National Post

Wayne Gretzky has broken his silence to state publicly that he is “proud…to be Canadian.”

During a recent appearance on Corus Entertainment’s Ben Mulroney Show , Gretzky emphasized his pride in his Canadian roots and expressed that he will not be swayed by criticism or controversy surrounding his political associations.

Despite facing backlash for his ties to U.S. President Donald Trump and his perceived reluctance to speak up for Canadian issues, Gretzky maintained he is proud of his Canadian heritage.

He also insisted during the interview that he has “no political power with the prime minister or the president.” And told Mulroney that hockey players aren’t political by nature.

“We always, believe it or not, really never talk politics in the locker room…we watch basketball, we watch baseball, we talk about the Blue Jays, we talk about the New York Yankees. (For) hockey players, that’s never on the docket. It’s just something that we stay in our lane. The prime minister and the president don’t tell us how to play hockey. We don’t tell them how to do politics, right?”

Gretzky’s relationship with Canada has evolved significantly over the decades, marked by moments of national adoration, controversy, and complex perceptions. In the early stages of his career, Gretzky was celebrated as a symbol of Canadian pride. His record-breaking performances with the Edmonton Oilers, including leading the team to four Stanley Cup victories, cemented his status as a national hero.

However, his all-time scoring record was recently broken by 39-year-old Russian and Washington Capitals captain, Alex Ovechkin. He scored his 895th goal last Friday, one better than Gretzky’s 894.

Not long ago, Canadians might have mourned the demise of Gretzky’s record. Now it seems most are ambivalent .

Even if Canadians are uneasy about Ovechkin’s vocal support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, it might be argued that the investment some Canadians had in Gretzky ended when he went to Mar-a-Lago to laud Donald Trump after his second presidential victory — if not when became he went south of the 49th parallel to play with the Los Angeles Kings.

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Gretzky’s trade from the Edmonton Oilers to the Kings in August 1988 was a shock for many Canadians who viewed “The Great One” as ours, not to be shared with America. Some viewed his departure as a betrayal, despite his openly emotional insistence at the time that the trade was not his decision.

Later on, Gretzky did serve in leadership roles for Team Canada, notably during the 2002 Winter Olympics. His passionate defence of Canadian hockey earned him some admiration, but others were critical of his reluctance to take on more prominent roles within Hockey Canada.

Over time, Gretzky’s connections to the United States seemed to deepen through business ventures and family life (his wife Janet is American, his five kids and seven grandchildren are also American citizens).

His close relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump has sparked criticism among some Canadians, especially during the ongoing political tension between the two countries. Gretzky and his wife attended Trump’s inauguration and he was photographed at Trump’s election victory party, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat .

Trump has publicly referred to Gretzky as a friend and even joked about him running for political office.

Gretzky’s reluctance to publicly criticize Trump’s controversial rhetoric about Canada, including suggestions that Canada could become the “51st state” or threatening tariffs impacting Canadian industries has fuelled criticism.

Others argue Gretzky should not be judged for his personal friendships or political associations.

Meanwhile, his absence from his hometown of Brantford, Ontario, has disappointed locals who once idolized him. Social media reactions have accused Gretzky of “turning his back on Canada,” and his statue outside Edmonton’s Rogers Place was vandalized in protest.

Gretzky was awarded Canada’s highest civilian honour, Companion of the Order of Canada, in 2009. But he has yet to pick up the award.

Wayne Gretzky is a fantastic guy! They call him, “The Great One,” and he is. He could run for any political office in Canada, and win. Wayne is my friend, and he wants to make me happy, and is therefore somewhat “low key” about Canada remaining a separate Country, rather than…

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) February 26, 2025

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VICTORIA, B.C. — In the mostly white-haired crowd at The Victoria Edelweiss Club, waiting to hear from Liberal Leader Mark Carney on Sunday evening, Rhonda Ljunggren stood out.

“I should be in bed at this point because I’m an old person. Here I am with flags in my hair,” she chuckled, pointing to the Canadian flag paraphernalia she was sporting for the occasion — two small flags shoved in a ponytail and a wind spinner in her hand.

Ljunggren said she was planning to vote for the incumbent NDP candidate, Laurel Collins. But as soon as U.S. President Donald Trump started threatening Canada with tariffs and annexation, she said she “cried her eyes out.”

“I just went nuts, literally,” she said. “I thought: I don’t want to spend my retirement worrying that my country is going to be invaded or something like that.”

So, she got a red sign on her lawn. She will be voting Liberal on April 28.

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Jeremy Sturgess, another resident of Victoria, said he voted for the NDP’s Laurel Collins in 2021 but will be voting strategically for the Liberals for similar reasons as Ljunggren.

“I feel sorry for her,” he said, speaking about Collins. “It’s just not the right time.”

Sturgess said the upcoming election is “too important” for the country.

Their stories are not unique. Liberal candidates and organizers who spoke to the National Post during Carney’s visit in British Columbia said they are seeing shifting support on Vancouver Island — to the point they think they could elect a Liberal MP again.

The last time that happened on the island was during the 2008 election.

“It has changed a lot,” said Sulo Saravanabawan, the Liberal party’s regional chair for Vancouver Island. “People are coming into the campaign offices asking, ‘Can we help? Can we volunteer? Can we door-knock?’ We have never seen this, from 2015 until now.”

“You never know, right? Things could change. But it looks really good,” she said.

At the moment, New Democrats hold five of the six ridings on the island. Then, there’s Saanich —Gulf Islands, held by Green party co-leader Elizabeth May.

With the collapse of the NDP, 338Canada, a polling aggregator website, is forecasting a fierce battle between the Liberals and the Conservatives for those seats.

The riding of Victoria is leaning Liberal, according to the website’s projections, which explains why Carney was at the German social club with local candidate Will Greaves.

Greaves, an associate professor at the University of Victoria, claimed his chances of being elected are “very strong” and said all signs point to a growing “momentum” for the party.

“We’ve had an unprecedented number of volunteers, we’ve got a huge amount of donations… we can’t keep signs on the shelf because everybody wants their lawn signs, so we really are feeling incredibly good about our campaign right now,” he said.

Other ridings could see close races. May’s riding is shaping to be a toss-up between the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Greens; while Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke looks to be a three-way race between Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP, per 338Canada.

The Conservative message has been resonating on the island, especially in the northern ridings where their provincial cousins were able to make some gains last October.

As things stand, the federal ridings of North Island—Powell River, Courtenay—Alberni and Nanaimo— Ladysmith, are poised to become Conservative according to 338Canada.

Outside a cider house in May’s riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, Carney was attempting to appeal to voters on two fronts: more help for seniors and protecting Canada’s nature.

But the overarching theme of those promises, he admitted, all comes down to Trump.

“The reality is that the key issue in this election is who can stand up to the threats from America to our sovereignty, to our nature, to our livelihoods, to our future? Who do you want at that negotiating table?” said Carney about targeting NDP and Green ridings.

The Liberal candidate in the riding is David Beckham — not the famous British soccer player by the same name, but a renewable energy specialist and a farmer.

In an interview, Beckham made sure to clarify that he is not running “against” May, who has represented the riding since 2011, but rather “running for the Liberal party.”

He said that while there is a “diversity of opinions” in the riding, the general consensus seems to be that “this is a moment in history (where) we need to lock arms, we need to be unified against this threat (from the U.S.), and the best option for that is Mark Carney.”

“I can tell you at the doors the enthusiasm and the optimism are infectious and, in some cases, even overwhelming,” he said.

Former environment minister Catherine McKenna, who came of her own accord to knock on doors and help the local candidates on Vancouver Island, is also surprised.

“There’s so much support. I’ve never seen so much excitement on the island,” she said.

“I think we have a real shot.”

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

TORONTO — On the front steps of a Toronto home, two Robs appear at the same door. 

The first is Rob Pierce, the Conservative candidate for Don Valley West, a solidly Liberal riding since the late 1990s, save for when the Tories captured it the last time the party won a majority government more than a decade ago.

Pierce is just beginning his campaign. He was only nominated the day before the election was called, replacing Yvonne Robertson, who had been eyeing a return.

“She ran twice, lost twice, and I think the party decided to try to do something different,” he told National Post.

Rob Oliphant is the second candidate to appear on the crowded doorstep. The veteran Liberal incumbent has held the urban riding since 2008, losing it when the Conservatives formed government in 2011 and returning when Justin Trudeau took power in 2015.

A decade later, Oliphant held off until Trudeau made it clear he was leaving before making it official that he would be running again, waiting out an unpopular leader whose name he left off campaign materials during the last federal vote.

“If he had not resigned in January, it would have been tough to run,” he admits.

Such is how a Liberal and a Conservative came to cross paths while canvassing on the same Toronto street, an interaction that highlighted the challenge of battling incumbency for a party that needs to pick up seats and the pitch a longtime Liberal makes to voters as to why they should give his party a fourth shot.

Finding himself in the middle was a voter named Jason.

“I was sort of surprised,” he said afterwards.

Pierce, the first to arrive at his doorstep, was armed with a stack of campaign leaflets citing the rise in car thefts in the city, while a member of his team waited at the bottom of the steps. A few minutes into Pierce’s conversation with the voter, Oliphant darts up the stairs.

“Good to meet you,” Oliphant says to his Conservative rival. “And good to meet you,” replies Pierce.

Jason, a business owner who has lived in the riding for 15 years, describes the neighbourhood as overall a good one. It has schools and parks for families and is less than 20 minutes from downtown. One local issue that remains an irritant is a long-delayed Metrolinx transit project.

But his concerns that day are around an earlier issue he had raised with Oliphant, which warranted unsatisfactory results.

Concerns about what Oliphant has done for the riding after so long is one of the issues Pierce hears from constituents, he said.

Still, the Conservative is under no illusions about the task before him when asked about his chances.

“It’s a tough riding.”

Several minutes after going back and forth with the voter, Oliphant announces he is moving onto the next door.

“After the election, one of us will help you,” he says before pausing for a brief second. “I suspect it’ll be me.”

“We’re going to make it a fight,” Pierce shoots back.

Although he finds himself at the starting line of an uphill battle, the Conservative walked away with a photo of at least one voter he can count on.

“I’m in my riding, I’d like to see change,” Jason told National Post. “It’s my number one view on this.”

Besides incumbency, Pierce is dealing with the gender divide in Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s support.

“Mr. Poilievre comes up a lot,” he says, “specifically amongst the female voters. They find him aggressive.”

Pierce is hardly the first Conservative candidate to encounter this in a race where successive public opinion polls suggest Poilievre is doing well with men, particularly those aged 18 to 34, but is struggling to connect with older demographics, particularly women.

When the issue does arise, Pierce says his response is to ask, “is that because he speaks bluntly?”

“You can’t actually say what you think anymore, and he does say what he’s thinking,” he said.

For his part, Pierce believes Poilievre should stick to his talking points. Locally, he says crime is an issue voters are raising on the doorstep, particular when it comes to break-ins, car theft and home invasions.

It is also one the Conservatives are hoping drives turnout for them in big cities, as well as the cost-of-living.

As for the matter of U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs, Pierce said he hears concerns but questions how defining an issue it is for the election.

“I’m not sure it’s a federal election issue, frankly. I’m not sure that really anyone can deal with Mr. Trump.”

Oliphant would disagree.

Speaking in his campaign office, the incumbent says Trump has changed everything about the election, as has the entrance of Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

“People are afraid.”

Those two factors combined, plus the surge in national pride and worries Canadians have about the economy and their finances at a time when the Liberal leader has the background of being a two-time central banker, has led to a unique moment.

“It is helping us. It’s clear as day. I can feel it.”

Other issues have since faded into the background, including the government’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, which Oliphant, whose riding has both a sizeable Muslim and Jewish population, says has surprised him.

It has not completely disappeared. While canvassing, Oliphant hears a man sharing concerns about the Liberals’ support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, saying he believes the incumbent to be “unfit for office.”

It is a household his team crosses off their voter list as not being Liberal. On the next street over, Oliphant has better luck.

“You’ve been doing a great job,” one man named Michael tells him. “You got my support.”

