National Post

Those hoping to have a strong cup of coffee with fewer beans should pour water from high up, says a new study.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania wanted to test how to make a great cup of one of the world’s most popular drinks. In a   research article published in April in the scientific journal Physics of Fluids , they wrote that “issues such as climate change threaten the growth of the temperature-sensitive Coffea arabica plant, more commonly known as Arabica coffee.”

The researchers wanted to find a way to become more efficient brewers, “using less coffee while still meeting the high demand for the beverage.” They decided on the pour-over method, which involves pouring hot water over coffee grounds in a paper filter that sits in a coffee dripper, or cone. The cone is placed over a vessel that catches the liquid — coffee — that has gone through the filter. “This brewing method primarily uses gravity to push water a single time through coarse, loosely packed coffee grounds,” the researchers explained.

They used Simply Nature Organic Honduras whole coffee beans, and ground them with a Eureka brand grinder.

One of the researchers, Ernest Park, told National Post over email that the team tested pouring water from up to around 50 centimetres above the filter. However, he said that people can realistically pour from about 20 to 25 centimetres above the filter, with a maximum of around 30 centimetres, because it can start to “get a bit dangerous with hot water” if it’s poured from too high up.

The researchers first did tests using silica gel particles (to mimic the coffee grounds), a glass filter that they could see through, a laser sheet and a high-speed camera. They discovered “an avalanche effect (where granules suddenly slide and form large-scale flows) that leads to strong mixing at various pour heights, even with a gentle pour-over jet” — or a thin stream of water. To achieve a gentle pour-over jet, the team used a gooseneck kettle.

Next, they tested the coffee grounds with hot water.

Increasing the height between the kettle used for pouring and the cone ended up maximizing the mixing of the grounds with water. It also reduced the flow rate of the water to increase extraction time. (As it pertains to coffee, extraction refers to when compounds like caffeine are pulled from the grounds when they are mixed with hot water.)

The findings suggest, per the researchers, that “instead of increasing the amount of beans, the sensory profile and the strength of the beverage can be adjusted by varying the flow rate and the pour height.”

Researchers recommend keeping a laminar water jet, or constant flow of water, when pouring. This allows the stream to create the avalanche effect.

“These alterations assist in extracting and dispersing the flavourful compounds in coffee grounds effectively while reducing the necessary mass of grounds,” the paper says. “In this way, the extraction efficiency could be better controlled to help alleviate the demand on coffee beans worldwide.”

The publication of the paper comes at a time when tariffs have been imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on countries around the world, including some of the biggest producers of coffee. Globally, coffee prices surged to   record highs in January .

Canadians may be particularly interested in finding ways to consume more caffeine for less.

In Canada, the cost of 350 grams of roasted or ground coffee has been on the rise in recent months,   according to Statistics Canada . That amount was sold for $7 in January, but increased to $7.32 in February. This is a significant increase since October 2024, which saw 350 grams of coffee sell for $6.72.

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CALGARY — It’s a little less lonely to be a Liberal in Calgary these days.

The line of supporters extends a kilometre outside of the Red and White Club at McMahon Stadium, where Liberal Leader Mark Carney is set to hold a rally. It is taking place in the riding of Calgary Confederation, which Liberals expect could be a nail-biter this election .

Running under the red banner is Corey Hogan, vice president at the University of Calgary and host of the political podcast “The Strategists.” He is hastily replacing the previous candidate, Thomas Keeper, who stepped down reportedly for a 20-year-old domestic assault charge.

Hogan will be facing off against former United Conservative Party MLA Jeremy Nixon, now running for the federal Tories. Nixon was also tapped as a last-minute candidate after the incumbent MP, Len Webber, suddenly announced his retirement before the election call.

At only 15 years old, William Grunan-Harlow is waiting in line to enter the Liberal venue, a sign with Hogan’s name on it in hand.

He may not be able to vote for the candidate but is eager to meet Hogan, who he knows of through his podcast. It is Grunan-Harlow’s first partisan event, and he is beaming with excitement at the idea of meeting other people who hold similar political views to him.

“I had never met a Liberal in my entire life outside of my family, and now I’ve met quite a few,” said the articulate teenager, pointing to the long line of supporters behind him.

One of those supporters is Richard McMillan, who is clearly of voting age and says he will be casting his ballot for Hogan.

“He’s really capable and I honestly think he’s cabinet minister material,” he said.

Inside the venue, the crowd goes wild when Hogan briefly takes the stage.

Hogan is clearly at ease in front of such a large crowd. He tells them that Janet Brown, Alberta’s most recognized pollster, told CBC that a riding like Calgary Confederation is “a bellwether riding” for whether Liberals are going to win a minority or a majority.

“The polls say if we show up, we’ll win,” Hogan said.

The next one to take the stage, Lindsay Luhnau, the director of a local investment co-operative running for the Liberals in Calgary Centre, another riding that the party is hoping to pick up, said her team is getting “incredible feedback at the doors and on the doors.”

“Progressives across Calgary are uniting,” she said, referring to the NDP’s slide in the polls that is seemingly benefiting her party.

Calgary is typically a Conservative stronghold in federal politics. Liberals elected a lone representative, George Chahal, in Calgary Skyview in 2021. Chahal is now running in the Calgary McKnight riding, while Hafeez Malik is hoping to succeed Chahal in Skyview.

Chahal said he thinks he will no longer be alone in Calgary after the next election.

“I think we will see Liberal support be much higher than it has in previous elections, and I am confident that I will be joined by more colleagues representing their constituencies from the Liberal Party of Canada after April 28,” he said.

According to Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University, four ridings in Calgary are going to be in play: McKnight, Skyview, Centre and Confederation.

“Those will be battlegrounds that we haven’t typically seen in this city,” he said.

It is no coincidence that Carney decided to make his announcement to transform Canada into an “energy superpower” with some of his candidates in Calgary.

“We need to get… Liberal candidates elected, as many as possible, so we can put this into place,” he said of his commitments.

Liberals are pushing another candidacy: Priti Obhrai-Martin, daughter of beloved long-time Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai. She is running in the riding of Calgary East against Conservative incumbent Jasraj Singh Hallan, also popular in the riding.

In a recent interview, Obhrai-Martin said her father had spoken highly of Carney’s work as governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 recession. When Carney decided to run for the leadership, she said he “piqued” her interest and put her hand up to get involved with the party.

Community members then asked her if she would be willing to run. She said yes.

“It’s very emotional,” she said. “It’s my dad’s riding. I’ve been door-knocking in this area since I was 16. I know the Conservatives. I know everybody here. It was not an easy decision. But people were asking me to step up. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m all in.’”

Obhrai-Martin said she was “scared” to join the Liberals at first but said people have been respectful of her decision. “They recognize that I have a legacy. They recognize that we have a family name and integrity, and they know that I didn’t take this lightly,” she said.

After the end of the Calgary rally, she is treated like a local celebrity, with Liberal supporters patiently waiting to take pictures with her and exchange a few words.

Obhrai-Martin might make it to Parliament like her father or she might not. But she said that if she felt the need to join Carney’s Liberals, others might do as well.

National Post, with files from Noah Brennan, Calgary Herald
calevesque@postmedia.com

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Eighty-five per cent of Canadians say they’re proud to be Canadian — up five percentage points from nearly one year ago, according to a new poll .

The Leger poll conducted for the Association for Canadian Studies found that Atlantic Canadians and those in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the most proud (91 per cent). They’re followed by those in Alberta (86 per cent), Ontarians (85 per cent) and people in British Columbia (84 per cent). Quebecers feel the least national pride, with 79 per cent saying they’re proud to be Canadian.

The numbers were slightly different just one month ago, when 86 per cent of Canadians said they were proud. In early March, 86 per cent of Quebecers and 77 per cent of Albertans said they were proud to be Canadian. In November 2024, the number was the same for Quebecers but only 70 per cent of British Columbians were proud to be Canadian.

“This has to be understood in terms of what’s happened since the election of Donald Trump and the current campaign,” said Jack Jedwab, president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies. “There’s a lot of volatility right now in terms of our relationship with the United States, a lot of head-scratching and people asking themselves, ‘Where do we stand with the country we perceive to be our closest ally, and what does this mean for who we are?'”

In the 2025 federal election, national unity has come up as an issue, with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith warning of an “unprecedented national unity crisis” should several demands not be met by the incoming government.

However, this poll, along with others, seems to show the overwhelming majority of Canadians have a strong attachment to their nation.

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In every region of the country — with the exception of Quebec — the number of people who say they take pride in Canada is higher than the number of people who say they take pride in their province.

“Pride in being Canadian exceeds pride in province for the rest of the country,” said Jedwab.

In Quebec, 79 per cent say they are proud to be Canadian and 80 per cent say they are proud to be Quebecers. Elsewhere, the gap is wider: 91 per cent of Atlantic Canadians say they are proud to be Canadian compared to 85 per cent who say they are proud of their province.

Ninety-one per cent of those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba say they are proud to be Canadian compared to 75 per cent who show pride in their province. In Alberta, 86 per cent of people say they are proud to be Canadian, while 73 per cent say they are proud of their province. Eighty-five per cent of Ontarians say they are proud to be Canadian, while 82 per cent say they are proud of their province. And in British Columbia, 84 per cent say they are proud to be Canadian, and 82 per cent say they are proud of their province.

At nearly 93 per cent, Liberal voters have the most pride in Canada, followed by Conservative voters at 86 per cent and NDP voters at 83 per cent. Only 64 per cent of those who say they are voting for the Bloc Québécois — an avowedly separatist party – say they are proud to be Canadian. (Forty-eight per cent of those polled also said that an independent Quebec would be less able to deal with U.S. trade threats.)

