WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s been a tough year for the lumber trade. With U.S. housing starts unusually low, demand and prices for lumber are down — even as trade costs, especially for Canadian producers, keep rising.

Canadian exporters were already smarting from the U.S. Commerce Department’s sixth administrative review of antidumping and countervailing duties on softwood lumber imports, which raised the duty rate to an unprecedented 35.16 per cent in July. Then, this week, President Donald Trump whacked an additional 10 per cent tariff on Canadian lumber imports, citing national security concerns, under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.

The president’s goal is straightforward: to bolster the domestic lumber industry — a move U.S. producers welcome.

“This is our market. America first, baby. The demand is in this market, not in Canada,” says Andrew Miller, chairman of Oregon-based Stimson Lumber and chair of the U.S. Lumber Coalition.

“I don’t think Canadians get that through their thick head. This is America, not Canada. There’s nothing that obligates us to take dumped subsidized product at the expense of U.S. producers and the employees that operate these sawmills.”

American sawmills and their advocates have applauded both the higher duty rate and the new tariffs on Canadian lumber imports — the latest escalation in the long-running softwood lumber dispute between the two countries. They hope it will lead to fewer Canadian boards sloshing around the states, capturing a larger share of the U.S. market. Free market advocates see it differently: They say tariffs hurt consumers and that the added costs will eventually be passed through in the form of higher prices. They also doubt the U.S. lumber sector can replace Canadian boards in a timely fashion. Canadian lumber producers, meanwhile, are worried about staying afloat in the face of these challenges to trading in their No. 1 export economy.

National security, really?

The viability of the U.S. wood industry is being undermined by high volumes of wood imports, according to the 232 investigation, “posing direct risks to critical infrastructure and defense readiness.” This is the rationale that led to the 10 per cent tariff this week.

But Colin Grabow, associate director at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, doesn’t buy it. “Just from the surface level, this strikes me more as run-of-the-mill protectionism, rather than something narrowly tailored to advance U.S. national security interests.”

Kurt Niquidet, president of the British Columbia Lumber Trade Council, agrees. “Suggesting that we’re a national security threat to the United States just doesn’t hold any water,” he said.

Even Miller, the pro-tariff head of Stimson Lumber, said using national security as a reason was merely a “sideshow.”

The duties, meanwhile, are higher now as a result of Washington’s view of Canadian trading behaviour, said Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition.

The reasoning: Canadians don’t pay market rates for stumpage because forests are publicly owned, with the stumpage rates set by the provincial governments. U.S. producers, in contrast, have to pay a higher market rate. On top of that, van Heyningen said Canadian dumping — selling below the home sales market price — in 2023 was “severe,” which is what the new duty rate is in response to.

Canada vs. U.S. lumber

The duties have only had a few months to make an impact, and the tariffs will compound costs in the months to come, but British Columbia’s sawmill closures this year are already up 10 per cent, according to ResourceWise.

John Brink, CEO of B.C.-based Brink Forest Products, discussed the pain he and his colleagues are feeling in the region. In business since 1975, Brink, which sells value-added wood products, normally employs 400 people. But over the past year, he’s had to downsize to a quarter of that, and he expects the headcount to be closer to 60 by year’s end.

The depressed level of trade, he said, is just not sustainable. “Today, we’re down to about 20 per cent of where we were (a year ago),” he said, referring to his U.S. exports.

Primary softwood lumber exports to the U.S. have been down this year, but not by as much as you might think. The first half of the year saw an eight per cent decline, according to Lesprom Analytics, but data for the months since the duty hike is unclear.

For Miller, the decline hasn’t been anywhere near enough. “Canada has hardly slowed down their exports to the U.S., even though they’re losing large amounts of money,” he said.

Statistics Canada suggested that lumber exports were down a whopping 25.4 per cent in August, but American trade data is not yet available, owing to the U.S. government shutdown. A clearer picture of the impact of the 35.16 per cent duties will come toward the end of the year.

If the U.S. lumber industry is to benefit, however, supply needs to drop, and prices need to rise. Miller pointed out that American sawmills are nowhere near capacity because the market remains flooded, making it difficult for him and his colleagues to break even.

Success, he said, will depend on “the degree to which the tariffs and the duties create an economic barrier high enough that Canadian mills ship less to this country.”

If there’s less Canadian lumber in the market, prices will rise, allowing U.S. sawmills to grab more of the market share.

“We’re gonna need prices to come up probably 10 or 15 per cent before my company (Stimson Lumber) and peers I work with would probably say we’re going to go back to our full 100 per cent production,” he said.

Lumber tariffs will help the U.S. industry face less competition, said Jason Miller, a supply chain management professor at Michigan State University, but he questions the knock-on effects. That’s propping up a domestic industry that employs only around 90,000 people, he noted, whereas higher prices will also impact downstream industries, such as housing construction and remodelling. New single-family housing construction employs 384,000 people in the U.S.

“You’re raising the price of an input where we don’t have that many people employed and producing that input,” he said. “But we have a tremendous number of people employed in industries that consume that input.”

