Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “forward guidance” videos have proven adept at fostering populist tactics in the services of mainstream politics.

Voters across the western world have been drawn to conspiracy theories and demagogues because they fear that nobody is in control. In this series of videos, Carney has presented a calm, reassuring face to the world, telling Canadians that their “improbable country” will “pivot and prosper” in the face of the trade war with the Americans.

The world is not rudderless and he is at the helm, he indicated speaking in a 15-minute video this week, speaking directly to the camera throughout.

He does not follow the populist playbook of promising painless solutions to complicated problems. “This won’t be easy and I won’t pretend otherwise,” he said.

But he radiates an assurance and tenacity that few others could match.

He is right. Canada is likely to emerge from this episode stronger and more resilient than ever. But that does not mean the plan is foolproof.

He said the response to the latest U.S. tariffs has three legs: retaliatory tariffs; supporting Canadians; and trade diversification.

Retaliation is popular, but is it necessary or wise? University of Toronto economics professor Joseph Steinberg asked in a post on X Wednesday whether Canada’s economy would be stronger or weaker if it had not retaliated at all. He said he supports Carney’s decision to walk away from the deal last month (as do I). But he argued it did not necessarily justify retaliatory tariffs, like the latest round that took effect Tuesday. “Those are two different things,” he said.

On diversification, Carney talked about directing more trade to “trusted partners.”

Carney is due to join European Union president Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg, France next week to announce a plan to deepen trade and security ties between Canada and the EU.

It is logical that Canada is looking for alternatives to President Donald Trump’s kleptocracy — he noted in his video that Canada now has tariff-free access to 1.5-billion consumers and will double that over the next six months, indicating that a deal with India is close.

But reducing dependence on America to replace it with Europe may be like being rescued from the Titanic by the Hindenburg.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party has just won a state election in Saxony-Anhalt and leads in national polls. It is seeking to exit the EU, abandon the euro, and restore ties with Moscow.

In France, the populist-right National Rally is ahead in the polls and its candidate Marine Le Pen is the frontrunner in the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron as president next year.

While Britain is not part of the EU, Reform UK is neck and neck with the ruling Labour Party in most polls.

All of those parties make Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre’s brand of populist conservatism look as benign and old-fashioned as the Loyal Order of Moose.

In Carney’s video, the prime minister said a fair deal wasn’t on the table at the end of August. There’s no doubt that the 11 ^th -hour proposal to undermine the production of heavy trucks in Canada was a deal breaker.

Who knows what terms might now be acceptable to the Don of Dons. He seems to be thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to attack his closest trading partner, behaving online like a bull mastiff in a poodle parlour.

But unless the president plans to interfere in the midterm elections — something that cannot be completely ruled out — he may be looking for a constructive way out of the trade war.

Despite the memes and the maps, Carney clearly believes there is an off-ramp.

As he noted in his forward guidance video, “a mutually beneficial trade agreement between Canada and the U.S. is possible” if it respects Canadian sovereignty.

One proposal that was raised at the House of Commons trade committee in June was that, instead of punitive sectoral tariffs, Canada could accept that the era of free trade is over and offer to pay a tariff of around three per cent on everything crossing into the U.S.

At the committee, Conservative trade critic Adam Chambers asked executives from Business Development Canada and Export Development Canada about the nature of the trade relationship with the U.S.

Todd Winterhalt, senior vice-president of international markets at EDC, said that while diversification is happening, “the U.S. remains, and in our view will always be, Canada’s most important market, with nearly three-quarters of exporters being highly or moderately dependent on it.”

Chambers said the effective average tariff rate on Canadian goods was around three per cent (before the latest tariff increases), even though 85 per cent of goods passed into the U.S. tariff free under the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement.

“Why is no economist considering a scenario where you would just pay an average effective tax rate across the board on every good going into the U.S?” Chambers asked. “Am I wrong in thinking it may be an option? Would it not make sense to spread the pain across the entire economy?”

