Trump may be wrong on this, I certainly believe he is, but it doesn’t stop the fact that any news on this front, or the Gordie Howe Bridge deal just isn’t coming from the Carney government.

As I write, still no public itinerary from the PM yet, so no clue what he is up to and whether he will be out to address any of these issues.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford will be out at 10:30 am ET to hold an update on the wildfire situation in the northern part of the province.

Watch for more on that later today.

Despite Carney claiming the Americans wouldn’t be getting much until the more than $6 billion debt was paid off, reporting by Bloomberg and The Globe and Mail would say otherwise.

Let’s back up, though, and remember that this bridge should have been open already, but Donald Trump decided a shakedown was in order.

Back in February, Trump went on a rant about the bridge and other grievances he has with Canada, from dairy to the booze ban in Ontario. Specifically, though, his Truth Social post targeted the Gordie Howe Bridge.

“As everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades. Now, things are turning around for the U.S.A., and FAST! But imagine, Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. They own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content,” Trump wrote.

He went on to demand a better deal.

Trump’s bridge complaint was never about the facts…

Now, let’s be clear: Canada built the bridge, Canada paid for the bridge, but the construction used Canadian and American content—including steel—to build the bridge. It was also built by both American and Canadian workers, so Trump is not being truthful with his claims.

He was able to get a better deal, though, by refusing to issue the permit that would allow the bridge to open. Talks went on for weeks in secret and then, in the early hours of July 11, he announced a deal had been struck.

“I was able to cut a MUCH BETTER DEAL for America, and by so doing, will be allowing the new and spectacular Gordie Howe International Bridge, spanning Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to open on July 27th, as scheduled,” Trump wrote.

Now, the deal wasn’t released publicly, so we don’t know the details.

Carney’s version of the deal sounds different…

Initially, officials were describing a 50-50 split, then came a clarification that it was a 50-50 split of profits, not revenues. Then, last weekend in Calgary, Carney tried to make the claim that the Americans won’t be getting much at all for some time.

“We get the revenues. Then the servicing of the costs of the bridge and paying the debt of the bridge, and then what’s left over, there’s a split of that for 15 years,” Carney told CTV Calgary.

“There’s not going to be a lot of net to split,” he added.

That makes it sound closer to the original deal: Canada keeps most of the revenue until the bridge is paid off, and then there is a 50-50 split going forward.

The way Carney described things, it seemed like Trump got some minor changes. There would be an economic development fund that money would be paid into, but in reality there wouldn’t be much to share with the Americans.

Then came Bloomberg’s reporting on Friday.

The reporting tells a different story…

Josh Wingrove is a Canadian journalist—and quite a good one—who used to work on Parliament Hill and now covers the White House for Bloomberg. He was posting about this early.

“New: Bloomberg viewed a copy of the Trump-Carney deal to open a major new bridge. It’s a 15-year side pact to share the equivalent of net profits, after operational costs but not interest. The underlying Canada-Michigan deal (which does factor in debt repayment) is unchanged.”

Later in the day, The Globe and Mail was able to confirm what Bloomberg had reported.

“A 15-year side deal struck by Canada and the United States on the new Gordie Howe International Bridge will see Ottawa cut Washington cheques that amount to half the toll revenues minus operating costs for the span connecting Windsor and Detroit,” opens the story from Steven Chase.

Both news outlets say that there is no provision requiring the debt for the bridge to be paid off before the Americans are sent their cut.

More from The Globe:

“The official said net revenues are all revenues collected with respect to the bridge minus all incurred operating costs of the bridge. There is no subtraction for debt servicing, they acknowledged when asked.

The official called the new side deal with the U.S. a parallel agreement to the 2012 Canada-Michigan agreement and said it stipulates that an amount equal to half the net revenues from the bridge will be paid into a U.S.-run economic development fund.”

I get that Carney may not have had much of a choice when it came to signing a new deal to get the bridge open. We paid for it to be built. It benefits our economy for it to open. Trump doesn’t want it to open, so he doesn’t care.

So maybe Carney had to strike a deal to get the bridge open.

