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Most U.S. stocks climbed Thursday, but the worst drop for UnitedHealth Group in a quarter of a century on the Dow Jones kept Wall Street in check.

The leaders of Canada’s major federal parties faced off Thursday night in the second, and final, nationally televised debate of the election campaign . The English-language debate took place just 24 hours after the leaders battled each other in the French-language debate . The National Post has video of the debate, below. Review our live coverage from National Post reporters Catherine Lévesque, Christopher Nardi, and Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson in our live blog, below. Can’t see the blog? View it on the National Post.

On Wednesday, the leaders alternated between jabs and jokes while they competed with the Montreal Canadiens for francophones’ attention.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney , Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre , NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet took to the stage in Montreal to attempt to win over undecided voters before Canadians cast their ballots on April 28.

With polls showing a tight race between the Liberals and Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc were battling to put their parties back on the national agenda.

Pierre Poilievre is strikingly full of vim and vigour when it comes to taking on his political opponents. Yet he seems strangely lifeless and lacklustre when taking on Donald Trump.

So, despite enormous pressure on the Conservative leader to direct his pit bull tendencies towards the menacing U.S. president, Poilievre just can’t seem to do it with any conviction — probably because it goes against every bone in his body.

Let’s be clear: Poilievre is no fan of Trump’s tariffs or plans to annex Canada. But he is a devoted fan of the main Trump agenda — the one highlighted by tech-billionaire-lunatic Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw as he gleefully hacks government programs as part of Trump’s quest to deliver more tax cuts and power to the ultra-wealthy.

This is exactly the sort of anti-government mayhem that Poilievre has spent most of his life fantasizing about — and spent most of the last couple of years preparing to implement in Canada.

But this full-throttle, anti-government agenda is playing out disastrously south of the border; even elements of the MAGA base are angrily showing up at Republican town halls to protest Musk’s reckless evisceration of their health and social security benefits. They wanted cheaper eggs, not poverty in retirement.

Of course, Poilievre could ignore Musk’s reckless romp through America’s threadbare social safety net and just focus on Trump’s tariff wars. But he doesn’t seem particularly knowledgeable or interested in tariffs and trade policies.

What he does know about — having been a lifelong disciple of right-wing economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek — is how to dismantle government programs and disarm government regulatory powers, as Musk is doing.

And, although there’s been little media coverage, it’s significant that Poilievre has become closely aligned with Canada’s high-tech industry, which is more sharply anti-government than much of Canada’s business community.

This new alignment has striking similarities to developments in the U.S., where disruptive American tech giants, led by Musk, have embraced and boosted Trump. The similarity between the Canadian and U.S. situations is captured well in a new book, “The Poilievre Project,” by Martin Lukacs, managing editor of the online news outlet The Breach.

As Lukacs notes, the tech industry on both sides of the border is aggressively pushing a right-wing agenda, pressing for huge government spending cuts (along the lines of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE), deep tax cuts for investors and business, and a rollback in government powers to regulate business.

Leading figures in the Canadian tech community, including Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke and Bay Street tech financier John Ruffolo, have developed close ties to Poilievre, whose stark government-slashing agenda is in sync with theirs.

Their excitement about Poilievre intensified last spring after the Trudeau government decided to raise taxes on capital gains — a move that was widely attacked for allegedly hurting many middle-class taxpayers, but in fact was almost exclusively aimed at Canada’s wealthy.

Enraged by the capital gains tax hike, Ruffolo invited dozens of tech executives to a major Bay Street fundraiser for Poilievre last summer. Meanwhile Lutke, celebrated as a highly successful entrepreneur, is reportedly keeping a low political profile to avoid suggestions he aspires to become Canada’s Elon Musk.

All this has been kept under wraps by a Conservative campaign determined to present Poilievre in the far-fetched role as the workers’ friend and even as the adversary of Canada’s corporate leaders.

Lukacs notes that, while Poilievre has carefully cultivated the image of being tough on the business elite, he has quietly attended lavish fundraisers organized by some of Canada’s leading business and financial players.

So, while Poilievre will undoubtedly try to sound like he’s going after Trump in the debate tonight, he and key elements in Canada’s business elite would like nothing more than a Trump-style disembowelment of government — which would shred much of the social welfare system that millions of Canadians rely on.

This article was originally published in the Toronto Star.

The post Poilievre’s statements opposing Trump lack feeling and conviction appeared first on rabble.ca.

MONTREAL — Liberal Leader Marc Carney took shots from the left, right and the Bloc Québécois during an often heated, sometimes droll English-language debate Thursday.

The two-hour event in Montreal was a much more spirited affair between Carney , Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre , Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh than the previous evening’s French-language debate.

As the current leader in the polls less that two weeks from voting day, Carney was unsurprisingly the main target of the debate that covered the topics of affordability and the cost of living, energy and climate, leading in a crisis, public safety and security as well as tariffs and threats to Canada.

Leaders grilled him on decisions by Brookfield Asset Management while he chaired it, his refusal so far to proactively disclose which assets he said he put into a blind trust and the legacy of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.

Carney focused on delivering his key messages, generally only addressing his opponents when responding to their criticism during the event moderated by TVO host Steve Paikin.

A telling moment was towards the end when leaders were requested to ask a question to another leader of their choice. While Blanchet, Singh and Poilievre all grilled Carney, the Liberal leader began his answer by joking that he had a question for himself. He then pivoted towards Poilievre’s refusal to get a top-secret security clearance.