Several doors down, a woman says tariffs are her top concern and hopes Carney can help.

“It’s looming,” she said.

Oliphant knows that in a campaign, things can change quickly and that mistakes can be made.

However, he has experience in losing and knows what it feels like.

Back in 2011, when he lost to the Conservatives and the Liberals saw their fortress in Toronto along with the outlying suburbs in the vote-rich Greater Toronto Area fall, Oliphant says he heard it at the doors, especially how many people disliked then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

What hurt his vote the most was the rise of the NDP, he remembers, when the party had a historic showing and went on to form the official Opposition.

Now, polls suggest NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is battling for party status.

“The NDP vote is almost invisible,” Oliphant said. “I think I’ve knocked on three NDP doors.”

Pierce nonetheless remains positive about his campaign. What he says he is hearing from many voters is indecision.

“But, typically,” he says, “the collapse of the NDP historically means, you know, bad news for the Conservatives. Typically.”

National Post

staylor@postmedia.com

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Rebel News is suing a federal Crown corporation and a Toronto-area member of Parliament, arguing that the Crown corporation imposed unwarranted security costs and attempted to put a stop to an event featuring Donald Trump Jr.

At issue was a two-day event, held in May 2024 and hosted by Rebel News and Rumble, the right-wing social media platform. The Rumble Live event featured Trump Jr., journalist Glenn Greenwald and Canadian lawyer and YouTuber David Freiheit.

The Rebel Live event featured speeches by Rebel News journalists and guests of the media organization.

It was held at the Warehouse, an events space Downsview Park in Toronto. Canada Lands Company Limited is the federal Crown corporation that operates Downsview Park.

The statement of claim filed Monday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by Rebel News and Rumble says that Rebel News took precautions so that “the event will not be influenced or ‘cancelled’ for political reasons,” which included a clause in the rental agreement that the Warehouse would “uphold free speech principles and contractual obligations, irrespective of the event’s content or the public’s reaction to such content.”

“Rebel News is a platform for some views and ideas that are outside of the mainstream,” the statement of claim says.

The event went ahead without a hitch, but the lawsuit argues that it happened despite a campaign intended to put a stop to it. The claims have not been tested in court.

In late March 2024, the lawsuit alleges that Robert Ng, the director of attractions at the CN Tower and Downsview Park sent an email to two of his co-workers, flagging the event as controversial and warning that it could lead to an “undesirable crowd.” Andrea Thompson, the director of property management for Downsview Park, forwarded the email onwards, saying “I suppose we can’t stop these undesirable events.”

The lawsuit claims that Roxanne Krause, who’s the director of security at the CN Tower, which is also owned by Canada Lands, was “tasked with disrupting and attempting to prevent the Event from going ahead.”

“I love a new challenge,” the lawsuit alleges she wrote in an email, while acknowledging that the Warehouse was a tenant, and Canada Lands had little sway over events it hosted. (The Warehouse is not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit.)

Krause, the lawsuit says, allegedly reached out to the Toronto Police Service to see if there were any potential security risks, including the possibility of counter-demonstrations. The police service responded that it was not aware of any potential concerns, the lawsuit says, but Canada Lands nevertheless considered renting security fences, if it saw any online chatter about the event. (At that point, they had seen little online about it.)

“The Defendants set about a course of action that was designed to prevent the Event from proceeding,” the lawsuit alleges. “The Defendants acted together to avoid what they considered to be the negative political implications of a polarizing group hosting an event in a federally owned park.”

The lawsuit claims that Canada Lands co-ordinated with Ya’ara Saks, the Liberal member of Parliament for York Centre, where Downsview Park is located. (The lawsuit concedes that the plaintiffs — Rebel News, its founder Ezra Levant and Rumble — do not know the details of a “response plan” allegedly developed by Saks, her office and Canada Lands.)

The lawsuit argues that the group then put forward an “unconstitutional plan” comprised of “unwarranted costs,” meant to prevent the event from proceeding. Specifically, the Warehouse was told by Canada Lands that there would be additional security costs, and if they were not paid by Rebel News and Rumble, the event would not be permitted to proceed.

“The Defendants knew that if the Plaintiffs could not pay the Unwarranted Costs, the Event would be cancelled, as this was the ultimatum they imposed on the Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit says.

David Silber, with the Warehouse, contacted Rebel News founder Ezra Levant, and gave him a roughly $37,000 invoice for $1,900 for port-a-potties and around $7,500 for security fencing, plus additional, unspecified costs.

Rebel News, Rumble and Levant paid the invoice “under protest and duress,” the lawsuit says. It argues the additional sums were not set out in the original agreement and “nor was there any basis to insist on these charges. There were no known threats of counter-protests.”

“There was no security threat created by the Event and any security issues associated with the Event were adequately and appropriately addressed by Rebel News and Donald Trump Jr., who had their own security personnel arranged for the Event,” the lawsuit says.

On the first day of the event, May 10, 2024, Saks — who had previously been sued by Rebel News over restricting access to her social media accounts — condemned the event, saying “Rebel News will be bringing its hateful and extremist views to York Centre.”

“While I am a strong supporter of the right to free speech, let me be clear that the vile views espoused by Rebel News are not welcome in York Centre, nor do its residents support them,” Saks said in a post to X.

Regardless, the event went ahead, the lawsuit says, adding that the additional security and infrastructure they had paid for was not needed.

The plaintiffs argue that its Charter rights to free speech were violated by the additional costs imposed and that the individuals sued — Saks plus staff at Canada Lands — were in breach of their roles as public officers.

“In breach of their fiduciary duties, the Defendants allowed their personal distaste for the Plaintiffs political, cultural, and social views to discriminate against the Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit alleges.

It also argues that they unlawfully pressured the Warehouse to breach its contract with Rebel News and Rumble, among other allegations.

The lawsuit seeks $37,177.80 in damages — the exact cost of the security invoice — and $250,000 in punitive and exemplary damages, plus any further damages for the actions of the individuals named.

Canada Lands Company Limited declined to comment on the lawsuit. Saks, in an emailed statement to National Post, said she had yet to see the court documents, but suggested the lawsuit had been “timed to come out in the middle of an election campaign.”

“If I am ever served with the court documents, I will fully defend myself and my actions taken for the benefit of the people of York Centre,” Saks said in the statement.

 

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An Ontario judge has sentenced an Iraqi Uber driver to ten months in jail for sexually assaulting his passenger who was just looking for a ride home from a party.

The Ontario Court of Justice heard a woman engaged Sevan Halabi’s services as an Uber driver on Oct. 9, 2022. Halabi, who is a permanent resident of Canada, was angling for a lighter sentence to avoid deportation.

“She wanted him to drive her home from a party she’d attended. Rather than take her home, the offender drove her to an empty parking lot,” Justice Scott Pratt wrote in a recent decision out of Windsor.

“He told her they would have fun. He parked the car and got into the back seat. He moved closer to the victim and forcibly kissed her. He put his hand under her dress and touched her vaginal area over her underwear.”

Halabi ignored the woman’s protests, Pratt said.

“After he tried again to kiss her and she did not respond, he moved away from her,” said the judge.

“She asked if he would still drive her home and he said no. She got out of the car, and he left her in the parking lot.”

The married father of two had asked the judge for a sentence of six months less a day to avoid immigration consequences.

“I am not unsympathetic to the offender’s family,” Pratt said in a decision dated April 3.

“In my view, however, a sentence of six months less a day for this conduct would be unfit. It would prioritize the offender’s personal circumstances over the need to denounce and deter his conduct and would not be in line with relevant case law. It would be an inappropriate and artificial sentence imposed only to avoid legitimate consequences created by Parliament.”

According to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, permanent residents can be deemed “inadmissible” to Canada for “serious criminality” if they’re sentenced to more than six months in jail.

But six months less a day plus probation — the sentence Halabi’s lawyer argued unsuccessfully for — doesn’t reflect the seriousness of his actions, Pratt said.

“It would require me to cut the sentence nearly in half, solely to assist him in avoiding future penalties,” said the judge. “I cannot do that.”

In laying out the reasons for his sentence, the judge referred to other similar cases from the recent past.

“It is troubling that sexual offences committed by professional drivers are sufficiently common that they have created their own body of case law,” Pratt said. “But that is what has happened.”

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The Crown argued Halabi should get a year in jail, followed by three years of probation.

Halabi was born in Iraq.

“He married his spouse in 2009, said the judge. “They have two sons, aged 10 and 14.”

They immigrated to Canada in 2018.

“His wife and children have since become Canadian citizens, but (Halabi) remains a permanent resident,” Pratt said.

“In submissions, the offender’s counsel advised he was unable to apply for citizenship because of the charge before this court.”

Halabi maintained his innocence to the author of a pre-sentence report.

But he told the judge “he regrets what happened, has learned a lesson, and that this will not happen again,” said the decision.

“I don’t know what happened between the (pre-sentence report) interview and the present, but to me the offender has now expressed remorse,” Pratt said. “I have no reason to doubt his sincerity, but it is a marked change from a report dated (Feb. 5).”

The victim read a statement in court.

“It reveals the ongoing and pervasive impact the offence has had on her,” said the judge. “She still suffers from panic attacks and flashbacks. The offence has hindered her professional life as a teacher and her personal life as well. She is fearful and angry. She didn’t know if she would be raped or killed (in Halabi’s car that night), and that fear continues to impact her life.”

Halabi has “shown some degree of remorse,” Pratt said. “He said he regrets what happened and that he has learned his lesson. It’s not clear, however, if that regret stems from his actions or from the consequences he has brought on his family.”

Halabi’s children were in court for the sentencing submissions.

“On that point, both children were visibly upset and crying during the proceeding,” Pratt said. “Respectfully, I question why they were here in the first place. It was not a case where their father was in custody and so this would have been a rare opportunity to see him in person; (Halabi) has been out of custody throughout this case and only appeared virtually from Iraq. I cannot find they were brought into the courtroom to engender sympathy from the court but given the offender’s focus on how my sentence could affect his family, that is certainly an inference available to be drawn.”

Pratt saw Halabi’s “very significant” breach of trust as an aggravating factor in the case.

“The entire business model of Uber and similar companies is to contact a stranger over the internet so you can get in their car,” said the judge. “It goes against everything we are taught and everything we teach about staying safe. As a result, the trust we necessarily place in these drivers is enormous. When that trust is broken with criminal actions, courts must respond harshly.”

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VANCOUVER — Former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, who is now running for Mark Carney’s Liberals, dismissed the size of the crowds that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is attracting and compared them to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests.

Robertson, who is the Liberal candidate for Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, was present during Carney’s trip to the West Coast this week. He attended the Liberal rally in Richmond on Monday evening and was at Carney’s announcement in Delta on Tuesday morning.

Speaking to the press after the announcement, Robertson said he does not believe that a re-elected Liberal government would increase Western alienation, as suggested by former Reform party leader Preston Manning in a recent op-ed.

“Absolutely not,” said Robertson. “I think what I’m hearing on the doors here in Vancouver is incredible confidence in the message that Mark Carney and the Liberals are sharing right now in tackling the challenge from (U.S. President) Donald Trump and the tariffs.”

“I don’t hear the message of Poilievre resonating at all here on the West Coast,” he added.

Poilievre’s message seems to be resonating, however, with the thousands of people who have been attending his rallies. In Edmonton, where he was on Monday, he claimed 15,000 people were in attendance whereas the RCMP estimated between 9,000 and 12,000.

In any case, the crowds that the Conservative leader have been attracting are huge.

Liberals are also attracting big crowds, but in lesser numbers which they claim is because their rallies are announced relatively at the last minute. The Richmond rally, for instance, saw 2,000 people in a hotel conference room and another 400 people in an overflow room.

Robertson said the energy in the room was “fantastic” but said “ultimately, people are going to make their choices at home” by the time the April 28 election arrives.

In his opinion, Conservative rallies amount to a normal democratic exercise.

“There are always going to be thousands of people who will go to protests and are not satisfied with what’s on the table,” said Robertson. “That’s the nature of democracy.”

Reporters pushed back, saying those gatherings are not “protests” but political rallies.

