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

These are worrying times for free speech in this country and it is not helped with the persecution of British Columbia nurse Amy Hamm by the province’s College of Nurses and Midwives.
 

Hamm is the nurse who said sex is binary and also helped pay to put up a sign in Vancouver that declared, “I (heart) J K Rowling.”
 

For these and similar crimes, Hamm has now been suspended from nursing for a month and ordered to pay the shocking and unjustified sum of $93,639.80 in legal costs.
 

With its punitive disciplinary
decision
, the college appears to be saying that you can either shut up or suffer what amounts to a $93,000 fine for exercising your right to free speech.
 

It is a chilling ruling but one that is not surprising given the increasing number of self-important, bloated, authoritarian organizations and professional bodies in Canada that think the Charter right to free speech and free expression is a mere whimsy.
 

What really irked the college — and the very expensive witnesses they called — was that Hamm sometimes identified as a nurse when she used social media to expand on her mainstream views about sex, gender and women’s safe spaces.
 

Hamm first got into trouble with the 2020 billboard supporting the Harry Potter author whose gender critical views have also come under fire.
 

A complaint about the billboard started an investigation by the college’s inquiry committee which resulted in a ridiculous 332-page report about Hamm’s off-duty tweets, articles and other online musings.
 

Hamm found herself being prosecuted for such things as writing, “trans activists determined to infiltrate or destroy women-only spaces” which is discriminatory, according to the disciplinary panel, because it has “a negative connotation of improper, illegal, aggressive, and destructive conduct.”
 

Another problematic post read, “Is there anything more embarrassing than straight people going by they/them, getting a dumb haircut, and calling themselves trans and queer?” which is apparently offensive because it “indirectly disparages transgender people.”
 

The 332-pages morphed into a 20-day disciplinary hearing spread over 19 months. Hamm was eventually
found guilty
of professional misconduct because of four instances where she identified herself as a nurse while apparently making “discriminatory and derogatory” comments.
 

However, as Hamm pointed out: there was no “direct victim”; complainants were “ideological opponents”; no patients were involved and no trans-identified people came forward to provide evidence of harm.
 

But none of that mattered. What mattered was only the “likelihood that trans-identified people would find her statements to be discriminatory and derogatory.”
 

Thus Hamm was punished, not for any harm, but the risk of harm.
 

It was similar reasoning that saw Christian singer Sean Feucht
banned
from so many Canadian venues — for safety reasons which were never detailed.
 

Again, the same rationale — security issues — saw the Toronto International Film Festival
pull
the documentary
The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue
about one family’s experience in Israel on October 7, 2023. (TIFF has now reversed course.)
 

These things are happening, not because we have turned into a nation of “wee timorous beasties,” but because too many organizations have aggregated to themselves the power to decide what is acceptable or not for Canadians to watch, read and hear.
 

The Hamm case is even more disconcerting when you consider the lengths a professional body will go to in terms of energy, resources, money and punishment dished out, to enforce its own particular censorious ideology.
 

Hamm, a nurse for 13 years with an unblemished record, was terminated by Vancouver Coastal Health without severance after the guilty decision. She has not found another nursing job, writes some opinion columns (including for National Post) and is a single mother who receives no child support.
 

Still, the disciplinary panel considered $93,000 in legal costs was not punitive.
 

Who are they kidding?
 

As noted by Hamm during the hearing, “a significant penalty would convey to professionals that they should not speak up on controversial matters based on conscience.”
 

Part of the costs included $38,197.80 to pay for one of the College’s experts, Dr. Greta Bauer, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University, and the Sex and Gender Science Chair for the Canadian Institute of Health Information.
 

It was this very expensive witnesses (whose fee was cut from $63,663 to $38k) who enlightened the college with profound insights that included: it was proper to call mothers “birthing people” because inclusivity was so important; who disagreed “that there are only two sexes” and that “humans cannot change their sex,” and who thought that Hamm was frivolous for saying, “I don’t think it’s possible for women to defend their legal rights, or even the definition of womanhood if anybody can say they’re a woman and it will be so.”
 

Yet Hamm was only saying years ago what others, including the United Nations, are saying now.
 

In a stunning report last month, Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, wrote a full-throated defence of biological sex.
 

The “erosion of women and sex specific language, the conflation of sex, gender and gender identity” was weakening protection for mothers, women and girls, she
wrote
. The legal definition of a women was in danger of being erased, she said.
 