“I suspect a lot of Albertans are also thinking that their capacity on their own to … be effective in defending against this threat is probably something that they’re coming to understand is not going to be most effective,” said Jedwab.

The survey of 1,631 people was conducted online by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies between April 5 and 6. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey for comparison purposes. A probability sample of 1,631 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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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.

More evidence has surfaced of friendly ties between the Chinese government and the Liberal candidate who replaced an incumbent criticized for his own approach to China.

Peter Yuen, the party’s newly minted nominee in a Toronto-area riding, attended a massive military parade and show of martial strength in Beijing a decade ago at the invitation of a Chinese agency dedicated to influencing ethnic Chinese in other countries.

The former Toronto deputy police chief and about 75 other “overseas Chinese” from Canada were put up in a Beijing hotel, principally to watch a parade marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, stories from Chinese-language media indicate.

Another Canadian invited to the event, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity, confirmed in an interview that Yuen was among the attendees who stayed at the DoubleTree Hilton and sat on bleachers in Tiananmen Square to watch the parade pass by.

The Canadians’ accommodation and food were covered by the Chinese, said the person, who paid for his own airfare to Beijing and said others may have, too.

Canadian delegates also attended other events during the trip, including the awarding of medals to elderly veterans of the war, according to the news stories.

Such trips are a classic tactic of Beijing to woo ethnic Chinese leaders and other key foreigners, said Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.

“That tells you all you need to know about Chinese interference in our society,” he said. “Make them feel important, make them feel honoured, then they’ll go home and do your bidding for you. That’s human nature, 101.”

Gloria Fung of the group Canada-Hong Kong Link, another prominent China critic, agreed. Being invited to watch the parade along with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said, “was a symbol of status and recognition of Yuen by the CCP, implying the invitee would play an important role in Canada in the years to come.”

Still, there’s no evidence that Yuen has publicly championed China’s interests, and the Beijing trip came at a time of somewhat warmer relations between Ottawa and Beijing, when the Conservative government of the day pursued trade with China vigorously.

Yuen said Friday that such delegations were common among public and private institutions in 2015 to “strengthen people-to-people ties.”

He said his participation in the trip was approved by the Toronto Police Service as part of a broader effort to recognize the role of Canada and its allies in the Second World War.

“I have also in my capacity as a police officer attended public safety conferences around the world, including Taiwan,” he said in a statement made via Liberal headquarters. “I believe in a strong Canada that stands firm in its defence of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Yuen took over as the candidate in the Markham—Unionville riding just last week after the resignation of MP Paul Chiang. Chiang faced intense criticism for suggesting people turn Conservative Joe Tay into the Chinese consulate and receive a bounty of about $180,000 offered by Hong Kong police for his arrest. Chiang later apologized for the remarks, and was defended by Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

Though a Canadian citizen and resident, Tay, a native of Hong Kong, was charged under its widely condemned National Security Law for running a YouTube channel here that was critical of the city’s China-dominated government.

Even before he headed to Beijing, there were signs Yuen had friendly relations with China, often appearing at events put on by the Chinese consulate general in Toronto or local groups linked to Beijing.

The September 2015 trip exposed him to what media at the time called a “lavish” show of force by China, which has invested heavily in its armed forces in recent years. The parade included 12,000 troops, 500 pieces of military hardware including tanks and “ship-killing” missiles and 200 helicopters, fighter jets and other aircraft flying overhead. It was a showcase of “military might on an unprecedented scale,” said a BBC report.

The Chinese-language stories said Canadians were invited by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, now a branch of the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party branch that, among other things, tries to extend China’s influence among the Chinese diaspora and foreign political and government figures.

A 2022 Federal Court ruling in an immigration case concluded it was reasonable to say that the Overseas Chinese office was involved in espionage.

The North American Times news site quoted another Canadian as saying the parade was unforgettable, letting him see the “Chinese people’s re-emergence and the construction of a strong country, which was very inspiring and gratifying. The military parade also showed the world that China is becoming increasingly powerful, and it is the pride of the Chinese people and overseas Chinese.”

Yuen, who immigrated from Hong Kong as a young boy, rose to become the first Chinese-Canadian deputy chief of the Toronto force — the largest municipal police department in the country, and won various awards within the service.

He also appeared at events hosted by the consulate or by groups linked to it. In 2014, the consul general and other Chinese diplomats attended a ceremony honouring Yuen’s promotion to superintendent, according to the consulate website. In her speech at the event, one deputy consul “thanked Yuan for his support to the Consulate General and the Chinese community over the years.”

He was a guest at a 2014 event marking a change in leadership at the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations, a group with close ties to Beijing. Yuen even sang My Chinese Heart, which has been called the anthem of the Chinese diaspora, as the CTCCO’s honorary chair, Wei Chengyi, stood nearby.

In 2017, he attended a consulate celebration of the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.

After retiring from the Toronto Police Service, he served until recently on the board of the NOIC Academy, a school that caters partly to international students from China. Some of those students were bused to a nomination election in 2019 where MP Han Dong was chosen as the Liberals’ nominee for the Don Valley North riding. The nomination meeting was cited by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue in her report on the federal foreign-interference inquiry as a possible example of meddling by the Chinese government.

Yuen’s affiliation with NOIC was first reported by independent journalist Sam Cooper.

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OTTAWA — The Conservatives will not have a candidate to challenge former Liberal minister Jean-Yves Duclos in Quebec Centre and they want Elections Canada to review the decision to exclude the party’s candidate. However, Elections Canada says such a review does not exist under the law.

The Conservatives had nominated Chanie Thériault as their candidate, who is a young entrepreneur from the Magdalen Islands, hundreds of kilometres from downtown Quebec City.

Thériault is the co-owner of a family business and is known locally for having spoken publicly about a tourism pass that would be imposed on visitors during the tourist season. She has also been outspoken about increasing taxes for businesses, among other things.

According to the party, Thériault showed up at a Quebec City Elections Canada office with her documents on Monday, the deadline, with a party official.

She waited 30 minutes and then the returning officer came to see her to shake her hand and congratulate her on being a candidate. That, according to the party, was several hours before the deadline for submitting documents. The deadline was 2 p.m. that day.

However, Election Canada denied her candidacy because the papers she submitted “did not comply with the requirements of the law.”

It appears that her nomination paper was “not complete” and that she couldn’t have been confirmed as a candidate.

If the nomination papers are indeed incomplete, returning officers cannot confirm the candidate, said Elections Canada. But, if this happens before the close of nominations, another candidate could be nominated to run on behalf of a party. If this happens afterwards, it is too late and no replacement can be put forward, according to the law.

On Thursday, Pierre Poilievre’s Quebec lieutenant Pierre Paul-Hus said the party “clearly indicated to Elections Canada that this is an infringement of our candidate’s constitutional rights and that we expected to have a review of the decision.”

Elections Canada spokesperson Matthew McKenna told National Post that Canada Elections Act “doesn’t include a mechanism to appeal the returning officer’s review of the nomination paper.”

“The timelines in the Act are in place to ensure that there is sufficient time for ballots to be printed and the proper quality assurance steps taken in time for voting at advance polls,” wrote McKenna in an email.

It does not bode well for the Conservatives in Quebec City. Quebec Centre is known for being more progressive and the Conservatives are not necessarily in the running. For example, in 2021, Conservative candidate Bianca Boutin received 9,239 votes, half of Duclos’ tally, and finished third behind the Bloc Québécois.

Although Pierre Poilievre had great ambitions for this city: after all, the party held his national convention in the riding of Quebec Centre in 2023.

Now that the party no longer has a candidate, the Bloc Québécois’s support has increased considerably. However, the Liberals remain in the lead, according to polling aggregator 338Canada .

“In the absence of a Conservative candidate in the riding of Québec Centre, the choice of citizens rests on two options: the continuation of the Liberal centralizing policies pursued by the MP of the last 10 years or the protection of the higher interests of Quebec proposed by the Bloc Québécois,” said Bloc candidate Simon Bérubé.

Liberal candidate Jean-Yves Duclos said that “with global challenges and uncertainties hanging over our society and economy, the worst policy would be to isolate and divide ourselves.”

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA —  Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney says when it comes to calls from within the province to separate from Canada, political leaders shouldn’t let the “small minority dominate the agenda.”

“I don’t think any political leader should ever let the tail wag the dog, let the small minority dominate the agenda for the 10 or 15 per cent of Albertans who are hardcore separatists,” he told reporters Friday on the sidelines of the Canada Strong and Free Network conference, an annual gathering of Canada’s conservative movement.

However, he warned about the dangers of exacerbating frustrations among Western Canadians if they feel there will never be a federal government that understands the importance of the West’s resources.

As Alberta premier from 2019 to 2022, Kenney said he tried to channel those frustrations into reforms within the federation.

He said the push for separation has been unsuccessful in Alberta’s political history.

“That movement is a lot of bark and very little bite. I don’t think we should spend a lot of time obsessing over it.”

Kenney stepped down as leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party in 2022 following dissatisfaction among party members over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and after only narrowly winning a leadership review.

He now works in the private sector and also serves on the board of Postmedia, which owns National Post.

A rise in Western separation was recently noted by polling firm Angus Reid Institute, which released a survey suggesting that around 30 per cent of those living in Alberta and Saskatchewan answered they would vote to leave the Canadian federation either to form their own country or join the United States, should the Liberals win this month’s election.

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Successive public opinion polls suggest the Conservatives to be tied or trailing the Liberals in the national election campaign that culminates on April 28.

Concerns about western separation have also risen in light of U.S. President Donald Trump repeating that he wants Canada to become its”51st state,” which federal leaders have rejected.

Before the federal election was called, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who succeeded Kenney, presented a list of demands she said the next prime minister must fulfill or risk an “unprecedented national unity crisis.”

