It’s difficult to take President Donald Trump seriously when he claims a “national emergency” justifies invoking extraordinary powers but then keeps kicking the can down the road on addressing the alleged emergency. That’s what he did when he unilaterally imposed tariffs on the whole world based on a wildly broad reading of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) but then delayed levies because trade negotiations are underway. At the end of the day, if it’s all about leverage when bargaining with foreign emissaries, it’s not an emergency, and the president shouldn’t be acting on his own.

On April 2, when

announcing

“Liberation Day,” President Trump insisted that “foreign trade and economic practices have created a national emergency” that has “led to the hollowing out of our manufacturing base.” As a result, he said he was “invoking his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to address the national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit.”

However, on April 9, the White House released a

new executive order

suspending new, punitive tariff rates on most countries, excluding China, until July 9.

On May 12, in light of trade discussions with the People’s Republic of China, the president

suspended

some of the new tariffs on that country for 90 days.

On July 7, the White House released another

new executive order

extending the deadline for imposing higher tariffs on goods imported into the United States until August 1 “based on additional information and recommendations from various senior officials.”

Then, just last week, the president

delayed the implementation of new tariffs

— again excluding China — until October 5. The reason given was that trade partners have been “signaling their sincere intentions to permanently remedy the trade barriers that have contributed to the national emergency.”

This all may be brinksmanship and bare-knuckled haggling of the sort that extracted a

deal from the European Union

(which has sparked

finger-pointing among European officials

who resent their weakness put on public display). But extraordinary emergency powers aren’t intended to be used to give the president a better bargaining hand. They’re supposed to be used when there’s no time to consult Congress because of an actual emergency. In fact, IEEPA was passed to limit presidential authority because lawmakers thought the executive branch was going its own way far too often.

According to a 2024 report by the

Congressional Research Service

(CRS), the National Emergencies Act was passed in 1976 and IEEPA in 1977 after legislators “discovered that the United States had been in a state of emergency for more than 40 years.” During that time, presidents used earlier grants of emergency powers dating back to World War I to block the transfer of money across borders, seize assets held by foreign nationals, restrict exports, and otherwise unilaterally meddle in people’s business based upon the whims of whoever was in the White House during periods of international conflict and Cold War tensions with the Soviet Bloc.

Needless to say, an “emergency” that lasts 40 years isn’t really an emergency; it’s the ongoing state of the world. The new legislation was intended to rein in presidents, so they’d more readily consult with the legislative branch before conducting foreign economic policy. It didn’t work.

As the CRS goes on to document, IEEPA didn’t really limit presidential discretion in part because Congress never tried to terminate a national emergency. “National emergencies invoking IEEPA often last nearly a decade, although some have lasted significantly longer,” the CRS added. The emergency declared after U.S. embassy staff were taken hostage in Iran in 1979 is still in effect.

Despite that wildly broad authority and its enthusiastic implementation by presidents of both parties, there have been some limits to executive power under IEEPA. As of the 2024 publication of that report, no president had ever invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs. That makes sense, because tariffs are about taxing general trade between businesses and individuals in different countries. Despite much complaining about trade imbalances by American politicians across the political spectrum, nobody ever pretended that the flow of goods around the world and the places of their manufacture were “emergencies.” Until Donald Trump.

As Trump mentioned in his April 2 “Liberation Day” statement, he considers a large trade deficit to be a “national emergency” that justifies “responsive tariffs.” The problem with this position is that economists don’t consider trade deficits to be bad at all, let alone emergencies.

In February, George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux, and Phil Gramm, an economist and former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee,

pointed out

in The Wall Street Journal that “between 1890 and 2024, it is impossible to find a statistically significant correlation between America’s trade balance and its economic growth.”

Boston University economist Tarek Alexander Hassan

adds

that “a trade deficit can only arise if foreigners invest more in the U.S. than Americans invest abroad” and they’re willing to do so because the U.S. is a good place for everybody to make money.

Also complicating the Trump administration’s argument is that, despite the broad authority granted by IEEPA, the president is wielding power the law doesn’t grant his office.

Summarizing arguments heard last week in a federal lawsuit challenging the president’s use of IEEPA to impose tariffs, The Washington Post’s Jason Willick

observed

that the administration received “an icy reception.” He went on to point out that “the IEEPA is a sanctions and embargo law that doesn’t even mention tariffs,” making Trump’s interpretation of his power unprecedented. By all appearances, the administration’s claims were unconvincing to the panel of judges.

President Trump claims to see an emergency where nobody else does and addresses it by invoking extraordinary powers never envisioned by the law. All the while he acts like there’s no emergency at all.

The president has proven proficient at bargaining. But his desire to cut trade deals is no emergency.

National Post

• Ryan Painter: How bureaucrats almost stopped B.C. from saving a child’s life
• The inside story of how Gaza aid is diverted from the people who need it most

Following a wave of public

condemnation

, Montreal Pride has announced that it will no longer ban two Jewish groups from marching in its annual parade next Sunday and has issued an apology to Quebec’s Jewish community. The festival’s rapid reversal of the ban, which was announced last week, is a welcome development — but this incident should never have occurred in the first place.

