What Is Canada?

On the eve of Canada Day (formerly called Dominion Day to mark Canada as a dominion but God forbid we should make reference to the Bible or treat Canada as more than a land-mass), it is important to define the country not in comparison to others but as itself.

It is no easy task. 

The United States was once a British colony and still has vestiges of British influence in it.

(Sidebar: the state names of Virginia and Georgia, for example.) 

Yet the country was founded on some of the most revolutionary ideas of the time all stemming from European writers. 

Even France bank-rolled the Revolutionary War, a favour to be returned during the Second World War.

Yet the Americans do not regard themselves as European.

They pride themselves as a fledgling nation of makers and doers and value the freedoms most countries do not have.

 

The Japanese do not compare themselves to their Chinese or Korean neighbours. 

They stand upright with centuries of history and tradition behind them and each day they straddle the lines of post-modern Western influence with their own identity as a nation and a people.

 

Canada does not do any of that.

Squashed by British and French influence, Canada forged itself as a nation where a man could re-invent himself in a terrain so forbidding that only the heartiest remained. 

Canadians proved themselves in both world wars, punching above their weight. Though they were lumped in with the British forces,  they were nothing like them. They were an off-shoot, an orphan of different origins that stood quietly in the back.

 

It was only after the war that Canadians began to be unsure of themselves.

The blight of political multiculturalism, the brain-child of notorious Canada-hater, Pierre Trudeau, moved people further apart.

(Sidebar: rather like Mark Carney's sad attempts to decouple Canada from the US, its centuries-old trading partner. It's not that Canada is European, it is that we cannot afford to be like or in the vicinity of the Americans.) 

No one is connected if they are decidedly different and antipathetic to one another. Rejecting the groundwork of the country - its language and traditions, for example - is admitting that nothing in this country is of value, that rejecting it is like rejecting some nuisance we can do without.

Like the rule of law? 

And then there is the odious anti-Americanism, the result of envy and inferiority. Couple that with unaccountable elected officials and their admiration for a greedy dragon, one can see how Canada falls woefully behind.

 

We are not American, and we certainly aren't British or French.

It's time to state what we are:

Below the swell of goose-vs-eagle elbows-up patriotism that continues to gush through the nation lies an undercurrent of worry: half of Canadians feel that we’re losing a collective sense of what it means to be Canadian.

The finding was made by a new Postmedia-Leger poll released in advance of Canada Day, which asked respondents whether they feel, in the last four to five years, that “Canada has been losing a shared, collective identity of what it means to be Canadian.” Fifty-two per cent of replies were “yes,” while only 30 per cent were “no.”

The poll also measured a tremendous amount of national pride: 83 per cent of respondents claimed to be either “very proud” or “somewhat proud” of their country, with only 15 per cent stating they were not.

Thirty-four per cent of respondents felt their pride had grown in recent months, a sentiment felt prominently among the 55+ crowd, and among Liberal voters — a confirmation of the boomeristic character of the anti-Trump “Canada is Not for Sale” crowd.

 

(Sidebar: that's not being proud of being Canadian. That's being anti-Trump. Ask where these old idiots go from November to April.)

 

Among all recent-pride feelers, 83 per cent credited U.S. President Donald Trump for their deepening emotions. (Another 21 per cent of Canadians claimed to feel less proud in recent months, which most attributed to the recent federal election).

So, despite being incredibly proud to be Canadian, a good number of us are starting to wonder what common ground we share with our countrymen that makes us distinctly Canadian.

It’s a crisis of identity that, based on pure numbers, makes sense. Canada has changed, fast.

Some numbers for comparison: in 2001, 18 per cent of the Canadian population was comprised of immigrants; in 2022, the immigrant share reached 23 per cent, the emphasis shifting to Asia and the Mideast. Trudeau-era immigration policies boosted intakes far beyond what was seen in the Harper years, and jetted off to extremes post-COVID. In 2022, the population grew by three per cent (1.1 million people) since the year before.

Canada for many years managed to keep public sentiment on the side of immigration by maintaining high bars to entry, selecting only the immigrants we needed, and favouring those who have a greater potential for assimilation.

Foreign students developed a reputation for being rich, or eager to become Canadian, or both. 

(Sidebar: is that so?)

Immigrant adults were known for being self-supporting, often with some prestige from professional or business backgrounds. Refugees were known for being grateful and hungry to contribute back to their new home. They came from all over the world, and it was fine — they joined Canadian-born nationals in their love for the country.