They included repealing Liberal policies including the Impact Assessment Act, known as Bill C-69, which critics say has created a intractable approval process for energy projects; the cap on oil and gas emissions; and the net-zero electricity grid and electricity vehicle mandates.

Smith presented the list after meeting with Liberal Leader Mark Carney, shortly after he was sworn in as prime minister after winning the party’s leadership race in March. She also spoke at the conservative conference in Ottawa on Thursday.

Smith told reporters after her speech that whether a re-elected Liberal government poses a threat to national unity depends on how Albertans react, adding that relations with Ottawa have soured and Carney has existing “damage” to repair.

Kenney, who before becoming leader of the Alberta UCP served as a cabinet minister under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, said on Friday he sees public opinion polls that show uptick in support for the idea of Alberta separating from Canada as a “proxy” for residents’ frustrations.

“I’m an unconditional Canadian patriot, and I believe the vast majority of Albertans are,” he said.

Those threatening to leave because they disagree with an election outcome is not only “counterproductive,” but also “unpatriotic,” he added.

At the same time, Kenney said leaders in Central Canada should not outright dismiss those sentiments because the concerns people have about Ottawa’s attitudes towards Western Canada’s energy resources are “legitimate.”

“Sadly, in Canada, we can never take national unity for granted,” he said, pointing also to Quebec, where polls suggest the separatist Parti Québécois were leading.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who also spoke at the conference, said on Friday that he will see where discussions around national unity go after the election.

He said it’s fair to ask the Liberals, “What are you going to do differently so that, you know, a certain portion of people, significant portion of people, in a region in this country, don’t feel disenfranchised by the policies that have been enacted over the last number of years?”

“The question can come to me in a post-April 28 environment, but for today, I think it’s a fair question for the leaders of the federal parties, as to what might you do differently to ensure that all Canadians feel that they’re being respected by not only their national government, but by all regions.”

National Post

staylor@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — Mark Carney says his cabinet has left “instructions” for officials to help prepare the next government for upcoming negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

Friday, the Liberal leader put his election campaign on hold for the third time in three weeks to convene a federal Canada-U.S. relations cabinet meeting in Ottawa.

After the meeting, the prime minister told reporters that the meeting was to discuss the whirlwind of tariff announcements by the United States over the last week.

He said the federal government has also begun preparing negotiations for a new trade and security agreement with the U.S. after the April 28 vote.

“We left instructions for officials to ensure that the next government, whichever government Canadians choose, will be in the best possible position for negotiations with the United States. Which, as the president and I have agreed, will began from the start of May,” Carney told reporters in a brief statement. He did not take questions.

In French, he specified that the instructions included preparing regulations, statistics and ways to respond to the U.S. administration in order to ensure “effective” negotiations.

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During his first call with Trump two weeks ago, Carney said the president and he agreed that both countries should begin negotiations for a new economic and security agreement.

Carney’s comments strongly suggested he believes the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) free trade deal is effectively dead amid the historic trade war between Canada and the U.S.

Friday, Carney also told reporters that the whirlwind of tariffs on nearly all countries announced by Trump in the last week is having a concerning impact on the global economy and on Canada.

“A really marked tightening in financial conditions, the initial signs of slowing in the global economy, impacts that we’re starting to see unfortunately in the Canadian economy, particularly in the Canadian labour market.”

Last week, Trump announced “reciprocal” tariffs ranging from 10 per cent to over 50 per cent on all imports depending on their country of origin.

Canada and Mexico were the only countries exempted due to CUSMA and previously announced U.S. border levies of 10 to 25 per cent on all goods not covered by the free trade agreement.

Those tariffs were on top of 25 per cent U.S. tariffs on all foreign-made auto imports, including Canadian-made vehicles not covered by CUSMA.

But after the stock market began cratering and amid concerning trends in the 10-year U.S. bond market, Trump mildly backtracked earlier this week, bringing the “reciprocal” tariffs down to 10 per cent across the board. Canada and Mexico were unaffected by that announcement as well.

On April 9, Canada began enforcing its 25 per cent counter-tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles, which Carney said would stay in place as long as the American border levies remained.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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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.

THE NDP: The NDP are languishing in the polls more than ever with only a wretched eight per cent support, according to a recent Leger survey . If current trends hold, the polling aggregator 338Canada projects that the NDP will only win eight seats, which would mean it loses official party status. And just as troubling for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is that he appears to be doomed in his own riding. 338Canada says Singh’s Liberal opponent has a 94 per cent chance of beating him. Even more embarrassing for Singh is that he’s currently polling in third place in his own Burnaby Central constituency, according to the polling aggregator.
POWER METER RATING: EXISTENTIAL FEAR

HECKLERS: If you’re resigned to the notion that one person can’t make a difference in the world, then take note of the chain of events that followed a heckler’s shout on Tuesday at Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s rally in Calgary. First, Carney was accused of agreeing with the protestor’s characterization of a “genocide” being carried out in Gaza (“I’m aware. That’s why we have an arms embargo (on Israel)” said Carney), before walking back his comments on Wednesday and arguing that he actually hadn’t heard the man properly. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took notice and accused Carney of attacking Israel.
POWER METER RATING: INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT

CAMPAIGN PAUSES: For the third week in a row, Liberal Leader Mark Carney has paused his campaign to fly back to Ottawa and resume the role of prime minister. The first two weeks at least had a plausible rationale, when big tariff news from the U.S. was hitting Canada, but this week is a little more suspicious. As many commentators have pointed out , playing the role of prime minister has worked in Carney’s favour and his campaign hasn’t missed an opportunity to get that positive PR.
POWER METER RATING: CONVENIENT

National Post

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Saskatchewan is the province that wants to leave Canada the most if Liberals win the upcoming election in Canada, a new poll finds.

Around 33 per cent of residents from the central prairie province “say they would vote to leave federation, whether to form their own country or to join the United States,” if Liberals form the next government, according to the survey by nonprofit Angus Reid Institute .

As the federal election approaches and Canada-U.S. relations remain tense amid a trade war and talks of Canada becoming the 51st state, the topic of secession, particularly in the west, has also come up recently. The leader of the Reform Party of Canada Preston Manning said “a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it,” in an article he penned in the Globe and Mail .

Liberal leader Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre both spoke out against Manning’s remarks. Carney said Manning’s “dramatic comments” were “unhelpful,” while Poilievre said he disagreed with him . “We need to unite the country,” said Poilievre.

Despite the candidates not seeing eye to eye with Manning, Canadians did seem to base at least some of their answers in the survey on potential election results. The recently released data from Angus Reid shows that who the winning party will be matters greatly to residents of Saskatchewan in particular. Saskatchewan’s 14 federal ridings have remained entirely Conservative for the past two elections. That could be why the predominantly Conservative province is the most likely to plan an escape route if Liberals win.

The percentage of residents from Saskatchewan who said they would vote “yes” to leave Canada to become an independent country went from 20 per cent, initially, to 33 per cent, if Liberals won. Meanwhile, the percentage of residents who believed the province should join the United States went from 17 per cent, initially, to 23 per cent, if Liberals won. (To the south, Saskatchewan shares its borders with American states North Dakota and Montana.)

Residents from Alberta and Quebec were tied at a close second (30 per cent) when it came to wanting to become independent if Liberals won. The provinces that followed were British Columbia (17 per cent), Ontario (13 per cent), Manitoba (12 per cent), and Atlantic provinces, which were grouped together, at 10 per cent.

Alberta had the highest percentage when it came to wanting to join the U.S. if Liberals won, at 27 per cent, followed by Saskatchewan at 23 per cent. British Columbia, Ontario and Manitoba were in the middle, at 19, 16 and 15 per cent, respectively. On the lower end of the spectrum were the Atlantic provinces (12 per cent) and Quebec (11 per cent.)

While the numbers coming out of Saskatchewan are “significant,” according to the Angus Reid report on the survey, the “vast majority still say they would vote no (to becoming independent or joining the U.S.) in each province.”

The survey also points to a possible underlying reason behind Saskatchewan wanting independence. Only one quarter of its residents said they felt that the province was respected by the rest of Canada. In both prairie provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, “legislation has been passed in recent years to increase autonomy and reject federal influence,” per Angus Reid.

However, the report from Angus Reid explains that “while threatening separatism is evidently seen as a good bargaining chip, few Canadians appear to actually want to leave federation, whether it’s to join the United States or to have their province become its own nation.”

The survey was conducted online from March 20 to March 24, using a randomized sample of 2,400 Canadian adults. “The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to region, gender, age, household income, and education, based on the Canadian census,” the institute said.

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The Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown, part of the University of Prince Edward Island, has apologized to its former artist-in-residence, after he stepped away from the position over a dispute with one of his paintings.

Christopher Griffin had resigned from the unpaid position this week after the AVC asked him to remove one of his paintings from the campus or leave his residency, which he had taken up in November after moving to Prince Edward Island from Ottawa.

The painting, The Crossing, bears a resemblance to Washington Crossing the Delaware, an 1851 oil painting by Emanuel Leutze that depicts General George Washington with the Continental Army on the night of Dec. 25, 1776, during the Revolutionary War. However, instead of soldiers, the boat in Griffin’s version contains 10 lemmings.

“A couple of American faculty members had expressed concern that the painting had a political meaning,” Griffin wrote in a Facebook post, before announcing his resignation. The CBC reported that the college said they received three complaints, of which two were from American members of the faculty.

Yesterday in an email to National Post the college said: “The University of Prince Edward Island recognizes the importance of balancing freedom of expression and a supportive learning environment, and that learning can sometimes be uncomfortable. UPEI reaffirms its commitment to free expression, critical thinking, and public dialogue.”

