Canada’s legal toolkit is outdated, inadequate and built for an era that bears no relation to today’s sophisticated criminal landscape. The head of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Thomas Carrique,

reinforced

this grim reality last week.

Carrique warned that “geopolitical instability and social unrest” have forced law enforcement to try to combat transnational crime, extremism, drug trafficking and online exploitation with tools never designed for such challenges.

Loopholes as trivial as the inability to secure a warrant for a Canada Post parcel under 500 grams — despite its capacity to hold lethal fentanyl — highlight the disconnect between legal thresholds and criminal realities.

Police have been flagging these issues for 30 years, but warnings went unheeded. Now, like several other issues, it has taken unpleasant pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to wake Canadians up to these issues. Bill C-2, the

strong borders act

, is only a start; real reform requires we go much further.

Today’s threats are not limited to the Hell’s Angels or traditional mafias. Foreign

state actors

 now exert unprecedented influence over organized crime 

in Canada

 and

the United States

, exploiting criminal networks as tools of hybrid warfare.

Whether it’s

raging antisemitism

,

hate crimes

and violent protests,

opioid supply chains

and illicit drugs,

surging auto theft

or

violent crime

and gang-related violence, foreign-influenced organized crime is increasingly interwoven into our public safety challenges. Yet our laws treat them as isolated domestic crimes, leaving police and prosecutors hamstrung.

Canada’s high thresholds for searches, surveillance and due process exist to protect rights, public trust and human dignity. But modern threats demand targeted carve-outs for organized crime and national security — preserving core rights while removing the handcuffs from those tasked with defending them.

Canada’s legal architecture has failed to keep pace with the evolving reality of hybrid threats and transnational organized crime. We impose high thresholds for surveillance and digital data access, even in serious organized crime cases, under Section 8 of the Charter.

Landmark cases such as

R. v. Tse

and

R. v. Spencer

restrict even emergency wiretaps and access to internet subscriber data, respectively, without prior judicial authorization. Other democracies, like the United Kingdom, allow

bulk data access

in comparable contexts.

Immediate access to counsel can

prematurely halt interrogations

in high-stakes cases — where the

United States

and

Australia

permit limited, supervised delays in terrorism and organized crime investigations.

The Jordan framework is a set of legal principles that determine whether a criminal trial has been delayed unreasonably, resulting in a rights violation. It enforces strict trial timelines of

18-30 months

, forcing the dismissal of complex cross-border cases that in the U.S. could proceed under exceptions in the

Speedy Trial Act

.

The

Stinchcombe

disclosure rule requires the Crown to share virtually all evidence publicly, deterring the use of intelligence from our allies in court for fear of compromising sources. Our allies employ measures like

public interest immunity

or classified information procedures to protect sensitive data.

Our organized crime provisions are similarly out of step. The Criminal Code sections pertaining to organized crime

(467.1–467.13)

require proof of a rigid organizational structure and a benefit motive, a framework ill-suited to the decentralized, cell-based and digital networks driving today’s transnational crime. In contrast, the

U.S. RICO Act

targets patterns of criminal behaviour, allowing prosecutions of crime leaders and facilitators in loosely co-ordinated syndicates.

Financial enforcement is equally weak. Between $45 billion and $113 billion

is laundered

in Canada each year, with British Columbia’s

Cullen Commission estimating

that upwards of $5.3 billion is laundered through B.C. real estate every year.

The absence of a robust beneficial ownership registry leaves shell corporations and trusts as attractive vehicles for “

snow-washing

” illicit funds. FINTRAC’s limited proactive authority contrasts sharply with the U.S.

FinCEN

’s ability to issue geographic targeting orders, freeze assets and compel cross-jurisdictional disclosure.

Jurisdictional gaps and enforcement silos further undermine our defences. Ports, airports and rail hubs often fall

outside the authority

of municipal and provincial police unless complex memoranda of understanding are in place, leaving vulnerabilities that organized crime exploits.

Intelligence is likewise siloed, with

CSIS unable

to readily convert its intelligence into admissible evidence — a problem the U.K. mitigates through

closed-material proceedings

.

Canada also lacks the means to compel internet service providers, payment processors and banks to sever support to foreign criminal enterprises, while the European Union’s Digital Services Act — an overly restrictive act we should not strive to emulate overall — contains important elements, such as provisions

empowering member states

to force takedowns of criminal platforms.

To address these gaps, Canada should introduce targeted carve-outs to the Stinchcombe disclosure requirements and the Jordan timelines for organized crime and national security cases and create secure protocols for using allied intelligence in prosecutions.

The Criminal Code’s organized crime sections should be modernized to include enforcement against decentralized networks alongside stronger wiretap and production order powers for digital and offshore data.

Financial transparency must be improved through a more robust and enforceable beneficial ownership registry and expanded FINTRAC powers.

Jurisdictional loopholes when dealing with federally controlled infrastructure should be closed by granting local police authority and embedding integrated intelligence-law enforcement prosecution teams.

Finally, Canada should adopt a closed-material procedure framework to enable the use of CSIS intelligence in court without compromising national security.

The strong borders act is a start, but it leaves our deep-rooted vulnerabilities untouched. Hybrid threats are already entrenched in our communities, financial systems and infrastructure. Without legal modernization, organized crime will continue to run roughshod over the sovereignty of our nation and the safety of Canadians.

National Post

Peter Copeland is deputy director of domestic policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Cal Chrustie is a former RCMP senior intelligence officer with deep experience in national security and transnational crime.