Insulating a domestic industry from foreign competition may not help the targeted sector anyway, said Grabow. “It reduces your incentive to invest and innovate and make a better widget than the next guy,” he said, noting that U.S. producers may just rake in the profits without adding jobs or mills.

But Andrew Miller and van Heyningen fear that Canadian sawmills will continue sending their lumber above the market saturation level thanks to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to support the Canadian industry with a $1.25 billion aid package, including up to $700 million in loan guarantees.

“I think those are just outright economic subsidies to keep an industry alive,” said Jason Miller. “To keep producing their excess output and dumping it in our market.”

Supply and demand

The U.S. lumber industry needs higher prices to thrive, and that’s what tariffs are all about, according to the experts.

“Tariffs drive up costs — that’s kind of the point — to try to dissuade Americans from buying the imported product because their price goes up,” explained Grabow, noting that he expects upward pressure on wood product prices as a result of the duties and tariffs.

The National Association of Home Builders said earlier this year that, based on data from a NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index in April, home builders expected tariff actions to raise the cost of a single-family home build by $10,900.

Andrew Miller sees higher home prices as a red herring. He claims that the cost of framing out a new home is too small to have a significant impact on buyers. Besides, he expects manufacturers and distributors to absorb the costs, as we’ve seen much in other sectors this year. “When it comes to new housing in this country, the impact is zero to date,” he said, referring to steel and aluminum tariff impacts.

Canadian lumber’s market share in the U.S. was once as high as 30 per cent but is now around 25 per cent. Still, that means the U.S. still needed to import a hefty amount of Canadian lumber — 12 billion board feet — last year to meet demand.

If Canadian supplies drop, can the U.S. market make up the shortfall? “They can’t just completely replace Canadian lumber,” said Kurt Niquidet, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council. “They need to import lumber from Canada.”

But Andrew Miller hopes Trump’s policy allows the U.S. industry to test that theory and find its “natural level of output that can be supported by the forests in the south and the northwest, whatever that number is.”

In five or six years, he said, with U.S. mills operating at regular capacity, and maybe with incremental investments, “maybe we are a hundred percent self-sufficient.”

Van Heyningen doesn’t buy the Canadian shortage argument either.

“They usually say, ‘this is how much you need us to supply,’ and I’m like ‘No, this is how much you’ve managed to grab.”

If today’s combined duty and tariff rate of 45 per cent fails to change the behaviour of Canada’s lumber exporters, Miller adds, “then we will be advocating for 55 per cent as an industry.”

“We will find the breaking point where the Canadian government doesn’t want to keep funding these huge losses and begins to restructure.”

National Post

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OTTAWA — The Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces are suing an intelligence watchdog to prevent it from releasing without further redactions a review that found that some of their human intelligence source handling activities may break the law.
 

In a lawsuit filed in late August, both federal bodies requested a Federal Court judge quash the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency’s (NSIRA) decision to release a redacted version of a 2023 review under access to information laws.
 

They argue that NSIRA acted “unreasonably” when it did not implement all their requested redactions to what they say is information injurious to national defence or protected by solicitor-client privilege.
 

The 2023 report at issue cast a critical look on the Department of National Defence’s (DND) and Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) program overseeing the handling of human sources of intelligence.
 

The case is likely to be a legal test of what government information is considered so sensitive that it cannot be disclosed by an intelligence review agency to protect national defence. It is also a test of how much discretion NSIRA has to refuse redactions requested by organizations it reviews before publishing a report publicly.
 

Civil rights and transparency advocates frequently complain that the government overclassifies documents or uses blanket national security exemptions to avoid disclosing information.
 

NSIRA has not yet filed its response to the lawsuit. “NSIRA remains committed to the principles of transparency, accountability, and the rule of law in all aspects of its mandate,” an NSIRA spokesperson said via email Thursday evening.
 

A brief summary of the investigation
published in NSIRA’s 2023 annual report noted troubling findings about the program, including problems with CAF’s duty of care for its sources, and shortcomings in the information about
human source-handling operations provided to Armed Forces commanders and the minister of National Defence.
 

But a redacted version of the classified report provided to government in December 2023 has not yet been released. National Post requested a copy of the report via an access to information request (ATIP) in September 2024.
 

In their lawsuit, DND and CAF say that NSIRA was slated to release a redacted version of the report via ATIP last month, after over 18 months of back-and-forth between both federal bodies and NSIRA over what sensitive information should be blacked out before release.
 

But days before the redacted document was released, DND and CAF sued NSIRA in Federal Court to block its publication.
 

In the lawsuit, the federal bodies claim that NSIRA rejected a “significant number” of their requested redactions to the report before publication. They also claim that they were never able to reach a final agreement with NSIRA on the “appropriate redactions.”
 

They argue that NSIRA made a legal mistake when it refused the requested redactions, which CAF and DND say cover information that can’t be released because it either would be injurious to national defence or is covered by solicitor-client privilege.
 

They also accuse NSIRA of acting without jurisdiction if it publishes the report online without the requested additional redactions.
 

DND and CAF are asking a Federal Court judge to quash NSIRA’s decision to publish the existing redacted report, and to direct the review agency to allow both federal bodies to make more arguments about redactions.
 