This morning it released a second statement: “The Atlantic Veterinary College acknowledges that asking the artist Christopher Griffin to choose between taking down his painting or leaving his residency was a mistake. The decision did not reflect our institutional values, and we regret the hurt and frustration it caused. Art plays an essential role in education and public life — it challenges us, encourages dialogue, and fosters understanding. We fell short of our responsibility to protect that role.”

The AVC said it had offered a direct apology to Griffin and offered to reinstall the painting, adding: “We are also reviewing our internal processes to ensure future decisions uphold our commitments to free expression and inclusive discourse. We remain committed to creating space for meaningful conversations — even, and especially, when they are uncomfortable.”

Griffin told National Post the apology came as a pleasant surprise when he awoke to it this morning.

“They extended an olive branch and an apology and that’s really all I could ask for,” he said. “That’s tough to do and I’m happy they took that step.”

He was astonished the news of the story had spread across the country, with coverage in Winnipeg, Lethbridge Alberta, CTV News, CBC and elsewhere. “I thought it might make the local Charlottetown news,” he said. “I had no idea it would spread beyond P.E.I., that’s for sure.”

He added: “The reactions and the support from Canadians across the country has … really reinforced my belief that we actually are a strong country and we will survive. So that’s a good thing.”

Dear fellow Canadians, I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from across the country, and the impassioned...

Posted by Christopher Griffin Art Studio on Friday, April 11, 2025

Griffin’s work has often featured animals, but his focus began to change after Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. president in January.

“When my country was threatened by the government of the United States of America … I felt like I had to do something. I had to react,” he recently told CBC News . “My role as an artist is to communicate, so I came up with the concept of creating a body of work based on our national anthem.”

Those works included a polar bear, titled Strong and Free, and an elephant sporting a tiny Canadian flag. Griffin also recently posted to his Facebook page a “Made in Canada” logo he created for the Dominion Skate Company in Brampton, Ont., as a college student in 1987. It reads: “Canadian to the Core.”

He noted that other artworks have also taken inspiration from the same painting, including Shimomura Crossing the Delaware by Roger Shimomura , which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, and George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook, 1975, by Robert Colescott .

On the reason for the lemmings, he explained: “Lemmings are mythologized as participating in mass suicide by jumping over a cliff or into water. I felt this was an appropriate symbol to use in my painting to express my bewilderment at the self-destructive behaviour of the government to our south. However, I took great care to not create cartoonish or buffoonish creatures. I wished for them to have a dignity and a solemnity, because I care about them, and I do not wish them ill.”

He noted that the lemmings in his painting have the option to land on the other shore or turn around before it’s too late. He also pointed out that the myth of them as creatures bent solely on self-destruction is just that. “It’s not true.”

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As Canadians flex their patriotic muscles and hold “elbows up” in response to punishing U.S. tariffs, many might be surprised that another economic crisis has been percolating here for years — from inside the country.

It effectively dropped Canada into recession months ago, has left us as poor as the residents of Alabama and is so dire, the usually circumspect Bank of Canada warned it’s time to “break the glass” and sound the emergency.

For this at least, U.S President Donald Trump can’t be blamed.

“We have been fundamentally weak in this country for 10 years,” Stephen Poloz, former governor of the Bank of Canada, said in an interview. Some experts say for much longer.

The issue is the country’s steadily declining rates of per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) and “labour productivity” — decidedly unsexy terminology for issues that have a tangible impact on everyone’s wallets.

Per-capita GDP is the per-person average share of the country’s economic output — essentially a measure of our standard of living. Productivity is not about how many hours or how hard people work. It’s about how much wealth is created by each worker, affected by factors like business investment, employee training and taxation.

Overall GDP has been growing a bit the last couple of years amid a population surge driven by record immigration levels, the new Canadians having to at least buy the necessities of life. But the per-person share of GDP fell for six consecutive quarters recently in Canada, before recovering ever so slightly the last quarter. Two quarters of negative growth overall is considered a recession. We might not technically be in one but on a personal level we are, say many economists .

The reason for that plummeting per-capita GDP lies chiefly with “dismal” rates of productivity. Canada has to address that problem, economists say, or fall toward the bottom of the list of industrialized nations and particularly struggle to cope with American protectionism.

“If we had higher productivity in the core of our economy, higher per-capita GDP … we would have a more resilient economy — and today is when we need more resilience,” said Poloz, now a special advisor to the Osler law firm.

And yet, as politicians campaigning for the April 28 federal election evoke nationalistic sentiments and feisty hockey catch phrases in response to Trump’s tariffs, they’ve been less vocal about maladies that started sickening the Canadian economy long before the latest trade war.

“Right now in the political debate, it’s still not that much at the forefront,” said Paul Beaudry, a University of British Columbia economics professor and former Bank of Canada deputy governor. “What we’re hearing about the most is very much deficit-financed tax cuts. It’s unlikely that by itself is going to make us more innovative.”

No one suggests solving the problems will be easy for whichever party forms the government. But economists and business leaders say there are policies that could supercharge Canada’s sluggish economy.

Governments, they say, ought to provide incentives to encourage investing in Canadian business, while trimming regulation and streamlining bureaucracies that “crowd out” private economic activity. The kind of innovation that produces industrial heavyweights has to be championed more. Worker training needs to better fit the economy’s needs, while the skills immigrants bring with them should be better exploited. Inter-provincial trade barriers must be knocked down.

“We have to make it easier for businesses to do business,” said Pascal Chan, a vice president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

The emphasis is on goosing the private sector, a potentially controversial strategy. But economists stress that more productive companies hire more people, pay them fatter wages on average and generate additional tax revenue to fund social programs and the like.

The issue may not be front and centre in an election focused on Trump’s foreign and trade policy, but the parties have given at least some attention to the productivity question.

The Conservatives announced a major tax break for those who invest in Canadian business, and constantly highlight a “lost Liberal decade” of poor economic performance. Liberal Leader Mark Carney has said productivity must be improved and promised to provide various tax and other incentives. The New Democratic Party actually criticizes the pursuit of “so-called productivity” and promises to focus government procurement on unionized, Canadian workers.

Whatever the solutions, the indicators of economic peril are stark.

Canada’s per person GDP was 82 per cent of the U.S. number in 2002. It slumped to 72 per cent in 2022. By then, per-capita GDP in the U.S. was almost US $64,000 — $18,000 more than in Canada.

But this country has been slipping in comparison to most other developed nations, too, falling from $3,000 above the average of Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members in 2002 to slightly below the OECD average by 2022.

Canada used to be on par with Australia, yet fell to $4,000 behind it by 2022.

The future looks even less pretty, a Fraser Institute report noted last year. OECD analysts have projected that if current trends continue, Canadians’ income — as measured by GDP — would reach $63,000 per person by 2060, compared to $94,000 in the U.S.

The grim numbers parallel slumping investment in tools like artificial-intelligence, machinery, training and intellectual property — things that make workers more productive. Investment per worker was only about $14,000 by the second quarter of 2024, down from a peak of $18,000 in 2014, noted the C.D. Howe Institute in a report last September.

Meanwhile, Canadian investors often send their money abroad instead of here. Canadians own a trillion dollars of assets in the United States — more than Americans have ploughed into our economy, said Poloz.

Research and development has also shrunk to half the rate in the United States, noted TD Bank economist Marc Ercolao in a 2023 report .

“You’ve seen those signs that say, ‘In emergency, break glass?’” said Bank of Canada deputy governor Carolyn Rogers in an oft-quoted speech a year ago. “Well, it’s time to break the glass.”

Of course, wealth and related figures don’t tell the whole story.

While per-capita GDP may be as high in Alabama as in Canada, wealth is distributed more evenly here than in the U.S., noted Nobel-winning American economist Paul Krugman in a recent essay . Canadians report being more satisfied with life than Americans and, armed with programs like universal health care, live three years longer than their U.S. cousins on average — and a whopping decade longer than Alabamians.

But even Krugman acknowledges that Canada’s economy has been “underperforming,” while countries with a similar income spread and social-safety net are pulling ahead.

There’s no one answer to how the country landed in this predicament, experts say.

Lack of investment is clearly a big part of the equation. GDP growth often stems from smaller companies that have innovative ideas and “suddenly have hockey-stick growth,” says Poloz. Yet 95 per cent of firms in the small to mid-cap phase are turned down for financing in a country with limited venture capitalism, he said. Which means promising young Canadian enterprises tend to get snapped up by Americans, depriving this country of their future wealth.

“We don’t go around praising innovation especially,” says the UBC’s Beaudry. “You have to want to be, and to celebrate, the innovators.”

Then there’s the swelling size of the public sector. Since the Liberals were elected in 2015, the federal workforce has increased by over 100,000 — more than double the overall population growth. The public sector made up 13 per cent of the economy in 2015. Now it’s 16 per cent, says Poloz.

When the government sector expands at a time of slow industrial growth, the public side tends to “crowd out” in economic terms the businesses that generate wealth, he said.

In all, Canadians shouldn’t get too obsessed with the shrinking per-capita GDP over the last couple of years as immigration expanded the population — the problem has been with us for much longer, says Beaudry.

“Productivity hasn’t been growing very fast for 30 years,” said the UBC economist. “That, we should be worried about.”

