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Parti Quebecois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon during question period Tuesday, November 19, 2024 at the legislature in Quebec City.

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has an ally in Quebec and his name is Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the Parti Québécois leader.

A day after Smith threatened the federal government of including a referendum question on separation in 2026 if her province didn’t have the Accord, she thinks it deserves with Ottawa, St-Pierre Plamondon said Smith made a “striking gesture” for the “autonomy and defence of her own province.”

“It doesn’t matter what referendum they hold, because obviously it’s under construction. But I totally agree with provinces that stand up, that are loyal to their own Parliament, that are capable of showing a strong hand. And that’s the key word, strong hand,” said St-Pierre Plamondon, who is often called PSPP in Quebec.

In a in a

livestreamed address Monday

, Premier Smith called on Prime Minister Mark Carney to negotiate a new deal between Ottawa and Alberta guaranteeing more pipelines and changes to equalization.

“We hope this will result in a binding agreement that Albertans can have confidence in. Call it an ‘Alberta accord’,” said Smith who then called Alberta’s separation “the elephant in the room.”

“The vast majority of (separatists) are not fringe voices… They are loyal Albertans,” she said. “They’re … our friends and neighbours who’ve just had enough of having their livelihoods and prosperity attacked by a hostile federal government.”

At a press conference at Quebec’s National Assembly, St-Pierre Plamondon said it was a “good thing” if other provinces are able to “stand up to the federal government”.

He added that “other provinces are showing” that Canada has issues that affect all provinces in terms of “abuse of power”.

St-Pierre Plamondon then went on the offensive against the province’s journalists for not covering

the rebound in support of Quebec secession

.

A recent Postmedia-Leger poll

revealed that support for Quebec independence, which had fallen below 30 per cent in recent month, sits back at nearly 40 per cent.

Even though Canada is engaged in a tariff war with its closest ally, support for Quebec independence has reached 36 per cent according to new data.

“The most recent and most precise information is the independence of Quebec at 40 per cent, it is the increase in independence in Alberta,” he said.

Léger also polled Canadians from all provinces about their opinion about their province’s independence. The result was that 29 per cent of Albertans supported Alberta sovereignty while an overwhelming majority of the 2,309 respondents (71 per cent) were opposed.

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com

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Don Davies at an NDP office in Vancouver, B.C, April 28, 2025.

The New Democratic Party of Canada has chosen Don Davies as its new interim leader, after Jagmeet Singh announced his resignation as head of the party. Singh lost his own Burnaby Central seat in British Columbia in the April 28 federal election.

Who is Don Davies?

Don Davies was born in Edmonton in 1963 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science and a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Alberta. He worked as a researcher at the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and an assistant in policy and communications for Ray Martin during his time as NDP leader of the official opposition of Alberta.

Davies later moved to Vancouver and was first elected to the House of Commons in 2008 in the riding of Vancouver Kingsway. He has won six straight elections in that riding, although the latest, in this year’s election, was his narrowest victory when he beat Liberal candidate Amy Gill by just over 300 votes.

What Parliamentary groups does he belong to?

Davies has a

long list of membership

in Parliamentary associations and inter-Parliamentary groups. He is currently a vice-chair of the Canada-China Legislative Association, which provides a forum for the discussion of challenges facing the two countries and the Asia-Pacific region. He is also a member of the executive of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association, a similar group that fosters the exchange of information and ideas between Canadian parliamentarians and those from Europe.

Davies has also been also a member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians since 2020, his term ending when the latest election was called. He was also named the NDP’s

critic for finance

in April, ahead of the election.

How was he chosen as interim leader?

In a statement, the NDP said its Federal Council had made the decision in consultation with its reduced caucus.

“While the recent election results were not what we hoped for, our commitment to building a better Canada has never been stronger,” party president Mary Shortall said in a statement.

She added: “With a renewed sense of purpose, we will hold the government to account and keep fighting for the issues we heard about on doorsteps across the country – public health care, affordable homes, good jobs, and making the ultra-rich finally pay their fair share.”

What’s next for Davies?

The NDP fared poorly in the election, dropping to 7 seats from 24, and falling short of the 12-seat threshold required to retain

official party status

. So Davies will not have access to the budgets and staff positions available to the official parties in the House of Commons.

Add to this the fact that Alberta’s New Democratic Party has

voted overwhelmingly

to cut traditional membership ties with the federal NDP. Delegates in Edmonton voted on Saturday to allow provincial members to opt out of joining the federal NDP, a move its leader, Naheed Nenshi, campaigned on last year.

And Charlie Angus, a former NDP MP who did not run in the latest election,

told the Canadian Press

that the party lost touch with its core supporters by focusing too much on Singh.

“I think it’d be really dangerous to tell ourselves that we were simply the victims of strategic voting, and it was the times and there was nothing we could do,” he said. “We stopped being the New Democratic Party of Canada some time ago and we became a leader-driven movement.”

When will a permanent leader be chosen?

No date has been set for when the party will choose its permanent leader.