• NP View: Progressive criminal justice policies have made Canada less safe
• Canada has become a hub of Islamist terror financing: Full Comment podcast

Despite naysayers and a longest ballot committee, Pierre Poilievre handily won his seat in Battle River-Crowfoot Monday, which means he will be returning to Parliament in September.

Up until this point, Prime Minister Mark Carney has had it easy.

The Liberals haven’t faced the Conservative leader in the House of Commons since December. And due to Poilievre’s loss of the Carleton riding in the federal election, Carney has never had to face the opposition leader’s razor-like questioning in Parliament. That respite will be over soon. Poilievre’s return means Carney and the Liberal party’s cakewalk is over.

So far Carney has enjoyed public support for his policies and proposals, but Poilievre could be returning to the House at precisely the right time, as it becomes increasingly obvious that this country’s problems, from the gigantic deficit, to housing affordability to our relationship with the United States, are not so easily solved. With the Conservative leader grilling the prime minister day in and day out, these problems will only be magnified.

In fact, even out of Parliament, Poilievre has been successful at spotlighting criticisms of the Liberals EV mandate which he’s

described

as akin “to banning rural way of life.” The Conservatives are planning a nationwide campaign targeting the mandate, which a poll has suggested that Canadians think is “unrealistic” and should be shelved.

And there appears to be much more where that came from.

Earlier this month, Poilievre

challenged

Carney to “get shovels in the ground” for at least two energy projects by March 2026, a year after his swearing-in as prime minister. Carney campaigned on being committed to fast-tracking major project approvals in order to boost Canada’s economy against tariff threats from Trump.

Both the “

One Canadian Economy

” and “

Building Canada Act

” passed on June 26, but so far, no energy projects have manifested under Carney who is placing great emphasis on advancing the interests of clean growth and climate change. Poilievre has also repeated requests for Carney to repeal the industrial carbon tax and Impact Assessment Act in order to speed up private projects. Carney has explicitly

refused

to repeal both.

Carney positioned himself as the best man for the job to fight Trump’s proposed 25 per cent tariffs, later increased to 35 per cent, and to secure a new trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump. Carney

failed

to reach a deal with Trump first by July 21 and then by Aug. 1. Carney claims negotiations will continue, but the elbows up facade has faded, providing more opportunities for Poilievre to criticize and differentiate his party.

Carney has made clear on many occasions that he isn’t a fan of being questioned, but, unless the prime minister refuses to show up to work, Poilievre will be there waiting to pounce, providing news reporters with regular punchy, quotable attacks.

It will much more difficult for Carney to defend obviously poor decisions such as his controversial

statement

that he intends to recognize Palestine as a state in September based on conditions that are not likely to be met that “Hamas must disarm; and that Hamas must play no role in the future governance of Palestine.” Carney hasn’t explained why a terrorist organization would suddenly choose to disarm after 18 years… for Mark Carney.

The real test will ultimately be public opinion, and Poilievre’s record of tearing apart Liberal policies will ensure September Parliament will be a trial by fire for Carney.

The prime minister’s polling numbers won’t remain positive indefinitely. Despite a survey from early August showing Carney’s

approval rating

at a somewhat-positive 56 per cent, only 36 per cent of Canadians seem to think the country is heading in the right direction.

And of course they don’t. All of the same problems that existed under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are not only still there, and they appear to be getting worse.

As Post columnist Tristin Hopper

points out

, capital is fleeing the country, government is collecting more tax than ever before, never before has the gap between Canadian and U.S. GDP been wider, insolvencies haven’t been this high since the Great Recession, housing is still unaffordable, and somehow, there are more bureaucrats on the government payroll than ever.

Some might argue that this was all a product Trudeau’s leadership, even though Carney advised the Liberals on economic policy informally during COVID and formally, since September 2024 when they

appointed

him as the Chair of the Liberal Party’s Task Force on Economic Growth until he became leader of the party.

This problem will be two-fold for Carney in September. Not only will he have to face questions about policy decisions since he has become prime minister, but his relationship with Brookfield means that some of his personal interests and business relations may also be a subject for debate once Parliament convenes in the fall.

Poilievre, on the other hand, is a much better known quantity — often attacked for being a “career politician.” One of the benefits of being a career politician is that everyone already knows where he stands, and they already know his life story. It would be strange for a skeleton to suddenly emerge from Polievre’s closet at this point.

Carney came in as a fresh face, but the party itself, especially notable cabinet ministers, didn’t change much, they were just shuffled — Joly, Miller, Guilbeault, Freeland, Anand, Hajdu, Champagne and Fraser — just shifted around in a game of political musical chairs, as if these ministers would suddenly perform better in their latest positions.

This all spells political trouble for Carney. And it begs another question: Which Carney can Canadians expect in House of Commons in the fall? Brookfield Carney? Former bank governor Carney? Climate Carney? Elbows up Carney?

Who knows where those elbows have gone. They certainly haven’t solved trade issues with Trump nor were they invited to what is being referred to as a successful meeting in Washington, D.C. about the future of Ukraine.

It looks like Carney’s going to need some elbow grease to explain this and more to the returning Opposition leader in the fall.

@TLNewmanMTL

tnewman@postmedia.com

To you with failing hands we throw … the stent? Really? Shall Canadians rally round the oxygen monitor and stand by to repel bacteria? So the polls show.

