More than three quarters of Canadians disagree with U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra’s assertion that President Donald Trump’s call for Canada to become the 51st state is a compliment and a term of endearment,

according to a new poll. 

Seventy-eight per cent of the Canadians surveyed earlier this month disagree with Hoekstra and “instead believe that such language is insulting to Canadians.” Only 11 per cent agree with him, according to the poll from Narrative Research and the Logit Group.

“Just one in ten agree that suggesting Canada should become the 51st state is a compliment and a term of endearment,” said a statement from the pollsters.

“One in ten are unsure or did not express an opinion.”

Asa McKercher, the Hudson Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations at St. Francis Xavier University’s Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, is not surprised by the results.

“Canada’s sort of very existence is due to people basically rejecting becoming American,” said McKercher, an associate professor of public policy and governance in Antigonish, N.S.

English and French residents of this country united “to throw back the Americans during their invasion in the American Revolution and the War of 1812,” he said Wednesday.

And they voted to become a colony “rather than joining or welcoming annexation in the 1860s,” McKercher said.

He pointed out that in the Newfoundland referendum of 1948 people living on The Rock opted to join Canada, even though “one of the options was to vote to appeal to become an American state,” he said.

“So, this is something that’s united Canadians basically through our entire existence on the northern half of North America.”

On the 11 per cent of Canadians who agree that Hoekstra’s comment is a compliment and a term of endearment, McKercher said it could be interpreted that way.

“It is a compliment, in a sense, I guess, in that Americans have this kind of typical view that everyone wants to be American. So, I suppose that is a kind of a compliment, if you like.”

For McKercher, “the interesting number” from the poll comes from Gen Z (people aged 18 to 24), with 27 per cent of them agreeing that Canada becoming the 51st state should be taken as a compliment.

“Maybe they have less attachment to what Canada is,” he said.

“Obviously the economy has not been kind to them — the cost-of-living crisis. I think there’s a sense, quite rightly, that per capita incomes in much of the United States are higher,” McKercher said.

The political scientist, who lives in Nova Scotia, noted that his province’s per capita income was below that of Mississippi in a recent study from the Fraser Institute. “So, for younger people, Canada hasn’t been the land of opportunity that it necessarily has been certainly for baby boomers and even Gen Xers,” he said.

“The other thing is Gen Z has really grown up in an age of globalization,” he said, noting first generation Canadians, who might not feel as much of an attachment to Canada, could skew that number as well.

In the new poll, 13 per cent of those aged 25 to 34, 12 per cent of people aged 35 to 54, and five per cent of Canadians aged 55 and older agreed Hoekstra’s comments were a compliment.

“Many Boomers probably remember the Vietnam War and all this ‘60s kind of nationalism and ‘70s kind of nationalism we had in Canada,” McKercher said.

Agreement with Hoekstra is strongest in the Prairie provinces, at 17 per cent, according to the poll.

“There are more people of direct American ancestry in Alberta and Saskatchewan,” McKercher said. “As I said, part of Canadian identity has been resistance to America going back to things like the War of 1812. That’s not a thing in Alberta. Alberta didn’t exist in 1812. So, I think there’s less of that anti-American kind of identity.”

And if you’re working in the oil patch, “you might be working for an American company,” McKercher said, nothing those folks would be aware “of the integrated nature of the oil economy.”

There could be a partisan or “ideological identification going on, too,” he said. “More conservative people tend to be a bit more pro-American. I think there’s a polarization of pro-American and anti-American attitudes in Canada, to an extent.”

In British Columbia, 10 per cent of those questioned agreed with the U.S. ambassador to Canada. In Ontario, 11 per cent of those surveyed gave Hoekstra’s comment the thumbs up. That number dropped to eight per cent in Quebec and seven per cent in Atlantic Canada.

What would Hoekstra – who McKercher dubbed “a blunt tool” of the U.S. administration — have to say to win Canadian approval?

“I think he would have to say, ‘I’m resigning as ambassador,’” McKercher said.

“He’s effective at making the Trump position clear. He’s not necessarily effective at wooing Canadians.”

The online survey of 1,231 Canadian adults was conducted between Nov. 12 and 14. The data were weighted by gender, age, and region to reflect the population based on the 2021 census.

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OTTAWA — Liberal MPs tried on Wednesday to downplay concerns about any caucus divides on the eve of the expected signing of a new energy deal with Alberta, which could see Prime Minister Mark Carney offer a conditional path for a new oil pipeline to British Columbia’s coast.

Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson was expected to brief the Liberal B.C. caucus Wednesday morning, according to a government official. His appearance was meant for MPs to field questions and receive an update on the state of negotiations of a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Carney and Smith.

That deal, which Smith has said she wants to see include some commitment to repealing or granting a reprieve from a suite of environmental policies ushered in under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, to outline a path for a new Alberta-B.C. bitumen pipeline, has been roundly rejected by coastal First Nations, along with NDP B.C. Premier David Eby.

B.C. Liberal MPs have spent the past week lining up to say approval for any future pipeline to B.C’s coast would need to secure the support of First Nations in the region, as well as Eby’s government, conditions that Carney reiterated to the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Still, questions and concerns have nevertheless swirled about the impending deal and the prospect of offering support for a new oil pipeline, which would require at least a possible partial lifting of an oil tanker ban off B.C.’s coast, and what such a project could mean for the Liberals’ mission to reduce carbon emissions.

On his way into the Liberals’ weekly caucus meeting, outspoken Ontario Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith said he “lived through one grand bargain” that “I don’t think went so well,” referring to the deal the Liberals struck under Trudeau with then Alberta premier Rachel Notley. It saw Trudeau support the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in exchange for Alberta signing on to its national carbon pricing plan.

Notley eventually pulled her support from the climate plan after a court ruling against the project. In 2018, the Trudeau government announced it was purchasing the pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion to ensure the expansion went ahead.

“I’m a little skeptical of grand bargains,” Erskine-Smith said. “And look, I’ll look at the overall picture of the deal in the MOU when it’s announced on Thursday, and we’ll see what Prime Minister has to say today, and I’ll have lots to say once I see the details.”

Calgary MP Corey Hogan, who worked in the Alberta government as a deputy minister during the time, said today’s situation is different from those years, given the conversation is now on the need to diversify Canada’s global market access.

“I think that before anything concrete comes out, is always a moment of maximum anxiety,” he told reporters, underscoring that the exact details of the deal were not yet known.

Hogan said he was hopeful about the prospect of Ottawa striking a deal with Alberta that would see Smith’s government commit to strengthening the province’s industrial carbon pricing system and offer more support for expanding carbon capture and storage technology, which has been Ottawa’s ask in exchange for creating a new path to a pipeline.

He said those moves, combined with Alberta taking more steps to strengthen methane regulations, “would be incredible for the climate.”

“I think that’s something that my B.C. colleagues would be very excited about.”

Several B.C. Liberal caucus members whisked by reporters heading into the Liberal caucus meeting without stopping to speak. Only Ernie Klassen, who represents the B.C. riding of  South Surrey — White Rock, quickly answered to suggest he left the meeting with Hodgson feeling assured.

One Liberal MP, who spoke to National Post on the condition they not be named, said Hodgson is respected in caucus, given his depth in the file.

Still, the MP said concerns around the impending deal with Alberta lie within two groups: Centre-left members of the Liberal caucus, who have some “hesitation” based on worries about the impact of pipelines on the environment, and then B.C. caucus members who have “anxiety.”

“Understandly so,” the MP said. The MP pointed to someone like Will Greaves, who captured the riding of Victoria, a typically NDP stronghold for the Liberals in the last election, who would likely be hearing about this pipeline proposal from constituents.

“There’s real anxiety around this.”

Greaves told National Post back in October, shortly after Smith first released her pipeline proposal,

that his office had been “inundated” with emotional correspondence from constituents and that his community was “pretty overwhelming” in its opposition to another oil pipeline. 

On Wednesday, the president of a group representing coastal First Nations issued a statement, rejecting any idea of a new pipeline and blasting the federal government for its “wall of silence” about the deal with Alberta.

“As the Rights and Title Holders of the Central and North Coast and Haida Gwaii, we are here to remind the Alberta government, the federal government, and any potential private proponent that we will never allow oil tankers on our coast, and that this pipeline project will never happen,” said Marilyn Slett, President of the Coastal First Nations – Great Bear Initiative and Chief of the Heiltsuk Nation. 

Ontario MP James Maloney, who chairs the Liberal caucus, told reporters he does not believe there to be any problem with divides within caucus and that, like on any issue, there would be “several views.”

“We continue to work as a group, and we will come out of this united, as we always do.”