NDP MPs Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre) and Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East)

told National Post

they did not rule out running for permanent party leadership to help “rebuild the movement,” but said they were focused on meeting with caucus mates and party members first.

Other’s who have signalled they might consider a run for NDP leadership include former MP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau

, outgoing Montreal Mayor

Valérie Plante

and NDP MP Heather McPherson. Quebec MP and party stalwart Alexandre Boulerice had been considered by many as a leading contender for interim leadership.

— With files from Canadian Press

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Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during a stop in Saint John during the federal election campaign.

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre defended his campaign messaging and said his mission is now to find ways to sell it to more people after his party’s stinging defeat in last week’s election.

In a brief address to reporters before a caucus meeting in Ottawa Tuesday, Poilievre said the election result last week was “disappointing” but argued that his messaging — which focused on affordability, housing, justice and crime — was on the mark.

“You have to acknowledge that it was the generally right message. Not perfect, but the right message, because the Liberals stole multiple elements of that message,” he told reporters with a chuckle.

“We have to broaden our team. We need to find ways to get our message through to a larger audience of people. We also need to show our capacity to include more people and share a message of opportunity,” he said.

It was the first public address by the Conservative leader since the Liberals handed him two stinging losses in one shot, defeating the opposition party nationally and Poilievre in his long-time Ottawa-area riding of Carleton.

But Poilievre appeared to reject the notion of cutting out any campaign advisors, including campaign manager Jenni Byrne.

On Tuesday morning, National Post reported

that Conservative MPs and insiders blamed the election loss mostly on operational and internal decisions spearheaded by Byrne.

“Excluding is never the way to broader a team,” he said. “We are going to broaden our team and get our message through.”

He noted that Byrne “did a lot of hard work” while noting the additional 2.3 million votes and 25 seats the Conservatives won last Monday.

“We have to go further, so we’re going to be enlarging our team and that’s one of the things we’ll be talking about today in our caucus,” he argued, saying his party would be looking for an additional million supporters by next election.

“We have to spend a lot of the summer listening carefully to people in the community’s coffee shops and town halls and other events,” he added.

Conservative caucus members are meeting all day Tuesday in Ottawa for the first time since the end of the campaign on April 28 to discuss steps forward. That will likely include discussions about an interim leader while Poilievre waits for an opportunity to run for a new seat in Parliament.

Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer said the caucus was going to have discussions on Tuesday and in the weeks and months to come to analyze the results the election, but already said he was confident that Poilievre would be making some “adjustments.”

Scheer also defended Byrne work, saying she did a “great job” and managed a “fantastic team” that was able to grow the party’s seat count in many areas of the country.

“There’s a lot of reasons to be encouraged and a lot of aspects to be proud of,” he said as he was entering the caucus meeting. “Obviously, we didn’t win, so we have to take a look at why and what we need to do to go forward.”

More to come

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

calevesque@postmedia.com

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A sign for the US-Canada border is pictured at the Peace Arch border crossing in Blaine, Washington, on March 5, 2025.

Some travellers who were returning to Canada from the United States over the weekend said that an additional checkpoint was set up at the a B.C.-U.S. border crossing.

Drivers trying to cross back to Canada at B.C.’s Peace Arch said their vehicles were searched as they were pulled aside by U.S. Border and Customs Protection agents, delaying their trip,

Global News reported

. The Peace Arch crossing is located in Surrey, B.C. on the Canadian side. The American side is located in Blaine, Washington.

 Vehicles enter the United States from Canada at the Peace Arch border crossing on February 1, 2025 in Blaine, Washington.

One B.C. resident, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, Leslie, told Global News she thought she made a mistake when she first saw the checkpoint on Friday morning. She had crossed the border for groceries and to get lunch with her husband. When they approached the crossing with their vehicle to return home, they were forced to stop “a couple hundred metres south” of the Canadian border due to the traffic building up.

“I don’t want to call it a blockade but… they were stopping people and I held up our Nexus cards and the U.S. customs agent waved us through but as I passed, because our windows are down, he said, ‘Let’s stop and check the next one,’” she said.

The searches on other vehicles made her “very, very uncomfortable.”

The X account for DriveBC, a mobile app by the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit, showed that there were major delays for travellers going from the U.S. to Canada at the Peace Arch crossing on May 1.

In a post on X, it said the delays were due to “ongoing (Customs and Border Protection) operations). A photo from a traffic camera showed a lineup of cars waiting to get into Canada.

In response to a question on X about what was occurring at the border on May 1,

DriveBC responded

: “Unclear exactly what’s going on. US Customs has been conducting an operation throughout the afternoon.”

“These inspections are a vital tool in apprehending wanted individuals, as well as in seizing a variety of contraband, which ultimately makes our community safer,” according to a statement from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to Global News.

National Post has reached out to the agency for comment.

