Nearly half of all Canadian university students are actively concealing their real opinions for fear of sanction or mistreatment, according to a comprehensive new survey published Wednesday by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.

Of 760 university students surveyed, 48.1 per cent expressed reluctance to reveal their opinions on a “controversial political issue.” The survey found that 27.5 per cent of students were somewhat reluctant and 20.6 per cent were very reluctant.

And this wasn’t because the students were particularly reserved or shy in class discussions. When respondents were asked about giving their views on a “non-controversial” issue, 93.4 per cent said it was no problem.

“Inescapable from our study is the recognition that classroom discussions on controversial topics on university campuses fail to reflect the actual cross-section of opinions of students in the classroom,” wrote researchers for the Calgary-based think tank.

And fear of speaking out changed drastically based on a student’s identity. Some groups described campus environments in which virtually all of their opinions or views could be expressed without consequence.

While others said campuses had become places where a failure to exercise proper self-censorship could risk lower grades, the opprobrium of peers or even investigation by campus authorities.

“The data reveal that the students most comfortable sharing their views at Canadian universities identify as follows: liberal, secular, racialized, homosexual, gender-nonconforming,” reads an accompanying analysis. It notes that a mere 0.4 per cent of students met all five characteristics.

“On each controversial issue, the majority of students are uncomfortable — often very reluctant — thinking through their views out loud,” it says.

This was particularly true when the Aristotle results were broken down by a respondent’s self-identified gender.

Respondents who identified themselves as either “non-binary” or a non-specified third gender expressed the most confidence of any other cohort in airing their views without fear of reprimand or sanction.

In one survey question, respondents were asked to imagine a scenario in which they’re discussing a “controversial gender issue” in class, and they hold back on their views for fear that they’ll get reported to campus authorities for an alleged act of hate or discrimination.

Of the non-binary and third gender respondents, 87.1 per cent expressed confidence this would never apply to them.

Male and female respondents were much more guarded. Only 31.4 per cent of men and 47.7 per cent of women said they could expect to tell the truth without risking getting into trouble.

And a similar disparity held when respondents were asked if their gender opinions would result in them being punished with a lower grade. Of the non-binary and third gender respondents, 71 per cent said this didn’t worry them, against just 32.7 per cent of men and 48.8 per cent who said the same.

Self-censorship also varied wildly between racial groups.

The ethnicities who expressed the most comfort with “speaking up in a class discussion” were students who identified as Middle Eastern or Indigenous. Only 27 per cent of Middle Eastern students indicated any reluctance to air their views on a controversial issue, with 31 per cent of Indigenous students saying the same.

On the other side of the spectrum were white and Hispanic students. Fifty per cent of Hispanic students and 46 per cent of white students said they preferred to stay out of class discussions on hot button issues.

The Aristotle survey is also one of several recent Canadian polls to reveal campus environments that have become increasingly unwelcoming for Jewish students.

If a “controversial religious issue” was discussed in class, 69 per cent of Jewish respondents said they would be reluctant to speak up.

At the opposite end of the spectrum were Muslim students, only 36 per cent of whom said the same.

Jewish students also emerged as the largest cohort by far who reported suffering ill treatment “every day” because of their religion. Of Jewish respondents, 15.2 per cent of respondents reported daily incidents of discrimination, against 3.5 per cent of Catholic students, and 3.1 per cent of Muslim students. Only 15 per cent of Jewish students said they are never targeted.

One of the inspirations for the Aristotle report is an annual Campus Freedom Index published by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. The index often focuses on instances of heterodox or conservative speech being suppressed at Canadian universities, such as anti-abortion talks being denied permission to use campus facilities.

Surprisingly, however, the Aristotle survey revealed that moderate or conservative opinions now represent the plurality of student’s political views on Canadian campuses.

Of respondents, 38.7 per cent reported having either “moderate,” “conservative” or “libertarian” opinions. This was against 37 per cent who reported their views as being on the liberal side of the spectrum. The other 24.2 said they either didn’t think about politics or didn’t want to answer.

And this was despite the fact that the Aristotle survey respondents were disproportionately non-white and female; two groups that have historically leaned left in their political views. Just 47.8 per cent of respondents were white, and only 28.9 per cent were male (63.2 per cent were female).

Despite moderates and conservatives now representing a plurality of the nation’s university students, the Aristotle survey found that they felt most besieged for their political views.