Policy proposals that could potentially spur on private-sector productivity and halt Canada’s sliding per-capita GDP

 Liberals 

• Cut municipal development charges and reduce “housing bureaucracy, zoning restrictions and other red tape” to encourage more home building;
• Cap size of federal workforce and review government spending to “spend less and invest more”;
• Build a “trade diversification corridor” to build transportation infrastructure to facilitate international trade;
• Eliminate the GST for first-time homebuyers on homes of $1 million or less;
• Cut the lowest tax rate by one per cent, saving a two-income family up to $825;
• Cancel the consumer carbon tax;
• Fund increased food-processing capacity, help farmers reach new markets and buy more efficient machinery and other measures to boost the agriculture sector;

“If we’re going to keep our people safe, if we’re going to meet our social obligations we’re going to have to be more productive.” — Liberal Leader Mark Carney, November 2024

Conservatives

• Exempt individuals and companies from capital-gains tax when they re-invest those gains in Canadian businesses;
  Increase funding for harbours to encourage growth in the fishing industry;
• Open the door to more oil and gas production in Newfoundand and Labrador and Western Canada;
• Create a “national energy corridor” to fast-track approvals of transmission lines, railway, pipelines and other infrastructure for moving energy resources;
• Exempt all buyers from GST on homes up to $1.3 million;
• Tie infrastructure funding to provinces on growth in housing;
• Cut the lowest income tax bracket to save those taxpayers $900 each per year.
• Cancel the consumer and industrial carbon tax;
• Slash the number of federal bureaucrats and otherwise cut federal spending.

“During the lost Liberal decade of higher taxes and … paycheque-killing anti-resource project radicalism, Canada’s GDP has slumped to the worst growth in the G7 and half a trillion dollars worth of investment has fled Canada for the U.S.”  — Conservative campaign statement

NDP 

• Increase the minimum income on which tax is applied, saving families over $500 a year;
• Ban American companies from federal procurement contracts while tariffs in force;
• Permanently favour unionized and Canadian companies in government procurement;
• Incentivize value-added processing and manufacturing in Canada, reducing the country’s reliance on exporting raw materials to the U.S.

“Decades of Liberal and Conservative governments have hollowed out our economy, chasing GDP growth and so-called productivity while handing billions to corporations and letting good jobs disappear.” — NDP candidate Matt Green (Hamilton Centre)

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OTTAWA — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Liberal Leader Mark Carney of attacking Israel after he appeared to endorse a protester’s comment earlier this week that there is a “genocide” of Palestinians being carried out in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Carney told reporters that he hadn’t heard the word “genocide” and was only responding to the heckler that he was aware of the situation in Gaza.

“Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney. But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state. Mr. Carney, backtrack your irresponsible statement!” wrote Netanyahu, on social media on Thursday afternoon .

Carney was talking to a lively crowd in Calgary on Tuesday when, in a moment of silence, a man could be heard shouting: “Mr. Carney! There’s a genocide happening in Palestine!”

Carney quickly responded: “I’m aware. Which is why we have an arms embargo.”

On Wednesday, Carney was asked by a reporter about the man’s remark and his response to it, particularly the words “I’m aware.” The reporter asked: “Are you conceding it’s a genocide in Gaza?”

Carney replied: “I didn’t hear that word.” He added: “You hear snippets of what people say. I heard Gaza … and my point was I’m aware of the situation in Gaza.”

On Thursday, Carney suspended his election campaign to return to Ottawa for prime ministerial duties. A request for comment from the prime minister’s office had not been returned by press time.

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Voter registration cards are expected to land in the mailboxes of Canadian voters by Friday, April 10.

It’s helpful to take your card when you go to vote. It indicates to the officials at your polling station that you are a registered voter. It also confirms your name and address, as well as the address of your polling station.

When are voter registration cards mailed?

Elections Canada mails voter information cards to everyone on the constantly updated national register of electors shortly after an election is called.

Generally, they arrive three weeks before election day.

What if my address is incorrect?

Always check your card when it arrives to ensure that your name and address printed on it are correct. Incorrect information doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t on the voter registration list, especially if you have voted before. You just need to update the information on the Elections Canada website, at your local Elections Canada office or by calling: 1-800-463-6868.

Make sure to act promptly to ensure your updated information is processed before election day.

You can also verify your correct address by bringing the required IDs to your polling station.

If you haven’t received a voter registration card, you can call Elections Canada to ask about the location of your polling station. Or visit any local Elections Canada office for assistance.

Do I need the card to vote?

The voter card is not mandatory for voting.

However, you do need to be registered to vote in a federal election. To register and vote in the federal election, you must be a Canadian citizen, at least 18 years old on election day and be able to prove your identity and address.

Generally, voters must bring proof of identity and address to vote — even with the voter registration card. Examples of acceptable ID include a driver’s license, provincial health card, utility bill, and a bank statement.

Expired IDs are accepted if they display your name and current address.

What if I don’t have ID?

If you don’t have ID, you can declare your identity and address in writing.

Someone assigned to your polling station, who knows you, must vouch for you. That person must bring their own ID.

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Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax is a new book from Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Published by Sutherland House Books, it delivers a damning account of one of Canada’s most polarizing policies. In this excerpt, Terrazzano tackles the core promise behind the carbon tax: that it would reduce emissions.

The Trudeau government pushed the carbon tax as the best way to help the environment and reduce emissions.

But it’s clear a carbon tax in Canada wouldn’t be effective at lowering global emissions. That’s because Canada only makes up 1.4 per cent of global emissions, a fact former prime minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged.

“Even if Canada stopped everything tomorrow, and the other countries didn’t have any solutions, it wouldn’t make a big difference,” Trudeau said in 2018.

Or as the Parliamentary Budget Officer said, “Canada’s own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change.”

A carbon tax that punishes Canadians for fuelling up their vehicles and heating their homes won’t move the needle on global emissions.

It’s like trying to lift a piano onto a truck. It’s easy if you have a bunch of people lifting at the same time. It’s impossible if you don’t. And most countries aren’t lifting with carbon taxes.

About 70 per cent of countries don’t have a national carbon tax, according to World Bank data. Four of the five largest emitting countries — the U.S., India, Russia and Brazil — don’t impose national carbon taxes.

One of the major reasons why Trudeau failed to sell Canadians on the carbon tax being a legitimate environmental solution was because he failed to sell carbon taxes to the international community, including the United States.

The U.S. federal government doesn’t impose carbon taxes. Democratic presidents and candidates ranging from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, didn’t impose or run on carbon taxes. Republicans haven’t either.

But that didn’t stop Trudeau from trying to convince the rest of the world. At the United Nations 2021 Climate Conference (COP26), Trudeau announced his government’s attempt to push carbon taxes on other countries.

“One of the things we all know needs to come out of COP26 is a clearer call to create a global standard around putting a price on pollution,” Trudeau said.

He admitted that citizens in countries with a carbon tax are being penalized. Global carbon taxes would “ensure that those who are leading on pricing pollution don’t get unfairly penalized,” Trudeau said.

At the conference, Canada launched the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge (GCPC) — an attempt to get other countries on board with carbon taxes. The government set a goal of having “60 per cent of global GHG emissions covered by carbon pricing policies by 2030.” The program website notes “carbon pricing is most effective when more countries adopt it.”

The government is spending $1.7 million on the GCPC. Only a dozen countries have signed onto the GCPC as “partners,” alongside the European Union. Less than a quarter of global emissions are covered by carbon taxes.

Canadians pay high carbon taxes, but citizens in most countries don’t.

Carbon leakage

This leads to what is known as carbon leakage. When one country, like Canada, imposes high energy taxes and regulations, it doesn’t mean global emissions go down. That’s because high taxes and regulations push businesses to leave and set up shop in more competitive countries.

It’s easy to see how carbon leakage plays out in everyday life. For example, Canadians who live close to the U.S.-Canada border often choose to fuel up their cars in border towns in the U.S.

“B.C drivers facing sky-high gas prices are not only filling their tanks stateside, but also filling containers to bring back with them,” reported the Vancouver Sun in 2019. “Motorists tired of paying almost $1.70 a litre are flocking to the U.S. to pay as little as CAD $1.13 a litre at Costco.”

Former British Columbia Liberal premier Christy Clark referred to the notion in 2016 when she refused to increase her carbon tax.

“What happens in situations like that is polluters just move right across the border and pollute where it’s cheap, and we want to make sure we fight pollution across Canada and across the world,” Clark said. “We will consider raising the carbon tax once other provinces catch up.”

Carbon tax activists also recognized the issue of carbon leakage when they pushed for a Canada-wide tax.

If the carbon tax was not nationwide, then businesses in provinces with no carbon tax would have a competitive advantage over businesses that were forced to pay the tax. This would encourage more businesses to produce in the provinces where there was no carbon tax.

That same rationale extends globally.

The obvious fact — that businesses will go to jurisdictions with lower taxes and regulations — is why activists push for global carbon taxes.

“One of the primary challenges of the fragmented carbon pricing system is carbon leakage,” notes the Leaf, an online publication. “This relocation of production does not reduce global emissions but simply relocates them, thereby undermining the environmental objectives of carbon pricing.”

Another key point: even if other countries imposed national carbon taxes in lockstep with Canada, it doesn’t mean emissions would go down. And that’s because fuelling up a car with gas, heating homes and businesses with natural gas, drying grain with propane, or filling up a big rig with diesel are necessities for most people.

A carbon tax doesn’t stop people from engaging in these activities, it just makes them pay more for the privilege. And that means they’re forced to cut back elsewhere.

To illustrate this point, take a look at B.C.’s experiment with carbon taxes, a model for Trudeau’s tax. B.C. imposed its carbon tax in  2008. The provincial government claimed it would reduce emissions by a third in 12 years.

“By 2020 and for each subsequent calendar year, B.C. greenhouse gas emissions will be at least 33 per cent less than the level of those emissions in 2007,” reads the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act.

As of 2022, the latest year that government data has been published, B.C.’s emissions are higher than they were before its carbon tax was imposed.

The takeaway is clear: politicians promised the carbon tax would reduce emissions, but emissions went up. At the federal level, the government doesn’t even know how much the carbon tax is reducing emissions, if at all.