In a

statement

last Wednesday, the festival broke its longstanding neutrality on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, declaring its “opposition to genocide” and “solidarity with the Palestinian people.” By extension, the festival organizers “made the decision to deny participation in the Pride Parade to organizations spreading hateful discourse” in order to preserve “the emotional and physical safety of our communities.”

While the statement did not specify which organizations were banned, two Jewish groups — Ga’ava and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) — announced shortly afterwards that they will be excluded from this year’s festivities. Both groups are considered mainstream advocates for Jewish Canadians, and had previously marched in the parade for years without serious incident. Montreal Pride has since publicly confirmed the exclusion of Ga’ava, but not CIJA.

Ga’ava’s president, Carlos Godoy, told me in a phone interview that Montreal Pride accused both organizations of using “hate speech” because they described some of their critics as “pro-terror” and “pro-Hamas” in a

news article last month

. Godoy said that he received an initial warning from Montreal Pride last Monday, followed by an abrupt ban two days later, with no opportunity given for his organization to defend itself.

If this was indeed the ban’s rationale, and not just a pretext, then that would be deeply troubling. It is indisputable that many pro-Palestinian activists, including those opposed to the inclusion of “Zionists” in pride parades, employ the

rhetoric of “resistance” and “martyrdom

” to glorify terrorism and Hamas. There is nothing hateful about pointing out this uncomfortable reality, and participation in pride shouldn’t be contingent upon whitewashing the uglier elements of pro-Palestinian advocacy.

According to Godoy, though, this “very flimsy, ridiculous, outlandish accusation” was the culmination of a longstanding campaign by pro-Palestinian activists to exclude Jews from Pride, which has been spearheaded by two Arabic organizations:

Helem Montreal

and

Mubaadarat

.

His allegations were corroborated by a

public letter Helem published on Instagram

in August 2024, which provided a detailed timeline explaining how, between May and August that year, Helem and Mubaadarat aggressively, but unsuccessfully, lobbied Montreal Pride to boycott “any and all Israeli/Zionist participation” and ban Israeli flags.

Given that 2024 survey found that

91 per cent of Canadian Jews may be Zionists

— meaning they believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state — implementing these demands would have amounted to a de facto ban of most of Canada’s Jewish community.

This year, Helem launched its own alternative festival, “

Wild Pride

,” which took place last week and featured a party called “

Intifada on the Dance Floor

.” Notably, “intifada” (which translates into “uprising”) is

often seen as a pro-terrorism term

, as Palestinian militants widely used it to describe their suicide bombing campaign against Israeli civilians in the early 2000s.

And this isn’t the only thing that’s happened behind closed doors at Montreal Pride.

Further behind-the-scenes context was provided by

Artur Wilczynski

, a Jewish LGBTQ activist and retired bureaucrat who was recruited by Montreal Pride in 2023 to

help assess

the applications of new board members.

In an interview this Saturday, Wilczynski explained that Montreal Pride’s current troubles could be traced back to a “really serious kind of institutional meltdown” that occurred in 2022. That year, the festival was

abruptly canceled

just hours before it was supposed to begin, as it was discovered that organizers had recruited only half of the 200 volunteers needed to provide event security.

According to Wilczynski, the scandal pushed Montreal Pride to strictly focus on its core mandate and avoid embroilment in unrelated international conflicts. He said that the festival’s leadership told him this spring that they wanted to take a cautious approach, to avoid alienating corporate and government funders.

From Wilczynski’s understanding, the decision to ban Ga’ava and CIJA was not unanimous and “caused a schism on the board.” The day following our interview, he

publicly announced

his resignation from Montreal Pride due to the “discriminatory and indefensible” exclusion of Ga’ava, and, the day after that, the chair of Montreal Pride’s board of directors, Bernard Truong,

also resigned

, citing “personal reasons.”

The ban caused strife with some of Montreal Pride’s external partners and community supporters as well. Several days ago, for example, five Liberal MPs published a

joint letter

urging Montreal Pride to reverse its “profoundly hurtful” ban of Ga’ava, as it “sends a message that Jewish identity is not welcome in LGBTQ+ spaces.”

Both Wilczynski and Godoy alleged that Montreal Pride’s executive director, Simon Gamache, has been on sick leave since last Monday. “Pride is rudderless and without a captain on board right now,” exclaimed Godoy.

However, I was unable to corroborate these claims or others about Montreal Pride’s internal dynamics, as the festival did not respond to a detailed list of emailed questions. Their presenting sponsor, TD Bank, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, it was announced that Ga’ava and CIJA would be re-invited back to the parade following discussions with the new chair of Montreal Pride. In a press release, CIJA stated that Montreal Pride “opposes antisemitism and had no intention of excluding the Jewish community” and that “following constructive dialogue, we accepted their apology.”

“This incident — so out of step with Fierté Montréal’s (Montreal Pride’s) values of inclusion and respect, values that must be upheld in the broader struggle for Quebec’s shared values — should never have happened,” stated the press release, which went on to acknowledge the “thousands” of citizens, including politicians and influences, who condemned the exclusion. “Quebec’s Jewish community is glad to move forward.”

While moving forward is always possible, one wonders: why did this mess happen in the first place? Jewish Canadians deserve better than this erratic dysfunction.

