little wonder Plamondon is out looking for friends.

National Post


In this photo illustration, ZYN nicotine cases and pouches are seen on a table on January 29, 2024 in New York City.

Health Canada has launched its third legislative

review

of the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act (TVPA), which is the perfect opportunity to rethink the country’s failing approach to nicotine regulation.

The goal of the TVPA is to curb tobacco use and protect youth from nicotine addiction, but this approach is not working. The percentage of Canadians still smoking cigarettes was

11.4 per cent

in 2023. The rate is declining slowly, far behind Sweden, which is

at five per cent

as a result of embracing harm reduction tools like snus and nicotine pouches, shown to be 95 per cent and 99 per cent

less harmful

than cigarettes, respectively. Rather than increase taxes on or outright prohibit harm reduction tools, Health Canada should be suggesting amendments to the TVPA to encourage their use.

The TVPA, originally enacted in 1997 as the Tobacco Act and expanded in 2018 to include vaping, has aimed to curb tobacco use and protect youth from nicotine addiction. It is unclear how this will be achieved given its tendency to stifle harm reduction strategies that could save lives.

The Government of Canada itself has officially stated that 

“switching completely to vaping nicotine is less harmful than continuing to smoke.”

 However, vaping is included in the TVPA as if it is just as bad as smoking. Public Health England has stated that vaping is 

at least 95 per cent less harmful

than traditional cigarettes. Vaping is also less harmful in terms of secondhand smoke, since the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) has

stated

that there is no evidence that vaping is harmful to those around someone who is vaping.

The obvious solution is for Health Canada to allow manufacturers to include comparative risk statements like “switching to vaping is 95 per cent less harmful to your health than smoking” so that consumers can make smart health choices. Health Canada’s inspections of gas stations and convenience stores found that they are complying at a

rate of 97 per cent

, which shows that retailers can be trusted to sell items with comparative risk labels responsibly.

In terms of harm reduction, vaping is not the only proven tool that has been shown to help consumers quit smoking: flavoured items are also under prohibitionist attack by the TVPA. Research shows that flavoured products increase adult smoking cessation success rates by an 

astonishing 230 per cent

.

Health Canada should also allow nicotine pouches to be available for sale in convenience stores since they are free of tobacco and don’t involve burning, which makes them much less harmful than smoking. Research shows they have 

fewer harmful chemicals than cigarettes or traditional snus

, leading to lower chances of cancer and breathing problems, and again, are 

99 per cent less harmful

compared to cigarettes. Pouches were once allowed to be sold in convenience stores and gas stations, until former health minister

Mark Holland decided

 they were only to be sold behind the counter at pharmacies in 2024. 

Tobacco is what causes cancer, not nicotine

, so stopping people from accessing these harm reduction tools more conveniently is irresponsible.

A main focus of the TVPA is the ever-expanding black market of cigarettes. This inevitably leads to organized crime, which is reflective of what has guided policymakers to make this part of the act.

 

However, nowhere in the review does it mention the possibility of the most obvious solution: making legal, less harmful harm reduction tools more affordable by taxing them less.

High taxes and bans drive consumers underground, which ends up plaguing provinces like Ontario and British Columbia, with studies estimating 

30 to 50 per cent of market share

 from illegal sources in some areas. Rather than make it more desirable to buy legally, both federal and provincial taxes have been

climbing

since 2022. Currently, a 30-millilitre bottle of vape fluid in Ontario could have a total excise duty

of over $15

 including federal and provincial taxes, while a pack of cigarettes might incur a duty 

of around $16

.

Like many government initiatives and programs, the TVPA misses the mark and refuses to accept obvious solutions to a serious problem. If the goal is to help people quit smoking, then the way they are operating simply is not working.

As Health Canada takes on its current review of the TVPA, policymakers must heed the data: embrace harm reduction, allow truth-telling, tax wisely and curb contraband. Anything less would be irresponsible in terms of public health. The Consumer Choice Center recently submitted

comments

to the government consultation to this effect, and we can only hope for the sake of smokers that officials listen.