Conservative MP Dan Mazier asked if the federal government measures “the annual amount of emissions that are directly reduced from federal carbon pricing.”

Here’s the response from former environment minister Steven Guilbeault, on Jan. 29, 2024: “The government does not measure the annual amount of emissions that are directly reduced by federal carbon pricing.”

Canadians don’t believe carbon taxes work, with 68 per cent of respondents indicating they don’t think the carbon tax is effective at reducing emissions, according to a 2024 Angus Reid Institute poll.

The Trudeau government tried to sell Canadians that carbon taxes in Canada are the “best way” to cut emissions. But the carbon tax is not an environmental solution.

A carbon tax in Canada won’t reduce emissions in the U.S., China or anywhere else. It just makes Canadians poorer.

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NANAIMO, B.C. — In a Vancouver Island city best known for a three-tiered dessert bar that bears its name, three progressive campaigns are similarly sandwiched together, with each vying to be the “anybody but Conservative” vote.

But unlike the ooey-gooey custard filling at the centre of a Nanaimo bar, Nanaimo—Ladysmith’s three-layered progressive logjam is filled only with anxiety and dread.

“Nanaimo—Ladysmith is definitely a bit of an anomaly,” said Bruce Cameron, a pollster based in Vancouver Island.

Aggregator 338Canada shows the riding’s Liberal, NDP and Green campaigns in a virtual dead-heat, with about 20 per cent of the vote apiece , which may present a path to victory for Conservative candidate Tamara Kronis.

Cameron said on Wednesday that he’s wary of these numbers, but agrees that the strength of the riding’s NDP and Green candidates — incumbent Lisa Marie Barron and ex-MP Paul Manly — makes each a factor in the riding, despite both federal and provincial polls showing a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives.

“Lisa Marie (Barron) and Paul (Manly) are both seasoned campaigners who know how to build an effective ground game,” said Cameron.

“So I guess the big question is, does ground game matter anymore in elections? I tend to think it does.”

There are noticeably more green and orange signs — and, for that matter, Conservative blue ones — along Nanaimo’s main thoroughfare than red ones, indicating that Liberal candidate Michelle Corfield has some catching up to do in terms of visibility.

Interestingly, the same four candidates squared off in a tight 2021 race.

Just over 2,000 votes separated the top three finishers, with Barron narrowly edging out Kronis and Manly.

Corfield finished well behind, raking in a still respectable 13 per cent of the vote.

Nanaimo—Ladysmith was the last riding called in the country, with a final count released two days after election night.

Cameron says he expects to see Corfield get a substantial boost the time around, with the campaign dominated by the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and economic aggression toward Canada.

“Since the start of the campaign, Liberal, NDP and Green voters have been almost entirely focused on the Trump threat, and who’s the best prime minister to deal with that,” said Cameron.

“And on that question, Carney is well ahead of the other leaders.”

Cameron said that, even with the advantage of incumbency, it will be hard for Barron to swim against the national tide of the NDP bleeding support to the Liberals.

“All the polls, and I’ve watched them religiously every day, are indicating that support for (the NDP) is melting away… They’re down below 9 per cent nationally.”

Barron, for her part, points to longer historical trends.

“ Nanaimo—Ladysmith traditionally swings between orange and blue. The last time we had a Liberal MP was in the 1940s,” Barron told the National Post on Wednesday.

Barron also pointed out that she’s undefeated in the riding, while the Liberal and Green nominees have both lost multiple times.

“The current Liberal candidate is running for the seat for the fourth consecutive time, and in each prior race, she never attained more than 14 per cent of the vote. The current Green party candidate is also running for a fourth time.”

“(I)n the critical 2025 race, it’s clear in Nanaimo-Ladysmith we vote NDP to stop the Conservatives.”

Manly says that Barron is wrong, and he has the data to prove it.

“The polls we’ve done shows that I am the strategic vote here,” says Manly, speaking from his campaign office near the city’s waterfront on Monday.

Manly says that while the last two internal polls he ran, including one just before the late March election call, both show him running in second behind Kronis, a big challenge he’s already facing is convincing potential supporters not to put too much stock in poll aggregators like 338Canada.

“It’s just getting people to understand that 338 is not a poll. It’s a prediction, based on an algorithm, based on a national poll,” said Manly.

Manly, who first won the seat in a May 2019 byelection, said that 338 also undercounted his support in that fall’s federal election, where he won by an 8.5 point margin.

He lost the seat in 2021 but was elected to Nanaimo’s city council in 2022 with the most votes of any candidate in the race.

Manly said that the NDP doesn’t deserve the support of the city’s voters, after failing to deliver on climate change, affordability and electoral reform, despite being given a seat at the governing table by the Trudeau Liberals.

“The confidence and supply agreement didn’t mention climate change. It didn’t mention a fair taxation system and it didn’t mention proportional representation,” said Manly.

“What we need is good strong voices in the House of Commons, for opposition to hold the government to account (and) be the conscience of Parliament,” he added.

Corfield told the National Post Thursday that the voters of Nanaimo deserved more than a voice of dissent in the halls of government.

“This election isn’t about protest. It’s about solutions — especially on housing, health care, and forestry,” said Corfield.

“I’m running to get things done for the people who live here, not just make a point in Ottawa.”

Kronis said that it isn’t just the split on the centre-left that’s given her the inside lane, but also the fact that the Conservatives are attuned to concerns in Nanaimo, and growing cities like it, about public safety and the cost of living.

“What I’m hearing at the doors is that people just feel that they can’t afford a fourth Liberal term of rising costs and crime,” said Kronis on Monday.

“It’s pretty much as simple as that.”

Nanaimo has been one of Western Canada’s fastest-growing cities in recent years, hitting 100,000 residents for the first time in the 2021 census . It’s also feeling some major growing pains.

StatsCan pegged Nanaimo as Canada’s sixth-worst municipality for crime severity in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, citing increases in property crimes like shoplifting and auto theft.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre notably visited Nanaimo in the campaign’s opening days to roll out his tough-on-crime platform, announcing life sentences for aggravated human and gun trafficking convictions.

Nanaimo has also been hit hard by the opioid crisis, seeing a 400 per cent increase in overdose deaths between 2019 and 2023.

Kronis said that Poilievre’s promise last week to fund 50,000 residential treatment spaces , if he becomes prime minister, was well-received in the community.

“Our announcement of 50,000 new recovery spaces has spread like wildfire across the community,” said Kronis.

“(People) are particularly happy that we’re focused on recovery, and finding a balance with enforcement and prevention.”

“They want to be compassionate, but also practical.”

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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To help you cast an informed vote, the National Post has put together an issue-by-issue breakdown of the parties’ announced policies, so you can compare them side by side.

Go to topic:

TARIFFS/TRUMP TAXES HOUSING DEFENCE ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT CRIME HEALTH/SOCIAL POLICY EDUCATION/TRAINING TARIFFS/TRUMP

 

Provide $2-billion “strategic response fund” for workers in the auto sector and related fields impacted by tariffs.

Build “all-in-Canada” manufacturing network to bring more of the auto supply chain within our borders.

Work with premiers to create national energy and trade corridor.

Levy matching tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles that are not compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement.

Bring in dollar-for-dollar tariffs targeting goods and services that can be easily provided in Canada, or imported from a third country.

Use revenue from retaliatory tariffs to reduce tax burden, setting aside a sum for targeted relief to workers hit hardest by U.S. tariffs.

Cut taxes, regulations to stop flow of investment dollars to U.S.

Stimulate internal trade by paying out a “free trade bonus” every time a province removes one of it’s exceptions under the Canada Free Trade Agreement.

Zero GST on Canadian-made vehicles.

Cut off exports of critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt to the U.S.

Dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs, 100 per cent tariff on Teslas.

Change procurement to use more Canadian-made steel and aluminum for domestic construction and manufacturing.

Zero GST on Canadian-made vehicles.

 

TAXES

 

Cut lowest marginal tax rate by one per cent, saving two-income households up to $825 per year.

Cancel consumer carbon tax but keep and strengthen industrial carbon tax.

Cancel planned capital-gains tax increase.

Cut lowest marginal tax rate by 2.25 per cent over two years, saving two-income households up to $1,800 per year.

Add $5,000 top-up to tax-free savings account; top-up must be invested in mix of government designated “Canadian investments.”

Allow seniors to earn up to $34,000 per year tax free, $10,000 more than current limit.

Crack down on the ability of corporations and wealthy Canadians to use tax havens.

Eliminate tax write-offs for corporate jet travel.

Raise basic personal amount from $15,000 to $19,000, saving $505 for those earning between $19,500 and $177,882.

Permanently remove the GST from various essentials, including prepared grocery meals, baby accessories and monthly cell, internet and heating bills.

Keep the planned increase to the capital-gains tax hike passed in the 2024 budget.

Double the Canada Disability Benefit.

 

HOUSING

 

Waive GST on homes sold to first-time buyers for $1 million or less.

Invest $35 billion to build 500,000 per year for the next decade.

Waive GST on all newly built homes sold for less than $1.3 million.

Use demand generated from new home buyers’ tax cut to spur construction of 36,000 homes per year.

Incentivize municipal governments to cut red tape, development charges.

Cancel the Liberal Housing Accelerator and other federal housing programs.

Direct the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. to give preferential long-term, low-interest mortgages to working and middle-class families.

Build rent-controlled homes on public land.

Create at least 500,000 units of affordable housing in next decade.

DEFENCE

 

Get to NATO defence spending target of two per cent of GDP by 2030 at the latest.

Source more Canadian steel and aluminum for domestic shipbuilding.

Boost salaries for Canadian Armed Forces personnel, bolster recruitment.

