Who Canada honours is a direct reflection on our country and our values, and nothing conveys that more profoundly than our nation’s highest civilian honour: the Order of Canada.

Its recipients are supposed to represent our very best by recognizing those who, through their life and conduct, embody the aspiration contained in the Order’s motto: “They desire a better country”.

But what happens when a recipient of this distinction, entrusted to represent the very best of Canadian values, instead undermines them? This is the question before us today, and why we believe Mohamad Fakih’s appointment to the Order of Canada must be revoked.

On Aug. 25, Fakih took to social media to declare: “On behalf of literally every Canadian of conscience: if you are a Canadian and a supporter of Israel, you do not have basic human values, let alone Canadian values.”

These words are not a matter of political disagreement. They are a sweeping condemnation of millions of Canadians who support a democratic country, or who share religious, cultural, or political ties with Israel. They are words that deny belonging, strip dignity, and attack the very notion that Canada is a home for all.

The Order of Canada was never meant to serve as a platform for dividing Canadians into “greater” and “lesser” citizens. It was created to honour those whose contributions elevate us all. When a member of the Order suggests that a vast portion of Canadians lack “basic human values,” the integrity of the distinction itself is put at risk.

This is not a partisan squabble, nor a reflexive response to one moment of online outrage. It is a principled appeal to preserve the standing of the Order of Canada as a symbol of unity, dignity, and moral courage. We are three former parliamentarians hailing from different parts of this country, who served at different levels of government, representing different political perspectives and who represent some of the cultural diversity of Canada. Despite our different political traditions and life experiences, we are united in our conviction that Fakih’s words cannot be squared with the values that the Order demands of its members.

On behalf of literally every Canadian of conscience: if you are a Canadian and a supporter of Israel, you do not have basic human values, let alone Canadian values. Your tweets and messages are saved and known to all of us. They live. Some might not comment around you, because… https://t.co/yUREZaAaTp

— Mohamad Fakih, C.M. (@mohamadfakih8) August 25, 2025

The precedents are clear. The Order has been revoked in past instances where appointees engaged in dishonourable conduct, fraud, or hate. This is not to erase the accomplishments of Fakih, but to recognize that the honour of membership is not permanent if one’s actions undermine the very reason it was granted.

Canada today is grappling with rising antisemitism, deepening polarization, and the corrosive effects of global unrest. At such a time, the symbols that bind us matter more than ever. To allow rhetoric that denies Canadian belonging to go unchecked, never mind for such division to be voiced by someone holding our nation’s highest honour, would send a devastating signal.

It would say that Canada tolerates exclusion under the guise of conscience, and it would imply that honours can be held without accountability. This erodes public trust in the very institution that’s supposed to celebrate our unity through shared Canadian values for democracy and the rule of law that bind us together; and it undermines the credibility and integrity of the Order.

To be clear, revoking Fakih’s membership would not be an act of censorship. He is free, like all Canadians, to express his views. But freedom of expression does not immunize one from accountability, nor does it confer immunity from the consequences of dishonourable conduct. Membership in the Order of Canada is not a right — it is a privilege. And with privilege comes responsibility.

If the Order of Canada is to remain more than a lapel pin, if it is to stand as a beacon of the values that Canadians aspire to, then it must be rigorously defended with courage. That means upholding its standards not just in times of comfort, but in moments of controversy.

This is why we call upon the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada to conduct a formal review of Fakih’s statements, to assess whether his conduct has brought disrepute to the honour, and to recommend revocation should it find that he has betrayed the ideals of unity and dignity that the Order enshrines.

We want to be clear: this is not about silencing disagreement. It is about ensuring that our highest national distinction continues to represent the best of who we are: a country that values inclusion, respects differences, and affirms that every Canadian belongs.

As parliamentarians, we swore Oaths of allegiance to Canada, to uphold our Constitution, and defend our values. While we may no longer serve in public office, that commitment to defending our country and its ideals remains everlasting and that is why we feel compelled to defend the integrity of the Order of Canada.