For students identifying as “very conservative,” 85 per cent said they suspected they risked lower grades if they ever revealed what they believed.

Among the “very liberal” cohort, meanwhile, three quarters said they were “not at all” concerned that the free expression of their opinions would land them in trouble. Just 17 per cent of moderates said they are not concerned.

The survey found that 46.2 per cent of students
said they were treated badly or unfairly because of their political views and 6.6 per cent said they are targeted more than once a week.

The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy surveyed 760 students from 34 universities across Canada using a questionnaire based on the Heterodox Academy’s Campus Expression survey.

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It is hardly surprising, in the year 2025, to see a public figure strung up — figuratively, thank goodness — for something he didn’t quite say or mean. If cinema is “a machine that creates empathy,” as critic Roger Ebert once said, then social media is something like the opposite: a machine for grinding people into the radioactive dust of their own presumed worst intentions.

What’s

a bit special about Mohamad Fakih

, founder of the Paramount Foods empire who was in 2021 named a member of the Order of Canada, is that even in this hyperactive age he is suffering

less

than he deserves for what seem to strike some mainstream Canadians as completely anodyne online comments. Supporters include various New Democrats and

human rights lawyer Alex Neve

(“you are the epitome of what the OC embodies,” Neve gushed at Fakih).

They need to read back what Fakih said and think about it hard, and quick.

Let’s leave aside some frankly creepy verbiage in Fakih’s original online posts like “your tweets and messages are saved and known to all of us. They live.” Yikes! Let’s instead focus on the most disturbing element of what he beamed into the world on Aug. 25: “If you are a Canadian and a supporter of Israel, you do not have basic human values, let alone Canadian values.”

Did you catch that — or rather, not catch it? Not “if you’re a Likud/Netanyahu fetishist.” Not “if you dance a jig every time Israel erects a settlement in the West Bank.”

Rather,

if you are a supporter of Israel

— as of course most Canadian Jews are, while holding very mixed and different feelings about Israel’s actions toward Gaza and Gazans since 2023 — you lack

basic human values

.

Fakih’s position violates one of the most basic precepts of citizenship that a country like Canada must guard zealously: That people should be free to live their lives however they see fit and according to their beliefs, so long as they’re within the law and not trampling over other people’s lives and beliefs.

Outrage followed from Jewish groups and others, including calling for him to be removed from the Order of Canada. Instead of introspection, Fakih has resorted to conspiracy: “A coordinated, well-funded pro-Israel campaign is trying to come after my reputation, my Order of Canada, my business, and my staff — with threats, smears, even physical attacks,” he moaned. “All because I speak the truth about the genocide in Gaza.”

That’s not it, shopkeep. Not even close. Lots of people call what Israel is doing in Gaza “genocide,” including no doubt a good few Order of Canada recipients. Hell, a fair few Canadians call what Canada did and is doing to Indigenous people, and Indigenous women and girls specifically, “genocide.” No one is forced to agree. You’re free to think it’s stupid, offensive and disqualifying for a friend, business partner or national honouree.

The reason you and your supporters are on the hook, sir, is because you placed unilateral geopolitical constraints on being a “proper Canadian,” and around here that gets you a pie in the face.

“This isn’t about one tweet,” Fakih complained on social media. “It’s about silencing anyone who dares to speak up.” Fakih certainly wasn’t universally popular beforehand. But this was absolutely about one tweet — specifically, the one just before all this outrage followed, back when none of us had to spend any time at all thinking about the Order of Canada.

That’s the other silly thing here. If the Order actually meant a lot to a lot of people, I could enthusiastically get behind putting Fakih on notice, maybe even clarifying what we expect of those bearing the pins and post-nominals. We don’t ask much, after all. Just, say, not denouncing great chunks of diaspora communities based on their views of terrible homeland conflicts from which Canada ought to be a refuge.

But then you read

the petition from Liberal MP Kevin Vuong

, which has multi-partisan backing, and its preamble: “The Order of Canada is for our very best; its recipients should unify, not divide.”

Is it for our very best, though? Does it unify? A whole lot of Canadians would have disagreed long before they heard of Mohamad Fakih, if they even have today. A lot of Canadians would have disagreed just on the matter of Don Cherry, for heaven’s sake, and understandably so. Indeed, one might argue the whole operation produces vastly more division than unity. In which case, what exactly is the point of it?

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

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Last Tuesday, thousands of Israelis took

to the streets

, blocking highways and setting tires on fire, to pressure the government to reach a deal with Hamas.

