The United States pressed Canada on the protection of the French language and our culture until the very last minute of negotiations. That is Prime Minister Mark Carney’s account. Reporting on the leaked terms adds that Ottawa was asked to scupper its digital legislation. Not amend it. Not delay it. Drop it.

The American side disputes the characterization. Trade representative Jamieson Greer calls Canada’s streaming rules “the farthest thing from the red line,” and Canada’s minister for trade with the U.S., Dominic LeBlanc, has welcomed Washington’s withdrawal of its positions on language and culture. Take Greer at his word. He still confirms that American negotiators had questions about online streaming rules, and he listed “digital trade alignment” among the things a deal would contain. A demand that can be withdrawn can be made again.

Quebec’s Bill 109 , An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec, was adopted unanimously by the National Assembly last December and will require streaming platforms and device makers to surface French-language content for Quebec users. Its constitutionality is contested, because broadcasting has long been federal ground; that argument belongs to Canadian judges applying the division of powers.

A foreign government put the repeal of Canadian statutes on a tariff schedule and came close to getting it. That is the logical end of a bargain Canada has been making quietly, and without argument, since the first free trade agreement.

Whether our laws survive is a question for our courts.

I spent my career on the free trade side of it. I advised Ontario’s cabinet committee during the original NAFTA negotiations and the government of British Columbia during its implementation. Open markets made Canadians richer, and I would make that case again tomorrow. Having sat through those early trade rooms, I can tell you we never intended free trade to mean regulatory surrender.

Somewhere along the way we confused two things. Neoliberalism was an argument for restraining our own government. In the digital economy we turned it into an argument for not governing at all, and assumed a rulebook we declined to write would stay blank. It filled with somebody else’s.

A market is a set of rules: property that can be owned, contracts a court will enforce, entry that is possible for a firm with a better product and no incumbent’s permission. Someone writes those rules. The only question is who. For thirty years, the answer was somebody else.

I agree with the familiar complaint about Canadian economic policy, then part company with it. Ottawa protects the wrong things.

It shelters cartels in banking, telecom, airlines and dairy, which raises prices on Canadians and manufactures most of the irritants that dominate every negotiation we enter, and it then declines to protect competition in the one market where Canadian firms are price-takers with nowhere to go. We were promised that a fat, lazy incumbent invites competition. Digital markets run the other way. The more users a platform has, the more data it gathers and the better it gets at keeping them, so the leader pulls further ahead each year. Nobody catches up from behind.

We over-govern where we should compete. We under-govern where we are being farmed.

Take the market Canadian businesses actually buy in. An advertiser bids for inventory on an exchange owned by the company, Google, that also owns the publisher’s ad server. In April 2025 an American federal court found that arrangement illegal . Canada’s Competition Bureau filed its own case in November 2024, and twenty-one months on, the Tribunal has disposed of a preliminary motion while the liability hearing has not started.

Now consider what Washington calls unfair. The 2026 National Trade Estimate Report lists, among barriers to American trade in Canada, an entry titled Sovereign Cloud Initiative, whose offence was that Shared Services Canada asked suppliers whether Ottawa’s own data could stay in Canada. A question about a purchase, filed as a trade barrier. Two entries above sits Buy Canadian, which gives Canadian bidders a 10 per cent credit at evaluation and excludes nobody.

The Buy American Act of 1933 adds 20 per cent to a foreign bid before it is weighed against a domestic one, 30 for a small business, 50 at the Pentagon. The Berry Amendment, a 1941 law requiring the pentagon to buy its food, clothing and textiles from American producers, has never been waived under any trade agreement the United States has signed.

A 10 per cent preference is a barrier. Fifty per cent is policy.

Which brings up the digital services tax. Nobody need mourn it. It was clumsy, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s $7.2 billion was a projection, never a dollar collected. Its merits are a separate argument from who ended it and what Canada got. Ottawa repealed its own statute under pressure and received no named thing in return. A country that repeals its own laws for nothing is not negotiating. It is being invoiced.

