HAMILTON — Elections are like games of chess — extended exercises in emotion and reason aimed at persuading millions of people to vote for you, and not for your rival.

It is a serious business, but it is not life and death.

Sometimes, though, in the middle of these democratic contests, the fragility of life intrudes, violently and shockingly.

That was the case with the news that emerged from the Lapu Lapu Filipino festival in Vancouver on Saturday evening.

Vancouver Police have confirmed that nine people were killed and more than 20 injured, in what they describe as a car-ramming attack. One suspect is in custody, a 30-year-old male who the Vancouver Sun reported

appeared to be suffering from mental health issues

, and who was reportedly seen on video saying: “Sorry, sorry.” He is believed to have been acting alone.

The news stopped the federal election campaign in its tracks on its second-last day.

This is a campaign that has been characterized by an absence of dramatic events, with polls hardly moving over the course of the campaign. However, the violence in Vancouver could yet provoke a late shift toward the Conservatives, who have claimed that a weak justice system is failing to deter people from breaking the law.

Parties recalibrate campaigns after Vancouver ‘car ramming attack’ kills nine

Mark Carney had been due to speak at a whistle-stop event for campaign workers in Hamilton, at 8 a.m. local time, before the tour headed to Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria.

The Hamilton event was cancelled and the departure for Saskatoon delayed as Carney was briefed by law enforcement officials, his national security adviser and the public safety minister, David McGuinty.

At 10 a.m., a sombre prime minister appeared before travelling reporters with a statement. Standing in front of four Canadian flags but with no campaign material on display, he said that he was “shocked and devastated” by the news. He said the government does not believe that there is any active threat to Canadians.

This is the first time as prime minister that Carney has had to respond to a tragedy like this and he appeared to be visibly affected.

“Last night, families lost sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives. And to them and to the many others who were injured, Filipinos and everyone in Vancouver, I would like to offer my deepest condolences,” he said.

A senior official for the Liberal campaign said the tour will continue but would “adjust in significant ways.”

The Conservatives indicated that they will continue with their campaign, ending with a rally in Pierre Poilievre’s own Ottawa-area riding of Carleton.

But all politicians are walking a tightrope. The attack plays into the Conservative narrative that the Liberals put criminals’ rights ahead of victims’ rights, and that the streets are less safe than they were 10 years ago.

But with so many details still unconfirmed, it would be an extremely rash politician who links events in Vancouver to federal government policy.

Carney’s task was to appear as a steady hand in a crisis. He appeared comfortable in that role, but will have to guard against appearing too partisan as he shifts back into campaign mode and wraps up the 2025 election.

jivison@criffel.ca

Twitter.com/IvisonJ

Police believe the suspect in a “car ramming attack” at a Vancouver Filipino community event that killed nine people and injured over 20 acted alone and that there is no “active threat” to Canadians, Prime Minister Mark Carney said as the final day of the federal election campaign began on a dark note.

Party leaders mourned the victims of

the tragedy at the Lapu Lapu street festival

in Vancouver on Saturday evening.

During a brief statement Sunday morning, Carney said that the 30-year-old suspect behind what Vancouver police have called a “car ramming attack” was in custody and that police believe the individual acted alone.

“Authorities have confirmed that one person is in custody, and it is believed that they acted alone,” Carney said. “Currently, we do not believe that there is any active threat to Canadians.”

“Last night, families lost a sister, a brother, a mother, a father, a son or a daughter. Those families are living every family’s nightmare,” he added, his eyes welling up with tears.

The tragedy shook up the final day of the federal election campaign, with national parties reviewing their itineraries and messaging at the last minute to respond to the horrible attack.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who attended the Lapu Lapu festival Saturday and left minutes before the attack, told reporters that evening that he was shocked by the “death and destruction.”

“I just keep on picturing the kids’ faces. I keep on thinking about the kids that were just having such an amazing time, the joy, the incredible warmth of the people there,” he said.

“The horrible death and destruction that happened at an event like that is something I can’t comprehend, and I keep on playing through my mind.”

On social media, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote early Sunday that he was “

shocked by the horrific news.” His itinerary Sunday was changed at the last minute to include a stop at a Filipino church to speak to community members and make a public statement about the attack.

King Charles also issued a statement mourning victims of the “dreadful”

attack on X Sunday morning

.

“Our hearts and prayers go out to all those whole lives have been shattered by such a desperate tragedy and we send our deepest possibly sympathy at a most agonizing time for so many in Canada,” reads the statement signed “Charles R”.

