OTTAWA — A group of advocates representing voices across civil society and faith communities came together on Wednesday to decry what they called the “ever-expanding” scope of the Liberals’ legislation aimed at tackling hate.

It comes as MPs on the parliamentary justice committee begin their clause-by-clause review of the legislation, known as Bill C-9, with voting set to get underway on a series of amendments, including one proposed by the Bloc Québécois to see the Criminal Code scrubbed of an existing religious defence for certain hate speech laws.

That change was not outlined in the original text of the bill, which Justice Minister Sean Fraser presented back in September.

Removing that defence from Canada’s hate speech laws has been a longstanding request of the Bloc Québécois, who, as

National Post reported

this week, struck a deal with the Liberals to see it happen, in exchange for helping the government pass its bill.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz, executive director of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, on Wednesday voiced concerns that the bill, which was targeted at spaces around places of worship, now appears to be “ever-expanding in ways that is unprecedented.”

His organization, along with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Council of Imams and the Christian Legal Fellowship, have all stated they oppose the removal of the religious defence under section 319 of the Criminal Code, which criminalizes wilfully promoting hate and antisemitism. Canadian law defines the latter as “condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust.”

As it is written, the defence states that a person who in “good faith” expressed or tried to communicate an opinion “on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text” should not be convicted under these hate speech laws.

Critics have suggested that removing the provision leaves a vague law that could be applied to legitimate debate and Al-Qazzaz said his faith community views its removal as potentially limiting how religious texts could be promoted within religious schools and broader society.

Tuesday’s meeting of the justice committee was adjourned at the request of the Liberals, with agreement from the Bloc Québécois, before the amendment to remove this defence was officially presented. Amendments are considered confidential before being discussed at committee.

Opposition Conservatives, who have vowed to fight against the proposed exclusion of the measure and decry it as an attack on “religious freedom,” left the committee, expressing confusion, saying that they were prepared to sit for hours longer to review future amendments.

A government source, not authorized to speak publicly, told National Post the adjournment happened because they felt opposition committee members were working in “good faith,” so they ended the meeting around its regularly scheduled time. The next meeting is set for Thursday.

“We remain open to amendments that strengthen protections for communities across Canada in the face of rising hate,” wrote Lola Dandybaeva, a spokeswoman for Fraser.

One of the agreements parties reached during Tuesday’s committee meeting was to maintain the requirement that laying a hate propaganda charge would need the consent of a provincial attorney general.

The bill had proposed removing it as a way to streamline the laying of such charges. However, civil liberties advocates and Conservatives opposed doing it, describing it as a necessary protection for freedom of speech.

The advocates on Wednesday raised concern about other amendments proposed separately by Conservative MP Roman Baber and Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who both brought forward suggestions about adding to the bill an offence against the “wilful promotion of terrorism.”

Canada does not currently have laws against the “promotion” or “glorification” of terrorism.

Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, said on Wednesday that the consideration for adding such an offence raises concerns because promotion, as a concept, was “incredibly vague” and could apply to “legitimate discussion.”

“It’s incredibly broad and could lead to significant criminalization of discussion of current affairs, of legitimate political discussions and debates,” McSorley told the news conference.

“We think that it has no place in Canadian legislation overall, and certainly no place in being brought in as part of an ostensibly combating hate legislation.”

McSorley compared the effort to laws ushered in under former prime minister Stephen Harper through an anti-terror bill back in 2015, which was criticized for overreaching police and security powers.

Baber referenced those Harper efforts during his testimony before Tuesday’s committee, saying that “a gap” currently exists, which he says has allowed for the “promotion of terror.”

The MP, who has been vocal in his opposition to anti-Israel protests staged around his Toronto riding, had presented a private member’s bill on the matter to the House of Commons last month, which sought to criminalize the promotion of a terrorist group or “terrorist activity.”

He specifically named the action of calling for an “intifada in Canada” or activities that promote a listed terrorist entity, such as Hamas, the governing group in Gaza responsible for carrying out the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Officials who testified before Tuesday’s committee said the courts have interpreted “promotion” to mean “active support or instigation” and more than “simple encouragement or advancement.”

The civil society advocates who spoke on Wednesday represented a group of about 20 different organizations and groups that oppose the government bill in its entirety.