Procure new submarines, heavy icebreakers for deployment in Arctic.

Build permanent Canadian military base in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

Double the size of the 1st Patrol Group of the Canadian Rangers, from 2,000 to 4,000.

Deliver two additional polar ice breakers to Canadian Navy by 2029.

Divert foreign-aid spending to military projects.

Cancel Canada’s F-35 contract with Lockheed Martin.

Build replacement fighter jets in Canada.

Increase NATO-target defence spending to two per cent of GDP by no later than 2032.

Invest in Arctic defence infrastructure such as marine search-and-rescue stations and small-craft harbours.

Give Canadian Rangers raises, reimbursements for the use of their equipment.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

 

Create a system of incentives to reward Canadian consumers and businesses for making greener choices.

Strengthen the industrial carbon-tax regime.

Make public investments in energy-efficient buildings and electrified transportation.

Develop a carbon border-adjustment tariff on imports from countries deemed to have inadequate carbon-control policies.

Streamline impact assessment process to make clean and conventional projects easier to approve.

Work with provinces and territories to develop a national trade an economic corridor.

Eliminate the federal industrial carbon tax.

Repeal the Impact Assessment Act.

Reverse federal clean electricity regulations and emissions cap on oil and gas.

Pre-approve energy projects to restore investor confidence.

Create a national energy corridor guaranteeing the approval of pipelines, railways and other resource-moving infrastructure across the country.

End any subsidies or tax credits for oil and gas companies.

Retrofit 2.3 million low-income households with heat pumps, air sealings and other energy-saving modifications.

CRIME

 

Bring in mandatory life sentences for aggravated human, gun and fentanyl trafficking convictions.

Strengthen bail system by repealing Liberal bills C-5 and C-75.

Use Section 33 of the Charter (the notwithstanding clause) to reinstate multiple life sentences for those convicted of multiple homicides.

Permanently assigned a maximum-security classification to serial killers such as Paul Bernardo, keeping them in maximum-security prisons for the entirety of their sentences.

Pass “three-strikes” law requiring sentences of 10 or more years for three-time serious offenders.

 

HEALTH/SOCIAL POLICY

 

Expand dental care to households with incomes of less than $90,000.

Fund 50,000 residential treatment spaces for Canadians with addictions.

Keep parts of Liberal dental plan that are already up and running.

Alter Liberal child-care agreements to give parents more flexibility.

Deliver full public pharmacare within four years.

Expand dental care to all households with incomes of less than $90,000.

 

EDUCATION/TRAINING

 

Cover apprenticeship training grants up to $8,000 for students in the skilled trades.

Double the funding of the Union Training and Innovation Program to $50 million annually.

Increase labour mobility for skilled trades people between provinces and territories.

Reinstate apprenticeship grants of $4,000 for an appre

Expanding the Union Training and Innovation Program.

Create a special class of rapid employment insurance payouts for apprentices who leave the workforce for more training.

Increase labour mobility for skilled trades people between provinces and territories.

Allow travelling trade workers to write off all travel, accommodation and food costs.

OTTAWA — A Conservative sign in front of a Liberal stalwart’s home. That’s what’s happening in the Liberal stronghold of Mount Royal during this unusual spring election.

The home in question is that of Irwin and Ariela Cotler. Mr. Cotler is a world-renowned human rights lawyer and a former Liberal MP for the riding.

Ms. Cotler was a social worker known for her work with Montreal’s Jewish community.

The Cotlers are practically legends in Mount Royal. The former Attorney General of Canada under Paul Martin represented the riding in Ottawa from 1999 to 2015, and they are both influential within the Jewish community, which represents approximately 30 per cent of the riding’s population.

Having their support is therefore a big deal. Anthony Housefather, Liberal candidate and Mr. Cotler’s successor in the House of Commons, was proud to announce a few days ago that his “mentor” and “the greatest man (he has) ever known” had given him his support.

But then, there is a video. And a photo.

Ms. Cotler, standing outside the couple’s home alongside Conservative candidate Neil Oberman, announced that she was supporting the Conservatives, not the Liberals.

“I urge you, come out and vote, it’s the future of our families, our children, our grandchildren, and about all of Canada… Vote, of course, for Neil Oberman and the Conservative party, and I wish you luck,” she said.

Oberman’s post also showed a photo of him and Mr. Cotler shaking hands.

“Thank you Irwin Cotler for taking the time to share your wisdom and guidance on humanitarian issues that do and should matter,” he wrote.

Thank you @IrwinCotler for taking the time to share your wisdom and guidance on humanitarian issues that do and should matter and to your dear wife Ariela for joining our Canada First Conservative voices for change. #YourVoteYourVoice pic.twitter.com/ozTJihziig

— Neil G. Oberman (@NeilOberman) April 9, 2025

That was widely seen as an endorsement. Dimitri Soudas, who was Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s director of communication, wrote that “former Chretien era MP and Liberal Justice Minister endorses Conservative Candidate.” Canada Proud, a conservative group, also saw it as a show of support.

When he saw the post online, long time conservative strategist Anthony Koch’s jaw nearly dropped on the floor.

“I would say that it’s a massive story,” he told National Post.

“The fact that Ms. Cotler felt comfortable doing this in such a public way … suggests that this was very important for her and a matter of extreme moral principle,” Koch, who lives in Mount Royal, added.

In a telephone interview with the National Post, Mr. Cotler laughed off the situation.

“We’re a pluralistic family, able to adapt to different political leanings,” he said. No, there’s no tension within the household.

“It was always clear that I would support Anthony and raised no questions or confusions about it. Anthony has always had my support from the time that he stood as a candidate and in each of his elections, and there’s no reason why I wouldn’t support him in this election,” he said.

In Liberal circles, no jaws were found on the floor. Ms. Cotler is known to be an independent woman who is more conservative than her husband. In fact, in 2006, there were reports that she had left the party .

Mr. Cotler even confirmed that she had put up Conservative signs on their lawn before.

However, this situation is another indication that Mount Royal has a strange vibe going into this election.

For more than a year, the Conservatives have been targeting this riding , spending a lot of money and sweat to oust the Liberal incumbent.

They also nominated a “formidable candidate,” in Mr. Cotler’s own words , in a context where the Liberals were about to lose their Toronto stronghold of Toronto—St.Paul’s in a byelection.

Oberman, a lawyer who filed an injunction on behalf of McGill University students against an anti-Israel encampment on campus in 2024, has been doing the groundwork, knocking on more than 10,000 doors, interacting with communities throughout the riding, not only with the Jewish community, but also with the Filipino, the Hindu and the Bangladeshi communities, for instance. He has been meeting with thousands of voters, trying to convince them to switch their vote.

“People don’t leave the Liberal party. The Liberal party left the people. We were all left by the Liberal party,” said Oberman in a long interview.

The growing anger from the riding’s large Jewish population towards the governing Liberals, particularly their positions on Israel and antisemitism since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, has put Housefather in a tough spot.

People are scared to go to synagogue, to drop their kids at the Jewish daycare or school in the wake of many antisemitic incidents.

“It is one of the ridings with the largest Jewish population and therefore is one of the ridings that is the most scarred by what’s happened over the last 18 months,” says Liberal strategist and Justin Trudeau’s former Quebec advisor, Jonathan Kalles.

“And so that will naturally play, will naturally be a factor in how people decide,” he added.

Housefather, a veteran local politician who has steadily increased his majority since 2015, has seen his support dwindle in favor of Oberman. Cracks have appeared in the Liberals’ concrete fortress.

Oberman said, with imagery, that the Conservatives realized that the concrete’s “mixture of cement to water to gravel was not properly laid in the foundation” and that the Liberals “thought they had the perfect recipe.”

“This no longer concretes. What it is is a mixture of sludge that needs to be set aside. And I didn’t create the problem, by the way,” said Oberman.

At some point, Cotler even advised Housefather to leave the Liberals and sit as an independent.

Anthony Housefather declined our interview request.

The Red Fortress, once represented by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, seems to have the Liberals and Conservatives in a toss-up at one point, when the Conservatives held a 25-point lead in national polls.

But the situation has changed in Mount Royal, as it has across the country, with Donald Trump’s constant threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

It has also changed radically since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation in January.

Even if the Jewish vote does indeed lean Conservative, Liberal sources have told us that Housefather’s groundwork should lead to a significant victory. After all, the riding is extremely diverse, and part of Côte-des-Neiges is as red as a beet.

And outside of the Jewish population, affection for the Conservatives isn’t very strong. In fact, as numerous polls in Quebec and across the country indicate, support for Leader Pierre Poilievre is weak compared to Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

And the national momentum is gaining ground in Mount Royal. According to poll aggregator 338Canada, the Liberals would easily win the riding .

Irwin Cotler feels it too.

“I think Anthony has, from what I can see, an appreciable lead here in Mount Royal as well,” he said.

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says whether a re-elected Liberal government would pose a threat to national unity depends on how Albertans react, emphasizing that Liberal Leader Mark Carney has existing “damage” to repair.

Smith was speaking Thursday after delivering a speech and participating in a fireside chat at the Canada Strong and Free Network, an annual conference in Ottawa featuring speakers and leaders within the conservative movement.

This year’s event coincides with the federal election, at a time when successive public opinion polls show the Conservatives either tied with or trailing the Liberals.

Speaking to the crowd, Smith joked those in the audience should instead be out door-knocking and expressed support for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre winning the election, which she told reporters afterwards should come as no surprise.

Several days before the election was called, Smith laid out a list of demands she says must be fulfilled by the next prime minister at the risk of facing an “unprecedented national unity crisis” if they are not.

She presented it after having met with Carney shortly after he was sworn in as prime minister.