The trade executives had no answer, but it seems a reasonable question to ask.

A three per cent tariff on the US$382 billion in goods exported into the U.S. in 2025 would yield the Trump administration US$11.5 billion. That’s more than the US$10 billion it will receive from the 50 per cent tariff on US$20 billion of goods under the latest round of tariffs. And, in relative terms, would be politically pain-free.

Could it work? Who knows. But the only thing that is likely to appeal to this president more than the prospect of crushing his enemies is cold, hard cash.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca

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In this election, the Liberal Party of Quebec (LPQ) is a shadow of the powerhouse it once was, a party that held government for about 86 years since Confederation, far exceeding any of its rivals.

Charles Milliard, a former pharmacist, businessman and head of the Quebec Chambers of Commerce Federation, became leader in February 2026, after the previous leader Pablo Rodriguez’s tenure was cut short amid corruption allegations. Following Milliard’s leadership victory, the party’s poll numbers peaked in mid-April when the Liberals tied the Parti Québécois (PQ) at 32 per cent on average . Two weeks into the current campaign, Milliard’s numbers keep decreasing, dipping to lows of 21 per cent as of Sept. 8. To make matters worse for the party, the last few polls have the Liberals in fourth place among francophones, at around 10 per cent. The party leads nowhere except in the Montreal area, and even there the race has tightened.

I had the chance to meet Milliard a while back. While I do believe he is there for the right reasons, it is unfortunate that he has so far failed to transform his accomplished career into clear leadership.

Surprisingly, Quebec Liberals are failing to resonate in an environment where the PQ is making sovereignty a key issue of this campaign. Historically, the Liberals strive in such circumstances, rallying federalists around their banner. Instead, federalists are now being tempted to vote for Christine Fréchette, the premier and leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, who uses the Trump tariff threat to rally federalists, bleeding away the last remaining solid electorate the Liberals had left other than the anglophone vote.

The fundamental problem with Milliard is that when you stand for everything, you stand for nothing. He has so far demonstrated himself to be sitting on the fence on many issues. He has planted his flag in no man’s land: too timid for the fiscal conservatives, too much of a lightweight to play the role of Captain Canada, and utterly invisible to everyone in between.

Take for example his stance on Bill 96, which greatly expanded laws mandating the use of French, including into the private sector. Shortly after taking the leadership, Milliard said he would keep using the notwithstanding clause for the bill to ensure it withstands any future Charter challenges. His anglophone caucus revolted and he had to reverse his stance the very next day, saying he was open to simply amending the bill . His indecisiveness extends to the construction of a third link, or highway, between Quebec City and Levis directly across the St. Lawrence. He says he is supportive of it but won’t commit to a specific option, stating only that he would keep studying the project … the same project which had been revived by his own party under former Liberal premier Philippe Couillard , back in 2017.

His economic platform, usually a strength for the Liberals, suffers from the same uninspired plague: a provincial business tax cut from 11.5 per cent to 10 per cent that barely differs from what the CAQ already delivered and can’t compete with the 59 per cent cut promised by the Conservative Party of Quebec (CPQ). Milliard opted to work within the CAQ framework instead of breaking with it.

In politics, when you can’t differentiate yourself from the pack, indifference is all that remains. And it is no coincidence that this indifference, this political apathy, is reflected in how the electorate feels towards the Liberals at the moment. In fact, a recent Pallas poll shows that the “neutral opinion” of Charles Milliard is on the rise during this campaign unlike all of his competitors.

Between the federalist vote leaving to the CAQ, and fiscally focused voters splitting between the CAQ and the Conservatives, the Liberals are caught in a pincer movement, fighting a war on multiple fronts.

This situation brings back memories of Kim Campbell’s 1993 Progressive Conservative party, squeezed between the newly formed Reform party of fiscal conservatives and a Bloc Québécois born from Quebec nationalists. Trying to balance nothing and everything, Campbell ended up with only two seats.