At least be honest about what the deal is and what the deal isn’t. At this point, it doesn’t look like Carney is being honest at all.

Let’s see what the new spin is over the coming days.

Those are the closing lyrics to South Park’s satirical song Blame Canada.

I thought about that song when Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on Canada over the wildfire smoke blowing into the American northeast.

I explain in my column for the Toronto Sun today, Trump is wrong for blaming Canada while pointing to forest management practices.

Parks Canada may not believe in clearing away dead trees and undergrowth, but Ontario does. The province also does prescribed burns as part of their wildfire strategy.

Now, Ontario is massive, it’s about the size of Texas and California combined.

That means when lighting hits a forest in a remote and uninhabited part of the province, that fire is going to spread and spread fast.

I also tackle NDP Leader Marit Stiles, among others, claiming that Premier Doug Ford has cut the wildfire budget or didn’t budget enough for it. It’s all a lie and Stiles should know better, but I guess she figures it’s good politics.

Ford called out those spreading this false information.

Sticking with Doug Ford as he looks to shuffle…

Stan Cho is no longer in cabinet and soon Neil Lumsden will leave.

Cho was Ford’s minister in charge of tourism and gaming, two big files in the province. Lumsden is the minister in charge of sport until August 4 when he will resign from cabinet and as an MPP.

While Cho is resigning after a hotel expense mini-scandal, Lumsden, the former CFL star, is just retiring at the age of 73.

So what does this mean for Ford’s cabinet?

I don’t think Ford’s team has a clue yet about who is going where, this is all new and I still don’t expect a shuffle until later in the summer, but I had a go at who might move and who is likely to stay put.

You can read the column here or watch the video below.

Can you deport her somewhere else…

I think the Trump administration is absolutely right to deport Kaitlyn E. Tracey out of the United States.

I just wish they would deport her to another country rather than Canada.

Tracey is the trashy woman who was arrested for assaulting a teenager at a beach in New Jersey. The teenager was wearing Trump gear, Tracey didn’t like that and so decided to attack the girl unprovoked.

Police got involved, arrested and charged Tracey and then discovered she was in the United States illegally after overstaying her visa.

Turns out, she’s Canadian and now she is in ICE custody and they are looking to send her back.

In Canada, we’d have a tribunal give someone like her welfare. Oh wait, we did that recently.

Tracey’s husband has launched a fundraising campaign and a social media campaign to try and help his wife stay in the United States. Apparently he is American and she went down to join him two years ago and then didn’t follow the law.

They’ve been living in Ashbury Park, New Jersey and apparently listening to too much Bruce Springsteen which can lead to Trump Derangement Syndrome.

What’s the truth about the Gordie Howe Bridge…

I was asked by one of my editors if I could write a column on the Gordie Howe Bridge deal, I said no. It’s not that it’s not an interesting issue or one worthy of my consideration, it’s that we don’t know enough about the deal.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney asking him to release details of the deal.

“So, what’s the deal? It’s been a week; it’s time for you to release the deal so Canadians can see for themselves what you negotiated away to the Americans,” Poilievre wrote.

Seems Carney and the Americans have been putting out contradictory statements, Carney hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with details.

The image below was taken on my morning walk yesterday at around 7:30. You can see the smoke starting to surround the CN Tower.

This is from the same location this morning . Clearly, a lot more smoke since you can only see a faint shadow of the Tower now.

Beyond that, still lots of politics to discuss.

If you haven’t read my column on Mark Carney’s mysterious American/Democrat advisor in PMO, give it a read this morning.

Enjoy the video and your morning brief!

When I started in this business there were far fewer security members around politicians and their daily public activities were published. Now, when many politicians hold a news conference, many of them won’t release the location of their event until you email and register.

It might seem extreme but the threats are real, today, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston had his vehicle attacked as he tried to leave an event in Wolfville.

Protesters representing a series of leftwing causes from anti-clearcutting, anti-uranium mining, and anti-fracking, library funding and Mi’kmaq rights to sell pot where they want to showed up at Houston’s event. As he tried to leave the event, Houston’s vehicle was surrounded, protesters climbed on the vehicle and smashed the window of the vehicle.