“It’s a political rally, but it’s very deeply aligned with the truck convoy rally that went to Ottawa,” said Robertson.

He was referencing the Freedom Convoy, which saw thousands of Canadians in the nation’s capital and across the country protest COVID-19 measures in the winter of 2022.

Robertson added: “There’s a lot of shared resentment for government in general that people express at these rallies around the country, south of the border and in countries around the world.”

“It’s a democracy. People can show up and express their feelings. We encourage that here in Canada,” he said.

After spending three days in British Columbia, Carney flew to Calgary where he held another rally attended by approximately 2,300 people — inside the room and waiting outside to get in.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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The morning after one of the biggest political rallies in recent Canadian history, Pierre Poilievre was still buzzing.

In the wake of his policy announcement in Edmonton on Tuesday, he bantered with reporters. “When was the last time we had a rally that big in Canada?” he asked. “This is a movement like we’ve never seen. Because people want change.”

Something is happening, that’s for sure.

The 10,000-plus people who joined the Conservative leader and his former boss, Stephen Harper , in a vacant warehouse south of Edmonton are on board with the concept of change. In the West of the country, there is deep disquiet about the resurrection of the Liberals and the potential impact on the resource sector.

Harper said that the bulk of the problems affecting the country such as falling living standards, declining employment and housing opportunities, rising crime and regional divisions were created by three Liberal terms in government, “policies the present prime minister supported and wants a fourth Liberal term to continue.”

Poilievre picked up on the theme at his event the next morning, boiling the election down to a fourth Liberal term or change to a Conservative government that would cut taxes, build homes and “unleash” the resource industry. “That’s the choice,” he said.

It’s the strongest message track Poilievre has to play but it is being drowned out by the cacophony of anxieties around Donald Trump’s efforts to reorder the world trading system.

The president has not talked about annexing Canada or mentioned the 51st state canard in recent days but fears of recession, or worse, are preoccupying voters.

The bad news is good news for Mark Carney, who is seen as being best prepared to lead the country into an uncertain economic future.

That is the message track the Liberal campaign has sought to reinforce.

His wife, Diana Fox Carney, introduced him at an event in Richmond, B.C., on Monday night, calling him “cool and calm under pressure,” citing the example of the day after the Brexit vote in Britain when Carney was governor of the Bank of England.

“He had done the work, he was ready and knew what needed to be done to take the country through difficult days when no one else seemed to. That’s where we find ourselves today,” she said.

At his morning event in Delta, B.C., Carney said Trump is trying to fundamentally restructure the U.S. economy and, in the process, is rupturing the global economy, leading to volatility on global financial markets.

“That is putting retirement savings at risk and people’s livelihoods, from the auto industry in Ontario to forestry workers in B.C., in jeopardy,” he said.

The writers of the political satire Veep once appropriated the slogan of Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull “continuity with change” because it sounded “hollow and oxymoronic.”

But essentially, Carney is campaigning on “stability with change.” He is promising to protect what Canadians have, while adapting to the world that is morphing beyond recognition. “Business as usual will not work; the status quo cannot stand,” he said.

His critics accuse him of engaging in a kind of Project Fear , the scaremongering that was employed by the Remain side during the Brexit referendum.

But the Remain warnings turned out to be a reality check, not groundless pessimism, and Canadians don’t need much convincing that the Trump administration really does want our water, our land and our resources.

Carney imparts all this in funereal tones, with a face so grave it looks like it should be peering from a coffin.

He talked about “building our way out of an economic crisis,” providing $25 billion in financing for prefabricated and modular housing and cutting development charges and taxes on new homes in half for multi-unit housing.

Retrofits for heat pumps and roof and window replacements will be paid for from the new large emitter carbon credit market (the industrial carbon tax) that he has yet to explain .

“These are insurmountable challenges if, like Pierre Poilievre, your only plan involves fiddling with the tax code and slashing programs that work,” he said.

Carney says he is not a career politician but “a pragmatist” who has appeared in the nick of time to address a series of crises, as if some kind of Bat Signal has been projected over the northern skies to summon a saviour during the country’s darkest hour.

It is a measure of the critical situation that Canadians feel themselves to be in that so many are willing to take so much on faith.

The polls suggest that many people who had forsaken the Liberals have come back and see in Carney the experienced centrist they believe the country needs. Those people have, for whatever reason, decided that Poilievre cannot be extended the same level of trust.

The latest  Angus Reid Institute poll  suggests 50 per cent of voters view Carney as the best prime minister, compared to just 28 per cent for Poilievre.

There are signs that the Liberal leader’s positive momentum may be slowing: the Angus Reid poll said that the net percentage whose view of him has improved, against those whose view has worsened, is dipping slightly. But he remains firmly in net positive territory, in stark contrast to Poilievre, who polls show has been unable to improve perceptions among people who are not hardcore supporters.

A Trump-like focus on the number of people who attended his rallies is unlikely to change those views.

The Conservatives simply have to put doubt in the minds of the jury about whether Carney has the right stuff if they are to have any chance of victory in the second half of the campaign.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca

• John Ivison: Carney isn’t making his visit to Alberta a welcome one
• John Ivison: Carney’s trick is not talking about his climate policies

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Former prime minister Stephen Harper endorsed Pierre Poilievre at a rally in Edmonton, Atla., on April 7. Here are the English portions of his speech:

Wow, what a fantastic crowd. Thank you, Edmonton. Thank you for being here. Thank you for making yourself a positive part of the most important decision that this country is going to make in decades. Canada right now needs change more desperately than it perhaps ever has, and it needs someone to lead that change, my friends. As someone who had the honor of serving as your Prime Minister, I know, I know that being Prime Minister is a trust. It is a trust to take this incredible country that our ancestors bequeathed us and to leave it stronger, more united, more compassionate and more confident than we found it. That’s what we did, my friends. But that is not the story of the past decade, and that has got to change for Canada.

You know, friends, I am in a unique position in this federal election. I am the only person who can say that both of the men running to be prime minister once worked for me, and in that regard, my choice, without hesitation, without equivocation, without a shadow of a doubt is Pierre Poilievre. I have known Pierre Poilievre for a quarter of a century, since he was a very young man. The first time I met him, I could see that he was smart, articulate, possessing tremendous passion for our country and strong convictions about sound public policy.

In 2004, during the time of my leadership, Pierre’s parliamentary career began. He went progressively from a backbench MP to a Parliamentary Secretary to a junior cabinet minister to a senior cabinet minister, and, of course, to party leader and — and in all of those roles, he worked, he fought and he learned. Because it is not just that Pierre excelled in all of those roles. In all of them, he grew. He got better and better. Friends, don’t let anyone tell you that he was born to be Prime Minister, or that he can just somehow parachute into the job fully prepared.

• Stephen Harper says Donald Trump shouldn't be the excuse for 'Liberal failure'
• Poilievre promises to 'name and shame' corporate tax cheats

Political experience — elected, accountable political experience and the capacity for growth with that political experience — that is what Pierre has demonstrated for two decades, and that is the single most important characteristic a prime minister needs. And by the way, I say that as the guy who actually did lead Canada through the global financial crisis, I hear there’s someone else claiming it was him. It, it was, of course, our government, the late great Jim Flaherty, and our Conservative team, who were responsible for the day-t- day macro economic management during that challenging time. And friends, it’s no secret that our country faces today, another historically challenging time in the form of the Trump administration.

There is no sugar coating that, but the bulk of the problems that afflict our country — falling living standards, declining employment and housing opportunities, rising crime, the growing divisions between our regions and our people — these were not created by Donald Trump. They were — they were — created by the policies of three Liberal terms, policies that the present Prime Minister supported and wants a fourth liberal term to continue. Pierre has consistently opposed those policies, policies that have put costs up, accelerated crime, left our wealth in the ground and made our economy vulnerable and under America’s thumb.

And Pierre has just as importantly, long advocated the positive alternatives for change to axe those taxes, build homes, bring back jobs, get our resources to the whole world and stand up to Washington from a position of strength. Friends, friends, I believe that the challenge this country faces today from the United States, as real and serious as it is, should not be another excuse for Liberal failure. Instead, it should be a historic opportunity. That’s how we’ve got to see it, an opportunity to make Canada what it should be internally united, internationally connected, a truly independent economy with the highest living standards in the world, and with those benefits enjoyed not just by protected elites, but by all the people of this country, in every region of this country.

And do bring it home friends, because that goal, that goal, does not depend on Donald Trump. It depends on us. But we will only get there with leadership from a person who has an actual policy plan, from a person who has been right on all the big issues for a decade, and a person who has the energy and yes, the youth, to take us forward into a better, stronger and more united future. That person — that person — has been my colleague. He is my friend. He is our leader, and he is the next prime minister of Canada, Pierre Poilievre and Anna.

Perhaps in hopes of kindling some support in Quebec, the NDP announced former parliamentarian Ruth Ellen Brosseau — dubbed “Vegas Girl” when first elected as a 27-year-old in 2011 — as its candidate for the riding of Berthier—Maskinongé.

In a post to social media channels Sunday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the two-time MP “couldn’t just stand by” as Canadians are struggling with fewer services, increased living costs and the threat to farming and industry presented by U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies.

I’m so proud to share this with you: Ruth Ellen Brosseau is back — as the NDP candidate in Berthier–Maskinongé.

With everything people are going through — skyrocketing prices, cuts to services, and Donald Trump threatening our farmers and industries — Ruth Ellen knew she… pic.twitter.com/xN9YxmWVX4

— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) April 6, 2025

“Because when things get tough, she steps up,” he wrote.

But who is the two-time legislator who was once accidentally elbowed in the chest by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons?

• Comeback attempt by former NDP star Ruth-Ellen Brosseau runs into the Bloc
• Canada's unlikeliest MP: Ruth Ellen Brosseau went from 'Vegas Girl' to NDP success story

Why do they call her Vegas girl?

In 2011, Brosseau was a 26-year-old single mother working at Oliver’s Pub on the Carleton University campus in Ottawa when she was approached about being a paper candidate — someone on the ballot in name only to represent the NDP and give electors a choice.

The NDP were parachuting her in to replace the nominated candidate, Julie Demers, who party brass had moved to Bourassa, where she would eventually lose to Liberal Denis Coderre.

Brosseau, a native of Kingston, Ont., agreed, only to leave Canada during the campaign for a pre-booked trip to Las Vegas to celebrate her 27th birthday.

At the time, the media highlighted that Brosseau wasn’t fluent in French, had never set foot in the riding north of the Saint Lawrence between Montreal and Trois-Rivières, opted not to campaign and was not giving interviews.

“We had journalists camp out at my place for a while. My son found it really difficult. He was about 10 years old at the time. He was scared to go outside,” she told the Ottawa Citizen in 2014.

It mattered little to voters in Quebec who elected her and 58 other NDP candidates in a surge of support under Jack Layton’s popular leadership. Brosseau, without spending any money on her campaign, took the seat with nearly 40 per cent of the popular vote, ousting three-time Bloc Québécois incumbent Guy André in the predominantly Francophone riding.

“The people in my riding could have stayed home, or they could have spoiled their ballots. I think they were voting for something,” she said in a 2015 Chatelaine story . “So I never doubted my obligation to represent them. I wanted their votes to matter, and I wanted to do them justice.”

How long was she in Parliament?

Brosseau quickly found her footing in both her riding and the House of Commons.

Having grown up speaking French at home, her fluency quickly improved with regular lessons from Layton’s former tutor.

Meanwhile, when not on Parliament Hill under the tutelage of mentor and veteran MP Jean Crowder, Brosseau was in her riding learning about it and its constituents.

By the time she turned 30, she had risen with the party ranks to become NDP caucus vice-chair and its deputy critic on agriculture and agrifood.

Brosseau was re-elected in 2015, eclipsing the Bloc Québécois candidate Yves Perron by a wider margin than in her 2011 victory. Former leader Thomas Mulcair promoted her to the party’s official agriculture and agrifood critic and Jagmeet Singh made her NDP house leader when he took over in 2018. (Brosseau had endorsed Guy Caron in the leadership contest.)