Throughout the evening Poilievre focused his attacks on Carney and the Liberal Party’s legacy over the past 10 years on housing, crime, national security and the economy. They also focused fire on the fact Brookfield funds overseen by Carney had been set up in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

“We need a change, and you sir, are not a change,” Poilievre said of Carney.

The Liberal leader countered at point that he is a “very different person” from Trudeau. “You spent years running against Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax and… they’re both gone, okay, they’re both gone,” Carney told Poilievre.

But in a wink to the fact that many leaders have promised very similar policies, Carney also conceded that “Mr. Poilievre and I agree on some things.”

He also defended Brookfield as a “Canadian success story” that “benefits” Canadian and Quebec pensioners.

“I always acted with integrity, served the shareholders of Brookfield when I was there, I have left that,” he said.

Singh was the most aggressive debater on stage, frequently cutting off Carney and Poilievre and occasionally getting under their skin.

 

He often teased the Conservative leader by holding up six fingers in his face and arguing that’s the number of homes built while he was responsible for housing in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Poilievre countered that it was 200,000.

Pipelines and energy development were a key question of the debate Thursday like during the French debate.

Poilievre accused the Liberal government of putting up innumerable regulatory roadblocks that prevented pipelines from being built. Then, Singh blamed the Liberals for building the Trans Mountain pipeline and undermining their own green policies.

Blanchet’s main challenge in this election has been to convince Quebecer’s of his regional party’s relevance when polls suggest the key issue of the campaign is the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

During the debate, he extended an olive branch to Carney, offering to “partner” with the Liberals in the eventuality they win form a minority government after April 28.

“I don’t want to be prime minister, but I can offer to be a partner, a responsible partner, a collaborative partner, if Quebec is respected in its differences, in its aluminum industry and lumber wood industry and culture and French language and values of secularity of the state,” he said.

It was not surprising that Carney was the main target of the night as polls suggest he is the race’s frontrunner.

A Leger-Postmedia poll published earlier this week suggested that the Carney Liberals still hold a five point lead over Poilievre’s Conservatives despite a slight tightening of the race over the last week.

Tempers also flared in the media room adjacent to the debate, with some reporters getting into verbal altercations with the numerous members of right-wing alternative media that were accredited for the event.

Federal Debate Commission head Michel Cormier spent the day explaining why the arm’s length organization had relented to demands from far-right organization Rebel Media to accredit over a dozen representatives, five of which were allowed to pose questions to leaders.

The commission’s rules usually only allow one journalist per outlet to participate in post-debate questioning of party leaders.

For the first time in the commission’s history, Cormier announced Thursday that the post-debate scrums were cancelled “because we don’t feel that we can actually guarantee a proper environment for this activity.” He did not take any questions or offer further explanation.

Once again, the debate occurred before any of the three federal parties published their costed campaign platforms. That decision was panned as “totally irresponsible” by French debate moderator Patrice Roy.

Wednesday evening, Carney played defence against NDP, Bloc Québécois and Conservative leaders during a French-language debate that alternated between jabs and jokes but competed with the Montreal Canadiens for francophones’ attention.

• John Ivison: A debate Liberals can call a success, but not much else
• Party leaders didn't take media questions after the English debate. Here's why

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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"Rest is a weapon," but not for Senators’ Fabian Zetterlund. Read More

Mark Joffe is no longer Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, a job in which he has been almost invisible for two and a half years.

No one seems to know exactly why. A statement to media from the government said Dr. Joffe’s contract ended Monday, after a two-week extension, and a search started at once to find a replacement. 

He was an Alberta Health Services (AHS) vice-president in 2022 when he was put in the job. The province said then it was an interim role with no additional pay and he would continue as chief medical officer of health only until the health minister rescinded his appointment.

So was he pushed or did he jump? Was his departure unexpected? Who made the call? None of that is clear. 

A variety of headline writers opted for the cautious explanation that Dr. Joffe is “out” as chief medical officer of health. (Translation: We have no idea why.) 

Dr. Joffe stepped into the job back in November 2022 when Deena Hinshaw, who had held the position through the COVID-19 pandemic, was fired days after Danielle Smith became premier. As a right-wing radio talk show host during the pandemic, Smith had campaigned in the internal party election on her credentials as a vaccine skeptic, advocate of quack COVID cures, and bitter foe of public health measures. 

Since then, Dr. Joffe has been criticized for having very little to say about public health and infectious diseases. He hasn’t appeared at a news conference since 2023. This, however, was assumed to suit the Smith.

“The province is now short one chief medical officer of health,” NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi observed tartly Tuesday. “Well, some would argue we’ve been short a chief medical officer of health ever since Premier Smith took office.”

We do know that, like other parts of North America, Alberta is now in the throes of a burgeoning measles outbreak – driven in significant part by the anti-vaxx sentiments promoted by Premier Smith in her radio career. There were 77 known cases in the province yesterday, which given the rate at which the disease spreads means there are a heck of a lot more. 

And Dr. Joffe did make a statement published on the Alberta Government website last Friday, in which he said: “I want to remind all Albertans that these outbreaks are highly preventable. Albertans can protect themselves and those around them by ensuring their measles immunizations are up to date. Immunization with measles-containing vaccine is the single most important public health intervention to prevent measles.”

“The measles vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing infection and complications and is readily available to eligible Albertans,” he added.

Tuesday’s statement praised Dr. Joffe for serving Albertans “with dedication and professionalism.” Alert readers will recall, of course, that when it was announced in January that Athana Mentzelopoulos had departed as CEO of AHS, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange extended her “sincerest gratitude … for the work she has done leading Alberta Health Services.”