According to immigration lawyer Rosanna Berardi, putting up such a checkpoint is completely legal.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection legally operates interior checkpoints up to 100 miles inside the United States from any land or coastal border, including near the U.S.-Canada border. This authority is based on federal regulations established in 1953 and upheld by the Supreme Court in

United States v. Martinez-Fuerte (1976

), which allows brief stops and questioning of travellers without individualized suspicion,” she said in an emailed statement to National Post on Tuesday.

“At these checkpoints, CBP officers may ask about immigration status and refer travellers for secondary inspection if necessary, but more invasive searches require probable cause or consent. Checkpoints are a longstanding law enforcement and national security tool, with dozens active along both the northern and southern borders at any time.”

She advised that Canadians should make sure they have extra time when travelling. She added that they should carry valid travel documents like passports or NEXUS cards, and answer questions clearly and respectfully.

“These practices help ensure smooth processing at checkpoints, which have been part of border enforcement for decades,” she said.

Canadians travelling to U.S. hits lowest rate since COVID amid Trump trade war: new data

The checkpoint was reportedly taken down by Sunday. However, it may have added to already heightened tensions between Canada and the U.S. amid new travel policies, people being detained at the border and others being turned away.

In February,

it was announced

that all foreign nationals staying in the U.S. for more than 30 days would have to register online and get fingerprinted, per U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Canadians were

later exempt from having to be fingerprinted

, but still have to register.

Travellers have also been detained at the border. At the Ambassador Bridge crossing, at least 213 people have been detained between January and mid-March, Democratic Rep. Rashida

Tlaib said at a press conference in April

. She said that in 90 per cent of the cases, the driver had mistakenly arrived at the crossing.

The Ambassador Bridge crossing connects Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Ontario. It is the

busiest international crossing

in North America.

One woman ended up getting detained

after taking a wrong turn while trying to go to Costco

, it was reported in April. In another case,

a man delivering McDonald’s was detained

, and later deported, in January.

In another incident,

a French scientist was denied entry into the United States

after immigrations officers reportedly found messages criticizing President Donald Trump on his phone.

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.


U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, in a combination photo.

Prime Minister

Mark Carney

will get his first chance to confront U.S. President

Donald Trump

 in a face-to-face meeting at the Oval Office on Tuesday. Carney will

arrive at the White House at 11:30 a.m.

and he will

meet with Trump in the Oval Office at 11:45 a.m.

National Post will have live video and coverage of their first in-person meeting since the federal election.

At 12:15 p.m. they will have a private working luncheon

in the Cabinet Room. Carney will

leave the White House at 1:20 p.m

. Follow National Post’s live coverage, below, to find out how the meeting unfolds. Can’t see the live blog?

View it at nationalpost.com

.

View the live blog above.

Carney has said he expects “difficult” but “constructive” conversations with Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the “51st state.” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired Sunday that the border is an “artificial line” that prevents the two territories from forming a “beautiful country.”

Trump told reporters on Monday that he wasn’t quite sure why Carney was visiting.

“I’m not sure what he wants to see me about,” Trump said. “But I guess he wants to make a deal.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick further stoked doubts about their interest in repairing the relationship with Canada in a Monday interview on Fox Business Network’s Kudlow show.

Asked if the U.S. could make a deal with Canada, Lutnick called the country a “socialist regime” that has been “basically feeding off America.” Lutnick said Tuesday’s meeting would be “fascinating.”

National Post, with additional reporting from The Associated Press

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From left: Toronto Metropolitan University students Liat Schwartz, Ethan Elharrar and Samantha White

Ethan Elharrar remembers having a single month of normal college life at Toronto Metropolitan University. He was anxious about leaving Montreal for Toronto, living on his own for the first time in a new city, beginning a new program. He was nervous but excited.

He chose TMU because it offered the only degree in the country with “hands-on experience” for graphic communications management. September 2023 went smoothly; he bonded with his roommates and adjusted to TMU’s downtown campus.

He was at home for a brief stay in Montreal on October 7 when Hamas terrorists broke through the border fence with Israel and ignited a brutal conflict that still burns today. “At the beginning, we had a week of people actually feeling sorry for us and then it just turned,” he told National Post.

Over the coming months of Elharrar’s first semester, he began posting on social media about the Israelis abducted by Palestinian terror groups, and was kicked off a private Instagram group chat with over 100 classmates in his program.

He began to feel very isolated on campus as a Jew.

“I went in with people hating me right off the bat and me not being able to make any friends who are non-Jewish in my classes or in my program,” he said. Elharrar recalls walking into classrooms and seeing “Free Palestine” written on the boards. When he joined others in holding a vigil honouring Israeli hostages and carrying posters with their images on campus, “random people just came and spat on us,” he said.

Screenshots shared with the Post show graffiti proclaiming, “Long live the resistance” in chalk above an inverted red triangle, a symbol used by Hamas to identify Israeli soldiers in their propaganda videos. He saw banners demanding “Zionists get off our campus.” Elharrar said he was stalked on his way to a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game in April by an anti-Israel activist who, he believes, recognized him after TMU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group shared his image on social media.

