OTTAWA — Canadians are not headed to the polls just yet. The Bloc Québécois and the NDP have said they will be voting with the Liberals — ensuring a majority — in the first of three confidence votes on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget on Thursday evening.

More specifically, they will be voting against the Conservative sub-amendment which calls on the House of Commons to reject the budget because it did not bring down the deficit to the promised $42 billion in the last fiscal update and failed to include a plan to build more oil and gas pipelines.

Interim NDP Leader Don Davies said his party will not be supporting the Conservatives’ motion because it calls for tens of billions more in cuts to public spending.

“It’s absolutely irresponsible, it’s extremely right-wing, and it’s not the direction that the country should be going in,” he said.

The vote is expected to happen around 5:45 p.m.

There will be a second confidence vote on Friday on the Bloc’s amendment to the budget, this time, which calls for MPs to reject it because it does not do enough for Quebec, in the party’s opinion, and does not have a clear plan to fight climate change.

The Bloc’s House leader, Christine Normandin, said her party cannot support the Conservatives’ motion as it not only scraps her own party’s demands but it supports “oil and pipelines.”

The government has deemed that the amendment and sub-amendment brought forward by both parties will be subject to confidence votes.

“As these motions both explicitly reject the budget, they are considered to be matters of confidence,” said Government House leader Steven MacKinnon’s director of communications, Mark Kennedy, in a statement to the National Post.

If the minority Liberal government loses the confidence of the House, it will be expected to resign or seek the dissolution of Parliament for a general election to be held.

The main motion on the budget is expected to be voted on as early as mid-November, as budgetary matters are automatically considered to be a matter of confidence.

The Liberals find themselves with 170 MPs — two seats short of a majority of 343 seats in total after former Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont crossed the floor to the Liberals. It remains unclear if the NDP or individual MPs will be supporting their budget or abstaining.

Davies said NDP MPs have still not made up their minds on the Bloc amendment to be voted Friday, nor have they decided how they will cast their vote on the budget itself.

The Conservatives and the Bloc have already declared that they will be voting against the budget in its current form, as did Green Party Leader Elizabeth May this week.

The Bloc took the unusual step of tabling an amendment to the budget — something they haven’t done the last time they were the official opposition in 1997 — after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre did not table his party’s motion after his speech on Wednesday.

His finance critic, Jasraj Singh Hallan, ended up tabling his party’s own motion on Thursday and, because of the order, it became a sub-amendment to the Bloc’s amendment.

Sam Lilly, director of media relations for Poilievre’s office, declined to say whether Poilievre forgot to table his party’s motion or if it was a deliberate move.

“Amendments and sub-amendments can be made any time within the first two days of budget debates,” Lilly said.

Liberals and the NDP poked fun at the situation, with Davies saying the Conservatives were “asleep at the switch” and allowed the Bloc to bypass them.

“I think that speaks to disarray in the Conservative party right now,” he said.

Liberal MP Sean Casey said Poilievre had a “rough day” after d’Entremont crossed the floor to the Liberals and the swirling rumours that the government is trying to poach others.

“It’s understandable that his heart and mind weren’t completely in it,” said Casey.

On Wednesday, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet deplored that the Liberals are too busy playing political games instead of negotiating in good faith with other parties to get their budget to pass.

“It is like they have cast all of us in an episode of ‘House of Cards’ with the craziest plot twists imaginable, involving schemes to try to convince other members to cross over to their side through the back door,” he said.

“It is embarrassing to watch. I look forward to the break.”

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

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An event organized by a Jewish group at Toronto Metropolitan University turned into a “nightmare” after it was disrupted by anti-Israel protesters, one student says.

“My body was shaking. I was hyperventilating. I was trying to talk to the police, but I was crying,” Liat Schwartz, 20, told National Post. She is the president of TMU’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel and a student ambassador for Allied Voices for Israel (AVI).

“I thought this was a nightmare,” she said.