They warned that the legislation’s proposals to create new intimidation and obstruction offences targeted at the activities around places of worship and other buildings where an identifiable group gathers could lead to a quashing of legitimate protests.

Jewish advocacy groups, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, have said measures were needed to better protect members of the Jewish community who have been dealing with impeded access to spaces and a police-reported rise in antisemitism over the Israel-Hamas war.

Civil liberties advocates have also raised concerns about the bill’s proposal to make it an offence to promote hate by displaying a hate symbol like a swastika, or an image related to a listed terrorist entity, warning that police could misinterpret certain Arabic phrases.

Liberal MP Salma Zahid said on Wednesday that she’s “heard some concerns” about the bill.

“I think all conversations around censorship are fraught,” said Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith.

“We have to be very careful when it comes to adding additional rules that restrict speech. And so I will look at it very carefully.”

National Post

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As Canadians gear up for the holiday season, many will be taking trips to the United States. Canadian travellers are at the discretion of American border officers, who may ask questions about relationship status, work history and living situation.

It could raise a red flag if a Canadian is going to the U.S. and has an American spouse, immigration lawyer Ksenia Tchern McCallum at Tchern McCallum Immigration Law told National Post over email. That’s because some people may visit and then remain in the U.S. to apply for a visa within the country.

Amid

ongoing tensions between Canada and the U.S.

and recent changes to

American travel policies

, it’s important for Canadians to be informed ahead of reaching border. Travelling to the U.S. for Canadians is “not business as usual.”

“The U.S. now has enhanced security which includes obtaining fingerprints and photographs of visitors. Canadians who stay 30 days or longer must register with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services after they enter the country. And, those who don’t comply face fines up to $5,000 or jail time,” she said.

To avoid the red flag being raised about a cross-border relationship, Canadians going to the U.S. should be prepared to explain to officers how they maintain the relationship and “what concrete ties they have to Canada that demonstrate they will return after their visit,” said Tchern McCallum.

“This can include a full-time job, family obligations, a lease or mortgage, pets, or any other commitments that anchor them to Canada,” she said.

If a relationship is new, there might not be an established back and forth history of travel between the countries, she said. Officers may ask more detailed questions. They could inquire about the purpose of the visit, length of stay, living arrangements, and who is covering expenses.

“Having an itinerary and answers prepared can significantly ease the process,” Tchern McCallum advised.

“If there is a future intention for the American spouse to sponsor the Canadian spouse (or vice versa), the Canadian can be upfront about this. Explaining that you understand the proper immigration process, that you are not trying to immigrate without authorization, and that any future move will be done through a formal application often reassures officers.”

She added: “It shows transparency, awareness of the rules, and respect for U.S. immigration requirements.”

More advice for Canadians going to the U.S. includes making sure to have “supporting evidence of your ties to Canada” if travel plans are for a prolonged period of time.

“This could include an employment confirmation letter, pay stubs, bank statements, lease or mortgage statements, utility bills, etc.,” she said. “Proof of insurance and financial ability to support yourself while in the U.S. is also important, especially for Canadians staying over 30 days.”

Tchern McCallum also said that Canadian travellers, in particular snowbirds, who want to avoid being turned away at the border should have a return flight booked. “If not, you’ll be flagged,” she said  in a news release by iAmbic Communications.

“Have you overstayed the pre-determined time of your visit in the past? If so, you could be questioned or refused entry,” she said.

Canadian travellers who visit the U.S. frequently should also be prepared to be questioned about it and provide detailed answers. She said it’s best not to be evasive, as that could also lead to denied entry.

• Canadian border agency wants international flyers with stopovers in Canada to skip customs
• Service Canada offers limited apology, ‘no accountability’ for telling Jewish Montrealer she couldn’t name Israel as birth country

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.

Ultimately, officials at the passport office relented when she pushed back.

And in a
Nov. 29 Instagram post
, she said she received her passport with Israel identified as her birth country.

Meanwhile, Oberman wrote a letter to the Montreal passport office and Service Canada on Nov. 12, (

posted to his Instagram

), seeking an explanation for what happened. The response received last week from 

Cliff Groen

, the chief operating officer for Service Canada was not forthcoming, says Oberman.

“While we appreciate the quick response,” Oberman told National Post in an interview on Wednesday, “it was an apology but not an apology. It did not offer an explanation.”

