On Tuesday afternoon in Doha, Qatar, the Israeli air force executed a lightning strike on a residential building.

The world was stunned. Facts were scarce.

We now know that the four top Hamas officials targeted by Israel are alive. A number of lower level aides were killed.

The Hamas officials were meeting in Doha to discuss their response to the most recent American and Israeli proposal for ceasefire terms and the return of all hostages. It seemed counter-intuitive to many that Israel would risk scuttling the negotiations at such a delicate stage.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Al-Thani was enraged and said that Qatar would no longer act as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas. For two years Qatar has positioned itself as a trusted intermediary; a close ally of the United States that also has a special relationship with Hamas.

Why the West stroked Qatar so solicitously for so long is a mystery. Qatar is a major financial and diplomatic sponsor of the most violent Islamist movements globally, among them Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Hamas leadership has been hosted in Doha for many years, living in extreme luxury. Numerous Hamas leaders are billionaires. The source of their wealth is unclear. Meanwhile, the people they purport to represent live thousands of miles away, under the tyranny of Hamas rule.

For two years, Qatar has had significant leverage over Hamas and has been in a position to pressure them to release the hostages and lay down arms. And yet, the stalemate continues.

Al Thani is reported to have told American officials that he regards the attack as being a betrayal by Israel and the U.S.

The repercussions of this action threaten to undermine Israel’s relations with the United States as well as many other western countries, including Canada.

After already sharp comments directed at Israel by Prime Minister Carney in recent months, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Wednesday that Canada is “evaluating (its) relationship with Israel.”

The

comment

is ominous and deeply concerning.

Meanwhile, Al-Thani is

reported

to have told White House envoy Steve Witkoff that Qatar will undertake a “deep evaluation” of its security partnership with the U.S. “and maybe find some other partners” who can support its security if needed.

The largest American military base in the Middle East is located in Qatar. In exchange, Qatar receives security guarantees from the U.S. In the Middle East, Qatar is an outlier, and its relations with neighbouring states have been profoundly strained for many years, due to the country’s support of extreme Islamists.

Qatar’s reliance on the U.S. for security is total.

We also know that Israel notified the White House of the attack mere minutes before it occurred, leaving its key ally internationally in an impossible spot.

Early reports in the Israeli media on Wednesday exposed aspects of what transpired and how.

Israel’s channel 12 reported that Hamas leadership were targeted by the location of their cell phone signals. But the Hamas men were not in the same room as their phones. They had retreated to a nearby room for prayer.

A day earlier, these same Hamas men had been feeling triumphant.

On Monday, two terrorists boarded a packed civilian bus near Jerusalem and shortly after began shooting passengers. Six were declared dead at the scene. Six are critically injured. Dozens more are wounded. Hamas immediately took responsibility.

Israeli media reports that this provocation likely triggered Netanyahu’s decision to order the strike on Hamas leadership in Doha. In intelligence circles, such a moment is seen as an “opportunity.” An operation that may have been planned for years becomes possible due to circumstances.

Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer believe that Israel must restore its deterrent capability, which was shattered when 1200 people were slaughtered on October 7. If such an attack was to occur in Canada, it would result in 5,500 civilians being slaughtered in 24 hours. In the U.S. that number would be closer to 60,000. But two years on, the majority of Israelis strongly support ending the war, immediately. Returning the remaining hostages is a clear priority for the people.

Among the most outspoken nations denouncing Israel has been Canada.

Prime Minister Carney very quickly issued a statement on X that mirrored posts made by U.K. Prime Minister Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Canada condemns Israel’s strikes in Qatar — an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar’s sovereignty. Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace & security, secure the release of all hostages, and achieve a lasting ceasefire — efforts in which Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani plays a highly constructive role.”

Canada condemns Israel’s strikes in Qatar — an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar’s sovereignty.
 
Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace &…

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) September 9, 2025

Starmer, Macron and Carney have become a tight troika in recent months and were already gearing up for their collective push to rush to recognize the State of Palestine at the UN general assembly next week. This initiative has been opposed by the U.S. on the basis that it rewards terror.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is committed to spreading radical Islam globally. They are committed to the annihilation of Israel, the murder of Jews and the domination of all infidels, including Christians.

Following a one-hour phone call in July with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Carney declared that we would have peace in our time, with Abbas at the helm of a Palestinian state. What Carney seems to disregard is that Abbas, currently in his 20th year of a four-year election mandate, has virtually no legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians, and is regarded as a corrupt, old demagogue.