The

National Post reports

an Angus Reid survey finding that a significant majority of us favour compulsory voluntary service by the youth of today. Which might sound like a bracingly traditional Jordan Peterson clean-your-room, stand-up-straight, shoulders-back attitude until you read the fine print, which would risk making Peterson ill if he

weren’t already

. Because it turns out we want to conscript them to work in health care so we get stuff we didn’t pay for, not to defend the country because

if ye break faith

and so on.

According to the survey, 74 per cent of respondents want young people to have to give a year of their lives to bolstering our failing, structurally unsound socialized medical system. Respondents were also in favour of mandatory service in support of the environment (73 per cent), “youth services” (72 per cent), whatever it might be, and “civil protection” (70 per cent). But when it comes to (ugh) national defence, just 43 per cent supported it, with 44 per cent opposed.

Spending on comfort while barbarians undermine the city walls lacks prudence as well as dignity. As I observed in a long-ago graduate-school debate about American national security, it didn’t matter how wonderfully progressive the Dutch social welfare system was in 1940 when the Nazis came calling. And we too seem to have our priorities backward.

If I might confuse the government by discussing principles of political economy, there are good reasons why national defence is considered a binding duty on those able to contribute to it. First is the “free rider” problem that everyone benefits from successful protection of the community, especially, at least in a narrow and hedonistic sense, if you send some other chump to die for your freedom while you recline comfortably at home.

Second is the moral consideration that, as John Stuart Mill famously if uncharacteristically

put it

, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse.” Which comes from, yes, his “Principles of Political Economy.”

Mill was no warmonger. As he immediately continued, “When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people.”

But not all wars are like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, let alone Hamas’s attack on Israel. As the anything-but-bellicose Mill added, “A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration.”

Arguably we could use it. Especially as, to continue quoting Mill because few have ever matched his clarity, “A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

As when we also find polls showing that

Canadians are pleased

with our pitiful assistance to Ukraine, though our allies

beg to differ

. And of course the Carney government plans to recognize Hamas while pretending not to, speaking of degraded and miserable.

As for the rest of us, the Angus poll suggests that we’re happy to conscript young people who are unable to find jobs thanks to our irresponsible immigration policy to … give us stuff. We want free health care and will use other people’s kids as involuntary labour (a.k.a., “slaves”) to get it. And they should fix the environment while we slurp smoothies. Oh, and do something about youth, plus shoulder the burden of “civil protection” that even the government

apparently now realizes

is overstretching our feeble, neglected military.

Our emergency management minister, incidentally a preposterous job title, actually said of soldiers fighting fires: “this is not their primary responsibility.” Though I wouldn’t bet she knows what is. Or that we do. Because when it comes to handouts, we’re all about enjoying the fruits of others’ labour. But when it comes to stepping up to discharge a classic, and classical, legitimate public responsibility, not so much.

As that passage from Mill concludes, “As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.” Or just grab the loot through the Treasury window while others toil and suffer.

Like, whatever man. The True North Smug and Free Money.

National Post

• Susan McArthur: Mandatory national service would fix what ails Canada
• Tasha Kheiriddin: Young people are taught to hate Canada. Mandatory service could fix that

One thing you can say about the presidency of Donald Trump is that it’s seldom boring. Just this week we’ve had the spectacle of the U.S. president fawning over a tyrant from Russia the way a kid at a hockey game might gawk goggle-eyed at Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon, followed by a mad dash across the Atlantic as the elected heads of Europe rushed desperately to Washington in hopes of stopping Trump from unilaterally announcing any new bad ideas before they could get there to dissuade him.

This is what it’s like now to keep the world from tumbling into the sort of chaos it’s spent the better part of the past century carefully working to avoid. Leaders from Germany, France, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, along with worthies from NATO and the European Union, need to be forever on their guard against the danger the current occupant of the Oval Office could go off in some mad direction and threaten the stability of the western world.

They seem to have succeeded this time, if only temporarily, before it was too late. The last time Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House he was berated by Vice President JD Vance for failing to dress in a manner appropriate to the occasion. This time he was careful to pack a dark jacket, though no tie, and things went off swimmingly. Everyone was jolly and the vice president behaved himself. Zelenskyy even offered a

quip

about his outfit that had everyone smiling.

How long it lasts is anyone’s guess. Not long, if almost 10 years of Donald Trump in Washington is anything to go by. Other than handshakes and displays of camaraderie nothing of substance came from the gathering. The after-meeting statements were a study in contradiction. Trump insisted everyone was totally excited about the improved prospects for peace; President Emmanuel Macron of France said he’s not convinced Russia wants the war to end. Trump doesn’t believe a ceasefire is necessary; German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he can’t imagine progress without one. Zelenskyy indicated he’s prepared to meet Putin face-to-face, but gave no indication he’s willing to surrender Ukraine territory or meet any of the other rigid conditions the Russian president demands.

The Putin-Zelenskyy meeting is the core of Trump’s vision for the next step of the process. “I think he wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me,” Trump burbled to Macron. He harbours a conviction — tied to his belief in himself as the world’s greatest dealmaker — that if he can only get the two in the same room everything can be sorted out and the slaughter will be over. Ideally, when that happens he can start getting ready for a visit to Oslo and his acceptance of the Nobel peace prize he’s been telling everyone is his due. He claims he’s ended

six

wars in his seven months as president, almost one per month. “I thought this maybe would be the easiest one,” he said of the Ukraine conflict. Norwegian media

reported

that he called Prime Minister Jonas Støre out of the blue one day in July to press his claim to the prize.