Einav Zangauker, whose son has been languishing in Hamas captivity, made a passionate plea for more Israelis to join the demonstrations, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “afraid of one thing — public pressure,” and that, “Only with our strength can we bring about a comprehensive agreement and an end to the war.”

Those sentiments were echoed by Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, who said that the previous hostage deals “only happened because of public pressure,” and that if enough pressure is put on the government now, Netanyahu will have no choice but to reach an agreement to end the war and release the hostages.

The opposition parties are fairly united in their disdain for the current war strategy, which has recently seen increased fighting in Gaza City as part of Israel’s plan to take over the roughly 25 per cent of the Strip that’s still under Hamas control. But Netanyahu’s facing pressure from both sides of the aisle.

Last month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party,

said he had

“lost faith that the prime minister is able and wants to lead the IDF to a decisive victory,” while other members of his party threatened to leave the coalition because they believe the new strategy is simply a ploy to force Hamas to come to an agreement that’s acceptable to Israel.

And they’re right: the prime minister has

said many times

that only increased military pressure will force Hamas to lay down its arms and give up the hostages, which is why he approved plans for a renewed offensive, despite opposition from his own military chief.

But for the ultranationalist members of his coalition, nothing short of a complete annexation of Gaza will be acceptable. They have so far been successful in

persuading Netanyahu

not to accept any deal that doesn’t result in the release of all the remaining hostages and Hamas’s surrender.

The terrorist group is also receiving pushback from its own war-weary citizens and other Arab countries. At the end of July, the 22 members of the Arab League took

the unprecedented step

of backing the “

New York Declaration

,” which, among other things, calls on Hamas to disarm and relinquish control over Gaza.

But at the same time as Israel and other countries are attempting to force Hamas to capitulate, the terrorists are trying to ratchet up pressure on the Jewish state. Their strategy has been to create as much death and destruction in Gaza as possible — real and imagined — while normalizing claims that Israel is committing a “genocide,” thus turning it into a pariah on the world stage. Recent reports of famine taking hold in Gaza only serve to strengthen the jihadists’ hand.

As Esmat Mansour, who

NPR describes

as a “West Bank-based Palestinian political commentator and former militant,” told the American public broadcaster recently, “The (Israeli) military is exhausted, Israeli protests are increasing, maybe the government will fall, maybe there will be international pressure — especially because of the images of hunger, Europe will pressure the U.S. Hamas says: ‘There is nothing worse than surrender. Why should I surrender? I am remaining steadfast and maybe the situation will change to my advantage.’ ”

Indeed, the hostages are Hamas’s only remaining bargaining chip, and it’s not likely to give them up and accept defeat so easily. This much we know given that Gaza’s terrorist rulers have clung to power for nearly two years in the face of a far superior military force. Thus, the rest of the world has been relegated to issuing

strongly worded statements

about the pressing need to release the captives and disarm, even though everyone knows the West holds no influence over Hamas.

So world powers, including Canada, have instead focused their pressure campaigns on the other parties — Israel and the Palestinian Authority — most recently using the threat or promise of recognizing a Palestinian state to get them to give in. But different countries are using Palestinian statehood to achieve different ends.

Prime Minister Mark Carney

predicated his recognition

on the Palestinian Authority’s “commitment to much-needed reforms, including the commitments by Palestinian Authority President (Mahmoud) Abbas to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part and to demilitarize the Palestinian state.”

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer used it as

a threat

to try to force Netanyahu’s hand, saying the United Kingdom would recognize Palestine unless Israel ended the war, committed to a two-state solution and allowed the United Nations to resume aid deliveries.

What we have here is an old-fashioned Mexican standoff in the Negev. Everyone’s trying to force everyone else to stop fighting on their terms. But Hamas is a genocidal jihadist organization that sees the suffering of its own people as a feature, not a bug, and has nothing left to lose. Netanyahu is trying to balance the majority of Israelis who want a deal with the right-wing members of his coalition who hold his political future in their hands, and the knowledge that unless Israel gets the job done now, Hamas will rebuild and attack again.

Something drastic needs to change in order to upend the current status quo, but what that may be is, at this point, anyone’s guess.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/accessd

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In August, Australia’s chief spy-catcher, Mike Burgess,

revealed

a startling figure: foreign espionage drained the country of an astounding $12.5 billion in the past year.

