National Post (Politics) Archives

A Pakistani immigrant ordered deported 17 months ago for causing a deadly five-vehicle crash on a major highway in Mississauga, Ont., and then fleeing the scene, has won another chance to stay in Canada.

The “tragic” Jan. 27, 2018, crash on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) resulted “in the death of one person and severe injuries to various other individuals,” according to a recent Federal Court decision.

Yasir Baig “fled the scene of the accident but surrendered to the police” a dozen days later.

In October 2022, the married father of three pled guilty to dangerous driving causing death. Baig, a permanent resident of Canada, was sentenced to six months less a day in jail and a 32-month driving prohibition.

“As a result of his criminal conviction,” Canada’s Immigration Division conducted a hearing that concluded Baig was inadmissible to this country “for serious criminality. A removal order was issued against (him) on May 17, 2024,” said the Federal Court decision, dated Nov. 3.

Baig took his case to the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD), seeking “special relief” on “humanitarian and compassionate grounds so that he could maintain his permanent resident status and remain in Canada.”

When that panel turned him down, Baig took his case to Federal Court, asking for a judicial review.

“In my view, the IAD fell into error in two ways,” said Justice Anne Turley.

In finding that Baig had “shown minimal potential for rehabilitation,” the IAD “did not engage,” Turley said, with the Ontario Parole Board’s “determination that he posed a very low risk to public safety.”

The judge noted the parole board, using “a tool designed to assess an offender’s risk of recidivism, rated (Baig) as a very low risk to reoffend.”

According to Turley, “in assessing the best interests of the children, the IAD did not consider (Baig’s) evidence that his wife and children would return to Pakistan with him if he was removed from Canada, nor the resulting hardship on the children due to the language barriers and the lack of educational accommodations.”

The crash Baig caused occurred in the Toronto-bound lanes of the QEW near Cawthra Road around 10 p.m.

According to the judge who sentenced him, Baig got angry that night because someone flashed their high beams at him and honked.

That caused a chain reaction involving five vehicles, Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno said in June 2023.

His court heard Baig was driving in the eastbound lanes of the QEW in Mississauga, when Baig suddenly cut in front of traffic in the left passing lane. Baig slowed his Honda Civic to about 50 km/h, causing the vehicle immediately behind him to abruptly slow down.
When the driver behind him flashed his high beams twice, Baig responded by bringing his car to a complete stop on the busy highway.

Seven people were rushed to hospital from the crash scene, including two women who suffered critical injuries.

One of the women, Nicole Turcotte, 22, of Niagara Falls, later died in hospital.

Baig, who was 32 at the time of the crash, was charged with dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death, dangerous operation of a vehicle causing harm, failing to remain at the scene of a collision causing death, and failing to remain at the scene of a collision causing harm.

“At the preliminary inquiry, the two charges of failing to stop at the scene were dismissed,” said the Federal Court decision.

“In October 2022, (Baig) pled guilty to dangerous driving causing death, and the dangerous driving causing bodily harm charge was withdrawn.”

Baig became a permanent resident of Canada in 2008 through a spousal sponsorship, the decision said. “He and his wife have three children, all Canadian citizens, twin boys who were born in 2009 and a younger son born in 2019.”

When Baig appeared before the Ontario Parole Board in August 2023, it found his risk was “manageable in the community” and that he was “a very low risk of re-offending,” according to Turley’s decision.

Baig cited “his remorse, his establishment in Canada, the lack of appropriate medical care in Pakistan, his children’s best interests, and the hardship he and his family would suffer if he were removed,” in support of his request for special relief on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, said the Federal Court decision.

In a decision this past January, the IAD found those were insufficient grounds “to allow the appeal or to stay (his) removal from Canada.”

In the same decision, the IAD also determined that Baig’s “continued threat to public safety” outweighed the best interests of his children.

According to the IAD, the threshold for humanitarian and compassionate relief is high.

Baig “has shown minimal potential for rehabilitation,” said the IAD.

“These considerations weigh significantly against special relief.”

Baig’s wife “testified (in front of the IAD) about the significant hardship their children would experience if they had to live in Pakistan, due to both language barriers and educational needs.”

“None of the children speak either Urdu or Punjabi. Further, the twin boys (who were 15 at the time of the IAD hearing) require education accommodations, including special laptops that assist them with reading. Additionally, (Baig’s) wife testified that she feared her sons would be judged in Pakistan for their learning disabilities.”

The IAD determined Baig’s “children’s interests would be best served” if he remained in Canada.

“However, the continued threat (Baig) poses to the safety of the Canadian public given his minimal possibility for rehabilitation outweighs the best interests of the appellant in this case,” said the IAD.

Turley determined the IAD’s decision was “unreasonable” and “must be set aside.”