National Post

Sabine Benoit is the Canadian policy associate at the Consumer Choice Center.


Chrystia Freeland speaks during a news conference following the second night of debate in the federal Liberal leadership race, on February 25, 2025.

Chrystia Freeland’s exit from cabinet, while not expected, is no great surprise.

The job of transport minister is unglamorous, dominated by regulation of railway rolling stock and of passenger bills of rights. The minister’s path is potholed with potentially career-limiting port, railway or airline strikes.

Former Conservative transport minister John Crosbie expressed his frustration in 1986 when he said no one understands how air fares work. “Why I should be expected to understand them is beyond me,” he said.

For someone with Freeland’s vaulting ambition, being parked in the backwater of transport, albeit with the additional nominal responsibility for internal trade, must have felt like those aspirations were being thwarted.

She said in a 

social media post

Tuesday she does not intend to run in the next election and that the time is right to seek fresh challenges. Quite why she didn’t make that decision before the last election suggests she thought Prime Minister Mark Carney would restore her to former glories, before she sparked the coup that made Justin Trudeau’s position untenable last December,

which saw her resign from cabinet the first time

.

Carney, the godfather to Freeland’s son, was Lincolnian enough to understand he needed to repair injured feelings after the leadership contest, in which he won 86 per cent of members’ votes and she won just eight per cent. He was clearly aware that untended, that hurt might have escalated into hostility, and Freeland could do to him what she did to his predecessor.

Instead, he offered her a position inside the cabinet from which she could watch the action on the ice, if not score any goals.

With her resignation, he has offered her the position of being Canada’s special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

It’s not clear what that entails, given Canada already has an energetic ambassador in Kyiv in Natalka Cmoc.

But it’s a soft landing for the former finance minister and will give Carney time to look for a star candidate to parachute into her safe Liberal riding of University—Rosedale. The prospect of mini cabinet shuffle will also keep the caucus in line, as part of the perennial backbench battle between the hope of promotion and the experience that it won’t happen.

Freeland’s knowledge of, and commitment to, Ukraine is not in doubt and perhaps she will carve out a meaningful role once peace finally comes.

More likely, she will find a high-profile international role outside government that reflects her sense of her own destiny. Her career has been peripatetic since she started a freelance journalism career in Ukraine but it has been marked by one constant: every job has been an upgrade on its predecessor, until now.

She made her name as the Financial Times’ Moscow bureau chief in the 1990s. Bill Browder, the financier and human rights activist, wrote in his book Red Notice that he met Freeland in Moscow to discuss his struggles with a Russian oligarch. He described her as having a “zealous fire in her belly” and making up for her lack of stature with her approach to life.

By that time, she already had

a bulging KGB file under the code-name “Frida”

and was described by the Russian secret service as “a remarkable individual — erudite, sociable, persistent and inventive in achieving her goals.”

She penned a book on her time in Russia in 2000 called Sale of the Century, about the country’s “wild ride” from communism to capitalism, and another called Plutocrats: the rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else in 2012.

Trudeau and his team were intoxicated with the ideas about income equality and redistributive “fairness” in Plutocrats.

In admiring terms, Freeland quoted former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers saying that focusing on redistribution made more sense than focusing on growth — an idea she championed enthusiastically in government.

She was recruited to run in the safe Toronto Centre seat, after Bob Rae’s retirement, and was appointed international trade minister after the Liberals won in 2015.

With President Donald Trump’s first victory in 2016, she was appointed foreign affairs minister in place of Stéphane Dion, who was considered a potential liability in the new Washington. She won good reviews, at least initially, for her keen interest in human rights and her commitment that Canada would stand up at a time of American retrenchment. Canada “is an essential country at this time in the life of our planet,” she said.

But critics would claim that too much of what followed echoed Trudeau’s virtue-signalling to the UN General Assembly in 2016, when he declared: “We’re Canada and we’re here to help.”