Canada’s prime minister does not seem to grasp the complexity of this historical moment, being led by his hubris to impose an absurd outcome on an environment and people that have demonstrated no affinity for liberal democracy.

His fantasy of reordering the Middle East based on a one-hour conversation with a despot is uninformed, reckless and directly rewards terror.

Feeling buoyed by this rush of western enthusiasm for Palestinian statehood, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad boasted recently that the October 7 massacre is the reason for this renewed international attention. Hamas has been legitimized as a rational actor. The inversion of moral principle is terrifying.

Since October 7, Hamad has stated repeatedly that Hamas would continue to execute such attacks until Israel is annihilated. Hamas will never accept peace or any recognition of Israel. This existential threat is real and overlooked by Carney.

There is much to criticize about Israel’s conduct in this war — and the country’s people oppose so much of what has transpired in their name since October 7. The domestic unrest in Israel is alarming, because the population disagrees profoundly with the manner in which the coalition government has managed the war with Hamas as well as so many other issues. But it is critical to remember that Hamas and its state sponsor — Qatar — are committed to an agenda of Islamist terror and domination.

For two years they managed to seduce many western leaders into believing that they were honest brokers. We must remind ourselves of who they are and what they support.

On October 7, spontaneous street celebrations filled the streets of Toronto, Montreal and elsewhere across Canada. Huge crowds gathered to celebrate the massacre, as it was ongoing.

By supporting Qatar and Hamas, Canada is rewarding and aligning with extreme Islamist terror.

Vivian Bercovici is a former Canadian ambassador to Israel and the founder of www.stateoftelaviv.com, an independent media enterprise.

• Sheryl Saperia: 24 years after 9/11, the West’s on the verge of falling to terrorist ideology
• ‘Palestine’ can’t just be ‘conjured up’: Douglas Murray blasts Mark Carney

Charlie Kirk,
a champion of classic, civilized debate was gunned down in cold blood Wednesday, and things have changed forever.
 

What the 31-year-old Kirk had been doing since he was a teenager was tirelessly placing himself on a stage so that he could talk and debate with people face to face. His approach stood in stark contrast to the political discourse on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok videos in which people learn politics with a shot of dopamine, which leave no room for people to consider disagreement.

For people under 30 who were interested in politics and who came of age in these tumultuous past ten years, Kirk was a towering presence.
 

Across the English-speaking world, people first started hearing about Turning Point USA during their undergraduate degrees. Some would catch clips here and there, while others became dedicated followers, but Kirk’s name was unavoidable.
Altogether, his political enterprises, including TPUSA and the Charlie Kirk Show, were worth $92 million, and he amassed 5.6 million followers on X, and 9.3 million followers on Instagram.

He was very much part of a new generation of conservative American commentators that includes Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Michael Knowles. Some of them fell into the fringes or obscurity, while others like Shapiro and Kirk became essential figures in the conservative movement.
 
 

Kirk stood out for being the youngest among them, and for actively mobilizing young Americans into chapters of Turning Point USA on campuses across the United States. One can even compare him to William F. Buckley Jr., the leading American conservative intellectual during the Cold War.
 
 

Despite their different upbringings, skills, and styles, Buckley and Kirk were both tuned into the ideological wars taking place on university campuses, and had no fear of walking into them to face a hostile crowd. They both had a great appetite for debate, and that remained constant whether they won or lost on any given day.
 

Earlier this year during a typical appearance on a campus where he would debate long lines of challengers, Kirk laid out the reasons why he did what he did.
 
 

“When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence, that is when civil war happens,” he said, adding that society and personal relationships fall apart without dialogue.
 

By any measure, this was a great man, no matter what people thought about his views.
 

Barely a month before his 32nd birthday, Kirk was a powerful figure within the Republican Party, having earned the friendship and ear of the party’s congressional leaders, media surrogates, and President Donald Trump himself.
 

Many politicos spend their entire careers achieving only a fraction of Kirk’s success as a Republican fundraiser, youth leader, and public figure. His personal life was spotless, and by all accounts he was a disciplined man, a teetotaller and loving father of his two young children.
 

People across the political aisle liked him. Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, a fierce, combative progressive, publicly
mourned
his death, as did California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who
posted
an unusually lengthy eulogy for Kirk on social media.
 