They also request an injunction barring publication of the report until the Federal Court renders its decision.
 

“
The risks to national defence, and to the (government), in the event of disclosure or publication are significant and must be properly weighed by this Court. The weighing of risk by NSIRA in the decision at issue amounts to an unreasonable and/or improper exercise of its discretion,” reads the lawsuit.
 

The summary of the review published in the 2023 annual review shows that NSIRA made eight recommendations to DND and CAF about their human source handling program
.
 

The recommendations were to address issues such as CAF commanders not always being given “accurate, consistent, and objective information” when they evaluated the risk of engaging with particular sources.
 

The review also found that the organization’s rules allowed source handling activities that may be illegal.
“
These risks arise particularly in relation to sources associated with terrorist groups,” reads the summary of the report.
 

There were also gaps in DND and CAF’s duty of care provision to sources, the report found, and the organizations should implement more measures to ensure the welfare and protection of their human sources.
 

NSIRA also concluded that the Minister of National Defence was not being given enough information on human source-handling operations to be fully accountable to Parliament.
 

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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A Quebec man who was paid to illegally smuggle a pregnant woman from Canada into the United States, in a winter plot that ended with her drowning in a freezing river near the border, has pleaded guilty in New York.

The case reveals a harrowing tale of cross-border people smuggling.

Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar, 37, is a citizen of Colombia who was living in Quebec while advertising his people smuggling services on social media.

Miguel Mojarro-Magana, who was in the United States, saw a TikTok video advertising crossings into the United States from Canada, with instructions to contact a phone number with an area code for the suburbs around Montreal.

On Dec. 7, 2023, he texted about having his wife smuggled to join him in the U.S.

“It costs $2500 America, it is worked through Montreal and they are left in the City of Plattsburgh, NY,” was the reply, according to court records translated into English from Spanish.

“How much do they walk bro,” Mojarro-Magana asked, presumably concerned about his visibly pregnant wife, Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores. He was told it was two and a half hours to three hours, “depends how you walk.”

“And is it safe?” Mojarro-Magana asked.

“Well, look, truth is, the only certain thing in life is death, but we are effective,” was the reply.

They moved their chat to WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app.

There was a heavy, wet snowfall in the forecast as temperatures hovered near freezing in northern New York on Dec. 11, 2023, the day of his wife’s crossing.

Mojarro-Magana, the husband, and Uribe-Tobar, the smuggler, messaged back and forth about payment and plans.

As Mojarro-Magana was arranging a money transfer, his wife was picked up for the start of her journey. She took a quick photo of the vehicle that came for her and sent it to her husband. It was a red GMC Terrain SUV with Quebec licence plates.

The smuggler waited with Vasquez-Flores at an Esso gas station in St. Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., about seven kilometres north of the U.S. border, refusing to leave until his money arrived, according to court documents.

By 2:38 p.m., three minutes after the husband sent a photograph of a JP Morgan Chase deposit receipt for US$2,500 that had been deposited into a chequing account as told to by Uribe-Tobar, the GMC pulled out of the gas station heading south towards the Canada-U.S. border.

Vasquez-Flores made it into the United States about two kilometres west of the Champlain border crossing station. The smuggler was monitoring her progress through her sharing her phone location.

About one kilometre into New York, she was directed to the bank of the Great Chazy River near the intersection of Perry Mills Road and Missile Base Road in Champlain, N.Y. As she walked, she was texting both her husband and the smuggler. The smuggler and the husband were also texting. She was told the river was “wadable” even in this weather.

“She is crossing friend,” Uribe-Tobar texted her husband, “silence.”

“I’m very nervous,” the husband replied.

The smuggler continued to direct Vasquez-Flores as she crossed: “Get off further ahead”, “at your right hand side”, “there is a wall that slows down the river.” His last message to her, sent at 6:17 p.m., was not delivered. Authorities suspect this is when she was swept away by the frigid water.

Nearly 50 minutes later the smuggler sent an alarming message to the husband: “Bro, hello, I think she got wet or turned off her cell phone.”

For most of the night a desperate Mojarro-Magana watched and waited for his wife while texting Uribe-Tobar.

“Are your people waiting for her there?” the husband asked.

“They are activated friend,” came the reply.

“And you can’t search” he asked.

The smuggler said he had already let his people know. “I told them what happened and that she is pregnant.”

The plan had been for Mojarro-Magana to meet his wife — after she crossed — at the McDonald’s in Champlain, N.Y. After no luck searching, he went there and waited. When he received a notification that her phone battery was about to die he told U.S. Border Patrol Agents about his search for his pregnant wife.

Law enforcement officials found footprints in the snow leading into the river. On Dec. 14, 2023, Vasquez-Flores’s body was found in the river in the village of Champlain. The cause of death was asphyxia due to drowning.

It didn’t take too much to identify the smuggler.

Two months before the deadly crossing, the RCMP encountered Uribe-Tobar in a red GMC Terrain SUV on a Quebec road about 1.4 kilometres from the United States border. He was driving four Mexican passengers, according to U.S. documents filed in court in New York.