Mentzelopoulos is now suing AHS for wrongful dismissal. This is not to suggest anything about the reasons for Dr. Joffe’s departure, only that one cannot necessarily trust the things this government tells us.

Speaking of which, in yesterday’s statement, the government also said it “remains vigilant in its approach to measles” and wants “to reassure Albertans that public health continues to be a top priority during this transition.”

As long, presumably, as the government’s approach to measles has nothing to do with vaccinations. 

With Orwellian imprecision, UCP tables ‘Compassionate Intervention Act’

Also yesterday, the Smith Government tabled what promises to be one of its most controversial pieces of legislation, Bill 53, named with Orwellian imprecision the Compassionate Intervention Act, a title worthy of the Ministry of Love.

The Involuntary Addiction Treatment Act would have probably passed muster, with the caveat that the kind of “treatment” favoured by Premier Smith’s inner party requires scare quotes because it is rejected by so many genuine experts in addiction recovery. 

“If passed, the Compassionate Intervention Act would create a pathway for parents, family members, guardians, health care professionals, and police or peace officers to request a treatment order or care plan for those who, because of their severe addiction, are likely to cause harm to themselves or others,” the news release announcing the long-expected legislation soothingly promised. 

It will be passed, of course, because it a signature piece of United Conservative Party legislation.

But have no doubt, Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams was not reflecting reality when he told a news conference yesterday that “this program is also not a criminal justice program. This is a health-care program.”

Make no mistake, the “compassionate intervention centres” planned under this scheme will be jails, each with 150 “secure” beds. That is to say, the beds will be in locked rooms. 

One doesn’t need to be an expert in addiction treatment to understand from the controversy among actual experts surrounding this long-telegraphed plan, that the government’s repeated claims Alberta has established a “gold standard” of opioid addiction treatment apparently not discovered by all the other jurisdictions that are dealing with this deadly worldwide crisis are highly tendentious. 

But if it doesn’t work out, Premier Smith told the news conference, featuring a huge throng of supporters, no matter, they’ll just try something else. “You don’t know something works until you try it,” she told a reporter who asked what evidence supports involuntary treatment, “and you won’t know what your success rate is until you try it. And you won’t know what your recidivism rate is until you try it. … We’ll do the analysis to see what works, and if we need to try something new, we will try something new.” 

This is the scientific method, UCP style, presumably. 

Between the sweet lines of yesterday’s news release, this bill smacks of police being able to toss people into jail on a whim without a hint of due process.

This is obviously unconstitutional, but Smith has stated that her government would use Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the notorious Notwithstanding Clause, if that’s what it takes to pass or use the legislation. 

Moreover while it is not clear who will own and operate the planned “compassionate intervention centres,” or how their employees will be trained, the plan smacks of union busting, health care privatization, and quackery. 

The post Chief Medical Officer of Health Mark Joffe is out, seemingly unexpectedly appeared first on rabble.ca.

Amid the U.S.-Canada trade war, cross-border trips have plummeted as the new international bridge is scheduled to open this fall. Canadians — not Americans — are footing the entire bill for the Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Ontario and Michigan.

Unable to partake in the federal leaders’ debates this week, Maxime Bernier found a different medium to attack his opponents and push the People’s Party of Canada’s platform: The Tucker Carlson Show.

In the roughly hour-long face-to-face interview posted Wednesday afternoon , the former Stephen Harper-era cabinet minister was equally critical of Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, calling them both “fake patriots.”

“They are using the fear of the tariffs and the economic situation in Canada to promote themselves with a fake patriotism,” he claimed at one point, lamenting how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs became the focal point of the election.

“The campaign is not Carney against Poilievre. No, both of them are fighting Trump and the tariffs.”

The duo also spent considerable time talking about former prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom Bernier claims destroyed Canada “economically, socially and culturally,” and the PPC’s focus on ending mass immigration as the most important election issue.

It’s hard to overstate how dystopian and threatening Canada has become. An update from longtime Canadian government official Maxime Bernier.

(0:00) Who Was Justin Trudeau Really Working For?
(7:53) The Invasion of Canada
(9:19) Pierre Poilievre Is a Fraud
(13:25) The Attempts to… pic.twitter.com/1X4W5vIgWE

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 16, 2025

Here’s more of what they said.

On Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre

While most Canadians likely see the Liberal and Tory leaders as opposed on many issues of greatest importance to Canadians, Bernier was content to lump them into the same pot on many, including Trump and the U.S., the carbon tax and climate change, war in Ukraine and Gaza, government spending and taxation, immigration policies and the CSIS investigation into foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

“The Chinese Communist Party was giving money to some candidates of Chinese origin,” Bernier said, referring to a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report that suggested some members of parliament were “semi-witting or witting” participants.

“They said it, and we want to know the names of these people, but Poilievre and Carney, and Trudeau before that, they don’t know, ‘It’s a secret. We won’t tell you who these people are.’”

A February report from the public inquiry on foreign interference led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue dismissed the notion of any “traitors” in parliament.

At one point, Carlson asked why the leaders, and Trudeau, “clearly … really hate Canadians.”

“What they like, it’s power,” he replied.

Bernier took separate shots at the main party leaders, too.

He referred to Carney as “the globallist-in-chief” for his association with the World Economic Forum and the United Nations.

“For Canadians right now, it’s like a Trudeau 2.1. But he looks more competent because he was the governor of the Bank of Canada.”

He said the former Bank of England governor is also getting a boost from mainstream media presenting his campaign in a more favourable way.