The quality simply couldn’t be maintained with volume. A liberal approach to student visas  — which quadrupled the number of permit holders from 2011 to 2024, placed them at 2.5 per cent of the population last year. Fraud ensued. Last fall, Statistics Canada found that one-fifth of international students weren’t actually studying. Students too poor to afford a life here were scammed, strip-mall diploma mills grew, and the credentialed newcomers they churned out — noticed by their Canadian counterparts to be increasingly incapable of reading and writing in English — continued on their quest to receive citizenship.

Indeed, language barriers (the non-English and non-French kind) are increasingly presenting themselves to doctors, health-care staff and police. Some provincial governments get around this obstacle by releasing information in numerous foreign languages. Even the private sector is jumping on board; stand in line at a TD Bank and you’ll be treated with a slew of ads clearly targeted at new arrivals.

Canadian job seekers, meanwhile, have noticed arise in ads seeking Punjabi speakers (and in Vancouver, Mandarin). These preferences come at a time when the employment prospects of Canadian youth, who once easily filled many entry-level jobs, have steeply fallen to a jobless rate of 13.4 per cent. It’s a source of frustration for both Canadian-born English-only speakers and their immigrant non-Punjabi counterparts.

Many newcomers are still happy to assimilate, but not all — and as the total number of new arrivals grows, so too does the number of those who barricade themselves in enclaves and hold on to old, sometimes un-Canadian values. Edmonton and Calgary police both had to defuse Eritrean riots in 2023; a Montreal elementary school had to suspend 11 Muslim teachers amid allegations of creating a toxic, sometimes violent environment; anti-Israel protests have become a regular feature of Toronto and Montreal, correlating with high immigration in the last decade from Muslim countries.

Making matters worse is a national attitude that sends the message to newcomers that Canada is racist, hateful of its Indigenous people and has a history in strong need of being painted over.

(Sidebar: this again?) 

All of this, Canadian officials will probably say, is a good thing. “Diversity is our strength” is a phrase that has been uttered in Parliament 135 times; government documents often tout the Canadian mosaic model of multiculturalism. But regular Canadians, for the most part, never wanted this: in 1993, Angus Reid found that 57 per cent of the nation wanted minorities to “be more like most Canadians”; in 2016, 68 per cent were found to believe that “minorities should do more to fit in better.” There’s a common-sense understanding, which could be acknowledged more openly in the early 2000s, that diversity can also offer challenges to overcome.

This is still the dominant view: in its June study, Leger found that 64 per cent of Canadians believe immigrants should be encouraged to embrace Canadian values and leave behind incompatible elements of their home cultures, melting-pot-like. Only 22 per cent favoured the mosaic model. There’s some wisdom in that.

 **

Canadian schools got rid of the Lord’s prayer a generation ago. It didn’t fit with a modern diverse Canada. It has been replaced by land acknowledgments.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the school system didn’t operate this way — when Indigenous history and contemporary concerns were not a major focus. There has been a lot of progress to rethink how we approach the Canadian past.

But there’s also the Canadian tradition of turning a good thing into a stupid mess.

These young children know that they need to respect Indigenous cultures — and know that these cultures were sophisticated and fascinating. That’s what they’ve learned.

But what they don’t have are the lessons from an earlier time that would balance out this new appreciation. Instead, their lessons speak against an earlier way of thinking about the country. Without that earlier knowledge, what these kids are getting is the now off-balanced focus on reconciliation, relationships to the land, and inclusivity.

What they lack is the broader story of the settler societies that created Canada — about the dynamism of centuries of progress from the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment to the creation of modern forms of democracy, liberalism, and parliamentary institutions. Yet, this isn’t part of the elementary curriculum.

This isn’t the fault of any individual teacher (many of whom are wonderful).

It is, though, about the excesses of a cultural shift — well-intentioned — but also clueless as to its unintended consequences.

This Canada Day, perhaps it’s time to take a lot of the knowledge that’s baked into those pioneer villages dotted across the country and put it back into the curriculum.

 

 

No Country For Anyone

How far we have fallen:

A Hamas captivity survivor on a speaking tour in Canada this month said she won’t “let terror sympathizers control the narrative” after anti-Israel demonstrators allegedly blocked the exit of her venue last week.

Noa Argamani, 27, was in Windsor, Ont., as part of a Jewish National Fund (JNF) fundraising event at the University of Windsor, which reportedly attracted members of the school’s Palestinian Solidarity Group.

