A Montreal manufacturer bid to build Canada’s community mailboxes and lost. It won’t name the Canadian company that holds the contract now.

Neither will Canada Post . The Crown corporation is installing community mailboxes for about 136,000 addresses late this year and early next, the first phase of moving four million addresses off door-to-door delivery over about five years.

Canada Post said in a statement the mailboxes are “being provided by a Canadian supplier” and that it buys them “through established agreements that support our operational requirements across the country.”

The corporation “does not disclose commercially confidential information related to supplier agreements,” it said. The statement does not say where the boxes are made, and Canada Post did not answer a follow-up asking whether the Canadian supplier is also the manufacturer.

P. Riopel Inc. has built mailboxes in Montreal since 1957, by its own account. “RIOPEL had many years ago unsuccessfully bid for the contract to supply Canada Post,” operations manager Pascal Brandt told National Post in an email. “A company in Denmark received the contract back then.”

That company was Treco A/S, a metal fabricator in Aalestrup, in northern Jutland. The Vancouver Sun reported in 2017 that Treco would build 7,500 community mailboxes a year for four years, 30,000 in all, with the first shipment due that August.

The Danish company register lists a Treco production unit called Treco CMB, registered that April and still active. Treco’s founders sold control of the company to a Danish investment fund in March.

The federal Buy Canadian Policy took effect Dec. 16, 2025. The government says it applies to federal departments and agencies and “will be applied, where possible, to crown corporations and their subsidiaries.” Treasury Board’s policy notice says Crown corporations “are encouraged to align” with it.

Canada Post said it is “subject to a Government of Canada directive requiring alignment with the Buy Canadian Procurement Policy” and has been updating its procurement practices accordingly. It did not say which directive.

Vincent Geloso , an economist at George Mason University in Virginia and senior economist at the Montreal Economic Institute, said rules of that kind work one of two ways. Foreign firms are barred outright, or a domestic bidder wins at a higher price. “But this is costly,” he said. “This is really costly.”

Geloso said he is critical of Canada Post on other grounds, but not for buying Canadian mailboxes instead of cheaper Danish ones, because the rule is not Canada Post’s to make. “I can blame them for poor management. I can blame them for a lot of things,” he said.

Public Services and Procurement Canada was asked whether the policy covers Canada Post. It said it needed more time to answer. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers did not respond to two requests. Treco referred questions to Canada Post. Two other Montreal manufacturers, Cendrex Inc. and Canadian Mailbox Company, did not say whether they supply Canada Post.

Brandt was the only person outside Canada Post to say the contract is now Canadian. He would not go further.

“Today, it is a Canadian Company that has that contract,” he wrote. “If Canada Post does not wish to name them, then it is NOT up to me to do so.”

• Map shows where Canada Post is converting almost 500,000 more addresses to community mailboxes
• Canada Post workers move to rotating strikes. What does this mean for deliveries?

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On Tuesday, at the eleventh hour, Donald Trump announced that Canada and the U.S. have reached a tentative trade deal, and paused a scheduled 50 per cent tariff on Canadian goods for three more days.

On Wednesday morning, the development featured as the top story on most, if not all, major Canadian news websites, including Bloomberg Canada, CBC, Global News, CTV and here, at National Post. It was also the front page story in today’s Globe and Mail.

But in America, not so much.

Press Gazette puts the New York Times, Fox, CNN and Yahoo Finance as the top news websites in the U.S. by audience and, on Wednesday morning, none of them featured the tariff development as the main story on their homepage.

Scroll down past the top articles on the Times website and you’ll see the headline “Canada gets 3-Day Reprieve From Punishing Trump Tariffs,” but the development didn’t get a mention on today’s front page.

The news is similarly low down on the CNN and Yahoo Finance homepages, while the highest-placed Canada story on the Fox News website is about WNBA star Sophie Cunningham drawing boos during a game against Toronto Tempo.

This lack of prominence may well be a judgement based on audience interest. After all, a poll from the Angus Reid Institute published on Aug. 9 found that Canadians are much more likely (91 per cent) than Americans (69 per cent) to be following news about the latest tariffs.

Meanwhile, a quick Google search of “tariffs” from Canada versus with a VPN based in the U.S. shows a stark difference between the websites Canadians are served compared to their southern neighbours.

While a Canadian user will see dozens of news reports about the latest development, the U.S. search results page shows an AI overview of what a tariff is, followed by a string of think tank and government websites. Trade negotiations seem to matter a whole lot more north of the border.