More to come

.

National Post, with files from the Vancouver Sun

• ‘Bodies everywhere’: Multiple people killed, injured at Lapu Lapu Day in Vancouver

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OTTAWA — Liberal candidate Nell Thomas has apologized for comments she has reportedly made on social media that cast doubt on her views about the elderly population and new mothers.

Thomas, a family physician running for office in the riding of Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes,

posted a video Saturday

in which she said that “negative messages” on social media had been circulating about comments she made in the past that were “taken out of context.”

“However, I recognize that, regardless of context, some of my words may have hurt people and for that I am truly sorry,” she said.

Asked by National Post, Thomas’ team did not immediately clarify which of her comments she was referring to, nor did she or her campaign specify which ones had been taken out of context.

Thomas’ X account has been deleted, meaning the newspaper is unable to independently confirm those tweets.

One screengrab circulating on social media shows Thomas, commenting on the “elderly demographic” on May 11, 2024, reportedly wrote that Canada must “stop keeping ancients alive so long.”

Another screengrab of a post on X, dated April 12, 2023, shows Thomas reportedly criticizing women bearing children.

“Imagine my thoughts when assessing a pregnant patient. I telepathically advise the fetus to sue the owner of the uterus while exiting it to this world. Of necessity, a mother must be a climate change denier,” reads the post.

While Thomas did not specifically reference those posts in her apology video, she insisted that she is a “person of strong morality.”

“I am a physician who cares for patients of all ages across every stage of life including end-of-life journeys. I help people find dignity, relieve suffering, and seeking peace when existence becomes too heavy to bear,” she said.

“I am also a lifelong environmentalist who cares deeply about the future we are leaving for our children. There is nothing more meaningful to me than caring for moms and their babies. I love the life force that drives us to create new generations,” she added.

Thomas was less apologetic when talking about fossil fuel companies, which she blames for the climate crisis and the resulting eco-anxiety that many couples face when thinking of having children.

“If I could, I would take legal action against the oil and gas companies that knew many decades ago, a hundred years ago, the price we would eventually pay for our dependence on fossil fuels,” she said in her video.

“It is devastating that because of their greed, many people feel forced to wrestle with difficult questions about the future, including whether or not to have children, whether to bring children into a world facing such challenges.”

Other surprising posts reportedly written by Thomas include criticizing agriculture as “a thing of the past” and saying eliminating meat from people’s diets will soon be essential for parts of planet Earth to “remain habitable.”

Thomas

told a local newspaper that she is “Green at heart”

and only joined the Liberals recently because she wanted to vote for Mark Carney as leader. She said she has voted for all parties in the past, even incumbent Conservative MP Jamie Schmale.

National Post

VAL-D’OR, Que. – Yves-François Blanchet makes no bones that he wants Quebec to become a country, and he believes that sitting in a “foreign parliament” will help the cause.

But before tearing apart what he describes as an “artificial country with very little meaning,” he wants to hold the balance of power in the next House of Commons.

The Bloc Québécois campaign has been troubled for some time now, and for several reasons.

The ballot question surrounding the Canada-U.S. relationship and the fear of American annexation, plus the fact the Liberal leader interrupted his campaign three times to act as prime minister, are problematic for them. Advancing the party’s narrative has been a challenge in the last five weeks.

Plus, there is the independence project, the Bloc’s “

raison d’être

.” Its electorate is composed primarily of separatist voters, but also of nationalists who find in this party a tool to defend their nation on the federal stage.

And even if those nationalist voters don’t want secession, they are proud of their representatives who defend them at every opportunity, particularly on issues of language, immigration, and state secularism.

“I want to be home, and for a large number of Quebecers, for the past 30 years at different times, being home means being with the Bloc Québécois,” Blanchet told supporters at a Châteauguay restaurant Friday evening.

But this time, U.S. President Donald Trump is changing everything. Fear seems to have given the Liberals the upper hand, and the rise of Canadian patriotism in the province has sidelined the independence idea.

Most of the hundreds of questions Blanchet fielded over the past five weeks focused on strategy and polls.

And then, independence came up.

“The day after (the vote), I promise you that I will not declare Quebec’s independence. I swear it. That is not the purpose of the campaign,” he said.

What Blanchet wants is a balance of power in a minority government, and then to work with the provincial party, the Parti Québécois, to elect a majority of sovereigntist members to the National Assembly of Quebec, “where independence can be achieved.”