While Trump fixates on arranging a second summit and winning his prize, what the Europeans want is a firm pledge of security guarantees for Ukraine against any further Russian aggression. No one knows precisely what that means, but proposals suggest some kind of international military force that would convince the Kremlin the price of another attack would be too high to contemplate. That’s what NATO’s Article 5 already represents: a pledge that an attack on one is treated as an attack on all. Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO and Putin insists it can never be; so what Europe wants is a non-NATO pledge that has the same effect as NATO.

Trump won’t say whether U.S. forces would be part of it. Washington would act as “coordinator,” is all he’ll concede. Given that U.S. backing would be vital to the credibility of any guarantee, that would leave Europe and much of the West dependent on the continued good will and reliability of a president whose actions have made it crystal clear he can’t be relied on for anything but uncertainty.

If Trump gets his way, on the other side of the bargaining table would be a Russian leader who has offered no indication he’s willing to make even the slightest shift in the strategies he’s pursued since he launched his invasion three years ago. He left Fairbanks having made no concessions while receiving several in return. We have only Trump’s assurance that Putin is willing to meet with Zelenskyy, with no confirmation from Moscow that such is the case. “We don’t know whether the Russian president will have the courage to attend such a summit,” Germany’s Merz

noted

frankly.

Putin makes no bones that he despises the Ukraine president. He’s

denounced

him as “a disgrace to the Jewish people,” dismissed his leadership as illegitimate and derided Ukraine’s government as a “neo-Nazi regime.” He

justifies

Russia’s invasion as a necessary evil to “finally eradicate Nazism.”

It’s difficult to picture the former spy executing the reversal necessary to backtrack on all that. Weakness is death in Putin’s Russia. Certainly few of the people heading western democracies express much faith in him. His strategy throughout the war has been to prolong it as long as possible in the belief Russia’s greater size and willingness to endlessly sacrifice more bodies will eventually wear down Ukraine’s defences and its will to go on. His dealings with Washington have been expressly aimed at soft-soaping the president into letting him play out the string. So far he’s been successful in exploiting Trump’s peculiar infatuation to buy more time.

An agreement as Washington envisions it thus would require Ukraine to trust in Donald Trump, and Trump to depend on the reliability of Vladimir Putin. We know from experience what would likely happen if the two combatants got together and emerged with nothing to show for it: rather than accept his grand plan had failed, Trump would wash his hands of it and fix on a scapegoat, probably Ukraine as the weaker of the two. Without the prospect for personal glory, his interest would quickly fade.

Even if Ukraine does receive a pledge of security guarantees, Europe would do well to gird for the worst. If I was president of Poland or Latvia, I’d be building tanks and stocking missiles in large numbers.

National Post

• Adam Zivo: Zelenskyy meeting with Trump a resounding success
• Raymond J. de Souza: Trump pledged to end Ukraine war in 24 hours. How’s that working out?

U.S. President Donald Trump never did specify in which 24-hour period he would end the Ukraine war. Eventually, the war will end, and he will brag that THE DAY HAS COME. After all, the First World War ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Given that bombing continued even that very November morning, it ended in one hour!

Trump’s much-promised day was not in February when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House at the end of a month-long campaign by Trump and Vice-President JD Vance to force a Ukrainian surrender, in which they blamed Ukrainians for starting the war in the first place by not pre-emptively surrendering.

The day did not come last week in Alaska, when Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump had demanded a ceasefire from Putin, promising severe consequences otherwise. Putin instead continued bombing even while Trump capitulated to him in Anchorage. The “severe consequence” was the honour of a military flyover and a ride in the presidential limo.

What would have happened had Putin ordered a ceasefire? Perhaps we were spared the osculatory intimacy of the late Soviet period, when Leonid Brezhnev and East Germany’s Erich Honecker creeped out the world with the socialist fraternal kiss. That is not Trump’s style, but for Putin his affection is extravagant.

Putin pines for the late Soviet period. He wants Ukraine back, he has de facto got Belarus back and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia know he wants them back, which is why they joined NATO the first chance they got. His foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, arrived in Alaska wearing a white “C.C.C.P.” sweater — the Cyrillic spelling of U.S.S.R. Somewhere in China, President Xi Jinping’s factories are making “Make the U.S.S.R. Great Again” hats to ship to his ally in Moscow.

Trump had planned a lunch for Putin, but the meeting was cut short. The Russian bear was likely already full, having gorged himself on the TACOs already provided. TACO stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” but in Alaska it meant “Trump Abandons the Ceasefire Obligation.”

Alarmed at what further severe consequences Putin will be granted for continuing to bomb Ukraine, Zelenskyy and all of Europe — the leaders of NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Finland — rushed to Washington on Monday.

It was an unprecedented diplomatic display, a united front desperately trying to persuade Trump to abandon last week’s position on Ukraine — TACOs are served! — in favour of his ceasefire position of the previous week. It’s now wholly impossible to determine what Trump’s Ukraine policy is, so rapidly does it change.

Perhaps Putin abbreviated the meeting because he got all that he could reasonably imagine getting — no ceasefire, no additional sanctions, no confiscation of frozen assets, no severe consequences, implied American approval for the annexation of Ukrainian territory.

The only apparent concession Putin made — claimed by the Trump administration — was a promise to accept American security assistance after the most strategic parts of Ukraine are sacrificed. But Russia and the United States made security assurances to each other, and to Ukraine, in 1994. Twenty years later, Putin began his 11-year war against his neighbour.

