Unable to partake in the federal leaders’ debates this week, Maxime Bernier found a different medium to attack his opponents and push the People’s Party of Canada’s platform: The Tucker Carlson Show.

In the roughly hour-long face-to-face interview

posted Wednesday afternoon

, the former Stephen Harper-era cabinet minister was equally critical of Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, calling them both “fake patriots.”

“They are using the fear of the tariffs and the economic situation in Canada to promote themselves with a fake patriotism,” he claimed at one point, lamenting how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs became the focal point of the election.

“The campaign is not Carney against Poilievre. No, both of them are fighting Trump and the tariffs.”

The duo also spent considerable time talking about former prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom Bernier claims destroyed Canada “economically, socially and culturally,” and the PPC’s focus on ending mass immigration as the most important election issue.

It’s hard to overstate how dystopian and threatening Canada has become. An update from longtime Canadian government official Maxime Bernier.

(0:00) Who Was Justin Trudeau Really Working For?
(7:53) The Invasion of Canada
(9:19) Pierre Poilievre Is a Fraud
(13:25) The Attempts to… pic.twitter.com/1X4W5vIgWE

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 16, 2025

Here’s more of what they said.

On Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre

While most Canadians likely see the Liberal and Tory leaders as opposed on many issues of greatest importance to Canadians, Bernier was content to lump them into the same pot on many, including Trump and the U.S., the carbon tax and climate change, war in Ukraine and Gaza, government spending and taxation, immigration policies and the

CSIS investigation into foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

“The Chinese Communist Party was giving money to some candidates of Chinese origin,” Bernier said, referring to a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report that suggested some members of parliament were “semi-witting or witting” participants.

“They said it, and we want to know the names of these people, but Poilievre and Carney, and Trudeau before that, they don’t know, ‘It’s a secret. We won’t tell you who these people are.’”

A February report from the public inquiry on foreign interference led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue

dismissed the notion of any “traitors” in parliament.

At one point, Carlson asked why the leaders, and Trudeau, “clearly … really hate Canadians.”

“What they like, it’s power,” he replied.

Bernier took separate shots at the main party leaders, too.

He referred to Carney as “the globallist-in-chief” for his association with the World Economic Forum and the United Nations.

“For Canadians right now, it’s like a Trudeau 2.1. But he looks more competent because he was the governor of the Bank of Canada.”

He said the former Bank of England governor is also getting a boost from mainstream media presenting his campaign in a more favourable way.

As for Poilievre, whom Carlson referred to at one point as a “pretty sinister fraud,” Bernier said his former colleague and the party are “Conservative” in name only. He also criticized their use of slogans and focusing on Trump as an enemy of Canada, while not explaining how he’ll end the deficit.

“They don’t want to do a campaign to help Canadians and put our country first. Now it’s all about, ‘Oh, the tariffs. We need to do counter tariffs,’” he said.

One of the principal slogans of Poilievre’s campaign is

“Canada first — for a change.”

On Justin Trudeau

The show’s cold open starts with Carlson asking who Trudeau was “working for.”

“I can tell you, Tucker, he was not working for us, for Canadians,” Bernier replied, quickly citing the restrictions Ottawa put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bernier was arrested in July 2021 after appearing at a small anti-restriction rally in southern Manitoba. He pleaded not guilty but was eventually fined over $2,000.

Bernier said he was “speaking about freedom” much the same as the Freedom Convoy participants were during their weeks-long protest in downtown Ottawa, which resulted in Trudeau’s government enacting the Emergencies Measures Act.

“But at the end, we were successful, because a couple of months after that freedom convoy, all these authoritarian measures disappeared,” Bernier claimed.

At a couple of points in the interview, Carlson tries to bait Bernier into talking about the Medical Assistance in Dying Act, suggesting Trudeau’s government was paying to kill “tens of thousands” of citizens and wondering why the former Liberal boss “is not in jail for destroying an entire nation.”

At another point, he probes the PPC leader about whether he or anyone in the Canadian government believes Trudeau is the son of former Cuban President Fidel Castro,

a myth that has long since been debunked.

Bernier instead pivots to another topic, such as alleging Trudeau was also responsible for doubling the national debt during his 10 years in office, from $600 billion in 2015 to $1.2 trillion in 2025.

He said Trudeau created “the perfect storm” by allowing “mass immigration” to Canada in tandem, resulting in a declining GDP.