“Shame on you, you TMU Jews, you commit genocide!” he recalls the twenty-something screaming at him. The man followed him until Elharrar caught a streetcar. He filed a police report against the man.

“You can’t be openly Jewish at TMU, unfortunately,” the soft-spoken second-year with flowing black hair parted down the middle confided. “You can’t openly wear your Magen David. You can’t openly wear a hostage pin because you will still get looks, even if it has nothing to do with Israeli politics. You will still get people looking at you.”

One of the few spaces where Elharrar, a

StandWithUs Emerson Fellow

, made friends was in the safety of TMU’s small Jewish community of students and campus groups. A few weeks after October 7, he joined the fraternity AEPi. He met Liat Schwartz, a member of the Jewish sorority ZBO, who also came to TMU in September 2023 after a gap year in the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

Schwartz similarly remembers the early days of her fall semester gelling with a group of friends at TMU. But then, “there was a huge flip post-October 7.”

“They all dropped me. They were very anti-Israel. It was awful. I just started anew. I had no friends. I still don’t have any friends in my program.”

After the Hamas-led atrocities, Schwartz said she was “scared to speak out” in her child and youth care program. She told the Post that during one lecture, a professor spoke about the Holocaust but incorrectly told the class that “only four million died,” which she corrected publicly. “I kid you not, she started laughing at me.”

The incident and the tensions on campus post-October 7 left her fearful of publicly identifying as Jewish at TMU. “I feel like I can’t wear my Star of David on campus,” she said. Asked why she felt that way, Schwartz elaborated, “You get stares if you wear it” and recalled a friend having their kippah ripped off.

“TMU is committed to preventing and addressing all forms of violence or threats of violence in accordance with university policies,” university spokeswoman Jessica Leach wrote the Post, providing a list of services students could access, including counselling, student care and faculty support networks for employees. “At TMU we care deeply for the physical safety and wellbeing of all faculty, staff and students, and value a relationship built on trust and integrity with our community. We believe, as a community, that we have a shared responsibility for each other’s well-being.”

Schwartz began posting messages supportive of Israel following the October 7 attacks, but said she didn’t become involved in campus politics until September 2024, when she joined Students Supporting Israel (SSI), a pro-Israel

student group

with chapters across North America. Elharrar explained he initially “stayed behind the scenes running social media” for SSI on campus because he “wasn’t comfortable being public yet.” He joined shortly after Schwartz.

 Anti-Israel protesters hold a rally on the Toronto Metropolitan University campus, on April 30, 2024.

The group has a history with Students for Justice in Palestine.

In 2016, an SSI member introduced a motion to commemorate Holocaust Education Week, but student union members triggered a walkout to obstruct the vote. “Guys. Lose quorum,” then-union president and SJP leader Obaid Ullah wrote in a

private WhatsApp

group later publicized by the school paper.

More recently, SJP TMU hosted an event

expressing solidarity

with Georges Abdallah, a member of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction,

convicted in France of killing

an Israeli and an American diplomat. SJP also closely collaborates with Palestinian Youth Movement, a group

explicitly supportive

of the October 7 atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.

SJP TMU has not responded to the Post’s request for comment.

Schwartz and Elharrar felt TMU administrators routinely disregarded complaints they raised about what they saw as growing hostility to Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus.

“It’s not like there’s been pushback from the administration. There’s just been silence,” he said. Elharrar was frustrated that Jewish students’ complaints often went unanswered. They never got straight answers, he said, often getting “vague responses” asking them to reach out to someone else.

“The silence is really saying a lot,” Elharrar said.

He explained that TMU leaders were particularly unhelpful after TMU’s SJP group distributed stickers of masked militants carrying rifles and wearing green headbands — similar to those worn

by Hamas

— at an Iftar dinner

in March

. Escalating his concerns to the university on behalf of SSI, administrators told him it was a student union matter and that he should report the incident to them.

“Many student clubs, societies and groups at TMU are not sanctioned by the university,” Leach wrote the Post on behalf of TMU. “Rather, they are reviewed, approved, and sanctioned by the student government, the Toronto Metropolitan Student Union (TMSU). The TMSU is a wholly separate corporation from the university with its own governance structures and by-laws, and is accountable to the student body. We encourage you to reach out to them with any questions regarding the standing of the SJP.”

In March, Schwartz, the president of SSI on campus, wanted to bring two Israeli military reservists to speak about their experience in Gaza fighting Hamas. Following procedure, she contacted a university representative who requested she formally submit a request through a TMU portal. Over the coming weeks, she had conversations with the representative and a member of the university’s risk management team. The proposal was ultimately rejected, citing security concerns, and SSI was forced to relocate to a Hillel Ontario space off-campus.

However, SJP got wind of the event and blockaded the building’s entrance, forcing Schwartz to shuttle her guests through the back door for their safety. “I thought it would be a great opportunity … because of how much antisemitism is on campus and that it’s important to share our narrative when other clubs can share theirs,” she told the Post.