On Saturday, Argamani shared an X post from FactsMatter describing the activists surrounding the building, “blocking the only entrance and shouting at the Jewish attendees. In a brief video clip attached, a voice is heard shouting, “Hamas is coming.” 

 

(Sidebar: are the police going to arrest these thugs, or do they only act after Justin Trudeau has soiled himself? Let me know when Khalistani thugs or Iranian officials get the boot.) 

** 

The City of Ottawa has confirmed that the man accused of vandalizing the National Holocaust Memorial with red paint earlier this month has been fired.

In a statement on Sunday afternoon, interim city solicitor Stuart Huxley confirmed that Iain Aspenlieder no longer works for the city and that he was on leave at the time of the incident.

“The recent act affecting the National Holocaust monument was deplorable and is counter to the values we seek to uphold in our community. We extend our deepest sympathies to members of our community impacted by this disgraceful act,” Huxley wrote in an emailed statement to the Citizen.

“The City can confirm that the individual implicated in this act was on leave at the time of the incident and is no longer employed by the City. As the matter is the subject of a police investigation and is before the courts, the City will provide no further comment.”

 

 

We Don't Have to Trade With China

Where is the prime minister who threatens to cut off ties with China or ransack its secret police stations?:

The federal government’s Canada Infrastructure Bank provided $1-billion in financing for BC Ferries’ plan to buy four new ships from a Chinese state-owned shipyard, a fact that Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland did not mention last week when she sharply criticized the purchase.

Ms. Freeland sent a strongly worded letter last week to B.C. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth expressing her “great consternation and disappointment” with the planned purchase.

The letter referenced a previous $75-million loan by the CIB for four other ferries and Ottawa’s annual grant for ferry operations, but did not mention that the bank is also providing $1-billion in low-interest loans for the specific purchase she was criticizing.

The letter also called on Mr. Farnworth to “verify and confirm with utmost certainty that no federal funding will be diverted to support the acquisition of these new ferries.”

In a statement to The Globe and Mail, CIB spokesperson Hillary Marshall confirmed the bank’s financing for the project but said the CIB is not involved in BC Ferries’ decisions related to awarding contracts.

 

 

So there WAS electoral interference:

Canada’s elections commissioner says she has no evidence the result of the federal election in April was affected by foreign interference, disinformation or voter intimidation.

 

(Sidebar: read that carefully. She did not say that there WASN'T any interference but that the needle did not push either way. Well, I suppose it's alright then!) 

 

In a preliminary report Wednesday, Commissioner Caroline Simard says her office received more than 16,000 complaints about the spring campaign which ended on April 28.

That number is seven times the number of complaints received in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

 

 

Why is he even here? 

What an odious man!: 

Liberal appointee Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.) yesterday served notice of a motion to “examine the risks to Canada and Canadians of complicity” in alleged war crimes committed by Jews. Woo was among 11 Liberal appointees, a tenth of the Senate, to signed petitions accusing Israel of genocide: “We urge senators to do more.”

Luo Shuaiyu did not kill himself:

After a months-long probe over the death of a Chinese medical whistleblower, authorities labeled it a suicide. But his parents and the public aren’t convinced.

Luo Shuaiyu, a medical intern at the Second Xiangya Hospital, was weeks short of completing his graduate study when he was found dead outside his school dormitory building in May 2024, with two buttons missing from his shirt. A pair of glasses of his was found broken on his bed.

His death occurred amid the investigation of a Chinese physician from the same hospital who had operated on patients who didn’t require surgery. The physician, Liu Xiangfeng, was sentenced to 17 years in prison months after Luo’s death.

Luo had collected a large trove of materials implicating Liu and others in the hospital in intentionally harming patients and engaging in organ trade.

A person close to the Luo family told The Epoch Times that Luo had resisted complying with the hospital’s demands to find child donor organs. He died just after he expressed his intention to report the hospital.

In a June report on the probe, Chinese officials, along with the hospital-affiliated Central South University, jointly concluded that Luo had jumped off the building.

Luo’s parents, who are dedicated to uncovering the cause of their son’s death, found the authorities’ pronouncement hard to accept.

“Not much issue here, just that the announcement doesn’t line up with reality,” Luo’s father wrote on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

The Luo family later issued a joint statement challenging the official narrative. The makeup of the investigation group itself already had conflicts of interest, they said. Aside from the fact that the university had a stake in the matter, the family suspected bias in at least one other team involved in the probe. A branch of the Changsha public security bureau that co-led the effort had previously dismissed suspicions around Luo’s death.