Perron and the Bloc flipped the seat in 2019, winning by 1,500 votes, and Brosseau lost by less than 1,000 votes in the 2021 mid-pandemic election.

What happened with her and Justin Trudeau in “Elbowgate”?

Brosseau found herself back in headlines in 2016 when she was inadvertently elbowed in the chest by Trudeau during a somewhat heated moment on the House floor.

Footage from the Commons television feed shows the Liberal leader trying to pull Conservative Party of Canada House leader Gord Brown through a group of NDP MPs who were trying to delay a vote on a bill related to doctor-assisted death.

In the process, Trudeau’s elbow struck Brosseau, who reacted visibly as she was forced up against a desk.

“The prime minister intentionally walked over, swore at us, reached between a few members of Parliament to grab the (Conservative) whip … how did he think he wasn’t going to hit anybody else?” she said in a 2016 interview with The Canadian Press.

Trudeau quickly offered Brosseau apologies in the moment and did so repeatedly in the aftermath, all of which she accepted.

“In my haste, I did not pay attention to my surroundings and as a result I made physical contact with the member from Berthier—Maskinongé, something I regret profoundly, for which I regret unreservedly,” the prime minister said in the House the next day

A parliamentary committee tasked with looking into the incident cleared him of any wrongdoing , bringing an end to what became known on social media as “Elbowgate.”

What has she been doing since leaving office?

Before her 2021 bid to reclaim the seat, Brosseau told reporters she’d spent the previous two years working on her partner Nicolas Guathier’s farm in Yamachiche, Que.

Bon dimanche ❄️ pic.twitter.com/fFBiMHgoqh

— Ruth Ellen Brosseau (@RE_Brosseau) November 24, 2019

Her LinkedIn account lists her profession as agricultrice (farmer) and includes her time in the House, but is otherwise inactive. Official Twitter and Facebook accounts have been dormant since she lost in the last election.

In 2023, her story of being thrust into politics inspired a French drama-comedy series called La candidate on Radio-Canada owned Tou.tv .

Lead character Alix is a single mom and nail technician with no experience or interest in politics who, against all odds, defeats the heavily favoured incumbent and embarks on a political career.

As for why she’s running again, in a statement issued to the Montreal Gazette, Brosseau echoed Singh’s, saying crises facing the people of her riding need attention.

“I couldn’t sit on my hands and do nothing. I know what the region’s producers and businesses are going through, and it’s important for me to do everything I can to defend them and improve their quality of life.”

National Post has contacted the NDP for more information about Brosseau and her campaign.

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.

Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has revealed she suffered from a condition called postpartum preeclampsia following the birth of one of her children.

She shared this information during the inaugural episode of her new podcast,  Confessions of a Female Founder .

Postpartum preeclampsia is a rare but serious condition related to high blood pressure and occurs up to six weeks after giving birth. It can cause a stroke, brain damage, organ damage, seizures — and sometimes death — if not treated, according to the Cleveland Clinic .

Markle described the experience as “so rare and so scary. ” She highlighted the immense pressure of trying to “show up for people,” especially her children and attend to her public responsibilities while dealing with a significant medical scare.

She noted that she had to manage these issues privately, as the world remained unaware of her condition.

However, Markle did not specify whether this occurred after the birth of her son, Prince Archie, 5, or her daughter, Princess Lilibet, 3.

It is important to note that postpartum preeclampsia is distinct from preeclampsia , which occurs during pregnancy. Markle’s disclosure sheds light on the struggles many women face with postpartum health issues, particularly those under public scrutiny.

Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble, revealed her own experience with postpartum preeclampsia during her conversation with Markle on the Confessions of a Female Founder podcast. While specific details about how Wolfe Herd managed the condition were not disclosed, she emphasized the severity of postpartum preeclampsia , describing it as “life or death.”

Wolfe Herd reflected on the challenges of coping with this rare and potentially fatal condition while navigating new motherhood and career responsibilities.

She shared her admiration for Markle’s ability to publicly present her newborn son, Archie, shortly after delivery, contrasting it with her own struggles. Wolfe Herd recounted being unable to handle small tasks, such as answering the door for a food delivery.

Lemonada Media announced on March 13 that Confessions of a Female Founder would focus on Markle’s entrepreneurial journey launching the “As ever” lifestyle brand and feature conversations with other female founders over the course of eight episodes.

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.

On March 14, on his first day in office, Prime Minister Mark Carney ended the consumer carbon tax and, with it, the Canada Carbon Rebate payment.

“We will be eliminating the Canada fuel charge, the consumer fuel charge, immediately,” he said. “This will make a difference to hard-pressed Canadians, but it is part of a much bigger set of measures that this government is taking to ensure that we fight against climate change, that our companies are competitive and the country moves forward.”

However, the government has also promised one last payment of the Canada Carbon Rebate (CCR), which a Queens University professor points out is one too many.

Here’s what to know about the end of the tax.

When did the consumer carbon tax end?

Despite Carney’s use of the term “immediately,” the order-in-council that he signed in front of cabinet ministers and the press actually stipulated that “the fuel charge be removed as of April 1, 2025.” And it was.

What was the effect?

The most dramatic change was in the price of gas, which had been taxed at 17.6 cents per litre , and home heating fuels , which had a consumer levy of $85 per tonne, based on greenhouse gas emissions. Almost immediately prices began falling. The CAA reported that the average price for a litre of gas in Canada on April 8 was $1.32. A week before that (and before the tax ended) it was $1.51. The highest price in the last year was $1.72 in April 2024.

Is the final rebate fair?

It’s more than fair, according to Robin Boadway , Emeritus Professor at Queens University. He points that the “rebate” is on taxes consumers haven’t even paid yet, and now never will.

“The issue is pretty straightforward,” he told the National Post. “The carbon tax rebate was paid in advance of carbon tax revenues being collected. When the carbon tax was terminated, no more revenues were coming in, so there was no longer a basis for continuing the rebate.”

The government website agrees. “The rebate is tax-free and paid four times a year in advance, before households face increased costs from carbon pricing,” it says.

Boadway continued: “In effect, the upcoming rebate will be for carbon taxes that will not be collected, so the revenues to finance it will have to come from federal government general revenues. So, those persons who are eligible for the rebate will be getting a transfer that is not really a rebate for carbon tax revenues.”

Boadway says the government did not explain why it was giving out one final payment, but he estimated this “once-over thing” could cost between $2.7 billion and $3 billion.

When does the final rebate go out?

The final CCR payments will roll out beginning April 22 to Canadians in eight provinces: Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan. (British Columbia and Quebec are excluded because they have their own carbon-pricing systems, as do the territories.)

“There will be no further quarterly CCR payments after the April payment,” the Canada Revenue Agency says on its website.

Who is eligible?

Canadians are eligible if they were a resident of Canada in the month before the payment, and a resident of an applicable CCR province on the first day of the payment month. They also must be 19 or older, or be married or living with a child.

How can Canadians receive the rebate?

Eligible Canadians who have filed their 2024 income taxes (up until April 2) will receive the final payment just as they did the earlier ones, either by mail or direct deposit.

“If you file after that, you will receive your final payment once your 2024 return is assessed,” the government website says.

• Here's what Canada's federal carbon tax accomplished (not much)
• Poilievre promises to 'name and shame' corporate tax cheats

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Starting on April 10, Brazil will require Canadian tourists to apply for a visa to be in the country for up to 90 days.

The federal government updated the entry and exit requirements section of its travel advice page for Brazil to reflect the upcoming change. Canadians, as well as Australians and Americans, will have to fill out a form online for an electronic visa (eVisa) and pay a fee of US$80.90. This applies to passport holders from those countries who are arriving by air, land or sea.

“You can enter Brazil at any time within the validity period of the eVisa, starting from the date it is issued,” according to Brazil’s eVisa website run by technology service company VFS Global . “Once in Brazilian territory with an eVisa, you are authorized to stay for up to 90 days per year. If you need to extend your stay beyond 90 days, contact the Federal Police.”

Those who already have a valid physical visa in their passport for the purpose of their visit do not need to apply for a new visa, per the website .

“If your arrival is scheduled on or after April 9th, we strongly recommend applying for your eVisa in advance to prevent travel disruptions caused by delays or missed connections,” the website says. It takes an average of five business days to process the visa.

A valid passport is the only document that can be used for the application process. For Canadians, passports must be valid for at least six months beyond the date travellers expect to leave Brazil, per the Canadian federal government.

According to the Brazilian government , Canadians, Australians and Americans were previously exempt from visitor visas — including for travelling to Brazil for tourism, business, transit, or sport and artistic-related activities.

In 2019, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro got rid of the visa requirements in an effort to bolster the country’s tourism industry, per the Associated Press . Bolsonaro was also an ally of President Donald Trump.

When current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva came into power, he tried to bring back the requirements for Canadians, Australians and Americans in March 2023, citing the fact that Brazilians needed visas to enter those countries. After being postponed three times , the visa requirements are finally set to be in place this week.

The move, although in the works for years, comes after Trump imposed a 10 per cent tariff on imports from Brazil , along with around 90 other nations.

The Canadian federal government, in the recently updated travel advisory , urges Canadian travellers going to Brazil to “exercise a high degree of caution” because of “high crime rates and regular incidents of gang-related and other violence in urban areas.”

• What are some reasons Canadians may be denied entry at the U.S. border?
• New U.S. travel policy didn't factor in revenue from Canadian snowbirds: lawsuit

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.

OTTAWA — Conservatives are promising to move resources from the Canada Revenue Agency’s small business audits to further target big businesses, which they will “name and shame” when caught “dodging taxes.”

In a video on social media Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sang a common refrain from federal politicians during an election. He promised a Conservative government would come down hard on “tax cheats,” redirect CRA’s auditing firepower from small to large businesses and recover billions in unpaid taxes.

“Conservatives will end the double standard so multinational corporations and the ultra rich can’t just ship their money abroad to avoid paying their fair share at home,” Poilievre said.

In the video, Poilievre accused CRA of “harassing and auditing innocent small business owners” and promised to redirect resources from the small and medium enterprise audit branch towards cracking down on “offshore tax havens.”

He said the increased focus on offshore tax evasion would net the government an additional $1 billion in yearly tax revenue. The Liberals also frequently promised additional investments in the CRA would net billions of dollars in additional unpaid taxes from large corporations, though the actual results are unclear.

• The mystery of Quebec City, the Tories' beachhead in La Belle Province
• Stephen Harper says Donald Trump shouldn't be the excuse for 'Liberal failure'

As part of his plan, Poilievre also said he would create a “name and shame” publication targeting multinational corporations that are caught dodging their taxes. He also promised to boost whistleblower payouts to up to 20 per cent of recovered unpaid taxes.

“You can’t avoid your taxes, and large corporations shouldn’t be doing so either,” he said.

He also said his government would create a “tax task force” that would rewrite tax rules to make them “fairer, simpler and easier to administer.” He said that same team would be given the monumental task of closing “all” loopholes that allow companies to hide their money in tax havens.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made a similar announcement days earlier when he promised a review of the Income Tax Act (ITA) to “close loopholes that allow big corporations to avoid paying what they owe.”

Tax law specialists have long argued that a wholesale rewriting of the ITA is long overdue. At 3,000 printed pages spread over two volumes, it is the longest and one of the most complex pieces of Canadian legislation.

But political parties rarely commit to the daunting task because the issue does not speak to many voters.

Poilievre also accused Liberal leader Mark Carney of helping Brookfield Asset Management, which he chaired for four years before entering politics, to “stash” its cash away from the taxman.

Carney has been heavily criticized for the fact that two Brookfield funds he led were registered in Bermuda, a well-known tax haven.

“Brookfield … chose Bermuda not because of the warm weather. According to KPMG, Bermuda has no income tax, capital gains tax, dividend tax or withholding tax, making it one of the most attractive tax havens in the world,” Poilievre said.

Carney justified the decision by arguing that the funds were registered there to avoid double taxation.

“The important thing … is that the flow through of the funds go to Canadian entities who then pay the taxes appropriately. As opposed to taxes being paid multiple times before they get there,” he said on March 26.