“That’s the legacy of Justin Trudeau,” he said.

On immigration

In fact, Bernier told Carlson he had hoped to make “mass immigration” the focal point of the election. He references the term more than a dozen times during their chat.

“People don’t understand that last year in Canada, we had 1.3 million foreigners coming to our country. For a country of 40 million people, that is mass immigration.”

Bernier said neither leader will address the topic during the campaign because both the Liberals and Conservatives are “pandering to these ethnic communities for votes” to secure more ridings and achieve a majority government.

A PPC government, he said, would impose a moratorium on immigration to allow for Canada’s housing sector to catch up to the existing demand.

“If you are the leader of a nation, your first responsibility is to work for your people and it’s immoral what they’re doing right now because they’re helping foreigners more than Canadians.”

• People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier aims to run in Manitoba byelection
• Poilievre says PPC leader Bernier no threat in Manitoba byelection

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.

Canadian universities are receiving increased interest from prospective American students in the midst of federal cuts to U.S. institutions and revocations of foreign student visas.

The University of Toronto is reporting that it received many more U.S. applications by its January deadline for 2025 programs.

“The university is seeing a meaningful increase in applications over previous recent years for the 2025-26 academic year from potential U.S. students,” a spokesperson for the U of T media relations office told National Post in an email.

Similarly, the University of Waterloo, renowned for its engineering and computer science faculties, is reporting an increase in interest from south of the border.

Some faculties such as “engineering have seen increased interest and applications from potential students. Anecdotally, we have seen an increase in U.S. visitors to the UW Visitors Centre on campus, and web traffic that originates in the U.S. has increased by 15 per cent since September 2024,” David George-Cosh, senior manager of media relations at Waterloo, told National Post in an email.

It should be noted that the closing date for programs at both universities was the end of January, shortly after the presidential inauguration and prior to the increasing crackdown of the Trump administration on U.S. universities. Therefore, any increased interest in U.S. citizens coming to Canada may not be fully realized for some time, one university official said on background.

UBC Vancouver is reporting a 27 per cent jump in graduate program applications for the 2025-26 academic year, as of March. That compares to all of 2024.

The B.C institution told the

Reuters News Agency

, that it reopened admissions to U.S. citizens, with plans to fast-track applications from American students hoping to begin studies in September.

Gage Averill, UBC Vancouver’s provost and vice president of academics, told Reuters that the spike in U.S. applications has been spurred on by the Trump administration revoking foreign students’ visas as well increased scrutiny of their social media activity.

In particular, he noted “the development of a centre that’s reading foreign students’ social media accounts.”

However, Canadian institutions must contend with their own challenge — the federal government cap placed for a second year on the number of international students allowed to enter the country.

There are fewer spots for international students in 2025 than in 2024. “For 2025, IRCC plans to issue a total of 437,000 study permits, which represents a 10% decrease from the 2024 cap,” said Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada

in a January statement

.

The IRCC has issued a breakdown of the 2025 target for study permits by province or territory. However, there are no specifications regarding how granting admissions should be distributed – to U.S. applicants or otherwise.

U of T media relations responded broadly regarding that issue, telling National Post: “Our capacity to enroll international students fits within our provincial allocation based on the federal limits.”

• Travel ban fears prompt U.S. colleges to advise international students to return before Trump inauguration
• Why some Canadian researchers feel threatened by a questionnaire sent by Trump administration

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

This week, John Ivison is joined by regular panelists, Ian Brodie and Eugene Lang, to discuss the fall-out from the French language debate on Wednesday night and to put it in the context of the race to elect the 45th Canadian Parliament. Brodie is a former chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper, and Lang was chief of staff to two Liberal defence ministers.

Lang said that Liberal leader Mark Carney didn’t dominate the debate. “But he didn’t need to. He needed to get out of there without being really beat up badly. And I don’t think he was beat up badly,” he said.

Brodie conceded that Carney emerged relatively unscathed. “He’s at a disadvantage since he obviously doesn’t really speak French. And he’s at a bit of a disadvantage (because) he’s also in his first televised leaders debate at this level … I thought he was on the defensive, but nonetheless, didn’t really speak to any serious policy issues. He had to say: ‘Sorry, I’m not Justin Trudeau. I just showed up here.’ But didn’t really have an answer to how the team and the program is any different from what we’ve had over the last 10 years.”

