LP_468x60
on-the-record-468x60-white

human rights museum_299965662.png

A newly announced permanent exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg is being met with heightened concern from Jewish groups.

“The Museum has allowed itself to become the tool, or dupe, of only one side of the story and thereby betrays its duty as a national institution to provide a common and inclusive meeting and educational space on the matter of human rights,” says Winnipeg lawyer, businessman and trustee at the Asper Foundation, David Asper, whose family led the museum’s founding in 2014.

Entitled “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present,” it is set to open in June 2026 focusing on the experiences of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the creation of Israel.

According to

the United Nations

, “Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic and “refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war … In November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab … The Arab world rejected the plan, arguing that it was unfair and violated the UN Charter.”

Criticism has emerged from several Canadian Jewish organizations about the exhibit, arguing it risks presenting a one-sided or “politicized” version of events that could contribute to the delegitimization of Israeli statehood and potentially fuel antisemitism.

“The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has rightly earned an international reputation for its rigorous consultation processes that bring together subject-matter experts, affected communities, and individuals with lived experience to fulfill its mandate to ‘contribute to the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians’,” says the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs vice president in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Gustavo Zentner.

When the CIJA learned about the museum’s intention to profile the experiences of refugees from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, “we immediately engaged with the Museum’s leadership,” he says. “We offered to convene leading experts to help ensure that any exhibit presents a balanced, fact-based, and comprehensive narrative, one that reflects the experiences of all refugees, including the more than 850,000 Jews forcibly displaced from long-established communities across the Middle East and North Africa.”

The Jewish community was not consulted, he adds.

“As currently framed, the proposed direction will deliver an incomplete and unbalanced narrative, one that omits Jewish refugee experiences entirely and will carry reputational consequences for the Museum. To ensure the Museum fulfills its mandate, we have requested information from its leadership about the exhibit’s content, framing, objectives, and development process, before any further steps are taken. We are actively working with our community and with partner institutions across Canada to demand accountability.”

Meanwhile, the

Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada

is moving to

suspend its partnership with the museum

since learning about the exhibit.

The JHCWC says it is “tremendously concerned” the exhibit may exclude the long history of Jewish displacement, events leading up to Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, and the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the mid-20th century.

The JHCWC also expressed concern the exhibit could overlook non-Jewish minorities who are Israeli citizen, including Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Circassians and Samaritans – people who hold positions in the judiciary, parliament, health care and the military, and that their equal rights under Israeli law complicate common interpretations of the Nakba.

The centre notes previous exhibitions — including the Holocaust gallery — were organized with extensive consultation.

“I think what you’re seeing with the Jewish Heritage Centre is the manifestation of a fundamental breach of trust by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights,” says David Asper. “The factual, historical context of events surrounding the ‘Nakba’ are not just one story. In my father’s founding vision of the purpose of the Museum he never had a problem with the telling of the whole
story, which includes the displacement and expulsion of over 800,000 Jews who were living in Arab countries and, perhaps most importantly, that a lot of what happened was triggered by the fact that many Arab countries declared war and tried to conquer and eliminate Israel in 1948.”

The JHCWC is withdrawing from the International Holocaust Remembrance Day event on Jan. 27, which it had been coordinating with the CMHR. However, it

remains willing to meet with the CMHR

and hopes the museum will reevaluate its plans.

 

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.


Prime Minister Mark Carney’s chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard, drew a sharp rebuke from Conservatives on Thursday when he compared Carney’s sprawling conflicts of interests to Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff Nigel Wright’s situation.

Blanchard is one of two senior public servants who was called to testify at the ethics committee this week to discuss the review of the Conflict of Interest Act.

“Canadians chose Mark Carney as prime minister because of his deep experience in both the public and private sectors. In fact, they did not elect him in spite of his vast global private sector experience, but precisely because of it,” he said in his opening remarks.

“Canadians understood that if we are to build a stronger, more resilient economy, one worthy of being the strongest in the G7, this experience is not optional. It is essential.”

Prior to entering politics, Carney was chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, which has US$1 trillion in assets under management, and also helped lead efforts to raise capital for two major Brookfield clean energy funds. He was also on Stripe’s board of directors.

When he became Liberal leader in March, he put all his assets, other than his personal real estate, into a blind trust. In July, federal ethics commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein ruled that he would have to respect an ethics screen with more than 100 companies.

