Doug Ford taunts Donald Trump on American TV and Poilievre on broken refugee system...

Plus why blaming AI for what happened in Tumbler Ridge is wrong.

I’m not really sure what Doug Ford thought he was accomplishing by going on CNN and saying he hopes Trump and the Republicans lose in the mid-terms. It doesn’t matter if he thinks it, it doesn’t matter if polling shows that Ford is right and most Canadians think that.

He’s the Premier of Ontario, an elected official and his words matter.

I defended Ford over the Reagan ad because I didn’t think and still don’t think that it was what set Trump off, it was an excuse. As I reported back in October, there were lots of issues at play including Stellantis and GM having threats made against them and status taken away by Industry Minister Melanie Joly.

Yet Ford was out there twice on Monday saying he wants Trump to lose. The first time was with the Queen’s Park press gallery as Ford held an informal scrum with journalists outside of his office.

Look, we all know Ford has gone from being happy that Trump won, he would have voted for him if he could have, to hating Trump and making it personal. A year ago as I talked to people around Trump, I asked about the rhetoric out of Canada and was told they didn’t mind Ford taking on the President and his policies because he didn’t make it personal, it was about the policy.

Eventually that changed and Ford went from playing the ball to playing the man and his discussions about Trump became very personal.

In some ways, that’s understandable. Ontario is being hit harder that other provinces by tariffs due to the industries being targeted - in particular steel and autos.

Still, Ford is the leader of this province, he’s our face and voice and he has to speak in a way that will make things better, not worse.

That’s not what Ford did on CNN.

Going on American television to cheer on Trump and the Republican losing the mid-terms is simply a bad negotiating strategy.

Ford has been effective on some issues, and even his decision to pull American booze off the shelves clearly irritates the Americans in a way that could be used as a negotiating tactic. Appearing on a left-wing American television network to call for Democrats to win is not going to help us.

Here’s why Mark Carney should steal another Pierre Poilievre policy…

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called upon Prime Minister Mark Carney in the past to steal his policies. With his motion before the House of Commons this week calling for the Liberal government to review the Interim Federal Health Program for refugees and asylum seekers, he’s doing it again.

I’ve been writing about and reporting on this program for about 15 years now.

Back around 2010 I wrote the original story that saw the Harper government change the gold-plated health plan the feds were offering asylum seekers. In changes that took effect in 2012, the government adjusted the plan to make it closer to what Canadians receive from their government plans.

There were protests from the Liberals, the NDP, the media and left-wing doctors groups who believed that people seeking asylum, even those who had been rejected were entitled to better health plans from the government than Canadian citizens were getting.

In 2014, Justice Anne Mactavish, a judge appointed by Jean Chretien on his way out the door, ruled against the Harper government’s changes to the system calling them unconstitutional. That ruling was appealed and before the Federal Court of Appeal could hear the case, never mind the Supreme Court, there was an election.

The Trudeau government withdrew the appeal, restored the gold plated plan that Canadians don’t have access to and then blew up the functioning immigration and refugee system.

That’s why, as I’ve reported, the Interim Federal Health Program went from costing us $60 million in 2016 to costing $989 million this year.

It’s a combination of expanding the program and expanding how many people we’ve let into the country. I’ve explained the problems with this program in a pair of columns here and here.

Blaming AI in Tumbler Ridge is an excuse…

We still don’t know enough about how an 18 year-old with clear mental health issues was able to get their hands on the guns used in the shooting. Forget the trans issue for a moment and consider that Jesse Strang/Jesse Van Rootselaar had been in a mental health facility, there had been sever mental health calls by the RCMP, he had set a mattress on fire while high on mushrooms and smoked a lot of pot.

According to reports Jesse was on antipsychotic drugs, antidepressants, medication for ADHD and that is before introducing the hormone drugs that he wanted to be on to transition from a male to female. There is no way that someone living in that state should have had access to guns.

At first it seemed that these were the guns that the RCMP had seized from the mother. Yet, in an update more than a week ago, the RCMP said they had never seen or seized the guns used in the shooting.

Police said that Jesse had an expired gun licence, but gun licences for minors in Canada allow them to use or borrow but not buy guns.

I point out all of this because politicians are now trying to blame artificial intelligence companies for what happened. It seems the company OpenAI had banned Jesse’s account “after its internal safeguards flagged worrisome interactions between the shooter and its ChatGPT chatbot.”

That ban happened last June but the company didn’t tell police and British Columbia Premier David Eby is now furious.

“From the outside, it looks like OpenAI had the opportunity to prevent this tragedy, to prevent this horrific loss of life, to prevent there from being dead children in British Columbia,” he said. “I’m angry about that.”

On top of Eby blaming the company, Evan Solomon, the federal minister responsible for AI says he will summon the company to Ottawa.

“We will have a sit-down meeting to have an explanation of their safety protocols and their thresholds of escalation to police so we have a better understanding of what’s happening and what they do,” he said.

Perhaps the company should have different protocols, I’m open to that suggestion, but blaming AI for what happened when you look at the full story is just wrong. How many in person interactions were there with real people - be it police or mental health workers - that also could have gone a different way and prevented this shooting.

Blaming AI in the face of so many other failures is simply an attempt to find a scapegoat.

After mocking Jamil Jivani, the Liberals are copying him, to a degree…

This isn’t about his trip to Washington this time, it’s about his Restore the North initiative aimed at helping young men. Anyone paying attention to the stats, to pop culture, to society, would know that young men have been falling behind on many metrics.

We’ve spent years building up young women, rightly so, but ignored the fact that young men started to fall behind.

Conservative MP Jamil Jivani has been looking at this issue for some time now. He wrote a book, published in 2018, called Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity.

He’s been looking at issues surrounding young men for a decade now which led to his Restore the North tour and program. It’s a worthwhile endeavour and yet one that many on the left freely mocked as some right wing fantasy.

Now, the federal government is launching consultations on developing a men’s and boy’s health strategy.

“The goal is to create supportive and safe environments, challenge harmful stereotypes, reduce stigma and encourage men of all ages to seek help when they need it,” the announcement of the consultation reads.

“When we talk about health in this country, we cannot leave anyone behind,” Health Minister Marjorie Michel said. “Today, men and boys are at the centre of the conversation.”

I have some concerns about where such a program will go such as a focus on so-called “toxic masculinity” which sees any masculinity as wrong and harmful, but I’m glad the government is making an attempt. You can participate and give your thoughts if you want to influence the matter, submissions are required before June 1, 2026.