She was the organizer of the event Wednesday, intended for students to hear directly from Israel Defense Forces soldiers about their experiences. But before the event could start, anti-Israel protesters discovered the off-campus location and the situation devolved into chaos. Property was destroyed and an IDF soldier was injured.

Schwartz said two protesters ended up in the lobby of the building. She said she was in shock because she had no idea how they found out where the event was being held. It was only shared with people known to the group the day before, said Schwartz.

Eventually, more protesters clad in masks entered the building. One broke a glass door in an attempt to get to Israeli soldier Jonathan Karten.

The protesters appeared to be part of another student group, Students for Justice in Palestine at TMU, which posted

a call to action

on social media.

A 19-year-old Centennial College student, identified by her first name, Sam, told National Post she heard screams as she approached the venue.

“I got outside of the building. The door was completely blocked by police officers as well as these protesters,” said Sam, who is also a student ambassador for AVI.

She made her way inside the building as protesters hurled insults at her — “terrorist,” “baby killer,” “murderer” — and physically assaulted her. She was pushed to the ground and told that Zionists were “worse than the KKK.”

Protesters said they knew who she was and she wouldn’t be able to hide.

“It’s really scary, because I have no idea who these people are. They’re wearing masks,” said Sam. “I’m proud to be a Zionist. I’m proud to be Jewish. I’m proud to have my Israeli family. So when I show up to these events, I’m not covering my face, because I don’t care who knows I’m here.

“These people who show up with their faces covered, what that says to me is they’re cowards and they don’t truly believe in what they’re fighting for,” she said.

When Sam got into the building, she said there was shattered glass and blood on the floor. She said she passed out and had a seizure from “emotional distress.” (She suffers from non-epileptic seizures triggered by stress, she said.) She was taken to hospital and released later Wednesday.

Five people were arrested, ranging in age from 21 to 29, according to Toronto police. Officers arrived at the scene around 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, after reports that “a group of demonstrators forced their way into a building.” Charges include forcible entry, obstructing a peace officer and unlawful assembly.

Karten, the injured IDF soldier, posted about the incident on Instagram.

“It was supposed to be a moment of dialogue, a chance to share my story as an IDF veteran, to talk about the war, and about my uncle, Sharon Edri, who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas,” he said in

an Instagram post

.

“But instead of a conversation, we were met with violence. Masked terrorists broke through the glass door and charged at us. One came at me with a drill bit.”

He said he fought them off and barricaded the door. Video from the scene shared on social media shows Karten jumping through a door after the glass was shattered to chase off protesters. Other footage shows wounds on his forearms. “Hey guys, I’m fine,” he said in a video posted to Instagram.

In a

statement

the university said, “TMU condemns acts of aggression, intimidation, or violence.” The university also said it would apply its policies, “as appropriate, to respond” and it was committed to “fostering an environment where members of our community can engage in dialogue and debate respectfully and safely.”

“I’m very upset that they put out a generic statement, because that just shows how little they care for the Jewish community at TMU,” said Schwartz.

“I’m sick of it, I’m tired, I’m upset, I’m angry, but this fuels me more to be more proactive. But I’m also scared. Being proactive at TMU comes with a consequence, and the consequence is Jewish students stop feeling safe and get attacked like we did yesterday and verbally harassed.”

In an emailed statement to National Post on Thursday, the university said: “We understand this may be a difficult time for many, especially our Jewish students, faculty and staff. We want them to know that support is available and we encourage them to reach out as needed.”

Daniel Koren, the founder and executive director of AVI, said the protest was a “targeted attempt to silence and intimidate Jewish students and their allies.” He called on TMU “to act decisively by holding those responsible accountable and revoking recognition for any club that engages in or promotes terrorism, violence or hatred.”

“This shocking act of antisemitic violence reflects the escalating climate of intimidation facing Jewish students on Canadian campuses. It demands more than statements of concern – it requires action,” said Michael Levitt in a statement. He is the president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

B’nai Brith Canada called on TMU’s leadership to “respond decisively and immediately” to the “growing hostility toward Jewish students on and around its campus” in

a post on X

.

