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OTTAWA

— An increasing majority of Canadians view the federal government’s goal of seeing all new vehicle sales be zero-emission by 2035 as “unrealistic” and believe the rule ought to the scrapped, a new survey suggests.

The polling firm Leger surveyed 1,617 respondents on their thoughts about the federal sales mandate for electric vehicles at the same time as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government faces pressure from industry to abandon the policy.

The survey introduced the question by describing the mandate as key to the federal government’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

“Currently, the federal government plans to prohibit the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035, meaning the only new vehicles for sale (10) years from now will be zero-emission vehicles, like electric. Which of the following viewpoints comes closest to yours?” it says.

Leger says 71 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that “the target is unrealistic and will cost too much. It should be rolled back.”

Another 29 per cent said they agreed with the position, “this target is necessary and should be kept in place despite the challenges it poses.”

The online survey was conducted between Aug. 1-4. Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not employ random sampling of

the population.

Asked whether they believe that “it is realistic to prohibit the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035,” 39 per cent of respondents answered that they felt it was “not at all realistic,” with 30 per cent saying they felt it was “not very realistic.”

Twenty per cent of respondents answered that they believed it was “somewhat realistic,” and another six per cent said it was “very realistic.”

Andrew Enns, an executive vice-president at Leger, said that from the last time they asked this question in September 2023, the number of those who said the goal was realistic dropped by six percentage points.

Even in Quebec, he said, which is a province where research shows voters tend to be more sensitive towards environmental issues, the number of those who felt the policy was realistic dropped by around 18 points.

“They’re increasingly becoming skeptical,” said Enns.

Looking at the data, he said it is clear the government faces “a really significant uphill battle to convince Canadians that this policy is a good policy to pursue.”

Under the Liberals’ mandate, all new vehicle sales in Canada would have to be zero-emission by 2035, beginning with a sales target of 20 per cent by 2026, before increasing to 30 per cent by 2030.

Besides the ongoing trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has targeted the automotive sector with tariffs, declining sales have been the other big concern automakers cite when they say the government’s 2026 target is unachievable and that the policy should be shelved.

Leger’s survey asked respondents why they believe electric vehicle sales have fallen as drastically as they have in the past year.

Statistics Canada reported that in the first quarter of this year, sales of zero-emission vehicles represented 8.7 per cent of new vehicle registrations, down from 23 per cent in the previous year.

According to the survey, 48 per cent of respondents said that even with government subsidies, they believe the price of these vehicles to be too expensive.

Another 39 per cent cited the lack of charging infrastructure, while 37 per cent of respondents said EVs “were not suitable to people’s needs,” and 32 per cent pointed to the lack of confidence in the vehicles themselves.

“The Canadians who have really lost confidence in this mandate

— females, individuals 35 and older,” Enns said.

He said, given such data and intensifying calls from automakers asking the Liberal government to scrap the mandate, Carney may pivot.

“This is a government that hasn’t been shy to reverse course on what has been sort of, I would argue, some pretty bedrock policies of the previous government.”

Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, whose portfolio includes setting the targets for the mandate, has said the government will keep talking to industry to explore “flexibility.”

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OTTAWA — Canadians are split on whether Canada should go into trade negotiations with the U.S. with elbows up or down when it comes to retaliatory tariffs, according to a new poll.

The Leger/Postmedia poll suggests that 45 per cent of Canadians still believe Canada’s position vis-à-vis U.S. President Donald Trump should be “elbows up.” That means that Canada should impose counter-tariffs on all new U.S. border levies, even if it risks further retaliation from the Trump administration.

But on the other hand, 41 per cent of respondents said they’d prefer Canada’s response be “measured” and focus more on getting a new trade deal even if it includes some tariffs on Canadian goods.

The split among Canadians puts Prime Minister Mark Carney in somewhat of an “awkward position” as he must navigate conflicting views on how to deal with an erratic and unpredictable Trump administration, said Leger executive vice-president Andrew Enns.

On the one hand are those who still believe in the “eye for an eye” approach with the U.S., and on the other hand is the growing number of Canadians who favour a slightly more conciliatory and measured approach.

“I think there’s been a bit of a tempering, a bit of a diminishment of the ‘elbows up’ aggressive approach. It’s still very present, and you know, not to be ignored,” Enns said.

“But I certainly would say that there’s a stronger sort of view now starting to show up in Canadian opinion that says, ‘Well hold on here, maybe we ought to think this through, let’s not be hasty.”