National Post

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Courts across Canada have been issuing sentences for years that were less than the mandatory minimum for possession of child sexual abuse material, the

Investigative Journalism Bureau

has found.

The government announced this week it will

propose amendments

that would allow the reinstatement of the mandatory minimum. The announcement follows public and political outrage over the

Supreme Court’s decision

last month to strike down the 12-month mandatory minimum for child sexual abuse material possession offences.

But a random analysis of 100 cases between 2020 and 2025 reviewed by the IJB found that one in three sentences for child sexual abuse material possession had not adhered to the previous sentencing minimum.

While the average sentence for possession of child sexual abuse material was 20 months in the cases analyzed by the IJB, judges imposed “exceptional sentences” in 30 out of 100 that fell below the mandatory minimum.

In 19 of the 30 cases, convictions for child porn possession resulted in a sentence under 12 months. In 17 of the 30 cases, the accused were allowed to serve their sentences in the community.

Mandatory minimums are being circumvented in Canada in a number of ways, legal experts say, including the justice system deeming some charges “a less serious” crime. In other cases, lower courts have deemed the mandatory minimum

unconstitutional

, arguing “the mandatory minimum leads to grossly disproportionate sentences.”

Among the earliest examples in the IJB review of a judge sentencing outside the mandatory minimum happened in March 2020. An

Alberta judge sentenced

a man who had made and possessed child pornography of a 15-year-old girl to 24 months, to be served in the community.

“Sending this accused to prison for a minimum of one year would outrage the standards of decency of most informed Canadians,” the decision reads. The judge went on to state that, due to being eligible for early release, the full sentence would likely not be served anyway.

Janelle Blackadar, who recently retired from the Toronto Police Service where she worked in the child exploitation unit for nearly 20 years, calls the sentencing of child porn possession cases “very disheartening.”

“Most people would agree — from the policing side — that it’s not stringent enough.”

In March 2024, a

B.C. judge

sentenced a man to six months in prison following a guilty plea for possessing child sexual abuse material that depicted victims under the age of five.

In November of the same year, a

Brampton judge

sentenced a man who pleaded guilty to possession of such material, and who was diagnosed with “pedophilic attraction,” to a six-month conditional sentence, to be served in the community.

In 2025, at least eight cases specifically noted that the person being sentenced had

a previous conviction

for child pornography or other child-related sexual abuse.

The IJB analysis reviewed cases between 2020 and 2025 involving sentences for possessing or accessing child sexual abuse material. The average sentence of 20 months is well below sentences in the United States, where offenders convicted of possession of child pornography faced an average sentence of 82 months in 2024, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Other Commonwealth countries, including Australia and the U.K., have average sentences for child pornography offences generally ranging between 12 to 36 months, according to their respective national data.

Blackadar says she would like to see sentences of at least two years on convictions for child pornography possession “unless there’s some extraordinary circumstances.”

“If society … held the court system to a higher standard, then I think those decisions of reducing sentences and not following the mandatory minimum probably wouldn’t have occurred as much as it has.”

Not all agree mandatory minimums serve the public interest.

Toronto criminal defence lawyer Robb MacDonald says “mandatory minimums are one of the worst developments in North America justice.”

He said he doesn’t believe the Supreme Court’s decision will result in lower sentences — just that it gives judges latitude to find a fit sentence.

“I don’t think our justice system ever benefits from handcuffing judges.”

The

Supreme Court’s 5-4 split decision

in October 2025 was explained in a 118-page decision that found imposing a minimum 12-month jail term on all individuals convicted of possessing child pornography could be disproportionate in some cases.

The hypothetical scenario given was that an 18-year-old boy who received a “sext” or explicit image from his 17-year-old girlfriend would be in possession of child pornography and that a mandatory minimum of 12 months would be inappropriate.

Judges, the ruling concluded, should be given discretion in terms of sentence length and where or how the offender serves their sentence — either jail or in the community. Doing away with a mandatory minimum, it said, will facilitate that.

Following outrage from the public, premiers in Alberta and Ontario and federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, Justice Minister Sean Fraser told the National Post this week that the government will respond with new legislation “that addresses that narrow gap that [the Supreme Court] left.”

The proposed changes, says Fraser, “would ensure that those serious cases of abuse are met with serious penalties, but does provide some opportunity for those circumstances which were not likely contemplated at the time the mandatory minimums were drafted.”

The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters. This reporting was supported in part by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

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