In punishing Hamm, the panel accepted she was sincere in her beliefs.
 

“The Panel accepts that the Respondent’s statements were motivated by her genuine belief that recognition of the rights of transgender women harms the sex-based rights of cisgender women and children.”
 

But in the end, the tyrannical overlords at the college wanted their pound of flesh and were not concerned with Hamm’s motivation, her Charter-protected rights, that she was off duty when she posted online, or that she never actually harmed one single person.
 

In Canada, you are guaranteed the right to free speech, but it might cost you $93,000 for saying it.
 

National Post

• Amy Hamm: I spoke the truth about women’s rights. That isn’t professional misconduct
• Michael Higgins: Musician and pastor Sean Feucht raises community ire by cancelling himself

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Before Pierre Poilievre, before Brian Mulroney, there was one leader who made the federal Conservatives an electoral force to be reckoned with. Before John Diefenbaker, Canada had begun to resemble a Liberal one-party state. Bob Plamondon, author of the new book “Freedom Fighter: John Diefenbaker’s Battle for Canadian Liberties and Independence,” talks with Brian Lilley about how Dief became a political sensation bigger than any other prime minister; how he stood against the Soviets, while standing up to America; and championed equality before it was fashionable. And Plamondon explains how the three-time prime minister created the blueprint for the common-man conservatism that animates the party even today, turning the Tories “from a party of losers into a party of winners.” (Recorded June 26, 2025.)

• Geoff Russ: Diefenbaker was a victim of foreign interference — just like Canada today
• Bob Plamondon: Diefenbaker was a prime minister who knew how to stand up to the U.S.

Earlier this month, the B.C. Supreme Court

refused to overturn

the

decision

of British Columbia’s Hospital Appeal Board that resulted in Dr. Theresa Szezepaniak being suspended, and effectively fired, for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Szezepaniak argued that she should not have been disciplined for refusing to follow Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry’s October 2021 public health order (PHO), which required all doctors and nurses working in hospitals to be vaccinated.

Szezepaniak told the court that her being disciplined left a “black mark” on her reputation and violated her Charter right to life, liberty and security of the person, which, she argued, “includes the right to earn an income to support oneself and family.”

Judge Steven Wilson (a Liberal appointee) disagreed. Wilson dismissed the case and concluded that the Charter doesn’t apply, at all, to the circumstances.

It is unfortunate — but unsurprising — news for all British Columbians who have been disciplined and fired for the same reason.

Earlier this year, B.C. saw

another court case

, this one directly challenging the vaccine mandate, dismissed as “moot” at the B.C. Court of Appeal. The case became “moot,” according to the court, after Henry rescinded her mandatory vaccination order. As such, a case that had the potential to create a precedent on freedom from governmental medical coercion was stopped dead in its tracks.

It would appear as though the judiciary is bending over backwards in order to excuse the draconian public health orders that were issued during the pandemic. The Szezepaniak case fundamentally boiled down to whether the punitive actions taken by the hospital were subject to the Charter of Rights.

Most reasonable Canadians would surely agree that given that the Charter applies to the actions of the provincial government, the consequences of an order issued by the province’s chief public health officer and implemented by a government-funded public hospital would also be subject to it.

But Wilson ruled that, “The decision to require all health-care workers including physicians to be vaccinated in order to practice in hospitals was made by the public health officer by way of the PHO. However, the decision regarding how to discipline the hospital medical staff for their breach of the PHO was not subject to governmental control under the Hospital Act, as the responsibility for adopting disciplinary measures for governmental policies rests with the IHA Board.”

In other words, although the government mandated that all health-care workers must be vaccinated, since it didn’t say that unvaccinated staff had to be disciplined or fired, it cannot be said that Szezepaniak’s Charter rights were infringed.

Judge Wilson drove this point home when he wrote: “This case is not about whether the petitioner could be compelled to be vaccinated. Rather, the focus is on the consequences that flow from her decision to decline the vaccine.”

The court has decided that losing one’s job and reputation is no big deal — not the sort of thing that is consequential enough to admit the glaring truth: British Columbians were coerced into taking a vaccine in order to prevent unacceptable and catastrophic consequences in their lives, but those who refused also faced unacceptable consequences for which no one is willing to take responsibility.

Eleven days after Henry issued her PHO on mandatory COVID vaccinations, Szezepaniak, according to her appeal board decision, sent a letter requesting an exemption be made for her on the basis that the order was a violation of her Charter rights. Her letter “also included numerous requests for information related to disclosure of scientific evidence regarding the vaccines and how Charter requirements were being met,” according to the decision.