National Post

• Sheryl Saperia: Supporting Palestinian statehood means endorsing violence
• The inside story of how Gaza aid is diverted from the people who need it most

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

For two years, Hamas has used the suffering of Palestinians to manipulate global opinion. As Brian Lilley discusses with this week’s guests, it worked: the Hamas-caused hunger crisis in Gaza has prompted Canada, with France and the United Kingdom, to recognize a Palestinian state based on unenforceable conditions like democratic elections and Hamas relinquishing power — which it says it will never do. Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador, says the declarations have already destroyed ceasefire talks. Eylon Levy, former spokesman for the Israeli government, says such naive western “student politics” invite everlasting war. And Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar, who has worked with fledgling Mideast democracies, explains how Prime Minister Mark Carney has, ironically, subverted Canada’s democracy, and interests, with his reckless decision. (Recorded Aug. 1, 2025.)

• Sheryl Saperia: Supporting Palestinian statehood means endorsing violence
• NP View: The wrong plan, the wrong reasons

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

TOP STORY

Three months after the federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney remains smack dab in the middle of his honeymoon period.

An approval rating of 61 per cent. Satisfaction with the government is at highs not seen since the first term of Justin Trudeau. Some polls have Carney’s Liberals enjoying a 10-point lead over the Conservatives.

But much of that vanishes if you omit the one demographic that has always liked Carney the most: Seniors.

A Leger poll from last month showed that while Carney would easily win a majority government in a new election, this was due almost entirely to his wildly outsized support among over-55 voters.

In that cohort, 56 per cent of respondents favoured the Liberals against just 28 per cent prepared to vote Conservative.

Everywhere else, opinions on the Liberals remained divided.

Among respondents aged 18-34, the parties were at a virtual tie: 43 per cent Liberal, 42 per cent Conservative. For those aged 35 to 54, it was 41 per cent Liberal to 40 per cent Conservative.

This continues to make Canada the only Western democracy in which the usual demographics of political leanings have been flipped on their head.

Everywhere from the U.K. to Germany to the United States, young people continue to favour left-wing parties while old people favour right-wing parties.

In the recent Australian general elections, held just a week after Canada’s, the left-wing Labor Party won a surprise victory by sweeping constituencies disproportionately populated by younger voters.

Some of Canada’s peer countries may have conservative parties that are gaining support among young people, or are doing better than usual among younger cohorts. But Canada remains the outlier as a place in which the average 25-year-old is more likely to vote conservative than the average 65-year-old.

During the April federal election, in fact, voters in their 20s consistently emerged as one of the strongest single cohorts showing support for the Conservatives.

In one of the most surprising manifestations of the trend, a straw poll held among Canadian high school students ended up delivering a result that was more conservative than the general electorate. If it had been up to teenagers, Canada would have had a Conservative minority government.

The final days of the election also featured the equally bizarre spectacle of Conservative ads specifically targeting old white men in an attempt to arrest that cohort’s stampede to the Carney Liberals.

In the ad, two older men play golf while discussing the flailing finances of their adult children. One tells the other that his son David has been experiencing a “tough few years” and “can’t seem to get ahead.”

The phenomenon of young Canadians drifting right only started to show up in earnest after the 2022 election of Pierre Poilievre as Conservative leader. The 2021 federal election had generally broken down along conventional lines; young Canadians mostly voted for progressive parties or stayed home.

It was the summer of 2022 when polls first began showing the near-unprecedented phenomenon of the Tories scoring a plurality of support among the under-44 set.

Poilievre had championed the issue of housing affordability during his Conservative leadership run, blaming the problem on a latticework of government “gatekeepers” holding back densification and housing development.

He also aligned with youth in his support for the underlying goals of the Freedom Convoy anti-mandate blockades. Although the movement was broadly unpopular among Canadians, its most vocal supporters were among under-34s, many of whom had borne a disproportionate share of the consequences from pandemic lockdowns. An Ipsos poll from the time found that 61 per cent of 18-34 Canadians may have disagreed with the tactics of the Freedom Convoy, but thought its underlying message was “worthy of our sympathy.”

This youthful migration to the Tories may explain why Conservative support remains strangely high, even after Poilievre was sent into a semi-wilderness after losing his own Ottawa-area House of Commons seat.

In sharp contrast to Carney’s various trips to foreign capitals and summits, Poilievre’s most recent public appearance was at an all-candidates’ debate hosted by the Camrose and District Chamber of Commerce, where he is vying for the House of Commons seat vacated by former Conservative MP Damien Kurek.

And yet, while Conservative leaders have typically seen their stars fade rapidly after general election losses, that hasn’t happened to Poilievre.

Just after the House of Commons broke for the summer recess, an Abacus Data survey found that while Carney was enjoying a post-election surge in support among Canadians, Poilievre remained about as popular as he’d ever been.

In January, when Poilievre was the easy favourite to become Canada’s next prime minister, his favourability rating was 39 per cent. After losing the election and his own seat, his favourability rating remained at 39 per cent.

“Despite narratives painting him as politically wounded, our data suggests otherwise,” wrote Abacus Data’s David Coletto.

The usual explanation for all of this is economic. Among the many social and economic ills plaguing Canada at the moment, almost all of them are hitting young people harder than they’re hitting old people.

Unemployment is far worse among youth than in any other age group, a phenomenon driven in part by an unprecedented intake of temporary migrants employed in entry-level positions.