The screen is meant to prevent any conflicts of interest with Brookfield Corporation, Brookfield Asset Management, Stripe Inc. and many more entities he has interests in.

Wright,

who died in September

, joined Harper’s office in 2010 after a long career in the private sector. He put his assets in a blind trust and was subject to an ethics screen to prevent him from being involved in discussions about his former employer, Onex.

At the time, opposition MPs joked that Wright

could not even order a pizza for the prime minister’s office

because one of Onex’s 40 firms was a pizza business.

“It’s exactly the same kind of case situation that you have with Prime Minister Carney,” said Blanchard, who referenced the now-deceased Wright’s situation multiple times during the meeting.

Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett said Wright was not the head of government, like Carney is.

“The chief of staff to the prime minister is not the prime minister, and the chief of staff to the prime minister does not have the ability to take the decisions and does not have the influence that the prime minister has,” he said.

Conservative MP Shuv Majumdar said Wright was “one of the most ethical people” he knew.

“The firm he represented was much more narrowly focused than the firm that Mr. Carney came from, which is very broad, affects a variety of sectors across the country,” he said.

“I think it’s a very different standard for the prime minister who decides versus a very senior advisor who advises.”

Speaking to the committee on Wednesday, the clerk of the Privy Council Michael Sabia — the other administrator of Carney’s extensive ethics screen — revealed that 13 files were flagged by his team as being potential conflicts of interest since he took the job in July.

Sabia defended the process, which he said is every bit as rigorous as the private sector.

“If there appears to be even a remote possibility that the screen may be needed, it is immediately put in place. Why? So that we always err on the side of caution,” he said.

Sabia said each of these 13 cases were brought to the ethics commissioner’s attention.

For seven of these files, the ethics screen was deemed not applicable. Five of them had no direct interaction with the more than 100 corporate entities listed as potential conflicts of interest for Carney, while two of them were fiscal measures with general applications.

For six of the 13 files, the ethics screen was applied which meant that Carney cannot be made aware of the discussions involving them before a decision is final and made public.

Sabia said those discussions are still ongoing which is why he could not share more. “In those circumstances, if we release that information, then we’ve defeated the purpose, because the prime minister would be aware of what those circumstances are,” he said.

The head of the public service said two instances in which the screen was applied and where a decision has already been made were about cross-border adjustments and a minor personal income tax change. He did not go into more detail about those changes.

Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault argued that the budget implementation act, for instance, implements tax credits for small modular nuclear reactors in Canada. One of the only companies making them is Westinghouse, in which Brookfield holds a majority stake.

Blanchard said that the ethics screen does not need to be triggered if it is a matter of “general application” — meaning that it can applies to all Canadians or all taxpayers.

It seemingly does not apply, either, for Carney’s personal communications such as U.S. President Donald Trump’s late-night text messages.

In that case, Blanchard said that Carney applies strict ethical rules for himself.

National Post

calevesque@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 newsletters here.


The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says Ottawa can save money by reining in its conference budget, pointing to $1 million spent on two events in 2024.

Hundreds of delegates at a Francophonie conference hosted by Canada’s parliament in Montreal last spring went home with “musical spoons” ordered from Amazon at a cost of more than $1,300, according to federal financial reports.

Attendees at a Parliament-hosted NATO event in the city in November, meanwhile, were gifted scarves, lapel pins and pens in delegate bags on which Ottawa spent almost $25,000.

And that’s just a small portion of what former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government spent on the two events. Hundreds of thousands more were doled out for transportation, lavish meals and accommodations, other “hospitality” expenses.

In total, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) said Parliament spent more than $1 million, based on calculations from this fiscal year’s quarterly financial reports for conferences hosted by the Parliament of Canada.

“The government should be able to host conferences without ballooning the tab so extravagantly,” CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano told National Post in an interview.

“This is Canadians’ money. Canadians are going through a very difficult time. I think it’s time for a culture change within the federal bureaucracy.”

The first event was the 49th Annual Session of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel, July 5-8.

By the CTF’s calculations, double checked by National Post, the event ended up costing roughly $631,500, which includes expenses accrued by five parliamentary staffers during a site visit a month prior.