In an interview with National Post, the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada said that talking about independence would be a “strategic error” for the Bloc in this context.

“The fact that he doesn’t talk about sovereignty creates a certain opacity. But people know very well that they are sovereigntists,” said Daniel Béland. “If the Bloc holds the balance of power, it could create political instability and problems in Parliament, but also in Western Canada.”

Not everyone agrees. Denis Trudel is a staunch separatist. He’s always happy to talk about Quebec independence. According to him, the more you talk about it, the more support it will garner, and the sooner Quebec will join the community of nations.

It was therefore quite surprising that the incumbent Bloc Québécois MP and candidate in Longueuil—Saint-Hubert did everything he could to avoid discussing it when his leader visited him in his riding on Thursday.

“This is not what I’m hearing about in Longueuil-Saint-Hubert right now,” he told us as he was waiting for his leader.

Suddenly, Trudel was rushed to Blanchet’s bus by a Bloc staffer, abruptly interrupting our conversation. A tight schedule, we were told.

After lunch, Trudel refused to speak to the national media, who were asked to return to their bus. Inside the restaurant, the candidate was speaking to a local reporter. The journalists turned around and went inside, even though the staffers threatened to leave without them.

The scrum lasted a minute, and the question of Quebec independence was posed to him.

“People aren’t talking about sovereignty, they’re talking about the cost of living,” he repeated, before the encounter was interrupted.

Trudel is in a close race with the Liberal candidate. He is also known for his outspoken positions, such as when he

suggested

that the Liberal party posed a greater threat to Quebec than U.S. President Donald Trump.

The media were then directed to their bus, where they sat in silence for more than 10 minutes. Tensions were running high. The Bloc campaign, arguably the most open to the media of all the federal parties, kept saying the schedule was tight. But that wasn’t the case.

At his second press conference of the day, Blanchet knew the question would be asked: Why does there seem to be less appetite in talking about sovereignty?

“There is a trial of intent in the question. Who tells you that we absolutely must not talk about sovereignty?” he replied, irritated.

No one did. But the awkwardness was real.

Shefford MP and candidate Andréanne Larouche was not pleased when asked about this during a subsequent media scrum.

“We are not putting (the issue) aside, as Yves-François said; it is not in the House of Commons that it will be decided,” she said.

Once again, the meeting ended abruptly. The schedule was tight, they said.

Bloc supporters are aware that Quebec’s sovereignty will not be on the ballot. Of course, they want independence, but they also understand that Monday’s election will primarily be about Canada-US relations.

The Bloc Québécois is a separatist party, the federal cousin of the Parti Québécois, the main vector for independence in Quebec. This provincial party has led the polls for more than a year and may form government in 2026. Moreover, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is one of the most popular politicians in Quebec.

However, St-Pierre Plamondon has been seen little during this campaign. In September, the man nicknamed PSPP headlined a large Bloc Québécois rally during the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun byelection. The Bloc won a surprise victory in this Liberal stronghold.

“It’s not in our plans (to have him campaigning with us). But he supports me like I support him, it’s public,” Blanchet said, without adding if he would benefit from his presence on the campaign trail.

A few hours later, PSPP published a long letter on social media in support of the Bloc and pleading that “Mark Carney poses an existential threat to Quebec.” He argued that Carney “would set Quebec back” with his policies on immigration, government spending, and interference with provincial language and state secularism laws.

“I don’t see in what parallel universe we would come to the conclusion that we can trust him enough to give him a blank check,” he wrote.

“Achieving Quebec independence is a matter of linguistic and cultural survival for Quebec. This is what I am working toward and will continue to work toward in the coming years,” he continued, adding that he is unequivocally supporting the Bloc and that Quebecers should give Blanchet’s party the balance of power.

The PQ did not answer an interview request.

In this election, Blanchet has been presenting himself as the ultimate watchdog for Quebecers. What is good for Quebec, he will defend. What isn’t good, he will oppose.

“As long as we are part of Canada, and we get elected in this Parliament, we are entitled to any right and privilege and opportunity being provided by the persons who vote, and I will relinquish none of them,” Blanchet said.

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Analysts don’t see a whole lot of difference between the defence platforms of the two major parties vying to govern Canada.

Liberals are promising to boost defence spending over four years by $18 billion to meet the two per cent NATO spending target. The Conservative platform pledges to accomplish the same by adding $17 billion to the defence budget between 2025-2029.