Hillel TMU, a group centred more broadly around Jewish life on campus, defended its decision to host the event in early April and called on university leaders to prevent such obstructions in the future.

“When the university denied SSI access to host the program on campus, Hillel Ontario swiftly stepped in, opening our doors as an organization committed to supporting the world’s only Jewish state,” the group wrote the Post in a statement. “In spite of an angry, hateful mob outside, the lecture went ahead and provided a valuable educational experience to a room full of students— Jewish and non-Jewish allies alike.”

“Hillel will never shy away from its commitment to the safety of Jewish students, and we call on TMU and local law enforcement to ensure that those who harass and intimidate Jews are held accountable for their actions.”

A few days later, Schwartz discovered that a group picture taken after the event by SSI was edited by SJP TMU. The new graphic had inverted red triangles placed over the guest speakers and was shared on Instagram. The image provoked troubling comments viewed by the Post.

“Maybe sjp tmu can bring in Hamas fighters to rape students! That would be a fitting rejoinder,” one wrote. “The evil of Z!0nism has surpassed N@zism. We must all speak out against this. Learn what Z!0nism is and tell everyone,” another chimed in. Schwartz said that many of her classmates liked the photo in which her face and Elharrar’s were clearly visible apart from a narrow black box covering their eyes.

“The red triangle is not an innocent graphic. It is a well-known symbol used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in propaganda materials to mark individuals as targets for attack. Its use has been directly linked to incitement, threats, and glorification of violence,” SSI TMU wrote

in a statement

following the incident.

“By sharing this image, SJP TMU effectively elevated their campaign of harassment into a symbolic call to violence or murder. This goes beyond campus discourse – it is dangerous, threatening, and should be condemned without hesitation.”

 Toronto Metropolitan University students Samantha White, Ethan Elharrar and Liat Schwartz at the TMU campus. Regarding their complaints over what they see as growing hostility to Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus, “there’s just been silence” from the TMU administration, Elharrar says.

The image was

later edited

to remove the Hamas iconography, but the post still remains active and

pinned atop their account

, demanding SSI be removed from campus. The group also refers to “the Zionist regime of so-called ‘Israel,’” language reminiscent of an open letter signed by

TMU law students

immediately after the October 7 atrocities, declaring “‘Israel’ is not a country.”

“The university has made clear our expectation that TMU students, community members and their guests conduct themselves and express their views in a manner that demonstrates respect, civility – and ideally empathy – in keeping with the university’s values, and in ways that are free from discrimination, racism, hatred, threats of violence, and violence,” university spokeswoman Leach told the Post by email.

“This matter has been reported to the offices of Human Rights Services and Student Conduct and is under review. To be clear, the SSI event in question was not sanctioned by the university, was not held on campus, and was not hosted by an officially recognized student organization.”

Such statements, made despite explicit use of Hamas imagery, left Samantha White, an SSI executive, worried about the university’s priority protecting Jewish students. Dealing with TMU leaders about such matters was “a never-ending circle,” she said, where the response frequently was: “We can’t really say anything to them because it was off-campus.”

“They always have excuses for it,” White said, explaining that the university rarely disciplined SJP. “The woman who was dealing with us was like, ‘Well, who was the triangle on? Was it on a student or was it on a guest speaker?’”

The difference felt like splitting hairs to Elharrar. “It doesn’t really make a huge difference. It’s still a threat, even to speakers that we bring to Hillel.”

White said she feels strongly that administrators would not ignore similar threats made against other marginalized groups, such as Black or Indigenous communities. “But, because we’re Jewish, and because we’re such a small minority, that is always overlooked. They don’t give a crap,” the undergrad said.

Between rising anti-Israel sentiment and growing hostility to SSI, White said she no longer feels physically safe on campus.

“They don’t want to have Israel; they don’t want us on campus. Where do we go?” she said. She viewed SSI’s mission to “get the narrative (that) anti-Zionism is antisemitism” and “to allow Jewish students to have a welcoming campus environment,” filling an intellectual vacuum on campus. “ It feels like it’s everyone against us.”

Coby Sadeh, the president of Hillel TMU, shared White’s fears that Jewish student safety was not taken seriously on campus. He echoed White, Schwartz and Elharrar’s experience that complaints to administrators from Jewish students frequently “have gone with little follow-up.”

“I feel that there’s a culture of antisemitism on our campus that is very clear to Jewish students and our allies. It is my belief that the school is aware of this culture and isn’t taking a strong enough stance against it, which allows this culture to manifest,” Sadeh told the Post.

Sadeh recalled a similar laundry list of bad experiences post-October 7 which the three SSI leaders all encountered to varying degrees: he’d been stalked, expelled from class group chats, and ostracized from university life outside the narrow sliver of the Jewish community.

“I feel othered and isolated on almost a daily basis,” he wrote. “At the same time, it’s reaffirmed my Jewish identity and connected me more to my Jewish community. I feel very disappointed that my university experience had to turn out this way, however, I’ve managed to find meaning in other places that enrich my experience on campus.”