In fact, the Canadian youth labour market has deteriorated faster than in any other advanced economy. An analysis by Bloomberg News found that over the last two years, unemployment among 15 to 24-year-old Canadians had jumped by 3.6 per cent. It was, wrote Bloomberg, “the sharpest increase among the 25 largest economies in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — including the U.S., U.K. and Australia.”

Canada also continues to dominate the rest of the OECD in housing unaffordability. And here, the issue has the perverse impact of harming young Canadians to the direct benefit of older Canadians. For every young person priced out of home ownership by rising real estate prices, there is another — and likely older — Canadian who saw the equity rise on a home they purchased before prices began to skyrocket right around the late 2000s.

During the federal campaign, this divide often showed itself in terms of what voters thought the election was about. Polls consistently showed that among older Canadians, their top political issue was Donald Trump and his tariff threats against Canada.

But younger Canadians continued to prioritize the same problems they’d had long before Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency.

In an Angus Reid Institute survey held in the election’s first days, respondents aged 18-24 identified their core political issues as being “cost of living” (49 per cent) and “housing affordability” (41 per cent), with only 23 per cent expressing worry over “relations with the U.S. including tariffs.”

Contrast that with respondents over 65; 50 per cent listed Canada’s top political issue as the trade war, against just 17 per cent who picked housing affordability.

The Carney Liberals did indeed make promises to fix housing affordability through an “ambitious” crash program of government-led homebuilding that would feature heavy adoption of modular homes.

But Carney had only to swear in his cabinet before Housing Minister Gregor Robertson was declaring that housing prices would not be going down. Last month, he appeared to backpedal on Carney’s more sweeping housing promises, saying it would takes years before there was any noticeable change in the status quo.

Meanwhile, it’s on the issues most important to young Canadians that the Conservatives are continuing to chart their best numbers.

In June, Abacus Data found that a majority of Canadians liked Carney, thought his government was off to a good start, and approved of the federal government generally.

But when it came to issues of immigration, the economy, crime and the “rising cost of living,” Conservative support remained dominant.

If an election could be held exclusively on the issue of the economy, Tories would win 44 per cent to 37 per cent. On crime, 50 per cent to 23 per cent. On immigration, 59 per cent to 20 per cent.

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In British Columbia, at least 10 members of the province’s expensive drugs for rare diseases (EDRD) committee have

resigned,

not because the government failed a dying child, but because it finally helped her.

This is the kind of sentence that shouldn’t exist in a functioning democracy.

Charleigh Pollock is a 10-year-old girl living with terminal Batten disease. Until recently, she was receiving Brineura, a drug that doesn’t cure the condition but slows its progression and improves quality of life. For Charleigh, it did just that. Her seizures stopped. Her condition stabilized. She went back to school. She played. She laughed. She lived in the way every child should.

Then, in June, B.C.’s NDP government ended her treatment.

Health Minister Josie Osborne

pointed

to recommendations from the EDRD committee and Canada’s Drug Agency, which, she said, claimed there was “no clinical evidence (the drug) would provide further benefits.” That term, clinical, bureaucratic and cold, ignored what was visible. Charleigh’s

family and doctors

saw

stabilization

. Experts in Batten disease, both here and abroad, affirmed the drug was helping her.

Still, the province refused to budge. Funding was denied. Appeals were dismissed. Charleigh’s parents turned to crowdfunding,

launching

a GoFundMe campaign to fund her continued care.

It was ultimately British Columbians, outraged by what they saw and by the painful pleas for help made by Charleigh’s mother Jori Fales, who turned the tide against the government. The public rose up: advocates,

physicians,

editorial boards and thousands of citizens. Petitions circulated. Columns demanded action. People made clear what the government would not: that compassion should never depend on political expedience or private fundraising.

On July 17, after weeks of silence and mounting political pressure, Osborne

reversed

the decision. Funding resumed. Charleigh’s treatment was back on track. Her family could breathe again.

Then came the backlash.

Ten members of the EDRD committee

resigned

, claiming the minister’s reversal amounted to political interference. To them, it wasn’t the denial of a child’s care that crossed a line. It was restoring it.

Let that settle in.

An unelected committee withdrew a terminally ill child’s treatment behind closed doors. A minister intervened only when the political cost of inaction became too high. And when she finally did, the loudest protest came from within the system itself.

This wasn’t just a policy failure. It was a collapse of moral leadership. A failure made worse by how long elected officials remained silent.

Osborne only acted under pressure. Premier David Eby, consistent in his absence, waited until the public outcry made it impossible not to respond.

Nowhere was that disengagement more obvious than in the silence of Charleigh’s own MLA, Ravi Parmar. As his young constituents’ fight for treatment became a province-wide controversy, Parmar was nowhere to be found. No statement. No interviews. No visible advocacy. Nothing that resembled the kind of moral clarity or leadership his office is entrusted to provide.

When the decision was finally reversed, Parmar’s office quietly

claimed

he had been working behind the scenes. But in moments like these, silence is not a strategy. It is abdication. It is complicity by omission.

Leadership is not measured by private emails or whispered assurances. It is measured by the willingness to stand up, publicly and unequivocally, when a child’s dignity is on the line. Parmar failed that test.

To his credit, Eby

has now acknowledged

the problem and promised reforms. He conceded that the process — which operates in secrecy, with no published reports or transparency — gives the impression that politicians are powerless or disengaged.