None of this argues for what readers of this newspaper reasonably fear. I propose no new agency, no new levy, no regulator to supervise the internet. The instruments that matter are the ordinary powers of an owner and a customer. Ottawa has spent nearly $1.3 billion on American cloud since 2021 while announcing a sovereign cloud of its own. It can set terms on what it buys: who owns the intellectual property, where the data sits, what a vendor discloses to the customer paying. Every business in this country writes such terms.

Canada will sit at the CUSMA table every year until 2036, and it cannot negotiate what it has not built.

Free markets get built, defended and repaired by people prepared to say what fair means inside their own borders. We spent a generation calling our refusal to do that a principle. The bill arrived two weeks ago.

Barry Appleton is the interim director of the Balsillie Legal Advisory Centre at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, adjunct professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, managing partner of Appleton & Associates International Lawyers LP, and a co-director of the Center for International Law at New York Law School. He is the author of Navigating NAFTA.

• Barry Appleton: Ontario paid for the map that renamed its lake. It shouldn’t have
• Vincent Geloso: A century ago, Canada tried tariff retaliation. It did nothing

As most Canadians are aware, Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” the latest in his meme obsessed attempts to wage psychological war on Canadians. The move elicited a range of reactions across Canada, from defiance to bewilderment to laughter at the move.

Many conservatives correctly pointed out, to all the people outraged at Trump’s move, that renaming objects and places for political ends was not unfamiliar to Canada. Canadian progressives have spent the better part of a decade doing just that, think of the Langevin Block that became the Office of the Prime Minister, the now Toronto Metropolitan (formerly Ryerson) University, Sankofa square in Toronto (formerly Dundas), the Kichi Zībī Mīkan (formerly the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway in Ottawa), and the list could go on. Many conservatives, myself included, opposed these various name changes to serve ideological ends, and oppose the President’s latest troll as well.

But this reaction from some conservatives, must not lead into a misplaced national self-loathing. A small slice of the Canadian right, the part that has spent a year and a half insisting Trump is not really a threat or wrong in his insults, have revelled in Trump’s mockery of our country with an implicIt “we deserve it” attitude. Canada is a woke, weak, poor and pathetic country in the minds of some of these people that deserve what its getting.

The late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton decades ago coined a useful word for this. But at the time, he was describing a habit prevalent amongst left wing intellectuals, not the right. The term is “oikophobia” which means “hatred of home.” In his book England and the Need for Nations, Scruton wrote:

“the seeming loss of national loyalty is a feature of our political élites … (who) have repudiated the national idea … No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognised: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us,’ and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ‘ours.’ Being the opposite of xenophobia I propose to call this state of mind oikophobia, by which I mean (stretching the Greek a little) the repudiation of inheritance and home. Oikophobia is a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes. But it is a stage in which some people — intellectuals especially — tend to become arrested. As George Orwell pointed out, intellectuals on the Left are especially prone to it, and this has often made them willing agents of foreign powers.”

Scruton was writing about the contempt with which Britain’s left wing intellectuals had come to treat their own country, but the description of “the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us’” feels especially apt to describe this now latent right wing form of oikophobia.

Conservatives have been quoting that passage for decades, and it does capture the impulse behind toppling of statues, renouncing of national history and renaming anything that associates us with our history. So it is a genuine sad state of affairs that that last line quoting Orwell about this impulse to side with foreign powers now describes a small subset of conservatives in 2026.

None of this is an argument for uncritical patriotism. You can think this country has serious problems, that the last decade has been a lost one for younger Canadians, that Ottawa is dysfunctional, and that Carney’s government has mismanaged the relationship with Washington, and still want the place fixed precisely because you love your country and not the opposite. Criticism of the government of the day or present state of affairs is not oikophobia, and the danger in times like the moment we are living in right now where passions are high is to create a binary where unless you are blindly uncritical of the government you are disloyal. This is wrong, but conservatives must guard against the impulse to go further and sink into a national form of self-loathing that leads you to siding with a foreign president insulting and demeaning our country.