You can protest any politician you want, any issue you want, when you turn to violence you have crossed a line.

Mark Carney’s secret American and Democrat advisor…

I spoke about this on a video this morning and expressed my disbelief that Carney had an American advisor on Canada-U.S. relations who is also a Democrat who worked on Clinton’s campaign and had ties to the Biden and Harris campaigns.

That is crazy.

We don’t know much about Maia Johnson, who has since been promoted to be Chief Operating Officer in Carney’s PMO. What we do know should concern us all, including the immigration and security clearance status.

That was part of my column for the Toronto Sun earlier today.

Are we becoming Ozempic Nation…

I love talking to Sylvain Charlebois, AKA the Food Professor. We chatted recently about his interview with American Ambassador Pete Hoekstra.

We also had a second interview where we talked about the fact that millions of Canadians are now using Ozempic or other GLP1s which is the generic name for them. In fact, Canada is one of the first countries to have generic GLP1s and that is about to have a massive impact on grocery shopping, restaurants and more.

Mark Carney has established a position we’ve never had in the PMO before, Chief Operating Officer.

The person holding that position, and acting as Carney’s top advisor on Canada U.S. relations is named Maia Johnson. We know little about her other than she’s an American, she is a Democrat and she worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Waste of time…

A top official in Trump’s Department of War thinks Mark Carney’s middle powerrs strategy is a dumb idea.

The Globe has more on this.

It’s never just one politician…

Doug Ford’s tourism minister, Stan Cho, was in plenty of hot water on Tuesday over hotel expenses. Read the details here, I mean, I didn’t break the story, Global did, but I lay out the problem with what Cho is doing pretty well in my Toronto Sun column.

The problem now, and a reason Cho won’t be popular at Queen’s Park, is that him getting caught sent reporters looking for other examples of abuse.

Every MPP’s expenses are about to get looked at.

What happens in Vegas…

Bad ideas don’t stay in one place, they have a habit of moving around and that means the Ontario tribunal ruling granting welfare payments to an illegal immigrant won’t stay in Ontario.

As I explain in my latest column, with 4 million visas expiring in Canada, we are going to have more people in Canada illegally accessing government services from welfare to domestic tuition and more.

And I don’t think this problem will stay within Ontario, it will spread.

Those were the words of Mark Carney last year during the Liberal leadership race that made him Canada’s prime minister.

How is that working out?

• Tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber have only gone up since then, not down.

• The CUSMA review resulted in no extension for the deal, instead it continues for 10 more years with annual reviews that will only bring instability.

• To open the Gordie Howe Bridge, Carney had to pay the Danegeld and agree that the Americans start getting paid immediately.

What does Carney know how to negotiate?

There are consequences…

Seems some Canadians don’t want to acknowledge that there are consequences to Canada not securing a trade deal that deals with the tariffs. As I was writing about in my recent column for the Toronto Sun, we have more than 40% of manufacturing companies telling KPMG that they have either moved production south to the United States or are thinking about it.

What’s also worrying are the number of manufacturing companies pausing or cancelling their capital expenditure programs. That’s Canadian firms deciding not to invest in the future of their own companies.

Another decision that came with consequences, Canada’s sub purchase announced last week. With the Carney government choosing the German option over the Korean one, Hyundai is cancelling plan for a hydrogen truck plant in Canada.

The German purchase comes with it’s own benefits, which aren’t as clear cut and easy to understand as a truck plant, but Korea and Hyundai made a decision.

An illegal immigrant isn’t a visitor, therefore they get welfare…

An absolutely bizarre ruling in Ontario states that illegal immigrants, after they are discovered, are still entitiled to collect welfare.

I detail the insanity of the ruling in my column for the Sun and point out that this issue was pushed by an activist group funded by the provincial government.

Thankfully, Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will change regulations if needed to stop this insanity.

Alberta keeps winning with Brett Wilson…

Brett Wilson, the legendary investor and former member of Dragon’s Den is my guest on the Full Comment Podcast this week. We were talking about the changes for Alberta, including some that many didn’t understand in terms of the significance.