He suspects the quick reply was driven by the intense media attention Zorchinsky’s case has received, including the National Post and 

The New York Times

. (He is not publicly sharing Groen’s letter, he says, out of deference to the government.)

During the same interview with the Post, Zorchinsky emphasized her concern that “this doesn’t happen to anyone else. It’s abnormal. It’s not okay.”

Moreover, she says, Groen’s response was “totally insufficient. This is why Neil and I decided to write a second letter.”

In the follow-up letter to Groen, dated Nov. 27 (

posted on Oberman’s LinkedIn

account), Oberman notes that Groen stated passport staff “may have caused some confusion” and Service Canada must “regularly review” it’s operational tools.

Yet, he adds, Groen did not state why passport office staff “invented rationales having no basis in policy.”

And Oberman insists that issuing the new passport with the correct information does not excuse or explain staff conduct.

He renewed his demands for the policy/operational documents supporting the statements passport office staff made to Zorchinsky. Further, he stated that if such documents can’t be provided, then an explanation as to why needs to be forthcoming.

He also requested confirmation of an internal review of the incident.

Finally, he intends to file complaints before the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the federal ombudperson if a substantive response is not provided by mid-December. He also threatened to file an application for judicial review before the Federal Court.

What happened to his client was not “merely a clerical mistake,” insists Oberman in

a post on Instagram

, adding, “It was the application of non-existent rules, delivered with confidence.”

Both Zorchinksy and Oberman point to the federal government’s decision to recognize Palestine as a state, without consultation with Canadians, as the potential source for such incidents. The move has given license to people with anti-Israel political views and Jewish people “have been suffering” as a result, says Oberman.

He adds that “this is not a Jewish issue. All Canadians have the right to government service” without the influence of geopolitics. 

He says Zorchinsky’s story has prompted other Canadians to share their experiences. They are “collecting and examining” them and considering whether further legal intervention may be sought in the future.

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.

Newly released pictures and video from Jeffrey Epstein’s two private islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands show what looks to be a dentist’s office, several bedrooms and bathrooms, and a partially redacted view of a phone and a blackboard.

The images from Little Saint James and Great Saint James islands came from the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice,

according to a statement

from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, which released them on social media on Wednesday.

Last month the committee sent a request to the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General for documents, communications and other information pertaining to investigations or potential criminal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, his former associate. “These new images are a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island,” said Robert Garcia, a Representative from California and the committee’s ranking member.

“We are releasing these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our investigation and to help piece together the full picture of Epstein’s horrific crimes. We won’t stop fighting until we deliver justice for the survivors,” he said in a statement, adding: “It’s time for President Trump to release all the files, now.”

The committee said it has also received records from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank pertaining to accounts previously held by Epstein. Oversight Democrats intend to release those  files to the public after review in the days ahead.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation to compel the Department of Justice to release files on Epstein. This was after spending months trying to block their release in a fight that inflamed tensions in his party and threatened to undermine his agenda, by detracting from other issues he wanted the public and the media to focus on.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was facing federal charges of trafficking underage girls when he died in jail in 2019.

Maxwell, who had a romantic relationship with Epstein in the 1990s and remained closely associated with him until his death, was sentenced to 20 years on child sex trafficking and other offences in 2022. She was moved to a minimum-security federal prison in Bryan, Texas, in August from a prison in Florida.

🚨 BREAKING: Oversight Dems have received never-before-seen photos and videos of Jeffrey Epstein’s private island that are a harrowing look behind Epstein’s closed doors.

See for yourself. We won’t stop fighting until we end this cover-up and deliver justice for the survivors. pic.twitter.com/qXmxFISZLS

— Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) December 3, 2025

• Prince Andrew has lost his titles but could still be King. What else does he keep?
• Britain’s ex-prince Andrew misses deadline set by U.S. lawmakers for Epstein inquiry

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OTTAWA — A key intelligence watchdog is calling on the government to urgently review its governing law after cancelling a review of Canada’s spy agency due to a lack of proper legal protection for its staff.