His description of the bipolar nature of campus life since October 7, both rewarding and challenging, resonated with Elharrar. Throughout the latest semester, as SSI vice president of outreach and engagement, he often organized informational booths in the university’s glassy student centre, encouraging discussions about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and current events. The conversations were mostly constructive, exploring questions like peaceful coexistence, he said. But the pros don’t offset the cons for him.

Rather than pushing himself outside the “Jewish bubble,” as he envisioned attending TMU would help him do, it pushed him into a Jewish ghetto. Elharrar feels TMU has flown under the radar for most Canadians, lost in the headlines about protests and encampments at McGill, York and the University of Toronto. He maintains TMU is no different: “I would say TMU is one of the worst antisemitic campuses in Canada.”

He now regrets his decision to attend TMU and warns Jewish high schoolers thinking about attending to weigh all their options.

“ If I knew it would be this bad, like moving away from home and having to deal with antisemitism every single day, then I probably wouldn’t have gone to TMU,” he said. “I probably would’ve figured my stuff out and stayed in Montreal.”

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Quebec Premier François Legault has not yet chosen his new point person in Ottawa.

OTTAWA – Quebec’s “top diplomat” in the nation’s capital retired last week as a new prime minister was elected, a new delegation of Quebec Liberal MPs is about to arrive in town, and when the province wants to play a bigger role in Canada-U.S. relations.

While the Roxham Road file on asylum seekers was making headlines and rumbling in the House of Commons, Mario Lavoie was trying to reassure Latin American ambassadors that Quebec was still welcoming to newcomers.

“They told us ‘what you’re doing doesn’t make sense,’” Lavoie, who was then the head of the Quebec Government Office in Ottawa, said in an interview with National Post.

At the time, the Quebec government was asking the federal government to tighten the border and put an end to the notorious migrant crossings between New York State and Quebec.

“So, you’re able to explain why the government says that. But also, to say in the same sentence that the government is very generous, that it is the most generous of governments towards migrants, but it’s just that the elastic is stretched,” he added.

Roxham Road was closed for good in 2023, marking a major victory for the Quebec government on the national stage.

Lavoie announced his retirement last week, but Canada-U.S. relations and the situation with migrants may well be at the heart of relations between Quebec and Ottawa with Mark Carney taking office as prime minister.

With U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive actions, more and

more people are flocking to the northern border

.

“This is really an issue for the relationship between Quebec and Ottawa, and I would even say it is a challenge for the entire federation,” said Charles Breton, executive director of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation.

Ottawa and Quebec will try to strengthen their relations during the Trump presidency, he said. However, immigration is still a contentious file.

“It’s the first point of friction that should appear on the horizon because, on economic issues, on the relationship with the United States, on tariffs, I think everyone will work and row in the same direction,” Breton said.

The Quebec Office plays a strategic role in representing the province’s interests in the capital. The envoy frequently meets with ambassadors, civil servants, elected officials, and senators, and plays a particular strategic role for the province in the federal legislative process.

So much so that, since Lavoie came to office in 2020, Alberta and Ontario have announced they, too, would also be represented by a “diplomat” in Ottawa.

In Quebec City, Premier François Legault’s entourage believes the Quebec Office in Ottawa is “more relevant than ever.”

“In a context where federal decisions have major repercussions for Quebec, and as a new Prime Minister takes office, it is essential that Quebec can count on an active and direct presence with the federal government, in Ottawa,” Legault’s director of media relations Ewan Sauves told National Post in a written statement.

The premier has not yet chosen his point person in the capital and a decision will be made in due course, Sauves said.

With a new prime minister, a delegation of 43 Liberal MPs and a new cabinet that will be sworn in next week, a Speech from the Throne delivered by King Charles May 27, new economic momentum within the federation and difficult negotiations with the White House to come, the province wants to be at the heart of the action.

“It’s a new government that has been elected,” said Lavoie. “The prime minister will appoint the people around him, there will be new ministers, new political attachés, new MPs, so it is important that the person who will represent Quebec introduces himself and then reestablishes contacts.”

Since François Legault’s election as premier in 2018, relations have been strained, to say the least.

However, a week after the election that gave Mark Carney a near-majority government, Legault demonstrated he can make friends easily.

“When I had about an hour discussion with (Carney), we spoke about the economy and we talked about energy… We’re really having a common vision about the economy,” Legault said last week.

“I think that the best way to thank Quebecers is to take action about the economy, about the immigration,” added Legault, who wishes to see the 400,000 temporary immigrants controlled by Ottawa reduced by 50 per cent.

Carney’s Quebec lieutenant Steven Guilbeault attended the meeting and, in a recent interview with National Post, shared that “it was a very pleasant meeting, somewhat good-natured.”

“They realized that they know some of the same people… I think they discovered they had a lot of common ground, probably more than there was between Mr. Legault and (former) prime minister (Justin) Trudeau,” said Guilbeault.

Breton said it will be important to find Lavoie’s replacement by September because Quebec’s agenda, which includes immigration, a new provincial constitution and the ongoing battle over the division of powers, could well create waves in Ottawa.