While accommodations and transportation for Canadian participants and staff accounted for more than $243,000 of that, the bulk — $357,000 — fell under “hospitality.”

 The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal.

That included about $198,000 to provide lunch and break food to 475 delegates over four days, almost $29,000 for dinner buffet and lunch boxes for 85 participants from a now-closed nearby Italian restaurant.

As highlighted by the CTF, the on-site restaurant Marche Artisans offers a $52 per person rate on its à la carte group menu.

“The government could have taken everyone out for lunch at The Keg, ordered the most expensive lunch meal on the menu, and still saved taxpayers money,” Terrazzano said.

Another $80,000 was dropped on a “cultural dinner” as the conference concluded.

While dining that night, attendees were treated to performances by Le Monastère, a Montreal-based circus-like performance group, and another by Les Rats d’Swompe, an Ottawa band that plays a blend of traditional folk, rock, pop, and punk. They were paid fees of $5,750 and $4,250, respectively.

An undisclosed number of “musical spoons” were also ordered for the dinner, costing $1,339.67. It’s not clear what music the utensils played.

“When the government is spending $1,300 of other people’s money on musical spoons, it sends the signal that government bureaucrats are looking for ways to waste other people’s money,” Terrazzano said.

 The Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Franco Terrazzano.

A chunk of the money was paid out to staff, 27 of whom collected per diems worth a combined $20,000 and the CTF said “a total of 18 staff spent more than $3,000 each on accommodation,” costing an average of $750 per night.

Parliament also played host to the 70th Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Nov. 22-25, with CTF determining its final bill to be $405,000.

After transportation ($54,000), accommodations ($63,000), and per diems ($21,400), “hospitality” made up the bulk of the expenses billed back to Ottawa by the 577 participants.

Posh Montreal seafood restaurant and oyster bar Maesto was paid more than $88,000 for health Breaks, a welcome reception and a single luncheon.

A dinner for 130 people at Mediterranean-inspired restaurant Pangea rang in at almost $16,000, another catered by Société Traiteur cost $11,500, and a final-night dinner reception was billed for over $94,000, which included a nearly $12,000 performance by Montreal contemporary circus company Cirque Éloize.

Assembly attendees were also provided delegate bags ($10,500) that contained scarves ($10,850), lapel pins ($2,500) and pens ($672).

Also included in the grand tally is a solo bureaucrat’s solo NATO “observation mission” to Sofia, Bulgaria in May, and a site visit to Montreal by nine parliamentary staff that cost over $15,000 between transportation, accommodations, per diems and hospitality.

Terrazzano said if the federal government is serious about saving money, it should start by cutting down on its conference bills.

“This type of spending is what infuriates Canadians,” he said.

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.


Foyer of the Senate of Canada building in Ottawa. January, 22, 2020.

A Canadian Jewish advocacy group is demanding answers after an anti-Israel tribunal was held at the Senate of Canada over the weekend.

“It is completely unacceptable that the Senate provided its space to speakers with documented histories of promoting antisemitism and with ties to terror,” wrote Noah Shack, the CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), in a letter addressed to Speaker of the Senate Raymonde Gagné on Monday.

The Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility took place in Ottawa on Nov. 14 and Nov. 15. Senator Yuen Pau Woo, an independent senator appointed by Justin Trudeau to represent British Columbia, confirmed to National Post that he had booked the Senate of Canada room for the tribunal. Other senators were advised of the tribunal and given a chance to join, he said.

“The event has already been used to promote blood libels and other classic antisemitic tropes, including an absurd and overt lie that Israeli dogs raped Palestinians (stated by speaker Thomas Becker over Zoom),” Shack said.

Becker, an American lawyer, told the tribunal about his involvement in the Freedom Flotilla, a group of vessels that sailed to the Middle East to end what it referred to as the “illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.” He accused Israeli soldiers of kidnapping and torturing him after they intercepted the flotilla last month.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry

said

the vessels and passengers were taken to an Israeli port. Becker was deported to Turkey a few days later, the

Kansas City Star reported

.

While speaking to the tribunal, he also said Israel committed sexual violence against Palestinians, including “rape by animals.”

Many speakers said Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza, despite a ceasefire agreement being reached in October. One speaker said the ceasefire was “a cover for a continuation of the genocide,” while another referred to terrorism as resistance.

