Sure, it’s a month early, but the party thrown by the American Consulate in Toronto can never compete with the July 4th party in Ottawa. That party is normally one of the most sought after invitations in the nation’s capital and one that I’ve been lucky enough to attend under various presidents.

Tonight, in Toronto, it was Consul General Baxter Hunt welcoming Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor Edith Dumont and Premier Doug Ford to the stage. Both shared kind words about the United States, both made references to past troubles including 1812, and both toasted to future progress and success together.

In the end, Dumont, Ford and Hunt all took the stage together to offer a toast to America 250 and to friendship.

Isn’t that how it should be?

We can disagree and agree to disagree and yet still get along.

That’s how it has been in my personal life for decades with friends who hold different political views, and we manage to stay friends.

For the record, Ford doesn’t drink and left the stage with his glass and quickly disposed of it.

Canadians have taken everything too personally...

The Americans have put tariffs on every country in the world and only two have retaliated – China and Canada. I’d argue that once you tally up the counter tariffs, the changes to procurement, the anti-American policies, the booze ban, the call for Canadians not to visit the United States and the constant anti-American rhetoric in Canada that no country has retaliated as much as we have.

You could argue that Trump didn’t threaten to annex other countries and to a degree you’d be accurate but was that really a threat or a troll.

Remember, I was willing to head to Washington and interview Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top advisor on this issue. I explored what the Americans wanted when others wouldn’t and I came to the conclusion that Trump had been trolling Justin Trudeau.

Even if he wasn’t, by the time Mark Carney was PM and made his first trip to the White House in May 2025, Trump was saying that while he’d like us to be one country, it takes two and we aren’t interested.

We had clearly told our would be suitor that we were not interested and more than a year later, we are still overcompensating and punishing him.

In a normal trade spat, when a country tariffs your steel, aluminum and autos, you put counter tariffs on their steel, aluminum and autos. We’ve done that, an awful lot more, and we’re asking why the Americans are upset with us.

We are making some progress in spite of ourselves...

For the last several months we’ve been doing everything we can as a country not to engage with the Americans. We’ve gone out of our way make sure that serious trade talks weren’t happening, we haven’t put anything on the table when talks have been suggested.

Even this week, I’m told that our list of issues that we agreed to speak to them on were limited to very technical matters and there was very little of substance.

The view is, don’t give Trump a win.

The problem with that approach, as anyone who has done negotiations knows, is that if the other side doesn’t get a win on something then you won’t get a win either. It will become a negotiation where each side tries to grind the other down and as much as I think Canada can and should negotiate from a position of strength, we won’t win a grind the other side down scenario.

I wrote a column for the Toronto Sun today detailing what I know about the talks in Washington.

There is frustration, there is anger, there is anxiety about Doug Ford going to Washington, but there is also progress.

Especially on autos, which is key to the Ontario economy, but given that autos are the second most valuable export after oil, it is key for the Canadian economy.

Let’s hope we keep making progress. Read the column to see how and why I say this is important.

A bad policy overturned means I’m praising Carney...

Yesterday I was writing about the Carney government overturning the horrible decision of the CRTC to put an effective tax on American streamers. Some Canadians loved this policy just because it made Americans pay money to the Canadian government, but the reality is that the policy was bad for Canadian consumers, bad for Canadian businesses and bad for our trade negotiations.

You can read the whole column here, and if you do, please share it.

The bottom line is that we were telling foreign streamers that they had to pay 15% of their total Canadian revenue into a government fund they didn’t control to pay for Canadian content. We were also telling Canadian broadcasters and Canadian streamers that they had to pay 25% of their revenues to do the same thing.

That’s not 15% or 25% of profit, it is revenue, and the only thing that will do is drive up costs. This is a bad policy from every front you can imagine and one that makes our homegrown broadcasters weaker.

If you want to subsidize Canadian content, then do it directly. If you want to tax foreign streamers, then do it directly.

Instead, the CRTC was doing both indirectly and doing it badly because they are an incompetent organization run by people who don’t understand the industries they regulate.

This is also a policy that the Americans see as discriminating against their companies and one that they will fight against. It’s not just an issue of Trump and the Republicans opposing this policy, the Biden administration warned us for years against adopting this policy.

Had the Carney government not done the right thing and overturned this policy then we would have united the Republicans and the Democrats in having a reason to fight against us over a policy that was also bad for our own industry.

Cato the Elder, a statesman and philosopher in ancient Rome used to end his speeches by saying, “Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.” My Latin is rusty, non-existent really, but I am told that translate into “Furthermore, I think that Carthage must be destroyed.”

That is how I feel about the CRTC, an organization that is currently trying to kill both Canada broadcast industry and Canada’s telco industry via bad policy.

The CRTC must be destroyed before it destroys Canadian industry. I’m happy to brief anyone in power as to why if they are interested.

The reality is, he wanted to get fired. His actions over the past several days, the past several weeks amount to suicide by cop.

For those that aren’t familiar with that phrase, it’s when someone goes out of their way to commit a crime in a way that makes sure the responding police officers kills the perp.

For those that don’t know, Scott Pelley was one of the main anchors of CBS’ main news magazine show 60 Minutes. I’ll admit, I have a lot of time for the program, I don’t like everything they do, but they do more in-depth reporting on TV than most.

Have they made mistakes?

Absolutely.

Their worst of late was their editing of the Kamala Harris interview during the 2024 presidential election. Harris had an awful interview and 60 Minutes went out of their way to edit things to make her look better.

They got caught because a teaser for the segment didn’t have the politically approved edit.

Playing in someone else’s sandbox…

Anyone who works for someone else rather than themselves also answers to someone else. Scott Pelley didn’t own 60 Minutes, he wasn’t an equity partner in CBS, he was an employee.

That means you answer to someone else.

When you answer to a boss, or bosses, you can’t publicly tell them that they are incompetent, not welcome, will never be welcomed at the place they oversee and that you will never work with them.

If you do that, you will be fired and Scott Pelley was fired for doing all of that.

As per the New York Post, a Monday morning meeting with 60 Minutes staff and new boss for the show Nick Bilton got tense with Pelley hijacking the meeting and yelling at Bilton criticizing CBS News boss Bari Weiss.

“She has no qualifications for her job,” Pelley said of Weiss, according to the source. “The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”

For the record, CBS Evening News has been in third place since the late 1980s and while Pelley increased the ratings slightly when he was anchor from 2011 through 2017, it still remained in third place.

The Post reports that Pelley didn’t just have words for Weiss, he also laid into Bilton.

Pelley likewise laced into Bilton, telling the new executive producer he had “slender” qualifications for his new job. He added that Bilton “will never be welcome here” and asked him why he took the job under those circumstances, a source said.

Okay, so the guy attacks the head of CBS News which oversees 60 Minutes, he attacks the new executive in charge of his show. He declined offers to meet for dinner to discuss the show over the weekend, he attacked management on Monday, he told them he wasn’t interested in working with Bilton or Weiss.

In what workplace can you do that an not expect to be fired?

I’ve had people come at me online saying that Pelley is an award winning journalist and never should have been fired. He may be an esteemed and award winning journalist, but attacking your employer never works out well.