The decision to cancel the review was not taken lightly, says the head of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA), because the watchdog had already found “issues of concern” with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

“NSIRA’s inability to proceed with this pertinent review highlights the urgency and necessity of legislative reforms intended to be a part three-year review of the National Security Act, 2017,” reads a

2024 review termination letter

sent by NSIRA chair Marie Deschamps to then-Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

A similar letter was also sent

to then-CSIS Director David Vigneault. Both letters have gone largely unnoticed and unreported since it was posted quietly on NSIRA’s website in February.

At issue, the watchdog says, is the failure to include “standardized” immunity for its staff from being dragged into civil litigation related to topics they review when the NSIRA Act was passed in 2019. A simple but pressing fix, it argues.

NSIRA is Canada’s largest intelligence watchdog. It has the power to review any intelligence and defence activity conducted by a federal organization as well as investigating certain national security-related complaints.

Because of its broad review mandate and power to obtain nearly any information it wants from the organizations it reviews, NSIRA guards the identity of its employees closely.

In March 2024, NSIRA began a review of CSIS’s regional units as well as the “adequacy and accessibility” of its internal complaints process. In other words, it was looking into how well CSIS’s Canadian satellite offices were governed and if its internal whistleblower process was effective.

But within three months, the watchdog realized it had two issues. The first was that there were multiple civil lawsuits related to the very issues it was reviewing.

The second was that, unlike other federal watchdogs like the Auditor General or the Privacy Commissioner, NSIRA’s governing legislation didn’t protect its reviewers from being compelled to reveal themselves and testify about their work in a parallel civil lawsuit.

The agency doesn’t cite the litigation at issue, but a few months before the review, The Canadian Press revealed that two female employees of CSIS’s B.C. regional office had filed separate lawsuits alleging they were raped by a superior.

They also alleged their internal complaints were dismissed due to a flawed system — the same system NSIRA was reviewing.

Since there was a possibility that NSIRA staff and their work could be subpoenaed by civil litigants because there was nothing in the law to prevent it, the watchdog decided to cancel the review three months in.

Since then, NSIRA has asked both LeBlanc and current Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree to add the same immunity for its reviewers from parallel civil litigation.

In an interview, NSIRA vice-chair Craig Forcese and Executive Director Charles Fugères said this was the first and only time to date the watchdog felt compelled to cancel a review because of this issue.

But they warned that it would likely impact NSIRA’s ability to conduct future reviews of intelligence issues that have a risk of associated civil litigation.

In other words, it risks creating a blind spot for the watchdog agency with the power to review nearly any intelligence or national security function in the federal government.

“We chose to do this review. We thought it was important to do this review, and we’re not doing this review right. So that’s all that’s already an undesirable outcome,” said Forcese.

“In circumstances where we know that a given topic is one that attracts civil litigation, we may decide not to proceed with the review,” he added.

Minister Anandasangaree’s office did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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The Gaza war mostly behind him – or perhaps not – Benjamin Netanyahu must soon face a volatile Israeli electorate.

The country will go to the polls by next fall, assuming his thin coalition government can pass a budget by spring.

Israelis are sharply divided over the man who has dominated their country’s politics for 30 years, and who was on watch when Hamas terrorists overran southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Few Israelis are more torn about Bibi than Israeli-Canadians; an estimated 35,000 Canadian citizens live in the Jewish state. For many of them, questions remain about Netanyahu’s wartime leadership, political survival and Israel’s future, reflecting the anxiety and divisions of postwar Israel.

“To say it’s complicated is an understatement,” noted Meir Balofsky, 49, from Ramat Gan, who moved from Toronto 21 years ago.

“Look, yes, we know he’s a great orator, and he knows how to make friends with America, and that’s good, I guess, as a politician.”

But it comes with an asterisk.

“I think he has to go. The brand of Israel has been so tarnished, and he’s the face of it. I think Israel desperately needs a reset again. You can say it’s fair or not. Doesn’t really matter. The reality is that the world opinion of Bibi is that he is a monster, and Israel is now a pariah state. He’s never groomed a successor.”

Ahuva, Balofsky’s wife, added that Netanyahu, “has reached a point in his career where he doesn’t trust anyone else’s ability to do what he can do, and so in his mind, he’s the only suitable leader for the country. And the ends justify the means; he can do anything that he needs to do to stay in power for the good of the country. I think that’s a little bit of a scary place to be for a leader, because I do think he’s still the better candidate from the options on the table, but that doesn’t mean he’s a great candidate anymore.”