For if the Order is to remain a symbol of our highest ideals, it must be entrusted only to those whose words and deeds honour our Canadian values of equality, respect, and dignity toward everyone.

Lisa MacLeod is a former Ontario cabinet minister, Selina Robinson is a former British Columbia cabinet minister, and Kevin Vuong is a former member of Parliament.

Last Sunday, 46-year-old

Abdul Aleem Farooqi

was shot to death in his Vaughan home just after midnight. The shooter was part of a band of armed, masked intruders seeking to rob the house.

Farooqi was protecting his family when he died, and his children are now left without a father, and his wife without a husband.

On the same day in

Welland

, 25-year-old Daniel Senecal is alleged to have broken into another home and sexually abused a toddler while the parents slept. He was known to the police.

Senecal was

released early

in March after serving time for a similar offence, and he may very well get out early again considering the

leniency

of our bail laws.

Both were unspeakably horrific crimes that will scar innocent children and parents for their entire lives. The worst part is that the families are unlikely to get true justice given the atmosphere of permissiveness that pervades the legal system.

Criminals need to become afraid in Canada, but right now, they are brazen. They have become emboldened by a broken bail system and gutless politicians who prefer to champion

failed

criminal justice reform, rather than punishing wrongdoers.

These so-called leaders actively endanger Canadians by equivocating and refusing to treat this crisis for what it is.

If the authorities cannot step up to help foster a culture of law and order, the least they can do is get out of the way and empower good Canadians to do it themselves when their safety is at risk.

In order to function, a free society demands public safety. That does not exist when tragedies like the death of

JahVai Roy

become normalized. The eight-year-old died in August after stray bullets fired in North York entered his bedroom and hit him while he slept.

As of 2024,

Statistics Canada

data show that violent Criminal Code violations had increased by nearly 50 per cent since 2015. It is true that Canada is still statistically safer than the United States, but nobody should be taking this as an excuse or indicator that the status quo is acceptable.

The most notable action taken by the Liberal government in the name of fighting crime has been to pick on legal gun owners. Police say that

90 per cent of handguns

seized in Ontario following violent crimes were traced to the U.S., not the local firearms shop.

Far from rising crime only being solely a phenomenon of the Greater Toronto Area, cities like

Winnipeg

top the Canadian list for violent crime. Even smaller cities like

Lethbridge

and

Kelowna

, which are top

destinations

for

young

families, are national leaders in property crime.

One of the most infuriating and preventable aspects in the decline of public safety has been the gentle attitude towards lawbreakers, including those who sexually abuse children.

Child sex offenders should never get out of prison, let alone be granted early release or parole. It is perversely fortunate for them that Canada

abolished

capital punishment in 1976.

A poll conducted by Research Co. in 2024 found that

a majority

of Canadians support the death penalty for murder. More surveys on the question of capital punishment for other heinous crimes should be commissioned.

Canadians should rightfully feel like they are on their own, and they deserve the right to defend themselves and their families without fear of prosecution. At least one politician will be championing this in the fall session of Parliament.

Pierre Poilievre

has proposed a “Stand on Guard” law, which would amend the law so that it is presumed that the use of force in defending one’s home was reasonable.

“As long as people are going to engage in criminal activity, the people who live in their homes and are suffering that kind of violence need to have the opportunity to defend themselves and to use whatever force necessary to do so,”

said

lawyer Robert Karrass, commenting on the proposal. “It’s absolutely appropriate for the law to be changed.”

This would be a good start, but is only one piece of the solution.

Unfortunately, Canadians should not bet on a transformative effort from the government as the Liberals have signalled they will not vote for the “Stand on Guard” law.

Following Poilievre’s announcement, Attorney General Sean Fraser

posted

on X that “This isn’t the Wild West, this is Canada.”

Fraser was deservedly panned for such a callous, flippant response, but it shows that the Liberals remain more concerned with lecturing about tone, rather than curbing crime.