If I publicly attacked my editor in chief at the Toronto Sun or other executives at Postmedia then I would be fired.

Bilton’s letter paints a different picture…

Nick Bilton’s letter firing has been shared widely by now and it lays out why Pelley was let go.

“I meant what I said in my letter last week to the 60 Minutes team: joining 60 Minutes is the honorof my career and I am grateful to be working alongside the people who have contributed to themost important television journalism brand this country has ever produced,” Bilton wrote to Pelley in his email confirming the firing.

Bilton went on to explain that he wanted to have a good relationship with Pelley, that he wanted to find a way to work together, but Pelley made that impossible.

“Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, myqualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversityof viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. Yesterday’sperformative display of hostility—enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, privateconversation—demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of theshow, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress,” Bilton wrote.

With that, Bilton explained that he hoped to fix things with the meeting that was called between Pelley and executives at the company on Tuesday, but that didn’t work out.

“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. AndI have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (“CBS”) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately,” Bilton wrote.

CBS going MAGA is overblown…

I’m not going to pretend to know Bari Weiss, though we know some of the same people. That said, I have met her when I attended an intimate lunch meeting in Toronto where I got to listen to her speak and chat with her briefly afterward.

What her critics are saying is that she is MAGA and moving CBS News in that direction at the behest of her new bosses.

My take on Weiss is that she is a fairly traditional liberal Jewish lesbian who doesn’t buy into woke politics. In some ways, I could say that she is a classic swing voter who backs Democrats on some things and Republicans on others.

Claiming that she is MAGA and that she is trying to move CBS in that direction is just false.

Pelley had choices…

Those supporting Pelley say he was exercising his free speech rights, that he was is too esteemed to be fired.

Again, if you are working for someone else, you need to follow their lead.

Pelley has the option of going on to be an independent journalist, he could start his own YouTube channel or Substack and if he does that he can say and think whatever he wants. What Pelley can’t do is stay at CBS while attacking CBS and expecting no repercussions.

Jim Acosta, Terry Moran and yes, Bari Weiss have all paved the way for Pelley on Substack.

If he has the courage of his convictions he will follow their paths. If he doesn’t, he’ll just whine from the sidelines and play the victim.

From the refugee and asylum system, the temporary foreign worker program, international students and even permanent residents, Canada’s immigration system is broken. The system used to be an example to the rest of the world, then Justin Trudeau broke it.

Richard Kurland, a lawyer and immigration expert joined me on the Full Comment Podcast to break this all down.

Kurland has been someone who has been exposing problems in the system for years and you will hear that experience in our conversation.

Ambassador Pete needs to stop with the 51st state crap…

No one in Canadian media has defended Ambassador Pete Hoekstra more than me. He’s been attacked widely, and at times unfairly, in our media and his actual comments are often taken out of context.

His decision to repost Donald Trump’s 51st state comment from Truth Social was stupid and tone deaf.

I wrote about that in my column for the Sun today.

I get that Trump was just trolling Carney with that post, it doesn’t mean Hoekstra had to repost. While I often call out Canadian officials for poking the American bear, this is Trump and Hoekstra poking the Canadian bear and getting the Elbows Up crowd angry.

Hell froze over, I was invited on CBC…

I think I write interesting things every single day. I also have perhaps the biggest audience of any national political columnist, but somehow, I’m never invited on CBC - nor CTV to be honest.

Today, because I blasted Ambassador Hoekstra and the Trump administration, CBC had me on.

Don’t expect this to be a regular occurrence.

Thanks to CBC Watcher on X for sharing and posting part of the appearance.

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CUSMA could blow up within the month…

Everyone keeps talking about the July 1 CUSMA date as if it doesn’t really matter, that nothing will change.

As I explained in a recent column for the Toronto Sun, there are three options on the table.

The Americans could renew, that’s the best outcome.

The Americans could give us six months notice and walk away from CUSMA.

The Americans could put us on the path of annual reviews for CUSMA.

I explain in both the column and the video below, that those people telling you that July 1 doesn’t matter are wrong and detail what the various options mean.

Some people remember and lament the rise and fall of Sun News Network.

Others believe that the federal conservatives will never win without a conservative-leaning network, so we need to start one up.

I’m here to say that starting a right-leaning cable news channel in Canada today makes absolutely no sense. Not from a strategic point of view and not from an economic point of view.

The future is digital; it’s online.

In this post, I’ll explain what has been tried before, why it failed, why the technology and regulatory environments have changed, and what the best path forward is.

I know all of this, because I’ve lived it. I was there and I’m still living it.

We tried this once before and failed...

Back around 2009, a then-young guy who had been active in Conservative Party circles for years and who had recently been Stephen Harper’s Director of Communications came up with an idea to launch a conservative-leaning news channel.

That man’s name was Kory Teneycke.

Teneycke wanted to model a Canadian cable news network after the most successful news network ever built – Fox News.

It would be built on hard news and straight talk.

It would be built on a daytime block of real reporting and an evening block of strong opinion.

It would be unapologetically Canadian and proudly patriotic.

It would not just cover the Laurentian Elite triangle of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, it would let the West in.

For a time, we had that.

We launched on April 18, 2011, and we shut down on February 14, 2015.

My show Byline was the last show to air.

It was an episode I was particularly proud of given that I had helped force a probe into the High River gun grab and was able to report on what that probe found before signing off.

No other media outlet was covering that issue in any significant way.

I don’t tell you this for nostalgia’s sake, though looking back now I have questions about my wardrobe choices—they had a staff to pick things out. I also still have real concerns about the dye job they forced on my hair. I look awful.

I don’t want to bring Sun News Network back; we had a good run.

I can honestly say that I don’t want to go back to the days of being tied to a studio for a daily TV show. Between my writings for the Toronto Sun, my writings here, my Lilley Unleashed videos, Full Comment podcast and other media appearances, my audience has never been bigger.

That’s what I mean when I say digital is the future.

Let’s go back a bit though and explain how the CRTC and the Laurentian Elite did everything they could to kill off Sun News and how they would do so again if there were another attempt. Let’s look at the changing consumer behaviours that would make such a successful launch near impossible today.

Don’t worry, I’ll give you some hope and the right path forward.

Read more

That hit home today as I was looking for something specific.

Every once in a while I like to treat myself to a good, home cooked steak. I find one nice big steak and it feeds both of us, normally with a bit left over.

Good luck trying to find that right now.

If you do find a decent cut of steak in stock, they are paper thin. I was at a Farm Boy on Saturday morning and they advertised T-Bone steaks on sale, but they were cut about as thin as a fast fry steak, maybe a bit bigger than a quarter inch.

They are doing that to keep the price on the sticker at an acceptable level.

The grocery stores aren’t stocking better or thicker cuts because people aren’t buying them. Consumers have been adjusting their grocery habits for some time now to deal with the cost of living, and who can blame them.

As I noted in my Toronto Sun column on the state of Canada’s economy, while inflation has cooled, food inflation remains a persistent issue and some things have really spiked.