Had Trump even a fraction of the moral courage and diplomatic competence of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan — whose motto he mimics, while understanding neither “peace” nor “strength” — he would have insisted that Putin return at least some of the

20,000 Ukrainian children

he has kidnapped.

The forced removal of Ukrainian children — some indoctrinated against their own homeland and forced into Russian military service — is the grounds on which Putin was

indicted

for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. TACO again: “Trump Absent on Children’s Outrage.”

Instead, Trump hid behind the skirt of the first lady, delivering an anodyne letter from Melania Trump generically in favour of sparing children the horror of war. During the Reagan administration, every high level Soviet-American meeting included the mention, by name, of specific dissidents.

At his 1988 summit with Mikhail Gorbachev,

Reagan insisted

on meeting publicly with Soviet dissidents, to the great annoyance of his hosts. Reagan

defended

their human rights in Moscow; Trump could not speak for abducted children on his own Alaskan soil.

Trump is fundamentally sympathetic with Putin’s cause, even if he’s frustrated that Putin is an obstacle to his lust for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recall that when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama and John Kerry, then secretary of state, repeatedly inveighed against his “19th-century thinking” — a worldview of imperial expansion.

Putin batted that away, arguing to the Russian Duma that this was about the 10th-century, that Russia and Ukraine were a single spiritual, fraternal and cultural entity that must be ruled politically, even tyrannically, from Moscow.

Obama and Kerry considered “19th-century” to be a criticism. Trump loves the 19th-century. James Monroe, Andrew Jackson and William McKinley are his favourite presidents. He loves tariffs and territorial expansion.

He loves the “near abroad” thinking of Putin, and speaks of Canada, Greenland and Panama in the same way that Putin speaks of Ukraine. His second inaugural address made that clear: “We gave (the canal) to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

Trump is not attempting to take back even a square inch of Ukrainian territory from Putin, and not even a single stolen child. The 24-hours on Monday in Washington were an act of gratitude that the 24-hours in Alaska were not even worse.

National Post

• Adam Zivo: Zelenskyy meeting with Trump a resounding success
• Adam Zivo: Putin outplays Trump yet again

For over a year, the federal government has kept up a high-stakes game of collective bargaining bait-and-switch. But with the Air Canada dispute, the facade has fallen, and Ottawa’s shabby pantomime has been exposed.

In November 2023, then-labour minister Seamus O’Regan announced

federal legislation

prohibiting companies from using replacement workers during strikes. According to O’Regan, relying on scabs doesn’t just poison the work environment, it

weakens collective bargaining

itself, undermining negotiations and inflicting lasting damage on labour relations.

Inviting companies to keep up the pretense of bargaining while amassing an army of replacement workers is inimical to fair and effective collective bargaining. Lasting peace in the workplace requires pressuring both sides to compromise and settle their differences, knowing that in the event of failure, they will both suffer economic harm.

Employers protested the new law,

warning

that anti-scab legislation would trigger more and longer strikes. Never mind that the number of

work stoppages

has been in free-fall for decades, and is now a shadow of what it was in the 1970s. Out of every 25 contract disputes in federally regulated industries that are referred to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service,

24 are settled

without a stoppage.

But behind the theatrics, the government was moving in a very different direction. Ottawa would try to prohibit not just scabs, but major strikes altogether, regardless of the devastating consequences such a policy would have on free and fair collective bargaining.

In June 2024, the government asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to end the legal strike of a union seeking its first collective agreement with WestJet. Later that year, it terminated stoppages and collective bargaining in freight rail (August), marine ports (November) and Canada Post (December). Now the government has moved to end a legal walkout at Air Canada, barely hours into the strike.

This pattern of repeatedly terminating legal, constitutionally protected strikes would be astonishing for any government, let alone one ostensibly committed to voluntary collective bargaining.

The signal to employers could not be clearer: don’t bother with serious bargaining, since we’ve got your back if employees try to walk out. Why worry about a ban on scab labour, when the government will terminate strikes before they even get underway?

Large employers now expect that Ottawa will ride to their rescue, to the point where they apparently don’t feel the need to prepare customers or the public for a possible stoppage — as many Air Canada passenger are now

complaining

.

Provincial governments have also picked up Ottawa’s message. Quebec has adopted

its own legislation

granting itself the power to outlaw legal strikes when the government decides it’s necessary.

The federal government appears to believe that the best deals are imposed by arbitrators rather than struck at the negotiating table. If so, it is mistaken. Industrial relations experts

point out

that in such circumstances, imposed settlements are more likely to instill bitterness and resentment rather than lasting workplace harmony.

Air Canada flight attendants are fed up with the federal government’s sleight-of-hand. These workers have real grievances about

unpaid work

and

low wages

, and they’re insisting their employer take them seriously. Unsurprisingly,

most
Canadians

sympathize with them. Hard work for low pay is widespread,

unpaid overtime work

is rampant and a meaningful right to disconnect from work is a distant dream for many.

Air Canada’s mostly female flight attendants are courageously demanding the company recognize the value of their work, and that the government uphold their constitutional rights. They are calling on the government to actually deliver what it promised: respect for collective bargaining.

National Post

Chris Roberts is national director, social and economic policy at the Canadian Labour Congress.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s
visit to the White House
on Monday was a resounding diplomatic success. With the support of Europe’s most powerful leaders, Zelenskyy repaired his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump and seemingly reoriented Washington’s foreign policy in Ukraine’s favour, bolstering hope that a just peace might yet be negotiated for the besieged country.

