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Migrant Workers over looking Okanagan Lake and Kelowna. Photographed November 23rd, 2025

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Canada’s agriculture industry employs tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers to help pick the produce that winds up on your plate.

While many see this as a lifeline, a way to earn money to send to families back home, there are concerns the system is set up to exploit, and in some cases, abuse them.

Robert Cribb, founder and director of the

Investigative Journalism Bureau

, joins host Dave Breakenridge to discuss the conditions under which these migrants work, and how the system designed to help bring them here for employment may actually be setting them up for harm.

Further reading:

 

‘This is the new slavery’: Migrant farm workers underpaid, abused and injured

Subscribe to 10/3 on your favourite podcast app

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Inmates remain in their cell at the Centre for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador.  The leadership of CBS News is facing accusations of political meddling over a last-minute decision to not air a report on the notorious prison where U.S. President Donald Trump sent deported Venezuelans.

A segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes about the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelans was made available to viewers in Canada on Monday after being pulled in the U.S. a day before.

The roughly 13-minute feature focuses on El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison, where 252 Venezuelan men were deported in April, and shines a light on the conditions and treatment to which they were allegedly subjected while detained for four months.

“When you get there, you already know you’re in hell,” former prisoner Louise Munoz Pinto told 60 Minutes reporter Sharyn Alfonsi in the interview, viewed by National Post after it was shared widely online following its inadvertent and brief availability on Global TV’s app and website.

“You don’t need anyone else to tell you.”

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, citing the need for additional reporting, had postponed its airing on Saturday, the day before it was scheduled to be broadcast, according to

Bloomberg.

“My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be,” she said in a statement. “Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom.”

In a leaked internal memo obtained by

Axios

, Weiss detailed a need for voices from Donald Trump’s administration to make the story more balanced.

“If we run the piece as is, we’d be doing our viewers a disservice,” she wrote.

 CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss (pictured on May 3, 2022), citing the need for additional reporting, had postponed its airing over the weekend.

But Alfonsi, in a letter sent to colleagues on Sunday and obtained by the

New York Times

, said the “story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices.”

She defended the reporting team’s efforts to get GOP officials on the record and said their silence was “a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”

Alfonsi also alleged Weiss’s decision is “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

Trump and 60 Minutes have a well-documented history, highlighted most recently by a $16-million settlement to his lawsuit against CBS. The president alleged the show deceptively edited the responses of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in a way that harmed his election prospects in the 2024 election.

After the settlement, the Federal Communications Commission approved the acquisition of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, by Skydance Media, a company owned by the family of Larry and David Ellison, avowed Trump supporters. The Ellisons then acquired Weiss’s media startup, the Free Press, and made her the head of CBS News.

Trump maintains he doesn’t have a cozy relationship with the network.

“For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover,’ than they have ever treated me before,” he wrote on

Truth Social

last week. “If they are friends, I‘d hate to see my enemies!”

National Post has contacted CBS News and Global parent company Corus Entertainment for comment on the segment and its publication in Canada.

‘Welcome to hell’

The piece itself explores life inside the maximum security prison in Tecoluca through the eyes of two deportees who say they were labelled as terrorists and gang members allegedly without due process.

Louise Munoz Pinto, a Venezuelan college student, told Alfonsi he had no criminal record and was seeking asylum in the U.S. when he was detained for six months before being deported along with the others. He thought they were being sent back to Venezuela but landed in El Salvador.

“When we got there, the CECOT director was talking to us. The first thing he told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again.”

“He said, ‘Welcome to hell. I’ll make sure you never leave.’”

 El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison.

Prisoners’ heads were shaved, their hands and feet allegedly bound, they were forced to their knees and some were beaten with fists and batons.

“There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn’t take it and were urinating and vomiting on themselves,” recounted Pinto, who said four guards allegedly beat him until he bled and broke one of his teeth by slamming his face against the wall.

Venezuelan national William Lazada Sanchez told Alfonsi they were made to stay kneeling for 24 hours, with failure resulting in a prisoner being placed in an isolation cell referred to as “the island.”

“The island is a little room where there’s no light, no ventilation, nothing. It’s a cell for punishment where you can’t see your hand in front of your face,” Sanchez said.

The Trump administration has defended its deportations, alleging the men were all dangerous criminals.

But Alfonsi cited a report from Human Rights Watch on CECOT that found that nearly half had no criminal history and only eight had been convicted of a violent or potentially violent offence. ICE records reviewed by 60 Minutes confirmed that just three per cent had been sentenced.

“They sent them to a place where they were likely to be tortured to send migrants across Latin America the message that they should not come to the United States,” deputy director Juan Papier told Alfonsi.

El Salvador’s government also didn’t respond to her interview requests.

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Caffeo owner Sammy Motiwala at his robot-assisted coffee shop located in downtown Toronto, Dec. 2, 2025.

Vandhana Mohanraj and her partner Faisal Fakhani had just finished their regular grocery run when the couple decided to stop for coffee.

At the storefront for the fledgling

Caffeo shop

in downtown Toronto, Mohanraj punched in her choice – a vanilla latte – and tapped her card on the payment pad. Then the café’s “barista” went to work.

Behind the plate-glass window, an all-arms robot filled the metal filter basket with fresh grounds, inserted it into an espresso machine, then topped the resulting coffee with steamed milk.

Mohanraj sipped her first android-prepared brew and smiled. Fakhani took a swig and agreed with Mohanraj’s assessment – surprisingly good.

“We have a (human) barista who is always burning our lattes,” he said. “This is not burnt.”

 Caffeo’ all-arms robot fills a basket with fresh grounds.