The new survey is in stark contrast to polling just six months ago, when a substantial 73 per cent of respondents told Leger they supported dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs against any U.S. border levy on Canadian goods.

For Enns, it means many Canadians — and particularly Gen Xers and Boomers over 55 years old who expressed particularly fierce Canadian patriotism earlier this year — are having a moment of “sober second thought” as the trade war with the U.S. drags on.

The shift in public sentiment could also be a reflection of the change in tone from Carney himself. During the Liberal leadership race in February, Carney said he supported suggestions of dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs.

But since becoming prime minister, he has not retaliated to any of Trump’s new tariffs on such key Canadian sectors as steel, aluminum and automobiles. In fact, he suggested last week that Canada may remove some tariffs on U.S. imports if it’s beneficial to Canadian industry.

“When we first started to feel the brunt of President Trump’s trade aggression, you know, Canadians were much more bullish, much more aggressive in terms of retaliation,” Enns noted.

“The temperature has come down and you’ve got maybe a bit of sober second thought from Canadians saying that we have to figure out a way out of this and it’s not going to be with ah ‘I hit you, you hit me, I hit you back’ kind of thing.”

Canadians, however, aren’t overwhelmingly supportive of opening specific industries to American competition.

Roughly half the respondents said they were willing to allow American-owned airlines to fly domestic routes in Canada or authorize U.S. telecommunication companies to operate on Canadian soil.

Even fewer (33 per cent) are willing to loosen supply management rules protecting the Canadian dairy industry to let in more U.S. products.

“I would not say there’s a groundswell of support and a sort of blank cheque for Carney, for the prime minister, to open up negotiations on these things,” Enns said. “But it is kind of interesting that there’s about half the population that, all things equal, think ‘I’m open to hearing what that would look like’.”

Carney’s Liberals also appear to have peaked in their popularity with Canadians this summer, the poll suggests.

After months of rising support since the April 28 election, the Liberals’ popularity dipped for the first time, dropping two points to 46 per cent since July 7, the poll says.

But Carney’s party still holds a significant lead over Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives (36 per cent) and the NDP, led by interim head Don Davies (six per cent), who both saw their parties’ support increase by one point over the past month.

Total satisfaction in the Carney government also dipped slightly by one point though it remains high at 54 per cent.

Enns says it’s too early to say Carney’s honeymoon with Canadians is over, although the data suggest the prime minister may have found his popularity ceiling.

“We may have seen the high watermark for Liberal support, and as we head into the fall and some of these issues start to become more pointed… I would imagine that would be an interesting juncture for the government,” Enns said.

“It wouldn’t surprise me to see a very gradual narrowing of that gap” between Liberals and Conservatives come the fall, he added.

The polling firm Leger surveyed 1,617 respondents as part of an online survey conducted between Aug. 1-4. Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not use random sampling of the population.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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When Parliament resumes this fall, a Conservative MP says her party will introduce legislation to end consideration of immigration status when a judge is sentencing a convicted criminal who is not a citizen.

Michelle Rempel Garner, MP for Calgary Nose Hill and shadow minister for Immigration, said the practice has essentially resulted in a two-tier justice system that allows non-citizens to get lighter sentences than Canadians convicted of the same crime.

“This offends all principles of fairness that should be foundational to our justice system,” Rempel Garner said at a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday.

https://t.co/kz3R7vH5Nr

— Michelle Rempel Garner (@MichelleRempel) August 13, 2025

She pointed to a 2013 Supreme Court of Canada decision that she says has permitted judges to consider immigration status at the sentencing stage of a case.

In that case,

R. v. Pham

, the accused was a non‑citizen, convicted of two drug‑related offences. The trial judge imposed a sentence of two years’ imprisonment. However, the Supreme Court noted that under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a non‑citizen sentenced to a term of imprisonment of at least two years loses the right to appeal a removal order against him or her.

In reducing Pham’s sentence, the Supreme Court ruled that “collateral immigration consequences” are relevant factors that a sentencing judge may take into account in determining an appropriate sentence, but added that those consequences should not influence whether or not deportation occurs.

Rempel Garner cited a few recent cases that relied on the Pham ruling in handing down a sentence. In the first example, a permanent resident was convicted of trying to buy sex from a police officer posing as a 15-year-old in an online sting operation.