Today, a mob of masked extremists violently attacked a private event near Toronto Metropolitan University, reportedly breaking a glass door and causing visible injuries to one of the invited speakers at an educational program hosted by the campus SSI (Students Supporting Israel)… pic.twitter.com/N66HePzZK9

— B’nai Brith Canada (@bnaibrithcanada) November 5, 2025

“Leaders at all levels of government must do everything in their power to confront this growing danger,” said Centre for Israel and Jewish Affair in

a post on X

.

“I don’t feel safe. I’ve never felt safe at TMU,” said Schwartz, who started her first year of university in September 2023, a month before the October 7 attack.

“I’ve never been more scared in my life. I don’t want to step foot on campus ever again.”

• Police called as anti-Israel protesters disrupt student event featuring IDF speaker near Toronto university
• 85 Canadian Jews who served in Israeli military listed on publication’s website

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Like many of the world’s most famous diamonds, the Florentine Diamond is believed to have originated in India, in the Golconda mines, which are renowned for producing large and extraordinary diamonds.

F

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

gemmary.com

, a website that curates stories about

curates antique and vintage jewelry.

The pale yellow, 137.27-carat diamond was once one of Europe’s largest gems, adorning the crowns of emperors and kings.

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

However, according to the

New York Times

, the real story has recently been told for the first time by three Hapsburg descendants. It turns out the precious gem has been in a bank vault in Canada since the family fled here during World War II.

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

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

“It should be part of a trust here in Canada,” Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen told

the Times

. “It should be on exhibition in Canada sometimes, so that people can actually see those pieces.”

What is the European history of the Florentine Diamond?

The story of the Florentine Diamond goes back to the powerful Medici family of Italy. The diamond’s first owner was the

Duke of Tuscany and future Ferdinand II (1610-1670), a

member of the ruling Medici family, according to

langantiques.com

, an antique jewelry website run by a San Francisco jewelry firm.

Despite the Medici family’s best efforts to keep their jewels in Florence, the Florentine Diamond had become part of the Austrian Crown Jewels by 1743, when Maria Theresa of Austria married Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine.

This newly alliance created the Hapsburg-Lorraine Dynasty. 

The Florentine Diamond was set into a crown for the coronation of Francis Stephen as Emperor Francis I.

The diamond remained a part of the Austrian Crown Jewels until the Hapsburg Empire came to an end after World War One. The Emperor refused to abdicate but agreed to a renunciation of any participation in the affairs of state on Nov. 11, 1918. The royal family sought refuge in Switzerland.

How did fear of the Nazis play a role in the diamond’s mystery?

Then, as tensions built across Europe again, former

Austrian Empress, Zita,

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

Zita fled with her eight children, arriving in the United States in 1940. The Empress,

said family members

, carried the jewels with her in a small cardboard suitcase.

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

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

In 1953, Zita returned to Europe but she left the jewels in the care of the Quebec bank. (She died in Switzerland in 1989 at 96.)

Where is it now?

This is where the story picks up today.

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

Before the sons died, reports the Times, they passed the information to their own sons. But for years afterward, the family says it declined to respond to queries about the diamond out of a desire to guard it. “The less people know about it, the bigger the security,” said von Habsburg-Lothringen.

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

Will it stay in Canada?

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

The Florentine Diamond was wrapped separately from the other jewels, but it could be have been set in a large, jeweled brooch, which was among the items. Christoph Köchert of A.E. Köchert jewelers, once Austria’s imperial court jewelers, examined the diamond and attested to its authenticity, reports the Times.

The family now says it wants to display the diamond at a Canadian museum in the next few years. There is no plan to sell the diamond. The family has declined to speculate on the jewel’s value.