The list included repealing a suite of measures the Liberals introduced, including the federal law known as Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, which critics say has created a intractable approval process for energy projects; scrapping the cap on oil and gas emissions; as well as eliminating the net-zero electricity grid and electricity vehicle mandates.

While Carney has pledged to speed up approvals for energy projects, he has said he would not repeal Bill C-69, which the federal Conservatives have pointed to as why voters who want to see more pipelines built should not believe him.

“You can’t ride two horses at once,” Smith told reporters on Thursday. “You’ve got to decide.”

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Asked whether she believes a Liberal win would threaten national unity, the premier said it all depends.

“It depends on what the reaction is. If they don’t address those issues, then we’re going to have to see what the reaction of Albertans are,” Smith said.

“But I can tell you that having 10 years of having our economy beaten down by not being able to to have those kinds of investments have soured Albertans on the idea of a Liberal government, so it’s going to be required after the election to repair some of that damage.”

Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning warned in an recent opinion piece that Carney poses a threat to national unity, given the longstanding grievances those in Western Canada have towards the federal Liberals over it energy policies.

He wrote that, “voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.”

Poilievre distanced himself from those comments when asked about them on the campaign trail last week, saying he believes the country needs to be brought together instead.

Concerns about sovereignty have been heightened in recent months as U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he wants Canada to become his country’s “51st state,” comments which all federal leaders have rebuked.

The Liberals have taken aim at Smith during the campaign, which concludes on April 28, with Carney recently joking to a rally crowd that it would be a “bad idea” to send the Alberta premier to fight against Trump’s tariffs.

Critics have blasted Smith for choosing to travel south of border to speak with right-wing figures such as Ben Shapiro about the ongoing trade war, a decision she defended before Thursday’s crowd as being part of an effort in diplomacy to speak with conservative influencers in hopes of getting through to the Trump administration.

“We shouldn’t be cheering on a trade war,” she told reporters afterwards, adding her office is receiving complaints about the retaliatory tariffs Canada has placed on the U.S. after it imposed 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum.

National Post
staylor@postmedia.com

Clarification: This headline of this article has been updated to reflect the fact that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s comments were made while speaking to reporters on Thursday rather than during her speech.

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Like several Liberal leaders on campaign trails before him, Mark Carney successfully completed the Hip Flip with guerrilla journalist and radio host Nardwuar the Human Serviette in a new video posted Wednesday.

For those unfamiliar, every time an election is called, the celebrity journalist born John Ruskin, who made a name for himself in Canada with quirky interviews of subject he’s researched extensively, tries to meet with leaders of the federal parties. And without fail, he’ll ask them to do the Hip Flip with him.

“That looks like so much fun. Yeah, why not,” Carney responded.

It’s not a campaign visit to Vancouver without a Hip Flip.

Thanks for the records and the trip down memory lane, @Nardwuar.pic.twitter.com/Sfl8oeta5p

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) April 10, 2025

As described by Board Game Geek , the object of the 1968 Hasbro game is for two dancers to spin a piece of plastic attached to a plastic tub between them by gyrating their bodies. The duo that spins the longest wins.

In Carney’s case, as it was for others before him, he achieved a single rotation.

Jagmeet Singh, who had already done it with Nardwuar during the 2019 and 2021 campaigns, was also featured in a new Hip Flip video on Wednesday.

Other Liberals bosses who have taken part include Paul Martin, Jean Chretien, Michael Ignatieff and Justin Trudeau. Stephane Dion, when asked during a press conference, refused.

When Nardwuar approached former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s team about a meeting and Hip Flip attempt in 2004, the journalist was carried away by security as he pleaded with the former Conservative Party of Canada leader.

Others to have played along include former B.C. premiers Christy Clark and John Horgan, and former Green Party of Canada leader Annamie Paul.

The hip flip with Carney was a culmination of a 13-minute interview that was classic Nardwuar from start to finish, but also shed some light on Liberal leader.

Here’s what else we learned about the Liberal leader in his interview with Nardwuar.

Gifts galore

Carney’s aides likely left the get-together with their hands full, their boss having been gifted several vinyl records.

The first was a 45 RPM vinyl of King Richard’s Army’s 1982 single and iconic arena rock song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” which featured Vancouver Canucks goaltender Richard Brodeur as the cover art. The album was released during the team’s quest for the Stanley Cup that year, led by the netminder. (They were swept by the formidable defending New York Islanders.)

“I coveted that Northland goal stick, but I could never afford it,” said Carney, who grew up tending the crease and was a third-string goalie at Harvard.

Next up, following a chat about The Clash, is a copy of the band’s “The Cost of Living” E.P., which features the iconic “I Fought The Law”, followed by a copy of their seminal record, “London Calling.”

“I will say one other thing about The Clash, which I think people remember, that their first drummer was Tory Crimes. Hmm,” he said, looking into the camera.

The play on words was an alias of the band’s first percussionist, Terrence Chimes, whom they chose not to credit on the first album after he dropped out.

Perhaps the most obscure gift is a copy of a 1980 recording of a letter written by a seven-year-old Michigan girl named Shelley Looney, thanking Canada for its part in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

The letter ends with a postscript that says Canada has a “special place” in both her and her country’s heart.

“That’s good to know,” Carney said with a chuckle, “that’s a cold, cold heart. The black heart of America. Thank you, Shelley. We should track her down, maybe she could run for office.”

Some expert Canadian hockey fans might already be familiar with Looney. She grew up to become a Team USA hockey player who scored a game-winning goal against Canada in the gold medal game of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan.

He’s also given a copy of The Window Jumper’s “The Crash of ‘87” on vinyl and asked how tariffs will affect record production in 2025.

“A lot of creativity comes out of adversity, you find over the years. The Window Jumpers being exhibit A.”

He’s also given a Charli XCX’s “Brat” on vinyl, and mistakes it for “early XCX.” Still, he’s a fan, having come across her while serving as the Bank of England governor from 2010 to 2020.

Nardwaur also hands over a 1962 “Diefen Dollar,” a phony currency rolled out as an election prop by opponents of then Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker’s government’s decision to devalue the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar. The Tories were reduced to a minority government.

“There was a crisis because the Diefenbaker government effectively fired the governor of the Bank of Canada, which is not a good idea if you want independent decisions and inflation under control,” Carney said, referencing James Elliot Coyne, who resigned after conflict with the Tories.

“It’s interesting how history rhymes because now another conservative government is threatening to do similar things,” he added, referring to past vows by Pierre Poilievre to fire current Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem.

The last item is a copy of a record produced by the CBC when it had its own record label, giving Carney an opportunity to express his support for the national broadcaster, which his opponent has vowed to defund.

He’s down with Down With Webster

Keen-eared politicos will notice Carney’s stump speeches often end with Down With Webster’s anthemic “Time To Win,” and he’s even thrown up the Canadian millennial rock band’s “W” hand gesture as it rings out.

Turns out, he and his wife, Diana Fox Carney, were attending a performance by Canadian alternative rock band Sweet Thing at the Bronson Centre in Ottawa and stuck around to see Down With Webster. He’s been a “huge fan” ever since.

Carney quickly points out that the Liberals “employ them” for use of the music.

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The City of Vaughan, Ont., is considering changing the name of its thoroughfare known as America Avenue to Terry Fox Avenue.

The proposal was initiated by Mayor Steven Del Duca in February 2025 and is partly motivated by ongoing tensions between Canada and the United States.

The renaming aims to honour Terry Fox, a celebrated Canadian hero known for his Marathon of Hope and contributions to cancer research. The city views the change as a symbolic gesture of Canadian pride and unity during challenging political and economic relations with the U.S.

Residents of America Avenue have until April 24 to express their views about the name change by participating in an online survey. The results are expected this summer.

While some residents support the change as a tribute to Fox, others have raised concerns about the logistical challenges and costs associated with updating addresses and documents.

Additionally, the city plans to put a request into the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to rename a future bridge connecting America Avenue and Canada Drive as the Terry Fox Bridge.

The debate over renaming the avenue has sparked a variety of arguments both for and against the proposal.

Supporters argue that renaming the street to Terry Fox Avenue would celebrate one of Canada’s most cherished figures. Terry Fox’s courage and contributions to cancer research embody Canadian values such as perseverance and generosity, making him an ideal namesake.

Amid strained Canada-U.S. relations due to trade disputes and tariffs under U.S. President Donald Trump, the renaming is also seen as a patriotic gesture . It underscores Canadian identity and unity during challenging times with the United States.

Opponents highlight the inconvenience and costs associated with updating personal documents and addresses, and notifying service providers. This practical burden has been a significant concern for many residents.

Critics also question whether renaming the street due to Canada-U.S. tensions politicizes an issue unnecessarily . They argue that the name America Avenue does not inherently represent current U.S. leadership or policies. Some argue that America Avenue’s name is rooted in historical references to Christopher Columbus and not directly tied to current U.S. politics. Therefore, they see no strong justification for changing it based on recent trade tensions.

Names can be influential when real estate marketers are involved. A name like Terry Fox Avenue, associated with a celebrated Canadian hero, may enhance the street’s appeal , potentially making homes more attractive to buyers. Homes on streets with names that evoke positive associations or historical significance tend to sell faster and for higher prices compared to generic or neutral names.

The renaming could also foster a sense of community pride and identity, especially among buyers who value Canadian heritage and symbolism. This emotional connection might also positively influence property values.

However, residents may face practical challenges, such as updating legal documents and notifying service providers, which could temporarily deter potential buyers due to perceived inconvenience. The renaming process might create short-term uncertainty among residents and buyers, potentially affecting property transactions until the change is finalized.

The city has not disclosed the total cost of implementing the name change, leaving some residents skeptical about whether this expense is justified, especially when it involves taxpayer money.

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