Flesh-and-blood employees, a once-obligatory element in the service industry, were nowhere to be seen. Caffeo is just one small example of an intriguing trend: retail-level enterprises that harness technology to operate without customer-facing staff.

Across Canada, there are convenience stores with no clerks, hotels where guests check in, check out and order fresh towels on their smart phones, and gyms and virtual golf driving ranges that run on a completely self-serve basis.

And the idea, a sort of bricks-and-mortar parallel to the artificial intelligence revolution, is certain to keep expanding, analysts and entrepreneurs say.

“Everyone’s looking at ways to cut costs or to navigate the skills shortage,” says Wendy Cukier, a Toronto Metropolitan University professor and expert on disruptive technologies. “In the absence of available labour, more and more companies are looking at ways to automate functions.”

Some of the technology has been around for years. Pharmacies, supermarkets, cinemas and others have long allowed customers to pay for their products at self-serve kiosks. Lately, a few businesses have

backed away

from the terminals because of theft concerns and customer objections, but they remain ubiquitous.

Eliminating the cashier, drinks-maker or front-desk clerk entirely may be the inevitable next step.

It could be especially appealing to service-sector employers who have grown reliant on temporary foreign workers or international students to fill jobs that others balk at or avoid because of the low wages, said Cukier.

As for Canadian consumers, many seem well-primed for service by machine in places where human contact would once have been a given, say the operators of staffless outlets.

“There is definitely a subset of people that don’t want to talk to some frontline service staff,” said Tason Lee, CEO of the

Tracer Golf

golf-simulator company. “They don’t want to feel that pressure. They’re kind of in that online world where they can buy something off a website and expect it to be here and that’s it.”

These businesses still need some humans, naturally, to carry out management and certain physical tasks. For now, at least. Lisa Hutcheson of JCWG Retail Consultants said she recently saw a demonstration of robots that can actually stock store shelves.

“Will it completely eliminate the need for people? I don’t think so,” said Hutcheson. “(But) there’s a place for it. We’ll continue to see various different models of it. I think it’s here to stay.”

Aisle24,

with over 30 cashierless convenience stores in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, is a Canadian pioneer, its first outlet opening in 2016. For CEO and founder John Douang, the automated retail model seemed like a natural, even necessary, evolution from the type of corner store his parents ran as he grew up. They worked 16-hour days, often just manning the cash register, employed Douang and his siblings part-time and had to shut down and lose revenue just to go on vacation, he recalls.

“A lot of the time, from my own experience, the cashier just sits there, waiting for customers to come in,” said Douang, a software engineer. “Our goal wasn’t ‘Hey, let’s slash all the jobs.’ It was ‘Let’s make it more efficient so we can repurpose that labour sitting there.’ ”

 Aisle 24 is cashier-less, unattended, and open 24/7.

Aisle24 customers download the company app, which allows them access to the locked stores. Then they shop and check out at self-serve scanners. As part of the sign-up process, “members” upload a selfie photograph. If they leave without paying, the raft of cameras in the store, coupled with facial-recognition software, allows the system to alert clients if they made an honest mistake — or take other action if theft is suspected.

He sees the concept as a physical, yet technology-driven, answer to the massive popularity of online shopping.

“E-commerce has been taking a big chunk of retail for a long time,” he said. “The newer generation of Gen Zs and Gen Alphas are very much accustomed to the digital aspect of life, and businesses really need to think about that. They need to adapt.”

At Ontario’s Trent University, the idea has been taken a step further. The campus’s

Bata Bean

café and market uses Amazon’s JustWalkOut software, which detects the goods customers leave with and automatically charges their accounts.

The same technology is being used at Toronto’s Scotiabank arena, home of the Raptors and Maple Leafs, allowing customers to tap their card, take the drink or snack they want and leave without waiting for a human to cash them out. Blue Jays fans can do much the same at the nearby Rogers Centre, which is equipped with a similar system supplied by a firm called Zippin.

In Quebec City, Manoir des Remparts is among establishments that have transformed the traditional hotel routine, offering a “

staffless operation

” that has guests check in and out and contact company employees via their smartphones. Human housekeeping staff, of course, are still needed.

It’s an approach that was also employed until recently by a much larger concern, the Sonder hotel chain. That firm, founded in Montreal and once valued at more than $1 billion, suddenly went out of business in November, shuttering scores of hotels and apartments worldwide for financial reasons. Its demise seemed unconnected, however, to its use of automation.

The fitness club has, in some instances, also done away with in-person service people. Train by FW, a brand of B.C.’s Fitness World, is a 24-hour “micro-gym” that runs on a “staffless model,” its

website

indicates, but can be used by independent trainers and their clients. Xscape Fitness and Recovery in Belleville, Ont., also operates “staffless,” with access around the clock through a smartphone app, though personal trainers are available.

Tracer Golf is part of a growing industry of virtual golf practice facilities, where electronic devices measure the speed, angle and other aspects of a player’s swing to deduce the flight and distance of the balls they hit. An animated video of the result is projected on a screen.

Some competitors have combined the equipment with bars, restaurants and other amenities. Tracer stripped down the model instead to make it more affordable. Golfers book their practice bay online and use a smartphone to unlock the front door to facilities that have no on-site staff. The equipment in their bay automatically comes to life at the time they reserved and shuts down when the session is over. Tracer’s eight employees, who service nine locations spread throughout the Toronto area, and handle customer inquiries by intercom or phone, mostly work remotely.

CEO Lee says he expects the fully self-serve concept will expand, at least for certain services that can be readily automated.

Lee concedes the trend could mean less paid work.

“I have kids so it’s something I think about — what kind of jobs are they going to have?” he says. “If you keep going down that thought path, it can be scary.”