• Louvre management issued ‘deafening wake-up call’ on security by French audit court
• Vancouver company unearths 1,094-carat diamond in Botswana

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OTTAWA — Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne indicated Thursday that the Carney government is just getting started in trying to overhaul the Canadian economy, telling a Toronto audience that it’s time to “double down” on investing in competitiveness and growth.

The Carney government unveiled its first budget Tuesday, focusing much of its new spending and policy moves on trying to strengthen the economy over the long term following a range of new American tariffs earlier this year on Canadian exports.

As part of his post-budget “road show” to sell the government’s fiscal plan, Champagne made it clear that the new budget is a starting point, not the finish line.

“Competition is central to productivity and innovation and affordability,” he said during an event at the MaRS innovation hub. “We’ve started but there’s so much more to do.”

Many of the new budget’s key measures were designed to improve the Canadian economy’s long-term competitiveness and ability to export beyond the United States, with a particular focus on boosting corporate investment. The budget’s biggest expenditures have been allocated to areas such as new infrastructure, defence, housing, and skills upgrades. It also included cuts to the public service, following a number of years when the size of the bureaucracy increased by about seven per cent annually.

Economists say that competitiveness and productivity — a measure of how efficiently a company or economy can make things — are critical to strong economic growth.

Champagne also emphasized in Toronto the importance of improving competitiveness in consumer markets, notably in banking and cell phone rates and other telecommunications services.

David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada and a frequent critic of the lack of emphasis on economic growth in recent Canadian policy, told National Post this week that the government’s budget should be seen as the first thrust in a series towards boosting growth. “It is budget number one in what is obviously a two-to-three-stage process.”

Dodge said the government’s extra borrowing will be worth it if it triggers private sector investment and helps get major infrastructure projects completed.

But the extra borrowing will also mean a more expensive national debt. The government’s additional spending, in sharp contrast to its pre-budget austerity warnings, is expected to boost this year’s deficit to $78.3-billion, the third-highest in Canadian history and the largest ever in a non-pandemic year. The Carney government’s forecast calls for modest dips in the annual deficit over each of the next four years, although the cumulative effect will be another $320-million of new debt before the end of the decade.

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

Champagne emphasized Thursday at MaRS, a location symbolic of the government’s push for more innovation and competitiveness, that the budget’s extra spending was needed because Canada must “seize the moment” as it fights trade wars with both the U.S. and China and other headwinds such as a slowing global economy.

The government’s efforts to use post-budget stops such as the MaRS visit to try to sell the new fiscal plan, a perennial element of the budgetary cycle, is more important this year than usual. The Carney government began the week three MPs short of the majority that would likely make passing the budget a formality. But that shortfall fell by one on Wednesday when Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont crossed over to the Liberal caucus, meaning that Champagne’s budget will need two non-Liberal votes — or abstentions and absences — later this month for it to pass and avoid triggering an election.

National Post

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As the U.S. government appeared in court Wednesday to defend its use of emergency powers to impose a sweeping, global array of tariffs, the alleged “emergency” presented by Canada appeared to be shrinking by the month.

President Donald Trump cited what he calls a “flood” of fentanyl from Canada when he invoked an emergency-powers law to circumvent Congress and impose 35 per cent duties on goods imported from here.

But the

latest U.S. statistics

add to existing questions around that allegation. After a brief spike in the volume of fentanyl that American authorities seized at the Canadian border in April and May, the numbers have plummeted to their lowest level since July of 2023.

In September — the latest month for which there are figures — only 1.4-tenths of a pound of the drug were found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the northern frontier.

The seizures have definitely increased in the last two years — from two pounds in 2023 to 43 pounds in 2024 and 77 this year by September. And Canadian police are battling across the country to find and shut down

fentanyl “super labs”

that can rapidly produce large quantities of the narcotic.

But the amount of it going south still represents well under one per cent of the fentanyl entering the States, the vast majority coming from Mexico. The latest figures — though representing a relatively small snapshot of four months — suggest that Canada’s contribution is, if anything, diminishing.