The Crown sought a 90-day jail sentence.

Ontario Court

judge Paul O’Marra wrote that a criminal record would likely prevent the offender from sponsoring his wife to also become a permanent resident, as well as delay the offender’s eligibility for Canadian citizenship and jeopardize his ability to become a licensed engineer.

O’Marra concluded that “a custodial sentence would be unduly harsh” and instead handed down a conditional discharge with 12 months of probation, which included three months of house arrest. In establishing the basis for his reasoning, he wrote: “The Pham decision stands for the principle that collateral consequences, while not determinative, can justify a lower sentence within the legal range to avoid disproportionate hardship,”

an Alberta case

cited by Rempel Garner, a man in Canada on a visitor’s permit was accused of groping an 18-year-old woman in a nightclub twice. The judge ruled that “in consideration of the devastating collateral immigration consequences to recording a conviction, I conclude that the appropriate sentence for Mr. Singh is a conditional discharge with a probation order of maximum duration, 3 years.”

Rempel Garner insists that when “it comes to sentencing non-citizens, Canada has essentially adopted a system of two-tier justice where judges can and have given lighter sentences to individuals who are non-citizens.”

The Conservatives are proposing a bill that would prohibit immigration discounts in sentencing. Great news!

Courts have been more lenient on non-citizens since 2013, at times going light on sex offenders to help them remain in Canada. That can change if Parliament wills it. https://t.co/jFNgxxKT3k

— Jamie Sarkonak (@sarkonakj) August 13, 2025

Rempel Garner said the Conservatives intend to introduce legislation to amend the Criminal Code. “Our bill will add a section after Section 718.202 … which will expressly outline that any potential impact of a sentence on the immigration status of a convicted non-citizen offender, or … their family members, should not be taken into consideration by a judge when issuing a sentence.”

Acknowledging that the vast majority of immigrants and temporary residents in Canada abide by the law, she said “removing non-citizens convicted of serious crimes is a no-brainer. Conservatives will always fight to protect Canadians, the value of our citizenship and the safety of every person who lives here. Becoming a Canadian is a privilege, not a right.”

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OTTAWA — The federal government’s “comprehensive spending review” is too narrow and won’t save enough tax dollars to put Ottawa back on solid footing, a new report will conclude.

The report, to be released Thursday by the C.D. Howe Institute, says the Carney government’s spending review will only include about one-third of all federal program spending and is expected to save no more than $22 billion by 2028-29. The think tank says that’s less than half the $50 billion in savings that are needed to return federal government coffers to “a fair and prudent path” that would see Ottawa’s debt-to-GDP ratio stop climbing.

The report, called “Federal Expenditure Review: Welcome, But Flawed,” says that the problem with focusing only on limited areas of federal spending is that it reduces the scope for improving the quality of spending and ensures that some programs that endure cuts will be superior to some that aren’t touched.

It’s better to review broadly and eliminate programs that aren’t working well, the report says, instead of across-the-board cuts that don’t assess program success. John Lester, the report’s author, said governments often opt for the across-the-board approach because it’s easier than evaluating countless programs and can realize tangible results more quickly.

“You need some time to evaluate those programs,” said Lester, a former federal government economist, during an interview. “It’s a big job.”

Lester recommends expanding the review to cover the missing two-thirds of program spending, imposing a multi-year cap on operating costs to deliver immediate restraint, and then assessing programs through a value-for-money lens. He also calls for transparent goals and clear communication to build public consensus around the various options.

The government’s spending review follows years of hefty deficits that have left Ottawa and future generations with mountains of debt.

National Post reported last month on an earlier C.D. Howe report that forecasted that the Carney government is poised to post a massive deficit of more than $92 billion during this fiscal year, almost double what was forecast just a few months ago by a non-partisan officer of Parliament.

Just four months ago, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projected that the federal deficit would fall to $50.1 billion during this fiscal year, a slight improvement over the $61.9 billion shortfall recorded in 2023-24. The PBO also said at that time that federal deficits would continue to fall in the ensuring years, unless there were new measures to cut revenue or increase spending.

If this fiscal year’s deficit turns out to be as hefty as projected, it would be the second-largest deficit in Canadian history, topped only by the $327.7 billion shortfall from the pandemic year of 2020-21.

That earlier report also forecasted deficits of more than $77 billion a year over the next four years, also huge increases over what had been expected.