These weren’t hypothetical estimates. They were tied to real espionage operations uncovered by Australia’s intelligence community, including 24 major incidents.

In one case, hackers working for a foreign government breached the computer network of a leading Australian exporter, stealing sensitive files that gave their country a decisive edge in contract negotiations. The result: hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue for the Australian trader.

In another, an Australian defence firm’s product blueprints were stolen after a foreign operative, masquerading as a client, slipped a malware-infected USB stick into a company laptop. Within months, a foreign competitor was mass-producing knock-off products, siphoning millions from the Australian manufacturer.

Australia’s approach to espionage is groundbreaking because it puts a price tag on a national security threat that often lurks hidden from the public. What’s even more notable is the government’s response to the threat. Espionage has been elevated as a core national priority. Structured partnerships with the private sector have been built directly into Australia’s security system, enabling government and business to share information and disrupt threats in real time.

Canada should pay close attention.

As an open economy, home to some of the world’s most innovative companies, Canada is an irresistible target. Canadian firms’ prototypes have been pinched before patents were filed. Adversaries have exploited stolen insights into R&D pipelines to outmaneuver Canadian firms in global markets. High-stakes business transactions have collapsed without explanation, only to be linked later to covert theft.

While Ottawa has never released an estimate of the damage, Australia’s experience suggests that espionage is quietly costing Canadians tens of billions of dollars each year.

But this is only part of the story. As Australian officials rightly acknowledge, the most severe consequences of espionage — loss of strategic advantage, erosion of sovereign decision-making, and compromised military capability — cannot be captured in monetary terms.

Despite the growing risks, Canada has no institutionalized framework for tackling espionage in partnership with industry. Instead, our security agencies rely largely on ad hoc outreach and informal conversations.

This institutional gap too often leaves Canadian companies fending for themselves against sophisticated state actors. It also leaves security agencies with only a partial view of what adversaries are doing inside our economy. Neither situation is acceptable.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s

forthcoming

National Security Strategy is an opportunity to close this gap. Canada should follow Australia’s lead and:

-Direct security agencies to establish institutionalized partnerships with industry, including by engaging in formal intelligence-sharing arrangements, sector-specific threat assessments, and joint preparedness exercises;

-Create dedicated liaison structures within security agencies so targeted Canadian firms have a clear point of contact when facing real or emerging threats; and,

-Reallocate existing government spending to ensure security agencies have the resources, including personnel and technology, to engage in regular and secure interactions with industry.

The cost of government inaction is staggering.

To better understand the consequences of government complacency, the Australians also calculated the massive price the country would pay if future espionage went unchecked.

The theft of trade secrets from a publicly traded company? A $900 million hit to Australian shareholders.

The sabotage of critical infrastructure enabled by espionage? A $6 billion blow to the country’s economy within a week.

Diminished trust in government security due to increased espionage activity? A $10 billion annual shock in the form of reduced foreign investment.

For Canada, the lesson is clear: these losses are not inevitable. But prevention requires urgency, political will and a new compact between government and industry. Not one of occasional engagement, but one of shared responsibility for safeguarding Canadian sovereignty and prosperity.

Canada’s business community is ready. The question is whether Ottawa is prepared to act with the same resolve as our allies.

Trevor Neiman is Vice President of Policy and Legal Counsel at the Business Council of Canada.

National Post

If you’re a fellow fan of the comedian/writer/director/

producer/action star Bob Odenkirk, you might already have gone to the theatres to see him in 

Nobody 2

, the new sequel to his surprise 2021 hit 

Nobody

. At any rate I’m keeping one eye on the box office numbers. As much as I love Odenkirk as a performer and writer, I’m also just fascinated by his career in itself, which is …

How do I put this? Just the damnedest, most unpredictable and astonishing thing imaginable, easily deserving of a thousand-page biography. Americans say “Only in America” a lot, and often they say it about stuff that happens in Canada 50 times a day, but the life of Bob Odenkirk really deserves it.

I haven’t really seen the full Odenkirk trajectory outlined by critics or other newspapermen too often: I think you have to have been following him fairly early to know how uncanny the whole thing is. He grew up in outer Chicagoland in rough circumstances with a lousy alcoholic father, and he impatiently speed-ran high school, leaving at 16 with enough credits for university. Like so many of us, he learned more from screwing around than from his classes, writing huge piles of comedy for college radio, and after he graduated in 1984 with a comms degree he naturally floated into stage improv, an art form for which Chicago is the capital of the universe.