The driver and the passengers were all released by the RCMP, according to the documents. Shortly afterwards, the same four Mexican nationals were apprehended by U.S. authorities after illegally crossing the border in the middle of the night.

That traffic stop, that went nowhere in Canada, later helped connect Uribe-Tobar to the vehicle used in the smuggling plot that ended with the woman’s death. Quebec car insurance records were then used to connect Uribe-Tobar to the phone number used to arrange the failed crossing.

RCMP officers later looked at video surveillance footage form the gas station. An officer confirmed Vasquez-Flores was with Uribe-Tobar in the vehicle. She was wearing the same black shirt with a white Calvin Klein logo she had on when her body was recovered.

The video showed another woman and child was with them, too. They were not being smuggled, though; the child was later identified as Uribe-Tobar’s daughter, and the woman his wife or girlfriend, the RCMP found.

Uribe-Tobar was extradited from Canada to face trial in the U.S. this February. On Tuesday, through a Spanish interpreter, he pleaded guilty to

alien smuggling and alien smuggling resulting in a death

, and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling.

The charges carry a sentence with a minimum of three years imprisonment and a maximum of life.

His sentencing is scheduled for February 2026.

Uribe-Tobar’s lawyer, a public defender, did not respond to requests for comment prior to publishing deadline.

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A B.C. man originally given house arrest after admitting to drugging, sexually assaulting and taking nude photos of his blacked out sister-in-law will now spend time in a federal prison.

So ruled an appeals court judge, who overturned a provincial court decision from earlier this year that allowed Fort St. John veterinarian Justin Donald Sewell to serve his 33-month conditional sentence concurrently at home.

In a ruling supported by two of her peers, appeals court justice Lisa Warren said the sentencing judge made an error in principle by failing to take into account the seriousness of the voyeurism charges, which didn’t arise out of the same incident.

“In imposing concurrent sentences, the judge erred in failing to consider the distinct legal interests violated by the voyeurism offences and the fact that one of the voyeurism offences arose from a different incident from that underlying the sexual assault and the other voyeurism offence,” wrote Warren in

a decision

published this week.

In 2007, the victim, then 20 years old, moved in with her older sister and her husband, Sewell, whom she first met in 1997, when she was 10 or 11, and had come to see “as an older brother,” the provincial court learned during proceedings.

That June, with his wife and four children out of town, Sewell, on the pretense of offering his sister-in-law a “safe environment for (her) to get drunk for the first time,” proceeded to spike her drink with drugs.

Once incapacitated, he stripped her bare, pleasured himself and then got naked and pressed his body against hers. He also took about 30 photos of her naked, including one with his genitalia “near her face.”

The drugs and alcohol left the victim unable to recall precisely what Sewell had done, but she did distinctly remember awakening to him taking off her clothing and knowing “something terribly wrong had occurred.”

While the victim, who did not know of the photos, moved away for school that September, the images remained on Sewell’s work computer but were deleted after one of his staff members inadvertently saw them.

The assault remained a secret until 2014, when one of the victim’s other sisters learned of the photos, resulting in a “fracture” of the family as the girls’ parents and Sewell’s wife sided with him at the time.

“There is no question that the respondent’s sexual assault of (the victim) was an extremely grave violation of her bodily autonomy, sexual integrity, and dignity that caused her profound and ongoing emotional and psychological harm,” the decision reads.

Five years later, Sewell’s wife would learn from the woman he was having an affair with, one of his veterinarian colleagues, that he had admitted to the drugging and the photos — but not the sexual assault — in 2014.

With the family torn asunder, the victim received, but never responded to, repeated emails from Sewell offering an opportunity to talk over the next few years, all of which were absent “admissions of guilt or wrongdoing.”

After a July 2019 email “indicated he would support her decision” to come forward, and upon learning of his 2014 admission to his extramarital partner, the victim contacted the RCMP.

Two years into the investigation, the victim agreed to be part of a plan to get Sewell to confess to the sexual assault at a meeting in Vancouver while he was being recorded.

He did so in October 2021, admitting that he also took photos “of her from outside her bedroom window” on another occasion.

Sewell was formally charged with one count of sexual assault and two counts of voyeurism in April 2022. He pleaded guilty to charges in November of that year.

At sentencing this April, the Crown sought a term of four years and six months, along with placement on Canada’s sex offender registry. Sewell’s defence asked for “a cumulative sentence of two years less a day” in the form of a conditional sentence.

“Ultimately, the judge concluded that the sentences would be concurrent because consecutive sentences ‘would effectively undo the value of the guilty plea by creating an unduly long and harsh sentence’,” Warren wrote.

In its appeal, the Crown argued that the judge overstated the impact of Sewell’s confession and “failed to properly weigh this mitigating factor against the elevated gravity of the respondent’s conduct and his significant moral culpability.”

It also asserted that allowing individuals convicted of voyeurism offences to serve concurrent sentences fails “to recognize the distinct harm caused” and that doing so just to preserve the option of a conditional sentence is an error in principle.

Warren didn’t accept the first two arguments, but she conceded that the judge erred in allowing Sewell to serve out his sentences simultaneously by not considering the relevant factors.