There is an emerging “blame Canada” camp amongst some conservatives. They seem to think that somehow Prime Minister Mark Carney, because he responded to Trump’s tariffs with our own tariffs is responsible for starting this trade war. They argue that because the Liberals have spent the last while blocking Canada’s resource sector, pushing jobs and investment out of the country, and underinvesting in our military that Trump is right to mock, insult and attack us.

But it goes deeper. For some of these people, they seem to positively delight in the treatment. The dumb things Trump and his sycophants say, especially on social media, should not ultimately concern us. It’s designed to incite a reaction. But the response to it from some quarters is revealing. Last week Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of War, posted a picture of two young Canadian army cadets because of their weight, just saying “this is real.” The subtext was obvious and fits the now established anti-Canadian sentiment in MAGA land that views Canada as some sort of woke hellhole worthy of mockery. Hegseth was widely condemned but there was a subset of conservatives who delighted in seeing this mockery and cheering it on. These people share the view that Canada is a country deserving of mockery.

In a way, it’s a bizarre example of horseshoe theory. The moralistic progressive who loathes Canada and its history, and cheers on renaming places and toppling statues, doesn’t, at first glance, have much in common with these right wing Canadian Trump fans, but what they do share is oikophobia. They both see this country as a shameful embarrassment, and end up siding with “them,” against “us” as Scruton put it.

The opposite of oikophobia for Scruton, is oikophilia, which means “love of home,” and for him this was the foundational basis of conservatism that comes prior to any partisan or policy beliefs. More than anything else, conservatism is about the protection of the places, communities and particular things that ground us and give meaning and purpose to our lives, from our families to our countries. This impulse should endure regardless of whether you agree with the particular policies of a government. It doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t criticize things when they go wrong or lament their decline, but it should never turn into a rejection of our homes.

So continue to criticize the government when it fails, point out the various problems that ail this country. But do not let this become a national form of self-loathing so deep that you find yourself celebrating the mockery of a cadet or the renaming of lakes. Oikophobia was once a disease that only left wing intellectuals were prone to, let’s try and keep it that way.

National Post

Ontario Liberals could be forgiven for feeling their oats a little in recent times.

They have consistently polled ahead of the Official Opposition NDP in province-wide surveys, and in some cases nudged ahead of the governing Progressive Conservatives, despite not having a permanent leader at the head of the party since Bonnie Crombie resigned in January.

The race to select that leader is in full swing, which tends to energize a party as the candidates sign up new members and paint visions of a province once again governed by the red inevitable machine.

But all of that was replaced by a cold bucket of water to the face on Thursday night, when the Liberals failed to win any of three provincial byelections, all in the greater Toronto area. Doug Ford’s Tories held on to Hamilton East-Stoney Creek and York-Simcoe, while the NDP maintained their seat in Scarborough Southwest.

As is always the case with byelections, there are caveats: Voter turnout was low, as were the stakes, with the Progressive Conservatives holding a comfortable majority at Queen’s Park. The winning PC candidates were local councillors who had built-in name recognition. Active provincial Liberals have also been busy with leadership campaigns, drawing time and resources away from those ridings that were up for grabs.

But it is also true that, had the Liberals managed a couple of wins on Thursday night, we would be awash in media coverage about their surge in fortunes, despite those same caveats about turnout and stakes. There would be stories about Ford’s ominous setback and the NDP’s forever struggles in the province.

That the Liberals didn’t win anything, and didn’t come particularly close to doing so, is instead evidence that whoever wins a leadership race that will not end until Nov. 21 will have a lot of work to do in improving the party’s electoral prospects. Any hope that the next leader will take over a government-in-waiting was quite undone by the evidence of this week.

Consider that all three by-elections took place in parts of the province where the Liberals will have to be competitive in the next election if they hope to form government, given their long-standing problems in rural Ontario. York-Simcoe, though a Tory stronghold under former cabinet minister Caroline Mulroney, is in an area north of Toronto that can swing to the Liberals federally or provincially depending on the prevailing mood.

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, meanwhile, was held federally by the Liberals for a decade before the Conservatives took it by a narrow margin last year, and in Thursday’s byelection the Liberals fell from second to third compared with the 2025 general election. It is not what you would call positive momentum.