The decline in Ottawa’s fiscal health is largely a result of increased spending on defence and other items, the economic effects of the Trump tariffs, cuts to personal income tax and the GST for first-time homebuyers, and the elimination of the digital services tax.

But the federal government’s fiscal situation is unclear because there hasn’t been a budget in well over a year. The government took the highly unusual step this year of waiting until the fall to release its annual budget, more than half-way through the fiscal year.

National Post

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A Montreal lawyer has filed a hate crime complaint after he and his wife, both Jewish, were confronted by a demonstrator at a Palestinian rally calling out “Heil, heil, heil” at them during their visit to Halifax.

Dan Goldstein, 51, had travelled from Montreal with his wife, Liat Lev-Ary, to visit Nova Scotia, and on Aug. 6, after touring the Halifax Public Gardens, they went for lunch. They followed their phone’s map to get to a restaurant, Goldstein said.

“It took us right through the rally,” he said in an interview.

A video taken by Lev-Ary on her phone shows protesters holding signs, waving Palestinian flags, and sidewalk chalk messages calling for immigration officials to bring Palestinian families to Canada because of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Not shy about expressing his opinions either, Goldstein can be heard saying “Remember the Bibas family, don’t forget them with the people of Gaza. And don’t forget the hostages,” as he walked along the sidewalk passing the demonstrators. It set off a loud retort, including chants of “Free, free Palestine.”

(The Bibas are a Jewish family of four kidnapped from their home in a kibbutz in Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas and held hostage. The father was eventually released but the mother and their two young children were killed.)

The video by Lev-Ary shows energetic banter between Goldstein and numerous demonstrators. He said the debate was fine, at first.

“They started shouting things like Israel is committing genocide. I disagree, but there’s nothing illegitimate about (saying) that. That’s up for debate. There’s all kinds of comments regarding Israel that, again, are within the realm of what’s acceptable and legitimate.”

Then it changed for Goldstein. A man carrying several Palestinian flags walked up close to the couple.

“This one guy comes up to us and he looks at us and he goes: ‘Heil, heil, heil.’ Now that is very clearly — because there’s no reason for a person to start invoking a German word like that — a reference to the National Socialist ideology… It was part and parcel of that movement. It’s said while giving the Nazi salute and it’s an endorsement of Nazi ideology and (Hitler’s) ‘Final Solution’ to exterminate all Jews,” Goldstein said.

He then calls both Goldstein and Lev-Ary a “f—king piece of shit.”

Although he is a secular Jew, Goldstein said it would be obvious to assume he was Jewish because he had a baseball cap on from a Yiddish theatre festival that included Hebrew lettering.

He said he saw two Halifax police officers standing on the other side of the road and he went to them to report a hate crime over the “Heil” statements, but the officers seemed unmoved by his complaint; he said they asked him how that could be a hate crime.

“Do you not know what saying ‘Heil’ to a Jew means? And they said no,” Goldstein said. He said a third officer arrived asking what was going on. Goldstein repeated his story and pointed out the man to the officers, asking that he be arrested or at least spoken to and identified.

The video shows Goldstein across the road, standing with two officers beside three police cruisers. He is pointing towards the demonstrators but what they say cannot be heard.

Goldstein said the officers declined to act, but told him to file a complaint at a police station. The third officer who arrived was belligerent, Goldstein said.

“He’s yelling at me. He’s calling me a racist. He’s saying that I’m just doing it because the first officer I spoke to was a person of colour. And he’s not letting me talk, he’s just yelling at me,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein and Lev-Ary left, went to a police station and filed a hate crime complaint, he said. He found his follow-up discussions with other police officers better. They seemed to take his complaint seriously, he said.

Halifax Regional Police said they could not provide comment or information about this case prior to publishing deadline because of stretched resources from a wildfire approaching a Halifax business park about 10 kilometres west of downtown.

Goldstein said he is disappointed with the response of the first police officers he spoke to at the scene but appreciated the follow-up by other officers. He provided police with the video and hopes they proceed with an investigation.

He is also upset by the protester’s actions.

“I take extreme issue with a lot of the things that Israel is doing at this point in Gaza,” Goldstein said. “On the one hand I’m familiar with genocide, I don’t consider it a genocide. But on a very objective level, there are war crimes that are being committed and I am very frustrated.”

He said legitimate criticism of Israel is being quashed by rampant antisemitism.