“The Senate of Canada hosting a panel featuring individuals who have justified the rapes, murders, and atrocities of October 7 should serve as a wake-up call to Canadians,” said David Sachs of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 people hostage.

“The growing influence of pro-terror rhetoric within the anti-Israel movement poses a real danger. It is time for Canadian institutions to stop providing a platform for those who incite hate and violence under the guise of academic discourse,” Sachs said.

Shack pushed for an investigation into how the two-day event took place and “disciplinary actions against those involved in hosting the event” in order to “ensure such an egregious use of one of Canada’s democratic houses does not occur in the future.”

The Senate said it received National Post’s request for comment but did not respond in time for publication.

Suleiman Baraka, a scientist who works with the University of Alberta, told the tribunal that “Hamas is not Taliban, is not ISIS.” All of those groups are listed as terrorist entities in Canada.

“The occupation is hindering us. It’s not Hamas,” he said.

 Dr. Suleiman Baraka reacted to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Calgary on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.

Former University of Toronto professor Uahikea Maile told the tribunal via video call that his stance after October 7 was mischaracterized in a National Post article as an “antisemitic celebration of violence against Jewish people.”

“On Oct. 7, 2023, I woke to photos of Palestinians triumphantly tearing down the apartheid wall near Nir Oz, manifesting their freedom amid a decades-long blockade in Gaza by the Israeli government,” he said.

He did not mention that around a quarter of the population of Nir Oz was either kidnapped or murdered by Hamas,

The Times of Israel reported

.

“Our universities have a political and historical complicity in the occupation of the Palestinian people,” Maile said.

Richard Falk was delayed while trying to enter the country with his wife, Hilal Elver. He addressed the tribunal multiple times over the weekend. He said it was “very flattering to be considered threats to national security.”

 Former United Nations special rapporteur overseeing the the Palestinian territories Richard Falk presents a report before the UN Human Rights Council on March 24, 2014 in Geneva.

Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson Rebecca Purdy told National Post in an emailed statement that the agency cannot comment on individual cases, but its role is to “assess the security risk and admissibility of persons coming to Canada.”

Falk is a former professor at Princeton University and former United Nations special rapporteur overseeing the Palestinian territories. He was

previously condemned by the Canadian government

for comments he made pointing the finger at Israel for the

Boston Marathon bombing

in 2013. In doing so, he promoted the antisemitic trope of “global Jewish power and demonization,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

He mentioned various ways to delegitimize Israel to the tribunal. One of the ways he outlined was to push the UN general assembly toward “supporting more openly and more radically the limitation of Israel’s rights.”

Another speaker, Ahmed Abofoul, is a lawyer for Al Haq, a foreign non-government organization that was

sanctioned by the United States in September

.

He called for Canada to “publicly affirm and materially support the full Palestinian sovereignty,” and said the country owes Palestinian victims financial compensation for the “damage caused by its complicity.”

“The Canadian state apology must explicitly name its complicity in the genocide in the Gaza Strip, its historical and ongoing alignment with the Zionist settler colonial regime, its own settler colonial genocide against Indigenous people,” said Abofoul.

Two women sitting on the panel of the tribunal — Françoise Vergès and Mireille Fanon Mendès-France — have had ties to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Samidoun was

listed as a terrorist entity in Canada

last year.

Vergès

attended a Samidoun event

in Paris in April 2024, which paid tribute to terror convict

Walid Daqqa

.

Mendès-France co-organized a tribunal about U.S. imperialism with Samidoun in 2022.

In 2023, she

signed a letter in collaboration with the terrorist entity

, along with leader of one of its Canadian chapter’s

Charlotte Kates

and others. They called for the release of Palestine Action activists arrested in the U.K.

This year, in an

article

posted to her foundation’s website, Mendès-France said: “It’s not Hamas that needs to be questioned, but a state that has lost all sense of proportion.”

A

press release said

the event was supposed to be held in the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Research and Education Centre. However, in a statement to National Post, spokesperson Jesse Robichaud said there was no such agreement in place as the venue “did not have the room capacity or technology infrastructure needed to accommodate the event.”

The purpose of the event, as it is listed on its website, was to “document the multiple ways that Canadian entities – including government bodies, corporations, universities, charities, media, and other cultural institutions – have enabled and continue to enable the settler colonization and genocide of Palestinians, and to articulate what justice and reparations would require.”