She granted Baig’s application for judicial review and sent his case back to the IAD for “redetermination.”

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Click here for more Canada

I had looked at that picture of my mother hundreds of times as it sat on her dresser in the nursing home where she spent the last 18 months of her life in Qualicum, British Columbia — a beautiful Scottish 19-year-old with dark long curls framing her face and silver wings adorning her dress. A young woman who would eventually immigrate to Canada to Clarkson, Ontario, now Mississauga, with her husband and young family.

But it was only after her death on May 29, 2024, at age 99, that I noticed the flyer’s wings on her dress. How was it possible that I had never registered them before?

My father had served in the British Army during the Second World War, but the wings were emblematic of an air force flyer. Things just weren’t adding up, so I asked my older sister Dianne about them. She responded, “Oh, those belonged to her first fiancé Hubert Smith. He was killed after the war.”

Her first fiancé? I was stunned. I believed my mother, May Mackie, was only ever engaged to my father, Bill Mackie.

Time has a way of marching on, but memories of the Second World War still live on. I decided I needed to find out more about the wings and her former fiancé and began my hunt for answers. Here was a young woman of many facets — a violinist, a passable golfer and an expert baker. Her shortbread was legendary. But I knew nothing of this aspect of her life and my sister only had vague memories of her discussions about Hubert Smith. Several of her close friends in Qualicum Beach knew further details.

One evening in 1944, she decided to go to a dance, rather unwillingly, with her best girlfriend. When the girls arrived at the dance there were service men standing around smiling and trying to approach the girls for a dance. Hubert Smith was one of those young men. But the girls decided to ignore them and went to find their friends instead.

Later it was revealed that Hubert Smith (Hugh) said to one of his friends, “See that girl in the green coat? I’m going to marry her.” My mother was that girl. Hugh did get a dance in with my mother but when he asked if he could see her again, she brushed him off saying she was seeing someone at the time. But she wasn’t, and on the bus ride home she regretted her decision, telling her friends how nice, polite and wonderful he was. At the time it seemed like a missed opportunity never to be seized again.

But after days of thinking about him, and how perhaps she had made a mistake, she looked out the second-floor window of her office building where she worked and there he was, looking up at her. According to my mother, she flew down the stairs where she reunited with Hugh.

They were pretty much inseparable after that and soon became engaged.

Then came the declaration of the war and Hugh was posted to the HMS Implacable, a British aircraft carrier — a 20-year-old pilot who left behind the love of his life, May Stirton. Hugh Smith fought in the Sea of Japan, towards the end of the Second World War, and survived his tour of duty. In another “Canadian Moment”, the HMS Implacable was involved in returning Canadian, Australian and British former prisoners-of-war, arriving in Vancouver harbour in early 1946 before returning to Melbourne, Australia.

On March 7, 1946, Hugh and other pilots set out on a training mission, flying along the Bass Strait that separates Tasmania from the Australian mainland. His plane crashed. His body was never recovered.

There are some discrepancies about how he really died, which my mother would disclose to a close friend named Jennie Homer some seven or eight years before her death.

“While watching the Australian Open from Melbourne, ads to ‘Come Visit Victoria’ kept playing and May became very agitated, pounding her thighs with her fists. One of those commercials showed the coastline outside Port Philip Bay with a series of shots of the Great Ocean Road and the rock formations known as the Twelve Apostles visible out to sea.”

As Jennie recalls, my mother said, “Why do they keep showing those damned rocks!” Jennie pushed on inquiring why the rocks were annoying her so much, but my mother just sat there quietly with tears in her eyes and replied, “There’s a lot you don’t know.” Obviously, the love of her first fiancé still rested with heaviness on her heart.

She explained that a co-pilot friend of Hugh Smith had come to Scotland to tell her about Hugh’s death. He told my mother that Hugh had not died on a training mission due to engine failure but rather a flying accident caused by target practice and a piece of rock hitting the plane and the cockpit, killing him. His plane likely would have been flying at high speed, so being struck by a rock would have caused instantaneous death.

It’s not hard to imagine a testosterone-driven young man flying a fighter armed with machine guns and cannons, flying dangerously close to those rocks.

This discrepancy in his death began our family’s quest to return those golden wings to any surviving relatives of Hubert Smith. The coincidences that would reveal themselves were utterly surprising.

In early December 2024, I asked my cousin Philip Mackie who lived in Devizes, England, to help in the search. He was a bit of an amateur historian and tech savvy. As Philip began his search he came upon a war memorial in Portsmouth that bore Hugh’s name, and a search of military war grave sites led to some rudimentary information.

Hubert Fuller Smith was born to Henry and Chrystabel Smith of Bournemouth, England, close to where my cousin grew up. He was born in the summer of 1925, but his full date of birth is unknown. His date of death was confirmed to be March 7, 1946, as we already knew.