At least in the Wild West, few batted an eye when law-abiding citizens formed up posses and dealt with bandits and other threats permanently.

In Canada, a country that is seemingly more

barbaric

every year, there is no reason for the public to have full confidence in the authorities to keep them safe.

Children are shot and assaulted in their beds, innocent civilians are stabbed on busy streets, illegal guns

flow across the border

, and repeat offenders walk free with ease with toddlers being subjected to the consequences.

Encountering a good, law-abiding citizen who is empowered to protect themselves and others should terrify criminals. Every would-be burglar, carjacker, and abuser should know that he is taking his life into his own hands the moment he violates a family’s home.

Far from being vigilante justice, this is a civilized presumption that the law will always protect innocent first and foremost.

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“We are not banning vehicles that use gasoline, we are responding to the market. We are responding to Canadians.”

Those were the words of Wade Grant, the parliamentary secretary to the environment minister, Julie Dabrusin, speaking to a Conservative motion on the government’s electric vehicle mandate in the House of Commons in June.

In reality, if the

Liberals were responding to the market

, they would scrap the mandate that will require 20 per cent of all cars sold in Canada next year to be electric vehicles.

The reason is that EV sales have

fallen for five months in a row

and accounted for just 7.9 per cent of new vehicles sold in Canada in June.

The forecast for this year is that EV sales will hit 9.7 per cent of sales, or 180,000 units.

Car makers that don’t hit the government’s arbitrary 20 per cent target — which is all of them except Tesla — will have to buy credits from, you guessed it, Tesla to comply with the regulation.

Elon Musk’s company, which does not manufacture in Canada, recorded regulatory credit sales of nearly US$3 billion in 2024/25, according to its financial statements.

Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturer’s Association (CVMA), estimates that buying credits to hit the 20 per cent target would cost car companies $3 billion in 2026, on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars they are paying in U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. (Canadian automakers are subject to a 25 per cent American tariff but can subtract U.S. content from the applied rate, meaning most manufacturers pay an effective tariff of 10 to 12.5 per cent. In ballpark figures, on sales of $4 billion in exports, that is a further $400 million.)

The only other option to buying credits is to cut the production of gas-powered cars by up to 900,000 units.

Either outcome is likely to

result in more unemployment

, to add to the 56,600 full-time manufacturing job losses that were recorded in Ontario in the second quarter of this year.

It is a classic case of central planning gone haywire that many people thought they had seen the back of when Justin Trudeau left office.

The government came up with an arbitrary target and has since used subsidies and taxpayer-funded incentives to hit it.

As deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman said in the debate in the House in June, “the Liberals think they can control someone’s life better than they can; that they make decisions better than Canadians can for themselves and we get significantly worse outcomes.”

The mandate was introduced by then environment minister Steven Guilbeault in 2022 as a way to reduce auto emissions. The plan was to require 20 per cent of all car sales to be electric (or plug-in hybrid) by 2026, rising to 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035.

In 2024, EV sales hit 13.8 per cent of total cars sold, according to Statistics Canada, buoyed by a federal incentive program that provided up to $5,000 for EV buyers, and even richer provincial schemes, such as Quebec’s Roulez vert program that offered up to $7,000.

However, the federal program was cancelled in January and the Quebec incentive has dropped to $4,000 this year and $2,000 next. (The province accounts for more than half of all EV sales in Canada.)

The result is that

sales have tumbled and the industry says

there is “no pathway” to hitting the 20 per cent target.

Grant told the House in June that during the last election campaign, the Liberals committed to reintroducing a purchase incentive of up to $5,000. However, the CVMA points out that it would cost $900 million to incentivize the 182,000 sales it is anticipated would be required to hit the 20 per cent target.

Mark Carney has been bequeathed a real mess by his predecessor but there are no signs that the government is considering a retreat, as it did on the carbon tax.