There have been some Conservative commentators suggesting that Carney’s admission that “I’ve just arrived” was the equivalent of John Turner’s admission in the 1984 leaders’ debate with Brian Mulroney that he “didn’t have an option” but to proceed with Pierre Trudeau’s patronage appointments. Ivison asked if disassociating himself from Justin Trudeau’s government works for Carney?

Brodie said he doesn’t think that’s a plausible argument. “I think that when we get to the ballot box, Canadians are looking to make a judgment on the last 10 years of a country that’s poorer, weaker, and more divided. For better or for worse, he’s the guy who’s leading that party. And over the course of the past three weeks, we’ve seen all these folks who were major figures in the Trudeau government, who had planned to retire, now coming back to sign up for Mr. Carney’s team.”

Ivison suggested that Carney is still trying to straddle being the agent of change and being the defender of Trudeau policies like dental, pharma and daycare.

Lang said that is an inherent contradiction.

“I guess what he’s trying to say is the leader of the Liberal Party changes everything in the Liberal Party, even if the leader of the Liberal Party doesn’t fundamentally change the cabinet, because the cabinet hasn’t fundamentally changed. And there’s a lot of policy continuity. They’re keeping a lot of the things in place, apart from the apparently hated carbon tax. So there is a tension there at a minimum, if not a contradiction.

“But it doesn’t seem to be hurting because he has the right demeanour for the times. I think that’s really his great strength. In a normal election, I don’t think this demeanour would work very well. Normally we measure leaders around intangibles like charisma and personality. None of that seems to really matter this election because of the crisis (with the U.S.)

“He has a very even temperament, seems for the most part, or a calming sort of bland, almost bureaucratic tone that normally I don’t think would work very well, but seems to be fit for the moment,” he said.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre attempted to appear amiable, avoided the slogans that have been so prominent in his campaign and concentrated on the affordability issue.

But he was often on the defensive, not so much because of the other leaders, but because of questions that asked him about imposing pipelines on First Nations, returning Haitian refugees, cutting international aid and abolishing the CBC.

Brodie said Poilievre faced challenges at two levels. “One, he had to continue to prosecute the case that we’ve had 10 years of poor, weaker, divided (government). ‘Do you want four more years of that?’ And I think on that front, he actually did pretty well. I’m not sure that Carney had great answers about how much of a change his next four years, if he got them, would be.

“And, secondly, there’s the prosecutor case on the individual issues. I know some of the questions were not in Mr. Polievre’s wheelhouse. But I think he did well considering these are probably issues he doesn’t really especially want to talk about. But on housing, cost of living, and on getting our own economic house in order to go toe to toe with Trump for the next four years, I thought those were good answers. He didn’t lose his cool….(and) his advantage in the language, I think, showed through,” he said.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh did lose his cool with the moderator, Patrice Roy, at one point, complaining that he wasn’t being given enough time to talk about healthcare, which was not a designated topic on the night. But his team was happy with the way he went after the other leaders — attacking Carney for being the chair of Brookfield Asset Management when it bought rental housing units and then jacked up prices; going after Bloc Québecois leader Yves-François Blanchet for being as “useless as the monarchy” in voting against dental and pharmacare; and for challenging Poilievre for wanting to make Canada more like the U.S.

Lang said he wouldn’t be doing any high-fives if he were Singh, given the NDP’s precarious position in the polls.

“But you’re right, he did have to show a bit of fire in the belly, maybe a bit more energy than the others…He tried to really get people to engage on the subject of health care a number of times when they were discussing subjects that had nothing to do with health care. He’s trying to get that on the agenda because he believes, I guess, that they have some brand strength and some credibility on healthcare that the other parties don’t have. It was the usual kind of NDP shibboleths, if not ideology around healthcare, there was nothing new there at all. But clearly he sees that as an issue where maybe he could make some gains. I’m surprised he didn’t try to take more credit for this allegedly popular dental care program,” he said.

Brodie said Singh’s attack on Carney over buying up low-cost housing and that, as chair of Brookfield, he  then jacked up the rents, was the attack line of the evening. “I thought that was the best single point with a proof point, probing at one of Mr. Carney’s weaknesses. I wish he’d led with that at the beginning of the campaign. It might be doing better if he had shown that kind of focus off the top of the campaign,” he said.