Going into the election, pundits expected the Liberals to win at least 40 seats, representing a third of the National Assembly. What was once seen as the floor, is quickly becoming the ceiling.

Political campaigns run on a war chest that only shrinks: time, money and volunteers. Milliard, who is himself running in the Eastern Township riding of Orford, is in danger of losing his own riding. The Liberals nonetheless continue to barnstorm the whole province, spreading itself thin, preaching its message to increasingly deaf ears while squandering precious resources.

Off the record, a well-sourced campaign insider speaks of the inexperienced team, outdated voter-ID and get-out-the-vote tools, and operators who haven’t run a campaign in over a decade that are largely to blame for the strategy or lack of one. The playbook should have been simple: reconquer historical strongholds, win 40 seats and hold fast as the government in waiting. For a leader barely a year into the job, that would have been the perfect springboard back to power.

Earlier this week, Milliard admitted he wants to see changes in his communication strategy. Not long after, surrounded by Quebec flags, he recorded a quick video promising to bring an economic plan to address tariffs, focused on improving productivity. Whether it will have an effect or not, time will tell, but it is clear that Milliard knows something is not working.

The Liberals, so accustomed to winning, now seem to have forgotten how to do so. The only hope Milliard has left is to surprise electors during the leaders debate on Sept. 15, which he can still certainly do. Milliard is sharp. But being sharp is not enough. He needs to make voters feel something. If he shows some fight, some grit, and makes himself look like a premier-in-waiting, the race could shift.

If not, the party risks surrendering its historical dominance to the CAQ for the foreseeable future, and perhaps permanently.

Marc-Olivier Fortin is the former national Vice-President of the Conservative Party of Canada (2016-2018) and campaign manager for the CPC in Quebec (2021). He is now a regular commentator at RDI and on COGECO radio and works for Transfert, a firm specialized in social acceptability in mining, energy and heavy industry sectors.

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A classic set-piece political controversy is playing out yet again in Quebec. There are eggs from Donald Trump’s United States! Dozens and dozens of them! On Canadian supermarket shelves!

But here we are in 2026, “in the middle of a full-blown trade war,” TVA Nouvelles reported the other day, and “American eggs are flooding Quebec supermarkets.”

“Several Quebecers who were happy to have paid $2.99 ​​for their dozen (large) eggs at Maxi last week were disappointed once they got home when they found that the eggs came from the United States,” we read. (Maxi is a discount supermarket chain under the Loblaw umbrella — essentially Quebec’s version of No Frills.)

TVA did not name or interview anyone who was thusly disappointed, though it did say the network had received several emails.

It all seems unbelievable, I know, especially in this day and age. But it’s true. Again. Just like it was true in 2025 , and just like it was true in 2024 when similar stories about American egg imports surfaced in Quebec. Canadian egg colossus Burnbrae Farms explains on its website: “On rare occasions, the available supply of eggs cannot meet the demand from our customers and on these occasions we will import eggs from the United States … This (usually occurs) in high-demand times such as Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.” Maybe Labour Day is one of those times.

Eggs are protected by Canada’s supply-management system. And if you thought supply management was supposed to be “a system that balances supply and demand … through production setting (quota), price setting and import control as a means of avoiding overproduction and underproduction ” (my italics), well, I can’t really blame you. That’s precisely what it says on the Farm Products Council of Canada’s website , after all. But as a well-to-do hip-replacement candidate might say, the U.S. is always there in a pinch.

No doubt there are at least a few hundred Canadians who care very deeply about the provenance of their eggs. I would expect such people to be quite knowledgeable egg shoppers. And I would have thought the first thing that would tip off a knowledgeable egg shopper that something was a bit special about these eggs — if it not the “USDA A Grade” stamp on the carton — would be the fact they only cost $2.99.