“I knew Charlie, and I admired his passion and commitment to debate. His senseless murder is a reminder of how important it is for all of us, across the political spectrum, to foster genuine discourse on issues that deeply affect us all without resorting to political violence.”
 

Newsom himself had
invited
Kirk onto his podcast earlier this year, and the two had a very dignified conversation that included spirited but polite disagreement on many subjects and surprising alignment on others.
 

Similar conversations across political lines are unlikely to become more frequent after Kirk’s gruesome assassination, which was captured on video, and happened within a few feet of his wife and children.
 

Like Newsom, Democratic politicians were almost unanimous in expressing their shock and horror at Kirk’s death. As for progressive commentators, it was far more mixed.
 

Some, like Cenk Uygur and his co-host Ana Kasparian,
reacted
like normal people with heartfelt expressions of grief, as did prominent Democratic social media figure
Harry Sissons
.
 

Others, like high-profile streamer Steven Bonnell, known better by his online name “Destiny,” said that anybody on the left
expressing
grief at Kirk’s assassination was “cucked.” As reported by Newsweek, comedian Brandy Bryant callously
posted
on X, “Breaking: Charlie Kirk loses gun debate.”
 

Republicans and other conservatives took notice.
 

“Witnessing the grotesque reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder will have changed decent people. Forever. The far left has simply forced many reasonable people to wake up and pick a side. And it’s not going to be theirs,”
posted
commentator Stephen Knight.
 

Things are different now. Many on the Republican side are furious at Kirk’s death, and pushed further by the reaction of figures like Bonnell. The olive branches extended by people like Gavin Newsom and Cenk Uygur are unlikely to break through the rage.
 

Equally skilled at working social media and traditional in-person appearances, Kirk was a bridge between the classic democratic forum and modern digital discourse. His death could radicalize thousands, and leave a giant hole in the American political debate.
 

Whoever the killer is, they shot the nice guy. Blood has been spilled, and there will be consequences. 
 

National Post

• Jamie Sarkonak: Charlie Kirk was reviled by the left because he was effective
• Geoff Russ: North Carolina train killing shows why soft-on-crime urbanism has failed

Twenty-four years have passed since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Amid the pain and tragedy at that time, there was at least one point of clarity: western society still knew the difference between victims and perpetrators, good and evil.

Before the haunting debris of the Twin Towers had even settled, America was already grappling with critical, unprecedented security decisions. The months and years to come brought intense disagreements on military and policy matters, including mass protests in major western cities.

And yet, even at the height of anti-war protests, I do not recall al-Qaida banners or portraits of Osama bin Laden. The free world looked at him with revulsion — and to the passengers of Flight 93 as the heroes we hoped we would be in their place. Times were divisive, to be sure. But there was less debate over what was evil, and more about how to confront it.

Fast-forward to 2023. While 9/11 was met with unity and shared grief, the October 7 Hamas attack had a very different effect throughout the West. Within hours, celebrations erupted in major western cities, including New York and Toronto — heralding months of vicious protests.

We now live in a time when “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations in Canada proudly bear terrorist symbols; when mobs gather outside synagogues, Jewish restaurants and MPs’ homes with impunity; when cultural institutions cancel Israeli stories; when shopping at a supermarket in Ottawa or a bookstore in Montreal have become dangerous; and when women who joined ISIS receive taxpayer-funded lavish homecomings.

There have even been chants of support for the Houthis, a terrorist organization whose motto is “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

And yet, there has been little to no backlash from mainstream society. It is as though Canadian society is experiencing a collective “meh” moment, characterized by disinterest, indifference and disengagement.

Such acts, however disagreeable, are seen as a nasty spate of weather: something beyond our control and — short of a tornado in our own backyard — someone else’s problem. If we see ourselves as mere observers, then we naturally resign ourselves to being bystanders.

As the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned, societies can define deviancy down. Behaviour once shocking becomes normalized, eroding moral sensitivity and resolve. Standards drop, permissiveness broadens and we learn to accept that which we once rejected.

This erosion of boundaries is not accidental. It has been accelerated by the so-called red–green alliance. Though otherwise divergent in their worldviews, the radical left (red) and Islamist movements (green) converge in their hostility towards western democracy, Israel and Jews.

Together, they serve as both drivers and enablers: mobilizing disruptive protests, while also feeding intellectual and cultural justifications that normalize extremism. Rather than a formal coalition, it is a partnership of convenience that encompasses far more people than any one single movement could on its own.