“It’s a manufactured crisis,” says Laura Huey, a criminology professor at Western University. “Is there fentanyl going across the border? Yes. Is it an orders-of-magnitude threat? No.”

If Canada were exporting large volumes of the drug into the States, threatening the Mexican stranglehold on the market, violence between crime gangs would ensue, she said. But that hasn’t happened.

“The Mexican cartels have had very well-established markets (in the U.S.) for decades and decades,” Huey said. “How on earth would the Canadians be able to disrupt this? It makes no sense.”

That said, the Supreme Court will likely not be debating whether Canada’s dribble of fentanyl into the States constitutes an emergency.

The challenge of Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on almost all his country’s trading partners is considered a monumental case, potentially setting new limits on presidential power and reversing tariffs that have already brought billions of dollars into government coffers.

But the case centres on whether the legislation allows presidents to impose tariffs, which are not specifically mentioned in the act, not on what defines an emergency, said Wolfgang Alschner, a University of Ottawa professor of business and trade law.

And even if the court strikes down Trump’s IEEPA tariffs, the effect on Canada will be limited, Alschner said.

Canadian exports covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free-trade agreement are exempted from those duties. Trump imposed the most damaging tariffs — on Canadian steel, aluminum and automobiles — under different legislation and they would not be affected by the court’s ruling, he said.

Still, Trump’s use of IEEPA to impose any tariffs on Canada was always an eye-opener.

He even increased them to 35 per cent from 25 per cent in July, suggesting Ottawa was doing little to stymie fentanyl smuggling.

“Canada has failed to cooperate in curbing the ongoing flood of fentanyl and other illicit drugs,” the president said in an executive order, accusing Ottawa of “continued inaction and retaliation.”

By then his own agency’s seizure numbers had already been falling for two months.

There was a brief surge in Fentanyl smuggling late this spring, according to

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

. The seizures soared from less than a tenth of a pound in March to 27 lbs in April and 32 lbs in May, before falling back to 3.6 pounds in June, with a further decrease in July, a slight bump up in August and another steep drop in September.

Kevin Brosseau, Canada’s new fentanyl czar, declined to comment in a statement on the American seizures, saying he would leave that to U.S. authorities. But he said Canada is working hard to secure the border, both for contraband leaving this country and entering it.

“Canada takes the fentanyl threat extremely seriously and we continue to strengthen our ability to detect, disrupt, and deter criminal activity,” he said. “We are also working closely with partners in the U.S., who have expressed appreciation for the clarity, scale, and intensity of Canada’s efforts and with whom we share Canada-U.S.-related enforcement intelligence in real time.”

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol representatives could not be reached for comment, as the American government shutdown continues.

• Why more fentanyl production could be moving to Canada
• How Canadian fentanyl smuggling to the U.S. really works and who’s behind it

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.

This week, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced that it would reduce air traffic by 10 per cent at 40 “high-volume” airports beginning Friday. Here’s what that could mean for Canadians.

Why are flights being reduced?

The U.S. government has been shut down since Oct. 1 in what is now the longest such event in the nation’s history. Air traffic controllers in the U.S. have thus been working unpaid for almost six weeks, leading to staffing shortages and flight delays.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, citing staffing pressures and safety reports from pilots indicating growing fatigue among controllers, said he and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy did not want to wait until the situation reached a crisis point.

“There’ll be frustration,”

Duffy said

. “But in the end, our sole role is to make sure that we keep this airspace as safe as possible.”

What airports are affected?

CBS News

has reported

receiving a list of the affected airports. They include major hubs such as Dallas/Forth Worth, Chicago O’Hare and all three New York area airports (Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark), as well as destinations as far-flung as Anchorage and Honolulu.

What are Canadian airlines doing?

Air Canada told National Post: “We are monitoring the situation and awaiting more details on the planned reductions.”