Naval records revealed much about the HMS Implacable, but no mention of Hugh could be found. My cousin Philip’s search led him to a Commonwealth war graves site on which a man named Alan Smith has posted about his lost relative, Hubert Smith. This was the connection we were looking for.

The site gave us Alan’s email and I sent out feelers with trepidation, sharing the story of my mother’s involvement with his long-lost relative.

With great surprise, Alan’s positive response opened the world of Hugh Smith, for Alan was a military historian and had extensively researched Hugh’s history. But there was one part missing. He knew nothing of the part my mother had played in his life.

And then other coincidences in our lives came to the surface. Alan Smith and his family lived in Hamilton, Ont., 50 kilometres from my sister Dianne’s home in Guelph, Ont. So, our two families had lived only a brief distance away.

We also found out from one of Hugh’s uncles in Hamilton that the young pilot had visited the city between his posting to Scotland and deployment on the HMS Implacable. It seemed unimaginable that we all moved in such small circles.

My mother eventually married a lithe Scottish man named Bill Mackie in Dundee, Scotland, after the war, in 1947. My father never spoke of the war, despite our prodding. He was perhaps too traumatized to revisit what so many young men experienced.

To us, my mother and father seemed to have a happy and long marriage with my father passing away at the age of 79 in 1998. However, my father and my sister were rummaging through some old photos in the 1960s and they came across a picture of Hugh and he confronted my mother with it. My mother explained that Hugh was now deceased and couldn’t hurt my father anymore.

The extent of what my father knew about Hugh remains a mystery. Perhaps he had sketchy details but my mother decided to keep the details to a minimum, not to hurt my father, but to keep the love to herself. This is only speculation on my part.

When war breaks out it separates us but also binds us in the stories and histories that live on. My sister Dianne asked recently if our mother would want this story told publicly. My mother’s good friend Jennie Homer responded: “You know the close relationship I had with May — and I have to say that I am very confident that she’d be happy to know that their story is being shared.  She wouldn’t have wanted it out there while she was still living, mind you. I am also positive that she’d have been very grateful to Alan (Smith) for having taken such an interest in Hubert’s life, time and sad end. That would have meant a lot to her.”

Gustav Mahler’s 6th Symphony, The Heroic, has been playing as I write this. In the last movement, a mighty hammer blow strikes three times to signal the three mighty blows of fate, the third of which “fells the hero of the piece like a tree”. Hugh Smith’s tragic story was one such mighty blow, the hammer falling on his young life off the coast of Australia. My mother appeared to have carried the pain of his loss for her entire life, only recounting the story of her relationship with him in detail when a memory was triggered by the sight of those sea stacks off the coast of Australia.

We returned the wings to the Smith family in Hamilton on Nov. 6, 2025, at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, in time for Remembrance Day. A memorial will be set up in the museum documenting the relationship and will display the wings. We hope the Smith family found solace in their return after nearly 80 years.

Iain Mackie is a retired physician living in Vancouver B.C., and Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Ruta Pocius is a published journalist.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Click here for more Canada

Quebec would like the storied Florentine Diamond, as well as other jewels deposited secretly in a Quebec bank vault by the last Empress of Austria, to be on permanent display in the Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts.

One of the Empress’s descendants expressed gratitude to Quebec in an interview with the

New York Times

published Thursday, saying the province took her and her eight children in when they fled the Nazis.

“We thought it was very nice (of the family) to say they were grateful for Quebec adopting them as they ran away from the war,” Catherine Boucher, attachée de presse in the office of Mathieu Lacombe, Quebec’s minister of culture, told National Post.

Boucher also shared a statement from Lacombe.

“This is a truly unique story that connects Quebec to the Habsburg family. We can all be proud of the recognition and trust that the family places in us. We are therefore working with the Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts to find a way for these jewels to be displayed and accessible to the public,” says Lacombe.

The ministry has begun discussions with the museum about exhibiting the jewels. But Boucher says it’s far too soon to provide any details.

Meanwhile, the family has not made a final decision about where the jewels will be displayed, according to a spokesperson for the family.

“The family has committed to public display of the collection in Canada,” Tom Becker, senior managing director of strategic communications with FTI Consulting in Toronto said in an email to NP late Friday.

However, he notes that at this time “no specific location has been selected and the plans for how best to display the collection is in its earliest stages.”

Few gemstones have been laden with the history carried by the Florentine Diamond, according to

gemmary.com

, a website that curates stories about antique and vintage jewelry. The pale yellow, 137.27-carat diamond was once one of Europe’s largest gems, adorning the crowns of emperors and kings.

It was among the Austrian Crown Jewels until the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Soon after, it became shrouded in mystery, with its whereabouts unknown for more than a century.