As for Poilievre, whom Carlson referred to at one point as a “pretty sinister fraud,” Bernier said his former colleague and the party are “Conservative” in name only. He also criticized their use of slogans and focusing on Trump as an enemy of Canada, while not explaining how he’ll end the deficit.

“They don’t want to do a campaign to help Canadians and put our country first. Now it’s all about, ‘Oh, the tariffs. We need to do counter tariffs,’” he said.

One of the principal slogans of Poilievre’s campaign is “Canada first — for a change.”

On Justin Trudeau

The show’s cold open starts with Carlson asking who Trudeau was “working for.”

“I can tell you, Tucker, he was not working for us, for Canadians,” Bernier replied, quickly citing the restrictions Ottawa put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bernier was arrested in July 2021 after appearing at a small anti-restriction rally in southern Manitoba. He pleaded not guilty but was eventually fined over $2,000.

Bernier said he was “speaking about freedom” much the same as the Freedom Convoy participants were during their weeks-long protest in downtown Ottawa, which resulted in Trudeau’s government enacting the Emergencies Measures Act.

“But at the end, we were successful, because a couple of months after that freedom convoy, all these authoritarian measures disappeared,” Bernier claimed.

At a couple of points in the interview, Carlson tries to bait Bernier into talking about the Medical Assistance in Dying Act, suggesting Trudeau’s government was paying to kill “tens of thousands” of citizens and wondering why the former Liberal boss “is not in jail for destroying an entire nation.”

At another point, he probes the PPC leader about whether he or anyone in the Canadian government believes Trudeau is the son of former Cuban President Fidel Castro, a myth that has long since been debunked.

Bernier instead pivots to another topic, such as alleging Trudeau was also responsible for doubling the national debt during his 10 years in office, from $600 billion in 2015 to $1.2 trillion in 2025.

He said Trudeau created “the perfect storm” by allowing “mass immigration” to Canada in tandem, resulting in a declining GDP.

“That’s the legacy of Justin Trudeau,” he said.

On immigration

In fact, Bernier told Carlson he had hoped to make “mass immigration” the focal point of the election. He references the term more than a dozen times during their chat.

“People don’t understand that last year in Canada, we had 1.3 million foreigners coming to our country. For a country of 40 million people, that is mass immigration.”

Bernier said neither leader will address the topic during the campaign because both the Liberals and Conservatives are “pandering to these ethnic communities for votes” to secure more ridings and achieve a majority government.

A PPC government, he said, would impose a moratorium on immigration to allow for Canada’s housing sector to catch up to the existing demand.

“If you are the leader of a nation, your first responsibility is to work for your people and it’s immoral what they’re doing right now because they’re helping foreigners more than Canadians.”

• People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier aims to run in Manitoba byelection
• Poilievre says PPC leader Bernier no threat in Manitoba byelection

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Ontario’s historic measles outbreak has grown to 925 cases, with 109 new cases confirmed in the past week alone. Read More

Kingston police say they discovered illicit drugs hidden in takeout rotisserie chicken containers while responding to a report of a rowdy guest at a hotel Tuesday night. Read More

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is calling for voters to prioritize public services and the jobs in this sector ahead of the April 28 federal election. As part of their ongoing “For you, Canada” campaign, PSAC is bringing attention to what is at stake for the public servants and those who rely on their labour. 

The federal public service is Canada’s largest single employer, with almost 288,000 employees. But cuts to the public service could threaten tens of thousands of these jobs. Currently the Liberal Party leads in the polls, with 45 per cent of the federal vote intention. 

PSAC said the Liberals’ track record is mixed when it comes to protecting public services. The union highlighted that the liberal government, in March 2024, introduced an initiative aimed at “refocusing government spending.” The initiative aimed to “refocus” $14.1 billion over 5 years from organizations and $1.3 billion over 5 years from crown corporations.

More recently, current Liberal leader Mark Carney promised to cap the size of the federal public service while he was running for party leadership. 

The Conservative Party of Canada, which is second in the polls, has signaled a deep commitment to cutting federal jobs and reducing government services according to PSAC. The party’s leader, Pierre Poilievre, pledged to shrink the federal public service by at least 17,000 jobs.

Past Conservative governments, PSAC wrote, significantly cut frontline jobs and outsourced public services, weakening internal capacity. The union noted that Poilievre was a part of these past governments.

The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, which are tied for third in vote intention, have consistently supported public services and those who deliver them, the union wrote. The Bloc, however, supports these services through a Quebec-first lens. 

PSAC has held off on endorsing any party just yet, but has been clear that they are keeping abreast of leaders’ attitudes towards the public service. 

PSAC’s national president, Sharon DeSousa, wrote in an op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen that the country does not need job cuts right now. In fact, as the government aims to support workers amid the ongoing trade dispute with the U.S., public servants are necessary for the rollout of these services. 

LISTEN: Issues facing working Canadians ahead of a federal election

“If we want to weather the economic storm of the U.S. tariffs, departments such as Employment and Social Development Canada cannot proceed with planned reductions to public service positions,” DeSousa wrote. “Workers across the country will be counting on these public servants to deliver financial relief when they need it most.”

On March 4, U.S. president Donald Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods. Labour market data from Unifor shows Canada lost 33,000 jobs in the same month. This is the highest monthly decline since January 2022. 

“To make it through this crisis, and the next, we need to protect public services, and that means supporting the hundreds of thousands of workers who provide these vital supports,” DeSousa wrote.

The post PSAC urges Canadians to vote to protect public services jobs this election appeared first on rabble.ca.

A search and rescue operation has ended for a woman and two young children who are believed to have crossed the border from the United States into Canada overnight. Provincial police say they believe the missing trio may have left the area by car.