And Joseph Steinberg, Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto, has an idea of why this is. He tells National Post that, regardless of the specifics, “when it comes to tariffs, it’s always much more important for Canada than it is for the United States.”

The U.S. economy is ten times bigger than Canada’s, he points out, so “all of these trade issues are roughly 10 times more important for us than they are for the United States.”

A tentative deal would mean avoiding a levy on roughly $28 billion worth of Canadian goods — something which economists have said would hit certain businesses and industries “extremely hard.”

And Steinberg adds that while 50 per cent tariffs could potentially lead to job losses and plant shutdowns in Canada, the same would not be the case for the U.S. — though it would mean some products would be more expensive for American consumers.

In addition, people in the U.S. are “undoubtedly” paying more attention to the war in Iran, Steinberg says, as well as local elections — both of which are likely to push trade negotiations further down the agenda.

“Quite honestly, there are things that Americans perceive as being more important than (trade negotiations) this week,” he adds.

Meanwhile, Trump has said that U.S. farmers and manufacturers will be “thrilled” with the tentative trade deal with Canada. He made the comments during a press conference in Washington on Wednesday, adding, “Basically, we have no tariffs going into Canada anymore.”

This comes as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters in Washington that the deal eliminated “some of the irritants” of the last year, while Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc swore that Canada’s supply management system remained “entirely intact.”

In the PM’s statement on Tuesday, Carney did not outline which concessions, if any, Canada may have made.

“Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done,” he said. “Canada remains focused on building a stronger, more independent, and more competitive economy at home.”

• Carney says ‘work still to be done,’ while Trump touts a deal and pauses tariffs
• Nearly half want a federal election if new Canada-U.S. trade agreement is reached

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Supporters of a WNBA player caught at the centre of a debate about transgender athletes in women’s sports led a rally outside her team’s game in Toronto on Tuesday.

Ahead of the hometown Tempo’s game against the Indiana Fever, a group gathered on the sidewalk outside Scotiabank Arena bearing signs in support of Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, whose July comment to ESPN about wanting to protect women’s sports has resulted in demonstrations in cities where the team has played road games.

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” she told ESPN in a profile published July 21. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

The signs on display read, “With Love is Truth,” “Canadian women and girls thank you #8,” and “This lil’ beaver loves women’s sports,” showing a beaver caricature in a maple leaf T-shirt and holding a non-descript flag with three horizontal stripes.

It was the first Cunningham rally held outside the United States, according to Fox News . Supporters first gathered outside Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena on July 28, then in Portland on July 31, Minneapolis on Aug. 2 and Chicago on Aug. 8, where the Chicago Young Republicans and XX-XY Athletics organized a rally on Madison Street outside the United Center. Counterprotesters turned out at each one.

Some of the women in Toronto also wore shirts from XX-XY Athletics, a company founded by former U.S. gymnastics national champion Jennifer Sey that says it donates part of its sales to fund “the fight to protect fairness and opportunity in women’s sports.”

Among them was Canadian powerlifter April Hutchinson, who came to the fringe sport during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since won gold and silver medals in national and international competitions.

Speaking on the sidewalk outside the arena before tipoff, Hutchinson told the Toronto Sun she wanted Cunningham to know the group was there.

“Thank you so much for being brave but thanks for having integrity because a lot of people just don’t have integrity these days,” she said.

On her own website, Hutchinson has written that the Canadian Powerlifting Union suspended her for speaking out about a transgender competitor, and that she chose not to renew her membership afterward.

Toronto police also issued tickets over a mobile billboard truck parked outside the arena associated with the rally, Fox reported, with the charge reportedly falling under a section of the Toronto Municipal Code barring signs that carry video display elements.

Cunningham, meanwhile, has tried to distance herself from the debate.

“I think it’s just people practising their rights of freedom of speech and doing what other fans have been doing since the WNBA has started,” she told reporters in Portland last month. She has since called the attention a distraction and said she wants to get back to basketball.

Inside the arena, there was a mix of cheers and boos when Cunningham entered the game. Fans cheered when she missed her first free throw, and cheered again late in the fourth quarter when a banner supporting transgender rights appeared on the video screen during a timeout.

The 2026 collective bargaining agreement says only players who are women are eligible for the WNBA, with no further definition and no public policy on transgender or intersex eligibility. In 2024, NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress he knew of 10 transgender athletes among more than half a million students on college teams.