Israel’s longest serving prime minister, Netanyahu was first elected in 1996, then returned to power 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2022, where by the latest possible election date of Oct. 27, 2026, he will have served some 7,000 days – or 19 years.

Ben Waxman, 64, a tech writer in Ariel, is not a fan of the prime minister but said he has “mixed feelings.”

“He has some great aspects to him. Netanyahu is a true Zionist in every sense of the word. He is able to decide what are his priorities and what aren’t. That means that things that aren’t his priority he will sell to the highest bidder,” he said.

One example, Waxman said, is that Netanyahu “couldn’t care less” about “religion and state issues,” and caters too often to the religious parties for votes.

“There is a certain advantage to that approach, in that Netanyahu stays focused. On the other hand, for concerned citizens, it can be infuriating that he has no principles in these areas. He is extremely intelligent, well-read and able to understand how to navigate difficult waters. On the other hand, once he has decided something, nothing will change his mind.”

One of Waxman’s biggest criticisms of Netanyahu over the last two years was “his absolute refusal to speak to the country via the press.”

Netanyahu has also faced a long-running trial on corruption charges; on Sunday, Netanyahu asked Israel’s president to pardon him, even as he denies any wrongdoing: “An immediate conclusion of the trial would greatly help to lower the flames and promote the broad reconciliation that our country so desperately needs,” Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement.

Shai Reef, a 30-year-old former Torontonian who has lived in Israel for three years, says Netanyahu “has many flaws,” but Reef thinks he is “probably the best leader Israel can hope for right now.”

He added: “There’s no other political leader close to the prime minister’s office with both an ideological compass and the ability to navigate the geopolitical landscape.” That includes being able to try “to resist Washington’s agenda for our region.”

Reef is less fond of Bibi’s economic policies and what he describes as “rhetoric” about “Judeo-Christian values, or ‘civilization versus barbarism,’” which Reef said “sounds very colonialist.”

Sahar Silverman, 27, who moved from Toronto to Jerusalem on Oct. 7, 2024 – a year after the Hamas-led attacks – said Netanyahu was “the best option we have right now.”

She cited his “great powers as a leader” but who has caved to “external pressures” from the United States.

“He needs to start making decisions independent of what he thinks the world, or Trump wants, because otherwise we will just continue the same cycle,” meaning that Israel’s enemies benefit from global pressure. An example she gave was of the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011, where the Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas was traded for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

“As long as he keeps walking the line of appeasement, we will never have true peace. It’s time to start making decisions based on what the country needs, and not what the rest of the world demands from us.”

This very sentiment was expressed by one prominent non-Canadian, member of Knesset Amit Halevi, who made it clear he wasn’t happy with the White House-led negotiated Gaza agreement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Oct. 9.

“Was Israel pressured by Trump, forced to take what’s happening now in Gaza, with Qatar, Turkey? No doubt about it,” the member of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee told the National Post in a meeting facilitated by the Toronto-based Exigent Foundation.

Halevi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, emphatically added he was “absolutely opposed” to the ceasefire deal.

“So what do you think should be done? What every nation does in a war. Victory. To fight and to win,” he said.

The problem, he intimated, was that Donald Trump has it wrong believing that Russia and China are the most dangerous enemies of the West, rather than “radical neo-Marxist progressive forces” and “radical Islam.”

Max Lightstone, a Torontonian who now lives in Jerusalem, said Bibi’s priorities are to keep himself in power, and “out of prison.”

The 31-year-old engineer continued: “His ministers are the open subject of ridicule, with his transportation minister so out of touch with the citizenry, it’s ridiculous. He has failed on both security and diplomatic fronts, bringing Israel to the lowest level of safety and PR. He fires his only competent staff, because his wife doesn’t like them. He’s secular, but throws the secular sector under the bus to appease the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox).”

Jack Benaim, 44, a Torontonian who lived in Tel Aviv, said that Netanyahu “somehow manages to evade responsibility.”

He criticized the prime minister for never having visited Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, the grassroots central site for gathering, protest and memorial for Gaza hostages and their families.

“Instead he politicized them, attacked families, when the last group of hostages were finally released. It was Trump that delivered them. I still can’t find one of those families or hostages who thanked him. How can it be?”