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.


Interim Parliamentary Budget Officer Jason Jacques.

OTTAWA — Ottawa’s fiscal watchdog says there’s a “low probability” that the Carney government will reach any of the three targets that it has referred to as its fiscal anchors, just months after establishing those key long-term benchmarks.

Jason Jacques, the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), told a parliamentary committee Thursday that there’s only a 7.5 per cent chance that the government, for example, will hit its target of reducing Canada’s deficit-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio over each of the next few years.

“Based on the analysis we’ve conducted, there is a low probability of respecting the fiscal anchors the government has set out for itself,” Jacques told the House of Commons’ Government Operations and Estimates Committee, following a question from Conservative MP Philip Lawrence.

The Carney government had earlier established three fiscal targets or anchors: balancing the operating budget within three years, a declining deficit-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio over the next few years and a declining debt-to-GDP ratio over the next few years.

The government’s first budget, released on Nov. 4, dropped the third of those targets.

John Fragos, a spokesperson for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, said the government’s plan is to cut operational areas such as the public service, while increasing spending in pro-growth investments such as infrastructure for the energy, AI and critical mineral industries.

“The government’s fiscal anchors reflect the balance between fiscal prudence and the macroeconomic reality,” Fragos said in a statement.

Jacques’s comments are the latest to criticize the Carney government’s fiscal policy in recent months. In his first few weeks on the job, Jacques has described the government’s spending as “stupefying,” “shocking” and “unsustainable.”

The PBO, an independent officer who scrutinizes government raising and spending of tax dollars, also criticized the federal government last week in a report for using an “overly expansive” definition of investments that will help the Carney government hit its first fiscal target. That move, the PBO said, shifts about $94 billion in daily spending over the next five years to the more palatable capital side of the ledger.

Capital spending includes many items that are physical assets such as infrastructure, housing, military equipment and even software that are often seen as “investments.” Some capital spending, such as spending on ports, rail and other transportation routes that are designed to make exports more efficient, can boost productivity and the economy.

Jacques’s report said the government’s inclusion of such items as corporate income tax expenditures, investment tax credits and operating subsidies should not be considered capital spending. “The government’s definition of capital investment is too broad.”

The Carney government’s first budget marked the first time that Ottawa separated capital and operational or day-to-day spending. The accounting move has its defenders, but critics say it could lead to more spending.

The budget projected an average deficit of $64.3 billion between this fiscal year and 2029-30, more than double what was projected about a year ago in the 2024 fall economic statement. It also forecast a deficit this 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.

Ottawa 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, the government 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.

The federal government also said this week that it intends to hire a permanent PBO. Jacques, a veteran of the PBO office, has been filling the position on an interim basis since September.

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.


Former deputy prime minister and cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland will become the Warden of Rhodes House and CEO of the Rhodes Trust in 2026.

Recently resigned federal Liberal cabinet minister and former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland will be the next Warden of Rhodes House and CEO of the Rhodes Trust, the U.K.-based global educational charity’s trustees announced Tuesday.

Freeland herself is a Rhodes Scholar, having obtained a master’s degree in Slavonic Studies from the University of Oxford’s St. Antony’s College, where the study focuses on international relations and regional studies.

“Having personally benefitted from a Rhodes Scholarship, I know how deeply transformative and influential it can be on the lives and futures of our Scholars,” Freeland stated in

a news release.

“The experience helped shape my international outlook and played a defining role in guiding my subsequent career.”

A portrait of Freeland still hangs on the campus.

Freeland spent her early career as a journalist reporting from Ukraine for outlets such as the Financial Times, The Economist and the Washington Post. She later served as the deputy editor of the Globe and Mail, the Financial Times’ U.S. managing editor, and the managing director at Thomson Reuters.

She entered politics in 2013 and would go on to hold several ministerial posts under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who eventually made her his deputy in 2019. The two had a falling out last December, at which time

she resigned her dual roles as deputy and minister of finance.

She later contended for the Liberal leadership, but lost to now-Prime Minister Mark Carney

Sir John Bell, Chairman of the Rhodes Trustees, said Freeland “has proven herself to be an outstanding leader with a remarkable ability to unite people around a common purpose — qualities that will serve the Trust exceptionally well.”