This meant he was able to study with Del Close (1934-1999), the mischievous guru of American improv, and he became friends with future comedy legends like Chris Farley and Robert Smigel. A bunch of them ended up together at 

Saturday Night Live

, the big leagues. He wasn’t terrifically successful there, but he had written a piece for Farley, 

the Matt Foley motivational-speaker sketch

, which detonated on the screen and became one of the signature bits of the show’s Farley-Sandler-Macdonald era.

But he wasn’t getting much airtime either for himself or his material (although you catch a glimpse of him in the classic “Bad Idea Jeans”), and he had studied improv with the intention of being a writer-performer. He had already lit out from 

SNL 

for the West Coast before Matt Foley made his television debut. Still unknown, Odenkirk joined the micro-cast (with Andy Dick and Janeane Garofalo) of Ben Stiller’s sketch show for the infant Fox network, which ran for only two seasons but won a writing Emmy after its cancellation. If you watch the complete run of 

The Ben Stiller Show

, which was very funny, you get the sense by the end that Odenkirk is quietly devouring a larger and larger slice of the pie.

David Cross was one of the other writers on the 

Stiller Show

 — he pops into view as a featured player in Season Two — and he formed a writing tandem with Odenkirk. HBO gave them a sketch show, 

Mr. Show

with Bob and David, which ran from 1995 to 1998. Like the 

Stiller Show

, this is still a revered artifact of ’90s alt-comedy, and like the 

Stiller Show

 it launched a lot of careers. And as 

Mr. Show

 was being made, Odenkirk picked up a recurring part as a sleazebucket predatory agent on Garry Shandling’s 

Larry Sanders Show

.

Mr. Show

 never found more than a cult audience, despite its brilliance, and the run of the show culminated in a disastrous attempt at a feature film, 

Run Ronnie Run!

, which was released straight-to-video in 2003. Odenkirk and Cross had a nightmarish experience with both the studio and their director, Troy Miller, and it’s around this time that Odenkirk, already in his 40s, makes the decision to get into directing himself.

I remember being vexed by this desperate power move, as a fan — understanding the creative impulse but also being aware that everybody in Hollywood down to the grips and gaffers wants to direct. For almost a decade, Odenkirk was only occasionally visible as a performer, and the new career didn’t go too happily, although I’m sure 

Let’s Go to Prison

 (2006) and 

The Brothers Solomon

 (2007) have some fans.

In 2009, Odenkirk is about to turn 47, and his life is at a crossroads. He has an incredible track record in TV comedy, but he certainly isn’t a household name, and as far as the directing schtick goes, well, nobody’s really ever permitted to shoot a third flop in a row in Hollywood. He gets a casting call from the creators of a show for the AMC network: I imagine his first thought was “Great, guess I’m still welcome on deep cable.”

The show, of course, is 

Breaking Bad

. Creator Vince Gilligan remembers Odenkirk’s 

Larry Sanders

 character, Stevie Grant, and wants him to deliver a dose of the same evil-but-pathetic energy in a minor role.

Odenkirk starts out playing the unscrupulous lawyer Saul Goodman broadly, for laughs. (The early episodes with Saul already begin to feel weirdly overcooked in retrospect by the end of 

Breaking Bad

’s run in 2013.) Gilligan builds an entire second show around the Goodman character, and you all know how that went. Some people think 

Better Call Saul

 was even better than 

Breaking Bad

, and its run was longer, and Odenkirk runs his lifetime total of Emmy nominations to an unfathomable 17 (now 18 thanks to a 2024 guest shot on restaurant comedy-drama 

The Bear

).

Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives, but we’ve caught Bob Odenkirk up to his third or fourth or fifth, and he 

hasn’t even become an action-movie star yet

. That happens in 2021 when he makes 

Nobody

, a witty exercise in John Wick-style violence that debuts at the top of the box office and helps pull the movie industry out of the post-COVID doldrums. Odenkirk is 58 years of age when the movie is released, which is part of the point of casting him: the movie is about a former deep-state assassin whose life as an innocuous suburban dad is interrupted by very unlucky criminals.

He’s terrific in

Nobody

, which is sure to stand as one of the best, liveliest action movies of the 2020s: I haven’t yet checked out 

Nobody 2

, but the reviews are pretty decent. 