You can watch the beginning of the interview below or listen to the full interview here.

For this week’s Full Comment Podcast, I tracked down Brett Wilson to get an investor’s point of view.

To put it bluntly, Wilson is happy.

I’ve gotten to know the legendary investor and former Dragon’s Den star over the past couple of years and was able to spend a fair bit of time with him when I was in Calgary for the Conservative convention in Calgary. This guy is passionate about his country, about developing it and seeing economic growth.

Right now, he’s bullish on how things are going for Alberta and optimistic for the country as a whole.

You can watch the first few minutes of the conversation here, but the full discussion, which is audio only, is posted below or you can grab it on your favourite podcast service/app.

Subscribe now

Here’s the full episode.

From the official show notes.

Two new pipeline plans and an enormous $13-billion Meta data centre have been announced for Alberta in just the last few days. Brett Wilson, the veteran Calgary-based investor, joins Brian to explain the potential of the province to boom after just a slight loosening of the anti-development chokehold Ottawa had Alberta in for a decade with Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault running the Liberals. Several other major projects are coming, too, Wilson says, and the customary controversies, protests and complaints just aren’t happening like they used to. But he says there are too many obstructive Trudeau policies still on the books that Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to undo for Alberta, and Canada, to reach their full potential. (Recorded July 9, 2026)

And why not?

Smith was taking a day off from attending Stampede events non-stop and from a series of announcements.

A pipeline deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney to take oil to the Pacific

A feasibility study with Ontario Premier Doug Ford for an all-new Canadian pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Sarnia, Ontario

A massive $13-billion investment from Meta to build an AI data centre and power plant in Sturgeon County

You can read my column on Smith’s winning week here. Our full interview is below.

More winning for Alberta…

The other day there was quite a bit of buzz about how investors from the UAE were walking away from their promise to deliver $70 billion worth of investment in Canada.

The buzz started after the Financial Times of London published a piece with a headline that read, “Canada tells UAE it is not ready for its C$70bn investment.”

That’s quite the headline, and it would seem to imply we cost ourselves a lot of potential foreign investment. The problem is, few Canadians have a subscription to this publication, and few were willing to pay $99 a month to buy one.

As I explained in my column for the Sun earlier this week, it’s just not true. I spoke with Jean Charest, the former Quebec premier and co-chair of the Canada-UAE Business Council, who was in all the meetings that mattered.

While it’s true that the Major Projects Office Carney established said they had no projects ready, the Emiratis are still looking to invest, and a lot of what they want to invest in is found in Alberta.

“There’s a number of projects in other areas: energy projects in Alberta, strategic minerals,” Charest said.

I later confirmed all of this with Premier Smith’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson.

Again, more winning for Alberta.

Carney taking the world as it is, well, except for Trump and the US…

Speaking to reporters after his trip to Saudi Arabia, where he was trying to drum up more foreign investment, Mark Carney completely rebuked Justin Trudeau’s foreign policy.

“Lecturing countries from afar is an ineffective strategy. It’s satisfying, but it’s ineffective,” Carney said.

I quite like that.

Trudeau used to lecture every other country in the same annoying way he lectured Canadians. It caused us problems with Saudi Arabia, India, China, and more.

So Carney walking away from that is good.

As I explain in my Sun column on this, though, Carney can’t seem to do that when it comes to the United States.

His Davos speech, his snide comments, and his attempt to organize against Trump with European leaders — as the Wall Street Journal has been reporting — none of it helps us get a better trade deal, which is what we want and need.

Have you heard about the KPMG study showing four in ten manufacturers in Canada are looking at moving their production stateside?

It’s troubling, and I’ll have more to say on that in the coming days.

In the online world, and X and Facebook are not the real world, things have gotten crazy. People who should want to work together in their common goal of defeating the Liberals are busy denouncing their former allies.

It’s excommunication season in the conservative movement it seems.

“The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor,” Ronald Regan famously said.

That seems lost on people today.

For calling for the infighting and useless fights to stop, I’ve had no end of emails, comments and direct messages telling me that I am clearly a Liberal hack out to boost Mark Carney and/or Doug Ford.