Szezepaniak’s exemption was denied, and she received no answers to her inquiries. All told, her vaccine refusal forced her to sell her home, move her family, take a job considered (in medicine) a demotion and to disclose to all future employers that she was disciplined and suspended.

Judge Wilson decided that Szezepaniak’s hospital was not acting as a direct agent of the government when it disciplined her — a legal technicality that absolved all parties from considering whether her Charter rights had been violated (though Wilson listed reasons he believes a Charter violation didn’t occur, regardless).

It doesn’t matter how you feel about vaccines. What matters is how much you care about your freedoms — and how much longer you are willing to accept the line that anyone who chooses to fully exercise theirs deserves all of the “consequences” inflicted upon them as a result.

National Post

• Amy Hamm: The Order of Canada has been exposed as a sham
• Amy Hamm: Bonnie Henry only lifted vaccine mandate when it became a threat to the NDP

Saint John’s International Culturefest, according to the festival’s website, is supposed to be “a vibrant celebration of multiculturalism, community, and connection.” But it erupted into chaos on Aug. 2, when demonstrators gathered around an Israel booth, engaging in what some members of the Jewish community have described as threatening and intimidating behaviour culminating in an alleged assault and two arrests. No statement was made by the committee organizing the festival or the local police. The story was largely ignored by local media.

According to an email forwarded to National Post, written by Lorie Cohen Hackett, president of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum, a demonstration at the festival felt threatening to those volunteering at the Israel booth. Cohen tells members of the museum that both Shaarei Zedek synagogue and the museum “hope for a peaceful and satisfactory resolution.” 

Below her message is one from Bruce Washburn, president of Shaarei Zedek synagogue, who describes to members of his congregation events leading up to an alleged altercation at the booth. According to Washburn, on Friday, Aug. 1, the evening before the International Culturefest, the Israeli flag at the event had been spray painted and had to be replaced with another from the synagogue on Saturday morning.

But this wasn’t all that happened.

On Saturday Aug. 2, at the festival Washburn describes as “an annual celebration of international cultures,” anti-Israel protesters with face coverings “invaded the Israeli space and shot at those attending the booth with water guns filled with red water.”

Washburn noted that when the volunteers “attempted to protect their space, one was physically assaulted, breaking her glasses.” He told congregants, in his email, that the “guarantees of security for the event from the Culturefest Committee were not fulfilled, and there was no apparent police presence at the time of the incident. The incident ended with the arrest of two of the protesters, based on the assault.”

Washburn ended his email saying that the Board of the Congregation “is actively seeking legal advice and remains committed to doing everything we can to restore safety and peace for the Jewish and Israeli community in Saint John and surrounding areas.”

Mohamed Bagha, Managing Director of the Saint John Newcomer’s Centre, which is responsible for the festival, declined a request for comment.

According to Sgt. Shawna Fowler of the Saint John police department, at approximately 2:30 p.m. on the Saturday, police responded to a “call about protesters making their way to the festival.” She pointed out that the caller described them as “Palestinian demonstrators.” Fowler also said that “calls were also received by attendees of the festival who described the protesters as wearing red bags over their heads, carrying signs, and one person was wearing a military uniform and carrying a gun later determined by police to be a water gun filled with red liquid. The protesters were at the Israel booth kneeling, chanting, and facing the crowd.”

According to Fowler, when the police arrived, “organizers advised that an incident had taken place at the Israel table,” and that a woman had been assaulted.

“A female along with witnesses alleged that she was assaulted by a masked protester,” Fowler said. “The police arrested a youth for the assault,” and, “as police were placing the youth under arrest, an adult male, unrelated to the assault was arrested for obstruction.” Both have been released and the adult will appear in court on Nov. 4.

Fowler explained that “police are considering additional charges related to hate crime pending the outcome of the investigation.”

Multiple videos showing the nature of protests were posted to Facebook.

Shortly after the police arrived at the festival, a post was created by Mohamed Elazab, the administrator of a Facebook group called

Ask Saint John

, at 4:02 pm ET. The

post

is titled, “Concerning Incident at the Multicultural Fest in Saint John.” In the post, Elazab complains that the Saint John police arrested and detained a minor who, he claims, was “peacefully protesting in a public space.” He goes on to say that his attached video proves that the minor was “peacefully protesting in a public space.”