Thirty-five years have elapsed

 since Odenkirk invented Matt Foley. God knows what further twists lie ahead for him. I would not like to bet against this person becoming a celebrated painter or a pop star or president of the frickin’ United States.

National Post

Taylor Swift was in the news this week. Young as she is, it has almost been twenty years since her eponymous debut album. This week’s attention though is on Bruce Springsteen, whose breakthrough album

Born to Run

 was released fifty years ago last Monday.

Fifty years on and Springsteen is still hard at it; he was touring Canada last year at the same time as Swift. And two months ago he releaseds s

even

new albums all at once. Over more than a half-century of songwriting, he had written and recorded so much material, unused for one reason or the other, that at age 75 he released in one day what for many others would be the work of a career.

The seven new albums are extensions of what Springsteen has been singing about for five decades — there are songs that sound like versions of his greatest hits, which is perhaps why they were not originally released. Outside of the considerable legion of Springsteen devotees, there has been limited interest. Perhaps after Springsteen’s own storytelling of the soundtrack of his life — in his 2016 autobiography and his confessional multi-year New York residency,

Springsteen on Broadway

— there is not much new to say.

Yet the phenomenon that began fifty years ago is still deeply relevant. There is, at the heart of Springsteen’s career, a contradiction that drives so much current cultural and economic anxiety and consequently political anger.

In

Brilliant Disguise

(1987), the singer speaks of the contradictions that lurk in the heart, and analogously the culture: “I want to know if it’s you I don’t trust/ ‘Cause I damn sure don’t trust myself… You better look hard and look twice/ Is that me, baby/ Or just a brilliant disguise?”

There is something of that in the career of the Boss.

Born to Run

was the new voice of a Jersey rocker, the working-class kid backed up by a local bar band. There was more to it than that. A massive marketing push landed him simultaneously on the covers of both

Time

and

Newsweek

when tens of millions read them. This outsider was backed by the corporate power of Big Music. Nine years later, with the nation in the patriotic fervour of the Los Angeles Olympics and Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” re-election campaign, his

Born in the USA

flag-draped tour cashed in, even though the title track is an indictment, not a celebration, of America.

Indictment of his roots is what Springsteen writes; celebration of those roots is what Springsteen sells.

Dozens upon dozens of songs celebrate the smalltown world of Springsteen’s upbringing. From the beginning he has lamented the loss of the New Jersey life of the 1950s — the factories, the mines, the mills, the Irish and Italian neighbourhoods (his father the former, his mother the latter), even the Catholic school he hated and the parish church he would abandon. The lament was sometimes tender (My Hometown), sometimes rousing (Glory Days), but always apparently affectionate.

Apparently, because the affection disguised the indictment under the celebration. The opening track in 1975 was Thunder Road, which concludes with this characterization of his hometown — and himself: “It’s a town full of losers/ And I’m pulling out of here to win.”

He did pull out. The title track of

Born to Run

was about running toward opportunity, but also about running away from Freehold, NJ. He did that definitively at age 19, “sprung from cages out on Highway 9.” Freehold was something worse than a cage: “this town rips the bones from your back/ It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap/ We gotta get out while we’re young”.

Springsteen laments the loss of a world that doesn’t seem worth lamenting. Sentiment wrapped in nostalgia can be attractive as entertainment, but who would want to live in the bleak landscapes Springsteen remembers?

Over the past decade, Springsteen has become increasingly critical of all things Trump, yet Springsteen long ago made the grievances of Freehold culturally potent. He was singing about closed mills, shuttered factories and dying towns in the 1970s — long before free trade and globalization and the rise of China. He sang of decline but did it exuberantly — the four-hour concerts with the E Street Band were equal parts spectacle and stamina — and his audience never tired of it.

The political-cultural moment feeds off grievance, and another exuberant entertainer found it potent enough to win two terms in the White House. If Donald Trump listened to more Springsteen he would realize that the nostalgic world he pretends to protect was gone long before those he blames — China, Canada, Mexico — were on the scene.

When Springsteen was honoured at the Kennedy Centre in 2009, fellow Jersey boy John Stewart recalled playing Springsteen in his car as a young man driving home after closing up the bar where he worked.

“I never again felt like a loser,” Stewart said. “When you listen to Bruce’s music, you aren’t a loser; you are a character in an epic poem — about losers.”

The Springsteen chapter in the American songbook is a chronicle of loss — tragic loss, pointless loss, cruel loss, deserved and undeserved losses and the celebration of that which was lost. And his enduring gift is that his listeners who have lost and lost again don’t consider themselves to be losers. That’s a gift worth four hours in concert. To his distress, it has also produced another four years in the White House.