In the House in June, the parliamentary secretary ignored the market reality by suggesting that EV sales are continuing to grow in Canada and around the world. “That is not a political talking point, that is a market reality,” he said.

Except it isn’t. True, EV sales globally are still rising, but that is largely because the Chinese are determined to flood the world with low-cost vehicles.

The Liberals could likely hit their environmental targets in short order if they allowed $20,000 BYD electric vehicles into the Canadian market tariff-free. Instead, the government

imposed a 100 per cent surtax

on Chinese cars to protect the home market.

Grant said the government does not want to force Canadians to buy electric vehicles but it wants “to build the cars of tomorrow.” The Liberals are all in on EVs, having provided support to manufacturers estimated at around $31.5 billion by the Parliamentary Budget Office (the provinces have contributed a further $21.5 billion, the PBO said in June 2024).

The government has spent a further $1.1 billion through the Canada Infrastructure Bank on public charging stations. “We are working across the entire ZEV (zero-emission vehicle) value chain,” Grant said.

There’s no doubt that electric vehicles are here to stay, as anyone who has travelled to countries without a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese cars can testify. The International Energy Agency reports that one-fifth of all car sales globally are now EVs.

It would be lunacy for Canada to adopt Trump’s stance that “the electric vehicle hoax” is the result of a conspiracy of “radical left fascists, Marxists and communists” and to rule that automakers no longer need to measure or control emissions.

But if the Liberal government is really “responding to the market,” as Grant says it is, it has to adopt a more common-sense, flexible policy that recognizes the reality that high purchase prices have dampened demand. Preferably it comes up with a policy that does not line the pockets of the world’s richest man with cash for credits that have the intrinsic worth of a defunct deutschemark.

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On Friday, Pierre Poilievre said he
would change
Canada’s self-defence laws so that “the use of force, including lethal force, is presumed reasonable against an individual who unlawfully enters a house and poses a threat to the safety of anyone inside.” It’s a reform that would nudge the needle to favour victims, but it probably wouldn’t change much. 

Right now, the
law of self-defence
in Canada will absolve self-defenders who reasonably believe that force or the threat of force is being made against them, and who take defensive action that is found to be “reasonable in the circumstances.” This would include break-in victims.

All Poilievre’s amendment would do is shift the default position of a court, which isn’t saying much. The default position of a court in any criminal trial is that the accused is not guilty, a position that can change to guilty with evidence. With regard to bail and various crimes —
firearms-related charges
, for example — our courts also presume the accused to be non-releasable. These, too, can be rebutted.

Indeed, reverse-onus bail (that is, the creation of presumptions of non-release) for repeat offenders, woman-beaters and gun-criminals has been one of the
focal points
of Liberal justice reform. And yet, we hear near-daily news about repeat violent offenders being caught — while out on bail — committing more
armed robberies
. Last year, one Ontario gun trafficker was released on bail
three times
, only to not show up to his sentencing. New presumptions aside, judges are still releasing.

Most vile was the tragic mid-day parking lot killing of Bailey McCourt in Kelowna, B.C., who was beaten to death with a hammer on July 4 by her estranged husband, James Plover, hours after he was
convicted
for choking her by B.C. Judge David Ruse. Plover had previously been out on bail for his 2024 charges; after conviction, the judge let him out on pre-sentence release. Now, Plover’s been charged with second-degree murder. McCourt’s family is now
asking
for justice reforms, including a reverse-onus bail rule for domestic violence — but such a rule has
existed since 2019
. Tragically, judicial discretion was used to overrule this presumption, and it ended in death.

Should our self-defence law find itself with a new presumption that a break-in victim’s actions are reasonable, we should expect judges to override it too. Many judges in Canada tend to favour criminals with
zealously unsound applications of the Charter
, throwing out incriminating evidence whenever they can. In sentencing, they see their duty as rehabilitators first, crime-deterrers second, following the example of the Supreme Court of Canada. And when a criminal finds himself at the bloody end of an instant karma delivery, the victim ends up getting dragged through a process of heightened scrutiny.