However, reports

The New York Times

, the real story was recently told by three Habsburg descendants. It turns out the precious gem has been in a bank vault in Canada since the family fled here during the Second World War.

Austrian Empress Zita (Habsburg) escaped the Nazi onslaught with her eight children, arriving in the United States in 1940. The Empress carried the jewels with her in a small cardboard suitcase, family members told the Times.

With American help, the family then travelled to Canada, where they settled in a modest house in Quebec. Eighty-five years later, the family says it wants to display the Florentine Diamond and other jewels in Canada to thank the country for taking in the Empress and her children.

“It should be part of a trust here in Canada,” Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen told the Times. “It should be on exhibition in Canada sometimes, so that people can actually see those pieces.”

The story of the Florentine Diamond goes back to the powerful Medici family of Italy, according to

langantiques.com

, an antique jewelry website run by a San Francisco jewelry firm. Despite the Medici family’s best efforts to keep their jewels in Florence, the Florentine Diamond became part of the Austrian Crown Jewels by 1743.

The diamond remained a part of those Crown Jewels until the Hapsburg Empire came to an end after the First World War.

Then, as tensions built across Europe again, former Austrian Empress, Zita, wife of the last Emperor, Karl I (who died in 1922), opposed the growing Nazi threat. Her son, Prince Otto, offered his services to the Austrian First Republic, which was struggling to remain independent of the Third Reich. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Otto was declared an enemy of the state.

Zita fled with her eight children, arriving in the United States in 1940. The Empress carried the jewels with her in a small cardboard suitcase.

The family then traveled to Canada where it settled in Quebec.

“My grandmother felt very safe — she could breathe finally,” Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen told the Times about the arrival of the royal family in Quebec. “I assume that, at that stage, the little suitcase went into a bank safe, and that was it. And in that bank safe, it just stayed.”

In 1953, Zita returned to Europe but she left the jewels in the care of the Quebec bank.

This is where the story picks up today.

Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen, 64, a grandson of Karl I, said in an interview with the Times that the secret of the diamond was kept for decades, respecting Empress Zita’s wishes. She told only her sons Robert and Rodolphe about the diamond’s location, asking them to keep it undisclosed for 100 years after her husband’s death.

Before the sons died, reports the Times, they passed the information to their own sons. But for years afterward, the family says it declined to respond to queries about the diamond out of a desire to guard it.

von Habsburg-Lothringen only recently learned about the existence of the jewels from two cousins — Robert’s son, Lorenz von Habsburg-Lothringen, 70, and Rodolphe’s son, Simeon von Habsburg-Lothringen, 67.

All three met at the Quebec bank where the diamond and other precious jewels have resided in a vault. As they live in Europe, this was the first time they viewed the diamond.

The Florentine Diamond was wrapped separately from the other jewels, but it could have been set in a large, jewelled brooch, which was among the items. The family says there is no plan to sell the diamond. It has declined to speculate on the jewel’s value.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Click here for more Canada

Prime Minister Mark Carney swept aside criticism of the federal emissions cap and environmental assessment regime Friday, saying critics arguing the policies are preventing energy projects from being brought forward are “wrong.”

Speaking at an event at the Canadian Club in Toronto, Carney also pushed back on criticism of the $78-billion deficit in his government’s budget tabled Tuesday.

He argued that slashing the deficit — the main target of Conservative critics of the budget since Tuesday — would require eliminating a host of benefits and provincial transfers.

“We can hunker down, slash the deficit, turn inwards, and in the words of The Tragically Hip, wait for the ‘trickle down’,” Carney told the business crowd.

“That would mean getting rid of our key social programs, eliminating all of the health, education and social transfers to provinces and territories, while not investing in what we need now,” he continued.

Carney flaunted his government’s first budget throughout his speech to the business crowd, arguing it would spur private investment while cutting down on government operations spending as the country’s economy pivots away from the United States.

Carney also took a swipe at the U.S. during a subsequent Q&A session. When asked by business journalist Amber Kanwar what “extra” thing Canada has to attract corporate investment over the United States, Carney quipped: “the rule of law.”

Kanwar also asked Carney bluntly why the government wasn’t taking more risk in its latest budget.

For example, she said, the energy sector argues that Justin Trudeau-era policies like the emissions cap and the Impact Assessment Act are preventing them from proposing projects to Carney’s newly created Major Projects Office.

“They’re wrong,” Carney cut in bluntly. “They’re wrong because, literally, we are getting projects coming in. We’re in discussions with the province of Alberta directly on things.”

Carney’s government

set the stage for an eventual scrapping

of the controversial oil and gas cap in its budget.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is a particularly vocal critic of the emissions cap as well as the Act (colloquially known as C-69). She has argued that they have “devastated Alberta’s economy” and are part of nine so-called “bad laws” she wants Carney to repeal.