It added: “At this point, we are maintaining our normal schedule but for customers who may be connecting onto U.S. domestic flights operated by our partner, United Airlines, we have put in place a goodwill policy to allow them to change or defer their travel with no change fee.”

Porter Airlines said there have been delays at some destinations, adding: “
Our team is managing the disruptions and we encourage passengers to check their flight status
before leaving for the airport. For those who have flexibility, complimentary moves to some U.S. destinations are available through Monday, when space permits.”

A spokesperson for WestJet told National Post: “WestJet’s operations have not been impacted by the ongoing government shutdown in the U.S. We are continuing to monitor the situation and proactively manage our operations to minimize any potential disruptions going forward.”

What does this mean for Canadian travellers not headed to the U.S.?

John Gradek, a lecturer in aviation management at McGill University in Montreal, pointed out that it’s not just a flight from Toronto to New York that could be affected.

“We have an integrated airspace … between Canada and the U.S., and we have Canadian carriers flying domestic routes in Canada using the American airspace,” he told National Post. “So when you’re flying from Toronto to Vancouver, quite a bit of your trip is over U.S. airspace, and requires U.S. air traffic control to basically clear you through that space.”

He noted that upon leaving Pearson airport in Toronto, “within about 30 minutes you’re over U.S. airspace, and you basically leave U.S. airspace somewhere over either North Dakota or maybe Montana.”

Similarly, flights to the Caribbean, Latin America and other southern destinations will usually fly over U.S. airspace on the way.

Can Canadian airlines avoid U.S. airspace?

They can, but it’s not cheap.

“I can take a flight from Toronto to Vancouver and route over Canadian airspace,” said Gradek. “The only problem is it’s an extra hour.” That means additional fuel costs, staffing costs and scheduling issues.

“So the answer is, yeah, we can still fly it, but it’s not going to be something that the Canadian carriers want to do. They’re basically looking at trying to make money on these flights. And their margins are pretty thin as it is.”

What can Canadian travellers do?

Not much, other than avoiding travel to America entirely, including any flights that feature a U.S. stopover on the way to another country.

Flights that cross U.S. airspace could be delayed or even cancelled, but Gradek said it’s too early to know for sure.

“My suggestion is to make sure that whatever activity you have planned at your destination, there’s a bit of flexibility,” he said. “That you’re not trying to connect to a cruise ship 45 minutes after you arrive; that’s not going to work. You’re going to have to build in what I call a buffer into your arrival time, to take into account that there is a higher risk now of the flights being late.”

He added: “In general terms, Canadians can rest assured that the trans-border operations between Canada and the U.S. will happen. But they will probably be late.”

Could there be more closures?

Gradek thinks so. “Yeah, at this point in time, unfortunately, it’s going to get worse. I don’t think this 10 per cent is going to stand. I think we’re not done.”

But he’d rather be safe than sorry. “I don’t want a stressed out air traffic controller,” he said. “I want that controller to pay attention to everything that’s going on in and around my flight into the U.S. So if they’re not showing up for work I say: ‘Thank you very much. We’ll make do with what we’ve got.’”

Bedford hasn’t ruled out additional measures.

“The system is extremely safe today and will be extremely safe tomorrow,” he said. “If the pressures continue to build even after we take these measures, we’ll come back and take additional measures.”

What is Transport Canada’s reaction?

In an emailed statement to National Post, a spokesperson said: “

Transport Canada is aware of the situation in the United States and is closely monitoring it through its 24/7 Operations Centre.” 

They added: “

Travellers departing from Canadian airports are advised to check the status of their flights in advance.”

• Air Transat pilots’ union warns of possible December strike
• Two Canadian airports are briefly closing towers over lack of air traffic controllers

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 former hostage is speaking out about the sexual violence he endured while being held captive in Gaza for two years.