Elon Musk once seemed like one of the good guys. In a 2015 talk at the Sorbonne in France just before the Paris COP21 climate summit, he clearly explained the global heating crisis and the need to “fight the propaganda of the carbon industry.” As head of the innovative electric vehicle company Tesla he seemed to want to do good in the world. Now, he’s become so toxic to so many people that even his electric car business is crashing.

The U.S. president who has long railed against electric cars and other modern innovations was recently on the While House lawn shilling for Musk’s expensive electric trucks and cars, hoping to attract buyers who have been duped into believing that electric cars are for “radical left lunatics.”

Electric vehicles won’t solve the climate crisis on their own, and encouraging widespread private vehicle ownership is bad for the environment, whether the cars and trucks are powered by gas or electricity. But as long as people are using personal vehicles, electric is far better.

The same technologies can also be used to power public transit and car share and ride services. Offering better, cleaner mass transportation and other travel modes will reduce private car use, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

It’s difficult to say now whether Musk’s moves will hurt or help overall electric vehicle sales. He certainly hasn’t done his own company any favours. But many of his competitors are doing well, even without presidential endorsements.

Those who know the many benefits of electric vehicles — less maintenance, lower “fuel” costs, reduced air and noise pollution, greater efficiency — are not likely to avoid buying an e-vehicle; they just might not choose a Tesla. And maybe a few MAGA supporters will heed the president’s pitch and change their minds about e-vehicles.

Overall electric vehicle sales are doing well for now, especially in China, where lower-priced cars are available, but also in North America and Europe, where sales are increasing steadily. Tesla’s sales have gone down, as people react to the power Musk has been wielding over the U.S. president and administration, getting his minions to slash thousands of jobs in essential areas, only to have courts order them reinstated.

It’s a shame, because the company has been a leader in electric vehicles and could have spurred even more innovation, especially in areas of public transportation. I suppose there’s a chance it could still turn things around.

What’s critical is that the electric vehicle transition continues. Again, private automobiles for all — with congested streets and enormous resources poured into roads and parking infrastructure — aren’t the answer no matter how they’re powered. But electric vehicles are better, and technology and charging infrastructure are improving.

Ultimately, we need to get away from car culture. The idea that we need tonnes of computerized metal and plastic to move one or two people, whether we’re using gas or electricity, is absurd. Using far fewer resources, we could develop extensive clean-powered public transport systems, better ride hailing and car and bike share programs and extensive train and bus service between cities — along with the infrastructure to support it all. We could turn road and parking spaces into bike and walking paths and parks and gardens.

Those who need vehicles for work or public services would benefit from less congested roads and cheaper maintenance and operating costs with electric options.

I’m not sure what’s got into Elon Musk, but at one time he seemed to have some great ideas. Investing in an innovative company selling electric vehicles was one of them. His commitment to science and evidence were also solid.

Surely he can see that being on the side of sanity and solutions when it comes to the climate emergency is a more fulfilling place to be than on the side of those who want to tear away at progress and fuel the crisis even more — to “drill, baby, drill.” Surely he understands that electric vehicle technology is an important part of the solution and that he could be seen as a leader, as someone who used his wealth and power to help create a better world. But he’s chosen a chaotic, destructive path.

Let’s hope he doesn’t get in the way of the positive progress he’s helped make happen.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

The post What the hell happened to Elon Musk? appeared first on rabble.ca.

Canadian universities are receiving increased interest from prospective American students in the midst of federal cuts to U.S. institutions and revocations of foreign student visas.

The University of Toronto is reporting that it received many more U.S. applications by its January deadline for 2025 programs.

“The university is seeing a meaningful increase in applications over previous recent years for the 2025-26 academic year from potential U.S. students,” a spokesperson for the U of T media relations office told National Post in an email.

Similarly, the University of Waterloo, renowned for its engineering and computer science faculties, is reporting an increase in interest from south of the border.

Some faculties such as “engineering have seen increased interest and applications from potential students. Anecdotally, we have seen an increase in U.S. visitors to the UW Visitors Centre on campus, and web traffic that originates in the U.S. has increased by 15 per cent since September 2024,” David George-Cosh, senior manager of media relations at Waterloo, told National Post in an email.

It should be noted that the closing date for programs at both universities was the end of January, shortly after the presidential inauguration and prior to the increasing crackdown of the Trump administration on U.S. universities. Therefore, any increased interest in U.S. citizens coming to Canada may not be fully realized for some time, one university official said on background.

UBC Vancouver is reporting a 27 per cent jump in graduate program applications for the 2025-26 academic year, as of March. That compares to all of 2024.

The B.C institution told the Reuters News Agency , that it reopened admissions to U.S. citizens, with plans to fast-track applications from American students hoping to begin studies in September.

Gage Averill, UBC Vancouver’s provost and vice president of academics, told Reuters that the spike in U.S. applications has been spurred on by the Trump administration revoking foreign students’ visas as well increased scrutiny of their social media activity.

In particular, he noted “the development of a centre that’s reading foreign students’ social media accounts.”

However, Canadian institutions must contend with their own challenge — the federal government cap placed for a second year on the number of international students allowed to enter the country.

There are fewer spots for international students in 2025 than in 2024. “For 2025, IRCC plans to issue a total of 437,000 study permits, which represents a 10% decrease from the 2024 cap,” said Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada in a January statement .

The IRCC has issued a breakdown of the 2025 target for study permits by province or territory. However, there are no specifications regarding how granting admissions should be distributed – to U.S. applicants or otherwise.