“There’s a lot of misinformation and lies, but there are certainly things that are wrong that people have the right to — and even should be — speaking out against. That wasn’t my issue. My issue is the blatant antisemitism that has permeated these things.

“Hearing somebody come up to me and go “Heil” is very — I can’t think of other words — but it shakes me to my core because for me it’s the fact that yeah, it’s 80 years later, but I don’t have family because (several ancestors died in Europe during the Nazi Holocaust).

“They were exterminated and the two that survived, one never had kids and the other one had one child who passed away, and my family never recovered. We’re without family because of the people giving the Nazi salute and shouting ‘Heil.’”

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

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American TV host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel revealed that he has Italian citizenship while talking about Americans fleeing the country, on his recent participation on The Sarah Silverman Podcast.

During the podcast episode, Silverman, a fellow comedian, was talking about how a lot of people she knows are thinking about which countries they could get citizenship from in order to leave the U.S. over unhappiness with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

That is when Kimmel said he had Italian citizenship.

“I did get Italian citizenship. I do have that,” Kimmel said. “What’s going on is … as bad as you thought it was gonna be, it’s so much worse. It’s just unbelievable. I feel like it’s probably even worse than (Trump) would like it to be.”

Kimmel has been a longtime critic of the Trump administration and has attended protests against Trump this year.

Despite that, Kimmel also said that he believes that people who once supported Trump and have now changed their minds should not be condemned.

“The door needs to stay open,” Kimmel said. “If you want to change your mind, that’s so hard to do. If you want to admit you were wrong, that’s so hard and so rare to do, you are welcome.”

This comes almost a month after CBS announced “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” got cancelled, and Trump suggested that Kimmel was next.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” Trump said on a post on Truth Social.

(The Tonight Show is hosted by Jimmy Fallon.)

To that, Kimmel posted on Instagram “I’m hearing you’re next. Or maybe it’s just another wonderful secret.” This refers to Trump’s relation to Jeffrey Epstein, and the phrase he wrote to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003.

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The union representing Air Canada’s flight attendants gave notice of a strike early Wednesday, leaving the plans of many travellers up in the air. A strike could occur on Saturday.

The airline then issued lockout notice, which it said in

a news release

was to “mitigate the strike’s customer impact” and “allow orderly shutdown.” Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flights are being “gradually suspended over the next 72 hours.”

The Air Canada Component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) represents 10,000 flight attendants. Its president, Wesley Lesosky, said in a news release that it has put forward “solid, data-driven proposals on wages and unpaid work, all rooted in fairness and industry standards.”

“Air Canada’s response to our proposals makes one thing clear: they are not interested in resolving these critical issues,” he said.

President and chief executive of Air Canada Michael Rousseau

said

the airline regrets the impact a disruption will have on customers, stakeholders and communities it serves.

“However, the disappointing conduct of CUPE’s negotiators and the union’s stated intention to launch a strike puts us in a position where our only responsible course of action is to provide certainty by implementing an orderly suspension of Air Canada’s and Air Canada Rouge’s operations through a lockout,” said Rousseau.

“As we have seen elsewhere in our industry with other labour disruptions, unplanned or uncontrolled shutdowns, such as we are now at risk of through a strike, can create chaos for travellers that is far, far worse.”

Is your Air Canada flight impacted?

Customers should check to see if their flights are confirmed before going to the airport, the airline says. If a flight is not confirmed, travellers should not go to the airport.

“The first flights will be cancelled August 14, with more on August 15, with a complete cessation of flying by Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge on August 16,” according to an Air Canada news release.

Air Canada Express flights, the airlines’ regional flights, are not affected.

The union said it does not want a travel disruption of any duration, CUPE spokesperson Hugh Pouliot told National Post in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

“The union’s goal is to achieve a fair contract and avert a disruption at Air Canada,” he said. “Flight attendants love their jobs, and they want to be operating those flights and welcoming the public onboard. The last thing our members want is to be on strike or locked out.”

Air Canada did not immediately return National Post’s request for comment.

Will you get a refund for a cancelled Air Canada flight?

Yes, according to the airline, customers whose flights are cancelled “will be notified and can obtain a full refund.”

Air Canada

said in a news release on Wednesday

that customers who have a flight booked between Aug. 15 and Aug. 18 and would like to make other travel plans can change their flight for free if the ticket was purchased (or Aeroplan points were redeemed for the flight) no later than Aug. 13.