What does a substantial change to self-defence law look like? Something that firmly gives the property resident the right to respond with force. You could add a subsection to the Criminal Code provision on self-defence that contains a non-exhaustive list of actions that property residents can take in a home invasion or trespassing scenario. Lethal force can be expressly permitted in a home invasion scenario; statute can clarify that victims do not have a duty to call 911 before taking defensive action and that the lack of such a call cannot be used against the defender (one factor that contributed to Peter Khill’s conviction for shooting and killing a truck burglar who he mistook for brandishing a gun).

Alternatively, home defence could be worked into Section 25, which is the
provision
that permits lethal force by police and those assisting them.

Poilievre has framed his proposed amendment as “reasonable and prudent” because it “applies only to the unlawful entry of a home and preserves proportionality.” But the preservation of proportionality brings us exactly to where we were before, because it means charges for home defenders who put their invaders in hospital (as police will want to leave it to judges to decide whether a defensive action is reasonable), and possible convictions by judges who apply intense scrutiny to individuals in their most vulnerable moments. If that’s what you want to get rid of, certain self-defence actions need to be authorized from the get-go.

But the bigger-picture problem comes down to the judges. Canada’s legal culture is one of criminal permissiveness that elevates the justice system’s role in rehabilitation to the point of community endangerment. It’s one that sees the safety interests of everyday Canadians as an impediment to the Charter rights of criminals. It’s one that will sentence an Indigenous man to three years in jail for randomly killing a
retired journalist
walking down the street after taking the obligatory
racial discount
into calculation. You can blame Liberal laws only to a small extent — most of our miscarriages of justice come from judges applying old laws in new and creative ways. 

Fixing this requires an ambitious wave of judicial appointments who believe in deterring crime and protecting community safety, who don’t buy into leftist beliefs about systemic oppression and who can stomach putting the very worst members of our society behind bars. This requires working contacts and crafting a long list of eligible appointees now, and building a viable student-to-professional pipeline that will funnel more common sense to the bench. That currently doesn’t exist, and without it, any attempt at justice reform is hopeless.

National Post

It is an almost immutable law of politics that as a leader’s reputation flourishes abroad, it deteriorates at home.

In the last week of summer, Prime Minister Mark Carney won plaudits for his

trip to Ukraine to help celebrate

that beleaguered nation’s independence day. He was the only world leader in Kyiv and his

message that Canada will always stand in solidarity with Ukraine

was well-received.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin can be stopped,” he said. “Russia’s economy is weakening. He is becoming more isolated and our alliance is hardening … When peace comes, we cannot simply trust and verify, we must deter and fortify — deter Russia from thinking it can ever again threaten Ukraine and Europe’s freedom.”

The trip was hailed in Europe. On their popular 

The Rest is Politics

podcast, former British Conservative MP Rory Stewart and ex-Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell discussed whether their “mutual hero” Carney is the leader the West needs to drive consensus.

“Mark Carney is in a very interesting position,” said Stewart. “He’s got the credibility and international leadership in a time of Trump and we desperately need Canada to help form these international coalitions with the U.K., Europe, South Korea and Japan.”

If the prime minister was tempted to bask in the glowing reviews, 

Friday’s GDP numbers

 and a tranche of articles at home wondering whether the 

honeymoon is over

 will have sobered him up.

Statistics Canada’s GDP numbers for the second quarter are not unexpected but they reinforce the challenges on multiple fronts facing the Liberal government.

Real GDP declined 0.4 per cent, in line with the Bank of Canada’s expectations. The slowdown was driven by significant declines in the export of goods (down 7.5 per cent for the quarter) and decreased investment in machinery and equipment (down 9.4 per cent).

The economy might have slowed further if not for an increase in government spending, which clearly does not help the fiscal situation, particularly when it was accompanied by a fall in federal government revenues.