Cunningham thanked the Toronto crowd afterward.

“You’re going to get boos, you’re going to get cheers,” she told reporters.

• Amy Hamm: WNBA’s Sophie Cunningham should embrace her culture warrior status
• Adam Zivo: Why American transgender athletes lost the right to play female sports

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In the multi-million-dollar tax trial about the word “inducement” and how it relates to income tax on professional hockey contracts, former NHL superstar Patrick Marleau’s use of the word “entice” made ears prick up Wednesday morning in the downtown Toronto courtroom.

“Enticing” someone sounds like “inducing” them to do something, on the face of it. So when Marleau testified about negotiating a three-year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2017 that would see him leave the San Jose Sharks after two decades, and how then Leafs coach Mike Babcock said one of the ways they “entice” elite players like him to sign deals was a cross-border tax break spelled out in a treaty, his legal team were suddenly metaphorically on the power play.

A few minutes later, Marleau drove the point home. He testified that after he signed this deal with Toronto, and was having dinner with team leadership, Babcock again told him that this tax cap on signing bonuses for athletes is well known as “a lever that teams are able to use to get people to come play in Toronto.”

Marleau, according to his testimony, was a prime example of how this worked. Signing with the Leafs as a free agent was “a chance to cash in on all the hard work you’ve done throughout your career,” Marleau testified. It also paid most of its value as a signing bonus, including two payments of $3.5 million in the first year, as a rare perk to make sure he gets the most money as soon as possible. A signing bonus is also protected against lockout and buyout in a way salary is not.

“I wouldn’t have come to Toronto without the signing bonus, and knowing that it would only be taxed at 15 per cent made it even that much more enticing to come to Toronto,” Marleau testified. “I had to move my whole family to a different country, get them all set up. Getting that money up front is huge.”

Until he heard about this tax cap from Babcock, Toronto was not even on his radar. He was talking to other big American teams. Once he consulted with his financial advisors, though, this tax break on the signing bonus suddenly made Toronto the leading candidate in his mind. “Having found out that that was true, it made Toronto a viable option,” he said.

The same enticing lever would be used the following year, 2018, when Leafs centre John Tavares made a similar blockbuster move from the New York Islanders to Toronto, with the deal sweetened by having most of the money paid as a signing bonus, eligible for the tax break in 2018 when Tavares was a resident of New York State.

And now they are at trial in the Tax Court of Canada, each with millions of dollars at stake, and it all comes down to the meaning of a single word. Canada argues that Marleau’s and Tavares’s signing bonuses were not “inducements” to sign their contracts, but rather employment income promised by those contracts. The difference is crucial, and it caused Canada to reassess their tax bill for the relevant years and claim they each owe millions, based on an employment income tax rate of 53 per cent.

Marleau is now a player development coach and advisor to hockey operations for the San Jose Sharks, where he played most of his career except for a few years at the end in Toronto and Pittsburgh.

His career was exceptionally long, and he holds the record for most regular season games played in the NHL, with 1,779 over 23 years. He won two Olympic golds for Canada in 2010 and 2014.

“What is an inducement? That is the question before you,” Crown counsel Devon Peavoy told Justice J. Scott Bodie in opening remarks. “You would think that the answer to that question would be straightforward, or should be straightforward.”

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines “inducement” as “an attraction that leads one on,” or “a thing that induces,” which is to say “prevail on; persuade.”

It is from the Latin for “lead into,” and the same word that appears in the traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer in Christianity, as “ne nos inducas in tentationem,” or “lead us not into temptation.”

So an inducement is literally a thing that leads you to do something, and not by force but by persuasion, compulsion, even “attraction,” or as Babcock told Marleau, by “enticement.”

This word “inducement” appears in Article XVI(4) of the Canada-United States Convention with Respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital,” which places a 15 per cent cap on taxes on any money paid cross-border “as an inducement to sign an agreement relating to the performance of the services of an athlete.”

This clause refers to “an” inducement, not “the” inducement. On a purely literal reading, it need not be the only factor.

Marleau’s cross-examination by Peavoy for the Crown focused on this notion, that the signing bonus was not Marleau’s only “inducement” to sign the contract, that in fact there was much else that attracted him to the Leafs, including three years instead of two, and a higher annual average value than other offers.

“Family, money and hockey” were this three main considerations, Marleau said. On the ice, he wanted to be a “difference maker,” playing on the power play, penalty kill, last minute, clutch situations.