Tomatoes up 20.9% compared to a year earlier while coffee is up 15.5%, beef is up 12.5%, carrots are up 10.5%, and pork is up 9.4%.

Getting gas at $1.64 a litre this week was a comparative bargain when in reality, it is a rip off compared to a year ago.

Speaking of a recession…

Do you know what the difference is between a recession and a technical recession?

The latter requires a Liberal to be in power for the media to believe it and repeat it without question.

Back during the 2015 election, when growth rates in GDP were similar to now, the media went out of their way to declare Canada in a recession. Now most of them want to go to great lengths to explain to you that the country isn’t in a recession, just a technical recession and besides they might change and update the latest GDP numbers anyway.

Doesn’t matter how you slice it, our economy isn’t doing well.

That was the larger point of my most recent Sun column. We have two quarters where the economy is shrinking - a recession, plus higher unemployment, increasing bankruptcies, out of control food inflation, high gas prices.

Things are not good.

Carney lovers don’t care though, they are the new TruAnon, the people who think their leader can do no wrong. Here’s some of the reaction to my Sun column on X.

Facts may not care about your feelings, but for these folks their feelings really don’t care about facts.

The weak fundamentals in Canada’s economy aren’t helped by Trump and his tariffs, but he didn’t cause those weak fundamentals. these folks don’t see that, they just see Orange Man Bad and Carney as their saviour.

MAGA Mark was a real surprise…

I really wasn’t expecting Mark Carney to be putting on a red baseball cap.

Yet there was Carney in New York City, at the Economic Club, calling for Canada to help Make America Great Again!

This wasn’t an off the cuff comment, this was planned, these comments were written down in the prepared remarks provided to journalists ahead of time.

Now, in my view, this is good messaging for Carney to take to an American audience. It’s just that it goes against his talk of rupture, of hegemons, of the old relationship being over.

It’s the same with his comments about Fortress North America.

Fortress North America is what Doug Ford has been calling for over the past 18 months.

Ford has called for deeper integration and cooperation and the common economic foe known as China. Carney has called for moving away from the USA and getting closer to China.

This man is a chameleon. No one really knows what Mark Carney thinks or believes, including it appears, Carney himself.

Podcasting from Israel…

I talked about much of this on the Kinsellacast. Warren Kinsella is in Israel for the screening of his new film The Campaign, at the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival.

I’ve seen the film, it’s very good and will be shown in Canada soon.

If you want to listen, I show up after the 25 minute mark.

Also, if you want to check out Warren’s best selling book, it came out last month and is onto a second printing I believe.

That would be the case with the Supreme Court of Canada declining to hear an appeal of a New Brunswick appeal court ruling. The Wolastoqey Nation had asked the courts to give a declaration of Aboriginal title over much of New Brunswick.

As I write in my column for the Toronto Sun, the Wolastoqey didn’t seek a declaration of title over all privately held lands in New Brunswick, just some. Perhaps knowing that asking the courts to declare that your home was now the property of the local band wouldn’t go over too well, they avoided that.

They did however ask the courts to declare title over Crown land in the province and land owned by major companies like the Irvings and their forestry properties. Trust me, beating up on the Irving family is a sport in New Brunswick and the Wolastoqey probably thought it would go their way.

It didn’t.

Last December the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick rejected their claim and on Thursday the Supreme Court dismissed their request for leave to appeal. That stops this iteration of the New Brunswick case but there could be other court challenges that could win.

What this means for the Cowichan case in B.C. or the Kitigan Zibi Anishinābeg isn’t known.

Read the column and share on social media if you can.

What is Carney doing to get a deal…

Yesterday, I was writing about how Mark Carney is doing everything to ensure he doesn’t have a deal with Donald Trump.

Today, our PM was in New York speaking to a business audience. There was one odd line towards the end of his speech that stood out.

“Canada Strong will help make America great again,” Carney said.

So now he’s back to sucking up to Trump? This guy can’t make up his mind.

Too often though he is willing to spend all day poking the Americans in the eye so he can feel superior.

As I said in my column yesterday, we spend far too much time fighting with the Americans, poking them in the eye, rather than trying to seek a mutually beneficial deal. Some people take my stance as selling out to the Americans because I say we should listen to them, consider their side and offer something different.

That isn’t selling out, that is looking for the best deal for Canada.

Strangely, too many Canadians seem to believe that poking the Americans in the eye is a good strategy. Not because it helps us economically, but because it makes them feel good politically.

What do I care about?

Jobs.

If we are losing jobs, if we are losing economic activity, then that is a bad thing. Doesn’t matter how good it makes you feel, someone else is hurting for your satisfaction and that is wrong.

Trouble in Liberal land…

Steven Guilbeault is gone.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out the door buddy!

Guilbeault was one of the most dangerous and divisive ministers ever to walk the Canadian political landscape. He was an activist first and an politician and minister second.

The story that I’ve told many times is that the first time I met Guilbeault it was because there was a protest at a downtown Montreal gas station. I showed up to find a man with one of those U shaped bicycle locks around his neck attached to a gas pump.

They didn’t want anyone to be able to fill up their cars.

He’s one of the people who has left Mark Carney’s government and I’m sure that Carney, like most of Canada, isn’t sad to see him go.

Who are the other 14 Liberal MPs who have signed a letter to Carney? Is he facing a real revolt?

We talk about that in this week’s Batra’s Burning Questions.

Removing an ineffective tanker ban…

David McKenzie is the MP for Calgary-Signal Hill, a riding on the west side of the city. On Thursday, he made a very good case for why the tanker ban on Canada’s west coast should be lifted.

This won’t get a lot of media attention today, it’s a busy media day and a private member’s bill from the opposition isn’t going to break through.

I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like most of the questions came from Stephanie Levitz of The Globe and Mail. In my experience, Levitz is a solid, fair and by the book reporter.

I believe that she is the one asking most of the questions here.

From the beginning, I have encouraged Canadians to listen to what our American counterparts are saying about us and about trade. Doing so, and doing so with an open mind, should give us a better understanding of where they are coming from.

If we understand what they want, it puts us in a better spot to negotiate a better deal for Canada.

Listening to them and trying to understand them doesn’t mean we have to agree with them or accept their arguments. Understanding what the other side is saying should be preferable to both sides simply talking past each other with no understanding of what the other is saying.

I fear for many Canadians, that is how they have approached Donald Trump and our trade spat with the United States.

They raise dairy access and we scream that we won’t get rid of supply management even though that isn’t what they asked. They tell us that the Digital Services Tax or the Online Streaming Act violate CUSMA and we yell back that we are a sovereign country and will do what we want.

Meanwhile, by all accounts from Canadians and Americans I speak to, our trade talks with the USA continue to go nowhere and we have put little of substance on the table whether it is on what we want or in response to their issues.

Jamieson Greer spoke at length about trade, tariffs and getting deals on Tuesday.

He did not speak at length about Canada.

In an event with the Council on Foreign Relations hosted by Michael Froman, Barack Obama’s USTR, they mostly talked about China. Canada was brought up, Canada was mentioned, but it wasn’t in the best of terms.