In reality, Canada did not have the hard power or the energy to live up to the rhetoric, particularly when it was forced to deal with a Trump administration intent on a trade war.

As negotiations on an updated NAFTA proceeded, relations between Freeland and the American trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, became strained over Canada’s “values-based” foreign policy.

Trump made public

his disdain for the Canadian foreign minister

, saying: “We don’t like their representative very much.”

Freeland got much of the kudos when the CUSMA deal was signed but the final, brass-tacks negotiations were between Lighthizer and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the American side, and Trudeau’s top staffers, Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, for Canada.

At the time the COVID pandemic struck, Freeland was openly coveting the finance minister’s job, colleagues said.

By summer 2020, the incumbent Bill Morneau was resisting efforts to make temporary support programs more permanent. In August, he was thrown overboard, with the Prime Minister’s Office whispering to journalists that he was “too orthodox” in his approach.

Freeland was brought in, declaring the pandemic a “tremendous opportunity” for the country to rebuild along more equitable, greener lines.

Her strategy was based on interest rates as a share of GDP being at 100-year lows. The assumption was that debt-servicing costs would remain below 10 per cent of tax revenues in perpetuity (they rose to 11 per cent in 2024/25).

She was warned by veterans like former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge that debts and deficits are arithmetic, not ideological. She dismissed such warnings as being the ravings of a generation scarred by the debt crisis of the mid-1990s. “It is a poor general who fights the last war,” she said.

“In today’s low interest environment, not only can we afford these investments in Canada’s future, we would be short-sighted not to make them.”

The fruit of such thinking was the 2021 budget, which included $143 billion of new spending and projections that the national debt would hit $1.5 trillion within five years (from $615 billion when Trudeau took power).

In her social media posting on Tuesday, Freeland noted that Canada made it through the pandemic while maintaining its triple-A credit rating. She would probably point to the introduction of child care as a good investment for the future.

But her “pre-loaded stimulus” was undoubtedly overgenerous: in the first three quarters of 2020, Statistics Canada said the average household amassed $10,500 in savings, compared to $1,157 in 2019. And she made no allowance for the possibility, nay inevitability, of borrowing costs exceeding economic growth.

As finance minister, she never hit a target she imposed on herself, from falling debt-to-GDP levels to limiting the deficit to $40 billion.

It was only at the 11th hour that she broke with Trudeau’s profligacy, reversing the decision to spend billions on “costly political gimmicks” like the two-month GST holiday and the $250 rebate cheques for 19-million households.

Her act of rebellion brought down a prime minister and paved the way for Carney’s accession.

He should be grateful for that. But he should also thank the minister most closely associated with Trudeau’s utopian crusade to change the world in his own progressive image for signalling her intent to move on from frontline politics.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca


Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland gets a shout-out from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  during a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill  in Ottawa on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.  THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The KGB once lauded Chrystia Freeland as someone who was “inventive” in achieving her goals.
 

The ex-Soviet spy agency’s insightful
analysis
is in need of an update to include the fact that she never achieved her ultimate goal of becoming prime minister despite an artful public letter that slipped a stiletto between the shoulder blades of Justin Trudeau.
 

Having toppled the king, Freeland was denied the crown by a Liberal party that may have celebrated her ruthlessness but was distrustful of her ambition.
 

The party, like the KGB, may have recognized that during her time in office Freeland displayed that most guileful of political talents – being loyal until it no longer suited her.
 

On Tuesday, Freeland
announced
she was stepping down from her transport minister role and would not stand at the next election. Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was appointing her as “Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.”
 

Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent and speaks the language, has been a harsh critic of Russia’s war.
 

“The brave people of Ukraine are fighting for their democracy and freedom — but they are also on the front lines fighting for us all. Canadians will continue to stand with Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal invasion,” she
wrote
last year.
 

The prospect at being a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin will no doubt delight the irrepressible Freeland who is sure to again attract the attention of Russia’s intelligence service.
 