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

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Jenni Byrne in 2023. Byrne was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's campaign manager in last month's federal election.

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is expected to hear on Tuesday from caucus members’ discontent over mistakes made over the course of the campaign, with fingers pointing to campaign manager Jenni Byrne.

Conservative MPs and insiders who spoke to National Post did not lay the blame on Poilievre, who they said was busy crisscrossing the country, but rather the operational and internal decisions spearheaded by Byrne during the campaign.

They pointed to messy nominations which they said angered their base, as well as rules against speaking freely to the media and their constituents.

They also brought up the campaign’s choice not to pivot after Justin Trudeau’s departure, Mark Carney’s arrival as Liberal leader, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s frequent interference in the election.

One MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, said it was especially difficult to get anything done with Byrne having the final say on things, and that regional organizers were often left waiting for her approval.

“In terms of the campaign, the game plan was followed. What we didn’t like was the lack of flexibility… Everything went through her,” said the MP.

Another MP said there were issues with the level of control exerted by party headquarters during the campaign, from advising candidates against participating in local debates to requiring approvals before doing media interviews and engaging on social media.

Some campaigns and candidates did eventually attend debates and speak to reporters anyway.

“They had an obsession with control and power consolidation over competency and achieving results,” the MP said.

Another issue they raised was how the team of candidates and incumbents the Conservatives ran was “heavily underutilized.”

The first MP agreed the leader should have showcased more of his team or his potential ministers during the campaign, but said it was unclear if that was Poilievre’s decision or Byrne’s.

“I think caucus and staff in general, pretty much everyone is united behind Pierre, and there is no one that thinks he doesn’t deserve to stick around, as far as I can tell,” added a Conservative source, also speaking on a not-for-attribution basis to talk more freely.

The source added it was almost inevitable that Byrne would be blamed for some of the issues that arose during the campaign.

“People just know that she was the top dog, and she was the one that was pulling the strings behind the scenes,” said the source. “So, I think, inevitably, when there’s some soul-searching afterwards, she is the one that people are going to talk about first.”

On Monday, Poilievre broke his silence for the first time since his party was defeated in the election. In a video on X, he is seen walking with wife Anaida in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River—Crowfoot where he will be running in a soon-to-be-called by-election.

“It didn’t go how we wanted,” he said of the results. “But when you get knocked down, you get up and get going.”

Poilievre said there is “a lot to be thankful for” including the tens of thousands of supporters who packed rally halls, the 2.3 million extra votes for his party, the 25 extra seats added to his caucus, as well as breakthroughs in Ontario and British Columbia.

“Now, it wasn’t enough. We didn’t get over the finish line, which means that I need to learn and grow, and our team needs to expand,” he said. “That will be my mission, and we’ve got a path … to get elected back into Parliament as soon as possible.”

Former minister Peter MacKay, who held a rally with Poilievre during the campaign, was especially critical of Byrne and the campaign team whom he said “dropped the ball” in terms of getting the leader re-elected in his Ottawa-area riding of Carleton.

“That’s not Pierre Poilievre’s fault. He’s trying to crisscross the country and get to as many places as he possibly can. Surely, job one of the campaign team is to win the riding of the leader,” said MacKay.

Poilievre ultimately lost his seat by more than 4,000 votes to the Liberal candidate.

MacKay called that unexpected outcome “an enormous, big, hairy, knuckle-dragging gorilla in the room.”

MacKay also criticized the nomination process, which in some cases saw prospective candidates pushed away to the detriment of lesser-known candidates. He said “one of the very distinguishing features of conservativism is to be most respectful of the membership and grassroots” and that has been “whittled away” under the current campaign team.

He also said he did not understand why the party did not have a full slate of candidates ready to go. “The Conservatives were banging away for two years calling for an election. How on God’s green earth are we left with 90 unfilled nominations when the writ drops?”

A third MP told National Post they also had questions about how nominations were run, but also why the campaign waited until about midway through the race to begin talking about “change.”

On Tuesday, the Conservative caucus is expected to have a packed agenda which will include appointing a new interim leader and a new caucus president, as well as choosing whether to use the Reform Act, which could allow MPs to vote on Poilievre’s leadership.

All of that could depend on how the conversation goes about the changes needed to prepare themselves for the next campaign. But any criticism behind closed doors would be the reflection of the disappointment of the caucus, which was on route to form a majority government a few months ago.

As one MP put it: “If we had won, everything would have been forgotten.”

— With additional reporting from Stephanie Taylor

National Post

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A screenshot of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's address to Albertans on Monday, May 5, 2025.

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith threw down the gauntlet to newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney in a

livestreamed address

Monday, calling on him to negotiate a new deal between Ottawa and Alberta guaranteeing more pipelines and changes to equalization.

“We hope this will result in a binding agreement that Albertans can have confidence in. Call it an ‘Alberta accord’,” said Smith, seated in front of a backdrop of Albertan and Canadian flags.