Benaim also holds the prime minister accountable for public divisions in the Jewish state, before and after October 7.

“He is a walking conflict of interest, who ripped the social fabric of Israeli society to the point that every institution in the state, and most notably the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Air Force, were compromised prior to October 7, 2023,” he asserted.

“It’s time for Israel to turn the page from Bibi Netanyahu, and October 7.”

• Netanyahu asks Herzog for pardon in corruption trial he says is tearing Israel ‘apart from within’
• Netanyahu, Israeli leaders reject U.S.-backed call for ‘pathway’ to Palestinian statehood

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OTTAWA — Canada’s fiscal watchdog suggested to a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Ottawa should need House of Commons approval to change or eliminate long-held fiscal targets, as the Carney government did just weeks ago.

Jason Jacques, the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), told the Senate finance committee that Ottawa had used its debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio as one of its key “fiscal anchors” for the last three decades and that this government had described it as a key gauge for fiscal sustainability as recently as this fall.

But in early November, the debt-to-GDP anchor was thrown overboard.

In responding to a question from New Brunswick Senator Krista Ross, Jacques suggested that the federal government should need parliamentary approval for such a move, similar to what is required to raise the debt ceiling.

“It’s a change in fiscal policy which wasn’t discussed meaningfully on Parliament Hill,” Jacques told committee members. “It happened without any discussion.”

The interim PBO’s comments mark his latest criticism of the Carney government’s fiscal policy. The PBO, an independent officer who scrutinizes government raising and spending of tax dollars, told a parliamentary committee last month that there’s only a 7.5 per cent chance that the government will hit its target of reducing Canada’s deficit-to-GDP ratio over each of the next few years.

That, along with balancing the operating budget within three years, is one of the government’s two remaining fiscal anchors. The third, the debt-GDP ratio was dropped in last month’s federal budget.

John Fragos, a spokesman for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, said the government is operating in line with international norms in that the government chooses its fiscal anchors, and then Parliament votes on budgets that reflect those anchors. In this year’s case, Fragos said, MPs voted to pass the budget bill.

Jacques, who has already established himself as a clear voice on federal finances in his three months on the job, earlier described the government’s spending as “stupefying,” “shocking” and “unsustainable.”

He also criticized the federal government in a report earlier this fall for using an “overly expansive” definition of investments that will help the government hit its first fiscal target.

The Carney government’s first budget, released last month, 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. The budget 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.

In a report Tuesday, the PBO also said that the government’s Build Canada Homes program is expected to lead to only 26,000 new Canadian homes over the next five years, which is a tiny fraction of what the government says is needed.

The federal Liberals’ vowed to increase house construction to 500,000 a year over the next 10 years during the federal election campaign earlier this year. That would mean more than double the number of housing starts compared to what is now expected for each of the next few years, and a level of residential construction not seen since the boom years following World War II.

Canada has been facing a housing crunch, caused by a number of factors. On the supply side, the key barriers include access to land in the right places, lack of skilled trades, and, of course, rising costs.

Scott Aitchison, the Conservatives’ housing critic, said the Carney government still has no plan to build the homes that were promised and criticized Build Canada Homes as unnecessary. “In fact, it’s making things worse.”

According to The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), a crown corporation that acts as the country’s national housing agency, the supply shortage will be with us for a while. CMHC recently forecast that the total number of housing starts this year will be about 237,800, down from 245,367 in 2024. Despite all of the attention on this issue, the agency also forecasts a drop to about 227,734 next year and 220,016 in 2027.

National Post

• ‘Low probability’ the Carney government will hit any of its fiscal anchors, says budget watchdog
• Fiscal watchdog accuses Ottawa of exaggerating investment spending

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It was the return of Bruce Willis’s childhood stutter that gave his wife Emma Heming Willis her first hint that something was wrong.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I realize that was a symptom,” she told an audience in Toronto on Tuesday.

Bruce Willis, 70, had long since overcome the speech impediment that once saw him tagged with the mocking schoolyard nickname “Buck Buck,” in 1960s New Jersey.

But this returning stutter, which coincided with other communication problems in his late sixties, was a sign of the progressive aphasia, or loss of language, that would later be diagnosed as a form of dementia.