That would be news to both of them who take real criticism from me on a regular basis.

Anyway, after this, I’ve said my piece and I’m moving on.

First, he woke up to find my column posted at the Toronto Sun asking if he still wants to be PM and criticizing some dumb moves of late. Then he got a call from Conservative MP Richard Martel informing him that Martel was taking a Senate appointment from Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Oh, and any serious reading of the polls and lay of the land in Martel’s riding would say that at this point, the Liberals would win it in a by-election.

Eventually even the Conservative push for an emergency ethics committee study on Carney’s condo bailout was shut down by the Liberals.

Tuesday could not have been his favourite day.

Why am criticizing Poilievre again…

Some Conservatives have taken to acting like TruAnon Liberals did under Justin Trudeau, no criticism of their dear leader will be tolerated. Anyone criticizing dear leader is clearly a traitor and working for the other side.

I got plenty of reactions like that for my Tuesday morning column.

Looks like that last guy really got me, I want the Conservatives to move far left and I want Doug Ford as leader.

Sadly, these people are serious and believe this.

It doesn’t matter how many times I explain that I don’t want Doug Ford as leader, doesn’t matter how many columns, radio and TV appearances that I make saying this is a bad idea, some people won‘t let go.

Which is my problem with Poilievre right now, he won’t let go of his grudge against Kory Teneycke.

Using an introduction of a B.C. politician to attack an Ontario one while in Alberta…

On Saturday at a Stampede BBQ in Calgary, here is how Poilievre started his speech.

“The future premier of British Columbia, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, way to go, fresh off a big win against Liberal lobbyists from out east,” Poilievre said.

As I said in my column in the Sun, there was no need for Poilievre to say that and continue picking at a scab that he should be trying to heal.

Read the full column for that break down, this does nothing to help Pierre with what should be his ultimate goal, becoming PM and replacing Mark Carney. Which is why I opened my column stating that I want Pierre to be our next PM but I question if he wants the job.

He’s not doing what he should be doing to win.

So no, I don’t want Doug Ford to take over as CPC leader, I don’t want Poilievre out of that job, I simply want him to focus and do what he needs to do to succeed and continuing to pick stupid fights won’t help with that.

As for the whole rift between Poilievre and Ford/Teneycke, I laid out what I know back in April. It’s about 3-4,000 words in detail about the history behind where we are today.

Suffice to say, the rift didn’t start with Teneycke’s comments in the last election.

I know all the people involved in this story, and I’d rather see them get along, but that isn’t happening. So, I told the story with what I know in a fair and balanced way to pull back the curtain for you.

It was originally behind a paywall, but isn’t anymore.

Ford asked again if he’s trying to unseat Poilievre…

Doug Ford was at the Stampede for a good announcement about Ontario unveiling a new proposed route for a West to East pipeline and that Ontario will pay for the feasibility study. It was a follow-up to an announcement to explore the pipeline last year.

At the question and answer portion of the news conference, Ford was asked if he was in Calgary to shore up support to replace Poilievre.

I’ve been writing and commenting on Doug Ford being the bogeyman for the federal Conservatives since late 2019 after Andrew Scheer lost the election to Justin Trudeau.

Did Doug Ford dream of being federal leader and PM at some point?

Probably.

Is that what he wants now?

Absolutely not.

He won his third majority government last year. If an election were held today, he’d win a fourth majority government.

The polling is clear.

Could that change?

Absolutely.

Every politician has a shelf life and eventually as Warren Kinsella likes to say, voters just get sick of your face. Voters will turn on Ford one day, and it might be before the next election, but it isn’t today.

So, he is going to stay as premier of the biggest province in the country.

There’s also the fact that he doesn’t speak French, he wouldn’t get many votes West of Thunder Bay and the issues that Ford cares about are not federal issues. I can’t see him loving the idea of flying to Turkey for a NATO summit.

It would also be difficult for Ford to go from saying Carney is great to work with to challenging him in the House of Commons. Oh, and if there is one thing Ford really doesn’t want, it’s giving up power as the leader of Ontario to be the opposition leader for the next three years.