Particularly striking is the participation of progressive groups in this alliance, despite the glaring contradiction. The regimes and movements they defend — like Hamas, the Houthis and Iran’s Islamic regime — are violently repressive toward women, sexual minorities and political opponents. In the name of “anti-colonial resistance,” some progressives romanticize violence and discard the very liberal principles they otherwise claim to champion.

The red–green alliance can be found in shared slogans, narratives, protests and intimidation tactics — from vandalizing Jewish-owned businesses, to blocking major roadways, to assaults on police. But we also see their enablers at work in union resolutions, op-eds, social media posts, lobby days on Parliament Hill and other initiatives that gaslight Canadians about what is really happening.

Protesters who openly celebrate Houthi rockets as civil war-driven famine has killed nearly a quarter-million in Yemen? We’re told they are simply concerned about human rights.

Extremists in Canadian society are not new. But in the absence of shared moral clarity — a foundation for any healthy society — we cannot expect to see moral resolve.

Twenty-four years after 9/11, it is long past time for Canadians to reclaim our collective ability to call out evil for what it is. That requires more than rhetoric. It requires a clear national definition of extremism, an unflinching rejection of political violence and intimidation, and a reinvestment in Canada’s democratic identity.

Canada should thus adopt the following definition for extremism: the promotion of ideologies rooted in violence, hatred or intolerance that aim to: (1) negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; (2) undermine, overturn or replace Canada’s democratic institutions and constitutional framework; or (3) create a permissive environment for others to achieve these aims through ideology, coercion or manipulation.

Our civic institutions, political leaders and cultural voices must reassert that Canada stands for the rule of law, the sanctity of individual rights and the rejection of mob violence. Without these boundaries, moral confusion will continue to erode the foundations of our democracy.

National Post

Sheryl Saperia is CEO of Secure Canada, a non-profit organization founded by Canadian 9/11 victim families, whose mission is to combat terrorism and extremism and strengthen Canada’s national security and democracy.

• Opinion: 23 years after the terrorist attacks that shook the world, the West has lost its way
• Jesse Kline: Murderous jihad didn’t begin with Israel

If you haven’t followed Charlie Kirk’s time as a Republican influencer in the new right, you will at least recognize his face. He spent his media career — a

high-profile one

, though not a terribly long one at only 31 years old — making conservative arguments in an overall unreceptive media ecosystem.

And that’s what he was doing Wednesday afternoon when he was fatally shot in the neck at Utah Valley University. In the moment before the loud snap of a gun could be heard and a gushing injury appeared on his neck, he finished a sentence about “violence.” He was rushed to hospital, and someone was arrested. Video floating around the internet showed an old man, alleged to be the shooter, subdued by police and kneeling on the ground.

No motive has been established — it’s all too fresh — but it’s impossible not to make any connection to politics and the growing wave of societal derangement. This is one of the American right’s top conservative influencers, struck by a bullet after years of the progressive left preaching about revolution, about words being violence and about President Donald Trump being the second coming of Hitler.

Kirk wasn’t just reviled by the left because he was a Trump supporter — it was also because he was so effective. He founded a media organization that, along with a handful of others on the right, played a key role in shattering the monopoly of ideas held by the left-leaning mainstream media.

But he was mostly iconic for his debate-style videos: his fame could largely be attributed to the many videos in which he sat with a microphone, listening to a long diatribe from a progressive audience member attempting to prove him wrong, and, afterwards, replying with a firehose of counterpoints. His style was sharp and humorous. It was a golden formula for engagement on Youtube, and no doubt an outlet for closeted young conservatives and disillusioned liberals who rarely get to see these beliefs expressed in the wild.

Kirk argued against illegal immigration, transgenderism, COVID vaccine mandates, critical race theory, feminism, affirmative action, abortion, soft-on-crime policy, drag queen story hour events for children and a whole lot more. You will find no shortage of “fascist” accusations on Reddit and elsewhere, but Kirk was actually the epitome of old-school classical liberalism. He used argument, not might, to push his ideas into the world — ideas that could get regular folk fired or faced with academic discipline back in 2020. He didn’t evade debate either, instead making it his bread-and-butter format, even taking the discourse to hostile spaces. There was an appetite for what he was saying, so he found success.

This is not acceptable to large swaths of the left, who see anything remotely conservative as a step towards a new era of Nazi rule. Many of them, to some degree, have been radicalized into confusing classical liberalism with fascism. They see debate as a threat, mere ideas as viruses to be stopped, and thus opt for deplatforming instead of reason as their primary culture war tactic. The stakes are so high to some that violence is the answer.