In 2014, Freeland, who also speaks Russian and was stationed in Moscow as a journalist during the 1990s, was banned from the country because of her anti-Soviet activities.
 

Although a self-declared Russophile, Freeland has been adamant in her denunciation of Putin.
 

Freeland entered politics in 2013 and her star really began rising after the election of Trudeau as prime minister in 2015.
 

He appointed her minister of international trade that year, the first of many cabinet appointments: foreign affairs, intergovernmental affairs, finance, and deputy prime minister.
 

According
to Catherine Tsalikis, who wrote a biography of Freeland — Chrystia: From Peace Valley to Parliament Hill — she was Trudeau’s right-hand, having one-on-one meetings with him every week.
 

During her time in finance (2020-2024) she spent the nation’s money at record amounts, increased the deficit to an astonishing $62 billion, raised taxes on middle-income families, and lowered living standards, according to an
analysis
by the Fraser Institute.
 

Under her tenure, the government spent $54.1 billion on debt interest, more than health transfers to the provinces ($52.1 billion.)
 

Freeland’s record at finance was “one of continuous deficits and growing debt,”
said
the Fraser Institute.
 

All this in the name of being a loyal Liberal.
 

Freeland was also not above stoking the rhetorical flames if it suited the party’s needs.
 

Her defence of a capital gains tax increase in 2024 was simply bonkers. Those who opposed the increase were being selfish and unfair to younger generations, she said, before envisaging some dystopian future.
 

“Do we want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury but must do so in gated communities behind ever higher fences using private health care and airplanes because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their lesser privileged compatriots burns so hot,” she said.
 

If Freeland had quit politics in November 2024 she might have been best remembered as a divisive, reckless spending, Trudeau-loyalist and devoted Liberal.
 

But Freeland wrote her legacy in a letter the next month when she resigned the finance position.
 

Trudeau, her former best friend, planned on replacing her with Carney and Freeland quit before she could be ousted.
 

But if she was going then she was determined to bring Trudeau down with her.
 

Trudeau had to eschew “costly political gimmicks,” she wrote, a shot at the then-prime minister’s plan to give $250 rebate cheques to working Canadians.
 

She implied Trudeau was not working in “good faith and humility” with provincial premiers and that the party was more focused on itself than with helping Canadians.
 

Having initiated Trudeau’s demise, Freeland began jockeying for the prime minister’s role with one of her first acts being to distance herself from the Liberals’ record.
 

“Canadians want good jobs, homes they can afford and great care for their kids. They want a government that is as careful with Canada’s money as Canadians are with their own,” said Freeland in January this year, conveniently forgetting that she was the one who was responsible for the out-of-control spending.
 

However, she was denied the role by Carney whose “Elbows Up” grandstanding eclipsed Freeland’s political treachery.
 

The Woman Who Brought Down Justin Trudeau is probably not the way Freeland would like to be remembered, but it was, undoubtedly, her greatest public service.
 
 

National Post


Prime Minister Mark Carney answers during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Monday’s first session of Question Period opened with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre displaying common courtesy toward each other, and a bit of humour from Poilievre, who, after thanking the constituents of his new riding, Battle River-Crowfoot, also thanked Carney for calling a prompt byelection, playfully quipping, “I wonder if one day he might regret that decision.”

Poilievre’s challenge will be maintaining that playful, distanced tone while holding the long-serving Liberals to account under their new leader Carney. Poilievre already has his finger on Canada’s pulse, as shown by the Liberals adopting his ideas, leading to their electoral success. Poilievre’s goal, now, is to retain the wit and precision he brings to issues that matter most to Canadians, while winning over more hearts. Monday’s first session was a good start.

Arriving to standing applause from the Conservative caucus, Poilievre entered late and apologized, joking that his mother would not approve of such tardiness.