In 2022, Willis announced his retirement after a singular Hollywood career as a classically hunky leading man and top tier action star, from Moonlighting through Die Hard, Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense. Soon after, he was formally diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, the most common type of early onset dementia.

It was such a life-changing moment for his wife, as well as for Willis, that she refers to it as their diagnosis, a terrible new knowledge that put an unwieldy scientific name on the constellation of cognitive symptoms that have slowly robbed Willis of his language and his independence.

“I left with a diagnosis I didn’t understand. I couldn’t pronounce it,” Heming Willis said. She had no resources, no hope, just a clinical acronym and a follow-up appointment. “Early on it was very lonely. I carried a lot of grief. I continue to.”

In the few years since, Heming Willis, 47, has fashioned for herself a public advocacy mission as a caregiver to an action hero, and an inspiration to other people caring for loved ones with dementia, Alzheimer’s and other progressive brain diseases.

It is a hard job to take on. Heming Willis has said it has been particularly hard recently to see backlash to the decision to move Willis into a nearby second family home in Los Angeles, where he lives with a full-time team of support workers.

Heming Willis has two young daughters with Willis, Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, whose experience of their father’s disease began in their childhood and is lasting into their adolescence. Now, the children visit him frequently at the second home, for breakfast and dinner, but the arrangement allows them to have playdates and sleepovers at their own house, to keep things as normal as possible.

Heming Willis said she knows Willis wants their children to live in a home that is set up for what they need, not just for him.

Heming Willis grew up in California, the only child to a single mother after her parents divorced when she was young. She and her mother moved to England, where she began a modelling career that eventually saw her return to New York as a successful commercial model. She married Willis in 2009.

She recently published a memoir focused on her role as what she prefers to call a “care partner.” It is called The Unexpected Journey, and she describes it as the book she would have liked to read that day she learned the name of Willis’s disease.

In a moderated chat at the Women’s Brain Health Summit in Toronto on Tuesday morning, Heming Willis told host Jeanne Beker about a neurologist who once told her that caregivers sometimes die before their sick loved ones, and they typically only end up asking for help far too late.

“It was such a wake up call for me. I did not realize that caregiving could be so harmful to your health,” Heming Willis said. Asking for help can feel like failure as a caregiver, she said, but really it is a sign of wisdom and strength.

In a brief discussion with National Post, Heming Willis said she took similar advice from the book Floating In The Deep End: How Caregivers Can See Beyond Alzheimer’s. It was published in 2021 by Patti Davis, the daughter of Nancy Reagan and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994 and died ten years later.

She said Davis’s book helps give caregivers permission and a reminder to keep caring for themselves as they care for someone else. One specific piece of advice she uses when the whole thing seems overwhelming is to give herself thirty minutes to rage, cry and despair. “And then I move on,” she said.

This is common advice to the loved ones of people diagnosed with serious progressive diseases because it often points to a problem that caregivers themselves do not easily realize.

Compared to a dementia diagnosis, a caregiver’s struggles do not seem like the most obvious problems. But the urge to care, to sacrifice one’s self, to prioritize the seriously ill person above everything else, all of these factors can lead caregivers to ignore their own well-being. They risk being consumed by someone else’s illness.

Caregivers can end up feeling “unseen, unsupported,” Heming Willis said. As frustrations mount with a progressive disease, and as minor symptoms proceed to major ones, caregivers often need to be explicitly reminded that “you are not a failure,” she said.

Caregivers are also forced into the role of educators, to explain to others what is happening, even as they themselves are still learning. Heming Willis suggested keeping pamphlets or other information available to share with people, to ease the caregiver’s burden of explaining the same thing over and over again to worried loved ones.

That duty to explain is often felt most acutely with children. Children have different questions at different ages. Their worries change not only as their parent’s disease progresses, but also as they themselves grow up.

Heming Willis did not want dementia to be discussed in their home in “hushed tones,” she said. “I wanted to talk about his disease,” she said, and she didn’t want her children’s lives to be “clouded” by grief, fear and silence.

Today, Willis is “surrounded by love and support,” Heming Willis said. She and Willis have a close blended family with Bruce’s three adult daughters from his marriage to actress Demi Moore: Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah.

At the Women’s Brain Health Summit in Toronto, Heming Willis told the audience they are all “pulling through as a family,” and she feels “blessed to be on this journey and to navigate this with him.”

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