And unless he could move the House of Commons to Etobicoke, I don’t see him doing this.

There is a paranoia about Ford inside the federal party though and rather decide to work with him, they continue to fight him.

Do you know that if Poilievre had called and tried to have any kind of relationship with Ford after he won the leadership in 2022 that Ford would have tried to help him.

Poilievre didn’t do that.

Again, I laid out the whole history in some depth here and you can read it, without the paywall and decide for yourself.

Did you know the last Ontario Premier to leave Queen’s Park to run as the federal leader was George Drew? He was Premier of Ontario from 1943 until 1948 before going on to win the federal leadership and representing the federal riding of Carleton.

That’s the same riding Poilievre represented until last April’s election.

Martel joining the Senate and what it means…

Let’s make one thing clear, Richard Martel, the Conservative MP for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord did not cross the floor when he accepted a Senate appointment from Mark Carney. Martel was introduced as an independent Senator with his announcement which is how all Senators now enter the Chamber after Trudeau’s ridiculous rule changes in 2015/16.

There is a good chance that he will sit as a Conservative Senator and his friend, Conservative Senate Leader Leo Housakos has made online overtures already. Housakos was out with congratulations quickly, it took Pierre Poilievre a bit longer to find the keyboard on his phone and congratulate him.

I’m sure Poilievre didn’t love that Martel was leaving the CPC caucus, but when the announcement is made around 9am and you wait until after 4pm to make any public statement and then it is conditional, that looks bad on you.

Martel’s seat was a three-way race in the last election and he won with 34% of the vote. He’s a popular guy in his riding and his name recognition helped him push back on the Bloc Quebecois and Liberal challengers.

It’s not a safe Conservative seat though and has been held by the Liberals, NDP and Bloc.

In the coming by-election I think it will flip red. The Liberals are polling high in Quebec right now, Carney’s personal popularity is high and he has a big gift to give them soon.

In a riding that hosts CFB Bagotville, home to 3 Wing of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Carney will soon announce our fighter jet purchase decision. Regardless of what the decision is, it will mean jobs in the riding and that will help seal the deal.

Can Poilievre survive this…

Poilievre has lost five Conservative MPs since the last election, I’ve never seen that in my 25 years covering federal politics. If you told me a year ago that Poilievre would lose five MPs and still survive as leader, I would have thought you were crazy.

I sat with Andrew Scheer in his office on Parliament Hill having a beer with him in late 2019, just before he announced that he would resign as leader. I heard him talk about his personal pain and his professional issues as leader.

In early 2022, I had a phone call with Erin O’Toole shortly before he resigned as leader after the caucus turned on him following the 2021 election and his handling of the Freedom Convoy - I think he lost votes on both sides of that issue.

Neither of those leaders lost five MPs in the 15 months following the elections they lost but they were still shown the door.

So, can Poilievre survive this?

The good news for him is that nobody is organizing against him.

That could change, O’Toole looked safe in his job post election, he wasn’t looking to leave the way Scheer was. Then a group of people did start organizing against O’Toole to make room for Pierre Poilievre.

The problem for anyone organizing against Poilievre the way he did against O’Toole is that Poilievre owns the base of the party. They are fiercely loyal to him and a challenger could cause a schism.

The saying goes that a week is a lifetime in politics.

Stay tuned.

Why is this bailout necessary, and what does it mean for the future of housing in Canada?

Sam Cooper has been writing great pieces over at The Bureau and we talk about them at length as Sam breaks it all down.

I jest, I have nothing against the product on offer from TKMS, a German and Norwegian offering. In fact, in my conversations with high ranking navy officials, none had a bad word to say about either the TKMS product nor Korea’s Hanwha Ocean offering.

Carney himself said it was a difficult choice.

There had been some discussion about buying a mixed fleet, something the Carney government seems intent on for the fighter jet fleet, but steered away from on the sub fleet. Over the past few weeks, and especially ramping up in the last five days, I had sources telling me it would be a mixed fleet and sources telling me the whole thing would go to TMKS.