“The U.S. is going to have tariffs,” Greer said. “As long as we have a giant trade deficit, we’re going to have tariffs.”

Greer spoke about wanting to have trading partners in North America, in “our hemisphere” that are aligned. That he wants to source products from partners here rather than in Asia or Europe.

That should be good news for Canada, if we will partner with them. The question is whether we will partner or continue down the path of rupture.

Clearly, Michael Froman has been listening to Mark Carney’s words, because Froman asked Greer about that rupture.

“How serious is the fissures? Are the fissures with Canada, the rupture with Canada? And can you envisage USMCA being transformed into separate agreement with Mexico, separate agreement with Canada, or no agreement with Canada?” Froman asked.

“Well, I would say that, you know, the team right now is in Mexico. My team, and they’re negotiating with Mexico on a bilateral basis,” Greer said.

“I speak with some regularity to my Canadian counterparts.”

Greer then talked about the state of the relationship at the moment.

Our sense is that we have with Canada, you know, some some trade challenges, which, you know, to some people, you know, some people may think, oh, those are just irritants to us. They’re, they’re significant, and the reality is, we’ve spent the past year and a half going to countries, telling them we have to have some level of tariff on the globe to deal with this giant death that we’re dealing with, to try to reshore, etc.

And, and most countries have, you know, I know grudgingly, but they said we understand your policy, we understand so we’re going to negotiate with you, we’re going to remove some of these tariffs and non tariff barriers, etc. Canada’s approach has been different.

They like China retaliated against the United States. Two countries in the world retaliated against us, People’s Republic of China and Canada, so they’re just, they’re just in a different spot, and it’s, it’s hard to see necessarily where that ends.

He added that trade in things like energy and fertilizer continues to be good but that manufactured goods is a challenge. He then went on about the auto sector and said a lot of things that just aren’t true, but it is a simplified view that is even shared by politicians in our country that the auto industry here really just started in the 1960s with the auto pact.

That’s something I’ve been fighting against unsuccessfully for a while, but I’ll leave that for another day.

The conversation is more than an hour, but being the geek that I am, I found it interesting.

The part about Canada kicks in at the 37 minute mark but the rest is worth the listen as well.

Back then I was writing about how Carney needed to start delivering after making lots of promises. I’m still writing about that today, because Carney continues to make lots of promises but isn’t delivering in any meaningful ways.

I’ve been online since the mid-90s and I learned to code to build my first website from scratch in 1998. Over those 30 years online, I’ve been on plenty of platforms but none as powerful as Substack.

I’ve had this website, brianlilley.com since 2008 and used different software offerings to power it. When I decided it was time for a refresh in late 2024, I looked at a lot of different options and chose this one.

Most of you don’t care what platform I use, but I’ll explain why this matters.

Google Zero is approaching…

For the past few decades, most publishers, including my main gig at the Toronto Sun, have relied on Google to deliver traffic. People would search for a topic or go to Google News and a link to our stories would pop up.

Soon, that won’t be happening.

With the advent of AI, those who are using Google see the AI summary first and just like most didn’t click past the first few links in Google search, most don’t go past the AI summary. Others aren’t using Google anymore, they use ChatGPT, Claude or Grok to ask about issues and don’t follow the links.

Everything is changing.

This is why I ask people to subscribe.

My work at the Toronto Sun will continue. My writings here will continue.

Soon though, if you aren’t subscribed, you are unlikely to find this work unless you seek it out.

Between that and the social media platforms constantly changing their algorithms, things are pretty bleak for publishers.

Here, using Substack, I can reach you directly via email and keep in contact with you.

What started out as a small list a year ago has grown exponentially. Thank you to each and every one of you for your support.

Speaking of Carney speaking but not delivering…

The impact of Mark Carney’s Davos speech are still being felt.

Those who like it, like it a lot. Those who don’t like it, well that’s where we will feel the impact.

A friend who is smart on trade and cross border issues sent me this piece by Michael Beckley in Foreign Affairs magazine. Beckley is political science prof and think tank type guy south of the border and wasn’t impressed by Carney’s speech or the thesis of the speech.

Titled, “The Middle Power Delusion: Not Choosing Is Not an Option,” Beckley uses his words to show that Carney’s call for middle powers to unite against “hegemons” won’t work. It’s a long piece but it really grabbed me as early as the third paragraph.

But this reading mistakes anxiety for strength. Middle powers are not becoming more visible because they are more powerful. They are becoming more visible because they are more exposed. The conditions that allowed many of them to flourish in recent decades are eroding. For years, they could shelter under U.S. hegemony, exploit an expanding global economy, and trade with rival powers without choosing among them. They could reap the benefits of scale without possessing it themselves.

As I said, it’s a long piece, but worth your time. Carney’s call for a middle power counter balance is a delusion.

Carney Liberals insult those who want answers to fake refugee questions…

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released another report on the Interim Federal Health Program.

I wrote about it for the Toronto Sun and you can read the column here.

This is the second report on this program this year. The report in February showed a program that had gone from costing $60 million to $1 billion in a decade due to abuse and mismanagement.

This latest report details more abuse including that 79% of the people who were receiving care through this program had come to Canada on another form of visa - think student or work visa - and then claimed asylum. More than that 74,000 people who were denied their asylum claim were still receiving health care that is better than what Canadians get from their provincial health plans.

The response to questions on this in the House of Commons from Carney’s House Leader Steve MacKinnon…ask why the Conservatives are so heartless.

“Why are conservatives against providing health care to some of the most vulnerable people on this earth?” MacKinnon asked.

It’s disgusting.

I detail more of the abuse in the column. Give it a read.

Doug Ford takes a stand for legal, licenced gun owners…

I know Ford takes a lot of flak for not being conservative enough. Sometimes, I’m the person giving him flak for his latest stance.

Not this time, Ford has come out to support the court challenge to Carney’s gun grab by the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.

I’ve been chatting with Tracey Wilson from the CCFR about gun issues for a long time now and called her up to discuss this latest development.

Chatting with an up and coming journalist…

A few years ago I was asked to mentor a young man named Elie Cantin-Nantel. I’ll admit, I didn’t do a very good job, but he clearly has talent.

Elie has worked with Juno News and others in his still young career and is trying to make his way as an independent journalist.

He asked me to join him on his YouTube channel for a chat about news of the day.

I hope you enjoy, and give him a follow.

The CRTC decisions that I wrote about last week here and here. These decisions will hike your monthly fees for streaming services, weaken Canadian broadcasters and start a new front on the trade war not just with Donald Trump but virtually every Democrat.

When the Online Streaming Act, the bill that allows for these dumb decisions, was introduced the Biden administration warned Canada that this was a violation of CUSMA. This is an attack on Hollywood and Silicon Valley, two parts of the American economy that are still tied tightly to the Democrat Party.

It also pisses off the Trump Republicans, so there you have it, everyone in America will hate us for this.

It was dumb to announce these changes last week. Dumber still for the Carney government not to immediately step in and say that these new charges on American streamers would be paused as we review CUSMA and negotiate a new trade deal.

That would have been a move that would keep a card in reserve.

We didn’t do that.