This has played out so many times, and no matter how much progressives think the threat is from the right, they share much, if not most, of the blame. The George Floyd riots; the pro-Hamas campus protests; the now-multiple instances of

trans
school shootings

; the assassination attempt of Trump. Whether it’s delusional individuals acting alone or an organized mass, it’s all taking place within the same increasingly sadistic ecosystem that validates the paranoia of society’s worst. In this growing trend of political violence, Charlie Kirk is its latest casualty.

National Post

Outspoken British journalist Douglas Murray has a blunt take on Israel’s strikes in Qatar, targeting Hamas’s leadership. “The scandal is not that Israel acted, but that it had to.” In an interview in Montreal with National Post, Murray, the bestselling author of On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, offered a sharp and unapologetic view on Israel’s decision to target Hamas leaders in Doha.

“Why are there terrorist leaders in Qatar?” he asked bluntly. “For years, Hamas commanders have lived openly in Doha — billionaires at the largesse of western taxpayers — ordering attacks on Israel while enjoying immunity. And the world has not only looked away, but protected them. That’s the mobster’s trick: you carry out violence on one hand, then present yourself as a peacemaker on the other. Qatar has played that double game for years, and the world has let them get away with it.”

Murray has emerged as one of today’s most provocative voices, challenging western civilization’s “crisis of identity and confidence.” Admired by conservatives and condemned by critics as “far right,” he embodies both the influence and polarizing edge of modern debate. He has been an outspoken supporter of Israel since October 7.

Murray brought his message to Montreal Monday night, speaking to members of the Jewish community at The Chevra synagogue. His remarks set the tone for an evening that was less about polite commentary and more about urgent warnings for both the Middle East and the West.

In our interview, Murray reserved sharp words for Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has pledged recognition of a Palestinian state once “conditions are met.”

“Canada is not in a position to create new states in the Middle East,” Murray said. “States are not conjured up by well-meaning western leaders. They must be plausible. And right now, a two-state solution is a fantasy. Hamas killed it on October 7. The idea that Canada could force one into existence is arrogance bordering on absurdity.”

As for Carney’s assertion that “Canadian values are Muslim values,” Murray dismissed it as political expediency. “That is just something said on the hoof after losing control of the borders. It’s not serious thinking, it’s pandering.”

In Murray’s telling, Carney is not merely misjudging foreign policy but risking Canada’s credibility on the world stage. “Who does he think he is?” Murray asked. “It is not Canada’s role to impose a solution in the Middle East. That era ended long ago.”

Murray did not shy away from naming what many Jewish Canadians feel but fear to say: that the wave of vandalism and intimidation against synagogues, schools, and Jewish-owned businesses since October 7 is not protest, but domestic terrorism.

“I’d be very surprised if the Canadian government would tolerate this level of violence if it were coming from white supremacists,” he said. “But because it’s under the banner of Palestine, it’s treated differently.”

The aim of such extremism, he warned, is never limited to Jews. “The obsession with destroying Israel is just the first stage. Anyone who doubts that should listen to what is said openly at Palestinianist conferences in North America: first delegitimize Israel, then delegitimize America, and finally bring down the West.”

His litmus test? “Find me one anti-Israel protest in Canada where the crowd proudly waves Canadian flags and sings O Canada at the end. You won’t find it.”

Murray’s remarks in Montreal were not comfortable listening. They were not meant to be. He places today’s debates about Israel, the Palestinians, and western tolerance of extremism in the starkest possible terms: a struggle for the survival of civilization against those who would dismantle it from within.

That warning lands differently when Canada’s own prime minister is proposing symbolic gestures toward statehood for Palestinians and adopting language Murray calls pandering. It was a reminder to those gathered at The Chevra that the battle is not only in the Middle East, but here at home — in the policies of Ottawa and in the streets of Montreal.

As the applause suggested, many in Montreal’s Jewish community recognized both the urgency and the courage in saying aloud what too many prefer to whisper.

National Post

• Jesse Kline: Carney’s plans to reduce red tape already mired in bureaucracy
• Alan Kessel: Carney, a Palestinian state should not be a prize for terror

It’s safe to say that all of official Ottawa is reading “Time of My Life,” Max Valiquette’s Substacked memoir of his time (“late 2023 to early 2025”) as executive director of communications for Justin Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Part five

in the series reached inboxes on Monday. The cycle of governments dying and their

dramatis personae

commencing the posthumous ghost-battle over legacy is a phenomenon that dates back hundreds of years, but Valiquette is breaking new ground in taking the fight to Substack.