None said Korea’s Hanwha would win despite an impressive vessel and a very impressive offer of investment in Canada including buying steel from Algoma and setting up a hydrogen truck plant in Ontario.

I broke the story that the announcement was happening today, I was wrong on what the pick was. That said, I still beat the gallery in Ottawa while walking my dog through Toronto parks and writing from my little condo miles away from the nation’s capital.

Doug Ford wants to be captain pipeline…

Ontario Premier Doug Ford went to Calgary for a quick two day visit, took in some parties and events on Sunday and then made a major announcement alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Monday.

Ontario is backing a push for a 3,300km West to East pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Sarnia, Ontario called Northern Sheild.

Hardisty is the major transit point for Alberta oil, Sarnia is Ontario’s refining capital near the original oil patch in Ontario, Petrolia.

Let’s not get too excited, this project is just at the study stage with Ontario fronting a feasibility study headed up by GHD Limited, Ernst & Young LLP (EY Canada), Mokwateh, AtkinsRéalis Group Inc., Wood PLC, and Turner & Townsend Limited.

Ford said he expects the study to be completed by the end of the year.

Asked about a private proponent coming forward, Ford and Smith both said they would like a private proponent but would be fine with their taxpayers putting up the funds because they would get paid back.

We are a long way from this project being given a green light, but it’s an interesting project. Unlike Enbridge’s Line 5, which currently supplies much of the oil heading into Sarnia, this project wouldn’t skirt through the United States.

Line 5 has become a political hot potato for Democrats in the State of Michigan with governors and members of the state assembly calling for it to be shut down. The Northern Shield project, if it goes ahead, would be wholly in Canada, built with Canadian steel, on Canadian land, by Canadian workers.

And finally…

Canada waited too long to rein in dangerous Big Tech platforms.

That’s the takeaway from this week’s episode of the Full Comment Podcast. I spoke with Dr. Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary about Bill C-34, the new Safe Social Media Act.

While she has concerns, especially around free speech, Dr. Laidlaw believes the government is mostly on the right track.

Unlike most of the online legislation the Carney Liberals pushed through at the end of the House session, this one is still at the first reading stage and can be tweaked in the fall.

From the official show notes:

Balancing protection for kids online while ensuring free speech and privacy for everyone else isn’t easy, which is why Ottawa has muffed it so many times, leaving Canada decades behind other countries in monitoring the harmful excesses of social media algorithms. With Bill C-34, the new Safe Social Media Act, the government just maybe has something workable, as Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary, tells Brian. She explains the strengths and potential weaknesses of the legislation, how far it will go in protecting people from harm, concerns about the new “digital regulator,” and whether the government is now going to force us all to scan our IDs and carefully watch what we say online. (Recorded June 25, 2026)

I put some of the details in my latest column in the Toronto Sun.

Also discussed Alberta’s pipeline plan, Bryan Adams and his lame protest song, the latest on CUSMA, and American booze being back on the shelves. Then I took questions from the audience.

Watch the whole thing here and if you haven’t subscribed yet, then please do so you don’t miss out next time.

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I tend to read source documents - the treaties, the trade agreements, the Supreme Court rulings - that we all rely on. These documents are instructive and tell you what is really happening.

Too many of my colleagues can’t be bothered.

So for months, I’ve been telling you that there were three options on the table.

1. All parties agree to extend this for another 16 years

2. One or more parties gives six months’ notice that they are withdrawing from the deal, effectively cancelling it

3. We continue the deal for the remaining 10 years and the deal is subject to annual reviews

Now, to be clear, any party could give six months notice to leave at any time, it’s not isolated to this time. In theory, we could also have a future American government look to extend the agreement.

That’s not where we are now, and as I explain in the video, it’s not where we are likely to be with most of the candidates for the Republicans or the Democrats. The idea that everything will just magically go back to the old normal after Trump leaves office is foolishness.

Anyway, watch the video as I explain why so many others in the media have it so wrong on this front.

“It feels like a campaign,” Kinsella said.

From that came Kinsella’s new book The Hidden Hand and his documentary The Campaign.