Alas, that’s not a Canadian price for a dozen eggs. Walmart in Montreal wants a minimum of $4.08 for a dozen large Canadian eggs. Only if you buy 30 at a time you can match the Yankees’ per-egg cost. No, $2.99 is more like an American price for a dozen eggs, though you can find them considerably cheaper in the U.S., even once you convert to Canadian dollars. (For the record, you can buy a pack of large Canadian eggs at Maxi for $3 — but you only get six of them.)

Obviously eggs that cross the border, like all other agricultural products, must be certified safe according to Canadian standards. None of this angst makes any sense in any context except for the trade war with Washington. And a trade war with Washington necessarily makes less sense if you’re struggling to feed yourself or a family. Food inflation in Quebec from 2019 to 2025, total, was 31 per cent. Food bank usage has soared , as it has in many provinces.

Just how much are we willing to sacrifice? Build Canada, which describes itself as “a non-partisan civic movement (of) high-agency builders … who believe Canada can and should be the most prosperous country on earth,” released an in-house poll on Tuesday finding 75 per cent of respondents broadly preferred an elbows-up approach to Washington. That dropped to 37 per cent if it meant higher taxes, and 33 per cent if it meant a higher risk of jobs lost.

And you’ll never guess what: The older Canadians get, according to the Build Canada poll, the more willing they are to stick it out … although only 33 per cent of respondents were willing to stay the course if it meant any diminution in their retirement savings. “Elbows up” is a luxury pursuit. Not that there’s really anyone to vote for, at any level, if you want unapologetically freer access to cheaper groceries.

“We don’t need more American products,” Quebec Liberal leader Charles Milliard said in a video posted Sunday, ruling out any concessions whatsoever on supply management. “We have all we need here to succeed.” Does he not read these articles about companies not having enough local eggs?

It is interesting that the offending brand of American eggs is Canadian: Burnbrae. The packages presumably meet all labelling requirements, but they certainly could be clearer in differentiating between American and Canadian. And isn’t that what supply-managed Canadian producers presumably want? Not just loyalty to the brand, but to the nationality of the brand? Burnbrae is one of the egg makers that regularly lobbies Ottawa to maintain the supply-management system.

Yet it seems a bit off-message that when they can’t manage the demand, they slip American eggs into the same basic cartons in such a way that the casual egg shopper very likely would not notice. (Luckily, anyone on a budget likely wouldn’t care.) And this isn’t just a few emergency top-up eggs: 5.6 per cent of the eggs that showed up in Canada in 2024, whether for eating or for hatching, were imported from the U.S.

It’s hardly a leading example of the interconnectedness between the Canadian and American economies, and the fantasy of severing them, but it’s certainly an example. We’re not going to import fresh eggs from anywhere else.

National Post
cselley@postmedia.com

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Antisemitism isn’t just a problem in Canada’s biggest cities. While the highest profile examples of violence directed at Jewish Canadians and their places of worship repeatedly occur in major centres such as Toronto and Montreal, problems can be found across the country.

Case in point is in Saint John at New Brunswick’s popular International Culturefest. The main feature of this annual, federally-funded event organized by the Saint John Newcomers Association is an array of booths representing countries from around the world, all staffed by locals proudly displaying their culture and promoting their heritage. As its slogan suggests — “Celebrate Diversity. Build Community. Experience the World — Right Here in Saint John!” — it’s a relaxed, non-political event highlighting Canada’s best attributes.

Or at least it was, until last year. In August 2025, a group of anti-Israel protesters went looking to make trouble. Video from that day shows the group chanting slogans and trying to intimidate the Israeli booth. Later things got out of hand. Fortunately, Saint John police did their job and responded quickly. In the end, two protesters were arrested, one was charged with assault, another with obstruction of justice.

A coalition of activist groups, including the Palestinian Solidarity Committee of Saint John, claimed the mere presence of an Israeli booth at Culturefest had caused “tensions and divisions” and thus led to the violence. In June, this group “ asked ” the organizers of the festival to “reconsider the participation of the Israeli Zionist Group” stating that it would be “wise and responsible” and that failing to do so “risks further harm to community relations and public safety.”