On healthcare, Brodie said the NDP has a specific interest in healthcare because it relies on healthcare unions for support. “They have to talk about what a great system it is because their supporters are the only people who still believe that. Everybody else is looking for some bigger change here in order to get just basic access to basic tests, as those wait lists continue to grow and people find their health is suffering. I’m not surprised that the Liberals don’t want to talk about healthcare. It doesn’t work for them the way that it used to. It really only works for the NDP because they have to keep those healthcare unions (happy). They are the only people who think the current system is working because after all, it is working for them,” he said.

Ivison said Blanchet had a couple of good moments — one, when he called Carney’s fiscal plan “a Harry Potter financial framework,” and again when he said Ottawa’s intervention at the Supreme Court on Quebec’s Bill 21 means “Quebec taxpayers are paying to oppose a Quebec bill in a Quebec jurisdiction.”

Lang said the jurisdictional issue may not work as well in this election than in previous ones.

“But I thought he had the best substantive critique of the night, with his reference to the Harry Potter magic that would be required to make not just the tax cuts affordable, but all of the numbers add up. I noticed that the media is criticizing the Liberals and the Conservatives for not releasing costed platforms before the debates. (That) is very strange. If you’re releasing an election platform on the Saturday of Easter weekend, you really don’t want a lot of scrutiny paid to it. What they’re both (Liberals and Conservatives) offering, and Blanchet was driving at this, is what I call ‘the trifecta’ — significant tax cuts in the case of Mr. Poilievre,  non-trivial tax cuts in the case of Mr. Carney; significant spending increases on the part of Mr. Carney and non-trivial spending increases on the part of Mr. Poilievre; and, reduced deficits in both cases, all in the context of no material cuts to government programs. So no pain for anyone. All in the context of the worst trade war in a hundred years.

“This is the trifecta, or as Van Morrison would say, The Great Deception. This kind of thing has never been achieved by any federal government. It’s probably not achievable in any context, especially in the current context, where the projections are that the Canadian economy is probably going to go into a recession, when tax revenue will go down and the automatic stabilizer expenditures on things like Employment Insurance are destined to go up,” he said.

With 10 campaigning days left, Lang said the polls appear to be converging, as the Conservatives eat into the Liberal lead.

“But (they’re) running out of time. Maybe if you had another six weeks, those lines would continue to naturally converge and you could have a competitive election. If those polls are correct, the election day will not be a competitive election unless something happens over the next 10 days. I don’t think Poilievre can fundamentally change that dynamic. I think it would take an exogenous force or a scandal in the Liberal campaign to really change it,” he said.

The polls do suggest a narrowing in the race, but most still give the Liberals a six point lead. Carney remains more popular than Poilievre, and Donald Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state remains a live issue. None of that is good news for the Conservatives.

Brodie said he was surprised that in the past week, Poilievre chewed at Carney’s lead, half a point a day.

He attributed that to Trump staying out of the campaign and the continual reference to 10 years of poor Liberal government.

“I don’t think there’s a need for a knockout punch (in the English language debate),” he said. “What I think (is needed) is five or six lines of attack against Mr. Carney that can be replicated over social media and traditional media over the next seven days to accelerate that kind of half-point a day erosion of Mr. Carney’s support. He has to be able to accelerate that kind of half-pointed day for the next 10 days. If he can move half a point a day for the next five days, he comes very close to tying in the popular vote. And if he can accelerate that to three quarters of a point, he wins.

“The challenge in this debate is not to throw a 50-yard pass down the field, to use a terrible sports metaphor. He’s got to move that little piece every day where people start to have doubts about: ‘Yeah, who is this guy Carney? What is his plan for the future of the country? The Trump thing looks like it might be more manageable than we thought three weeks ago’.”

“He’s got just enough time, if he can speed up the erosion of Mr. Carney’s support, to pull that off for election day. It’s a different campaign than the Conservatives were planning before Christmas, needless to say. It’s a different campaign than they would have run in January. But I think it’s the campaign that they’re faced with right now.”

• Federal parties contend with the Danielle Smith effect
• Why all leaders — except Carney — said they don’t buy U.S. strawberries in French debate

OTTAWA — What is going on with the polls this

federal election

campaign?

Click here to review the Q&A with Leger pollster Andrew Enns.

