Charlie Kirk, tired of being called a fascist, The Road Between Us and a weak trade response...

It's been a disappointing few days in Canadian politics.

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I didn’t know Charlie Kirk, but I admired his willingness to engage in debate in good faith with anyone and everyone. Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday afternoon, I had just started the screening of The Road Between Us at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Given the film’s focus on family and the lengths that we will go for family in the wake of October 7, I’m sure Charlie would have loved it.

Benny Johnson did know Charlie though and was a friend of his. I first met Benny back in 2011, he was a wild young man rising up in the American conservative movement and I gave him some of his first TV breaks on my old Sun News Network show. Back then, Benny was a man around town, a partier, a good guy and now he’s a different man.

On Fox and Friends on Wednesday night, Benny shared a story of Charlie Kirk’s generosity that I think is worth sharing here.

Benny says that Charlie never asked him for anything in return. I can tell you that Benny Johnson is a different man than he was when I first met him and he would tell you that Charlie Kirk’s positive influence played a role in that.

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Tired of being called a fascist…

As I wrote in my column about Kirk’s assassination in the Toronto Sun, Kirk was a happy warrior, someone who engaged people he disagreed with in good faith political debate. We should want more of that and not less, though clearly the assasin felt differently.

Immediately though, people who didn’t know the man at all were calling him controversial, divisive, extreme and of course a fascist.

It’s a term that gets thrown around too loosely by people who just want to shut down someone they disagree with. Anyone who knows me, and that includes many friends who are progressives or capital L Liberals, will know that I am not a fascist, I’m not homophobic, racist, misogynistic or any of the other terms that get thrown at anyone espousing conservative political views.

Neither was Charlie Kirk, but that didn’t stop people from throwing those terms around just to discount him, to explain away the violence.

Matthew Dowd, a former Bush advisor who has “progressed” to the left over the years went on MSNBC and said the hateful words of Charlie Kirk led to hateful actions. He effectively blamed Kirk, falsely, for creating the climate where someone had to shoot him.

Thankfully, Dowd was fired from his part-time gig as an MSNBC commentator. His comments were disgusting.

As I was catching up on the news of Kirk’s assassination after leaving the film screening, my boss, Adrienne Batra, the editor-in-chief of the Toronto Sun, warned me to be careful in public. I told her I appreciated the concern but felt safe, I’m not on the level or the kind of stage that Kirk was and besides, this is Canada.

Then came the comments from Dr. Ruth Marshall, an associate professor of religion at the University of Toronto who expressed herself quite forcefully and coarsely on X.

Dr. Marshall’s office is mere blocks from my home and blocks from my office. It turns out I walk by this woman’s office with my dog on a regular basis and she is saying shooting is too good for people like me.

Before you say I’m exaggerating, this isn’t aimed at you, Dr. Marshall has shown a real hatred for my employer Postmedia and for anyone supporting the State of Israel and the Jewish Diaspora in Canada.

Just days ago she posted on her now locked X account, “Defund the fascist American rag nationalpost… and she called for war crime investigations of Israeli athletes travelling to Canada for a David Cup tennis match.

Dr. Marshall, who is paid $187,780 a year to “teach” at U of T is advocating violence against people she disagrees with politically. I’m sure it is just an extension of “resistance by any means” and “globalize the intifada” and the other calls to violence that the left has been whitewashing since October 7.

Thankfully, Professor Marshall has been placed on leave pending an investigation. Advocating death is not free speech.

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The Road Between Us…

The film was powerful, beautifully shot and wonderfully edited. Any criticism would be minor and on the edges, but if you heard of this film at all it would likely be because of the attempt to stop it from ever being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Having watched it, I have no idea why TIFF and their leadership would have decided against this film.

“This is a film wrapped in family,” director Barry Avrich said in the chat on stage after the screening.

The film tells the story of Noam and Gali Tibon and their heroic efforts to save their son Amir and his young family on October 7. From the first messages sent by Amir from Kibbutz Nahal Oz to Noam in Tel Aviv to the arduous drive south to try and rescue them, the young couple they saved who had escaped the Nova music festival, the injured soldiers they picked up and transported to hospital along the way, to finally securing the safety of Amir and his family.

Opponents of the film claimed it was “Israeli propaganda” or that it was “white washing a genocide” and therefore shouldn’t be shown. Neither of those claims are true, the story the film tells is all about family and love of family.

The only political part of the film was a criticism of Israel’s response to October 7.

Still, it does show a Jewish family in Israel expressing love and solidarity to each other and to their community and that is too much for the radicals on the other side. The same people celebrating Charlie Kirk being shot, like Dr. Ruth Marshall, wanted to make sure you didn’t see this movie.

They can’t accept other people having a different view.

The Road Between Us won’t be screened again in Toronto but it will be released widely now after this world premier and I encourage you to watch it.

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It is neither big nor bold…

All through the Liberal leadership race and federal election campaign, Mark Carney promised big things, big projects, big actions to alter and boost the Canadian economy. He reiterated that promise on election night after his victory was secured.

“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,” he said.

Well, on Thursday morning CBC reported on the list of projects that Carney would move forward. Let’s put it this way, they are not big, they are not bold, they are not moving fast.

• Phase two of LNG Canada in Kitimat, B.C., doubling its production of liquefied natural gas.

• The Darlington New Nuclear Project in Clarington, Ont., which will make small modular reactors.

• Contrecœur Terminal Container Project to expand the Port of Montreal.

• The McIlvenna Bay Foran Copper Mine Project in Saskatchewan.

• The expansion of the Red Chris Mine in northwestern B.C.

It’s not that these are not worthwhile projects, it’s just that these are projects that were going ahead anyway. They also aren’t the big, bold projects that he was promising, meaning Canadians have been sold a bill of goods.

This isn’t even about an oil pipeline not being on the list of five major projects, this is about Carney’s proposed actions being tepid at best.

The twinning of LNG’s Canada’s pipeline to Kitimat is not a new proposal. SMR’s at Darlington, not a new proposal, run down the list, this is a weak plan and not what any of us should have been expecting based on the PM’s rhetoric.

The Liberals had leaked to Rad-Can, French CBC on Wednesday that a pipeline would not be part of the planned projects. Then on Thursday, CBC started the day with the full list of project and it was weak, no pipelines.

Why do people get upset when I call CBC the state broadcaster? That is how the government treats them, don’t blame the reporters for taking the info, but they are the state broadcaster.

Back to the projects list, this is not what Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba or other provinces asked for. As my colleague Lorrie Goldstein said, this is small beer.

Tariffs are only a small part of the economic problems we face in Canada now. Donald Trump is fundamentally changing the global trading order and how the American economy works.

We need to transform our own economy and get out of the way.

Carney’s announcement today won’t unleash our economy. Instead of bold action, we are taking baby steps.