The veiled threat appeared to work. After some back and forth with event organizers, the local group N.B. Israeli Community decided to take a pass on the 2026 festival. Organizer Esti Barlevy told the Saint John Telegraph-Journal newspaper that “we don’t feel safe to participate.” As for her discussions with event staff, she said, “No one took accountability, no one reached out and talked about security and how we can prevent it from happening this year.”

Left to fend for themselves, Barlevy and her organization made the only choice possible: stay home to stay safe. As a result, the Jewish pavilion was nowhere to be seen at this summer’s Culturefest. It was as if Saint John’s Jewish community didn’t exist — which is, of course, the goal of the protesters. The mobs’ veto triumphed, once again.

Another troubling aspect of this case is the lack of attention it garnered. A CBC News headline after the first day of the event blithely stated : “Saint John cultural festival running smoothly after last year’s conflict, arrests.”

With Jews deciding it’s not safe enough to attend, the cultural festival is now a success. Hooray for Canadian diversity!

Beyond CBC News, the media and political reactions elsewhere were similarly blasé . Such a lack of concern ought to disgust every clear-thinking Canadian.

It is disgraceful to imagine that an event can be considered to be “running smoothly” simply because no one got arrested for allegedly punching a Jew or damaging an Israeli flag. A group choosing not to attend out of fear for their safety is not a synonym for success.

Acceding to the demands of a marginal group of intolerant protestors will not put an end to Jewish hatred. It will merely emboldened further action meant to shame all Jews and banish Israel from its place in the world. This fixation on the world’s lone Jewish country is itself revealing.

If we want to confront antisemitism in Canada, we must prevent further situations like this from occurring. The proper approach is not to look the other way (or perhaps secretly rejoice) when a Jewish group skips an event. Organizers and public officials would never remain silent if another religious or cultural group of Canadians felt the need to back out of an event in similar fashion.

The proper approach is to say that such demands from radical groups to remove an Israeli booth from a community cultural festival is unbecoming of Canada and to double down on security and statements of support. In addition, these troublemakers should be warned of the legal consequences they will face if they continue intimidating Jewish Canadians.

Further, we need to recognize that the notion of “blood guilt” — whereby Canadian families, Jewish or otherwise, are collectively punished for decisions or actions of others — has no place in Canada. It should be possible to peacefully celebrate Jewish culture without inevitably making it about a conflict far away. Blood guilt is anathema to the very concept of individual responsibility that animates western society.

The organizers of Culturefest should have stated clearly and unequivocally that they believe in their own slogan about celebrating diversity and building community. Instead, during the festival this weekend its co-director Lorne Daltrop told CBC: “We are offering a very peaceful, full experience here today… No one is thinking about any other disturbance or anything else that might have happened in the past … people are really able to enjoy” — as if nothing happened and it didn’t matter that the Israel pavilion wasn’t there this year.

Atlantic Canada has an antisemitism problem every bit as worrisome as that in the bigger cities of central Canada. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, synagogues have been repeatedly damaged. In 2024, a Fredericton high school girl was beaten up by a classmate. Her family believed it was because of her Jewish identity.

We cannot allow Jewish Canadians to be repeatedly threatened, marginalized, silenced or bullied. Not in the Maritimes. Not anywhere in Canada.

John Williamson is MP for New Brunswick-Southwest.

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Marches in the streets, harassment on campus, arson, attacks on businesses and violent assaults. These are what we have enabled through our silence on antisemitism.

Silence and inaction feeds the antisemitism that infects Canadian urban life, enabling it to fester and infect the body politic. The silence is undergirded by the often not-so-quietly held, deeply misguided convictions of our urban elites and soft leftist dilettantes: “Well, the Jews brought this on themselves,” and, “After all, Israel is committing ‘genocide.’ ”

Now our country is being called out for the silence and inaction of our governments and institutions. After watching the rise in hate crimes targeting our country’s Jewish citizens, U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted that he might be open to creating a special immigration program for Jewish-Canadians fleeing antisemitism.