Anyone scheduled to travel between Aug. 15 and Aug. 18 can change their flight for free to another date between Aug. 21 and Sept. 12.

“If you purchased a non-refundable fare, you may cancel your itinerary and receive the value of your ticket … to use on your next Air Canada booking,” says the airline.

“If your flight is cancelled, we will do our very best to rebook you on the first available flight, exploring options with over 120 international and domestic carriers. As we are in peak summer travel season, we know that space will still be very limited. If your travel is disrupted, you can always choose a refund.”

When was the last time Air Canada flight attendants went on strike?

More than 3,000 Air Canada flight attendants, members of the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants’ Association, went on strike over a dispute about wages in August 1985, the

New York Times reported

The airline did want to have any travel disruptions so it ended up training 1,800 management personnel and university students as substitutes, per the Times. They received six to 10 days of training. The union argued that this would be a safety hazard. The head of the union told the publication that nothing “compensates for experience in emergency situations.”

“After the way Air Canada has stressed safety, I can’t believe they took secretaries and students and trained them for six hours and are saying it’s safe,” said Pamela Bartlett, who was a veteran flight attendant for the airline when the strike started in 1985, the Montreal Gazette reported.

The airline maintained that the training course met government standards.

After a six-week strike, flight attendants went back to work in October 1985 after reaching a contract settlement, per the Gazette. It was the first strike for flight attendants in the airline’s history.

As part of the deal, flight attendants would work up to 80 hours a month, rather than the previous 75. Although salary would remain the same for the first year, flight attendants would receive a lump sum payment of $900 to $1,000 — or between approximately $2,348 to $2,870 today, according to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator.

The airline and the union agreed to a wage increase of 3 per cent in the second and third years.

In 1997, flight attendants for Air Ontario (formerly Great Lakes Airlines, now Air Canada Jazz,

per the London Free Press

) went on strike for 11 weeks, the Montreal Gazette reported.

Lisa Hutchinson, a union spokeswoman at the time, told the Gazette that flight attendants “made some gains in wages and working conditions.” Under the previous deal, attendants could work up to 15 hours a day on nine flights. The new deal offered a slightly shorter work day of 14 hours and eight flights.

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The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has sparked anger from filmmakers and Jewish groups after rescinding an invitation for a documentary about the October 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists, citing legal and safety concerns surrounding the project.

The film in question, The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, was produced by

Melbar Entertainment Group

and directed by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich. It tells the story of retired Israel Defence Forces General Noam Tibon, who raced an hour and a half from Tel Aviv to save his son Amir’s family in Kibbutz Nahal Oz near Gaza on October 7.

“This film is not about politics, it’s about humanity, family and sacrifice,” Avrich

told Deadline magazine

last year when the film, then titled To the Last Breath, was in pre-production. “In one day, one extraordinary man reversed the fate of his family and inspired the world. We look forward to working with Noam and his family to document this jaw-dropping story.”

In a recent statement to Deadline and others, TIFF said the filmmakers did not secure “legal clearance of all footage,” which was among the conditions the festival requested to mitigate “known risks around the screening of a film about highly sensitive subject matter, including potential threat of significant disruption.”

The filmmaking team and others are decrying what they see as censorship by the festival, and a possible desire to avoid images of disruptions in and around screenings.

“We are shocked and saddened that a venerable film festival has defied its mission and censored its own programming by refusing this film,” Avrich’s team said in a statement to National Post. “Ultimately, film is an art form that stimulates debate from every perspective that can both entertain us and make us uncomfortable. A film festival lays out the feast and the audience decides what they will or won’t see.”

The team added: “We are not political filmmakers, nor are we activists; we are storytellers. We remain defiant, we will release the film, and we invite audiences, broadcasters, and streamers to make up their own mind, once they have seen it.”

The Times of Israel

, citing sources close to the film’s production, said the reason for the cancellation was that the filmmakers had not received explicit permission to use videos taken by Hamas terrorists during the attack, and livestreamed at the time.

“The topic of creators’ rights is something I work with regularly,” said Talia Harris Ram, a producer on the film, per the Times. “There’s no legal problem with showing these clips, which were already streamed live on October 7. From an intellectual property standpoint, they are clearly in the public domain.”

Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said in its own statement: “It is unconscionable that TIFF is allowing a small mob of extremists — who use intimidation and threats of violence — to dictate what films Canadians can see at the festival.” It added: “This shameful decision sends an unmistakable message: Toronto’s Jewish community, which has long played an integral role at TIFF, is no longer safe or welcome.”

In an email sent to tens of thousands of Canadian Jewish community members and allies on Wednesday, the CIJA called on supporters to contact TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and urge him to reverse the decision and include The Road Between Us in the festival program. “It is a stain on the festival’s reputation and a blow to the values Canadians hold dear,” the email said.

The group Canadian Women Against Antisemitism has also

released a statement

on social media, calling on supporters to demand that TIFF reverse its decision, and to “tell Ontario and Canada: No more funding for cultural capitulation.” (The provincial and federal government are both TIFF sponsors.)

BREAKING: The Toronto International Film Festival has pulled an October 7 documentary over alleged “Hamas copyright” claims.

TIFF removed The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, which tells the story of Noam Tibon, who saved his two granddaughters while surrounded by Hamas… pic.twitter.com/Uk2SUKBR2h

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) August 13, 2025

TIFF released the following statement: “The invitation for the Canadian documentary film The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue was withdrawn by TIFF because general requirements for inclusion in the Festival, and conditions that were requested when the film was initially invited, were not met, including legal clearance of all footage.

”The purpose of the requested conditions was to protect TIFF from legal implications and to allow TIFF to manage and mitigate anticipated and known risks around the screening of a film about highly sensitive subject matter, including potential threat of significant disruption.

“As per our terms and conditions for participation in the Festival, TIFF may disqualify from participation in the Festival any Film that TIFF determines in its sole and absolute discretion would not be in TIFF’s best interest to include in the Festival.”

Last year the film

Russians at War

was denounced as Russian propaganda by Ukrainian groups, then-Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and others. TIFF defended its inclusion in the festival, but then cancelled screenings and ultimately gave the film a limited release only after the festival ended.

A screening of TIFF’s opening-night film Nutcrackers by David Gordon Green

also saw protests

against the festival’s bank partner Royal Bank of Canada for its ties to Israel.

TIFF this year runs from Sept. 4 to 14 at the Lightbox and other nearby locations in downtown Toronto.

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OTTAWA — An Alberta Conservative MP is blaming the Liberal government for

a pair of contentious provincial bans

on outdoor activities, saying federal officials didn’t do enough to stave off tinder dry conditions in Atlantic Canada.

Michelle Rempel Garner told reporters in Ottawa that years of Liberal inaction on wildfire preparedness forced Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to take the unprecedented action of

closing off wooded areas

to the public.

“Four full wildfire seasons ago, the Liberals promised more water bombers, more firefighters. Where are they?” said Rempel Garner, referring to a

2021 Liberal campaign promise

to dedicate $500 million to community firefighting.

“(W)henever there’s a major crisis, what the Liberal government has done by their inaction has conditioned Canadians to expect that the only response they can see … is to restrict their movement,” she continued.

Rempel Garner wouldn’t say whether she objected to the provincial bans themselves.

She made the comments at an unrelated announcement on proposed criminal code reforms for non-resident offenders.

The sweeping provincial forest bans have divided conservatives along both regional and ideological lines, with some drawing drawing comparisons to COVID restrictions.

Ontario MP Leslyn Lewis, for example,

speculated on social media

that the bans could spiral into broader lockdowns.

“While the government says this is to prevent forest fires, the approach has left many feeling discouraged, disconnected, and wondering if there’s a bigger purpose at play,” tweeted Lewis.

Other Conservatives, such as ex-national campaign manager Fred DeLorey have defended the measures.

DeLorey, who is from Nova Scotia, wrote in

a recent Substack post

that the province’s forest ban was the product of “hard-earned wisdom.”

“Here’s the problem: Nova Scotia is built differently than the rest of the country … When conditions are this dry, even low-risk activity becomes high-stakes,” wrote DeLorey.

DeLorey is a close ally of Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, who last week announced a 12-week ban on entering the woods,

carrying a fine of $25,000

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt followed Houston’s lead over the weekend in closing off the

woods to recreational activities

. No fine had been set as of press time.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre hasn’t said whether he supports the provincial restrictions.

The office of Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Rempel Garner’s accusation of Liberal inaction on wildfire preparedness.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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.

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OTTAWA — A week after

allowing Canada’s three major telecommunications companies

to resell fibre optics to Internet service providers on their respective networks and those of smaller players, Canada’s industry minister is facing harsh criticism from the industry.