That impression isn’t wrong.

What Charleigh’s case reveals is a system so burdened by risk aversion and rigid process that it no longer responds to the people it serves. Bureaucrats make decisions behind closed doors. Politicians avoid responsibility. And families are left to plead for compassion from a structure that sees them as exceptions, not priorities.

We do not elect officials to defer to panels. We elect them to lead. When the process fails, leaders must step in, not after a media storm, but before one ever begins.

Committee members have argued that political involvement undermines medical integrity. But they miss the point. Legitimacy doesn’t come from secrecy or protocol. It comes from justice, empathy and the ability to recognize when rules get it wrong.

Justice in this case required listening. It required adapting. It required choosing humanity over institutional habit.

Charleigh is 10 years old. Her life has already been shaped by pain that no child should experience. But her family’s fight should never have been necessary. It should not take petitions, fundraisers or media campaigns to convince a government that a child’s life matters.

She deserved better. Her family deserved better. And the people of British Columbia deserve a government that leads with conscience, not one that waits to be shamed into action.

We cannot undo the decisions that led us here. But we can demand better. We must hold leaders accountable before another child is forced to fight the very system that promised to protect them.

National Post

JERUSALEM — Central to the international pressure on Israel for a ceasefire with Hamas are claims of widespread starvation and even accusations that Israel is deliberately using hunger as a weapon. But The Press Service of Israel’s (TPS-IL) closer examination of the humanitarian aid pipeline found that a combination of United Nations policies, Hamas looting and black market profiteering prevents much aid from reaching Gaza civilians and inflates the prices of items that do reach market shelves.

Most damningly, according to the UN’s own numbers, a staggering 85 per cent of the aid entering the Gaza Strip by truck since May 19 has been stolen.

“There is some hunger in Gaza, and it exists only in places Hamas is pursuing it, not in other areas,” said Prof. Eytan Gilboa, an expert in international relations and media at Reichman University in Herzliya.

UN bottlenecks and bad assumptions

Recent data suggests that Israel continues to facilitate large-scale humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip — far exceeding prewar levels. According to a July 2025

report

by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, claims of deliberate starvation are not supported by facts on the ground.

Before the war, around 150–300 trucks entered Gaza daily, though only a fraction carried food. Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows that in 2022, an average of 292 trucks crossed daily, with just 73 of them carrying food — around 25 per cent. Despite this, there were no signs of famine. Public health indicators such as infant mortality and life expectancy matched those in Jordan and Judea and Samaria.

The report also refuted flawed assumptions about local food production. While Amnesty International claimed that local agriculture provided 44 per cent of Gaza’s food needs, the report argued that this number was based on financial expenditure, not caloric intake. In reality, local production accounted for no more than 12 per cent of caloric supply. The majority of calories came from imported grains, oils and food aid — largely delivered by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme.

Israel

suspended aid shipments

temporarily in March 2025 due to Hamas’s systematic looting, but resumed deliveries in May. By the end of May, 170 trucks were entering the Strip each day.  As of July 27, all aid crossings have reopened, and additional airdrops are being carried out. The Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF),

launched in May

, now supports alternative aid distribution networks.

According to official Israeli sources, humanitarian aid currently flows through two main channels. The first includes direct food packages — primarily shelf-stable items such as canned vegetables, lentils and nutritional supplements — distributed by international organizations through secure hubs.

The second channel involves community-level solutions such as bakeries and communal kitchens, operated by the World Food Programme (WFP) and non-governmental organizations like World Central Kitchen, using vetted local partners to deliver cooked meals.

As of July 24, the number of trucks at the Kerem Shalom border crossing waiting for pickup by international relief organizations was reportedly more than 800. In an email response to questions from TPS-IL, a UN spokesperson attributed the delay to strict Israeli security protocols. “Kerem Shalom isn’t a walk-up warehouse,” the spokesperson said.

“For 11 weeks, the Israeli authorities blocked the entry of any items — regardless of how critical they were for civilians’ survival. So, images of supplies piling up inside closed, militarized compounds in fact show what aid workers have not been facilitated in collecting and delivering,” she wrote.

But legal expert Anne Herzberg blames the UN for the necessity of time-consuming inspections. She told TPS-IL that the UN knew that Hamas was using the aid convoys to smuggle weapons but turned a blind eye to the problem. Herzberg is the legal advisor to NGO-Monitor, a Jerusalem-based non-profit that monitors the activities of non-governmental organizations.

“Had they been more proactive in trying to block weapons smuggling and aid diversion, they wouldn’t need any inspections,” she insisted.

According to the UN’s World Food Program, as of July 25, there was “roughly 3,500 MT (metric tonnes) of WFP cargo (the equivalent of 300 trucks) ready to be collected from holding areas for collection and distribution inside Gaza.”

The WFP also noted a shortage of truck drivers, saying only 60 have been vetted and approved to make deliveries in Gaza.

An Israeli security source stressed to TPS-IL that collecting and distributing aid is the UN’s responsibility, not Israel’s. “They are not doing their job well. Only when pressure is put on them do they start collecting. We allowed them delegations and time frames and they do not meet the co-ordinated times, but arrive late and for a few hours,” he said.