Cukier places the staffless service-industry trend in the broader context of artificial intelligence, which includes “physical AI” like intelligent robots. Though she was once a skeptic about its impact, she now sees the technology potentially replacing almost any type of worker.

“It doesn’t matter where I go,” said the author of Innovation Nation: Canadian Leadership from Java to Jurassic Park, “I feel that people are asleep in terms of how fast change is coming.”

It’s change that’s even coming to the retail coffee business. Caffeo’s gear is made by

Jaka Robotics

, a Chinese company that also supplies the likes of Toyota. Using it to assemble an espresso-based beverage, said Fakhani, was “less charming” than visiting an independent coffee shop, a couple of doors away. But the experience compares favourably to chain cafés like Tim Horton’s and Starbucks, he said.

Bottom line, next time he and Mohanraj are lugging their groceries home they’ll probably stop for a robot latte.

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President Donald Trump greets Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

WASHINGTON, D.C. —
For anyone trying to better understand U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy vision and its consequences for Canada, look no further than the recently released national security strategy (NSS) that
offers the White House’s vision of America’s global influence and its defence and economic power priorities.

Unlike the previous two strategies — under both Joe Biden and Trump 1.0 — the new strategy no longer focuses heavily on major power competition, instead extolling an “America First” foreign policy centred mainly on America’s economic power and national interests.

The document refers to Canada only once — in its call for allies to adopt trade policies that help “rebalance China’s economy toward household consumption.”

So is Canada’s near‑absence in the strategy a warning that it will be taken for granted by a superpower increasingly focused on burden-sharing, or could it be a blessing in disguise — a sign that Ottawa is no longer squarely in Trump’s firing line? 

“If I were a Canadian,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, “I would feel pretty good about this National Security Strategy.” 

Homeland protection

The strategy says the U.S. will “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.” 

Kavanagh sees this as a positive for Ottawa because anything that protects the U.S. homeland protects Canada by default.​

“Keeping the United States military focused on securing the western hemisphere from foreign influence is obviously also beneficial for Canada, and there’s no indication or hostility expressed towards Canada specifically or anything even really asked of it,” she said.

“Anything the U.S. does to protect the homeland protects Canada as well.”

Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute, says the implications for Canada from any NSS are bound to be limited, but he doesn’t see reason for concern.

The strategy focuses on keeping foreign powers out of the Western hemisphere, he explained. 

“If the threats to Canada are coming from outside the Western hemisphere, this is fine to good for Canada,” Logan said. “Unless,” he added, apparently joking, “we think the United States is going to invade Canada.”

The Trump strategy also specifies Europe’s internal politics, migration, and civilizational issues, tying demands to these for higher defense spending and policy changes, but again, no demands are made of Canada. 

According to Kavanagh, this means there’s no indication of Trump putting the idea of a 51st state into the NSS — or of any intent to interfere in Canadian politics. 

Friends with benefits

Many conservatives see opportunities for Canada in Trump’s latest national security strategy.

Trump’s determination to defend the homeland with a Golden Dome system — which is mentioned in the document — would, by default, have to include Canada, according to Wilson Beaver, senior policy advisor for defence budgeting and NATO policy in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security in Washington. 

“You can’t have just United States defence without continental defense for North America,” he said. “So, I think there’s going to be a ton of avenues for cooperation between the United States and Canada related to continental missile defence.”

Beaver, along with many other defence experts, suggests that Canada should ramp up investment in its Navy, Air Force, and especially, its Arctic infrastructure to modernize continental defence.

Stephen Nagy, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and professor of politics and international studies at the International Christian University, agrees and says Canada can become an “indispensable partner” by investing in Arctic surveillance and maritime domains over the next two to five years to monitor Russian and Chinese activity. He also stresses the need to strengthen research ties in artificial intelligence, quantum, and munitions production, and to build infrastructure with Indigenous and Inuit communities to avert Chinese influence.

Given that the Arctic is Canada’s backyard, the drive for improving its security should be well-received in Washington. 

“If you look at the allies that are getting the best press here in Washington,” said Beaver, “it’s the ones that are seen as taking responsibility for their own security.”

Daniel Kochis, senior fellow in the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute in Washington, agrees and thinks Canada can use the Arctic as leverage, pointing out the region’s strategic importance while carving out a unique niche in Arctic, cyber, and NATO burden-sharing.

Kochis was also encouraged that the NSS confirms that Europe — and by extension Canada, he said — remains strategically and culturally important to the U.S. 

While Washington is unlikely to ever see Canada as a peer ally, according to Kavanagh, it can show itself as an asset, especially in Arctic security and air and missile defence.

“The goal should be to show that you are … an asset to the United States, not a free rider,” Kavanagh said.

The downsides

While Canada has the opportunity to prove itself as a regional ally and security partner, the national security strategy also makes it clear that Canada’s long-held security discount is gone. 

“For most of the post-Cold War period, Canada thought that it was not necessary to invest in the military, and they took the partnership with the United States for granted,” said Nagy, noting that Canada has become a liability in terms of Chinese influence operations in Canada and lack of Arctic defence spending.

Now, the U.S. is “telling allies within the NATO context and within NORAD — this is not just Canada — that they have to shoulder a much greater degree of the security burden.”

Avoiding multiple mentions in the strategy shouldn’t necessarily be taken for granted, according to Richard Shimooka, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. 

“It doesn’t take much to set off the president or one of his advisors. So if Canada were to actually make a significant move on trade with China …, that may well provoke a pretty negative response,” he said. 

Despite there being no easy escape from Trump’s trade tensions and push for increased defence spending, Canada’s near-absence in Washington’s new national security strategy may not be as concerning as it appears. It signals neither neglect nor hostility, but instead an opportunity for Ottawa to redefine its value. 