She’s also pushing to have a yet-to-be-submitted proposal to build a million-barrel-a-day bitumen pipeline from Edmonton to British Columbia’s northern coast included as one of the projects to be fast-tracked by Carney’s Major Projects Office.

But when asked specifically about the office approving a new pipeline project, Carney jokingly dismissed the question as “boring.”

He then turned to the Toronto room to ask anyone working on a pipeline to raise their hands. Apparently seeing no hands rise, Kanwar asked if that was a problem.

“No, no, no,” Carney said increasingly emphatically.

“Don’t worry, we’re on the pipeline stuff. Danielle’s (Smith) on line one. Don’t worry, it’s going to happen,” he added. Then he nuanced: “Well, something’s going to happen. Let’s put it that way.”

He also argued that new data centres and intelligence infrastructure will have a “much bigger impact” on productivity and Canadians’ standard of living than new pipelines.

Carney’s government has shown increasing signs of annoyance towards recent questions from journalists, provinces and the energy sector about if and when his government would recommend new pipeline proposals to the Major Projects Office.

Last week, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson suggested the question of whether the country can, in fact, build a new oil pipeline to be an “overfocusing” on a “hypothetical.”

Carney’s speech capped an eventful week for the Liberals, who tabled the budget Tuesday, welcomed a floor-crossing member to their ranks from the Conservatives and survived two confidence votes related to the budget.

With Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont joining government ranks, the Liberals are just two seats shy of a majority government.

Asked at the end of Friday’s event about how many MPs his party needed to form a majority, Carney mumbled “a couple.”

He then turned to the room and said with a wink: “So call your local MP if they’re not a Liberal.” He then thanked the crowd and walked off stage.

National Post, with files from Stephanie Taylor

Cnardi@postmedia.com

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.

Click here for more Alberta

OTTAWA — RCMP in Nova Scotia says it is investigating online threats made against Liberal MP Chris d’Entremont after his floor-crossing from the Opposition Conservatives.

A spokeswoman says that Mounties in Yarmouth, located in southwestern Nova Scotia, began investigating after receiving a report of “online threats” on Wednesday.

“This activity has been reported to the RCMP and there’s an open, ongoing investigation. We’re unable to comment on operational details related to protective measures,” wrote Allison Gerrard, a communications advisor for the RCMP in Nova Scotia.

The day before the RCMP said it received the report, d’Entremont, who has represented the Nova Scotia riding of Acadie—Annapolis since 2019, sent shockwaves through Parliament by quitting the federal Conservatives and joining Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals.

While Liberals offered d’Entremont a hero’s welcome, Conservative MPs responded with a mix of disappointment and anger, with many saying he had betrayed voters and those who helped get him elected. Ontario MP Jamil Jivani called him “an idiot,” while B.C. MP Aaron Gunn referred to him as “a coward.”

A request for comment from d’Entremont has not yet been returned.

The RCMP, in recent years, has warned of the growing volume of threats facing elected officials, particularly online, which has led to a spike in demand from the unit dedicated to protecting public officials.

Carney, as well as several of his cabinet ministers, receives protection, as does Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who told CBC News in an interview last month that he was concerned for his family amid growing incidents of political violence.

For his part, d’Entremont has explained his decision to cross the floor by saying he that he was not feeling “aligned with the ideals,” of Poilievre and had mused that several of his former colleagues were in the “same boat.”

National Post

Click here for more Canada

After a chaotic week in Ottawa, with a floor-crossing, a resignation and a failed attempt to bring down the government, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre travelled to Toronto to put the focus back on cost-of-living issues.

“We should be the richest country on planet earth and that should be our goal,” said Poilievre, on Friday afternoon, to a business crowd.

Poilievre took aim at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal budget and pointed to the Liberals as the reason for Canada’s high cost of living while speaking at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Canada. The address came days after the Carney government revealed its

budget

plan on Tuesday.

“This week’s budget showed that investment has collapsed in all three fiscal quarters for which he has been prime minister,” said Poilievre, adding that there’s a deficit of $78 billion — “$16 billion higher than Carney promised during the election campaign.”

The budget was largely overshadowed by the political drama that came in its wake on Tuesday. Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont confirmed that he had resigned from the Conservative caucus hours after the budget was tabled, joining the governing Liberals. Then, while

MPs voted on Thursday evening against a Conservative sub-amendment

that called on the House of Commons to reject the budget, which would have brought down the government if passed, news broke that Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux plans to resign as a member of Parliament. Jeneroux was also considering switching ranks to the Liberals and

even met with Carney recently, multiple sources told National Post

Poilievre used his speech to turn the focus back to the Liberal government’s record and away from the political intrigue.