“Is it the results we wanted? No,” said John Fraser, interim leader of the Liberals, who then said the party had been able to build some support, by narrowing the margin of defeat to the Conservatives in York-Simcoe, for example. “The whole process of what we did, even though we didn’t get the result, is momentum.”

Pressed on how zero wins show momentum, Fraser said the Liberals had “nothing to lose.” They didn’t hold any of the ridings, and they still don’t. That is definitely one way to spin it.

Fraser was speaking to reporters on Thursday night in Scarborough Southwest, which of the three ridings was the biggest disappointment for his party.

Former MP Nate Erskine-Smith resigned his seat in Parliament for neighbouring Beaches-East York in order to pursue the Liberal nomination in Scarborough, but lost a close race to Ahsanul Hafiz, who owns more than two dozen Domino’s franchises. Erskine-Smith had said the byelection would be the first step toward his campaign for the provincial Liberal leadership, which drew criticism that he was “using” Scarborough for his own political purposes.

He said provincial party employees had worked against his nomination and he ultimately challenged Hafiz’s narrow win, citing voting irregularities, but a panel dismissed Erskine-Smith’s appeal.

Asked about that messy process on Thursday night, Fraser said he was fine with the way it played out and confident that the nomination was fair. Hafiz said he was disappointed with the result but would not speculate on whether it might have gone differently absent the Erskine-Smith controversy.

Fatima Shabad, who won for the NDP in Scarborough with 40 per cent of the vote, 10 points ahead of Hafiz, received just five per cent of the vote in a federal byelection in the same riding in April. Doly Begum, the former NDP MPP who defected from the party in 2026 to run for the Mark Carney Liberals, won easily with 69.6 per cent support federally. It was Begun’s departure that opened up the Scarborough seat in Thursday’s provincial vote. (She did not campaign on Hafiz’s behalf.)

Once this week’s winners are sworn into the legislature, Ford’s PCs will have 79 seats and Marit Stiles and the NDP will hold 27.

The Liberals will remain at 14.

• Scott Stinson: Donald Trump gives Doug Ford the foil he desperately needed
• Doug Ford’s PCs hold two ridings, NDP holds another in Ontario byelections

In an odd way, U.S. President Donald Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario as Lake America demonstrates the limits of his power. Yes, Trump elicited the annoyed responses he hoped for from Canadian politicians. But the renaming is a symbolic gesture that binds only U.S. federal agencies. State governments and private entities in the U.S. can’t be required to use federal place names, and the order has even less clout beyond America’s borders. Relatively impotent though it is, renaming a body of water shared with another country is one of the few ways the president can provoke neighbors without risking a courtroom slap-down, as he’s received over tariffs . It’s still more power than a president should have.

In his Aug. 27 executive order, President Trump directed that “(w)ithin 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall, in coordination with the Board on Geographic Names and consistent with 43 U.S.C. 364 through 364f, take all appropriate actions to rename as ‘Lake America’ the body of water currently named as Lake Ontario.”

Sure enough, the secretary of the interior followed up with a directive “to immediately rename Lake Ontario to Lake America and to update the Geographic Names Information System to appropriately reflect the change.”

President Trump’s move came after the recent collapse of trade talks and amidst much cross-border verbal sniping by members of his administration and Canadian officials. Trump didn’t get what he wanted in the abortive talks, which was essentially U.S. government-managed commerce between the people of the two countries. He did, however, get a sought-for rise out of politicians north of the border.

Prime Minister Mark Carney quickly assured Canadians that they would continue to call the body of water “Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford shelled out taxpayer money to erect a sign vowing the body would be “Lake Ontario now and always.”

It turns out that, as much as the power of the U.S. presidency has grown beyond the bounds envisioned by the country’s founders, the office still operates within limits. Even in the era of what scholar Gene Healy called The Cult of the Presidency in his book by that name, presidential orders apply only to the executive branch. Affected federal agencies have wide, but finite reach.