“Nobody really thinks of Canada as a serious nation in terms of defence and security right now,” said Shimooka.

But he also noted that this could change. 

“If Canada can understand not just what’s happening now but what may happen in five or 10 years, we’ll be in a much better place going forward.”

National Post

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Most Canadians prefer to say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays in 2025, despite many anticipating a stressful season, a new survey finds.

Most Canadians will be inclined to wish others a Merry Christmas this season, but some of them will do so with the stress of the season hidden behind the festive greeting, a new survey has found.

Polling of 1,002 adults in Canada conducted by Research Co. found that

67 per cent of Canadians prefer Merry Christmas

when giving and receiving the seasonal salutation.

That’s up five points from the firm’s

same polling in 2024.

For 2025, almost as many are not sure or don’t care (16 per cent) as there are those who prefer the less denominational Happy Holidays (18 per cent), which saw a six-point drop from last year.

Across Canada, the traditional greeting is preferred by the majority of respondents. Regionally, Atlantic Canadians (77 per cent) and Albertans (72 per cent) voiced the strongest support, while the lowest (59 per cent) came in Quebec, where a quarter of respondents said they preferred the modern greeting.

More of those who voted for the Conservative Party of Canada in this year’s election (77 per cent) preferred Merry Christmas than did Liberal (63 per cent) or NDP (51 per cent) supporters.

The pollster also asked people about stress and fun this holiday season, and while more than half (52 per cent) expected more of the former, almost a third (30 per cent) anticipated it to be more stressful. The rest were unsure.

“More than a third of Generation X members in Canada (34 per cent) foresee a stressful holiday season,” Mario Canseco, president of Research Co., said in a news release.

“Fewer millennials (31 per cent), Generation Z (29 per cent) and baby boomers (27 per cent) share this feeling.”

Regionally, worries of stress were highest in Atlantic Canada (38 per cent) and lowest in Quebec (23 per cent). Conservative supporters (34 per cent), too, were more inclined to foresee stress than Liberal (28 per cent) or NDP (26 per cent) voters.

As it has in previous years, the Vancouver-based firm also quizzed Canadians about classic holiday traditions and foods. People overwhelmingly expressed fondness for Christmas dinner staples such as turkey (82 per cent), cranberry sauce (65 per cent) and fruit cake (58 per cent) for dessert, but enthusiasm for mulled wine (36 per cent) and plum pudding (44 per cent) was more tepid.

The survey also explored when Canadians first learned the truth about Santa Claus, with a majority (52 per cent) saying they found out at age nine or younger. The same percentage felt nine and younger was the appropriate age to tell kids, 36 per cent thought 10 or older was reasonable.

Conducted Dec. 9-7, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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Lilly and Jack Sullivan haven't been found since they were reported missing from their home in Lansdowne Station, Nova Scotia home on May 2, 2025.

Lilly and Jack Sullivan’s names grace decorations on their paternal grandmother’s Christmas tree, but Belynda Gray is under no illusion the children are still alive.

Lilly, 6, and her four-year-old brother, Jack, were first reported missing from their home in rural northeastern Nova Scotia by their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, at 10:01 a.m. on May 2. Brooks-Murray told police she believed the two children had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station. Police started looking for the missing kids less than half an hour later, but, so far, one of the largest searches this province has ever seen has been fruitless.

“My place is decorated. I have (four) other grandchildren that come. But it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all,” Gray said in an interview from her home in Middle Musquodoboit, N.S.

When they vanished, Gray hadn’t seen Lilly or Jack in person for 18 months since they moved to Lansdowne Station to live in a ramshackle mobile home with their mother and her then partner, Daniel Martell, their stepfather.

But Gray has fond memories of the two children.

“Lily, when she smiled, her eyes lit up a room,” said her grandmother. “Her whole face glowed when she smiled. She was full of life, inquisitive, curious. She mimicked me like a little robot.”

By contrast, her little brother “very rarely smiled,” Gray said.

“Jack was never a smiley, smiley kid, even as a baby,” said his grandmother.

“He was very curious and always studied things that he would play with, one thing at a time, whereas Lily would dance circles around him. Lily was very outgoing and he was very reserved.”

In October, the RCMP brought in cadaver dogs to search 40 kilometres of territory, but they failed to find any sign of the missing children.

Investigators employed 22 of 23 of the province’s ground search and rescue teams during the hunt for Jack and Lilly, as well as two teams from New Brunswick. All told, they spent 12,253 hours searching for the children.

Mounties continue to work on hundreds of tips generated by the case and searchers have combed through about 8.5 square kilometres of terrain in the probe.

“I’ve got 25 years on (the force) and I absolutely expect to solve this before I retire,” Staff-Sgt. Rob McCamon, the officer in charge of Major Crime and Behavioural Sciences in Nova Scotia, said in an interview.

“This file will get solved long before that.”

He urged anyone with information about the case to contact investigators.

“Deep down, I believe there are people somewhere out there that may have information that will help us,” McCamon said.

Hundreds of RCMP officers from Nova Scotia and elsewhere who have been involved in the case are now heading into the holidays knowing the search that’s gone on for more than seven months has failed to produce answers.

“I think almost everyone on the team and almost everyone that I’ve worked with has kids or at least has relations who have kids,” McCamon said.

“The reality is they’re very vulnerable people in our society that need protection. And this is a very difficult file for all involved because we want the answers just as much as everyone else.”

It’s unacceptable for two kids to go missing and the RCMP not to find answers, he said. “We’re not going to stop until we do.”

The RCMP are confident they will solve the case.

“I worry sick that they may not,” Gray said.

Gray used to see a lot of the children, even after their mother split from her son Cody Sullivan, their biological father, more than three years back.

“The whole family was into their lives when her and my son were together; there were many visits,” she said.