“Specifically, the judge failed to consider the invasions of (the victim’s) privacy interests caused by the voyeurism offences, as distinct from the invasion of her bodily integrity caused by the sexual assault.”

As such, Warren deemed a 33-month sentence (less one day) proportionate and “far from unduly long and harsh.”

Sewell’s sentences are retroactive to his initial sentencing earlier this year.

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Canada is “relatively successful” at attracting highly educated immigrants, but their counterparts in the United States earn more and have access to better opportunities, a new study says.

The neighbouring countries that have been largely at odds since the Trump administration took over are

not only competing when it comes to industries

, like the steel and auto sectors. They are also competing for skilled and educated people, especially those in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Researchers noted that now is the time for Canada to push for the “best and the brightest” to come to the country, as the U.S. adopts “a

far less welcoming immigration policy

.”

The

study from the Fraser Institute published on Thursday

is shedding light on how certain Canadian immigrants are not reaping as many benefits as their U.S. counterparts who “perform better in terms of both employment status and earnings.” Those two factors are compared to native-born Canadians and Americans, respectively, as benchmarks.

In Canada,

highly educated immigrants earned 16 per cent less than native Canadians. In the U.S.,

 immigrants had a higher employment rate (1.2 per cent) and higher compensation (8 per cent) than Americans born in the country.

In 2020, visible minority immigrants in Canada with a bachelor’s degree or higher earned a median of $57,200, whereas native Canadians with a bachelor’s degree earned $68,300 on average.

“The differences were even greater when focusing on cohorts with advanced degrees,” said researchers. “Specifically, the median income of visible minority immigrants with a master’s degree was $65,500. For those with an earned doctorate, it was $84,000.” Canadians born in the country with a master’s earned an average of $84,400, while those with a doctorate earned $100,000.

The wage gap was likely due to “difficulties around the recognition of foreign credentials (and perhaps non-Canadian work experience) for newcomers seeking opportunities in the Canadian labour market,” researchers noted.

In the United States, data from 2022 showed that highly educated American immigrants earned US$122,000, while those born in the U.S. in with the same qualifications earned US$113,000. Researchers said that immigrants out-earning their American counterparts could be due to their “superior performance.”

Canada has a higher percentage of immigrants with at least a bachelor’s degree as part of its workforce, compared to the U.S. And Canadian immigrants are “substantially more educated than recent immigrants to the U.S.” compared to each respective native population, researchers said. More immigrant STEM workers in Canada account for a larger share of the workforce than in the U.S.

Yet despite all of those factors, the U.S. “offers greater economic opportunities and rewards than does Canada, which attracts immigrants at the higher end of the global skill distribution,” according to the study.

For Canada to more successfully compete for global talent, there must be “policies to improve immigrant selection and to create a more dynamic and productive Canadian economy,”

said

Steve Globerman. He’s a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute who co-authored the study.

Educated immigrants contribute to the Canadian economy through including innovation and entrepreneurship. One way to attract them, the study concluded, is to fast-track applications for immigrants and relying on input from employers to select people expected to earn above average wages once in Canada.

“We also believe the federal government should not grant visas to international students intending to enroll in private ‘degree

mills’ that generally offer low-quality academic training,” the study said. In 2025, the

federal government said

it plans to issue a total of 437,000 study permits, a 10 per cent decrease from the 2024 cap. (Of that total number, 73,282 spots will be issued to graduate degree students.)

The study highlighted that Canada can benefit from the Trump administration’s “antagonistic policy stance towards immigration, particularly as it relates to American universities.”

Researchers used data from Statistics Canada, the American Immigration Council, the Migration Policy Institute, as well as other academic sources and journals.

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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney says his government’s proposed bail reform will be coming next week.

Carney announced in Etobicoke, Ont., that the Liberals will table a bill when the House of Commons returns next week that will seek to make bail harder for those accused of violent auto theft, human trafficking, assault, and extortion involving violence.

He said this would be done by expanding the use of reverse onus bail provisions, which make the accused responsible for demonstrating why they should be released, instead of a Crown prosecutor having to prove why they ought to be detained.

Other changes include allowing consecutive sentences for violent and repeat offenders, as well as reversing course on allowing those convicted of sexual assault to serve a conditional sentence, which was a change ushered in under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Carney, in his prepared remarks, said the forthcoming bill would end that practice, saying it was “not justice” to allow someone convicted of sexual assault to serve their sentence in the same community as their victim.

A news release from the Prime Minister’s Office says the upcoming budget will also send the RCMP $1.8 billion over the next four years to help bolster its federal policing mandate and increase the weekly pay RCMP cadets receive to $1,000, up from the current $525 allowance.

More to come …

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A rumoured summer romance between Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry was confirmed last week via photos of the pair reportedly canoodling atop her yacht in California recently, vaulting them into the stratosphere of the most talked-about celebrity couple conversation.

Here’s what we know about the 53-year-old former Canadian prime minister and the 40-year-old pop star’s fledgling relationship.

Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry first photographed hanging out in Montreal

Before their late July dinner date at posh Le Violon in Montreal that set the rumour mill spinning, the pair had first met and been in contact since an event weeks before, according to unnamed sources close to Trudeau quoted by

the U.S. Sun.