“Israel is ready to facilitate and do much more than is required, such as providing logistical assistance, fuel for the trucks, walkie-talkies so they can talk to each other… We (recently) announced humanitarian corridors and

tactical truces

to facilitate the collection of equipment,” he said.

Hamas’s manufactured crisis

Israeli army sources told TPS-IL that the real obstacle to feeding Gaza is Hamas. This accusation is backed by UN figures.

According to data on the website of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), 2,013 trucks carrying 27,464.5 tonnes of of aid — almost entirely food —  entered Gaza since May 19. Of that number, 1,753 trucks carrying 23,353.3 tonnes of aid never reached their destinations. All 85 per cent of the missing food was designated by the UNOPS as “intercepted” — “either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully armed actors, during transit in Gaza.”

UNOPS is the operational arm of the UN that helps implement humanitarian, development and peace-building projects.

A record 90 trucks carrying 1,695 tons of aid were looted on May 31 alone, according to UNOPS.

The data showed that 98.6 per cent of the stolen aid was food, with the remainder designated as “solid fuel,” nutrition” and “health.” In addition, 90.3 per cent of the stolen aid belonged to the World Food Program. The remaining aid belonged to World Central Kitchen, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the International Committee for the Red Cross and International Medical Corps Gaza.

UNOPS did not refer to Hamas by name, but Israelis and Palestinians did.

“From the start, Hamas has tried to make the humanitarian distribution by GHF fail,” an Israeli military official told TPS-IL. “They intimidate civilians and threaten anyone who approaches aid centres.” The same official confirmed a June incident in which grenades were thrown at American aid workers.

Gaza activist Hamza al-Masri, who runs a popular Telegram channel, wrote, “Every Gazan knows who holds weapons. If someone has weapons, either they are Hamas or they bought them from Hamas. There are no secrets here.” In a comment under the post, a user named Samer Bashir asked whether the attackers were Hamas. Al-Masri responded: “All the thugs and thieves are Hamas and work for Hamas.”

Videos circulated on July 29 show aid trucks passing through Deir al-Balah while armed men fired into the air to disperse civilians. Eyewitnesses claim the gunmen are affiliated with Hamas. Similar accounts point to the terror group’s systematic interference with humanitarian operations.

The accusations are further supported by internal Hamas documents seized by Israel, intercepted communications and verified images. During the initial stage of the war in October 2023, Hamas diverted 25 per cent of all incoming UN aid. By early 2024, this quota was redistributed as follows: seven per cent to Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, four per cent to Hamas’s civil administration, four per cent to the group’s political leadership.

Intercepted documents also reveal the threats against aid workers and deliberate efforts to sow chaos in Gaza’s streets, such as closing markets, stirring unrest and preventing civilians from reaching distribution points through intimidation or gunfire.

Discussing the army’s roles in aid distribution sites, convoys and air drops, Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters on July 27, “Hamas, on the other hand, is actively obstructing the process — stealing aid, storing it in tunnels, and using disinformation to spread the false claim of famine in Gaza.”

Tactics used by Hamas include physically seizing UN trucks, blocking civilian access to aid sites, impersonating aid workers and inserting operatives into UN convoys. A parallel distribution network has reportedly been established — selling confiscated aid at prices 300–500 per cent above market value, taxing local vendors and using food control as a political tool.

The situation has reached the point where some humanitarian organizations are reluctant to collect or distribute aid due to fear of violence or being seen as co-operating with Israel.

“Hamas’s goal is to get rid of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distributing food in Gaza,” said Gilboa. “They want to be the only ones ensuring Gazans’ survival and have been very successful in mounting a campaign portraying hunger everywhere.”

Black market profiteering off donated food

Despite the surge in aid deliveries, Palestinians in Gaza City’s Al Sahaba market told TPS-IL the prices are too expensive.

“Today I saw fruit for the first time in four months. Mangoes, bananas … but they’re selling them for 200 shekels (C$80). People can’t afford it. We see it, smell it and walk away,” one Palestinian told TPS-IL on July 28, one day after the airdrops and new aid protocols began. “It’s an injustice and it’s a sin.”

Another woman told TPS-IL how her children ask for fruit they hadn’t tasted in months. “I can’t buy four pieces even for my kids. It’s like a dream on display,” she said.

A third Palestinian told TPS-IL, “The flour — when it enters Gaza, they steal it. And now they’re going to raise the price from 30 to 60 shekels. It’s unbelievable.”

Footage from the market confirmed the disparity: shelves stocked with aid-labelled goods resold at prices unaffordable to the intended civilians.

Official Israeli sources explained to TPS-IL that all trucks currently entering Gaza carry humanitarian aid provided by the UN, international NGOs or donor states — and that Gaza’s private sector is not currently authorized to import goods. The absence of commercial shipments for Gaza merchants raises questions about how donated flour, fruits, vegetables, water, canned goods and more end up in markets with inflated prices.

Palestinian sources inside Gaza told TPS-IL that much of the food in the markets originated from international aid for months — including American shipments — but is resold at inflated prices, sometimes 300 per cent. Basic staples like flour and rice, originally meant for free distribution, are reportedly diverted to private vendors.

“They distribute the aid to traders instead of families,” one Gaza resident told TPS-IL.

Eyal Ofer, an expert on Gaza’s economy, explained to TPS-IL that, “Market prices are the core problem fuelling Gaza hunger.” He blamed “endless cash being funnelled in” by the UN and Palestinian Authority, enabling looting and price inflation.