“Once they split up, Malehya would bring the kids here just about every two weeks.”

Those visits continued for about a year after the breakup.

“And on one of the last visits, she stated that she had met somebody,” Gray said. “When she met Daniel she told us that he was uncomfortable with her coming here. So right away we said, ‘Well, why don’t you bring him along?’”

Brooks-Murray promised she’d mention it to him, Gray said.

“But the next time she came, she stated that it is just not working out for her coming here.”

 Belynda Gray’s Christmas tree includes ornaments bearing the names of Jack and Lilly Sullivan, her grandchildren who were reported missing in May.

For a time, Gray visited Lilly and Jack in the Truro area, where they were staying with their mother’s family.

“That worked out good for a while,” Gray said.

But in the fall Jack turned three, Gray said when she took him gifts and Halloween treats for both kids, something felt off. “Malehya seemed to be in a rush to hurry our visit.”

After about a year in Truro, Lilly, Jack, their mom and her new partner moved to Lansdowne Station.

“It was Daniel’s mother that gave them her big trailer and she moved into an RV,” Gray said.

“When Malehya told me she was moving to Pictou (County), she told me that his mother had a farm … and right away, I was picturing fields, like farmland. And I told her that sounded awesome. The kids would have a big yard to play in. That was wonderful.”

They “maintained light contact through Facebook,” Gray said.

Before Lilly’s birthday this past March, Gray spoke with Brooks-Murray about sending money to buy a gift for the girl. “I said, ‘I just want you to know that don’t think that we don’t love them because we think about them all the time.’ She said, ‘Look, I was thinking we’re probably going to come by for a visit.’ And I was ecstatic. I told her, ‘We can’t wait.’”

That visit never took place.

When Gray heard Malehya was pregnant with Martell’s child, she chalked up the lack of a visit to that.

“I congratulated her,” Gray said. “And I figured, okay, so this must be why it’s been a little distant right now, because, I mean, she’s pregnant. And I made up excuses about why she was too busy.”

At first, in the photos of Jack and Lilly their mom posted on social media, “they looked well cared for,” Gray said.

“They were happy and I just told myself it was okay if I didn’t see them because they’re living a good life.”

After the baby was born, the photos their mom posted of Jack and Lilly started to dwindle, Gray said.

She started worrying about seeing “a big difference in the kids. And I just kept telling myself, she’s got a new baby, and I know having a new little one, it can be a little bit rough.”

 Daniel Martell, the stepfather of Lilly and Jack Sullivan, speaks with reporters on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.

Then Gray’s son lost his job and stopped paying Brooks-Murray child support.

“I had no idea they were having other money troubles at the same time,” Gray said.

Gray learned of Lilly and Jack’s disappearance this past May 2 from a family member.

She was shocked the next day to see the yard around the mobile home where they were living was littered with old cars and junked appliances.

“I am on the poor side, but you can still fix up what you have,” Gray said. “It was very rundown. And there was a lot of trash around.”

Gray first met Martell in the days after Jack and Lilly went missing.

“He seemed to be fairly concerned,” Gray said.

“Malehya told me on Saturday (the day after Jack and Lilly vanished) that he’s been in the woods since the kids went missing, that he’s been scouring the woods ever since,” Gray said.

The mobile home where they were living sits along a gravel road surrounded by dense woods.

“The woods is a giant maze that if you’re not crawling under something, you have to climb over it,” she said.

“There was no way whatsoever that those kids … would want to do that, the woods were that bad.”

The little girl did not like bugs, said her grandmother. “Lilly had that princess thing about her even as a baby. So, I could not see her wanting to go there at all.”

Jack was curious, and did like bugs, Gray said. “But from all indications, from all the people on the property, he did not like the woods because he couldn’t walk and he kept tripping up and falling. So that tells me these kids would not go into the woods.”

Gray has her theories about what happened to Lilly and Jack. Now she’s looking for evidence about what was going on in their lives before the children vanished.

“I know Daniel’s family is all pushing that the children were taken,” she said. “That is what his side of the family has been preaching. I do not believe it.”

Mounties also say they don’t have any direct evidence of the children being abducted.

 Dense woods near where missing children Lilly and Jack Sullivan were living in Lansdowne Station, Nova Scotia.

Gray knows there are wild animals in the area, including coyotes and bears. But she doubts they attacked her grandchildren. “You would find remains,” Gray said, noting searchers also told her they keep an eye on the sky looking for carrion-eating birds that would circle a fresh kill in the woods.

On the morning Lilly and Jack were reported missing, Martell has said he was laying in bed with Malehya and their new baby when Lilly came into their bedroom.

“She had a pink shirt on. We could hear Jackie in the kitchen,” he said. “A few minutes later we didn’t hear them so I went out to check. The sliding door was closed. Their boots were gone.”

He surmised publicly that the children slipped outside through a sliding door.

Martell said when they noticed the two children were missing, he immediately jumped in a white sport utility vehicle and searched neighbouring roads, looking in culverts. By the time he returned home, the RCMP were there, having been called by the children’s mother.

On the weekend after they vanished, Brooks-Murray told CTV that Jack and Lilly were not typically the type of children who would go outside on their own. “I just want to remain hopeful, but there’s always in a mother’s mind, you’re always thinking the worst,” Brooks-Murray said at the time.

Soon after the children disappeared, Brooks-Murray reportedly left Martell and the county with their baby to stay with family.

Martell has said that he provided the RCMP with his cellphone and that he worked with investigators.

Mounties conducted at least four polygraphs during their investigation. Martell’s test early on in the probe “indicated he was truthful,” as did the test for Brooks-Murray, according to documents police used to obtain search warrants in the case.