Given our strained relationship and often knee-jerk anti-Americanism, this is particularly galling. It exposes the vacuity of our smugness. Our civic self-worship echoes with “no space for hate” and “diversity is our strength” — empty mantras chanted by those who fail to act. They are our country’s shame.

Our inaction stands in the face of reality: a Canada in which Jews are the target of more than 70 per cent of all religion-motivated hate crimes despite representing about one per cent of our overall population. Jews experienced more police-reported hate crimes in 2025 than every other faith, more than those who reported a hate crime based on their sexual orientation and more than all racial minorities except Black-Canadians.

If that wasn’t enough, a recent report commissioned by the Department of Canadian Heritage found that almost 96 per cent of Jewish post-secondary students surveyed said they had experienced or witnessed at least one antisemitic incident in the preceding 12 months, with 18 per cent of cases involving faculty members.

Antisemitism in Canada is a challenge we at Cardus have been trying to help address in recent years, most notably through the Simeon Initiative , which brought together Christian leaders and their Jewish counterparts to build a foundation of solidarity, mutual respect and action against hatred. This flowed from the Canadian Christian Declaration on Antisemitism in hopes of engaging more Canadian Christians in the fight against Jew hate.

Yet the problem is ultimately not a problem for Jews to solve. It is a problem for the 99 per cent of Canadians who are not Jewish. It is our problem because it shows that in a fundamental test for our common life as citizens, ensuring the respect and defence of every person’s human dignity, Canadians are failing. And now we are being called out by the last person we would want to do so: Donald J. Trump.

In June, Prime Minister Carney announced a new council to combat racism and hate in all forms, and these esteemed individuals were assigned a variety of behind-the-scenes tasks to help combat antisemitism, among other priorities, with no public timetable. The prime minister also tied Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, into this announcement despite a tenuous connection to the problem of antisemitism. All of this is insufficient and is more ragging of the puck than decisive action.

At the time, these measures were already seen as inadequate — now, the problem is more severe and time-sensitive. What can the Government of Canada do?

Firstly, the prime minister should implement the recommendations of the Senate’s recent report on antisemitism, which include establishing specialized police hate-crime units and improved training for prosecutors.

Secondly, the government should take decisive action to block foreign influence, both by state-sponsored actors and transnational Islamist networks. These nefarious influences foment antisemitism and disrupt our common life while also posing a public safety threat within the Canadian Muslim community.

At the provincial level, attorneys-general should provide clear, unequivocal direction to police forces to break up violent and hate-motivated protests, initiate arrests and prioritize the investigation of hate-motivated crimes. Crown prosecutors should be directed to prosecute such crimes to the fullest extent of the law. Our peace officers and Crown attorneys need to know that our elected officials have their backs.

Groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai Brith Canada have gone further on digital safety, suggesting social networking companies like TikTok and Meta must be held accountable, to ensure they are not platforming and fuelling antisemitism.

They have also called for more security infrastructure to support vulnerable Jewish day schools and synagogues. This latter call exposes what is a public scandal. Bubble zones around synagogues and Jewish schools should be seen for what they are: a public embarrassment for which our elected officials are answerable.

While some Jewish-Canadians will leave — and some already have, in high profile fashion — this should not be a call to surrender to the fomenters of hate. If we mean what we say and that Canada is “no space for hate,” we must respond forcefully and decisively on behalf of our Jewish friends and neighbours or risk losing them for good. What could result is a Canada in which I would not wish to live.

National Post

Father Deacon Andrew Bennett is a senior fellow at Cardus, leading its Simeon Initiative, Canada’s former ambassador for religious freedom and head of Global Affairs Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom from 2013 to 2016, and Canada’s former head of delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

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