Canada has “literally everything it takes to have the highest quality of living,” said Poilievre. He noted the country’s resources, including uranium, potash, a long oceanic coastline, fresh water and having the shortest shipping distance from the Americas to both Europe and Asia.

“We have the most resources in the world, but we can’t get them to markets, and the biggest market to which we get them has near monopoly on our most precious, and just in terms of dollar value, our biggest exports, oil and gas,” he said.

The obstacle? Our own government, he said, which is the reason why “we don’t have pipelines and more LNG plants on our coasts.”

“Government makes it next to impossible to get anything built,” he said.

“This will be the most costly five years, if it is allowed to happen, in any of Canada’s history,” he said. “And make no mistake. This is not due to the falling revenue from the trade war. It is due to increased government spending.”

He said the money the government plans to spend comes out of the pockets of Canadians, as home and food prices increase.

LIVE: Keynote Speech at the Economic Club of Canada https://t.co/auyORVtAt4

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) November 7, 2025

To bring down the deficit, Poilievre said he would cut bureaucracy and bring in a dollar for dollar law (for every dollar of new spending, there must be an equal dollar of savings.) He said he’d also cut hidden food taxes, like the

food labelling tax

and

fuel standard tax

, and eliminate the home building tax and

capital gains tax

on any reinvestments in Canada.

“(The Carney Liberals) believe in adding new obstacles for all of you and then asking you to go to them and ask for a handout to help you get over those same obstacles,” said Poilievre. “It’s like Ronald Reagan said, ‘If a liberal sees something that moves, they tax it. If it keeps moving, they regulate it. And when it stops moving, they subsidize it.’”

Poilievre also noted Carney’s mishandling of President Donald Trump, who recently terminated negotiations between Canada and the U.S. after the Ontario government used the voice of late former president Reagan in an

anti-tariff advertisement

“It was wrong for Mr. Carney to claim that he would handle the president, and I think we can all agree that it’s been very much the reverse since he took office,” he said, in conversation with the Stronach Group’s Michael Liebrock after his address.

Poilievre said, if he were to broker a deal between the neighbouring countries, he would offer them a greater military “that unburdens Americans of our defence and ensures their northern flank” is secure from threats if they agreed to trade with Canada more.

National Post, with files from Stephanie Taylor

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Click here for more Canada

Several gunshots heard at a B.C. ostrich farm signalled the end of an almost year-long saga to shield the lives of more than 300 birds.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed it has culled the birds in a statement released Friday.

“After consulting with experts experienced in managing ostrich disease outbreaks, the CFIA concluded that the most appropriate and humane option was to use professional marksmen in a controlled on-farm setting,” says the CFIA in its statement. “All depopulation activities were completed under CFIA veterinary supervision.”

Further, the CFIA says it has started with the “disposal stage” of the cull operation.

The agency moved ahead with the operation

after the Supreme Court of Canada announcement early Thursday that it would not hear an appeal against the cull by the farm’s owners.

The gunshots heard Thursday night at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C., came from inside an enclosure made of hay bales where the CFIA had herded scores of the ostriches, reports B.C. media outlet,

Castanet

. Farm supporters shouted “Stop!” and “Murderers!” when the cull proceeded just after darkness fell.

The

CFIA announced in a statement

released on Thursday that it would be moving forward with “complete depopulation and disposal” of the birds, guided by its “stamping out policy” for avian flu, and set out in the original cull order it issued 10 months ago after an outbreak on the farm resulted in the death of 69 birds.

The CFIA statement notes that appeals of the cull order failed in the Federal Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal. Both courts “determined that the CFIA acted reasonably and in a procedurally fair manner in its decision to apply the stamping-out policy for the ostrich premises.”

The CFIA also restated the reasoning behind the cull: “Our disease response aims to protect both public and animal health, as well as minimize impacts on the $6.8 billion domestic poultry industry, and the Canadian economy. This supports Canadian families and poultry farmers whose livelihoods depend on maintaining international market access for $1.75 billion in exports.”

The holding pen at the farm, which had been filled with ostriches on Thursday, appeared still and empty on Friday morning, the

Canadian Press

reports. Instead, the pen is filled with long blue tarpaulins covering objects on the ground, which are also shrouded with black sheeting.

Bright floodlights and hay bales had obscured what was happening inside the enclosure. Two RCMP vehicles had blocked the road leading to the area where supporters have been gathering at the farm, with officers turning people away. On Friday the road was clear, reports CP.

A lone RCMP officer was patrolling the field Friday morning and the farm was quiet except for the sound of generators powering CFIA and RCMP equipment.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Click here for more Canada

OTTAWA — Who is Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva-Kinova?

And how did she apparently convince the debt-ridden Canadian government to spend billions of dollars?