U of T media relations responded broadly regarding that issue, telling National Post: “Our capacity to enroll international students fits within our provincial allocation based on the federal limits.”

• Travel ban fears prompt U.S. colleges to advise international students to return before Trump inauguration
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This week, John Ivison is joined by regular panelists, Ian Brodie and Eugene Lang, to discuss the fall-out from the French language debate on Wednesday night and to put it in the context of the race to elect the 45th Canadian Parliament. Brodie is a former chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper, and Lang was chief of staff to two Liberal defence ministers.

Live from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET: Video and analysis from the English debate

Lang said that Liberal leader Mark Carney didn’t dominate the debate. “But he didn’t need to. He needed to get out of there without being really beat up badly. And I don’t think he was beat up badly,” he said.

Brodie conceded that Carney emerged relatively unscathed. “He’s at a disadvantage since he obviously doesn’t really speak French. And he’s at a bit of a disadvantage (because) he’s also in his first televised leaders debate at this level … I thought he was on the defensive, but nonetheless, didn’t really speak to any serious policy issues. He had to say: ‘Sorry, I’m not Justin Trudeau. I just showed up here.’ But didn’t really have an answer to how the team and the program is any different from what we’ve had over the last 10 years.”

There have been some Conservative commentators suggesting that Carney’s admission that “I’ve just arrived” was the equivalent of John Turner’s admission in the 1984 leaders’ debate with Brian Mulroney that he “didn’t have an option” but to proceed with Pierre Trudeau’s patronage appointments. Ivison asked if disassociating himself from Justin Trudeau’s government works for Carney?

Brodie said he doesn’t think that’s a plausible argument. “I think that when we get to the ballot box, Canadians are looking to make a judgment on the last 10 years of a country that’s poorer, weaker, and more divided. For better or for worse, he’s the guy who’s leading that party. And over the course of the past three weeks, we’ve seen all these folks who were major figures in the Trudeau government, who had planned to retire, now coming back to sign up for Mr. Carney’s team.”

Ivison suggested that Carney is still trying to straddle being the agent of change and being the defender of Trudeau policies like dental, pharma and daycare.

Lang said that is an inherent contradiction.

“I guess what he’s trying to say is the leader of the Liberal Party changes everything in the Liberal Party, even if the leader of the Liberal Party doesn’t fundamentally change the cabinet, because the cabinet hasn’t fundamentally changed. And there’s a lot of policy continuity. They’re keeping a lot of the things in place, apart from the apparently hated carbon tax. So there is a tension there at a minimum, if not a contradiction.

“But it doesn’t seem to be hurting because he has the right demeanour for the times. I think that’s really his great strength. In a normal election, I don’t think this demeanour would work very well. Normally we measure leaders around intangibles like charisma and personality. None of that seems to really matter this election because of the crisis (with the U.S.)

“He has a very even temperament, seems for the most part, or a calming sort of bland, almost bureaucratic tone that normally I don’t think would work very well, but seems to be fit for the moment,” he said.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre attempted to appear amiable, avoided the slogans that have been so prominent in his campaign and concentrated on the affordability issue.

But he was often on the defensive, not so much because of the other leaders, but because of questions that asked him about imposing pipelines on First Nations, returning Haitian refugees, cutting international aid and abolishing the CBC.

Brodie said Poilievre faced challenges at two levels. “One, he had to continue to prosecute the case that we’ve had 10 years of poor, weaker, divided (government). ‘Do you want four more years of that?’ And I think on that front, he actually did pretty well. I’m not sure that Carney had great answers about how much of a change his next four years, if he got them, would be.

“And, secondly, there’s the prosecutor case on the individual issues. I know some of the questions were not in Mr. Polievre’s wheelhouse. But I think he did well considering these are probably issues he doesn’t really especially want to talk about. But on housing, cost of living, and on getting our own economic house in order to go toe to toe with Trump for the next four years, I thought those were good answers. He didn’t lose his cool….(and) his advantage in the language, I think, showed through,” he said.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh did lose his cool with the moderator, Patrice Roy, at one point, complaining that he wasn’t being given enough time to talk about healthcare, which was not a designated topic on the night. But his team was happy with the way he went after the other leaders — attacking Carney for being the chair of Brookfield Asset Management when it bought rental housing units and then jacked up prices; going after Bloc Québecois leader Yves-François Blanchet for being as “useless as the monarchy” in voting against dental and pharmacare; and for challenging Poilievre for wanting to make Canada more like the U.S.

Lang said he wouldn’t be doing any high-fives if he were Singh, given the NDP’s precarious position in the polls.

“But you’re right, he did have to show a bit of fire in the belly, maybe a bit more energy than the others…He tried to really get people to engage on the subject of health care a number of times when they were discussing subjects that had nothing to do with health care. He’s trying to get that on the agenda because he believes, I guess, that they have some brand strength and some credibility on healthcare that the other parties don’t have. It was the usual kind of NDP shibboleths, if not ideology around healthcare, there was nothing new there at all. But clearly he sees that as an issue where maybe he could make some gains. I’m surprised he didn’t try to take more credit for this allegedly popular dental care program,” he said.

Brodie said Singh’s attack on Carney over buying up low-cost housing and that, as chair of Brookfield, he  then jacked up the rents, was the attack line of the evening. “I thought that was the best single point with a proof point, probing at one of Mr. Carney’s weaknesses. I wish he’d led with that at the beginning of the campaign. It might be doing better if he had shown that kind of focus off the top of the campaign,” he said.