Rhodes House

is a historic building at Oxford that serves as the headquarters for the Rhodes Trust, one of the most prestigious international postgraduate scholarship programs in the world. It has been doling out endowments since 1903, bestowing the title of Rhodes Scholar upon thousands of individuals since.

As Warden and CEO answering to the board of trustees, Freeland will lead the Trust, managing its operations and strategy to ensure its academic, financial and cultural stability. She will also oversee the Scholar community at Oxford, part of which involves offering guidance on their selection.

The position, according to

Rhodes’ job posting,

is a full-time position with an initial term of five years, after which the board can choose to extend it.

When issued in March, the school anticipated the new Warden to begin this fall. Freeland, however, won’t take the reins until July 1, 2026.

The Toronto-area MP resigned from Carney’s cabinet in September and announced she would not seek re-election in the next federal election, which is not mandated until 2029.

“After twelve fulfilling years in public life, I know that now is the right time for me to make way for others and to seek fresh challenges for myself,” she wrote in a social media post.

Upon her resignation, the prime minister made her “Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine,” a diplomatic position that does not come with an office or staff.

Her portfolios of transport and internal trade were reassigned to Ministers Steve MacKinnon and Dominic LeBlanc, respectively.

Audrey Champoux from the Prime Minister’s Office told

National Post

that Freeland will report directly to Carney. Her duties will include working with Ukrainian officials on a plan to rebuild its economy, and liaising with Canadian business, academic and labour leaders and the Ukrainian-Canadian community.

Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent and speaks the language, has spoken out against Russia’s invasion of the country.

A source close to Freeland, who was granted anonymity to discuss private discussions, told National Post at the time that she does not plan to stay on as MP until the next election and would be meeting with the University–Rosedale riding association to discuss resignation at her earliest opportunity.

National Post has contacted Freeland for comment.

At Rhodes House, Freeland will succeed Sir Rick Trainor, who has been serving in an interim capacity since January 2025 after Dr. Elizabeth Kiss resigned after six years.

Kiss was preceeded by the only other Canadian to take on the roles, Charles Conn, a conservationist and former Ticketmaster-Citysearch CEO with both Canadian and U.S. citizenship, who became the first from both countries when he was

hired in 2013

. He stepped down in 2018.

— With files from Christopher Nardi

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.


U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra during the Global Business Forum in Banff, Alberta, on Sept.25, 2025.

Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, told an audience in Ottawa that he thinks Canada has recently meddled in American politics, but that he also doesn’t understand why Canadians are angry about comments regarding this country becoming his nation’s 51st state.

His remarks came this week at the 2025

National Manufacturing Conference

, run by Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME). Hoekstra was one of the speakers at the conference and also took part in what was billed as a fireside chat with Dennis Darby, president and CEO of CME

He opened on a light note, referencing the test of the emergency alert system on cellphones across the country this week.

“This Canadian government,” he said. “It is so nice of them to put out a national emergency that the U.S. ambassador is again speaking. Watch out!”

Later in the discussion, Hoekstra was asked about stalled trade talks between Canada at the U.S. He said talks will “obviously” restart. “The question is when.”

He added: “I’ve got suggestions that I think can get it restarted but it’s not going to be easy.” He then took a look pause before continuing.

“Here, I’ll just get myself in trouble,” he said. “I go around the country and people will say, ‘Pete, you just don’t understand why we’re so mad about the 51st state.’ Yeah, you’re right. I don’t.”

He then flipped the comment to say that Canadians don’t understand anger in his country, and specifically from U.S. President Donald Trump, over recent

pro-free-trade advertisements paid for by Ontario

and run in U.S. markets.

“No one can ever remember a circumstance where a foreign government came into the United States … targeting the president of the United States and his policies 10 days before an election and a couple of weeks before a Supreme Court case would be heard.”

Hoekstra was referring to a number of state and municipal elections in the U.S. this month, as well as a

Supreme Court challenge

over Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose broad global tariffs.

“I’m sorry,” he continued. “That does not happen in the United States of America. You do not come into America and start running political ads — government-funded political ads — and expect that there will be no consequences or reaction from the United States of America and the Trump administration.”

He added: “As far as we can tell, it has never happened in America before. And if Canada wants to insert itself and create a new precedent that you’re going to participate in our electoral politics through advertising targeting the president of the United States and his policies … I would suggest that you seriously consider whether that is the best way to try to achieve your objectives in the United States of America.”