Earlier this week, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said his party would end tax treaties with known offshore havens such as Bermuda.

The CRA has been criticized for dropping the number of audits on large corporations in recent years, though the agency has argued that it’s focused it resources on “big fish” that it suspects are dodging higher amounts of taxes.

National Post, with files from Rahim Mohamed

cnardi@postmedia.com

 

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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.

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Don’t Be Canada is a bold, razor-sharp new book from National Post columnist Tristin Hopper, out now with Sutherland House Books. In this exclusive excerpt, Hopper dismantles the dangerous contradictions at the heart of Canada’s modern justice system.

Two days after Christmas, 2022, Ontario Provincial Police Const. Grzegorz “Greg” Pierzchala pulled up on a vehicle in the ditch near Brantford, Ontario. Pierzchala knew nothing about the car or its occupants and was presumably pulling over to offer assistance. He was fatally shot in an ambush-style attack within moments of exiting his patrol vehicle.

Pierzchala was among eight Canadian police officers to be murdered on duty in the span of just seven months, an all-time record in a country that usually only saw one or two peace officers murdered per year.  His death came within a wave of tragedies committed by suspects on bail or early release.

Pierzchala’s death would end up prompting a joint statement from Canada’s four largest police associations demanding bail reform. Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Thomas Carrique would directly attribute Pierzchala’s death to a lax federal approach to bail.

But probably the most troubling aspect of Pierzchala’s killing is that it almost certainly would not have happened if the suspect had been Caucasian.

Not because the suspect’s race prompted him to shoot a police officer, but because it gave him lighter treatment at the hands of the Canadian justice system. The man who killed Greg Pierzchala had been given early release specifically because he was a member of a group that the Government of Canada had defined as “marginalized.”

Randall McKenzie’s entire adult life had been inflected by charges for violence and illegal firearms. Most recently, he’s been handed assault charges for attacking an ex-girlfriend and weapons charges for having an illegal gun on him when he was arrested. McKenzie had been initially denied bail on the grounds that he was too much of a risk to public safety. But only a few months later, an Ontario judge decided that, actually, McKenzie should be free. He was still a violent and unpredictable man. He was still likely to reoffend. He was still a flight risk (he had repeatedly violated court orders in the past).

And as Justice Harrison Arrell openly acknowledged in an audio recording of the bail hearing, it was an “iffy” proposal to release him back into society. But taking precedent over all of these considerations was that McKenzie belonged to a First Nation, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

“First Nations people are grossly overrepresented in the prison system, especially in pre-trial custody,” Arrell would tell Crown prosecutors. While the charges were serious, much was “probably to do with (McKenzie’s) native background and education opportunities and employment opportunities and poverty.”

The judge would add that his “obligation” in this case was that McKenzie was “a status Aboriginal.” It was “something I can’t ignore,” said Arrell.

McKenzie was released to his mother’s house with an ankle bracelet, which he promptly cut off before embarking on a months-long crime spree.

At the time McKenzie was accused of killing Pierzchala, he had just crashed a stolen car into a ditch, one of several cars he was accused of stealing since jumping bail.

If Justice Arrell set free a future cop killer entirely on the basis of ethnicity, it was mainly because he was following orders. Starting in 2018, the federal government passed explicit provisions to hand out bail more readily, particularly for Indigenous suspects.

As a guidance document read, judges were now required to consider the “circumstances of Indigenous accused and of accused from vulnerable populations.”

Almost immediately after the lifting of COVID-19 lockdowns, Canada found itself in the middle of a crime wave unlike anything seen before. The country still hasn’t matched the peaks of violent crime charted in the 1990s, but many of the most serious and disturbing crimes have reached all-time highs.

It isn’t just that unprecedented numbers of police being killed, but the way it is happening. Historically, Canadian police are killed in the line of duty while chasing down a violent suspect or executing a warrant. Most of the recent police murders have been cold-blooded ambushes.

The “stranger attack,” a term that used to barely feature in crime blotters, is now a daily occurrence in Canada’s major cities. On a single weekend in 2023, there were two separate incidents of Canadians being randomly stabbed to death in a public place. One, a 37-year-old man out with his kids at a Vancouver Starbucks, the second a 16-year-old boy waiting for a train in a Toronto subway station.

A Leger poll in early 2023 found that not only did the vast majority of respondents feel less safe, but also one in five actually was less safe; they directly reported being assaulted, screamed at, or threatened in public. Much of this has been the direct result of a criminal justice system that has explicitly decided that prisons make crime worse, and that the very concept of punishment is a relic. It’s also a justice system that has gone all-in on the idea that an offender’s identity, rather than their crime, should define how they are punished.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn’t take that long for criminals of all stripes to notice that Canada was a place in which they could thrive.

* * *

When Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial premiers sat down for their semi-annual summit in the summer 2024, they represented virtually the entire spectrum of Canadian politics.

The B.C. NDP premier, David Eby, was a former activist lawyer who had written a book entitled How to Sue the Police and Private Security in Small Claims Court. The Alberta premier, Danielle Smith, was a lifelong right-wing populist who was only a few months out from co-hosting a ticketed soiree with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. But all of these first ministers could agree unanimously on one thing: Canada had to stop releasing criminals all the time. “Police services should not have to chase the same criminal three or four times because of an inadequate bail system,” they wrote in a letter to Ottawa. “This not only represents a drain on policing resources but is a hindrance to public safety.”

This wasn’t the first time they had complained about Canada’s so-called “catch and release” justice system. The year before, the 13 premiers had penned a near-identical letter saying that the Canadian justice system “fundamentally needs to keep anyone who poses a threat to public safety off the streets.”

It’s a golden rule of criminology that most crime is committed by a startingly small cohort of chronic offenders. And Canada has been actively testing to see how few criminals it takes to throw entire regions into chaos.

In Western Canada, police forces have now begun using the term “super-chronic offender,” roughly defined as someone who commits more than one crime every month. A 2022 report by the B.C. Urban Mayors’ Caucus detailed how only 204 of these offenders had been responsible for 11,648 negative police contacts within the past year. In Vancouver alone, the city’s more prolific 40 criminals had racked up 2,152 career convictions between them, an average of 54 apiece.

Whole crime waves are now being committed almost entirely by people who just got out of jail or police custody. In the summer 2022, the Vancouver Police started crunching the numbers on the new wave of random, violent assaults plaguing the city. One trend that immediately stood out was that among those arrested for committing a “stranger assault,” an incredible 78 per cent already had a prior criminal conviction.

In a single three-month period, from March to June 2022, the Vancouver Police arrested forty suspects in connection with stranger attacks. When the “prior police interactions” for all 40 suspects were tallied up, the figure came to 3,892, and that was only for police interactions in the Vancouver region.

This is part of why Canadian police departments have become increasingly vocal about the fact that a lot of what they’re asked to do doesn’t seem to make any sense. As the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police put it in a 2023 letter, Canada has a “criminal justice system that renders much of our work pointless.”

It’s a rare day in Canada that goes by without some headline-worthy crime being committed by someone on bail or parole. In B.C., the term “catch and release” justice is probably best summed up by the saga of Mohammed Majidpour. In 2022, he attacked a random 19-year-old woman in the centre of downtown Vancouver, striking her with a pole while screaming anti-Asian racial slurs. Later that same day, he set fire to a car.

This was not particularly out of character for Majidpour, who had two dozen prior convictions. But after he was eventually tracked down and arrested within a week of the pole attack, he was released on bail after spending just the Thanksgiving weekend in custody. Before October 2022 was finished, Majidpour would be arrested at least two more times. In one instance, he was free just two hours and 18 minutes before police caught him attempting to steal $330 in leggings from a downtown store. “The officers were familiar with the man, because they’d arrested him the day prior for a different offence,” read a police statement.

Consider how lax bail helped to make Canada one of the world’s leading centres of auto theft. The problem is so bad that even the justice minister’s official car, a government-provided Toyota Highlander, has been stolen three times in three years.

In the summer 2024, Toronto Police announced the breakup of a massive Ontario car theft ring: 124 arrests, 177 stolen vehicles recovered, and 749 charges laid. Of the suspects caught by the dragnet, 44 per cent were on bail. And the police didn’t even have time to announce the arrests in a press release before 61 per cent were given bail.

A few months later, Toronto would produce one of the most iconic images of the Canadian auto theft deluge: a viral doorbell video of a man being struck by his own Porsche Cayenne. The Porsche owner had just handed the keys to a prospective buyer and was walking around the rear of the vehicle when said buyer suddenly jumped in and backed out of the driveway at full speed. The video shows the owner being catapulted into the street before his Cayenne speeds off.

Sarah Badshaw, 18, was arrested and handed a slew of charges, including one for “causing bodily harm with a motor vehicle.” Nevertheless, she was immediately out on bail. The next day, she was given bail again following charges for a different auto theft.

A lenient justice system is nothing new to Canada. Ever since the 1970s, Canada has been a place in which prisons are viewed almost entirely as rehabilitation centres, and in which even the most heinous crimes can yield shockingly lenient sentences.

In 1984, disgruntled Canada Armed Forces corporal Denis Lortie stormed into the Quebec National Assembly with two stolen machine guns, a pistol, and the goal of murdering Quebec Premier Rene Levesque, his cabinet, and any other members of the government he could find. It was only by sheer chance that Lortie entered an empty legislative chamber instead of one packed with hundreds of easy targets. Still, his indiscriminate rampage through the building would kill three and wound 13 others.

It remains the deadliest act of violence ever committed against a Canadian democratic institution. Lortie was out of jail within 11 years. Convicted on a reduced charge of second-degree murder, he was released on day parole by 1995, and had full parole in time for his 36th birthday. “I don’t think the punishment here fits the crime,” Steve Boyer, the son of one of Lortie’s victims, told a reporter in 1995.

Punishment is out of vogue in the Canadian prison system. Rather, it is oriented toward the idea that every offender will eventually reenter society, and that its job is to make sure that happens as quickly as possible. That’s even the case when it comes to serial killers.

Cody Legebokoff was only 24 when he was convicted for the murder of three women and a 15-year-old girl, Loren Leslie. He had been arrested by an alert RCMP officer shortly after dumping Leslie’s body in a remote area. “He lacks any shred of empathy or remorse. He should never be allowed to walk among us again,” wrote BC Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett at Legebokoff’s 2014 sentencing.

Only five years later, Legebokoff was moved from a maximum-security prison to a cushier medium-security facility. When the families of his victims reacted with outrage, Corrections Service Canada issued a statement implying that they’d better get used to this, since Legebokoff was eventually getting out. “Rehabilitative efforts, leading to a gradual and controlled release, have proven to be a better way of protecting the public than keeping offenders in maximum security to the end of their sentence, and then releasing them into society without supervision,” wrote the agency.

There is no mechanism in Canada under which a convicted felon can be held permanently in jail. Although Canadian media headlines will often speak of a convicted criminal being handed a “life sentence,” there’s no such thing. The “sentence” doesn’t refer to incarceration, only to a parole term that never technically expires.

Ever since Canada formally abolished capital punishment in 1976, the absolute harshest sentence under Canadian law is a guaranteed 22 years in prison. Even if a criminal managed to set off an atomic bomb in the centre of Montreal, there’s no sentence they could be given under which they wouldn’t be eligible for full parole after 25 years, and early release three years before that.

Public Safety Canada, the agency that oversees the prison system, is always quick to remind critics that “eligibility does not mean automatic release.” But in practice, that’s how it works. As far back as 2002, an analysis by the Correctional Service of Canada showed that the average first-degree murderer was serving just 22.4 years in prison.

Canadian parole boards are so committed to the doctrine of “reintegrating” offenders that they’ll even release convicted child murderers who continue to exhibit a sexual attraction to children. Five-year-old Kimberley Thompson was abducted from the streets of Calgary in 1980 as she walked to kindergarten. She was taken by Harold Smeltzer, a 24-year-old neighbour who, by his own account, had attacked more than 40 women and girls. He had grabbed Kimmie from behind as she stopped to make snowballs and taken her inside his parent’s house where he quickly decided to drown her in a bathtub. Smeltzer served just 27 years in prison before he started receiving day parole. He continued to be reupped for parole even after multiple breaches of his release terms and open admissions of feeling attracted to random children he encountered while on release.