As I have mentioned previously, this is also a really bad decision for Canadian broadcasters and streamers because it drives up their costs even more, weakens them, makes them less competitive and more expensive.

Why?

All to make sure a government policy of subsidizing Canadian content creation is funded by companies rather than taxpayers. We pay either way, why not just make it more efficient and make a direct subsidy.

No, I’m not in favour of direct subsidies but that’s better than adding layers or bureaucracy to the process to make it less efficient.

Give the column on how this hurts Canadian broadcasters a read. No one else is telling this story.

This decision really has me going though…

The court decision last week by Justice Micheal Gibson has me fuming.

There is so much wrong with this decision from his appeal to international law, non-binding United Nations reports and even federal statutes - which are not constitutional documents - to try and bend the meaning of the Charter.

This guy tried to say being homeless is the same as race, gender, skin colour when it comes to discrimination.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was asked repeatedly about using the notwithstanding clause on this and he didn’t rule it out.

I took to video to do my own rant about this decision and how bad it is.

As I detail in my column for the Toronto Sun, this is a dangerous decision that must be overturned.

This isn’t just a bad decision that we can live with and look the other way. This is a decision that fundamentally changes the definition of Charter rights.

Our Charter, flawed as it is, is a collection of negative rights. That means it details what the government can’t do to you, it is your protection from government overreach.

This decision is an attempt to establish what are called positive rights. In this scenario the government must provide you with certain things and under the scenario laid out by this decision on a homeless encampment, it would mean judges deciding social policy and what the government must spend and how.

It would eradicate democracy.

This case is not about homelessness; it’s about whether courts are able constitutionalize policy preferences by importing non-binding international legal theory into the Charter.

If I were in charge, judges would not be citing non-Canadian legal sources.

Carney compares Alberta separation to Brexit…

This may not go the way Mark Carney expected.

On Monday he was asked about the idea of a question on Alberta separation going forward this fall and warned it could be like Brexit. Carney was famously against Brexit, which to me says he was on the wrong side of history.

I would argue that Brexit, since 2016, has been good for the U.K. while he would argue the opposite.

Since leaving the EU, Britain has seen stronger economic growth, wage increases, trade imbalances have shifted in their favour and more. Still, there was Carney warning Alberta separation could be bad like Brexit.

From CTV:

“I will make the following observation, though, about the question, and this is an observation from experience,” Carney told reporters Monday. “In these separation issues, it is often advanced that: ‘Vote for this, and it’s a free option’; ‘Vote for this, and we will strengthen your hand in future negotiation.’”

“That is a very dangerous bluff,” Carney added, before pointing to his time as governor of the Bank of England during Brexit, when the United Kingdom narrowly voted to leave the European Union.

“They’re still, 10 years later, trying to undo what people didn’t think they were voting for,” Carney also said, referencing Brexit.

If he’s telling residents of Alberta that leaving Canada will be like Brexit, he should stop talking. Because if that’s his message, then he’s telling them things will be better by leaving.

I should also point out that Carney was on the losing end of that debate and campaign.

There is a lot of negativity right now about the oil patch, Alberta’s future in Canada, whether Mark Carney is doing enough or anything.

Paul Colborne, the CEO of Surge Energy doesn’t feel that way. He’s not alone in the industry either.

Paul’s firm runs in the conventional oil space in Alberta and Saskatchewan and was recently named Saskatchewan’s oilman of the year.

I spoke to him on Friday about the new deal between Ottawa and Alberta and why he thinks that Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney are on the right track and that things will happen.

Grab a coffee and enjoy.

From the official show notes:

After a brutal decade under Justin Trudeau’s draconian anti-development policies, there’s real optimism in the western oilpatch again. Paul Colborne, CEO of Calgary-based Surge Energy, tells Brian why he’s convinced Prime Minister Mark Carney is serious about boosting oil production, including with more pipelines, and why investors are clamouring to get in on it. He explains why he even sees benefit to the carbon-tax and emissions-sequestering conditions in Carney’s memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. And why he doesn’t believe B.C., First Nations or some anti-oil Liberal MPs will stand in the prime minister’s way of using resources to get us out of the disastrous, money-printing economic dead end the last prime minister left behind. (Recorded May 22, 2026)

Over the Victoria Day long weekend, I took a much needed break while visiting a cottage north of Havelock with some friends.

This past weekend I headed to New Brunswick again to visit my son and his family. He and his wife blessed me with a grandson last September and it is a joy to hold and play with the wee man any chance I get.

Flying back to Toronto now with a heart full of love and a mind full of memories.

No photos of the baby, but I will share a glorious sunset with you.

We need to listen to Ambassador Pete…

I’m going to do something I rarely do, point to an article out of CBC and offer them a compliment. Actually, they would argue it’s not CBC, it’s Radio-Canada, the French version of CBC, but I will still compliment them.

Either way, this piece by Laurence Martin on her interview with American Ambassador Pete Hoekstra is worth the read.

In it, Martin describes how Hoekstra is frustrated and that he feels Canada and the United States could and should be moving further ahead on trade talks. I feel the same way and express my frustration, and the feeling that Carney, and many of his supporters don’t want a deal.

In the interview, Hoekstra said that tariffs are here to stay and Canadians should get used to that idea.

“It’s our policy, and it’s a policy that is uniformly administered,” he told CBC.

Canadians seem to think we are being singled out, we aren’t, but we are acting like we are.

As for tariffs not going away, I’ve been saying this since my visit to Washington in the middle of February 2025. You may recall the trip, spearheaded by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, where all the premiers headed to D.C.

It was on that trip that I first start hearing from American politicians and officials that they felt tariffs were not going away. Even those that were close to Canada said the likely reality in the future is an eventual 10% global tariff.

Believe it or not, many in the industries hit by tariffs of 25% or more say they could live with and still do business with a 10% global tariff but they can’t keep going indefinitely at the current levels.

We had it good for a while with the Americans, but protectionism is in vogue south of the border and as I have long pointed out, it is popular with Democrats as well. We can’t assume that we are going to get rid of all tariffs if the Republican lose the mid-terms or even if there is a change in the presidency.

Tariffs were for a long time, the norm…

Once upon a time, it wasn’t a question of whether to have tariffs, it was only a question about the tariff rate. As a country, Canada still has tariffs on many goods, you can read about them here and here.

This isn’t just the dairy quota we charge, but that is a topic worth talking about.

There’s something about dairy…

Under Canada’s dairy quota system, we allocate our trading partners a certain amount of access to our markets for liquid milk or cheese products. Anything they export to us above that comes with the steep tariffs you’ve heard about such as 240% or more.

Of course the Americans never go over their quota and in fact sell very little dairy to us, but that’s because of how we allocate their quota. The Canadian government grants the Amerrican quota to our own major dairy companies who have no interest in importing anything that would compete with them.

That’s why the Americans have been complaining about our implementation of CUSMA from the start.

Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who represents New York’s 24th Congressional District, a sprawling rural area with lots of dairy farms - and wine making - was complaining about this in an op-ed in The Hill the day.