“Really it’s kind of some nuance more so than huge differences; I see a lot of commonalities really,” said David Perry, who heads the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“I think the Conservatives are going a little heavier on the Arctic, or at least in a different way. Their Arctic plans feature more permanent presence. At least that’s how I interpret the commitment to build three bases rather than just have the forward operating locations. A base, to me, implies permanency and having troops stationed there on a more full-time basis, whereas the Liberal plan talks about Arctic enhancement and some of the infrastructure … and investments in things like the Arctic over-the-horizon radar, but not as much of a permanent station.”

The Conservatives are also pitching “a kind of bolder and more ambitious plan in terms of what they would do for the commercial infrastructure in support of strategic objectives, both with a base in Churchill as well as their Arctic corridor idea,” Perry said.

Liberals “have more of an emphasis of working with Indigenous communities … as part of their Arctic plan,” he said.

In the “big picture, the Liberal plan talks more about working with Europe,” Perry said. “The Conservative one has got more of a focus on (Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) — the other members of the Five Eyes beyond the United States. So, a bit of a differentiation there in terms of other partners to collaborate with.”

The other “notable difference,” Perry said, is “a bit of a different emphasis on how they’d approach fixing procurement. Liberals are proposing the creation of a single agency, not for the first time. They did that in the 2019 platform as well but didn’t actually implement it. The Conservatives are focused on bringing back a cabinet committee focused on defence procurement and setting up a structure in the Privy Council Office to organize procurement, which for my money, is the smarter proposal — less disruptive and would focus on some of the key coordination issues that aren’t necessarily going to be fixed just by creating a separate agency. But I think in both cases you could say that there’s some commonality of looking to have more central focus to procurement.”

While both parties are promising to bolster defence spending, Perry does not expect much to change during the next mandate, no matter who takes the country’s reins.

“I think we need to be prepared to be underwhelmed by how much can change in just the next four years, because the current defence procurement cycle, as an example, runs about 15 years from projects starting to being completed.”

No matter who wins, even if they’re “astonishingly effective and they reduce the procurement time to one third of what it currently is, well that’s basically like an entire new mandate,” Perry said.

Canada currently spends 1.37 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence — about $41 billion annually.

“Our investments will be spent wisely and effectively to put Canada on track to exceed our NATO defence spending target before 2030,” according to the Liberal platform.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney is promising his government will give pay raises to the military, “rapidly (increase) the stock of high-quality housing on bases across the country and (ensure) access to primary child care and health care — including mental health supports — for serving members and their families.”

The Liberals are pledging to modernize the military’s recruitment process “by streamlining security clearances and applying online, so that more applicants can get trained, faster.”

The Liberals also plan to “integrate the Canadian Coast Guard into our NATO defence capabilities” to “exceed our commitment to spend at least two per cent of GDP on defence.”

That makes sense, according to Ken Hansen, a military analyst and former navy commander.

“The coast guard has been very defensive about this; their leadership and their people are not thrilled about it,” Hansen said. “But I think it’s essential. There has to be some kind of common working arrangement with the coast guard and the military.”

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are promising to fix the recruiting “crisis” by increasing the reserve force to 30,000 and the regular force to 71,500 within 18 months.

Conservatives plan to “double the size of the 1st Patrol Group of the Canadian Rangers from 2,000 to 4,000,” and acquire two new heavy icebreakers for the navy.

The Conservative platform also includes promises to “rapidly build 6,000 new homes on Canadian Forces bases,” as well as acquire new submarines and tactical helicopters.

While both the Conservatives and Liberals are both promising defence spending will reach two per cent of GDP, that target could soon be shifting upward, said Richard Shimooka, senior fellow with the MacDonald-Laurier Institute.

“We have a NATO summit coming up and the talk is that the floor is going to go to three per cent,” Shimooka said.

“There’s a big push, not just by the Trump administration, but by European allies to actually spend more on defence.”

The military has always been a pricey budget item for Canada, said Hansen. But he cautions promises made on the hustings don’t always pan out for the Forces, no matter who’s in power.

“When the pinch is on for money due to things like COVID or trade wars, then that’s where they’ll squeeze to get some money out so they can smear it around somewhere else,” Hansen said.

• Opinion: Two ways to boost Canadian defence spending and minimize Trump’s tariff threats
• Trump says he wouldn’t defend NATO allies that fall short on military spending

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