* * *

It’s also been two decades now that Canada has been experimenting with a justice system that punishes offenders differently based on their race or background. This started in 1995, the year that the government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien amended the Criminal Code to require judges to consider “the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders” before handing down a sentence.

The idea of the reform was to address Indigenous “overrepresentation” in prison. In one stark example, by the late 1980s the inmates in Saskatchewan prisons were 60 per cent Indigenous, despite representing only seven per cent of the provincial population.

The policy of race-differentiated sentencing was ultimately codified in the 1999 Supreme Court decision R v. Gladue. Jamie Tanis Gladue, 19, had stabbed her common-law husband to death in a drunken rage, accusing him of having an affair with her older sister. She was convicted of manslaughter, and her sentence of three years imprisonment was appealed all the way to Canada’s highest court to see if it truly jibed with the new rules regarding Gladue’s “circumstances” as a Cree woman.

The Supreme Court not only said it did but also enshrined the adoption of so-called “Gladue reports.” Ever since, whenever an Indigenous offender is facing sentencing, the judge has to first read through a commissioned report listing the “systemic or background factors” that may have influenced the crime. “The jail term for an aboriginal offender may in some circumstances be less than the term imposed on a non-aboriginal offender for the same offence,” reads the Gladue decision.

Gladue reports have now been the law of the land for nearly 25 years, but it’s particularly in the last 10 years that identity-based justice and an institutional distaste for punishment have combined into an unholy regime in which seemingly nobody goes to jail.

Anti-racism doctrine has been embraced by the Canadian justice system harder than almost anywhere else. In 2021, the Department of Justice openly declared that it was shot through with systemic racism that had resulted in the “over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples, Black Canadians, and members of marginalized communities.” “Rooting out systemic racism is key to a fair and effective justice system,” it said.

One result of this declaration was a proposal to loosen the punishments for gun criminals, even as Ottawa was simultaneously leading a drive to crack down on gun crime by banning whole categories of firearms. In December 2021, the Department of Justice proposed stripping the minimum prison sentences from 11 gun crimes, including “robbery with a firearm,” “extortion with a firearm,” and “discharging firearm with intent.” The reasoning was that non-white Canadians were disproportionately convicted of these crimes, which made them racist.

“Sentencing laws that have focused on punishment through imprisonment have disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples, as well as Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities,” read a backgrounder.

And this was despite the fact that Canada didn’t really have an over-incarceration problem, at least not in the way that the term was used in American anti-racism literature. The term was often employed in the United States, and it made much more sense in a country home to the world’s largest population of incarcerated prisoners (about 1.8 million as of the last count).

But the Canadian prison population is almost the exact opposite: The non-profit World Prison Brief is the usual authority on prison populations, and it has long pegged Canada as having the lowest incarceration rate in the Western Hemisphere. According to its 2015 count, the United States was locking up prisoners at a rate seven times that of Canada.

Canada’s prison population was more in league with Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and Luxembourg, all of which have dramatically lower rates of violent crime.

Additionally, the Parole Board of Canada declared itself an agent of “systemic discrimination.” In a 45-page “diversity, equity and inclusion” report published in 2022, the board said that high number of Black people in Canadian prisons was due entirely to “systemic oppression, marginalization, and disenfranchisement that is so deeply entrenched in Canadian society that it is functionally normalized.”

It followed that when board members were weighing whether to release a criminal from prison, they were to consider the offender was in jail simply because the “discrimination and marginalization of Black people” had driven them to a life of crime. “Underlying social and economic factors contribute to criminalization and it is important to address systemic inequality in all areas of society in order to make meaningful change toward substantive equity.”

Now, whenever an offender is being sentenced or considered for parole, it’s not uncommon that the hearing will spend far more time parsing over the details of the offender’s childhood and family history rather than the crime committed.

In 2024, a B.C. man, Anthony Woods, was being sentenced for a fatal stabbing he had committed at a Vancouver transitional housing facility. Four years prior, Woods had been causing a scene at the facility, yelling and pounding on doors. When a 72-year-old visitor, Alex Gortmaker, apparently confronted Woods about the ruckus, he received a stab wound in reply. Woods produced a knife, stabbed Gortmaker in the chest, and pushed him to the ground where he bled to death.

The sentencing decision went into granular detail about Woods’ life. His mother’s drug problem. His time in foster care. His ADHD diagnosis. The Indian Residential schools were attended by Woods’ grandparents and extended family. The generalized impact of Canada’s “colonial history and post-colonial assimilationist policies.” The decision even detailed how he spent his summers growing up. “Mr. Woods recalls playing with cousins, picking berries and learning how to cut and jar fish,” it read.

His victim got a single cursory section, 200 words out of the 8,000-word decision. Gortmaker’s niece Sandra was brought in to read a victim impact statement saying, “she is haunted with nightmares; that going outside fills her with anxiety; that her foundation of trust and empathy has been lost; and that words do not properly capture the depth of her sorrow.”

Ultimately, a judge ruled that the “fair, fit and principled sentence” for Woods was to release him immediately. He ultimately served just eight months of pre-trial detention for the crime.

The Canadian justice system’s obsession with identity has also made Canada likely the only country on earth, which holds that citizens should be treated harsher by the courts than noncitizens. According to a 2014 Supreme Court decision, foreigners convicted of crimes should have “collateral consequences” factored into their sentencing. In other words, if the conviction is likely to get the offender deported, that should count as part of their punishment.

In 2024, an Alberta judge cited this exact precedent in refusing to convict a 25-year-old foreign student found guilty of sexual assault for groping an 18-year-old at a nightclub. If he was Canadian, he probably would have gotten at least a criminal record. Instead, the conviction was discharged in “consideration of the devastating collateral immigration consequences to recording a conviction.”25

* * *

If crime in Canada has truly taken a turn into the ridiculous in recent years, much of the blame can be placed on a single piece of legislation that took all of Canada’s various experiments in identity-based justice and supercharged them. Bill C-75, which entered into law in the summer of 2019, was the Trudeau government’s signature crime reform bill. Designed to “modernize the criminal justice system,” the bill notably included a series of provisions making it much easier for accused criminals to obtain bail.

The bill’s creators were quite open about the fact that easier bail was the goal. In introducing C-75 to the House of Commons, then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould criticized Canada’s prior bail system for perpetuating a “cycle of incarceration” and for disproportionately impacting “Indigenous people and marginalized Canadians.”

Henceforth, judges would be ordered to grant bail “at the earliest possible opportunity” and to spend much more time considering the ethnicity of the bail seeker before them. As per the bill’s text, bail would need to be granted more readily to anyone who belonged to “a vulnerable population that is over-represented in the criminal justice system.”

The bill didn’t even like the idea of bail conditions. That is, releasing a suspect on bail but requiring them to avoid certain neighbourhoods, stick to a curfew, or avoid alcohol. C-75 mandated that all this bail should be handed out under the “least onerous conditions.”

Pretty much immediately, the effect of Bill C-75 was to ensure that basically everyone got bail and continued to receive bail even if they violated their conditions or were charged with additional crimes. At one point in 2023, the B.C. Prosecution Service took the unusual step of publishing data to show just how rare it was for violent suspects to get their bail revoked.

Over a five-week period, the B.C. Prosecution Service counted 425 bail hearings involving a suspect who had been charged with a violent crime while already on bail for a prior offence. In 327 of those hearings (76 per cent), the suspect was simply given bail again.

In 2022, British Columbia’s Justice Minister was veteran environmental lawyer Murray Rankin. He was part of a provincial government not particularly known for being “tough on crime.” Among other things, the government had championed the decriminalization of illicit drugs and the distribution of government-supplied “safer supply” opioids. Rankin had also been a federal MP when C-75 was passed, where his main critique of the reform was that it didn’t go far enough.

But as his province became seized by a crisis of stranger attacks committed by the same few hundred chronic offenders, Rankin was put into the strange position of publicly advocating for the federal government to start keeping people in jail for longer.

As Rankin told reporters at the time, Bill C-75 had yielded “unintended consequences.”

One of the consequences of a justice system based on immutable characteristics is that it pretty quickly yielded a whole cottage industry of criminals pretending to be part of a marginalized group in order to evade punishment.

When B.C. man Nathan Legault was convicted for a raft of child sexual assault crimes committed while he was working as a pastor, he was about to face sentencing when he suddenly mentioned that one of his great-great-grandparents was a member Haudenosaunee Confederacy and that he was, therefore, entitled to a Gladue review.

A sentencing judge drafted a decision going into granular detail about Legault’s tenuous Indigenous links before concluding that it had no bearing on his eventual “child pornography addiction.” That same decision would warn other judges to gird themselves for a flood of similar attempts at “Indigenous identity fraud.”

“A Tsunami is coming; driven by the desire of non-Indigenous people to get what they perceive to be the benefits of identifying as Indigenous,” it read.

One of the alternative sentencing options that arose in the wake of the Gladue decision was a new network of Indigenous “healing lodges” — low-security rehabilitation centres that could serve as an alternative to hard time in a federal prison. In 2018, it emerged that Terri-Lynne McClintic, one of Canada’s most notorious child murderers, had secured transfer to a Saskatchewan healing lodge despite no Indigenous background whatsoever.

The transfer was particularly surprising to the Nekaneet First Nation, the Saskatchewan band on whose land the healing lodge was located. The lodge had opened in 1995 as a way to get Indigenous female offenders back on the straight and narrow.

But with the federal government having nixed any Nekaneet role in inmate selection, it wasn’t until the McClintic transfer made headlines that members realized that a woman who had abducted and murdered a nine-year-old with a hammer was now housed just a short walk from the Nekaneet School. “I believe if our elders were still a part of the process maybe Ms. McClintic wouldn’t be at the healing lodge,” Nekaneet Chief Alvin Francis said at the time.

Along the way, legal scholars were noticing that none of this seemed to be working as intended. “Over representation,” the siren call of Canada’s move to stratify the justice system along racial lines, remains as high as ever. In 2008, 20 per cent of federal inmate were Indigenous. Ten years later, it was 28 per cent.

An internal Department of Justice report noted this trend in 2017, but generally concluded that the solution was to focus even harder on the identity of offenders: Gladue reports should start including gender analysis and more granular details such as whether an accused’s “grandparents were residential school survivors.” It continued: “Gladue should not be regarded as a panacea for overrepresentation, but rather as a contribution to the efforts required.”

As Canada has leaned ever harder into its catch-and-release odyssey, it’s often found itself directly at odds with First Nations governments openly campaigning for more policing and harsher sentencing for repeat offenders, regardless of ethnicity. And the reason is simple: while Canada’s criminals are disproportionately Indigenous, so are their victims.

Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth would say as much during an August 2023 summit on bail policy. “What I think people sometimes overlook is that the victims of crime are the very communities that (we’re) talking about,” said Smyth, who was then the serving president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

In 2022, the James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan was subjected to a horrifying mass stabbing in which an attacker went door-to-door, slashing whole families and ultimately killing 11. The attacker was a familiar figure by Canadian justice standards. Myles Sanderson had 59 criminal convictions and a history of explosive, random violence. But none of that had prevented Sanderson from obtaining early release from prison the year before, where he’d been serving a sentence for assault. Sanderson then violated his release conditions and dropped off the radar before emerging a few months later as Canada’s newest spree killer.

When the Assembly of First Nations convened a national justice forum in 2022, “overrepresentation” was indeed a top agenda item, but the solution was deemed to be greater local control of policing and justice, rather than the “sentencing circles and Gladue reports” mandated by Ottawa.

“One of the complaints I’ve heard, particularly from Indigenous women, is how, unfortunately, it’s been men in positions of power when there’s been sexual assault or some wrongdoing, in the sense that they will use restorative justice to have an easier sentence. And I don’t know what the solution is, but this is something that needs to be researched,” said one participant.