Elazab then went on to further complain that when the protesters were arrested, officers did not disclose their names, activate body cameras, or inform the minor or his father for the reason of the detention. He then states that videos are attached for full transparency.

While the three videos don’t capture the alleged assault, what they do capture is an intimidating, threatening circus involving adults and children.

In the

first video

, before the arrests, a camera is pointed directly at the Israel booth and its volunteers. What appears in front of the camera is chaotic.

Three women in headscarves and one without face the booth, clapping as they chant: “1,2,3,4 — Occupation no more! 5,6,7,8 — Israel is a terrorist state!”

In front of the women, a man can be seen to their left holding a sign that says, “This is the

only

culture Israel has.” as he walks around a circle of individuals, including what appears to be young children, sitting on the ground with bags over their heads and their hands behind their backs while two men wearing army gear and helmets stand there with their faces covered.

A man to the right of the camera wearing a hat and sunglasses appears, motions his arms to the demonstrators, and says “Go away,” several times, shaking his head. A woman with a hijab moves closer and starts to film him with her phone.

The man recording the video then says, “Freedom of speech!”

The man with the hat replies, “This is not the time and place for this. This is a place to celebrate differences.”

At this point, one of the army-clothed, helmet-wearing, face-covered individuals can be seen carrying a water gun, possibly the gun that was allegedly filled with red water which was pointed and shot at the Israel booth volunteers.

The man holding the camera yells, “Free Palestine!” The camera pans to the left to show others joining the chant which has switched to “No more murders! No more lies!”

In front of the Israeli booth, two women can be seen holding the Israel flag, which, if what Washburn said is true, is a replacement for the one which was spraypainted the evening before. This whole time, a woman with a headcovering has been holding what appears to be two fake dead babies directly in front of the booth, one could argue impeding, or at least deterring, it from being visited by festival goers.

What appears to be the

second video

is only 30 seconds long. This one, taken by a woman, shouting various phrases, including, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as she and others appear to move closer to the two volunteers at the booth.

What happens next is unclear. It looks as if one of the women at the Israel booth extends her phone into the crowd immediately front of her. Then, she backs up, presumably into the booth. The other female volunteer puts both of her hands up to signal stop.

The

third video

, taken by a different person than the first two, shows police officers arresting one of the individuals who was wearing army gear and a helmet with their faces covered. Objections ring out from those supporting the demonstrators. One woman in a headscarf complains as he’s arrested, “He’s a minor!” She follows the police with a camera as they remove him from the area.

“This is a public space,” is yelled out by the man who was recording earlier, along with, “Freedom of speech!” over and over and over, again.

The camera then pans to another individual who is being arrested. He’s wearing a red bag over his head and must be the adult who was arrested and charged.

A demonstrator in a jailbird jumpsuit yells, “You’re arresting kids now. We have kids in this. You IDF mother——s. Support Israel, you b—ch!”

Then demonstrators, some cloaked in headscarves and keffiyehs and some not, start following the police as they remove the man who puts his finger in the air, with the red bag still over his head, and yells, “Freedom of Speech!”

Later in the video, the police are confronted by protesters holding phones in their faces. One woman yells at them, “You guys are terrorists! Stealing… kidnapping children off the streets!” The individual in the jailbird suit yells, “The Saint John police are arresting a minor without parental consent!” The Saint John police are f—ing Nazis!”

At the end of the video, an individual instructs the man in the jailbird suit to “record everything” and “take them to the court…. “You will win it…. You will make them pay money, by the way… “Come here, I will tell you what to do. “Ask for the badge number and name and the reason for detention. You need to ask for this. Then you need to take them make a statement in the police. Don’t be violent, okay?

“I’m not violent, I’m just blathering,” the jailbird answers him.

“Just say, freedom of speech, or whatever.” The video ends with the jailbird following these instructions and asking an officer for their badge number.

What about freedom from intimidation, harassment, and allegedly, violence?

According to Esti Barlevy, the volunteer at the booth who wasn’t allegedly assaulted, organizers of the festival had warned both the Newcomer’s Centre and police that a protest had been planned for that day, and that they were concerned about safety. Still, she says, police left the area early and returned only after the alleged assault.

According to Barlevy, organizers had assured volunteers at the Israeli booth that police would be present, but they left early. She says that around 2 p.m., a pro-Palestinian rally marched into the festival and stopped in front of their booth.

