Trump's State of the Union, Ford's bungle and Poilievre's smart move on healthcare for asylum seekers...

Plus Alberta versus Quebec separation.

Donald Trump will begin his State of the Union address soon and I’ll be watching for mentions of Canada. If he sticks to ribbing us about losing the gold medal game to Team USA then we are good, if he takes aim on tariffs or other issues then buckle up.

I’ll post on that in the morning since the speech is slated to go until 11pm ET.

I did expand on this morning’s newsletter with my column in the Toronto Sun today explaining why Doug Ford’s appearance on CNN and his words about Trump were wrong. It’s a fuller argument than I made this morning and hopefully worth the read.

I also recorded a video for the Sun on the issue with a slightly different take.

For the few of you who don’t quite get it, my argument is not endorsing Trump and his tariffs, it is about doing what is right by workers in Ontario and across Canada. Ford’s outbursts on CNN with Wolf Blitzer do nothing for those workers, as I stated in the column and the video, it only helps Ford’s polling numbers with those voters who are far too obsessed with Trump.

Listen closely to Carney’s words…

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre kicked off Question Period by asking Mark Carney about his government’s health plan for refugees and asylum seekers that pays for those who have been rejected. In fact, it pays for more services for people who have been turned down, deemed not legitimate refugees, than what Canadians get from their various provincial plans.

“Will the Prime Minister reverse this policy, support our motion and put Canadians first for health care?” Poilievre asked.

Carney’s answer wasn’t based on fact, it was based on fiction and, you will be shocked, an anti-American talking point.

“Mr. Speaker, yes, Canada is not America. Yes, Canada provides essential healthcare to everyone in this country,” Carney said.

There are more than a few problems with Carney’s statement.

First off, Poilievre is asking Carney to stop offering better health benefits to asylum seekers who have been rejected than are offered to taxpaying Canadian citizens. Someone who comes to Canada as a temporary foreign worker who then claims asylum when it’s time to go home is abusing the system, but even after they are rejected, they get better health coverage than Canadian citizens for the several years it takes their multiple appeals to be heard.

That is part of what Poilievre is asking Carney to fix. His response, “Canada is not America.”

He also makes a reference to essential healthcare.

Funny enough, Poilievre’s motion calls for essential healthcare to still be covered just not the physiotherapy, the psychologists, the dental care, the vision care and other services not offered to Canadians through their government health plans. I wouldn’t say Carney is lying, that would be unParliamentary language, but I will say that Carney wants you to believe things that just aren’t so.

Don’t buy into the idea that the Conservative motion is racist or anti-immigrant in anyway shape or form. That’s simply not true, but it is what Carney wants you to believe and what most of the media will repeat like the good little boys and girls they are.

As the son of immigrants, who grew up in a neighbourhood where those with Canadian born parents were the minority, nothing angers legal immigrants more than people gaming the system. That is what is at play here, people gaming the system.

The people most outraged by what Poilievre is talking about are white liberals who mostly know immigrants as the nannies and gardeners that they hire as opposed to their neighbours or schoolmates.

A question of separation…

I don’t want Quebec to leave Canada, nor do I want Alberta to exit confederation. My Sun colleague Lorne Gunter of Edmonton fame is writing on a new poll from the Angus Reid Institute on the views of Canadians on the idea of either province leaving.

Do check our Lorne’s column if you want to understand the Western Canadian point of view.