It’s clear there was an arranged meeting before dinner, as Trudeau and Perry were earlier seen enjoying a casual dog walk through Mount Royal Park, both flanked by security details, as reported by

TMZ

.

#KatyPerry is saying “bon appétit” to #JustinTrudeau … as the pair was seen chowing down at a swanky restaurant in Montreal.#Exclusive video at the 🔗HERE: https://t.co/5zuWZzOdMc pic.twitter.com/E30ll0cflJ

— TMZ (@TMZ) July 29, 2025

The outlet said Trudeau walked Perry and her dog, Nugget, back to the Ritz-Carlton hotel before their ballyhooed get-together at the Michelin-starred restaurant where they dined on the chef’s tasting menu.

“Katy and Justin were lovely. Very kind and warm with the staff,” Le Violon told

National Post

in a statement. “Chef Danny Smiles stopped by their table during the night to say hello, and before heading out, they came into the kitchen to thank the whole team. It was a pleasure having them.”

The chef later told

TMZ

there were no public displays of affection or any sense that it was a romantic date.

Trudeau is said to have paid the tab and the two ended the night with drinks on the terrace of Taverne Atlantic.

Justin Trudeau attends Katy Perry’s concert with his kids

Perry was in Montreal for a July 30 show at the Bell Centre, one of the seven Canadian dates on her 2025 The Lifetimes Tour and one attended by Trudeau and his 16-year-old daughter Ella-Grace, one of three children he shares with ex-wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, along with sons Hadrian, 11, and soon-to-be 18-year-old Xavier.

They were spotted in a premium seating area not far from the stage, overlooking the floor crowd in videos posted to social media, some of which show the former PM singing along.

justin trudeau singing firework like that at katy perry’s concert 😭😭😭

pic.twitter.com/IAiE9rFncN

— kanishk (@kaxishk) July 31, 2025

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends Katy Perry concert🔥

via avocado6713/TTr pic.twitter.com/lzK8TZTEWD

— MuchMusic (@Much) July 31, 2025

Outside of the Montreal rendezvous, nothing on their respective social media channels at the time indicated they were linked in any way and neither side responded to requests for comment from National Post.

At the same time, entertainment news outlets have been full of thinly sourced material from individuals claiming to know what’s going on, and they have made for voyeuristic if not confirmed-to-be-reliable reading.

Unnamed sources suggested Perry and Trudeau had a “instant connection” but were still getting to know one another and wanted to take it slow.

“They are interested in each other, but it will take a while to see where this goes,” one source explained to

People in August

. “She is travelling around the world, and he is figuring out his life now that he is no longer prime minister of Canada, but there is an attraction. They have a lot in common.”

A source close to Trudeau described the relationship as “casual” to

Entertainment Tonight

, while someone from Perry’s side told

Star Magazine

the 13-time Grammy Award nominee was “giddy” about their budding romance.

“It’s very new, but it’s hard to imagine a more exciting guy to be wooed by, at least in Katy’s eyes. She’s fascinated by politics, and landing arguably the hottest politician in the world is a feather in her cap.

“Their conversations are way more interesting than anything she and Orlando (Bloom) ever talked about. This has all been very exciting for her.”

Justin Trudeau reportedly didn’t like the media attention

A few weeks after their headline-grabbing first date, various outlets reported that things might be fizzling out between the pair.

People

quoted a Canadian political source who said Trudeau didn’t enjoy the onslaught of media attention and would have preferred if things had remained “more low-key.”

“Justin didn’t know so many people would find out about the private dinner,” the source was quoted. “He was also surprised by the international interest and how it went through the roof for days.”

A Perry source, meanwhile, told

The Daily Mail

things had “cooled off.”

She’s busy, he’s busy. They have a lot going on, and the newness has worn off,” the person said, noting that it wasn’t personal.

In mid-September, however,

U.S. Weekly

reported multiple unnamed sources confirming Trudeau and Perry were still “quietly” dating, with one claiming that “Justin has made plans to see her when she has downtime in a few weeks when she gets back from her tour in Brazil.”

That leg of the tour concluded on Sept. 19 and Perry began the U.K. leg of her tour on Oct. 4 in Ireland.

Another source quoted by

People

in October said Trudeau “had been pursuing” Perry ever since their Montreal meetup and a source for

The Sun

said the two had continued to communicate.

In September,

Trudeau also marked his debut in Korea

in what is believed to be his first major private speaking engagement since stepping down as the Liberal leader earlier this year. For speaking appearances, Trudeau is represented by the Speaker Booking Agency, which lists his in-person fee range as $100,000 or more. “As a renowned expert and highly sought-after speaker, Justin Trudeau’s expertise is in high demand,”

the agency notes

.

Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry spotted on her yacht in California

Photos of them atop the pop star’s yacht, the Caravelle, were published by the

Mail

on Oct. 11, showing Perry, in a bathing suit, embracing and kissing Trudeau, wearing blue jeans and sunglasses. The tourist in a passing boat who snapped them said they recognized the former Liberal leader from a distinctive tattoo on his left shoulder.