The quarterly release showed government income declined 4.2 per cent, due to removal of the federal carbon tax and lower income tax receipts.

Now that the Carney government has

abandoned retaliatory import tariffs

, which were expected to bring in $20 billion this year, revenues are set to tumble further.

Spending rose 1.8 per cent in the second quarter, thanks to higher wages and the cost of covering Canada Post’s problems. The combination of reduced income and rising expenses increased net borrowing and led to a general government deficit of $34.5 billion, the StatCan report said.

The gloom will hardly have been lifted by a paper from the 

Parliamentary Budget Office

 showing that the federal government’s largest spending outlay, personnel expenses, hit $71.1 billion last year and will rise to $76.2 billion within five years if left unchecked (the number of full-time equivalent staff is forecast to be 442,000 by that time, with an average compensation of $172,000 a year, including pension and benefits).

Carney is still being given the most precious gift in politics: the benefit of the doubt.

A 

Spark Advocacy study

released last week suggested the vast majority of voters acknowledge that the country is facing far more intense political challenges than it has for many years. The Liberal government was subsequently given a passing grade on 21 performance measurement questions, ranging from investing in the military to working with the provinces; from diversifying trade relations to building major projects.

Yet as commentator Sean Speer noted in 

The Hub

, the prime minister’s political authority rests on the perception of competence and, if the economy slows further, Canadians will start to doubt the steadiness of his hand.

The weakest score Carney received in the Spark poll was on his handling of the cost of living, the No. 1 concern of most voters.

Canadians are aware of the frustrations of dealing with President Donald Trump but that patience is likely to be stretched wafer thin, unless there are signs of progress on trade or big projects.

The prime minister said a deal with the United States was coming in July, then August. We are now moving into the fall with no agreement in sight.

That is not a disaster: most of Canada’s exports fall under the CUSMA trade agreement, which means our effective tariff rate is around six per cent,

compared to a global estimate

 of 18.6 per cent.

RBC 

noted that Canada’s relatively favourable tariff position

should reduce the risk of a slide into recession.

But the CUSMA does not cover Trump’s security-related Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminium and autos, which are getting killed (international exports of passenger cars and light trucks plummeted 25 per cent in the second quarter). Ontario lost more than 45,000 manufacturing jobs last spring, mainly in steel and autos.

CUSMA is up for renegotiation next year and the uncertainty about what comes next is an anathema to business investment.

Capital expenditures by the 

oil and gas industry

 for the second quarter showed a 14 per cent fall from the same period last year, Statistics Canada reported Monday.

There are some encouraging signs. Carney announced the major projects office has opened in Calgary,

headed by former Trans Mountain president Dawn Farrell

, and the energetic energy minister, Tim Hodgson, has promised there will be “no more sequential reviews; no more agency maze between departments and regulators.”

Hodgson met recently with the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan board to talk about how pension funds can draw in private investment.

Canada is not exactly a low-tax jurisdiction: combined federal and provincial income tax is the fifth highest of 38 high-income countries at 53.53 per cent, while the combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate at 26.14 per cent is higher than the OECD average.

But Canada has one thing going for it: it is not the United States.

U.S. Treasury Department data show that the sense of American exceptionalism among investors remains strong. Foreigners plowed a net US$311 billion into U.S. securities in May and another net US$77.8 billion in June, despite concerns about tariffs that sparked an exodus in April.

But while the bar to genuine capital flight is high, Trump’s attempts to control the Federal Reserve might just lower it. The president has repeatedly pressured chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates and is now trying to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook on allegations of false mortgage application statements.

The market knows that there is a strong historical link between central bank independence and lower inflation. If there are signs that the U.S. is going to emulate Turkey and compromise that independence, we could see currency volatility and capital looking for safer havens.

Carney’s burgeoning international reputation would be an advantage in that scenario.

But that acclaim will be for nothing if he becomes a prophet without honour in his own country, because he has failed to make progress on building a more resilient, more productive and more prosperous Canada.

National Post

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