Things are looking tighter between Mark Carney’s Liberals and

Pierre Poilievre

’s

Conservatives

with just over 10 days left before the votes are tallied. That’s still a massive and shocking shift for the Tories, who had held a strong lead for over a year before

President Donald Trump

began threatening Canada’s economy and Liberals brought in

Carney

as their new leader, after the resignation of the unpopular Justin Trudeau in January.

How did the Conservatives suddenly fall into second place, despite the fact that their polling support numbers are higher than they’ve been for the last two elections?

In fact, some Conservatives are skeptical that the polls truly reflect the reality on the ground, given that

Poilievre has been holding massive rallies

, at times with more than 10,000-people strong, and Carney’s campaign has been unsettled by controversies and gaffes. Are the polls really capturing all the Conservatives’ supporters who tend to be younger and have been less politically engaged in the past?

Meanwhile, the

NDP

’s support appears to have collapsed compared to previous campaigns and the

Bloc Québécois

is struggling to keep up with the Liberals for support in Quebec. Where have these supporters gone, and why did they suddenly switch so early in the campaign? Does that also mean they could switch back? What happened to Quebec’s strong nationalist voters?

Well, it depends who you ask. Different pollsters are showing different results, with some polls even showing the Conservatives tied with the Liberals or in the lead. The latest Postmedia-Leger poll also shows that Liberal support is overwhelmingly based on fear of Trump, while Conservative support is heavily based on hope for a better future. Results from various pollsters nevertheless show consistently that Carney is perceived by more voters to be able to handle the tariff war with Trump, while Poilievre is considered stronger on domestic issues including cost of living, immigration, and law and order.

Andrew Enns, executive vice president of Leger, the official pollster for Postmedia and the pollster with a consistent record of accuracy answered reader questions on Thursday. The latest Postmedia-Leger poll came out Wednesday, and Andrew took questions about it, about what’s really happening with the polling this election campaign, and how pollsters are measuring support given the difficulty in reaching certain segments of the population.
The conversation was moderated by Stuart Thomson.

This is a historic election and a lot could still change in the next 10 days. Review Enns’ answers in the comment section below.

National Post

OTTAWA — The microphone was cut only once during the French-language debate on Wednesday night, and it was to stop NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh from speaking.

Near the end of the debate, Singh accused other leaders of wanting to cut health care when Radio-Canada veteran anchor Patrice Roy, who was moderating the event, said he needed to move on to other subjects because time was limited.

Roy called Singh’s name two times, before counting to three. Singh didn’t stop.

“Cut the mic,” Roy told his producers. Turning to the NDP leader, he said he had let him go on a little longer earlier in the debate, but added he now needed “to speed it up”.

Two minutes later, Singh was asked about Quebec’s controversial use of the notwithstanding clause to protect the French language. He said he agreed with the need to protect French and quickly pivoted to attack Roy, whom he accused of silencing him.

“During this debate, I tried to raise the question of health a few times and Mr. Roy stopped me several times,” he said. “Look at the time on the clock,” he added.

The clock indeed showed that Singh had spoken the least out of all the four leaders on stage at 18:46 minutes. In comparison, the others were closer to 22 or 23 minutes.

“It’s a question of identity in this country. I’m passionate about questions of health and every time I tried to speak about it, Mr. Roy stopped me. It’s unfair,” Singh added.

The moderator said the subject of health came up earlier in the debate but ultimately let the NDP leader say his piece about how he believes other leaders will cut health care.

In the end, Singh ended up speaking for a total of 22:10 minutes, whereas the other leaders spoke closer to 25 minutes.

In his closing remarks, Roy apologized for having cut his microphone.

Speaking after the debate, Singh said he felt very “passionate” in the moment.

“Ultimately, the (time) difference wasn’t as big, but initially I was worried about it,” said Singh about the original time discrepancy between him and the other leaders.

The leader of the New Democrats said he was “really proud” that he was able to make the case to Canadians that his party would “stand up” for free and universal health care.

“It is so fundamental to who we are as a country. We fundamentally believe that we should take care of each other, and health care represents that value. So, I raised that,” he said.

Singh said he spoke with Roy after the debate and there was no bad blood between them.

The English-language debate is set to take place Thursday evening at 7 p.m. ET.

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

• As it happened: Mark Carney attacked from all sides in French leaders’ debate
• Jabs and jokes as leaders fight each other for Francophones’ vote during first debate

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