The uproar is coming first and foremost from her hometown of Montreal, where three major telecommunication companies are headquartered and where the frustration is still intense.

“I am in shock. In shock. I am profoundly disappointed,” said Cogeco’s CEO Frédéric Perron in an interview with National Post.

The Montreal-based company is not thrilled with the new minister’s first consequential move. So much so that he wanted to “ring the alarm bell” because he never thought that “such a damaging, dangerous decision” as the one she made last week “would or could be made.”

“We had high hopes that this new government would make better decisions for business and the Canadian economy,” Perron said. “And what we saw last week, by the minister’s decision, is more reminiscent of old Trudeau era, superficial policies.”

Within the industry, Mélanie Joly was expected to announce her rebuttal of a controversial decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that allows, for example, a company like Telus, which is strong in Western Canada, to use other providers’ networks to attract thousands of customers in Ontario and Quebec instead of building its own infrastructure.

The regulator said the measure was intended to reduce costs for consumers. Cogeco and other stakeholders say there is no concrete evidence to support its assertion

“It discourages investment, weakens competition, and ultimately harms Canadian consumers,” said Robert Ghiz, the president and CEO of the Canadian Telecommunications Association.

This was such a hot issue that last year that Joly’s predecessor,François-Philippe Champagne, heard the industry’s call to overturn the CRTC decision by asking the regulator to “reconsider” its decision to “respond to concerns about the business case for future and ongoing investments in infrastructure in less densely populated areas.”

At the time, Joly was minister of foreign affairs and a member of cabinet when

the order was given

Companies like Cogeco or Eastlink were especially challenging the fact that the big three telecom players in Canada can resell their networks and that they’re forced to open it to them.

But last week, Joly

posted a message on her X account

confirming she would uphold the regulator’s decision.

“By immediately increasing competition and consumer choice, the CRTC’s decision aims to reduce the cost of high-speed Internet for Canadians and will contribute toward our broader mandate to bring down costs across the board,” she wrote.

Joly’s office did not provide any comments on time for this story.

The decision was made the day before Bell Canada’s quarterly results were announced. Bell’s stock was down that morning, and observers noted a correlation with the minister’s decision.

In an analyst call that morning, Bell’s CEO Mirko Bibic said he was “disappointed” and urged the government and the CRTC “to ensure that network builders are fully compensated for significant build costs and investment risks they take in building.”

It also came a few weeks after Cogeco announced a new mobile service with an introductory one-year free offer.

“With this decision, the minister is essentially saying it’s okay if the Big Three get even bigger. It’s okay if the regional, local players suffer, and it’s okay if there’s a re-monopolization of telecoms in Canada,” Perron said.

“We don’t think it’s okay. Consumers won’t think it’s okay, and we’ll fight to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

Cogeco and Eastlink, which announced last week it was “suspending further planned upgrades to many smaller communities across Canada,” filed an appeal in July asking the Federal Court of Appeal to quash the decision.

But in Ottawa, overriding a decision from the CRTC was seen as a “bold move” and that could “rattle the cage” not even six months after an election and a new prime minister in charge. Sources said the minister had a duty to ensure the sustainability of institutions and protect the national interest.

Champagne, who has since become minister of finance, did not comment for this story. His office confirmed that he attended the cabinet meeting in which the decision was confirmed and that “Canada’s new government has a strong mandate to bring costs down and to build one, strong, Canadian economy.”

“We would have liked to see a lot more courage, and I’m happy to be quoted on that. It seems to me like deferring to the CRTC and maintaining the status quo was the easy way, but not the right way. Sometimes the best decision is the hard decision in life, and we are saddened that the hard decision was not made,” said Perron.

Sources in the industry support Perron’s comments about the decision.

In a statement last week, Rogers Communications said “the Carney government has declared its priority is to build a strong Canada and this decision does the exact opposite.”

A recent PwC study

shows that the telecommunication sector directly contributed $87.3 billion in GDP to Canada’s economy and supported over 661,000 jobs in 2024.

By 2035, the Canadian telecom industry could contribute another $112 billion to Canada’s overall GDP, according to the study.

But for Cogeco and other players, this decision could threaten these expectations.

“The decision from last week is not sending the right signal, and it’s concerning to me,” said Perron.

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

Source: National Post (Politics)

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