Mark Carney's warm embrace of Barack Obama and the Democrat establishment...

Carney didn't mean a rupture with these Americans.

Barack Obama was in Toronto to deliver the keynote address to the Canada 2020 conference. It’s a Liberal gabfest populated by and started by some of those very close to Justin Trudeau.

Prior to becoming Liberal leader and PM, Mark Carney was on Canada 2020’s board of advisors.

Of course, with Obama being in Toronto, that meant Carney was there to meet him.

Carney loves to talk about rupture, about the Americans not being our friends anymore but he really means some Americans aren’t out friends.

Barack Obama blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, he tried to move all auto jobs south during the 2009 bailout. The reason Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty had to have their government’s step forward and put up money is that without doing that, Obama, through his point man on the file Joe Biden, had demanded all auto assembly move to Michigan.

Biden tried that move again with the Inflation Reduction Act and measures that were ultimately defeated because his own party didn’t support them. Biden and Obama, like Trump, also increased Buy American provisions in things like public transit and highway projects to keep Canadian companies from getting contracts.

My point is, Carney acts like Obama is our friend and Canadian media and most of the public will eat it up. None of them have been great for us and protectionism has only gotten worse all over Washington since Obama was first elected.

All Americans all the time…

This weekend is the Global Progress Action Summit.

What’s that you ask? Here’s how the Center for American Progress, a left-wing think tank with deep Democratic Party ties describes it.

The Global Progress Action Summit is the world’s premier convening of progressive leaders, thinkers, and changemakers, and we are thrilled to present this year’s program with co-host Canada 2020 on May 8 and 9, 2026, in Toronto, Canada.

Appearing at the event is John Podesta, Alex Soros, Pete Buttigieg who was Biden’s Transportation Secretary, and Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. They are appearing on panels with members of Carney’s cabinet and of course, Carney will deliver the closing keynote.

As I’ve said before, any event like this where Conservatives met with Republicans would be denounced non-stop in our media, it would be described as importing American-style politics and the Conservatives participating would be asked to denounce the event.

That won’t happen here because Liberals and Democrats are always super-awesome and wholesome people.

Am I right?

Lock’em up is always bad politics…

Can we all stop calling for people who we disagree with to be jailed?

Specifically, can elected officials stop calling for other elected officials to be jailed?

The latest example is Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles suggesting that Doug Ford is a criminal who should be locked up. Speaking with reporters at Queen’s Park, she said that when she forms government she will call a public inquiry into Ford, the Greenbelt, FOI docs etc and he will be locked up, he may even be locked up before the end of his current term.

A tip of the hat to Colin D’Mello of Global News for posting this video of the scrum the other day, you can follow Colin on X here.

There is so much wrong with what Stiles said there, including that a public inquiry would lead to criminal charges. That’s not how our system works and if Doug Ford got up on the stand at a public inquiry and admitted that he had broken the law, it would be inadmissible in a civil or criminal proceeding - as per the law passed by the Liberals in 2009.

Protection of witnesses

(6) A witness at an inquiry shall be deemed to have objected to answer any question asked him or her upon the ground that his or her answer may tend to criminate the witness or may tend to establish his or her liability to civil proceedings at the instance of the Crown or of any person, and no answer given by a witness at an inquiry shall be used or be receivable in evidence against him or her in any trial or other proceedings against him or her thereafter taking place, other than a prosecution for perjury in giving such evidence. 2009, c. 33, Sched. 6, s. 33 (6).

Stiles, with her comments, is being ridiculous.

Polling over the last several years has shown that Stiles is not landing well with the public and this may show why. There is plenty to criticize the Ford government on if you stay in the realm of reality, you don’t need to go over the top, but this is how Stiles operates.

Less than two weeks ago, Stiles was stating that Ford’s FOI changes - not the best, but not the worst - would take evidence away from the RCMP’s investigation. As I wrote at the time in the Toronto Sun, Stiles went into the realm of fantasy.

The Ford government’s changes to the FOI system do not change the requirement to preserve evidence in a police investigation. The RCMP launched their investigation in October 2023, any phone or text records they need are most likely already in their possession.

A long tradition of locking up opponents…

Now, people not paying attention might believe that this idea of locking up your political opponents just started in the USA with Trump supporters calling for Hillary Clinton to be locked up. We all remember the chants of “Lock her up!” at Trump rallies, which he didn’t discourage, but also never acted on.

Let’s be clear though, while this is mostly an American import, it didn’t start with Trump.

Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio not only tried to impeach George W. Bush, he wanted war crimes charges laid against Bush. Believe it or not Nancy Pelosi didn’t support this and Barack Obama said he would not follow that path.

Of course, as Trump supporters were chanting “Lock her up!” about Hillary Clinton, Clinton’s campaign was funding the Steele Dossier which made false claims against Trump. Those false claims were circulated around the DOJ and FBI and were used to try and justify attempts to criminalize Trump based on falsehoods.

All of this is in the realm of Banana Republics and we’d best not emulate that.