First and foremost is Canada’s unfair treatment of American dairy farmers. Despite the creation of new tariff rate quotas exclusively for U.S. dairy producers under USMCA, Canada has manipulated the market by allocating these tariff rate quotas to entities that refuse to use them, instead of retailers and wholesalers that desire high-quality, low-cost American dairy.

Take a look at this map and you will understand why she is concerned about our stance on dairy. We agreed to let them have access but have since found ways to once again block their exports to us.

Tenney, a woman who boasts about her love of Canada, of hockey, of curling and of showing her horses at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto is frustrated with us.

When we are losing allies like Tenney, there is a problem.

Like Hoekstra, she believes we could be getting a deal, but we simply aren’t coming to the table.

The list of Canadian regulations that discriminate against U.S. producers is extensive: restrictions on U.S. seed exports, the Online Streaming Act which imposes new unfair requirements on U.S. streaming services operating in Canada, and unacceptable restrictions on access for turkey farmers. On all of these issues, the U.S. trade representative has raised them with the Canadians, and yet Canada has given no meaningful engagement.

Instead, Team Carney is playing the waiting game.

Louise Blais, a former Canadian diplomat and advisor on cross border issues was recently named an emissary for the Quebec government for the CUSMA review. She told National Post a few weeks ago that there is real risk in Canada playing the waiting game.

“Quebec believes that we need to engage constantly and without delay. The uncertainty is having real impacts,” said Blais. “We have companies now that are closing in Quebec,” she said, adding that the forestry sector and its related industries are hit particularly hard.

That same article pointed to the shut down of South Shore Furniture, an 86 year-old furniture maker that shut down blaming the tariffs. People are losing their jobs and yet, we continue to play the waiting game.

Back to Hoekstra…

In his interview with CBC, Ambassador Hoekstra made it clear that the Trump administration is unhappy with Canada’s extra retaliatory measures - like the booze ban.

Other than Alberta and Saskatchewan, every other province has banned the sale of American booze. Hoekstra told CBC that the United States is not negotiating tariffs over booze bans.

Hoekstra also denounced the procurement policies of several provinces that focus on buying local, as well as messages from certain politicians discouraging travel to the United States.

Last December, for example, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced he was cancelling his traditional annual trip to Florida in protest of the U.S. tariffs.

“For us, it’s a very interesting contrast,” Hoekstra said. “We’re not telling people don’t buy Canadian products, and we’re not telling people don’t travel to Canada.”

A point that many Canadians miss, as did CBC in this piece, is that Canada’s retaliatory measures against the United States go above and beyond a simple response to Trump’s tariffs.

In response to the 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos, we imposed our own tariffs on those goods from the United States. From the end of March until September 1, 2025 we also imposed billions of dollars worth of tariffs on CUSMA compliant goods, including many grocery items.

The Americans never tariffed food exports or consumer goods coming out of Canada.

We have counter tariffs, we have ramped up buy Canadian government purchasing, we have banned American booze, our politicians encourage all of us to boycott American goods and American travel.

They are doing none of that south of the border.

Do they have official Buy American policies on infrastructure projects that I would like to see go? Absolutely, just look at the requirements from the Federal Transit Administration.

Still, we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot by going over and above.

Why do we do it?

I think too many Canadians think it’s showing how “tough” we are, that we can stand up to the Americans.

I think it’s foolish and it is simply harming Canadians working in industries hit by the tariffs. If you are in the laptop class, if you are retired, then these tariffs aren’t hurting you but if you are in these impacted industries then you are worried about your job.

We owe it to our fellow Canadians to get to the table and negotiate a better deal.

Tariffs aren’t going away, but we can negotiate to get them lower.

Stop waiting Mr. Carney.

P.S. - I could go on at length about the ridiculous and idiotic decision by the CRTC to demand American streamer spend 15% of their total Canadian revenues on Canadian content, but I’ve already covered that at length in my column for the Toronto Sun. I also wrote another piece with a view you won’t hear from most of the media, this CRTC decision is also detrimental to Canada’s broadcast industry.

In one case, they pranked retired RCMP officers and attempted to humiliate them.

Yesterday I was able to break the news that the show was production of the show was being paused. It hasn’t been cancelled, it may still air, but CBC is reviewing the material that has already been shot to determine whether to proceed.

In their statement to me, I’ll post the full statement below, they actually defended this style of show as a valid form of comedy.

On Tuesday, I interviewed Frances Widdowson, who exposed this all with the release of her video, and Lindsay Shepherd who was also targeted by this production company.

You can watch that video below.

For my column in the Toronto Sun, which we put on the front page, I also spoke with the head of the RCMP Veterans Association.

I really do think Minister Marc Miller needs to answer for this. Hopefully he sees how wrong this is and takes action.

If not, the Conservatives should call him before the Heritage Committee to explain, the head of CBC Entertainment should also be called.

Here’s the full interview.

And here is CBC’s full statement.

Northland Tales (working title) is an Indigenous-led unscripted, half-hour comedy series in early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN. For clarity, CBC News and APTN News have no involvement in this production or prior knowledge of it. The project was first pitched at the Indigenous Screen Summit - part of the Banff World Media Festival in 2024. CBC Entertainment joined APTN as a partner shortly thereafter. Social experiments and satirical prank shows are a long-established television format used by broadcasters and streamers around the world, including many public broadcasters. In this case, the Indigenous creators are using the format for Northland Tales. A form of comedy is being deployed to increase better understanding of historical injustices against Indigenous peoples and support truth and reconciliation in Canada.

It is important for us in the execution that this entertainment series does not negatively impact our news brand. With that context, we are currently pausing on production while we assess the existing footage.

Yes, we are too reliant on them.

Yes, we need to diversify our trade.

That said, we can’t go from 76% of all exports heading to the United States in 2024 to a fully diversified trade portfolio overnight. We are still reliant on the United States in so many ways be it trade or defence.

As a country, Canada wants to pretend that reality doesn’t exist.

That’s why on trade, and defence, we are making mistakes.

Later this week, the CRTC, Canada’s broadcast regulator will bring in changes that will anger the United States, and not just Donald Trump’s Republican Party but Democrats as well. On defence, despite our promise to increase spending, we remain a weak partner as we taunt the Americans on not buying the F-35 fighter jet.

We saw over the weekend that the United States hit the pause button on Permanent Joint Board on Defence. When Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby made the announcement on Victoria Day, most Canadians asked, “What is the Permanent Joint Board on Defence?”

Elbridge Colby, a name out of central casting for a New England upper crust twat, made the announcement as the Under Secretary of War for Policy. In his thread on X, Colby pointed to Mark Carney’s Davos speech at the World Economic Forum as one of the reasons for putting the board on pause.

Still, most Canadians were turning to Google to ask, “What is the Permanent Joint Board on Defence?” Or Defense as the Americans might spell it.

It’s an organization that was founded in 1940 at a meeting between Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In August of 1940, the two men met in Ogdensburg, New York a border town about a one hour drive south of Ottawa.

They made the announcement to cooperate on defence before the United States even joined the Second World War.

How significant is this development?

Well, it won’t impact your life but it does show the mood in Washington where I’m told the Americans are just losing patience with us on all fronts.

Which brings us to CUSMA.