Smith said she would soon appoint a special team to represent Alberta in these negotiations.

She set down multiple demands the province intends to make, including guaranteed access to tidewater for its energy exports on all three coasts, the elimination of federal net-zero policies, and the same per-capita federal transfers and equalization payments as Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia receive.

“We have no issue with Alberta continuing to subsidize smaller provinces … but there is no excuse for such large and powerful economies … to be subsidizing one another,” said Smith.

“That was never the intent of equalization and it needs to end.”

Smith said it was imperative for Carney to act quickly to “eliminate the doubts a growing number of Albertans feel” about the province’s future in Canada.

The premier held a

special meeting with her caucus

Friday to discuss how the government should respond to the return of another Liberal government to power, with very little representation in Alberta.

One member of Smith’s caucus, Jason Stephan, told reporters at the province’s legislature shortly before the premier’s address he wants to see a

referendum on Alberta separation

.

Smith didn’t go that far, but did touch on separation in her Monday address, calling it “the elephant in the room.”

She said she believes Alberta has a future in Canada, but understands the frustrations of those fed up with the status quo.

“The vast majority of (separatists) are not fringe voices… They are loyal Albertans,” said Smith.

“They’re … our friends and neighbours who’ve just had enough of having their livelihoods and prosperity attacked by a hostile federal government.”

Smith said if there were a successful, citizen-led push for a referendum question on separation, which hit the requisite threshold of signatures, she’ll include that question on the 2026 provincial referendum ballot.

Last week, she announced she was

dramatically lowering the bar

for citizens to initiate referendums.

Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, says that Smith likely slotted the address at 3 p.m. local time to make a bigger splash in Central Canada, which runs two hours ahead of Alberta.

“Usually, premiers’ addresses

air during the evening

to capture a primetime television audience,” Bratt said.

“However, in this case it is being broadcast in the middle of the afternoon. That says to me the message might actually be directed at an audience outside of Alberta.”

Smith had her first post-election meeting with Carney on Friday, calling the talk “

a positive first step

” toward undoing nearly

a decade of acrimony

between Alberta and the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal government in Ottawa.

In a separate announcement last week from the one about referendum rules, Smith pledged to launch a legal challenge against the

Liberals’ clean electricity regulations.

The premier has repeatedly called on Carney to scrap those federal regulations and other Trudeau-era climate policies, such as the national cap on oil and gas emissions.

The Carney-led Liberals were nearly shut out of Alberta in last Monday’s federal election, winning just two of

the province’s 37 seats

.

Smith

said the next morning

“a large majority of Albertans” were “deeply frustrated” by the Liberals hold on power.

She warned Carney that Albertans would “no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa.”

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi

blasted Smith’s anti-Ottawa posturing

at his party’s convention in Edmonton over the weekend, accusing her of “dragging Alberta away from the rest of the country to feed extremist fringe agendas.”

Nenshi’s office didn’t immediately issue a response to the premier’s Monday address.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, left, will join Prime Minister Mark Carney waves after being sworn in as he names his new cabinet on May 12 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

The Liberals swept downtown Toronto in last week’s federal election, giving Prime Minister Mark Carney some potential fresh faces from Canada’s biggest city with which to craft a new-look cabinet.

Alongside stalwarts like Chrystia Freeland and Bill Blair, Carney has a few prominent names to consider if he’s looking to differentiate his team from the former Trudeau government when he unveils his new cabinet on May 12.

Two of the most prominent: former CBC journalist Evan Solomon and business-friendly newcomer Vince Gasparro.

Gasparro held off a surging Conservative candidate, well-regarded former city councillor Karen Stintz, winning by about 900 votes in Eglinton—Lawrence, a riding that is disproportionately Jewish, a community Carney might see a need to shore up support with.

Gasparro was previously special assistant to then-prime minister Paul Martin and principal secretary to former Toronto mayor John Tory. More recently, he was head of sustainable finance at Roynat Capital and Vancity and served on the boards of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, Postmedia, World Wildlife Fund and Toronto Community Housing Corporation.

Solomon, who easily won one of the country’s safest Liberal seats, Toronto Centre, hosted high-profile political shows on CTV and CBC and was more recently the publisher of GZERO Media and an executive at Eurasia Group.

Another downtown newcomer is Leslie Church, a lawyer and former Freeland chief of staff who easily won Toronto—St. Paul’s, another riding with a large Jewish population, after previously losing a hard-fought byelection under the Trudeau banner.

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the independent-minded Liberal MP for the east end Toronto riding of Beaches—East York, was appointed to Trudeau’s last cabinet — the shuffle made necessary by Freeland’s dramatic exit from cabinet — and kept on by Carney as housing minister before the election.

Blair represents a riding in the old Toronto suburb of Scarborough. Other high-profile suburban GTA Liberals who were re-elected include veteran MP Judy Sgro, a former cabinet minister who represents Humber River—Black Creek, and former Ontario finance minister Charles Sousa in Mississauga—Lakeshore.

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.