Kinsella interviewed people around the world for both the book and the documentary. He spoke to experts in technology, politics, terrorism and more.

Iran has been running a campaign not only against Israel, but Western civilization as a whole, since before the October 7th attacks even happened. They’ve ramped up the campaign since then and it continues to this day.

Buy the book now.

He actually said that integrating people into the host society is key. That’s the exact opposite of what he long said as an MP and the policy that his government practiced.

Remember, this is the guy who took issue not with honour killings, but with the Harper government calling them barbaric and saying so in a 2011 citizenship guide.

“Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence,” the citizenship guide read.

In response to the guide, Trudeau told my old friend and colleague Daniel Proussalidis at Newstalk 1010 that he didn’t like the tone the Harper government used and was uncomfortable calling these practices barbaric.

“The use of a word as pejorative as barbaric has more of an opportunity to set someone’s hackles up,” Trudeau said.

Here’s the radio report from 15 years ago.

In the face of a firestorm of criticism, Trudeau walked back his words, and to be clear, he was always opposed to honour killings and the like.

He was just uncomfortable denouncing these practices.

So, now, Trudeau is in Finland over the weekend at the annual SuomiAreena debate forum and he was talking among other things about immigration and the need to integrate.

Read more

He’s been doing the interview circuit promoting his book Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind. The book is a warning about how in our desire to the empathic and kind, Western civilization is killing itself.

“Civilizations do not die by murder, they die by suicide... what we’re doing in the West is committing civilizational seppuku via suicidal empathy,” Saad told me when we got together virtually last week for another interview.

The longtime professor and evolutionary behavioral scientist at Concordia University in Montreal is also making headlines for his decision to leave Canada. Citing among other reasons, rampant Jew hatred in this country, Saad and his family are moving to Oxford, Mississippi where he will join the faculty of the University of Mississippi.

Yes, as I’ve pointed out before, Jews in Canada feel more at home in small town Mississippi than in places like Montreal or Toronto.

“One of the main reasons I decided to move to Ole Miss, despite the fact that I had many other universities that were courting me, is I got there and the love that I felt, the hospitality that I felt was so great,” Saad told me in our interview last week.

We talk in the interview about how Canadians sneer at places like Mississippi or Georgia and yet we have doctors, professors and lawyers from this country moving there.

Also in the discussion, topics like immigration and cultural relativism which he says are closely linked.

“The open border immigration policy… is the ultimate form of suicidal empathy,” he said.

We also talk about the giant tax bill the federal and Quebec governments are handing him as a kind of exit tax.

I’m not overstating things when I say that in losing Gad Saad, we are losing a very bright mind, a cultural scholar and critic, a man who thinks deeply and cares deeply about this country.

Enjoy the interview and of course, share this where you can and spread the word.

If you want to buy Gad’s book, you can order it here.

Joined by Stuart Thomson and Tasha Kheiriddin, the dynamic duo behind National Post’s Political Hack newsletter. we dive into the current political landscape following the recent parliamentary session’s closure. We talk about whether Mark Carney is mean if that even matters to voters, his condo bailout, the 24 Sussex rebuild, what Pierre Poilievre needs to do to turn things around and more.

Oh, and of course we talk about CUSMA…

From the official show notes:

As Liberal MPs moan anonymously that Prime Minister Mark Carney is a mean boss, his defenders say it’s just high performance expectations (unlike the last leader’s). But, as our Political Hack panel looks back on the parliamentary sitting just ended, they question Carney’s own performance: his damage to Canada-U.S. trade negotiations; broken promises on affordability; and a disgraceful bailout for B.C. condo speculators. Meanwhile, his fundraiser for 24 Sussex risks turning into another sleazy Liberal donation grift. Yet Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre seems unable to dent lofty Liberal popularity numbers, and the NDP isn’t helping. Brian discusses it all with hosts of Postmedia’s exclusive Political Hack newsletter (https://nationalpost.com/exclusive-ne...) , Stuart Thomson, parliamentary bureau chief, and Tasha Kheiriddin, national columnist. (Recorded June 26, 2026)