National Post

Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals have been enjoying a political honeymoon for a while. Virtually every party, leader and government experiences this for a few months, and sometimes up to a year. The polls mostly work in their favour. Policies and ideas are usually viewed favourably. They can seemingly do no wrong in people’s eyes.

The one constant about political honeymoons? They always come to an end. There’s an early sign that Carney’s honeymoon period is about to come to a close, too.

Last Sunday, Abacus Data released a poll conducted between Aug. 15 and 19

showing

that Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have “pulled slightly ahead in national vote intention for the first time in months.” The Conservatives sat at 41 per cent, just slightly ahead of the Liberals’ 39 per cent. The other parties were well back. The NDP and Bloc Québécois were tied at seven per cent, while the Greens and People’s Party of Canada were both at two per cent.

What led to this “modest but meaningful” shift, as Abacus Data CEO David Coletto described it? Several potential reasons were identified.

A drop in U.S. President Donald Trump’s “influence as a political issue” (38 per cent, down from 44 per cent earlier this summer) was one possibility. If you believe that Trump and tariffs were the main reasons why Carney and the Liberals won the April 28 election, it’s a clear sign the PM can no longer use this crutch to his political advantage.

Another was a growing negative sentiment about the direction of the country. While 35 per cent of respondents believed Canada is headed in the right direction, which is “essentially unchanged from early August,” the number of Canadians saying their country is on the “wrong track” rose to 47 per cent. The Liberal government’s approval rating was at 49 per cent, “down a point from two weeks ago and below the 50 per cent threshold for the first time since March.” This led Coletto to suggest that “while these figures are still relatively strong, they point to gradual softening,” likely caused by the “cost of living crunch and continued frustrations around housing.”

It’s also worth noting several changes in trends related to issue ownership.

The Poilievre Conservatives have moved ahead of the Carney Liberals in being the best equipped to handle the cost of living (39 to 27 per cent), the economy (45 to 34 per cent) and immigration (56 to 15 per cent). The Liberals still lead when it comes to left-leaning concepts like climate change (37 to nine per cent), but that’s to be expected. The Liberals are also ahead when it comes to dealing with Trump and his administration (56 to 21 per cent), but as noted earlier in the poll, “fewer people list it as a top issue now.”

Other opinion polls, some may be thinking, haven’t suggested a trend related to increased Conservative popularity on a national level — or Poilievre’s.

They may point to an Angus Reid Institute online poll 

conducted

from Aug. 15 to 18, where Poilievre had a low approval rating among some respondents. He didn’t do well with Canadians who were asked whether “Poilievre shares their views” (35 per cent), “understands the issues that are important to them” (37 per cent) and “genuinely cares about women” (35 per cent). Fifty per cent agreed with this statement: “Pierre Poilievre is someone I’d be ashamed to call Prime Minister,” which is up from 40 per cent in 2023. The same questions were not asked of Carney.

However, that survey didn’t show a particular trend or provide sufficient information about the political temperature in Canada. Modern Conservative leaders have rarely performed well on questions of emotion. Conservative men and women have both struggled to make gains and connections with non-Conservative female voters during elections. The inclusion of pointed words like “genuine,” a common tactic used by polling companies as a tugboat (of sorts) to help shift findings in a specific direction, can change percentages in a heartbeat.

As for some respondents being “ashamed” of Poilievre, this means nothing. Why? It’s no secret that a growing number of Canadians are tired of politics, less likely to participate in elections and are either disenchanted, frustrated or, yes, ashamed of their political leaders. It would be interesting to see how Carney and other party leaders would fare with a similar question, or in a larger context, with Poilievre being one of the responses rather than the only one.

The Abacus Data poll, on the other hand, shows that more Canadians are beginning to realize that Carney isn’t the great political saviour they foolishly supported. He won this year’s election largely due to Trump’s unexpected intervention. His “elbows up” campaign went belly up this month. His state-centric ideas will sink the Canadian economy. He’s a greenhorn politician who has barely proposed anything original as PM and swipes ideas from the Conservatives and NDP.

Carney’s political honeymoon is unsurprisingly coming to an end. My guess is that more polls will begin to tighten by the time Parliament reconvenes in the fall. We’re obviously not heading into an election, but things are gradually shifting in a different direction.

National Post