“Hamas is taking 45 per cent of every UN cash transfer without even touching the aid,” he said. “The people who get the money can afford the inflated prices; those who don’t, starve.”

He added, “I’ve been proposing for a long time is to stop the cash flow. You don’t eat cash.”

The Press Service of Israel

• Vivian Bercovici: Carney, and the media, simply don’t understand the complexities of ‘Palestine’
• Mike Fegelman: The evidence is clear — there is no famine in Gaza

Former U.S. vice-president Hubert Humphrey once observed that “foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.” This deceptively simple phrase captures a profound truth: a country’s stance on international affairs is almost never just about abstract ideals or global ethics. It reflects, and often redirects, domestic pressures, political calculations and the ideological currents coursing through national life. Canada’s proposed recognition of Palestinian statehood is a prime example — a foreign policy move with far-reaching consequences for our national and international security.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September, under the conditions that Hamas disarm, release the remaining hostages, and not participate in a future Palestinian government. This came a day after his government promised $10 million to support the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank.

On the international front, recognizing a Palestinian state at this moment in history is not a step toward peace or security, as the prime minister claimed. It is, rather, a reward for terrorism. Hamas — a listed terrorist entity in Canada — committed the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023, proudly documenting its atrocities for the world to see.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), often held up as the “moderate” alternative to Hamas, represents a moral distinction without a difference. It is riddled with corruption, brutally cracks down on internal dissent, and

until February,

enforced a “pay-for-slay” policy that financially rewards Palestinians who murder Israelis (many

claim

the policy continues, just under a different guise). Mahmoud Abbas is currently in the 21st year of his first four-year term as leader of the PA. To suggest that he and the PA are the foundation for a future state is a disturbing display of either ignorance or wilful blindness.

Worse still, what does it mean for Canada to lend legitimacy to a people whose institutions have, for generations, educated children to hate Jews, glorify martyrdom and reject coexistence with the West? Palestinian school curriculums, children’s television programming and public messaging remain

saturated

with antisemitic indoctrination and

incitement to violence.

This is not merely a concern for Israel’s security. It is a question of what kind of state the world is being asked to recognize, and what values Canada is endorsing in doing so.

Recognition now sends a clear message: the international community will deliver statehood not in exchange for reform or reconciliation, but in response to terrorism, incitement and rejectionism. It encourages Hamas to continue holding (and torturing) hostages and prolonging conflict, knowing that pressure will build not on them — but on Israel. It also signals to other terrorist organizations worldwide that decades of violence, extremism and indoctrination can be vindicated with the ultimate political prize: a state of their own.

But the dangers are not only global — they are also acutely domestic.

The Carney government, facing economic stagnation, a trade relationship with the United States that is increasingly precarious, ballooning deficits far exceeding promises and at least one

scandal-plagued cabinet minister

, is using foreign policy to distract from its failures at home. It is an old political trick: when domestic problems mount, find a foreign cause that appeals to an agitated base. But in this case, the price of distraction is dangerously high.

Canada’s streets have become theatres of escalating political extremism that threatens our very democracy by seeking to break all boundaries. Pro-Palestinian protests have crossed the line into intimidation and lawlessness —

threatening

elected officials,

breaking into

MP offices,

vandalizing

public property,

glorifying

terrorist groups and

blocking

critical infrastructure. Jewish Canadians have been

assaulted,

harassed and made to feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods and places of worship. By moving to recognize Palestinian statehood at this time and under these conditions, Carney is sending an unmistakable message: disruptive, threatening and unlawful behaviour works. Those who scream the loudest and break the most rules will set the foreign policy agenda.

This is not just a betrayal of Canada’s Jewish community. It is a signal to every group in this country — on every side of every issue — that the path to political relevance runs not through lawful protest or democratic engagement, but through confrontation, coercion and chaos.

Canada’s foreign policy must not be allowed to become a political balm for a flailing government. And it certainly cannot become a prize for those who are actively eroding democratic norms at home, let alone those who commit atrocities abroad. If foreign policy is domestic policy with its hat on, then Carney’s hat is one of capitulation — to extremists, to mob pressure and to a worldview that undermines both Canadian and global security.

This decision must not stand unchallenged. Not just for the sake of Israel, or even for the future of the Palestinian people, but for the integrity of Canadian democracy itself.

National Post

Sheryl Saperia is CEO of Secure Canada, a non-profit dedicated to combating terrorism and extremism by creating innovative laws, policies, and alliances that strengthen Canada’s national security and democracy.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s post-midnight

response

to Washington’s latest escalation of its tariff war was calm, measured, sensible and appropriate, everything the current regime in Washington is not.

Canada, Carney said, will continue to negotiate in search of a reasonable agreement, notwithstanding the absence of any indication the U.S. is open to reasonable negotiations. What Washington wants is to continue operating what amounts to a global extortion racket, threatening all America’s best customers with dire consequences if they refuse to bow to its demands and offer up supplication to whatever notion occurs to President Donald Trump at any given moment.

It’s well and good that Ottawa should keep up the attempt, even if the odds seem set against success. There’s no use pretending this is a situation that can be handled in the traditional manner of friends and trading partners: a search for a fair-minded and equitable agreement that serves the interests of both parties. But we should keep trying, if only to demonstrate that the qualities of civility haven’t broken down altogether, despite the U.S. administration’s every apparent effort to ignore them.