Barlevy told National Post that, “At some point, protesters came very close to us shouting, threatening, and defacing our materials by spraying red ink from water guns onto our books, our flag, and even the volunteers at the booth. When one of our female volunteers attempted to stop them from coming at us, she was punched in the face, sustaining a mild concussion and damage to her glasses.” (Saint John police did not confirm the details of the assault). Not long afterward, police arrived and arrested two individuals.

Barlevy describes it as “a deeply frightening experience,” which makes her “long for the Canada (she) once knew, a place where everyone, no matter their background, could feel safe. We came here with dreams of building a better future for our children, believing Canada was a place of peace, acceptance, and respect.” Barlevy came to Canada from Israel in 2015.

Local media were either unaware of, or ignored the story. No statements were made to the public by the local police or the festival’s manager.

What did make it to the

local news

that day was an announcement from Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, that $61,000 would be invested in the festival by the federal government.

Guilbeault’s

statement

about the investment notes that it is to support “events that celebrate Canada’s cultural diversity strengthens communities by bringing people together and providing a platform to share our stories, heritage and traditions, helping build a stronger, more united Canada.”

This year’s Saint John International Culturefest appeared to do the opposite.

National Post

@TLNewmanMTL

tnewman@postmedia.com

• Michael Taube: Of course globally focused Carney hasn’t opened his constituency office yet
• Opinion: Europe faces the Koreanization of Ukraine

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that he would negotiate a ceasefire deal for Ukraine at his Alaska summit last Friday. Yet, he failed and found himself once again outplayed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who got
much of what he wanted
from the White House while conceding fairly little. Though Trump now seems to support the idea of ceding a key Ukrainian province in exchange for giving Kyiv NATO-style security guarantees, the details here, or lack thereof, warrant a great deal of pessimism.

Expectations for the summit were low from the beginning amongst the Ukrainians I spoke with in Odesa, as well as influential online political commentators in the country, as many suspected that the event’s existence would simply delay harsher sanctions against Russia and its trading partners.

While European and American lawmakers have been eager to economically punish Moscow for months, Trump
has intervened
whenever they have moved to do so and has repeatedly insisted that, based on his friendly conversations with Putin, Ukraine and its allies should commit to peace talks instead.

But these talks have invariably failed, thanks to Russia’s
unreasonable demands
. Among other things, Putin has insisted that a negotiated settlement can only be achieved if Ukraine cedes four of its provinces — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — and that the Ukrainians scrap all of their international security alliances and “demilitarize” themselves by shrinking their armed forces to a token size.

Such concessions would guarantee Ukraine’s future vassalization or full annexation, especially because most of the current frontlines, and ergo most of the country’s defensive fortifications, are located within these provinces. As such, Kyiv has never been in a position to agree to Russia’s maximalist terms: how can a government willingly accede to its nation’s future dismemberment?

While Ukraine’s European allies
have long understood
that Putin is not serious about peace, Trump seemed to only grasp this fact last month. Citing Russia’s relentless attacks upon Ukrainian civilians, the American president’s rhetoric towards Russia
abruptly soured
. He accused Putin of spewing “bulls–t” and “meaningless” talk, and issued an ultimatum: sign a ceasefire by early August or face the consequences.

But then the deadline came and nothing really happened.

Rather than
impose 100 per cent tariffs
on Russia and its trading partners, as had been threatened, Trump only slapped a
25 per cent tariff
on India, the world’s second-largest purchaser of Russian oil and gas, while sparing other customers. He concurrently announced his Alaska summit, and argued that further sanctions should wait amid renewed peace talks.

The development was perplexing: why had Trump suddenly regained his faith in Putin? And why did he have any reason to believe that a deal could be found if Russia had not given any indication that it would seriously rethink its demands? Yet his optimism seemed earnest, as his behind-the-scenes
lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize
intensified around this time.

In the lead up to the summit, U.S. officials reportedly offered Russia
access to Alaska’s natural resources
— especially rare earth minerals — if a peace deal were signed. The event’s guest list suggested that Russo-American economic cooperation might be a major theme, echoing Trump’s previous fixation on the potential value of a trade alliance.

Perhaps the idea was to strike some grand bargain — one that could not only bring peace to Europe, but
peel Russia away from China
and lock Beijing out of the Arctic. If these were indeed the White House’s aspirations, they were quickly shattered.