What the Canadian legal system has done over the past generation is to become laser-focused on the notion that past traumas and current inequities can be solved simply by tweaking the numbers, and that jail or policing isn’t a reaction to society’s problems, but the cause of them. But in so doing, Canada has proved remarkably disdainful to those same marginalized communities whenever they ask the courts to at least stop handing them new traumas.

When convicted murderer Kenneth MacKay was granted day parole just 23 years after brutally murdering 21-year-old Indigenous woman Crystal Paskemin, it was the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations who said that a proper country would have sentenced him to die in jail. “Kenneth MacKay has violated the basic principles of human dignity and justice, and he has forfeited his right to belong to a civilized community,” it wrote in a 2023 statement.

The year before, when Winnipeg man Jeremy Skibicki was arrested for the serial murders of four Indigenous women, one of the first reactions of Manitoba First Nations leaders was to note the “cruel joke” that he would probably make parole one day.

“We are faced with the grim reality that murderers, even those who have taken the life of a child, can be given as little as five years in prison,” David Monias, chief of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation, told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. “These individuals are then released back into our communities, free to walk amongst us as if they haven’t destroyed lives.”

Welcome to National Post’s campaign Power Meter, where we will track the shifting tides of the election. As the race unfolds, we’ll rank parties, candidates and other characters based on momentum, performance, and public perception. Who’s gaining ground? Who’s losing steam? Keep checking in as we measure the moments that could shape the outcome.

PRESTON MANNING: In a blast from the past, former Reform Party leader Preston Manning kicked up a fuss on the campaign trail last week. Manning argued that a vote for Liberal Leader Mark Carney was a “vote for Western secession,” forcing the leaders  of both major parties to respond. Asked if he agreed with Manning, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said , “No, we need to unite the country.” Liberal Leader Mark Carney said that Manning’s comments were “dramatic” and “unhelpful.”
POWER METER RATING: WEST STILL NOT IN

CBC: Liberal Leader Mark Carney promised to give CBC/Radio-Canada an extra $150 million funding increase if elected and promised to eventually nearly double the $1.4 billion the public broadcaster receives in taxpayer dollars Carney would also allow CBC/Radio-Canada to keep collecting advertising and subscription revenues, which the Liberal government had previously mused about stopping out of a fear of it “compromising its objectives of public service.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to “defund the CBC,” but keep Radio-Canada alive .
POWER METER RATING: ELECTION DEPENDENT

ONLYFANS INFLUENCERS: An X-rated OnlyFans creator was living it up on the NDP campaign bus until she was booted by the party last week due to comments she made about the Holocaust. The influencer, who goes by Jessica Wetz compared remarks made by an Israeli member of parliament about “Palestinian babies” to remarks made by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis about “Jewish babies.” Wetz had been posting videos from the campaign trail on her Instagram account, including one where she speaks to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh about the Middle East.
POWER METER RATING: LOSING INFLUENCE

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QUEBEC CITY – As the Liberals widen their gap in Quebec, eyes are focused on the “Old Capital,” a longtime, mysterious Conservative stronghold. But the ground may be shifting, and one political icon is now hinting that a red wave could sweep over the city.

That’s former mayor Régis Labeaume, who served from 2007 to 2022 and left office with a 78 per cent approval rating.

Labeaume is still a local star. He knows the people and what they’re going through. In the four municipal elections he won, his worst result was 55 per cent of the vote.

When he was mayor of the province’s second-largest city, all political leaders wanted a piece of him. Including then-prime minister Stephen Harper.

“Things went very well with Mr. Harper,” he said over brunch in one of his go-to restaurants for the past four decades.

Labeaume was not always easy to get along with. He’s a strange breed, a bulldozer who loved to fight with his opponents and journalists. He shone in the spotlight and never hesitated to speak out against anyone who said “no” to him and to his city.

The National Post met with Labeaume to decode the “Quebec City mystery” on a Saturday morning, after week one of this campaign. It’s a mystery because the Conservative party, not known for its strength in Quebec, holds three seats, ahead of the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois with two each, in a province where they won only 10 in the last election.

If you include the greater Quebec City area, the Tories held six out of 10 going into the current campaign.

It’s historic, he said. In the first major French-speaking city in North America, language is paramount. Quebec City is “a village,” says Labeaume, and the residents are proud of it.

“The Conservative vote (here) is a protest vote… People are voting against the establishment,” he said.

Quebec City is historically no fan of the Liberals. The party’s two MPs in the area, Jean-Yves Duclos (Québec-Centre) and Joël Lightbound (Louis-Hébert), have won their seats by no more than a couple of thousand of votes in every election since 2015. They have never managed to add a third representative to the city.

People seem to enjoy having the opposition represent them. In 2011, every seat was won by the NDP during Jack Layton’s orange wave.

Even though the Liberals are leading the province, according to the most recent National Post-Léger poll , the Conservatives still appear to be dominating the capital. Polling aggregator 338Canada is projecting five ridings for the Conservatives, while the Liberals would retain their two seats, and none for the Bloc.

“Everyone calls it the Quebec Mystery, but I have suggested that it’s more the Montreal Mystery,” said the Conservative candidate in Charlesbourg-Côte-Saint-Charles, Pierre Paul-Hus, with a laugh.

“If you go back 30, 40, or 50 years, people’s mentality has always been, ‘We work hard, we take care of our money, we have family values.’ Well, all of that is a fundamental fact that still exists. Quebecers are more conservative than we might think,” said Paul-Hus, who is Pierre Poilievre’s Quebec lieutenant.

Paul-Hus hopes his party will make gains, just like the Bloc Québécois. Leader Yves-François Blanchet launched his campaign in the city.

In downtown Quebec City, Simon Bérubé’s campaign headquarters had nearly a dozen volunteers working frantically. Bérubé, the Bloc candidate in Québec-Centre facing former Liberal minister Jean-Yves Duclos, has been canvassing door-to-door for nearly a year. He talks about public transit and the protection of the French language.

He hopes that Quebecers, who are passionate about debate and extremely politically informed, will see the value in having a strong Bloc MP who is also an expert on American politics. He points out that Duclos was “dumped, abandoned by his prime minister just before the election” when Carney formed his first cabinet.

Carney did not appoint any ministers east of Shawinigan, which is seen as a “slap in the face.”

“So, for all of eastern Quebec, there is no longer a minister, and it is a decision that Mr. Carney had to make consciously because he does not know Quebec, he does not know the importance of Quebec City and of the national capital of Quebec,” he said.

But people are afraid, said Labeaume. U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated threats against Canada are terrifying.

“Psychosis exists here. People only talk about Trump… We are incapable, until further notice, of putting a little rationality into our thoughts. I have rarely seen that,” he said.

At Halles Sainte-Foy, people from all over the city go to shop, have lunch or drink coffee. Joël Lightbound, the tall, calm, and soft-spoken Liberal candidate for Louis-Hébert, takes a deep breath before interrupting customers mid-conversation.

“I’m your MP and Liberal candidate here,” he says. They know him, and they rush to take his picture.

“I think there is definitely something going on in the population and there are ridings that I didn’t think were winnable a few months ago that now seem entirely within the realm of possibility,” he said in an interview.

Then, a couple of other customers stopped what they were doing. Their eyes almost popped out.

“It’s Mélanie Joly,” whispered an older lady at a coffee shop.

The minister of foreign affairs emerged and started to work the crowd. “Can we count on your vote?” she asked with a smile. “Maybe, I don’t know yet,” replied a woman.

She was undecided, but she was leaning toward a federalist party. She wouldn’t say which one, but her smile said it all when she talked about her encounter with the minister.

“Flipping undecided voters is the politician’s job in a campaign,” Joly said. She shook another hand, took another picture.

Liberals are feeling something in Quebec City but also everywhere in the province. Something like a wave in their favour.

Joly thinks the Liberals now enjoy greater support in the province than in 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s party won a majority in the province with 40 seats. Liberal sources privately said that winning 43 seats in the province would be a resounding success this time around. As of Monday, 338Canada predicted 49 seats for the Liberals in the province.

A few months ago, Joly wasn’t as popular, and smiles were rarer. The Liberals had hit rock bottom across the country, including in Montreal, their last stronghold.

“It’s night and day,” she told the National Post. “There was anger among the population… We weren’t popular because people wanted change.”

Trudeau’s resignation, Trump’s threats against Canada, and the arrival of Carney have changed everything for the Liberals in this province. Perhaps even in the capital.

“Adding two seats in Quebec City would be amazing,” said Lightbound.

Régis Labeaume does not support anyone in this election. He’s a separatist who voted “yes” in two referenda; a social democrat who ran a mining company and became a millionaire before entering politics.

He wouldn’t say who he’ll vote for. But he told us very clearly that he appreciates the style of Carney, a “neophyte” who is making “bold” decisions and has a “son of a b–ch” instinct.

People are more afraid than ever, he said. Even more so than during the referenda on Quebec independence. Quebecers, he added, want someone in charge, someone “solid,” someone with “major league experience.”

“Carney is up there. It’s pretty clear,” he said.

He doesn’t think Poilievre is up for the task and says the Bloc is inevitably in a tough spot. He feels a wave. A red wave in Quebec City.

“There are Conservative ridings that will flip to the Liberals,” he predicted.

He finished his coffee, stood up, and headed for the exit.

Half a dozen people stopped him. “We need you,” said a man. “We miss you terribly, Mr. Labeaume,” said a woman nearby. “You’re my political hero,” added another.

He shook their hands with a smile. “See, I told you.”

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com

• Carney 'doesn’t give a damn' about Quebec, says Bloc leader Blanchet
• In Quebec's nationalist heartland, voters ponder a Conservative rendez-vous

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TORONTO — Seated in a restaurant around the corner from Toronto’s bustling Yonge Street on a drizzling afternoon, Leslie Church says her campaign couldn’t feel more different than the one she lost nine months ago.

“Night and day,” she says. “It is night and day.”

Church was the Liberals’ candidate when the party saw its stronghold of Toronto—St.Paul’s fall to the Conservatives after having held it for more than 30 years, which made the defeat no ordinary loss.

It burst open what until then had been long-simmering concerns among Liberals that the party was destined for defeat with then prime minister Justin Trudeau at the helm, given his unpopularity with Canadians.

The loss shocked most observers, including top Conservatives who themselves were not expecting to win. For Church, who spent years working as a chief of staff for different ministers, including former finance minster Chrystia Freeland, it came as no surprise.

“We always knew that that was at a moment in time when it was going to be a tough fight,” she told National Post.

“I cannot describe how different it feels right now.”

Chief among the differences is the fact that Trudeau is gone, replaced by Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

Affordability, another issue that dogged the Liberals coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic as interest rates and food prices soared, has for many been replaced by concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s attitude towards Canada and his ensuing trade war — a war that Carney is pitching himself as best placed to fight, given his experience managing central banks in the U.K. and Canada.

“It was peak fatigue around Trudeau,” Church said of her loss. Now, she says, “Trump has changed everything.”

That mixture spells trouble for the Conservatives’ incumbent candidate, Don Stewart. He won last year’s byelection by only about 600 votes. Tories see the campaign to keep the riding as a tough one.

Successive public opinion polls suggest the lead the Conservatives enjoyed when they captured the riding to have all but disappeared, with the party now tied or trailing the Liberals.

One factor Stewart must contend with is the fact that votes that swung his way the last time around were motivated by a visceral anti-Trudeau sentiment.

Such was the case for resident Michael Willmot. While he voted for Stewart in the byelection, he now finds himself undecided.

“I got a flyer from him the other day,” he said of Stewart’s campaign. “It was (the) same old boring stuff, axe the tax, building and housing and we’ll … make a new Canada.”

“That’s tiresome,” Willmot says. “He’s been on that for too long.”

Carney, on the other hand, has impressed him. “He’s had two monstrous appointments,” he said of the Liberal leader’s time spent as a central banker.

While he finds Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to be a “good fellow,” Willmot suggests his long career in politics leaves him lacking in other experience. “He didn’t run anything.”

Another factor is that with a new leader, longtime Liberals feel like returning to the party.