The meeting came just three days after Trump, hoping to negotiate a ceasefire deal for Ukraine, hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin at a
summit in Alaska
. While Putin and Trump initially greeted each other at that summit warmly, their talks terminated prematurely, after just three hours, with both the American and Russian delegations leaving stonefaced.

Following the Alaska summit, Trump told Zelenskyy and his European allies that Putin had demanded that Ukraine
hand over its Donetsk province
— which Russia only partially occupies — in exchange for freezing the frontlines elsewhere, and possibly conceded other territory Russia holds, and suggested that Washington would support such a deal.

As Donetsk contains Ukraine’s
most significant defensive fortifications
, ceding this territory would leave the country vulnerable to further invasion. However, White House officials
claimed on Sunday
that Russia had, in a major compromise, agreed to allow Ukraine to receive NATO-style security guarantees, the details of which remain unspecified.

But as Trump’s public rhetoric grew more aggressive towards Ukraine throughout the weekend, some
feared
that Zelenskyy would be pressured into a bad peace deal — one where devastating land concessions would be inadequately compensated for with toothless promises.

This week’s White House meeting could have provided the perfect opportunity for such a move. Zelenskyy’s last visit in February had
infamously devolved
into a shouting match with Trump and U.S. President J.D. Vance, after a hostile journalist berated the Ukrainian President for
not wearing a suit
. The incident was widely interpreted as a
MAGA ambush
designed to humiliate Kyiv — so was this going to be another repeat with sinister policy implications?

In an apparent bid to
protect Zelenskyy from bullying
, the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland, as well as the heads of the EU and NATO, abruptly announced that they would accompany the Ukrainian leader at the White House. In the leadup to the meeting, they firmly expressed their support for the Ukrainian president and reportedly provided
private coaching
on how to handle Trump.

Despite their best efforts, the beginning of the trip was not promising. While Trump had rolled out the red carpet for Putin days earlier and personally greeted him, Zelenskyy was given no such welcome.

Instead, the Ukrainian president first
met with Trump’s Special Envoy Keith Kellogg
before convening with Kyiv’s European partners. Zelenskyy then changed into an all-black suit —
somber enough
to acknowledge his country’s wartime realities, but more formal than his usual attire — and joined Trump in front of the White House, where the two men seemed polite but uncomfortable with one another.

Inside their Oval Office public meeting, though, the mood quickly brightened.

Zelenskyy began by profusely thanking Trump for his support — an important move, as, during his last visit, both Vance and Trump had accused him of being ungrateful. He said that he appreciated that Trump’s wife, Melania, had
written a letter to Putin
asking for an end to the war for the sake of Ukraine’s children (the letter was given to Putin in Alaska). He then handed Trump a letter written to Melania from his own wife, Olena Zelenska, which seemed to set the American president at ease.

The relationship between the two men turned amicable. They even cracked
small jokes
with each other. “You look fabulous in that suit!” said the aforementioned MAGA journalist who had criticized Zelenskyy’s attire during his last visit. “I said the same thing,” quipped Trump in reply. While some reporters asked leading questions that seemed intended to sow discord, none materialized.

Trump emphasized that, although the United States would stop donating military or financial aid, it would continue to sell weapons to Ukraine using NATO as an intermediary and would find other ways to assist. “When it comes to security there’s going to be a lot of help. It’s going to be good,” he said. “People are being killed, and we want to stop that. So I would not say it’s the end of the road.”

In an unexpected twist, Trump did not rule out sending U.S. troops to Ukraine to assist in peacekeeping after a reporter asked him about the possibility. 

However, contradicting months of his previous messaging, the American president stated that he did not believe that it is necessary to negotiate a ceasefire, and argued that Ukraine and Russia should seek a full peace deal instead. This approach is generally considered to be favourable to Russia, as Moscow
has insisted for years
that fighting should cease only at the end of the peace process, not the beginning, presumably so that Russian forces can press their advantages during negotiations.

After a closed-door session focusing on security guarantees, Zelenskyy told assembled reporters that he had a “very good” meeting with Trump: “It really was the best one. Sorry, or maybe the best one will be in the future.” Reciprocally, Trump said that he “just had the honour of being with President Zelenskyy” and that they had “had a very successful day thus far.” Such language would have been unthinkable earlier this year.

In the late afternoon, Trump and Zelenskyy met with the assembled European leaders for a group photo and joint discussion. The warm feelings evidently persisted.

Mark Rutte, NATO’s general secretary, told Trump that Washington’s willingness to “participate in security guarantees is a big step, is really a breakthrough, and it makes all the difference.” However, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
said he couldn’t
“imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” and that Russia should be pressured to accept one. French President Emmanuel Macron proposed that the next meeting — presumably between Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin — should include a European representative, as security guarantees are relevant to the entire continent.

These minor disagreements did not derail the proceedings. In fact, Trump invited the European leaders to the Oval Office for another, unscheduled meeting, because, in the words of one White House official: “everything is going well.” And so these extraordinary talks — consisting of an extraordinary consortium of leaders —
went on for hours
, interrupted only by Trump leaving for a
40-minute phone call
with Putin.

At a news conference Monday night, Zelenskyy stated that, while a formal agreement has not yet been signed, Ukraine’s security guarantees will include
$90 billion in American weapons
, purchased with European funding, and that the United States will buy drones from Ukraine. The exact nature of the other protections that will be offered are currently unknown to the public, but this is a strong start.