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.


Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin speaks with reporters outside of the Liberal cabinet meeting in West Block on Tuesday, June 10, 2025.

OTTAWA

— Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is proposing to scrub the law targeting companies making environmental claims by removing the requirement that the evidence they present
must be based on “internationally recognized
” policy. 

Changes to the so-called greenwashing provisions introduced under former prime minister Justin Trudeau were announced in the Nov. 4 federal budget, with details about how outlined in the recently tabled budget bill.

The government said in the budget that changes were needed to address what it said was “investment uncertainty,” and comes as Carney looks to attract billions more in private sector investment through fast-tracking natural resource development.

Carney’s first budget promised to remove parts of changes made to the Competition Act, aimed at cracking down on the practice of companies making untrue or deceptive claims about the environmental benefits of a product or certain business activity 

— a style of marketing environmental groups have coined as “greenwashing.” 

The Liberals now propose to change the section specifically dealing with statements made by a company promoting its business as benefiting the environment and mitigating the effects of climate change.

Currently, the law prohibits companies from doing so should their claims not be rooted in “

adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology.” 

The budget bill proposes scrubbing the words “internationally recognized methodology” from the law. It also seeks to disallow a private party from bringing a claim based on that rule directly to the Competition Tribunal, reversing the change made when the “greenwashing” measures were introduced.

A response for comment from Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, whose predecessor, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, played a role in the initial change, referred any comment to Industry Minister Melanie Joly’s office, which has not yet been returned.

Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada, which advocated for the Liberals to introduce the provisions, said removing the requirement for companies to substantiate climate claims using “

internationally recognized methodology” creates an opening for businesses to cite evidence that may not be “scientifically rigorous.” 

“The risk here is they’re going to let companies make up their own definitions and their own rules, and this is going to result in really weak standards,” he said.

Over the summer, the Competition Bureau released a series of guidelines on the provisions, following consultations after the changes were introduced.

It said the bureau would consider methodology to be “internationally recognized” should it be recognized “

in two or more countries.” 

The example it provided was of a hypothetical company promoting itself as reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, but lacking a clear plan to do so and being unable to substantiate that claim.

Keith Brooks, program director at Environmental Defence, an environmental advocacy organization, said he believes more time was needed to assess the impact of the proposed change, but said he welcomed the fact that Carney was prepared to keep the provisions in place and maintain the rule that substantiation of environmental claims was still required.

“We were concerned that they were going to be scrapping these rules altogether, and instead, I think that they are maintaining most of the substance of the intention of the rules while trying to make it a little bit easier for companies to comply,” he said.

Brooks added: “Does it push companies to back up the claims that they’re making?”

Pathways Alliance, a group of oilsands companies promoting the ability to reach net-zero emissions from oilsands production by 2025, scrubbed their website and social media feeds after the new “greenwashing” provisions were introduced. It now welcomes the change.

“Changes to the Competition Act are necessary and the proposed amendments are directionally positive. The current requirements have put Canadian companies at a disadvantage compared to their global counterparts by limiting their ability to speak freely about environmental work,” said Kendall Dilling, the group’s president. 

We will need to review the changes as they appear in the legislation before offering any further comment.”

The group is behind a proposed $16.5 billion carbon capture and storage network Carney has named as one of the possible nation-building projects his government wants to see developed.

Support for that project is also part of ongoing talks between Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who are negotiating the terms of a new approach to federal energy policy, which could include a path created to see a new bitumen pipeline built from Alberta to B.C.’s northern coast, as well as the undoing of a suite of environmental policies seen as hampering development.

Smith’s United Conservative Party government and others in the oil and gas industry had opposed the provisions soon after they were introduced.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who this week voted in support of the Liberals’ budget after Carney publicly pledged to respect the 2030 and 2035 Paris climate targets, said she was never in favour of adding specific “greenwashing” provisions to the federal competition law to begin with and believes measures that promote general truth in advertising would have been better.

“I can tell you the many more things that made it hard to vote for the budget,” she said.

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.


The Air Canada check-in area inside Terminal 1 of Toronto Pearson International Airport is pictured in Mississauga, Ont., on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025.