Georgieva-Kinova, or simply Georgieva as she is known professionally, is a Bulgarian economist who has been the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the last six years.

But unlike most 72-year-old, eastern European technocrats, Georgieva seems in recent months to have had a profound influence on Canadian fiscal policy.

At almost every public stop in recent weeks, including Thursday’s post-budget event at an innovation hub in Toronto, Finance Minister
François-Philippe
Champagne has referred to Georgieva’s apparent endorsement of the Canadian government’s policy directions, particularly its willingness to spend more.

During his opening remarks at the Toronto event, Champagne said he visited the IMF recently where Georgieva pointed to only two countries — Germany and Canada — that have the fiscal room to spend more on items such as infrastructure and housing.

Georgieva, a graduate of the Karl Marx Institute of Economics, is even quoted generously in the two-page foreword section of the federal budget itself, saying that Canada “stands out” in the G7 for its decisiveness, including the way it has “modernized the budget framework — separating operating spending from investing, and focussing strategically on pro-growth investments that can lift up productivity.”

Don Drummond, a former high-ranking executive at the Department of Finance and chief economist at TD Bank, said Champagne has been quoting Georgieva because she is a respected authority who provides the government with political cover for doing what they want to do: more spending.

But Canada’s debt situation is only strong, Drummond said, when compared with the “fiscal basket cases” that make up the rest of the G7. “Be careful the company you want to keep,” he said.

Champagne and Carney have said that Canada is cutting waste, while spending more on pro-growth items such as infrastructure and lower taxes. But
this week’s budget projects a deficit this fiscal year of $78.3-billion, the third highest in Canadian history and the largest ever in a non-pandemic year. The Carney government’s forecast calls for modest dips in the annual deficit over each of the next four years, although the cumulative effect will be another $320-million of new debt before the end of the decade.

The federal government has now accumulated $1.27-trillion in debt, almost half of which has been added over the last five years. With the budget’s updated forecast for this fiscal year, Ottawa is now on pace to amass $593.1-billion in debt over that five-year span, or 46.7 per cent of the total debt accumulated in Canadian history.

So who is Georgieva?

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Georgieva’s father was a road worker and civil engineer, while her mother was a shopkeeper. She earned a PhD in economics and a Master’s degree in political economy and sociology from the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics in Sofia, now called the University of National and World Economy.

Georgieva, who could not be reached for comment, started her career teaching economics at her alma mater in 1977. She joined the World Bank in 1993, launching what has been a very successful international career. Since 2010, she has worked mostly in various European political and economic institutions, landing her current position in 2019 as a replacement for Christine Lagarde, who became president of the European Central Bank.

The first person from an emerging country to lead the IMF, Georgieva has focussed much of her career on gender equality, the environment, and foreign aid and also wrote the first-ever textbook on microeconomics in Bulgarian. She is now in her second term at the IMF.

Despite the success, Georgieva’s career has not been without controversy. Her leadership at the Washington, D.C.-based IMF has been criticized for being too friendly to authoritarians, particularly Russia. In 2021, an independent inquiry found that she manipulated a report while at the World Bank Group by instructing her staff to alter data so that it boosted the rankings of China and Saudi Arabia.

The IFM is an international organization that was, along with the World Bank, established in 1944 to help rebuild and stabilize the global economy after the Second World War.

National Post

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Click here for more Canada

OTTAWA — The minority Liberal government will be put to the test for the second time in two days on Friday, with MPs voting on a Bloc Québécois amendment to the budget.

The Bloc’s motion calls on the House of Commons to reject the government’s budget, which the party says will “hurt Quebec” because it fails to increase provincial health and old age security transfers for seniors aged 65 to 74, and to combat climate change.

It is unclear if any other party will be supporting this amendment, which the Liberals have declared would be considered a vote of confidence for the government. That means that if it is adopted, the government will fall, and Canadians will be headed to an early election.

But it seems highly unlikely that a majority of MPs will be supporting the Bloc’s motion.

This week, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet used part of his response to the budget to reiterate that his party’s ultimate goal is to see Quebec separate from the rest of Canada.

“I believe that Quebeckers should be promoting their own major project,” he said on Wednesday. “That project is, of course, an independent Quebec. That is the project that deserves our vote. It will be called the country of Quebec. That will be our sole identity.”

The vote comes less than 24 hours after

a first confidence vote on the Liberals’ budget.

On Thursday evening, a Conservative sub-amendment to the budget — which called for a lower deficit and a clear plan to build more oil and gas pipelines, among other things — was defeated by the Liberals, the Bloc, the NDP and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

A handful of Conservative MPs were absent from the vote, including Alberta member

Matt Jeneroux, who had just announced that he would be resigning

from his seat.