He also was not set on leaving the Sharks. “It’s always a hard decision to leave your brothers,” he said.

The hearing continues Thursday with testimony from Robert DeGregory, counsel for the National Hockey League Player’s Association, about the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

• Maple Leafs centre John Tavares tells court why he chose Toronto in tax battle over $77M deal
• Toronto Maple Leafs star John Tavares to appear in court to argue against $8-million tax bill

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Justin Trudeau’s post-political life has taken him from Davos to Saint-Tropez, Japan to San Francisco, and a host of other destinations this past year — and an RCMP security detail has likely been along for many of the trips.

Sources familiar with security arrangements told Quebecor Media’s TVA Nouvelles and Journal de Montréal that the 54-year-old continues to receive regular protection from the federal police force, including while he travels for personal reasons.

The sources did not specify which trips involved RCMP officers and the RCMP would not “confirm or deny” whether Trudeau — or any other former prime minister — is currently under its protection.

“Given the evolving threat environment and operational and security considerations related to protective policing, the RCMP does not disclose costs, staffing levels, deployment details or other information that could reveal or facilitate inferences about the protective arrangements made for an individual,” the organization told National Post via email.

“Protective decisions are based strictly on assessed security needs, not personal preferences or activities.”

But according to Quebecor Media’s sources, three or four officers are required for some of Trudeau’s excursions.

This means that when he vacationed with his kids in Switzerland and Italy last summer, when he accepted an award from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last fall, and when he spoke at an event parallel to the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, his detail was likely present.

It also means they’ve probably been around to witness his relationship with American pop-star girlfriend Katy Perry bloom.

Since they were first linked last summer, their increasingly public relationship has included a sojourn to Paris to celebrate her 41st birthday in October, a Christmas rendezvous in Japan for a photo op with a former prime minister of that country, and trips to California this spring — including their highly publicized attendance at Coachella music festival.

This summer, Trudeau has been documented backstage at a handful of her European festival appearances and the pair were most recently photographed vacationing in the south of France.

Another TVA source said that attending concerts would require “scouting that is done beforehand to assess threats on site.”

Former RCMP deputy commissioner Pierre-Yves Bourduas, now president of the Ottawa-based consulting firm P-Y Public Safety Management Inc., told the Journal that a “hectic love life can create headaches” for the officers tasked with Trudeau’s protection.

Again, there’s no way of knowing for certain whether a security detail was nearby in any of those instances. But when they are, their salaries — along with any overtime — and all travel expenses come from the RCMP’s taxpayer-funded budget.

Those wondering why he can’t simply avail of the private security Perry likely uses, Bourduas said those professionals have a “different mandate” than would the RCMP detail.

“Katy Perry’s protection cannot be relied upon,” he said.“We must take full responsibility for the protection of the former prime minister.”

Another security expert told the Journal the singer’s own high profile introduces another element to the security equation.

“When a protected personality is associated with a celebrity of this stature, this is one of the factors that must be analyzed,” said Leader Security & Protection agency president Mamadou Diarra.

As it happens, Trudeau’s father, the late Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s 15th prime minister, was the first former head of government to be offered protective services after he left politics.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press in 2023 reveal that the RCMP was concerned about potential long-term threats against him because “his perceived aloof personality, provocative political style and stance on several domestic and international issues elicited strong emotive reactions from Canadians of all political stripe.”

“The prime minister has initiated legislation, formed government policy and expressed views on many issues that continue to aggravate, embitter or irritate sectors of the Canadian public,” the April 25, 1984 document reads.

He and his family were afforded 24-7 security as they transitioned from life at 24 Sussex in Ottawa to private life in Montreal. It ended in 1985, after which the security was granted for specific events or when a credible threat was received.

This became the standard and, according to the Ottawa Citizen , subsequent outgoing prime ministers were offered the same services upon their departure. Among those who took advantage were the late Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, and Stephen Harper, though it’s not immediately clear how often or if the latter two continue to use them.

Joe Clark and John Turner both said no, and it’s unclear if Kim Campbell or Paul Martin availed.

While Justin Trudeau was in office, the cost to protect he and his family reached more than $30 million annually near the end of his run, CBC reported in 2023, more than twice as much as Chrétien and Martin’s protection, even when adjusted for inflation.

• It’s ‘odd’ seeing Trudeau-Perry PDA photos, U.S. senator says, as paparazzi follows pair in France
• Successful immigration depends on ‘shared values,’ not ancestry, Trudeau tells Finns

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