On healthcare, Brodie said the NDP has a specific interest in healthcare because it relies on healthcare unions for support. “They have to talk about what a great system it is because their supporters are the only people who still believe that. Everybody else is looking for some bigger change here in order to get just basic access to basic tests, as those wait lists continue to grow and people find their health is suffering. I’m not surprised that the Liberals don’t want to talk about healthcare. It doesn’t work for them the way that it used to. It really only works for the NDP because they have to keep those healthcare unions (happy). They are the only people who think the current system is working because after all, it is working for them,” he said.

Ivison said Blanchet had a couple of good moments — one, when he called Carney’s fiscal plan “a Harry Potter financial framework,” and again when he said Ottawa’s intervention at the Supreme Court on Quebec’s Bill 21 means “Quebec taxpayers are paying to oppose a Quebec bill in a Quebec jurisdiction.”

Lang said the jurisdictional issue may not work as well in this election than in previous ones.

“But I thought he had the best substantive critique of the night, with his reference to the Harry Potter magic that would be required to make not just the tax cuts affordable, but all of the numbers add up. I noticed that the media is criticizing the Liberals and the Conservatives for not releasing costed platforms before the debates. (That) is very strange. If you’re releasing an election platform on the Saturday of Easter weekend, you really don’t want a lot of scrutiny paid to it. What they’re both (Liberals and Conservatives) offering, and Blanchet was driving at this, is what I call ‘the trifecta’ — significant tax cuts in the case of Mr. Poilievre,  non-trivial tax cuts in the case of Mr. Carney; significant spending increases on the part of Mr. Carney and non-trivial spending increases on the part of Mr. Poilievre; and, reduced deficits in both cases, all in the context of no material cuts to government programs. So no pain for anyone. All in the context of the worst trade war in a hundred years.

“This is the trifecta, or as Van Morrison would say, The Great Deception. This kind of thing has never been achieved by any federal government. It’s probably not achievable in any context, especially in the current context, where the projections are that the Canadian economy is probably going to go into a recession, when tax revenue will go down and the automatic stabilizer expenditures on things like Employment Insurance are destined to go up,” he said.

With 10 campaigning days left, Lang said the polls appear to be converging, as the Conservatives eat into the Liberal lead.

“But (they’re) running out of time. Maybe if you had another six weeks, those lines would continue to naturally converge and you could have a competitive election. If those polls are correct, the election day will not be a competitive election unless something happens over the next 10 days. I don’t think Poilievre can fundamentally change that dynamic. I think it would take an exogenous force or a scandal in the Liberal campaign to really change it,” he said.

The polls do suggest a narrowing in the race, but most still give the Liberals a six point lead. Carney remains more popular than Poilievre, and Donald Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state remains a live issue. None of that is good news for the Conservatives.

Brodie said he was surprised that in the past week, Poilievre chewed at Carney’s lead, half a point a day.

He attributed that to Trump staying out of the campaign and the continual reference to 10 years of poor Liberal government.

“I don’t think there’s a need for a knockout punch (in the English language debate),” he said. “What I think (is needed) is five or six lines of attack against Mr. Carney that can be replicated over social media and traditional media over the next seven days to accelerate that kind of half-point a day erosion of Mr. Carney’s support. He has to be able to accelerate that kind of half-pointed day for the next 10 days. If he can move half a point a day for the next five days, he comes very close to tying in the popular vote. And if he can accelerate that to three quarters of a point, he wins.

“The challenge in this debate is not to throw a 50-yard pass down the field, to use a terrible sports metaphor. He’s got to move that little piece every day where people start to have doubts about: ‘Yeah, who is this guy Carney? What is his plan for the future of the country? The Trump thing looks like it might be more manageable than we thought three weeks ago’.”

“He’s got just enough time, if he can speed up the erosion of Mr. Carney’s support, to pull that off for election day. It’s a different campaign than the Conservatives were planning before Christmas, needless to say. It’s a different campaign than they would have run in January. But I think it’s the campaign that they’re faced with right now.”

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Since Mark Carney became Prime Minister on March 9, the Liberals have been leading in most opinion polls. The reason for this significant shift was fear, anger and revulsion about U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. This, in turn, was combined with an unfounded belief that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was Trump’s Canadian equivalent, in spite of the fact the two leaders have vastly different political and ideological beliefs.

Carney has taken advantage of this good fortune that dropped in his lap. The Liberal strategy has been to lionize the progressive vote to combat Trump’s tariffs and turn this election into a two-party race. It’s worked to their advantage thus far.

That is, until recently. Cracks appear to be developing as support for the New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois have slowly improved in some polls. While left-wing frustrations against Trump, U.S. Republicans and Poilievre’s Conservatives remain intact, there are now indications that Canadian progressives don’t view Carney as being a political saviour as much as they did before.

Here’s one example.

The NDP has been steadily polling in the 8-9 per cent range of Nanos Research’s rolling telephone survey of decided voter intentions since April 7th. The high was 9.5 per cent on April 11, and the low was 8.1 per cent on April 7. The most recent Nanos data puts the NDP at 8.3 per cent on April 15. Conversely, the BQ has been on a recent uptick. Nanos listed them at 6.6 per cent on April 7. Bloc support fell into the 5 percent range for several days (with 5.2 per cent on April 12 being the low point), and then jumped from 5.5 per cent on April 14 to 6.2 per cent on April 15.

Some Post readers may consider this data to be nothing more than minor shifts. They could also point out that other pollsters list the NDP and BQ at lower percentages. In reality, you have to pay closer attention to what the trend line is showing and what it could potentially mean by election day on April 28.