OTTAWA — A free-market think tank is warning Canadian air travellers to expect higher ticket prices if proposed

changes to passenger compensation

rules are implemented.

Researchers with the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) say that the beefed up passenger protection rules may look good on paper but will just place more hardship on an already overregulated airline sector.

“Air travel in Canada is already unaffordable and inaccessible,” says Gabriel Giguère, senior public policy analyst at the MEI. “New rules that force airlines to cover costs they can’t control would only make a bad situation worse.”

Giguère is the author of a new research note analyzing proposed amendments to federal Air Passenger Protection Regulations released in late 2024.

He told National Post that the new rules could “upend airline operations” by putting commercial carriers on the hook for all travel interruptions outside of those created by “exceptional circumstances.”

“Now the air carrier is guilty until you can demonstrate that it is not, which will put tremendous pressure on the administrative costs,” said Giguère.

Under the prevailing rules, set in the 2019

air passenger bill of rights

, carriers need only compensate passengers in cases where a foreseeable error leads to a flight’s cancellation or a delay of more than three hours. The proposed changes could see airlines have to shell out up to $1,000 per passenger due to circumstances that are outside their control.

Giguère said the proposed definition of “exceptional circumstances” is far from exhaustive, creating even more uncertainty for carriers.

“For example, if it is very cold and de-icing the aircraft takes an unusually long time, does this qualify as an exceptional circumstance?” said Giguère.

The Canadian Transportation Agency estimates that new compensation rules will cost airlines about a

dollar per passenger per year

.

Giguère expects that the increased operational costs would have the biggest impact on low-traffic regional routes and service to remote and northern destinations.

“This new regulation risks being the final blow to regional air travel. Routes connecting smaller communities will be the first to disappear as costs rise and they become less profitable,” said Giguère.

He estimates that the cancellation of one flight from Montreal to Saguenay, Qc. would result in a hit of approximately $33,000 to the carrier, a monetary sum that would take 61 incident-free flights to recoup.

Regional air travel has already taken a massive hit since the COVID pandemic, with

multiple small and medium-sized airports

reporting double-digit losses in passenger traffic since 2019.

Alberta’s Fort McMurray airport, for example, saw a 60 per cent decline between 2019 and 2024.

Air passenger rights advocate Gábor Lukács says he doesn’t share this gloomy view of the proposed regulations, adding that, if anything, they go too easy on air carriers.

“Saying (the regulations) don’t go far enough is probably a very polite way to put it,” said Lukács, noting that the regulations would increase the number of disruptions carriers are liable for by

just two per cent

.

Lukács added that he rejected the notion of an inherent tradeoff between protecting passengers and affordability, pointing to “gold standard” air passenger protections

adopted by the European Union

two decades ago.

A recent study found that the EU regulations led to a

five per cent increase

in on-time arrivals without substantially affecting the cost of travel.

National Post

rmohamed@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 daily newsletter, Posted, here.


Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Sabia testifies at the House of Commons ethics committee on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

OTTAWA — The clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, is set to appear at the House of Commons ethics committee concerning the review of the Conflict of Interest Act but questions are expected to be focused on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s potential conflicts.

Sabia is one of two senior aides to Prime Minister Mark Carney who is authorized to administer his

extensive conflict-of-interest screen that applies to over 100 corporate entities

related to Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Corporation and Stripe Inc.

The other person authorized to administer this screen is Carney’s chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard, who will be testifying at that same committee Thursday afternoon.

Carney’s sprawling business ties — and potential conflicts of interest as a result of those ties — have been under close scrutiny since he decided to run as Liberal leader.

Prior to entering politics, Carney was chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, which has US$1 trillion in assets under management, and also helped lead efforts to raise capital for two major Brookfield clean energy funds. He was also on Stripe’s board of directors.

On the day he was elected Liberal leader, he put all his assets, other than his personal real estate, into a blind trust. He has always maintained he went above and beyond what was required of him as he was to do so within 120 days of his appointment as prime minister.

But Conservatives have maintained that Carney’s situation is unique, because of the magnitude of his conflicts of interest, and should require him to divest his assets.

Former clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick has however warned against considering mandatory divestitures for politicians during the review of the act.

“My view is that we need more people with private-sector background in politics — not fewer,” he told the committee on Oct. 27.

National Post

calevesque@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 daily newsletter, Posted, here.