What a good day for Ukraine – especially in contrast to Russia’s truncated summit in Alaska. Of course, there is still the possibility that victory will fall apart in some way. Trump is a mercurial man, and evidently malleable with enough flattery. There is always the risk that Putin will pull him back into his orbit, or that the West’s security guarantees will be far weaker than they now seem. But, for now, some optimism seems in order.

National Post

Nine out of 10 Canadians support Air Canada flight attendants’ fight for fair pay — and they want the federal government to back off and let the two sides negotiate freely.

So says a press release by the Canada Union of Public Employees, based on an Abacus Data poll.

Really? The poll says 88 per cent of respondents believe flight attendants should be paid for all work-related duties including boarding and deplaning, while 59 per cent think the federal government should respect flight attendants’ right to take job action, even if it means flight disruptions.

I suspect that those numbers might not be so robust now that half a million customers have seen their flights cancelled, and news is emerging that the union is in an illegal strike position, having ignored an order from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to return to work during the binding arbitration that Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu imposed on Saturday.

The Conservative party seems to believe the polling numbers that the public is on the union’s side because it has taken the bizarre position of backing the flight attendants.

“Mark Carney is proving once again that he is no friend of workers or labour and would rather reward his corporate buddies than pay flight attendants who work tirelessly on their feet all day,” said Kyle Seeback, the party’s labour critic.

The NDP couldn’t have said it better.

This is not the place to get into the weeds of the union’s grievance. One flight attendant posted a screenshot of her tax return on Reddit that showed she earned $35,000 as a full-time employee with two and a half years of experience, which she declared as “poverty wages.”

Air Canada said that it has offered flight attendants a 38 per cent increase over four years, which would see senior flight attendants earning an average of $87,000 by 2027.

One point of contention has been the lack of ground pay, but that is a holdover from the existing contract that the union’s members agreed to during the last negotiation.

Flight attendants work hard and deserve decent pay. You can clearly argue that $35,000 is not a living wage for people obliged to live in big cities as part of their job.

But this dispute goes far beyond a wage negotiation for flight attendants — it is about the kind of country that Canada wants to become: the “stronger, more resilient economy” that Mark Carney promised on being elected, or Italy, plagued by frequent strikes and service breakdowns.

Carney talks about Canada being at a “hinge moment” in its history; that is certainly true when it comes to labour relations.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada reaffirmed the right to strike as an essential constitutional component of collective bargaining under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The federal government has responded to the threat of strike action in federally regulated industries by invoking section 107 of the Canadian Labour Code, which requires union members to return to work while engaged in binding arbitration before the CIRB.

That model has been under threat in recent times.

In last year’s WestJet mechanics strike, then minister Seamus O’Regan did not stipulate that workers go back to work during binding arbitration, forcing WestJet to concede to the union’s demands. In that case, the CIRB said that the absence of a direct order to return to work meant the union’s right to strike was not curtailed.

A year ago, O’Regan’s successor, Steven MacKinnon, did not make the same mistake in the dispute with rail workers and Teamsters Canada, ordering the CIRB to direct the railways to resume operations until a new deal was reached.

The Teamsters subsequently filed an appeal with the Federal Court of Appeal, challenging the minister’s order — a decision that remains pending.

In the Air Canada case, Hadju issued a statement on Saturday saying she was exercising her authority under section 107, directing the CIRB to arbitrate in the dispute, without explicitly ordering a return to work.

This time, the CIRB ordered the union’s members back to work and to continue their duties until the binding arbitration process is completed.

CUPE took the highly unusual decision to ignore that order, forcing the CIRB to declare the strike “unlawful.” The union is now challenging that order in the Federal Court.

Tracy Epp, a labour lawyer at Pitblado Law in Winnipeg, said there may be significant practical consequences for the union, including the airline going after CUPE or its members for losses related to the strike.

One way or another, the unions and the government are on a collision course over the constitutionality of their respective positions.

We have yet to hear the prime minister make the case that he was elected to do everything possible to make Canada’s economy stronger and more diversified in a time of economic crisis; or that there are bigger things going on than a union squabble.

Hadju could have gotten involved in the bargaining process at an earlier stage and made that case, but she didn’t.

However, in her statement on Saturday, she dropped a hint of where the government may go next when she pointed out that shipments of critical goods such as pharmaceuticals and organ tissue are being impacted.

There are rumours that Ottawa is considering a supply chain act that would enhance the reliability of major transportation suppliers.

Canada cannot mirror the situation in the U.S., where, under the Railway Labour Act, rail and airline workers are in practical terms unable to strike. (The law allows the U.S. president to step in and order workers back to work for a “cooling off period,” while a presidential panel comes up with recommendations.)

But there are possible steps that the federal government could take, short of using the notwithstanding clause.

Manitoba’s NDP government amended its Labour Relations Act when it took power: on the one hand prohibiting the use of replacement workers while on the other, including a robust “essential services” section that covered anything that jeopardized the health and safety of Manitobans, the administration of justice or the environment.

Epp said that industries that were never considered “essential” were suddenly covered and unions were obliged to keep them operating during labour disputes.

“That would be a valid, viable option for the federal government,” she said. “To my knowledge, the new provision of the Act has not been challenged in court.”

The unions can point to a poll that suggests Canadians support the flight attendants.

But the Carney government can, if need be, intimate their support comes from a far larger sample size — the general election.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca

Twitter.com/IvisonJ

For years, the Liberals have worked to increase the power of Canada’s labour unions, and the monster they created is now coming back to bite them as Air Canada’s flight attendants walk off the job, grounding hundreds of flights. But Ottawa can start to fix the mess it created by opening the airline market to more competition, thus lessening the impact that strikes have on consumers.