The children’s mother told police at one point that their biological father might have picked them up and taken them to New Brunswick. But investigators met with Sullivan on May 22.

“He said he did not know what happened to Jack and Lilly,” police noted. “He was home on May 2, 2025, and never goes anywhere. He has not been anywhere other than his house recently and has had no contact with Malehya since the children went missing.”

 A missing persons poster of Lilly and Jack Sullivan on a telephone pole near the home along Highway 289.

Cody Sullivan, underwent a polygraph on June 12, and he passed the examination, with his answers found to be “truthful,” according to police.

Lilly and Jack’s disappearance has “been a hard go” for the biological dad, who never fought for their custody, Gray said.

Her son is living with her and their place is decorated for Christmas. Four other grandchildren — all bearing some degree of resemblance to Jack and Lilly — will show up during the holidays to unwrap their presents.

“It forces you to stay in the here and now,” Gray said of their joyful presence.

But Gray hasn’t bought any gifts for Jack and Lilly. “Because what do I do with them afterwards?”

She’s hired a lawyer “trying to get legal guardianship” of her missing grandchildren.

Because she’s not a parent but just a grandparent, Child Protective Services wouldn’t divulge to her any previous concerns they’d had about Jack and Lilly’s care.

“So I’m seeking legal guardianship, mainly for information.”

Gray is now waiting to hear back from the courts.

“We’re waiting to see if (their mother) is going to dispute it,” she said.

Gray now wishes she’d stepped in earlier to help care for Lilly and Jack. “If I had time back,” she said, her voice trailing off.

“We would have gladly had (their mom) drop them off so she could have a break.”

Gray has steeled herself to the possibility the children may never be found. “The only thing I tell myself is I know that they know we love them.”

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Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen said the inevitability of trucks crossing provincial lines puts the onus on Ottawa to act on fly-by-night trucking companies.

OTTAWA — An Alberta cabinet minister is calling on the federal government to clamp down on immigration abuses in the commercial trucking sector, warning that inaction is putting lives at risk.

Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen said the inevitability of trucks crossing provincial lines puts the onus on Ottawa to act on fly-by-night trucking companies that exploit badly trained foreign drivers.

“Fraudulent (trucking companies) doing bad things in other provinces and then moving to Alberta is, unfortunately, something that’s been happening,” Dreeshen told National Post.

Dreeshen had a

busy 2025 tackling fraudulent activities

in Alberta’s trucking sector, shutting down five substandard driver training schools and 13

so-called chameleon carriers,

which are trucking companies that change identities to hide past safety violations.

A web search shows that at least eight of the 13 shuttered chameleon carriers have ownership ties to the South Asian community.

The Edmonton-based Indo Canadian Driver Training School Inc., was on a list of three of the shut-down schools shared with National Post. The other two schools can’t be named as they’re appealing the government’s decision.

Dreeshen said that the federal government has stepped up “on the reporting side” to help the provinces and territories keep tabs on chameleon carriers, but added it needed to do a better job of vetting migrant truck drivers.

The federal government also announced

steps to crack down

on the intentional misclassification of truck drivers as independent contractors, a scam known as Driver Inc., in November’s budget.

Dreeshen stressed the need for better oversight of Indian nationals recruited to drive trucks in Canada.

“There’s more we can all do … to make sure that, if there are people from India who want to move to Canada, and want to get involved in the trucking industry, for them to know the expectations of the training that we have here in Canada,” said Dreeshen.

Roughly

one in five of Canada’s truck drivers

have South Asian backgrounds.

A recent

report published in National Post

argued there’s not enough publicly available data to determine whether South Asian drivers are disproportionately at-fault for deadly incidents on Canada’s highways.

Dreeshen said that Alberta recently started tracking the

safety records of individual drivers

, but added these records don’t yet include nationality. Prior to the change, which started on Dec. 1, accidents would go on the record of the driver’s company.

His comments came just before Friday’s report

from the Alberta Next Panel

, which recommended that the province hold a referendum in 2026 on exercising more control over immigration.

Dreeshen declined to say where trucking would fit in a “made in Alberta” immigration system, but did say the changes would focus on better tailoring immigration to the province’s economic needs.

“I think what it is going to look like, in 2026, is something similar to what Quebec has; where the province can indicate to the federal government, these are the types of immigrants that we want, this is the amount of immigration we think our province can handle,” said Dreeshen.

The House of Commons transportation committee just wrapped up hearings on the

changing landscape of Canadian trucking

. Committee chair, Liberal MP Peter Schiefke, didn’t respond to a request to comment on this story. Emails to the offices of federal Immigration Minister Lena Diab and federal Transport Minister Steve MacKinnon also went unanswered.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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Canada is the top coffee drinking country outside of Europe.

Coffee prices in Canada have skyrocketed.

A recent report

from RBC shows coffee prices went up by almost 28 per cent between 2024 and last month. Food inflation overall was just 4.2 per cent year-over-year.

“Dry weather in Brazil and Vietnam curbed coffee production and exports to the world,” the RBC report says.

Statistics Canada reported that “by type, the increase was sharper for roasted or ground coffee (35.2 per cent), but less so for instant and other coffee (19.7 per cent).”

The average household expenditure on coffee has risen from $64 to $169 since 2010, StatCan reported.

According to

 
Remitly

, 72 per cent of Canadians drink coffee every day, making Canada the frontrunner in

 
per-capita coffee consumption

outside Europe.

Most of the world’s coffee is grown in the “bean belt,” the area around the equator. In this limited area, Colombia and Brazil are two of the largest coffee producers.

Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, said the price that farmers ask for their coffee, before retail, also known as the “farmgate price,” has gone up 266 per cent in five years.