From the Trump administration’s point of view, extortion has been working marvelously well to date. Japan has

reportedly

agreed to more than a half-trillion dollars in investments and loans in return for lowered tariffs. South Korea,

according

to Trump, will “give to the United States $350 Billion Dollars for Investments owned and controlled by the United States, and selected by myself.” The European Union

accepted

a pact to buy US$750 billion in energy and invest US$600 billion in the U.S., a deal virtually none of Europe’s leaders were happy with, and which France openly denounced.

Lesser entities have been similarly cowed. Paramount Pictures

agreed

to a $16 million payoff rather than risk challenging a spurious suit that threatened a much-sought US$8 billion merger. Columbia University is to

pay

the government US$221 million rather than lose access to federal funding. Harvard initially put up a determined

effort

to resist federal threats, but is said to be open to a $500 million settlement.

Many of the agreements are fuzzy and open to interpretation. All have resulted from one thing: the fear and uncertainty generated by the knowledge that the U.S. government has become a one-man operation that operates solely by the whim of a president shown unfailingly to be unpredictable, unreliable and contemptuous of the law, of accepted standards and even of his own word. There is nothing to be gained by betting the prosperity of Canadians on any assurances offered up by Washington as long as Donald Trump remains president. What must be done is to defend the country’s integrity, its sovereignty, its independence and its standing as a place where fairness, trust, honesty and dignity are still treated seriously as core values, even if other entities are willing to bargain theirs away.

The extent of the danger in bowing to Washington was underlined in the last hours before the supposed Aug. 1 negotiating deadline. Upset that Ottawa would join France and Britain in declaring plans to recognize a Palestinian state, Trump declared it would make it “very hard” to finalize a trade deal, effectively seeking to control Canada’s foreign policy in addition to its economic practices.

Trump has been president for just seven months and has been fortunate thus far in avoiding the forecast consequences of his policies. The stock market has been up, overall growth has been reasonable, and his targets have been capitulating rather than retaliating. But it’s early days, and no winning streak lasts forever. It takes time for the impact of bad ideas to filter through. Already, the decline in tourism is being felt as people avoid the U.S. “Where Did All the Las Vegas Tippers Go?” the Wall Street Journal

wondered

, noting that visits to the gambling mecca have fallen so drastically that Trump’s “no tax on tips” law has had little benefit.

The rise in stock prices has been credited largely to Wall Street’s belief that Washington wouldn’t follow through on its tariff threats — Trump was the TACO president, as in Trump Always Chickens Out. Except this time, he didn’t. The latest economic

figures

aren’t encouraging: hiring has slowed, unemployment has risen,

imports

fell sharply in the second quarter after increasing in the first, sales are struggling, and second

quarter

growth figures still leave the economy at less than half the rate of a year ago.

The U.S. dollar is weakening, the spiralling debt and burgeoning deficit are a direct threat to health and pension benefits many Americans depend on, and which have already been cut back under Trump’s “big, beautiful” mega-bill. The Brookings Institute

notes

that federal debt is at the highest level since the Second World War, and warns that spending at this level is unsustainable.

MAGA world, meanwhile, shows signs of splinters. America being what it has become, the discord arises not from tariffs, economics, or the brutalizing of immigrants, but from anger at Trump’s handling of the Epstein

affair

and his obvious reluctance to share full

details

of his involvement in it. The U.S. position on Israel is causing similar ructions. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, MAGA to her soul,

denounced

Israel’s actions, asserting that while the October 7 Hamas attack was “horrific… so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.”

Trump has been forced to backtrack on his relations with Israel’s prime minister, his reluctance to ship weapons to Ukraine, his relations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and on

numerous

pledges and threats that

ran

into spirited pushback. Bullying and bluffing are central to his demeanour, but he doesn’t recoil from retreat when required; he just insists it’s another success.

He’ll be gone in three years or so. He has effectively humiliated the Republican party, turning it into a personal vehicle of the sort common in the autocracies he admires. It’s far from certain whoever succeeds him will manage a similar level of control. Republican heavyweights are frightened of Trump, debasing themselves in their willingness to cower before him, but no one likes to be humiliated, and it’s just as likely his departure sets off both an ugly battle to replace him and a determination to ensure no other figure ever gains a similar ability to dictate their actions.

Carney is correct in stating that Canada’s job now is to focus on “what we can control.” Our dependence on the U.S. has long been recognized as overdone and dangerous; it’s just been too easy to resist. Trump has shown us the consequences of our own lethargy.

Caving to Washington now buys us nothing. Trump’s unpredictability means nothing he agrees to can be treated with certainty. No one wants to invest in a country whose economy is controlled by a foreign renegade who operates by whim. Canada’s task is to set our own course and deal with the short-term consequences, as Ukraine has done in a far deadlier conflict, but one bearing the same choice: to stand by its independence as nation, protect its sovereignty, its pride and its heritage. It will be painful, but a country that values itself too little to withstand temporary distress soon risks being a country at all.

National Post

• Irwin Cotler & Noah Lew: We support a two-state solution. But not this way
• Michael Higgins: Mark Carney abandons Canadian principles for pinky promises on Palestine

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