According to a U.S. Geological Survey discussion of the limits of the federal government’s Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), “Federal agencies must use GNIS for the publication of map, products or other services. The decisions of the Board on Geographic Names (BGN) are only binding to federal departments and agencies. A state may maintain its own names database or have other policies that govern state map production, but typically and for consistency, they use the names in GNIS. Private mapping companies (e.g., Google Maps, Apple Maps, Esri) also use GNIS but are not required to do so.”

After the president’s “Lake America” executive order, many Canadians were dismayed to discover that digital mapping apps on which they rely displayed the name change. But that’s because most major tech companies, like Google and Apple , are based in the U.S. While they can use whatever names they please in their mapping software, it’s easier for the sake of mutual understanding — and government contracts — if they use U.S. federal conventions.

Also, American corporate executives are all too aware that, while government power is limited, recent presidents have shown a growing predisposition to abuse their control of the regulatory state to punish private firms that don’t bend to their will. President Obama did that to deter banks from offering financial services to businesses out of favour with his administration, President Biden followed suit to convince social media companies to muzzle criticism of public health policies and discussion of news stories the White House found inconvenient, and the Trump administration openly threatens denial of broadcast licenses to TV news networks it considers too hostile .

It’s safest for private firms to quickly satisfy government demands, and then quietly roll back compliance once the government’s attention drifts elsewhere.

As I write, if I leave my virtual private network’s (VPN — everybody should have one) location as my home state of Arizona, Google Maps displays “Lake America” to the north and the “Gulf of America” ( an earlier Trump scheme to annoy Mexican politicians ) to the south. If I switch my location to Vancouver, B.C., I see “Lake Ontario” to the north and “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)” to the south. Setting my location to Mexico City shows me “Lake Ontario” and “Gulf of Mexico.”

Just days after Trump renamed one of the Great Lakes, the effects are largely confined to American federal agencies and limited compliance by U.S.-based firms. And that limited compliance will likely go away — or switch to new politically motivated place names — with the advent of a new administration that seeks to stroke friends and provoke enemies with its own silly symbolism.

That is, President Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario is a cheap way to grab headlines and jab people who annoy him. It’s inconsequential posturing that gets people talking about the world’s preeminent troll.

More seriously, though, changing names on maps for fun and political gain is an abuse of power. It’s not on the same level as the arm-twisting via regulatory threats issued by Trump and his predecessors. But it’s one more example of the dangers of empowering government officials. Inevitably that power — even when it seems benign — will be abused. Changing the name of a lake via executive order isn’t dangerous in itself, but some of the reasons Google and Apple went along with the change illustrate the potential for regulatory powers to be used to bypass safeguards and coerce submission to the state.

If politicians are going to misuse administrative authority over place names to settle personal scores and abuse regulatory power over businesses to make private firms go along, that administrative authority and power shouldn’t exist. The controversy over the renaming of Lake Ontario is overblown, but the lesson it offers about overbearing government should be taken seriously.

National Post

• J.D. Tuccille: Canada can win at trade by ignoring Trump
• J.D. Tuccille: The progressive plan to loot Silicon Valley keeps getting worse

Name change ‘rightly evoked an emotional response’

Re: Trump signs executive order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America — Chris Knight, Aug. 27

President Donald Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America has rightly evoked an emotional response from Canadians. While “Lake America” will likely have the staying power of “Freedom Fries” — coined by Americans in 2003 when France wouldn’t support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — it is hard to ignore the irony that Canada has been renaming its own streets, towns and geographical features for the past decade. I hope this ordeal illustrates the practical folly of changing well-established names and reboots Canadians’ pride in their history and institutions.

Clint Stibbard, West Vancouver

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For generations, we’ve remembered the names of the Great Lakes by using the acronym HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.

With “Lake America,” we may need a new acronym: SHAME (Superior, Huron, America, Michigan, Erie).

A fitting one, unfortunately, for the state of Canada-U.S. trade talks.

Adina Silberman, Bronx, N.Y.

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It could be that renaming Lake Ontario is not merely a joke or another way for President Donald Trump to insult Canada. It could be a sneaky way for him to solve America’s freshwater shortage. Canada needs to fight this name change and ensure that our water rights on the lake (of which we own 53 per cent) are not diminished.