Whether it is defence or trade, what I’m hearing out of the American capital is that they are fed up with the non-stop anti-American rhetoric coming out of Canada.

It’s not just Republicans, it’s Democrats too.

Our leaders talk of rupture, of trade wars, of attacks, they do not talk of alliances.

Then when we do something that will set the Americans off, we act all innocent.

I’m not looking for Canada to surrender in the trade talks with the Americans, I think we have leverage. To put it in Trump terms, we have cards to play, but we aren’t playing them.

Instead of leaning into what we have that the Americans want like oil, like natural gas, like electricity, like critical minerals, we go out of our way to alienate them.

On Thursday, as I detail in my latest column for the Toronto Sun, the CRTC is about to invoke new rules and regulations for streaming services like Apple Music, Netflix or Disney + that will anger both sides of the aisle in Washington.

In the latest episode of the Full Comment Podcast, I spoke with Tracy Moran from National Post, their Washington correspondent, about how things are going south of the border.

This conversation happened last week before the Americans hit pause on that board and before the CRTC announced they would add news rules for streamers.

It’s calm, it’s serene, and now there is a guy across the narrow channel of the lake we are on who started using his chainsaw at 7am.

I’ll still take it.

So here I sit lakeside, coffee at the ready pondering what to make of this deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Below I lay out the wins for Alberta, the risk Carney is taking by agreeing to this and why it is still not enough. I’ll share Eric Nuttall’s thoughts on what he is calling The Great Ransom and what I am calling the new Danegeld.

Premier Smith is certainly happy…

While I have several reservations about this deal and the slow timeline for it, Premier Smith is certainly saying publicly that she’s happy with the deal.

Here’s some of the posts she shared on social media bragging about the deal.

All of those are major wins for her and Alberta and none of them should be discounted.

On matters like this, I do put a lot of weight in what Premier Smith says. She’s a smart political leader, she thinks deeply about how to achieve her goals and she’s calling this good for Alberta.

So too are my Postmedia colleagues at the Calgary Herald such as Rick Bell, Don Braid and and Chris Varcoe. Take a look at what they are saying and consider their points of view.

As for individual questions, Premier Smith answered them all on Friday afternoon.

Carney’s side is facing pushback…

For all Mark Carney did in agreeing to many of Alberta’s demands, it still isn’t enough in my view - more on that in a moment.

Within Carney’s own caucus, there is pushback mainly from Quebec MPs and members of the party’s supposed green caucus. As I’ve said before, Carney has the political capital to spend within his own party and with the Canadian public.

He should be reminding all of these MPs that if it weren’t for him, they’d be out of a job and the Liberals would be out of power.

(Oh how I wish!)

On Friday, Carney faced criticism from groups like Environmental Defence, the Pembina Institute, Eco Justice and Sierra Club.

Telling these groups that have long supported Liberal policy that he is moving ahead, despite their objections, could cost Carney at some point.

This is not without political risk for him.

Carney was asked to respond to those groups during his scrum with the media.

All that said…

This still does not go far enough or fast enough.

A deadline to get to a decision on approving, or rejecting, a pipeline won’t come until September 2027.

Yesterday, the UAE announced they would double their pipeline capacity by fast tracking a project already under construction to open in 2027. They are doing this to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and any future disruptions.

By the time this pipeline is operating, we will have come to a decision on whether to build one, that if all goes well, will open sometime between 2033 and 2034.

“We will need to think big and act bigger. We will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations.”

That was Mark Carney in his victory speech on election night, April 28, 2025.

This new announcement is not living up to that promise. A promise that he made time and again during the election and that he has repeated often since the election.

We are not thinking big enough, we are not acting big enough and we are moving at Ottawa speed.

Meaning barely moving.

I mentioned above that Carney is spending some political capital in facing off against the environmental groups and even members of his own caucus.

He’s not spending enough.

The Canadian voting public would back this man to the hilt if he came out and said he was actually fast tracking this project and others to boost the Canadian economy. His popularity in the polls would increase, including in Alberta - a place not normally friendly to Liberals but where his party is doing well currently.

The latest Leger poll for Postmedia has Carney’s Liberals at 41% in Alberta. They got 28% of the vote in the last election and won two seats, if they got 41% they’d win far more in Alberta.

If they actually moved quickly on these projects, he’d be winning enough seats in Alberta to offset losses in Quebec.

And Canada would be winning economically.

We are only harming ourselves…

Most of the world is moving on from the fantasies that they have been telling themselves on carbon taxes and the like.

Not Canada.

The whole world wants more energy, wants energy from reliable partners, and we are still making it difficult to get it to them.

Eric Nuttall is a major investor in the oil and gas sector and he’s still bullish on it, but he’s clearly frustrated by this deal calling it The Great Ransom.

He’s claiming a TM on that, but I think The Great Ransom the perfect way to describe what just happened.

For years, I heard green activists tell me that even oil and gas executives supported carbon taxes or carbon capture projects, which was proof that they worked. No, what really was happening was they were agreeing to the ransom in place at the time.

For years they were agree to pay the Danegeld.

On Friday, we just changed what Danegeld is and who it is being paid to, but Alberta is still paying.

I applaud Premier Smith for getting to any agreement but I’m sure she would agree with me that it would be better if we didn’t have to jump through hoops to move forward on the projects that will build and sustain our country.

The Carney government won’t say much about what is happening, they just always try to put things in the best light. That’s what Mark Carney did earlier today when asked about ensuring we have access to the U.S. market so we don’t lose more manufacturing plants like the Honda expansion.

Carney was coy.

Here’s a longer clip of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer appearing on Fox News over the weekend and being frank. We don’t have to like or agree with what he says, but at least the Americans are open with their public about what is going on.

Carney wants electricity changes…

It looks like Mark Carney wants to get out of the way of provinces on electricity.

Kinda, but not really.

My colleague Bryan Passifiume is writing about Carney’s announcement today. He wants to double the grid by 2050, a goal most ambitious provinces are already moving towards.

The problem is, the Liberals, especially under Trudeau, have been getting in the way for years. Now, Carney is promising a national strategy, in an area the provinces run, to clear up the Liberal mess.

“We need to deliver, because Canada is facing major challenges from a rapidly changing world,” Carney said.

“The U.S. has radically changed its trade relations with other countries, which has made many of our previous assets into liabilities.”

Central to that strategy, the PM said, is Canada’s electrical grid.

Carney’s plan represents a re-imagining of the Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) — the cornerstone of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s climate policy, which at the time called for a net-zero power grid by 2035.

Notice how everything is tied back to Trump’s tariffs, even electricity.

The real issue is, this doesn’t fully repeal Trudeau area regulations that are causing more harm than Trump tariffs. That’s a point Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was making on Thursday afternoon.

Doug Ford keeps on trucking…

I know what the comment section will be like today on this story. There is a lot of hate around here for Ford.

That said, the latest poll by Leger for Postmedia that I was writing about in the Toronto Sun today shows he’d win another majority if an election were held today. Sure, support is down a bit from the last election but he is still in majority territory.

Will it stay that way?

As I like to tell all politicos:

Voters are fickle.