The NDP is likely going to get crushed in this election. Some political commentators and columnists (including me) have suggested that if Canada’s socialist alternative reaches around 10 per cent, it will tighten riding results in voter-rich provinces like Ontario and B.C. Conversely, the BQ has been averaging around 6 to 7 per cent in national polls since the 2011 election. In the last federal election in 2021, it won 32 seats with 7.64 per cent of the total vote.

Both parties aren’t far away from these targets. There’s enough time to reach them.

Moreover, if we focus solely on the NDP, it largely depends where its voter concentration ultimately ends up. This party is chock full of centre-left to far-left ideologues who will support them to the ends of the earth. They don’t need a huge percentage of the popular vote to win seats or play spoiler in three-way races across Canada.

Remember what happened in the recent Ontario election. Premier Doug Ford and the PCs won a third straight majority government with 80 seats and 42.97 per cent of the vote. Marit Stiles and the NDP defied expectations, however, and formed the Official Opposition once more by winning 28 seats with only 18.55 per cent of the popular vote. Bonnie Crombie and the Liberals only took 14 seats in spite of winning 29.95 per cent.

Could a similar scenario happen in the federal election? Of course.

While the Conservatives don’t necessarily need the NDP to reach 10 per cent or higher, or the BQ to jump to 6 per cent or above, both results would provide an additional boost to Poilievre’s chances of winning. Hence, he has a golden opportunity to help drive a bigger wedge into the Liberal strategy and break apart the progressive vote even further.

What sort of strategy should he employ? Here are two ideas.

First, Poilievre should suggest that Canadian progressives seriously question whether Carney actually has the ability to negotiate with Trump on tariffs, Canadian safety, security and more. Carney may be an economist, but he’s also politically inexperienced, awkward, curt, arrogant and rather impersonal and standoffish. The President could easily tear him to shreds during negotiations, and start mocking him the way he did with his predecessor, “Governor”…err, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

How would this be an improvement, exactly?

Second, Poilievre should keep pointing out that Carney has stolen more policy ideas from the Conservative campaign than anyone else. If the recently reassigned Liberal operatives really wanted to use their “ Stop the Steal ” buttons effectively, maybe they should have designed them with Carney in mind!

The PM removed the hated carbon tax that his Liberal Party implemented seven years ago, which the Conservatives wanted to axe from the start. Carney has called for stronger measures against criminals and gangs, cancelling the capital gains tax increase, and eliminating the GST on first home purchases. These policies have all largely been associated with the Conservatives for years. This led one reporter to ask him in March, “Why didn’t you run for the Conservative Party?”

Canadian progressives shouldn’t be supporting a weak-kneed Liberal Prime Minister who plucks ideas from the Conservative playbook and has been openly plundering their vote from their preferred political parties. Maybe they’re finally coming to this realization.

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An ocean-covered world bristling with life is the best fit for observations made of a planet 124 light years away in the Leo constellation, a new paper says.

Chemical signatures detected on the planet K2-18b points to the strongest evidence of life outside the solar system, according to the peer-reviewed study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Using the James Webb Telescope, researchers picked up molecules resembling dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) on the planet. On Earth, these chemicals are a sign of microbial life, particularly marine algae.

The planet, discovered in 2017 by Canadian scientists in Chile , is 8.6 heavier than the Earth and 2.6 times its diameter. It’s smaller than the gaseous outer planets, such as Neptune, and orbits a cool red dwarf within the star’s habitable zone, where temperatures allow liquid water to exist.

This has led scientists to consider K2-18b a hycean planet. An amalgam of the words “ocean” and “hydrogen,” these worlds, in theory, contain a liquid ocean on the surface and an atmosphere rich in hydrogen.

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“Earlier theoretical work had predicted that high levels of sulfur-based gases like DMS and DMDS are possible on hycean worlds,” said Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer with the University of Cambridge. “And now we’ve observed it, in line with what was predicted. Given everything we know about this planet, a hycean world with an ocean that is teeming with life is the scenario that best fits the data we have.”

Using a mid-infrared instrument, scientists measured the light scattered by the planet as it passed in front of its star. They combed through the data to suss out wavelengths absorbed by K2-18b’s surroundings. Repeated analyses indicated DMS and DMDS counts thousands of times higher than the levels on Earth.

“This is an independent line of evidence, using a different instrument than we did before and a different wavelength range of light, where there is no overlap with the previous observations,” said Madhusudhan. “The signal came through strong and clear.”

While results are promising, the findings are not conclusive. The data needs to be within five-sigma certainty, meaning less than a one-in-a-million chance the observation is random noise, to be accepted by the scientific community.

Madhusudhan and his colleagues will also be conducting lab tests to confirm whether the compounds could be produced by a previously unknown geological process.

“It’s important that we’re deeply skeptical of our own results, because it’s only by testing and testing again that we will be able to reach the point where we’re confident in them,” Madhusudhan said.

A paper published earlier this week asks whether hycean planets like K2-18b, which completes one orbit every 33 days, could be too hot to have a liquid ocean. The ocean discovered on the planet could be one of magma, the authors say.

Madhusudhan and his colleagues say it could take a few more years to confirm their findings. Even if life were not found on K2-18b, future observations with the Webb would put humanity much closer to answering the question of whether we are alone, he notes.

“Decades from now, we may look back at this point in time and recognize it was when the living universe came within reach.”

Pionk had 39 points (10 goals, 29 assists) in 69 games for the Presidents' Trophy-winning Jets this season. He was second on the team in average on-ice time (22:04).