Morton Cohen, Toronto

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Donald Trump has now “renamed” both the Gulf of Mexico (“Gulf of America”) and Lake Ontario (“Lake America”).

Both these two pre-Columbian place names are of Indigenous origin. “Mexico” is said to have originated in the ethnonym Mexica, which referred to the Aztecs. As for “Ontario,” it comes from the Wendat word “Oniatarí:io,” which meant “great/beautiful lake” or “lake of shining waters.” The Wendat were displaced by the Iroquois, who retained the name. “America,” on the other hand, is a place name of European origin referring to the explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

By changing these centuries-old place names, the budding cartographer Trump is attacking not only Mexico and Canada, but also the heritage of the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas long before Christopher Columbus arrived.

Trump is also reported to be considering renaming an ocean. If he sets his sights on the Pacific Ocean, he will undoubtedly want to rename it the “Warrior Ocean.” Hasn’t he already renamed the Department of Defence the “War Department,” much to the delight of Pete Hegseth, the bellicose Secretary of War?

If this last change is adopted, it would have the added bonus (in Trump’s eyes) of displeasing the governor of California (whose coastline stretches for more than 1,300 kilometres along the Pacific) — Gavin Newsom, his fiercest opponent.

Sylvio Le Blanc, Montreal

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The rain does come

Re: Freeland calls Trump ‘bully in chief’ in scathing rebuke — Chris Knight, July 28

Chrystia Freeland, as Justin Trudeau’s finance minister, was fully complicit in his decision to massively increase Canada’s debt. But in the end, even she could not stomach the recklessness of those budgets, the willing blindness her boss showed as he spent on pet projects and programs while killing the goose laying golden eggs, and ignoring the unavoidable catastrophe to come. It took Freeland too long to realize that when Trudeau stated that it was his understanding that budgets balance themselves, he actually believed it.

And so in the end she left, with a letter that warned Trudeau that at decision times, it was important to remember that the storm clouds will come, that failing to save up for rainy days is an unforgivable error.

Trudeau, a wealthy man, took it for granted that rainy days merely meant flying to sunnier destinations. The plight of the rest of us was beyond his ken. And now his successor is faced with the difficult task of looking into a bare cupboard, and trying to find ways to feed a growing crowd of jobless, hungry people during an economic war.

One can only hope that in years to come, The Lesson of Justin Trudeau will become a mandatory course for all Canadians. No, one cannot spend oneself rich. No, budgets do not balance themselves. And no, we can’t all just board a private jet when the rain starts falling.

Tom Curran, Consecon, Ont.

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9/11 directive another reason to defund the CBC

Re: 9/11 widow ‘appalled’ as CBC bans references to ‘terrorist attacks’ — Ellie Hutchings, Aug. 28

The CBC may legitimately be viewed as adding value to Canada with its French language services and those provided to the northern parts of our country. That having been said, the fact that Canadian taxpayers must subsidize the national broadcaster indicates that it can’t compete commercially. That is to say that it can’t attract an audience because its programming is weak and of little interest to Canadians.

The political bias demonstrated by the CBC over the past decades is probably one reason its audience is small. To me, the outrage over the CBC directive (rescinded after blowback) that its writers not refer to 9/11 as a “terrorist” attack is exacerbated by the fact that 9/11 was perpetrated by Islamist terrorists (which the media is largely ignoring). In a time of heightened antisemitism, ironically ignited by another Islamist terrorist attack on 10/7, government-funded agencies’ partisanship should not be in any way contributing to it.

All the funding the CBC receives comes (grudgingly) from taxpayers, among them Maureen Basnicki, whose husband Ken died in the attack on the World Trade Center, and others who suffered personal losses, as well as those of us who have a very different point of view from that of CBC management.

I can choose to avoid media I find offensive, thereby lessening their audience and, as a result, impacting their revenues. I do avoid the CBC, but my audience participation doesn’t matter because I still have to pay. It’s time to shut down this biased and anachronistic organization. Defund the CBC.

John Harris, Toronto

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Canada’s got talent — why import academics?