This is, or ought to be, the raw material that historians will later feed on, and one would assume that Valiquette could not help but augment our understanding of that all-powerful yet ill-understood entity, the Prime Minister’s Office. At a minimum we might all get a few good anecdotes out of it.

So probably some people will frown at me for expressing near-total disappointment with what has been published so far. If the first five parts are a prolonged and self-absorbed tantrum about the collusive perfidy of the Conservative opposition and the press, which is what they are, well, let the man cook! Come on, Cosh, we don’t know that there won’t be 50 or 100 installments! The story might get more interesting, or at least actually more like a story than an acid-reflux catalogue of grievances.

The series begins

with a depiction of the thunderous moment in Canadian history that was Valiquette’s hiring, along with a recitation of Justin Trudeau’s virtues as a statesman and intellect, one perhaps modelled upon the way the Trudeau family talks about Fidel Castro. No reasonable being can have expected anything else: anyone following the series from the start will have just been relieved to have it gotten out of the way.

In part two

, Valiquette warns us that he’s an inexhaustible optimist who has no patience for the opposite of optimism, which turns out not to be pessimism, but “

cynicism

.” Update your thesaurus. He then begins to complain about how the government for which he worked was outmanoeuvred on non-traditional media, and ought to have considered recruiting a U.S.-style press secretary to centralize messaging and produce social-media-friendly content.

“It drives me

especially

nuts,” he writes, “that the Conservatives are

so good at exploiting how media is changing

. They’re conservative! It’s in the name!

They’re

the ones who are supposed to be terrible at dealing with change.”

Part three of the series

, probably the most pertinent and informative, is a case study in devious Conservative success. Shortly before Valiquette was hired, the Tories put out a popular “Housing Hell” mini-documentary that caused the new executive director of communications a whole lot of headaches. Valiquette thinks “Housing Hell” is full of lies, but, being a comms creature, he doesn’t waste your valuable time specifying any of those. Instead, he describes how the popularity of the clip became the news story because of a-hole journalists (carefully listed by name) who don’t know how to interpret digital view counts and other social-media parameters.

It is at this point that Valiquette loses all ability to resist his taste for the blood of his enemies in the press.

In part four,

he waxes paranoid over Conservative repurposing of a Brian Lilley tweet and boasts about how he eavesdropped on an opposition MP on an airplane.

The new part five

seems about to describe a crucial September 2024 caucus retreat in which a plan to “re-launch Justin Trudeau” was discussed, but then Valiquette observes that he can’t tell us anything about the meeting, and moves briskly on to complain about the torrent of leaks to the press that immediately followed the meeting.

The special object of his fury here, not granted the dignity of explicit identification by name, is the Star’s Althia Raj, who is rarely considered an especially venomous enemy of the Trudeau PMO. Nonetheless, she is sure to die unforgiven, for having described him in print as “the prime minister’s director of communications” rather than the

Executive Director

.

Naturally, having filled Substack with such intricate recriminations (none of which have yet been aimed at your National Post), Valiquette concludes with a touching reassurance: “As much as I see the problems that exist in the media right now, I have great admiration for the profession of journalism. It’s one of the reasons I take such issue with people who are doing a shit job of it.”

He concludes by promising “hate and shittiness” in the forthcoming chapter six, which at this point feels like a safe bet, along with some material about the Trudeauvian Final Days. Me, I can’t wait.

National Post

Can institutions tasked with imposing rules on society be relied upon to reduce the very regulations that have allowed them to grow in size and increase their power over time?

It’s a serious question. As part of his election promise to reduce the crushing weight of bureaucracy that’s held the Canadian economy back for years, at the beginning of July, Prime Minister

Mark Carney tasked

the president of the Treasury Board with engaging federal departments to come up with a list of proposals for reducing red tape and over-regulation.

The 60-day review period ended on Monday, when the government released a

series of reports

authored by 31 federal agencies. While light on specifics, the “

Red Tape Review Progress Reports

” contain a number of interesting proposals that, if fully implemented, could save citizens and businesses considerable time and money, and stimulate investment and economic growth by making Canada a more attractive place to do business.