“If he was still running, I wouldn’t have voted Liberal,” Peter Bird, who lives in the riding but hails from Quebec and has been Liberal since childhood, said of Trudeau. “Mark Carney, yeah, I’m voting for him.”

Carney’s win of the Liberal leadership traces through the riding itself, with Toronto—St. Paul’s giving him the third-highest level of support among party members — another plus for Church.

Stopping by Stewart’s campaign office, located only blocks away from Church’s, his campaign manager politely informed National Post he would not be granting interviews.

Inside his office, displays of white and blue balloons decorate parts of the room, with the date of advance polls opening on April 19 marked on papers attached to the wall and on otherwise empty tables, with the beginnings of a list of volunteers who could help.

The local campaign has a strong ground game, says Brian Mitchell, a volunteer on Stewart’s team and a longtime party supporter, who had been canvassing apartments last Saturday.

“We all have to work hard. We all have to do our bit, and he’s better known now,” Mitchell says. “I’m encouraged that he will be able to hold the riding.”

While his campaign will be a fight, Stewart’s support within the riding is visible. Blue campaign signs dot boulevards and lawns around nearby neighbourhoods.

At one point, a woman also opens his campaign office door to say the only thing she wanted to tell those inside was, “Go Don!”

From a back room, Stewart’s campaign manager says she’ll take it.

Since his win, Stewart has been seen as both a star and a source of hope for Conservatives, given he proved it was possible to flip a long-held Liberal riding in Toronto to Tory blue.

Speaking at an event for the Conservatives’ Beaches-East York candidate last month, some clips of which were shared on Facebook, Stewart described the fight for that Liberal-held riding as being not much dissimilar to his. “And that’s a very tall hill to climb.”

“They need to know, voters, that the Conservative party is not a scary party,” Stewart said in another part of the video, which was shared on March 7.

“I’m a centre candidate, I just happen to be fiscally conservative,” he said during his speech, adding that the Conservatives were the only federal party to respect taxpayers.

Back in the restaurant, another issue that Church says hurt her campaign last time, which is not an issue now, was the Liberals’ proposed capital gains tax hike, which Carney cancelled after he was sworn in as prime minister.

Another matter she hears about daily remains antisemitism, she says.

As a riding, Toronto—St.Paul’s boasts the fifth highest number of Jewish voters in the country.

“We still have a lot of work to do within the Jewish community to build trust,” Church said of the Liberals.

“We actually needed faster action on antisemitism, for example, on our streets … it’s not enough to do to offer thoughts and prayers.”

During last year’s byelection, the Conservatives made a direct appeal to the Jewish community, including in a letter sent to households ahead of the vote, outlining what they described as a failure of Trudeau to stem “Jew hatred” that had spiked in the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, which triggered Israel’s ongoing war with Gaza.

Since then, police in Toronto have reported a rise in violence that they have deemed as antisemitic.

During the byelection race, the group Jewish Ally formed as a third-party advertiser to encourage Jewish voters to cast a ballot against the Liberals.

As of Monday, they were not registered in the current federal election.

Andrew Kirsch, a former Ontario Progressive Conservative candidate from 2018 who was behind the group and lives in the riding, says antisemitism remains a deeply personal and motivating issue for many in the Jewish community and views Stewart as an “ally.”

“Whether, demographically, that’s enough to hold the riding if wider trends point another direction, I don’t know.”

Asked whether she has raised the community’s concerns with Carney, Church hands over a campaign leaflet she passes out to those whom the issue is top of mind, outlining the plan she has to address the rise in antisemitism, pointing to one of the faces on the page: Marco Mendicino.

“This is his chief of staff right now,” she said of the former public safety minister.

As the Liberal MP for the neighbouring riding of Eglinton—Lawrence, which also boasts a high Jewish population, he was outspoken on the issue and voiced a strong pro-Israel stance. While Church advertises Mendicino’s new role, some Muslim supporters and advocacy groups took issue with it, given several of his positions taken, such as opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza.

As Church left the restaurant to return to door-knocking, Liberals believe that enough has changed for the party to once again return the riding red.

“The context is totally different,” said voter Michael Dewson

“I’m very positive.”

National Post, with additional reporting from the Canadian Press

staylor@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper formally endorsed Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre at a rally in Edmonton on Monday evening, and argued that the Liberal government is using threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to paper over its own failings.

Harper argued that most of the country’s problems “were created by the policies of three Liberal terms” that leader Mark Carney supported and that Poilievre would reverse if elected.

Wow.

Over 15,000 patriotic Canadians rallied for CHANGE in Edmonton.

When we fight together, we win together. And put Canada First.

On April 28, join us and vote for change. Vote Conservative. pic.twitter.com/fhVtcmhaX7

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 8, 2025

“Pierre has, just as importantly, long advocated the positive alternatives for change. To axe those taxes, build homes, bring back jobs, get our resources to the whole world and stand up to Washington from a position of strength,” said Harper, to cheers from an enthusiastic crowd.

“I believe that the challenge this country faces today from the United States, as real and serious as it is, should not be another excuse for Liberal failure,” he said.

The Conservatives said more than 15,000 people attended the rally in Nisku, a hamlet south of Edmonton, making it the largest rally any party has hosted during the campaign. The Conservatives have been regularly attracting large crowds to rallies, with thousands of people flocking to see Poilievre in the last couple of weeks .

It’s the first time Harper has hit the campaign trail since the 2015 election, when he was unseated as prime minister, and comes at a time when the Conservatives are in a close race with the Liberals with the April 28 election only weeks away.

Rallying with PM Harper in Edmonton for CHANGE!

Canadians are ready for CHANGE and a new Conservative government that will build pipelines, mines, LNG plants, data centres and lower costs for families—For a Change

Vote for change. Vote Canada First. Vote Conservative:… pic.twitter.com/Bu5vBRtNIQ

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 8, 2025

 

Harper said he disagreed with the notion that Carney can slide into the role of prime minister without any experience on Parliament Hill.

“Don’t let anyone tell you that he was born to be prime minister or that he can just somehow parachute into the job fully prepared,” said Harper.

“Political experience — elected, accountable political experience, and the capacity for growth with that political experience — that is what Pierre has demonstrated for two decades, and that is the single most important characteristic a prime minister needs.”

The speech by Harper implicitly pushed back on a theme of Carney’s rally speeches about Poilievre’s lack of experience in the private sector. Carney has repeatedly criticized his opponent for being a lifelong politician who “worships” the free market but has never actually run a business.

Harper also pushed back on Carney for his comments about guiding Canada through the global financial crisis in 2008, which Conservatives have widely criticized as stealing credit from Harper and his finance minister, the late Jim Flaherty.

“By the way, I say that as the guy who actually did lead Canada through the global financial crisis, I hear there’s someone else claiming it was him,” said Harper. “It was, of course, our government, the late great Jim Flaherty, and our Conservative team who were responsible for the day to day macroeconomic management during that challenging time.”

At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Carney said he “worked closely” with Flaherty during the crisis.

“I note that Pierre Poilievre was not at any of those tables, was not given any of those responsibilities, and note further that in subsequent years he has not gained any responsibility in managing crises or difficult situations,” said Carney.

Harper told the rallygoers that the threats from Trump could be a moment of hope for Canada, rather than a crisis.

“Instead, it should be a historic opportunity. That’s how we’ve got to see it, an opportunity to make Canada what it should be, internally united, internationally connected, a truly independent economy with the highest living standards in the world, and with those benefits enjoyed not just by protected elites, but by all the people of this country, in every region of this country,” said Harper.

Poilievre travelled to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on Tuesday, to be followed by a swing through the Greater Toronto Area later in the week.

Carney was also in Alberta on Tuesday, with a rally scheduled in Calgary in the evening.

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It's the first time Harper has hit the campaign trail since the 2015 election, when he was prime minister

It was a departure in two ways.

The Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec slipped out of Halifax Monday morning to join a United Kingdom carrier strike group on a seven-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific. Canadian warships regularly integrate with American carrier strike groups, but officials and military watchers insisted Monday the decision to sail with the Brits instead this time was a year or more in the planning and has nothing to do with U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent ramblings about making Canada the 51st state.

“This is just a happy coincidence,” said Ken Hansen, a military analyst and former navy commander.

It’s “also a bit of a symbolic change,” he said.

“The government is talking about disconnecting or decoupling the diplomatic and economic aspects of our network with the Americans and now you could view it symbolically as just more of the same in a military way,” Hansen said. “We’ll never be able to decouple completely from the United States military for the role that we play in continental security and safety of our shipping and ports, but for this kind of thing, where they’re deploying to a foreign theatre, you can easily hook up with the Brits or the French or anybody you choose to because the NATO alliance makes all of that possible.”

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Canadian warships frequently operate with U.S. Navy carrier strike groups and it’s rare that they join Royal Navy formations except when they happen to be sailing in the same waters, according to Paul Mitchell, a professor at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.

But he doubts Canada decided to sail with the Brits instead this time because of Trump’s tough talk.

“Ship deployments are typically planned long in advance. Engagements with foreign task groups especially so,” Mitchell said.

And while last month’s Halifax visit by a French nuclear-powered submarine drew lots of eyeballs as Trump raised the temperature on Canada, that, too, would have been “planned well in advance,” Mitchell said.

“Bottom line: while timely, none of this was likely timed to coincide with recent events,” he said.

The frigate’s skipper is keen to be sailing with the Brits.

“This an excellent opportunity because now that the U.K. has their two carriers that they alternate for their deployments, I’ve had the opportunity to go over to their headquarters, meet with the command teams and the carrier task group commander,” said Cmdr. Peter MacNeil. “We’re being more than just interoperable, but being integrated into the carrier strike group.”

MacNeil didn’t want to wade into Trump’s talk about taking over Canada.

“The best thing I can do is to keep this crew safe, conduct the operations to the best of my ability and my training after 20 plus years in the service,” he said. “I don’t have a political opinion; I carry out my orders.”

Ville de Quebec’s journey will circumnavigate the globe, taking its 242 sailors across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, over into the South China Sea around the Pacific and back to the Atlantic, via the Panama Canal, then home to Nova Scotia.

The frigate will spend most of the deployment with a multinational naval force, led by HMS Prince of Wales, a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier.

“It’s the first time this ship has specifically deployed to the Indo-Pacific,” MacNeil said of Ville de Quebec. “So that’s very exciting for us and a key milestone.”

The routing and who the Canadian warship would be operating with “was solidified” over the last year, MacNeil said.

The journey will include a lot of war games.

“We’re going to conduct anti-submarine warfare serials, lots of exercises, training,” MacNeil said. “Being with the carrier, we have an opportunity to do lots of live tracking with live aircraft.”

There’s “always an inherent risk” involved in naval deployments, he said. “It could be anything from an incident within the ship where a piece of equipment fails to, perhaps, something emerges internationally.”

For the next three weeks, sea training experts wearing red caps will put the ship’s crew through their paces “to give us some surprises, see how we react and let us enhance our standard operating procedures and how we’re going to deal with tactics in an emerging environment,” MacNeil said.

“Then we’ll be as ready as we can be should anything erupt worldwide.”

The Stadacona Band played Heart of Oak as Ville de Quebec left the dock, even though the navy is steering away from the naval march because the centuries-old anthem contains references to colonialism and slavery, and doesn’t represent everyone who wears the uniform, including women and Francophones. But the band also delved into more modern fare as families got one last chance to blow their sailors a kiss, including jaunty takes on the Spice Girls’ Stop and Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call me maybe.

Janet Whalen was at the dock to wave goodbye to her son, Bradley, a cook on Ville de Quebec.

Was she happier that he’s sailing with the Brits than the Americans? “Never really thought of it actually,” Whalen said. “But, at the moment, yes…. Just the way things are right now. It’s crazy.”

Carl McWilliams was on the pier in Halifax to send off his stepson, Nicholas Soucy.

“Right now, I’d rather British than American, absolutely,” McWilliams said of Ville de Quebec’s aircraft carrying dance partner for this deployment.

“I was in the navy. So, I myself would rather be sailing with the Brits right now,” he said. “It’s a good wake-up call for us.”

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