Re: Harvard and MIT scholars head north as Mark Carney offers millions — Nojoud Al Mallees, Aug. 28

At a time when the United States is threatening to steamroll Canada, the Liberal foray into the world of academia is perplexing at best. Most Canadians were likely less than delighted to hear Federal Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announce that her government has poached 48 senior academics from the United States as part of a $504-million international recruitment drive that taxpayers will be funding. Even though a number of this cohort are returning Canadians, one would think that surely there are sufficient homegrown, bright Canadian minds still in Canada to render it unnecessary to have to poach American talent.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the late Carleton University professor Robin Matthews worked tirelessly in support of the Canadian Identity and advocated for the promotion of more Canadian talent in our universities. He would not be impressed by this latest Liberal sellout and lack of support for our Canadian intellectual talent.

Bob Erwin, Ottawa

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Place TMU under provincial trusteeship if necessary

Re: Toronto Metropolitan University is a disgrace — Michael Higgins, Aug. 17

Former Justice Mary Lou Benotto’s report on the scourge of antisemitism that plagues Toronto Metropolitan University, as disturbing as it is, comes as no surprise to anyone who has kept up to date on the goings-on at this unserious institution. Similar to its Montreal sister campus, Concordia University, it has frequently been a hotbed of student protest against whatever the prevailing social ill happens to be. (Recall the outrage against its former name of Ryerson in 2021?)

Since October 7, 2023, the protest du jour has been directed against Jews and their ancestral homeland, Israel. The feckless administration has been unable/unwilling to address the issue through expulsion of the culprits, defunding certain student associations, and legal action, where appropriate. The “Canadian” solution … a task force to study Benotto’s recommendations, is a pathetic response to a serious moral failure on the part of those in charge.

In spite of his erratic and sometimes outrageous behaviour, President Donald Trump had the courage to withhold funding from the worst antisemitic offenders in U.S. academia, including the “elite” Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Johns Hopkins universities. Ontario Premier Doug Ford needs to take similar action, and, if necessary, place this shameful institution under provincial trusteeship. As it currently stands, taxpayer money is being squandered on the altar of unbridled hatred.

Susan Silverman, Toronto

• Letters: Praying the feds see the light about Armed Forces chaplains
• Letters: Are we falling prisoner to Trumped-up falsehoods?

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‘Running out of time’ in fight against antisemitism

Re: Quitting Canada: Why I am moving to the United States — Ari Blaff, Aug. 14; and Jews must not give up hope — Canada is worth fighting for — Beryl Wajsman, Aug. 15

Both Ari Blaff and Beryl Wajsman were correct in their assessments of the plight of the Jewish community in Canada, although the arguments were framed differently.

Blaff was writing in context of Canada failing economically as well as morally, and Wajsman seemed to boil down the issue to that of “antisemitism,” while imploring the Jewish community to fight on.

The question to be asked is, how do we expect all this to end? We are fighting against an evil, irrational fury that cannot be defeated by logic or reason. Official Canada is proving to be completely impotent against the external malevolent forces that are exporting their treachery to Canadian institutions and culture. The Liberal government, now seemingly set to rule for the foreseeable future, can reasonably be called complicit in the assault on the Jewish community. Insidious forces have taken over much of the media, academia, unions, and governments at municipal and provincial levels. The NDP and other fringe parties and candidates are basing much of their desperate platforms on foreign policy propaganda and lies. Public schools seem more interested in indoctrination and political ideology than education. Can the Jewish community trust government agencies for fair treatment?

Ari Blaff’s recommendation of leaving Canada is quite reasonable. Historically, Jews have left many countries, and the decision has always proven to be correct. Beryl Wajsman’s advice to stay is hopeful and stoic, but in the end they are both small steps in a battle against a gargantuan enemy that is based in hatred, deceit, and ignorance.

Will a sudden, miraculous government decree magically eliminate the rot that exists in the institutions perpetuating the hatred against Jews? This hostility is now decades, if not generations away from being resolved. The community at large must recognize this assault on western civilization. We are running out of time; indeed, the violence has already started, and the conflict will not conclude peacefully.

Perry Medicoff (ex-pat), Lisbon, Portugal

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