On the day of the summit, Putin and his entourage were given a
red carpet entrance
. They
allegedly came armed
with a trove of historical documents which, according to them, showed that Ukraine is an artificial nation and that Ukrainians are, in fact, nothing more than wayward Russians. Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov wore
jeans and a sweater
bearing the letters “CCCP” (cyrillic for “USSR”) — curiously, no one hectored him for not wearing a suit.

The symbolism was clear: Moscow’s representatives did not recognize the cultural, let alone political, independence of Ukraine, and
remained nostalgic
for Russia’s erstwhile Soviet glory, imperium and all.

At the beginning, everyone seemed happy. The two presidents shared a short, private limousine ride together, with Trump
smiling like a child
meeting his favourite celebrity. Then the delegations came together for their private negotiations and, although the Kremlin had originally estimated that these talks would last six or seven hours, something
evidently went wrong
: just three hours later, both sides walked out, stonefaced.

The presidents held a “press conference” where no questions were permitted. No ceasefire deal had been made, but Trump said that they had come to an “agreement” on unspecified points, while Putin alluded to an “understanding” between the two men. Putin
dominated the podium
, speaking for eight minutes and expounding on Alaska’s Russian history, while Trump, normally so loquacious, spoke for only three.

Documents
discovered in the public printer
of a nearby hotel indicate that the White House had originally planned to host a luncheon “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin,” but that was abruptly cancelled. The Russians flew home early, but nonetheless saw the meeting as a victory: had they not shown that they were equals to the Americans, and that they were not, in fact, diplomatically isolated?

Although Trump had said, on his way to Alaska, that
he would impose
“severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to an immediate ceasefire, none materialized. In fact, after the summit,
Trump pivoted
and denied that a ceasefire deal was necessary at all, and argued that Russia and Ukraine should focus on negotiating a full peace agreement first, and that other countries should refrain from imposing new sanctions while talks continue.

This was a huge win for Moscow, which has
long insisted
that any ceasefire should come at the end of the peace process, not the beginning, presumably so Russian forces can press their advantages and weaken Kyiv’s negotiation position. So not only did Trump save the sputtering Russian economy from tougher sanctions for the foreseeable future, he also reframed the entire peace process to better suit Moscow’s needs.

After the summit, Trump briefed Zelenskyy and several allied leaders on Putin’s demands. He
reportedly
told them that Putin had proposed freezing the frontlines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for receiving full control of the Donetsk province — which is a plan that Trump
reportedly now supports
.

But this would be disastrous. Ukraine spent the past 11 years
establishing a “fortress belt” of heavily fortified cities
and towns in the centre of Donetsk, which now serve as the core of the country’s defences. Russia has tried to conquer this belt for over a year, but has seen only very slow and costly progress. Ceding this territory would leave central Ukraine exposed, and would require Kyiv to quickly rebuild its fortifications in bordering provinces where the terrain is poorly suited for defence. In contrast, the benefits of freezing the frontlines in Zarporzhzhia and Kherson would be marginal, as Russia does not have any momentum there.

To put things another way: though Putin slightly diluted his demands (by focusing on Donetsk, and not all four provinces), the consequences of his proposal would remain catastrophic. There is no reason why Ukraine should give away its shield for nothing.

However, on Sunday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff

said
that during the Alaska summit Putin agreed to have the United States and European countries provide Ukraine with NATO-style security guarantees, without formal NATO membership, as part of the peace deal. Also Sunday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the plan, though U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was less definitive on specific American security guarantees. Further complicating things, reporting by Axios suggests that Putin proposed including
China
as a security guarantor.

While this sounds promising, the devil will be in the details. Back in early 2022, during the first round of Istanbul peace talks, Moscow proposed establishing a coalition of security guarantors for Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv’s demilitarization and Russian annexation of Ukrainian land. The caveat, though, was that Russia wanted to be one of

these guarantors

, and wanted a system where any guarantor could veto the military intervention of any other member. In other words: these security guarantees would have been useless — a scam, really — because Moscow would have had control over whether they were exercised.

Given the inconsistent messaging coming out of Washington and the allegation that Russia wants China, its close ally, inserted into any security assurances for Ukraine, a heaping dose of skepticism is warranted — at least until more details are disclosed. Promises can be cheap, misleading and rife with loopholes. This is a reality that Ukrainians sorely understand, given that, in 1994,

they gave up their nuclear arsenal

in exchange for American and Russian security guarantees that turned out to be useless.

With Zelenskyy now slated to visit the White House on Monday, one has to wonder: will the United States embrace appeasement, and, if so, will it expect Ukraine to do the same?

National Post