Eye-popping pictures that prove Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau ARE a couple: Passionate kisses. Roaming hands. After Orlando Bloom split, friends tell us exactly what’s going on…. https://t.co/AV32LMcifF

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) October 11, 2025

While the exact date the images were captured is unclear,

Vesselfinder.com

puts the 24-metre ship in Santa Barbara for eight days between Sept. 21 and 29 and returning for a single night on Sept. 30.

After the photos were published,

People

quoted “a Canadian source close to the political world” who said Trudeau and Perry are “definitely into each other — and have been.”

“It has had time to develop on a friend and intellectual level as well as supersized attraction,” they said. “The romance has merit.”

Justin Trudeau celebrates Thanksgiving with Sophie Grégoire and family

The yacht photos were published two days before Trudeau

sat down for a Thanksgiving dinner

with his ex-wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, and other family members on Monday.

The couple split in 2023 after 19 years of marriage.

That same day, in the wake of the yacht snaps, Gregoire Trudeau posted a video to Instagram reflecting on impermanence.

She noted how people often forget that nothing we love is meant to last, be it “people, the places even the moments that once felt — I don’t know — infinite, right?”

Love is about being present, not about holding onto something because of the safety it grants, something she admitted to doing.

“Let yourself love what’s here, without trying to make it stay,” she wrote in the caption.

Katy Perry alludes to her romance onstage during her London concert

Perry alluded to a new romantic interest at her show in London on Monday night, according to

The Sun

.

“London, England, you’re like this on a Monday night after a whole day at work and a whole day at school? No wonder I fall for Englishmen all the time — but not anymore,” she told the crowd at O2 Arena.

Later, when a fan extended a marriage proposal on stage, Perry said, “You really should have asked me about 48 hours ago.”

According to the

U.K. Daily Mail

, Bloom and daughter Daisy were reportedly at the show. Perry and the Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean actor formally announced their split in early July after nine years together, during which they had a daughter, Daisy, now five years old.

While Bloom hasn’t publicly comment on the Perry-Trudeau rumours, he seemed to find humour in a fake August story from satire site

The Onion

poking fun at his ex’s date with a former world leader by way of a doctored image of him sitting down for a candlelit dinner with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Angela kept Orlando laughing all night — he couldn’t keep his eyes off her,” noted The Onion’s “insider source who spotted the pair sipping wine, slurping oysters, and splitting a decadent piece of chocolate layer cake at a Michelin-starred restaurant.”

The English actor responded to the Instagram post with three clapping hand emojis.

Justin Trudeau, Katy Perry romance gets a mention on Jimmy Kimmel

Their wave-making yacht photos caught the attention of comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who cracked wise about them in

his Tuesday night opening monologue.

In the bit, the ABC late show host spoofs a stereotypical Canadian accent and likens Trudeau’s shirtless in jeans fashion to the “RKF Jr. collection.”

He also joked that this is how Canada was retaliating against tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“They’re not just taking our women. They’re taking our astronauts,” he said, referring to Perry’s 11-minute flight to space aboard the Blue Origin flight earlier this year.

• Justin Trudeau ‘exacts revenge’ for U.S. tariffs by dating Katy Perry, Jimmy Kimmel jokes
• What Katy Perry and Sophie Grégoire have said since new Justin Trudeau relationship revealed

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.

A new study published this week in the

Lancet Journal of Health Longevity

is reinforcing the negative effects of smoking on cognitive health and offering new evidence to support quitting among seniors.

The research was conducted by scientists at Britain’s University College London, and funded by the (U.K.) National Institute on Aging, National Institute for Health and Care Research. It drew on data from studies conducted in 12 countries, including 18 years (2002–20) of cognitive data.

It involved participants who quit smoking and who were matched with an equal number of continuing smokers according to key demographic, socioeconomic, and cognitive criteria. In all there were 9,436 participants: 4,718 smokers who quit and an equal number of continuing smokers, aged 40–89 years, with 51.8 per cent women and 48.2 per cent men.

The primary conclusion was that in the six years after quitting smoking, which could occur in mid or later life, smokers who quit had memory and cognitive fluency scores that declined more slowly than smokers who did not quit.

The findings of previous small-scale smoking cessation trials have suggested cognitive benefits in the six to 24 months following smoking cessation.

In this study, the researchers did not see improvement in cognitive performance, but instead a reduction in the rate of decline. Their results show later-life quitting is associated with a delay in cognitive decline of up to three years of ageing. And the benefit “accumulates further over time,” they wrote.

The researchers suggest the difference between seeing cognitive benefits in the earlier studies and seeing slower decline in the present one is probably attributable to the younger age distribution in previous studies (with a mean age of 45 years), as well as the fact that memory and fluency generally decline from age 60–65 years onwards.

“The fact that we observed more rapid cognitive decline … when cognitive trajectories were centred (on) age 65, regardless of smoking cessation, is consistent with memory and fluency ageing trajectories.”

“However,” they wrote, “the present findings show adults aged at least 65 years who quit smoking aged 44 years or younger had better cognitive scores than current smokers.”