It’s no coincidence that the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents more than

10,000

Air Canada employees, chose this moment to go on strike and throw the country’s air transportation network into chaos.

The contract between the airline and its flight attendants

ended in March

, but the union waited until the height of the summer travel season to walk off the job, in a move that has so far affected around 500,000 travellers.

Thanks to

legislation

passed last year that banned the use of replacement workers in federally regulated industries, including air travel, the union knew the airline would have little recourse if its members hit the picket line.

And given the Liberals’ penchant for intervening in labour disputes, CUPE could also be fairly certain the government would try to order the striking flight attendants back to work, after doing so in disputes involving

Canada’s major railways

and

postal service

last year.

And so it was that after Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to force the flight attendants back to work and send the parties to binding arbitration on Saturday, Mark Hancock, CUPE’s national president, tore up the back-to-work order and vowed to challenge it.

On Monday morning, the CIRB

declared the strike

“unlawful” and ordered workers back on the job “immediately.” As of this writing, it’s unclear whether the union intends to continue to defy the mandate.

The situation highlights the catch-22 the Liberals now find themselves in: their interventionist, pro-labour policies have reduced the incentive for unions to settle disputes at the bargaining table, forcing Ottawa to step in to alleviate the resulting political headache caused by major disruptions in markets that are dominated by a few large players.

It’s a classic case of the state stepping in with Big Government policies to fix problems caused by other interventionist measures. But it’s also an opportunity for the Liberals to read the room and enact reforms that will attract foreign investment, make the country more competitive and reduce prices for consumers.

To do that, the government should follow the advice of its own Competition Bureau, which released

a report

in the spring advocating for more competition in Canada’s airline market.

To be sure, there have been some noticeable improvements in recent years. According to the competition watchdog, thanks to upstart airlines like Porter and Flair, market concentration dropped by 10 per cent between 2019 and 2023.

But Air Canada and WestJet still account for between 56 and 78 per cent of all domestic passenger traffic departing from Canada’s major airports. This is a direct result of government policies that favour incumbent carriers, increase costs and limit foreign ownership and competition.

One of the major barriers faced by new airlines, according to the Competition Bureau, is the high cost of government taxes and fees that are tacked onto ticket prices.

Some of them are designed to ensure the cost of running Canada’s air transportation network is paid by travellers, which makes perfect sense. But ticket prices are also affected by fuel taxes and high airport fees, which Ottawa simply treats as a cash cow.

This assertion is backed up by

research

released Monday by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), which found that the exorbitant rents the federal government charges airport authorities is significantly driving up the cost of air travel.

According to MEI, airports sent Ottawa close to $500 million in rental fees last year, which is up 68 per cent since 2014.

All told, the think tank found that the average airport improvement fee paid in Canada is four times higher than in the United States. Airport security charges and fuel taxes are also far higher in Canada than in peer countries, such as the U.S. and Australia.

These costs make it harder for discount carriers to compete based on price. The Competition Bureau says that taxes and fees constitute 30 per cent of the ticket price on major carriers, but that those “costs take up an even higher share of what passengers pay for flights on ultra-low-cost carriers,” which makes them less profitable.

New carriers are also constrained by airport procedures, which often favour incumbents. Smaller, secondary airports in major cities can provide consumers and airlines with more options, but are hamstrung by the size of their runways and legal restrictions that only allow one international airport in certain regions.

A good example is Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport, which is often cheaper and more convenient than Pearson Airport, but

was prevented

from hosting long-haul flights when the Liberals kiboshed plans to extend its runway to accommodate passenger jets in 2015.

Yet the biggest impediments to airline competition are the government’s restrictions on foreign ownership and its prohibition on foreign carriers flying domestic routes.

In 2018, Ottawa

increased the share

of Canadian airlines that foreigners are allowed to own, but the Competition Bureau doesn’t think it went far enough.

It recommends the rules be changed so that a single foreign investor can own up to 49 per cent of a Canadian carrier, and that the government create a new class of airline that can only serve domestic routes but can be fully owned by non-Canadians.

The competition watchdog also suggests Ottawa start allowing “airlines from partner countries to fly domestic service within Canada.”

This is an idea that was tried in the European Union in the 1990s and

it worked spectacularly

, leading to a 120 per cent increase in flights within the EU and a 400 per cent increase in routes served by at least two airlines between 1992 and 2008, according to European Commission data.

Had something similar been implemented here, we could already be seeing foreign carriers diverting aircraft to Canadian routes to pick up the slack left by the Air Canada strike.

For decades, Ottawa has chosen to maintain its protectionist policies, which only serve the interests of Canada’s two largest carriers. But if there was ever a time to institute substantive reforms, now is it.

The election of U.S. President Donald Trump has forced Canadians to have a serious discussion about how to attract investment and improve our economy.

Opening Canada’s airlines and airports to more competition would help attract foreign capital and make it less expensive for foreigners to come here and spend their money, and for Canadians to travel domestically (at the moment, it’s often cheaper to fly to another country than within Canada).

The fact that the Air Canada strike has already caused so much chaos is not an indication that Ottawa needs to step in and force a resolution, but that the airline industry is too concentrated.

Prime Minister Mark Carney should follow the advice of his own Competition Bureau and finally do something about it.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/accessd

• Jesse Kline: An Air Canada strike will be devastating. Blame Ottawa
• Jesse Kline: More competition could make our skies even friendlier