After that, Poilievre wasted no time framing their oppositions’ approach going forward, asking the Speaker, “In the spirit of good faith, I wonder if (the prime minister) agrees that our goal should be a Canada where hard work is rewarded, where food and homes are affordable, where streets are safe, borders are solid and we’re all united under a proud flag.”

This opening statement isn’t a simple policy slogan centred around one issue, like the Liberals’ “Elbows Up” or “Building Canada Strong.” It’s a cohesive overarching vision for Canada. And so far, Carney and the Liberals have offered nothing like it.

It also serves as a reminder, not only to the new prime minister and his party, but to Canadians, that it is the Conservatives that brought these issues to the forefront, and it is the Conservatives who will be holding the government to account going forward, day in and day out.

Carney, for his part, cordially welcomed Poilievre back to the House of Commons, responding, “I agree entirely with the sentiment and objectives of the leader of the Opposition.”

Carney then pivoted to proudly exclaiming, “He may notice a few things have changed since he was here last; The largest women’s caucus in Canadian history.”

It seems Mark Carney is already following in Justin Trudeau’s footsteps. In 2015, former Prime Minister Trudeau made a similar

boast

about his gender-balanced, ethnically-diverse cabinet, which consisted of 15 men and 15 women. “Because it’s 2015,” he said at the time.

We all know how that played out. By 2019, two of those female cabinet ministers resigned, along with another female caucus member.

In February of 2019, Jody-Wilson Raybould, Canada’s first Indigenous Minister of Justice and Attorney General, an MVP of this gender-parity cabinet, quit, citing ethical concerns. According to Wilson-Raybould, Trudeau and his aides had pressured her to interfere in a criminal prosecution against Quebec’s SNC-Lavalin which was facing corruption charges. After refusing, she was demoted to Veterans Affairs in a cabinet shuffle and resigned. She later testified before parliamentary committee detailing the pressure campaign. It was ruled that Trudeau violated conflict of interest rules.

The following month, Jane Philpott joined her, saying the treatment of Wilson-Raybould raised “

serious concerns

” for her. 

“The solemn principles at stake are the independence and integrity of our justice system,” she wrote in her resignation letter. “Sadly, I have lost confidence in how the government has dealt with this matter and in how it has responded to the issues raised.”

Wilson-Raybould and Philpott both had distinguished careers and exemplary resumes before joining the party, much more distinguished than Justin Trudeau’s. These interferences and demotions put into question the actual aims of Trudeau’s gender-parity, ethnically-diverse cabinet.

Also in March, female Liberal caucus member, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, a parliamentary secretary resigned, both in support of Wilson-Raybould and due to personal interactions with Trudeau, which she later described in an interview with Jordan Peterson. In the interview, she told Peterson that the tokenism in the party was “dehumanizing.” According to Caesar-Chavannes, she wanted to quit the same day as Wilson-Raybould, but Trudeau told her to wait to resign, because he was concerned about “

the optics of having two women of colour leaving

,” on the same day.

Later in 2024, Chrystia Freeland, then deputy prime minister and finance minister, resigned from Trudeau’s gender-parity cabinet after receiving word she was going to be shuffled out of her position. Freeland was

reportedly

at odds with Trudeau’s preference for deeper spending.

Trudeau’s “Because 2015,” was obviously a virtue-signalling ploy, which did not match how he and his government treated MVP female cabinet members and other female caucus members, and now they’re playing the same game again, hurling the boast as if Canadians are unfamiliar with how the Liberal Party actually treats women.

On the other side of the caucus, there’s no need for the Opposition to brag about their strong female MPs or ethnicity, or sexuality. It is assumed that MPs are there because they are qualified, not because of their sexual identity. For example, Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman has been at Poilievre’s side since 2022. The Conservatives do not feel the need to boast that she’s a woman or a lesbian for clout. That’s not why she’s there. Her skills are obvious.

Unless the Liberals come up with an overarching vision for Canada like Poilievre’s and learn from their past identity-peddling mistakes, it looks like they will be doomed to repeat them.

X: @TLNewmaMTL

tnewman@postmedia.com