Charlebois said he had visited both Brazil and Colombia in recent months and noticed a significant lack of production due to a lack of sun and early frost. Coffee needs a predictable climate and constant weather patterns, both of which have not happened recently. Brazil and Colombia have also faced intense droughts, rising temperatures, and volatile weather conditions. This has led to reduced yields and difficulties while harvesting. The reduced yields have led to tighter global supply chains, causing higher prices.

Charlebois also attributed the rise in coffee prices to a significant increase in demand for coffee in Asia, with many middle-class families making coffee their drink of choice, rather than tea. According to

Coffee Intelligence

, coffee consumption in Asia has gone up almost 15 per cent since 2018. The site also reports that China’s coffee consumption has gone up by nearly 150 per cent in the past decade.

Another factor driving up the price of coffee is the trade war with the U.S.. The United States slapped tariffs on coffee and Canada followed suit. However, Canada dropped its coffee tariffs in September and the U.S. dropped theirs in November.

Charlebois said Canadians shouldn’t expect coffee prices to drop any time soon.

“I think we’re going to be facing some production headwinds for a while,” he said.

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Canada will scrap its Remote Area Border Crossing program in place of mandatory telephone or in-person reporting in 2026.

Canada will scrap a border entry program next year that made it easy for thousands of people annually, predominantly Americans, to travel into remote areas of Ontario and Manitoba without having to report to a customs checkpoint.

Starting next September, those people will have to trek to one of those border stations or use one of the yet-to-be-established designated telephone reporting sites when entering Canada.

Through the

Remote Area Border Program (RABC)

, set to end next September, the Canada Border Service agency issued annual permits allowing pre-approved Canadian and U.S. residents to freely cross the border in five remote and sparsely populated areas.

In Ontario, and starting from the east, those areas include Cockburn Island and the Sault Ste. Marie’s upper lock system on the border with Michigan, waterways from Pigeon River all the way to the Lake of the Woods, and the entirety of the Canadian shores on Lake Superior. Also affected is Minnesota’s Northwest Angle area bordering southern Manitoba, which is only accessible by water or by road by driving through about 40 miles of the Canadian province.

The program “historically” attracts about 11,000 members annually, according to CBSA, 90 per cent of whom are Americans.

As reported by the

Ely Echo

in Minnesota, permit holders largely consist of paddlers, fishing guides on both sides of the border and their guests, and U.S. residents who own property in Canada.

The agency said introducing telephone reporting in place of RABC improves border security and “builds on processes already in place across Canada, where travellers are required to report to the CBSA from designated sites every time they enter Canada.

“This process ensures a consistent level of security and expectations of compliance for everyone,” it stated in

a press release.

 A driftwood log at the end of the Agawa Bay campground beach in Lake Superior Provincial Park. Across the water is Michigan and Minnesota.

Telephone reporting for general aviation and private boats entering Canada was introduced around the turn of the century in the

Canada-United States Accord on Our Shared Border

as CANPASS. It was expanded in 2022 with the creation of “telephone reporting site/land” designation, allowing travellers by other “non-commercial conveyances” to enter at designated sites.

According to

CBSA

, at the site, only the person operating the vehicle can exit to report upon arrival, at which time they can use a phone on site or their own device to contact the telephone reporting centre. Not unlike any border crossing, they must then supply all the necessary information for themselves and all passengers — identification, length of stay, reason for travelling, any required declarations, and so on.

“The location of the new telephone reporting sites will be decided in the coming months in consultation with Indigenous communities, local businesses and law enforcement partners,” CBSA stated.

The agency said the measure “will also more closely align with how travellers report to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)” in remote areas on their side of the border.

CBP doesn’t appear to employ a specific land-based reporting system, but it does use an app called

Reporting Offsite Arrival – Mobile (ROAM)

, which allows pleasure boaters and other “travellers arriving in remote locations” to report entry into the U.S. via their own device or “a tablet located at local businesses to satisfy reporting requirements.

National Post has contacted both CBSA and CBP for more information about their programs and remote border entry.

CBSA’s decision ends over a year of uncertainty for RBAC permit holders. Last September, Canada put the program on pause, suspending all new applications and renewals, while it underwent a review, as reported by the

Duluth News Tribune.

CBSA later extended existing permits issued after Sept. 1, 2023, until the end of 2025, the

Grand Forks Herald

reported earlier this year. Those were extended again, this time until the program ends officially on Sept. 14, 2026.

Some U.S. politicians have expressed concern about the impending change.

Minnesota Congressman Peter Stauber, in a letter sent to Canadian Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, outgoing Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman, and CBSA President Erin O’Gorman, said he and his peers were disappointed with the end of RABC, but encouraged by the promise of expanded telephone reporting.

But

the letter

, co-signed by fellow Republicans Jack Bergman, a Michigan congressman, and North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, was not without reproach.

“Unfortunately, the nearly two-year review of the RABC program has been marred by uncertainty and retracted statements,” they wrote.

“During this time, the Canadian government has been unable to respond to the questions permit holders have posed.”

The letter also asks Canadian officials to explain how stakeholder needs will be handled during and after the program ends, whether access will be restricted in any way, and seeks clarity on the access rules for current users. It also encourages them to visit the remote communities to “engage with local elected officials, businesses, and property owners” affected by the change.

Donny Sorlie, owner of the Chippewa Inn on the Canadian side of Saganaga Lake, was cautiously optimistic about the changes.

“It very well could be a good thing, as long as they get it figured out,” Sorlie told

Paddle and Portage Magazine

. “Until then, we’re still feeling a bit left in the dark here.”

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Minister of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin rises in the House of Commons during Question Period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025.

OTTAWA

— As Prime Minister Mark Carney ushers in a new era of climate policy for the Liberals, a key decision is hanging over the governing party’s approach to electric vehicles. 