One of the driving factors of the study is the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias as the

eighth leading cause of death

in the world, with

an estimated 56.9 million people living with dementia globally.

As a result, the researchers wanted to

target modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline from midlife onwards.

Among the risk factors, say the researchers, smoking has emerged as a potential cause of accelerated cognitive decline.

“In middle-aged and older smokers with initially similar cognitive trajectories, smokers who quit subsequently had more favourable trajectories than continuing smokers,” they wrote. This was true “regardless of age at cessation.”

One key to conducting the research is that older adults are less likely than younger people to try to quit smoking. The team reasoned that proving improvement in long-term cognitive trajectories might provide additional motivation for older smokers to quit.

“With less than 10% of serious attempts to quit smoking succeeding after 1 year, identifying novel and compelling reasons to attempt to quit remains an important focus for public health initiatives,” they wrote.

“These findings suggest the potential reversibility of smoking-related cognitive harms and could motivate older adults to try to quit smoking, offering new evidence to support the public health message that it is never too late to quit.”

The present findings reiterate the negative effects of smoking on cognitive health, the researchers conclude, and “offer new evidence to support smoking cessation at any age.”

• Sabine Benoit: Ottawa’s nicotine policy is failing smokers
• Let’s achieve a smoke-free Canada together

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.

A former Sudanese politician deemed inadmissible to Canada for being a member of a party that engaged in “acts of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process” has won a reprieve.

Abdelsakhi Abbas Adesakhi Ali came to Canada and claimed refugee protection after an April 2019 coup d’état in which then-president Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by the Sudanese Armed Forces.

But his refugee claim was suspended so a hearing could be held before this country’s Immigration Division, which determined he was inadmissible to Canada.

Ali took his case to Federal Court looking for a judicial review of the decision deeming him inadmissible. The judge determined that Canadian immigration officials failed to consider whether he might be subject to persecution if forced to return to Sudan.

The court heard Ali was a member of Sudan’s National Congress Party (NCP) when it was in power and held important political positions as a member of the legislative council of Khartoum from 2010 until 2015, then became a member of the country’s national parliament.

“He alleges, however, that in December 2016 he was interviewed on the radio and expressed his criticism of the direction the government was taking,” Justice Sébastien Grammond wrote in a recent decision out of Montreal.

“This cost him his position within the party, even though he kept his seat in parliament until 2019, when a coup d’état toppled General al-Bashir’s government.”

When Canada’s Immigration Division (ID) found Ali inadmissible, it noted he admitted to being a member of the NCP, said the decision, dated Oct. 10.

The ID reviewed evidence concerning the conduct of the government formed by the NCP.

“It found that the NCP, led by General al‑Bashir, harassed and arrested political opponents, notably with the help of the state security services, and was involved in various types of electoral fraud,” said the judge.

“Therefore, the ID found that the NCP was an organization that engaged in ‘an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process.’”

• Judge delays removal of Eritrean family that deceived Canadian immigration authorities
• Family fighting deportation to Italy gets another shot at staying in Canada

But Grammond said the ID failed to consider the principle of non-refoulement, the practice of not forcing refugees to return to countries where they are liable to be subject to persecution.

“I allow Mr. Ali’s application,” said the judge.

“The ID failed to consider whether Mr. Ali’s inadmissibility was consistent with the constraints imposed by international law, specifically, the principle of non-refoulement.”

The judge set aside the decision declaring Ali inadmissible to Canada, and sent the former politician’s case back to the ID for “redetermination” by a different decision maker.

Sudan has been locked in a civil war since April 2024.

“The internal conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 11 million people,” according to Amnesty International. “People in Sudan are facing rampant violations of human rights and humanitarian law resulting in mass civilian casualties, gender-based violence, and a humanitarian catastrophe as parties to the conflict block aid to millions of civilians trying to survive without food or water.”

Ali’s case relied on a 2023 Supreme Court of Canada decision that “stated that the ID must necessarily consider the constraints stemming from international law, including the principle of non-refoulement, before making a finding of inadmissibility.”

That decision from the country’s top court “signalled a major change with respect to the role of the (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees) and the principle of non-refoulement,” Grammond said.

The Supreme Court “underscored the presumption that statutes must be interpreted in a manner consistent with international law. It noted that this presumption assumed added force with respect to (Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which) requires it to be construed and applied in a manner that ‘complies with international human rights instruments to which Canada is signatory,’ including the Convention. Most importantly, it required immigration decision makers to consider the Convention and the principle of non-refoulement when they interpret and apply the Act, even if the parties do not explicitly raise the issue.”

Grammond allowed Ali’s “application because the ID did not consider the issue that the Supreme Court required it to address. In this case, the only relevant exception to the principle of non‑refoulement is the danger posed by the person concerned to the security of the host country.”

The judge noted that, in Ali’s case, “the ID did not assess the danger” he personally poses to the security of Canada.

The judge conceded “it is difficult to define in advance what can pose a danger” to the country’s security, noting that’s a “forward-facing exercise.”

Grammond’s decision also pointed out that “it is also entirely conceivable that mere membership in an organization may in some cases be sufficient to conclude that a person is a danger to the security of Canada.”

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.