“They stripped me of all my clothes — underwear, everything. They tied me up from my… while I was completely naked. I was torn apart, dying, with no food,” Rom Braslavski said,

according to the Daily Mail

. The news outlet published excerpts from an interview with the 21-year-old who was featured in the Israeli television program Hazinor.

Braslavski was kidnapped by terrorists while he was working as a security guard at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023. The same day, 1,200 people were murdered by Hamas in Israel. The attack, the deadliest for the Jewish community since the Holocaust, sparked a war in the Middle East that has been ongoing until a ceasefire last month.

Braslavski was

one of 20 hostages

who was released as part of the deal. He had been held in Gaza for 738 days.

The group who “violently abducted” Braslavski, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is an ally of Hamas. They are 

described by the Canadian government

as the one of the most violent Palestinian terrorist groups. One of their main goals is the destruction of Israel.

In one video shared by PIJ in April, Braslavski appeared sick and unrecognizable, his family said,

according to CNN

.

In the interview, Braslavski said he prayed to God to save him while he was in captivity. He also spoke of the torture inflicted upon him by the terrorists. He said it was “sexual violence” and the purpose was to humiliate him.

“The goal was to crush my dignity,” he said. “And that’s exactly what he did.”

He said there were multiple assaults and that it was difficult to talk about. “It’s hard. It was the most horrific thing,” he said.

“It’s something even the Nazis didn’t do. During Hitler’s time, they wouldn’t have done things like this. You just pray for it to stop. And while I was there — every day, every beating — I’d say to myself, ‘I survived another day in hell. Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up to another hell. And another. And another. It doesn’t end.’ I came back from meeting the devil.”

After Braslavski returned home, his mother Tami Braslavski

told the Times of Israel

that he was whipped and beaten, among other things she wouldn’t mention. His terrorist captors also used psychological torture to try to break him, she said. They told him that his family was “broken” and that they “didn’t have the strength” to join other hostage families and Israelis to protest against his captivity. Terrorists tried to get him to convert to Islam, saying he would get more food and better treatment if he did.

They said he had “nowhere to go back to,” she said. “They told him Israel had fallen, that almost 3,000 soldiers had fallen.”

However, within the depths of darkness, Tami said there was a vision of hope.

“He told me, ‘Mom, I always knew it would end,’” she

said

.

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OTTAWA — The federal elections watchdog has fined Liberal MP Jaime Battiste for a battery of electoral offences in 2019, including donating over the legal limit to his campaign and filing a “false and misleading” financial statement.
 

Thursday morning, the Commissioner of Canada Elections said he issued fines totalling $600 against Battiste for four different violations of federal electoral laws.
Battiste is the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations.

All the offences were linked to the 2019 Liberal nomination race in the Nova Scotia riding of Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, which he won. Months later, Battiste was elected for the first time to the House of Commons.
 

The commissioner found that Battiste donated nearly $1,500 over the legal limit when he contributed $4,051 in a single day to his own nomination campaign in May 2019.
 

The Canada Elections Act states that only a candidate’s financial agent can accept political donations or pay for expenses on behalf of a campaign.
 

Yet Battiste admitted to the commissioner during a 2023 interview that he accepted over $8,000 in campaign contributions and e-transfers to his personal bank account.
 

Battiste and his agent also confirmed to the federal watchdog at the time that he had paid for $722.32 in campaign expenses on his personal credit card.
 

Finally, the commissioner fined Battiste for signing a declaration attesting that his final nomination campaign return was complete and accurate when he likely knew it contained “false and misleading” Information.
 

Battiste namely reported a total of $8,201 in donations while a total of $9,701 was deposited in campaign bank account during the nomination race.
 

“There are therefore reasonable grounds to believe that Jaime Battiste signed a declaration that he knew, or ought reasonably to have known, to be false or misleading,” reads a summary of the violation.
 

The fines originally totalled $1,600, but the commissioner reduced them because Battiste cooperated with the investigation and because of unidentified “personal circumstances in Jaime Battiste’s life”.
 

Battiste’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the four fines.
 

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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