Polls can change.

Campaigns matter.

Read the column here.

Trudeau judge tries to squash Alberta independence referendum…

An Alberta court judge, appointed by David Lametti in the Trudeau government, has ruled that the referendum on Alberta independence cannot go ahead. Her reasoning was that there had not be sufficient consultation with First Nations Communities.

Constitutional scholar and law professor Dwight Newman, a man I’ve interviewed and featured here has written for National Post that the judge was wrong to arrive at that conclusion.

I don’t agree with the goal of taking Alberta out of Canada, but I do speak to people about this issue. The Full Comment episode released on Monday was an interview with Keith Wilson, a lawyer fighting for Alberta to separate.

I asked Wilson a question that seems appropriate at this point given the court trying to shut this down. You can listen to the full discussion here.

You can listen to my full conversation with Professor Newman on the Cowichan court case and Musqueam agreement on the Full Comment Podcast here.

BTW, Carney was asked about the referendum today. He spoke about the right to vote, didn’t suggest blocking the vote but said Alberta is best placed within Canada.

On that, I’ll agree with him.

All eyes are on Beijing where Donald Trump has arrived, but as I write, he has yet to have major meetings. It’s early evening in Toronto and early morning in Beijing.

According to Fox News, the Americans will be pushing China to take a stronger role when it comes to Iran.

Joining “Hannity” from aboard Air Force One while en route to China, Rubio explained that the U.S. has made its case to Beijing on why it should engage in efforts to settle simmering tensions with Iran.

“It’s in their interest to resolve this,” Rubio said Wednesday. “We hope to convince them to play a more active role in getting Iran to walk away from what they’re doing now and trying to do now in the Persian Gulf.”

According to Fox, Rubio said that the Trump administration is making the case that it is in China’s interests to resolve this war and open the Strait of Hormuz.

Rupture, while hugging astronauts…

Mark Carney continues his conflicting messages when it comes to the United States.

Remember that he told us the old relationship was over, that the days of deepening integration were in the past, that being so close to the United States was a weakness. Then he embraced Barack Obama on the weekend, gave a speech to an American think tank, and said he’s open for deeper integration.

And now he’s hosting the astronauts that were the crew of Artemis II.

Sure, Canadian Jeremy Hanson was part of the crew but the rest are all Americans.

In fact, Hansen wouldn’t have gotten to space or been part of the mission, Carney would not have talked to the Artemis II crew if it weren’t for the Americans. It’s another reason why Carney’s anti-American, Elbows Up rhetoric always rings hollow to me.

CBC trashing our history and conservatives all at once…

So it seems that a CBC and APTN co-production has been trying to lure people they don’t like into a sting style operation to make them look like asses on issues like residential schools.

Lindsay Shepherd, Dr. Frances Widdowson, former CPC candidate Mark Johnson and others have been targeted. My Toronto Sun colleague Joe Warmington has the full story, but here is part of what he got from Shepherd.

“I was deceived by social activists in an elaborate scheme,” said journalist, author and famous anti-pronoun activist Lindsay Shepherd, who last year, while pregnant, was fired from her political job for a tweet about Truth and Reconciliation Day. “A production group with what I now know has a fake name and fake identities gave me a friendly interview about my book A Day with Sir John A, and about Sir John A Macdonald.”

That was designed to lure her into their fishing hole and then set the hook.

“In a second filmed interview last week, they turned on me, and it was revealed to have all been a setup in order to demonize Sir John A and smear me. It turns out this is a taxpayer-funded CBC and APTN project,” Shepherd posted to her X account Tuesday.

Do you need more reasons to defund CBC? I certainly don’t.

Again, time to change the voting rules…

We really can’t wait to change the rules on voting in nominations and leadership contests fast enough.

The allegations made by Nathaniel Erskine-Smith about voting irregularities are serious and need to be addressed. I wrote about that in my Sun column earlier today and recorded a video on this that you can watch below.

Speaking of irregularities…

So Mark Carney endorsed Erskine-Smith before he lost the nomination, now the PMO is trying to claim it was not an endorsement.

The Gravy Plane gets returned…

The total cost of the Gravy Plane that Doug Ford bought, one that I think any premier should have, is just over $190,000.

The Ford government released the full set of documents late today after weeks of hounding from the opposition. You can read my full take on it here.

Bottom line, the leader of a $246 billion organization having access to a plane like this is justifiable. Ford couldn’t take the political heat and caved rather than defend the purchase, which he oddly didn’t put in his budget.

Here’s the documents on the extra costs.

Below is the invoice from the Ontario government to Bombardier for $23,730,000 USD.

The list of the airports Mark Carney wants to privatize that is. Rather than scoop myself, I’ll leave that part to my latest Toronto Sun column which you can read here.

I’m still undecided on whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. Essentially, this is a devil in the details issue.

What I can tell you, and as I explain in the column, the government is looking for financial partners and considering different models for structuring any potential deals. They could move ahead within days with RFI asking the financial sector for expressions of interest.

In my conversation with former airline executive Duncan Dee, he told me that Canada’s current system is a real problem with high fees and low oversight.

You can watch our full 20 minute chat on this issue here.

Progressives only worry about some votes…

It was three days ago that CBC came out with a story saying CSIS is warning that the Alberta referendum on independence is susceptible to foreign interference.

They ran it all weekend and they are still running it Monday night trying to get everyone worried.

Meanwhile, we had a provincial nomination race on the weekend that got national attention because the PM was involved, because a sitting MP tried to secure a provincial nomination and lost and because of sample ballots being handed out in English and Bengali.

But as I was writing today in the Sun, the real problem is all of our parties allow minors and people who aren’t citizens to vote.

Why do we allow people who can’t vote in a general election to pick our candidates?

The Hogue Commission stated point blank that this system is prone to foreign interference and needs to be changed.

Is CBC beating the drum on that?

Heavens no!

This isn’t a new issue for me, I was raising it when the Liberals held their leadership race that selected Mark Carney.

Speaking of the Alberta separation debate…

The latest episode of the Full Comment Podcast dropped in the early hours of Monday morning. I spoke with Edmonton area lawyer Keith Wilson about why he, a native of Ontario, has decided it’s time for his province to break with the rest of Canada.

Here’s part of that conversation.

I’ve posted the full podcast here or you can listen on whichever app you use for podcasts.

Rupture vs. deeper integration…

As I was writing on the weekend, Mark Carney has spent months warning us about being too close to the Americans. He talks endlessly of a rupture, of the old order and the old relationship being over.

This weekend he was all over a conference co-sponsored by the Liberal affiliated Canada 2020 think tank and the Washington based Center for American Progress. He was even there to greet Barack Obama who showed up for a Friday night keynote speech.

Then on Saturday, Carney gave his own speech where he confusingly began speaking about a deeper integration with the United States.

“Canada remains open to deeper integration, including options for fortress North America in selected sectors. And to be clear, those offers are on the table.”

Just a few weeks ago he was saying this:

“Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses. Weaknesses that we must correct.”

And you thought the Elbows Up and Elbows Down changes were confusing.

Here’s my video commentary on it.