Interim NDP Leader Don Davies said his party could not support a motion that called for deeper cuts, while the Bloc signalled they are against promoting more oil pipelines.

The third confidence vote will be on the budget itself. It is set to happen as early as Nov. 17, after MPs come back from a break week to commemorate Remembrance Day.

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

Click here for more Alberta

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston is threatening to pass a law enshrining the right to wear a poppy in the workplace after two of the province’s judges started requiring court staffers to ask for their permission to wear poppies in their courtrooms.

The issue came to light after the Atlantic version of Frank Magazine reported Judge Ronda van der Hoek, associate chief judge of the Provincial Court, and Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Jean Dewolfe (of the family division), who both work out of the Kentville Justice Centre in the Annapolis Valley, did not want court staff wearing poppies in their courtrooms.

“It has come to my attention that earlier this week there was an order issued prohibiting individuals working in certain court facilities from wearing poppies while on duty in those locations,” Houston wrote on the social media platform known as X.

“This order was issued under the guise that the poppy is somehow a ‘political statement.’ This is disgusting. The poppy is not a political statement. It is a symbol of remembrance and respect for the fallen and those who served and continue to serve our country.”

No conversations about poppies occurred in the courtroom, according to Andrew Preeper, a spokesman for the Nova Scotia courts.

“Nor did a judge ban poppies from the courtroom,” Preeper said in an email Friday.

“Members of the public are welcome to wear poppies in the courthouse and courtroom. Staff who wished to wear poppies in the courtroom were advised to speak with the presiding judge and conversations, as needed, have occurred around that specific topic. It is within the discretion of the presiding judge. Typically, to protect the neutrality of the courtroom space, symbols of support are not permitted to be worn by judges or staff within the courtroom.”

To “ensure the fair administration of justice, the courts must be neutral and appear to be neutral at all times, particularly inside the courtroom,” Preeper said.

“Everyone appearing in court must feel that their case will be heard fairly and without bias. As a result, all judges and staff are expected not to wear any symbols of support in the courtroom.”

Preeper pointed to The Canadian Judicial Council’s Ethical Principles for Judges, which notes “the wearing or display of symbols of support, even if they seem innocuous … may be interpreted as reflecting a lack of impartiality or the use of the position of the judge to make a political or other statement. For those reasons, judges should avoid statements or visible symbols of support, particularly in the context of court proceedings.”

According to Preeper, “in order to respect these ethical principles and ensure a neutral hearing, staff are also asked not to wear symbols of support in the courtroom. The courts’ position on this matter is not unique to Nova Scotia.”

Frank Magazine is reporting that the Sherriff’s Services Manager in Kentville told his deputies last week that poppies must be removed before they step into the courtroom. And a court clerk told the often satirical news publication that if they want to wear a poppy inside a courtroom, they must first get permission from the sitting judge.

Poppies have been worn in Canada since 1921, said the Nova Scotia premier.

“We have courts and a democracy because of the courage of those who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of, and in defence of, the very rights and freedoms we enjoy.”

Houston said the judges were wrong on the poppy front.

“While I respect the independence of the judiciary, I respect veterans, the very people who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our country, our values and our democracy, more,” he said.

“It is not lost on me that our veterans fought so we can enjoy the freedoms the courts uphold. That’s why I find it impossible to believe any judge would ban a symbol of respect for the fallen, our veterans and their families.”

Houston said he stands “firmly behind anyone who wants to wear a poppy in their workplace. Because of the actions of these judges, if necessary, I will introduce The Nova Scotia Remembrance Observance Act that will enshrine the right to wear a poppy in the workplace from November 1 to November 11.”

By 9 a.m. Friday, Houston’s comments had already been viewed more than 177,000 times.

Former federal justice minister and former Crown attorney Peter MacKay also commented on the matter.

“Say it isn’t so,” MacKay posted on X.

“Hearing that 2 NS Judges have ordered court staff, some of whom are Vets to remove poppies in the courtroom. What an outrage. A previous ‘ban’ on CAF/Vets wearing uniforms in schools when (meeting) students was broadly repudiated.”

MacKay was referencing the Nova Scotia elementary school that asked service members and veterans not to wear their uniforms last year to a Remembrance Day ceremony. The school soon did an about-face on the request after facing flak from the province’s premier.

In a November 2024 newsletter distributed to parents, Sackville Heights Elementary School invited service members to come to the ceremony, but asked them to leave their military uniforms at home.

“To maintain a welcoming environment for all, we kindly request that service members wear civilian clothing,” the newsletter said.

In the wake of that request, Houston wrote on X that the “leaders at this school are disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country.”

The school later emailed parents to apologize for the blunder.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Source: National Post (Politics)

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Alberta

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Canada

Click here for more Alberta

Click here for more Canada

loonie politics

premium content