Namely, will the 2035 sales mandate be kept or outright repealed?

The regulation currently requires manufacturers to hit certain sales targets for zero-emission vehicles, with those targets progressively rising until all new vehicle sales are zero emissions by 2035.

Keean Nembhard, a spokesman for Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, said in a statement that “we will have more to share in the new year,” regarding the results of the 60-day review and the future of its zero-emission vehicle policy.

That timeline is beyond what some in the industry had expected, as automakers seek clarity on the regulation they spent this year urging Carney to repeal, citing the plummeting sales of electric vehicles and the ongoing Canada-U.S. trade war, where the auto industry has found itself on the frontlines.

“We’re very disappointed that there has not been a decision communicated to the auto industry, and we’ve been urging the federal government and the prime minister to move quickly on this and make a decision,” said Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, which represents Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. 

The Liberals’ Nov. 4 budget stated that the government would “announce next steps on electric vehicles in the coming weeks.”

The government now expects that to happen early next year, as it works through changes to the policy.

Carney launched a 60-day review of the policy back in September, pausing the requirement for 2026, which would have mandated that 20 per cent of new vehicle sales be zero-emission.

The review was launched amid concerns that hitting that target was unrealistic. Kingston, who, along with auto CEOs, met with Carney over the summer, warns that to comply, manufacturers would have to spend “billions” on purchasing credits from other electric-vehicle makers, such as Tesla, or restrict the sales of gas-powered and hybrid vehicles.

“Companies are making decisions about production and inventory for the 2027 model year. And the longer that this goes on and this uncertainty hangs out there, the more damage and cost is put on the industry,” he said.

Manufacturers can also comply by spending money to build out charging infrastructure.

While automakers say the Liberals ought to scrap the policy, other stakeholders have urged the government to maintain the rule, but with changes, such as dropping the target that all new vehicle sales must be zero-emission by 2035.

Electric Mobility Canada, a national association representing the electric transportation industry, wrote in its submission as part of the government’s review that it should “eliminate” the 100 per cent target, “to remove a political flashpoint that is not necessary to maintain momentum in the transition.”

Clean Energy Canada, a think-tank based out of Simon Fraser University, recommended the same, instead suggesting the government lower the 2035 target to between 90 to 95 per cent.

“Reducing the (100 per cent) target could enhance public support by removing the perceived ‘ban’ on gas-powered vehicles and offer options for ‘hard-to-electrify’ jurisdictions, while still achieving significant emission reductions and improving (electric vehicle) affordability and availability,” it wrote in its submission.

Both British Columbia and Quebec, two provinces with their own sales mandates, revised their own policies to remove the 100 per cent target by 2035, with Quebec lowering it to 90 per cent, and B.C. stating it wanted to align its provincial policy with whatever the federal government releases.

Quebec also relaxed requirements for what counted as a zero-emission vehicle, including on its list non-plug-in hybrid vehicles, which have smaller batteries. The federal definition only includes plug-in battery hybrids and fully electric vehicles or ones powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been one of the most vocal critics of the federal policy, arguing that it amounts to a “ban on gas vehicles” and an affront to rural living, where driving remains essential.

Nembhard said the government received “considerable input from stakeholders, provinces and territories and Indigenous organizations” during the course of its 60-day review, which he said was launched to address “changes in tariffs and trade, economic uncertainty and shifts in the automotive industry.”

“Its aim was to ensure (Electric Vehicle Availability Standard) continues to reflect market realities, remains effective for Canadians, and does not place undue burden on automakers.”

Rachel Doran, executive director of Clean Energy Canada, said she believes the most important thing is that Canada makes policy choices that guarantee “affordable (electric vehicles) are available to Canadians.”

“And I will say right now, that is not the case.”

Doran points to moves like the federal government’s decision to suspend the purchase rebates for electric vehicles earlier this year, as well as the levying of a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles, which are cheaper to purchase.

The latter remains a must to maintain, say leaders in Canada’s auto industry, who say it is not only essential that Canada stay aligned with the U.S., which first took the step under former U.S. president Joe Biden, given how integrated the two auto markets are, but also to protect the domestic industry against unfair advantages of competing against these vehicles, which Beijing has heavily subsidized and produced using less rigorous labour practices.

Doran nevertheless points to examples like the European Union, where more affordable models of electric vehicles remain available, including from Japanese and South Korean automakers.

“So we really do have kind of a problem here that needs to be solved.”

Despite campaigning on plans to reintroduce a purchase incentive, Carney’s government has yet to do so.

An internal briefing note, signed by officials within Transport Canada last December as the government prepared to announce a pause on the rebate program, which was released to National Post under federal access-to-information legislation, warned that ending the program was expected to be met with “strong criticism from industry, environmental organizations, consumers and other levels of government.”

Officials stated that around $2.9 billion had been spent on the incentive program since it was launched back in 2019 and that, as of November 2024, it had helped Canadians buy or lease more than 519,000 zero-emission vehicles and grow its market share.

Automakers and environmental advocates alike have blamed the ending of the program, which the federal government announced back in January, because it had run out of its allotted money, for the dramatic drop in sales.

Rick Smith, executive director of the Canadian Climate Institute, another think-tank, said scrapping the mandate altogether would “grind to a halt decarbonization in the transportation sector.”

Next to the oil and gas sector, the transportation sector remains the second-highest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Smith said the regulation, which the institute supports, is only part of the overall policy picture he believes the federal government must fulfil to make it easier for Canadians to make the switch to electric vehicles.

“Our hope is, in the new year, that the federal government make good on its commitments to bringing back purchase subsidies,” Smith said, adding it also needs to boost the building of public charging infrastructure.

With files from The Canadian Press

National Post

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