The

Treasury Board

, for example, is looking to “advance regulatory co-operation in support of trade” by negotiating a “mutual recognition agreement” with the provinces to ensure rules concerning the sale on non-food items are recognized across the country; working with the provinces, European Union and United States to harmonize regulations; and possibly even requiring departments to justify why “regulations in another jurisdiction do not meet their needs before bringing forward a unique made-in-Canada solution.”

Health Canada

and the Public Health Agency of Canada also want to harmonize standards and improve co-operation with other advanced countries so Canadians have access to foods and medicines deemed safe by our peers, reduce the regulatory burden on foods and drugs that are considered to be “low-risk” and get rid of some of the burdensome “licensing, security, packaging and reporting” requirements that were imposed on the country’s nascent cannabis industry.

The

Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

and

Natural Resources Canada

want to make it easier for companies looking to get infrastructure projects approved under the Liberals’ draconian Impact Assessment Act by finding ways to “streamline approvals and reduce duplication,” “focus on areas of federal jurisdiction” and “accelerate timelines to deliver faster decisions.”

These are the kinds of ideas that get libertarians like myself excited, and I sincerely hope the government is successful in this endeavour. But you’ll have to forgive me for being somewhat skeptical, as we’ve been here before. In 2011, the Harper government put Maxime Bernier, then the most libertarian member of Parliament, in charge of the Red Tape Reduction Commission. Although the commission produced an

action plan

and imposed a rule requiring regulators to drop an old regulation when instituting a new one, the effort ultimately failed to live up to expectations.

A

Statistics Canada report

released earlier this year found that the regulatory burden increased steadily between 2006 and 2021, rising by an average of 2.1 per cent per year. This had a deleterious effect on the economy, reducing GDP growth by an estimated 1.7 percentage points, employment growth by 1.3 percentage points and investment growth by nine per cent. Even between 2011 and 2015, when Bernier was in charge of the file, the total number of regulatory requirements in Canada increased from 252,000 to 284,000.

It’s possible that, just as the Canadian Liberals and U.S. Democrats were able to balance their respective countries’ budgets in the 1990s, the Grits will have more freedom to make the hard, but necessary, cuts to the size and scope of government due to a general belief that they’re instituting reforms for practical, rather than ideological, reasons. But we’ve already seen fierce opposition to Carney’s plan to fast-track “national interest” projects from environmental groups and Indigenous leaders — two interest groups that have historically proved to be major obstacles to economic development and make up key elements of the Liberal base.

There are also long timelines attached to many of the proposals. Despite numerous government and private-sector reports with detailed recommendations on how to reduce taxes and regulations on the cannabis sector, for example, Health Canada won’t publish its revised Cannabis Act regulations until the 2026-27 fiscal year. The agency also anticipates it will take a full two years to come up with a plan to speed up food and drug approvals using a “risk-based approach,” with its proposals expected to be published in 2027 and then subject to a consultation period.

These long timelines tell us that federal departments expect to be mired in their own internal bureaucracy and decision-making processes for quite some time. After all, any changes will have to go through the government’s “

Cabinet Directive on Regulation

,” which requires detailed regulatory impact analyses and drawn-out consultations with stakeholders, First Nations and the general public.

And whether any of the 500 initiatives outlined in the reports actually see the light of day will ultimately be up to the relevant ministers and their department officials — people who have made a living out of telling others how to go about their business, and who came up with many of the overbearing rules in the first place.

If Carney is serious about reducing red tape to attract investment and revitalize the economy at a time when U.S. tariffs are threatening many Canadians’ livelihoods, he should introduce legislation aimed at fast-tracking the removal of unnecessary regulations — which, let’s be honest, encompasses the vast majority of them.

The Liberals should also impose deeper spending cuts, which would incentivize departments to cut their workloads and staffing requirements in order to meet budgetary targets. The current plan to cut spending in select departments by 7.5 per cent in the upcoming fiscal year, another 2.5 per cent the year after that and an additional five per cent in 2028-29 simply doesn’t go far enough. Unless ministers and their department heads are forced to find efficiencies, they will have little reason to slash the regulations that keep their bureaucrats employed.

If Ottawa can successfully harness this unique opportunity to reduce the regulatory burden imposed on businesses and consumers, it will pay enormous dividends in future economic growth. But the truth of the matter is that government bureaucracy doesn’t just stifle private-sector innovation, it hinders government reform, as well. If the Liberals are to succeed, they will need to find ways to get government, and the politicians who run it, out of the way.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

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