“This investigation is, at its core, them investigating themselves,” the family’s statement read.

Many among the Chinese populace appear to agree. The social media posts from the Luo family often generated tens of thousands of shares. One video from Luo’s father in which he thanked the public for their support was played 14 million times.

“It’s us who need to say thanks,” one person wrote under the post. “You and your family paid a heavy price for this to come to light today.”

 

 

It's Just Money

Remember that the unaccountable government schlubs will get their pensions:

The Senate passed Prime Minister Mark Carney's landmark 'nation-building' projects bill unamended Thursday, giving the federal government extraordinary new powers to fast-track initiatives that have the potential to boost the economy as Canada grapples with the U.S. trade war.

Carney's cabinet can now streamline the approvals process by allowing some projects to bypass provisions of federal laws like the Impact Assessment Act, which has long been criticized as a hindrance to getting things approved in a timely manner.

While the legislation doesn't dictate what should be built, Carney has signalled it could be used to greenlight new energy "corridors" in the east and west, including possible pipelines and electricity grids, new and expanded port facilities, mines and other resource-related initiatives.

 

None of which will happen.

But don't take my word for it: 

Meanwhile, sustainability is about green investment opportunities shaped by a strategic direction set by governments through carbon pricing, regulation and financial disclosure. Ironically, Carney’s support for carbon pricing is among his strongest policy recommendations.

** 

Carney — known as the single most influential figure in driving investors and financial institutions worldwide to adopt carbon policies — envisions a Canada where every single private financial decision and transaction is to be classified and regulated by a government elite.

His justification for such unprecedented bureaucratic control? His fears about climate change, which drives the need for “radical” action, as he himself puts it.

In Carney’s world, we won’t be focused on efficiency and prosperity, but on asking whether every stock we buy and every purchase we make comes from a company with a stamp of approval from Ottawa’s climate bureaucracy. It will be a world of endless energy audits and reports, perpetual paperwork and red tape, one sure to please activist Greta Thunberg, whom Carney repeatedly gushes about in the book, not to mention Carney’s wife Diana Fox Carney, a green energy policy consultant.

Among his dictates, Carney writes, “Our goal has been to put in place the information, tools and markets so that every financial decision takes climate change into account.”

The plan is to build a government policy framework that will “shut down unsustainable activity that is no longer viable in the net-zero world.” It is to be reached at a “war-like pace to fight what John Kerry has termed World War Zero.”

Regulations, rules, mandates, prohibitions, taxes and subsidies will direct our economy. “This requires a fundamental reordering of the financial system so that all aspects of finance — investments, loans, derivatives, insurance products, whole markets — systematically take the impact of their actions in the race to net zero.”

Financiers will judge companies against net zero standards “and determine who is on the right and wrong side of history. There are assets that will be stranded and embedded capital that must be scrapped.”

In total, 80 per cent of fossil fuel reserves (75 per cent  of coal, 50 per cent  of gas, 33 per cent of oil) will need to stay in the ground, “stranding” these assets, as Carney puts it.  Other stranded assets will include hundreds of billions in automotive plants.

 **

According to the record, Canada’s objectives are “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.” If you aren’t in the loop, then have a look HERE.

This ambitious plan could have been written by Prime Minister Mark Carney himself, and indeed, it may have been because, although it was fashioned in 2022 during the previous Liberal Prime Minister’s tenure, Mr. Carney was Trudeau’s key advisor at the time. ...

Therein lies the discomfort with his signals. Does he or does he not completely believe what he has written and spoken about in world forums with regard to climate change? If he does, then I don’t see any hope for oil or gas pipelines or even for LNG, as climate zealots claim that the manufacturing and transport of the product emits methane, which they deem even more “dangerous” than carbon dioxide.

Carney recently signed an accord with the European Union, which is notoriously carbon-sensitive, to further trade and mutual defence policies. So here is another conundrum. How do you ratchet up manufacturing of defence products without increasing emissions, when he claims that manufacturing bears a large part of the blame for difficulty in reaching his net zero targets?

I take no issue with increasing our defence spending or opening up new markets by creating important trade corridors to get our goods safely to tidewater through Canadian ports. What concerns me is that it is hard to take Carney at his word when his word keeps changing. We don’t know for sure where Carney is going, or how, or where he is leading us.

If he is bowing to his self-confessed “pragmatic side” and ignoring his fervently held beliefs about meeting the stringent goal set for a net zero future, what does this say about integrity?

As Carney says in his book, governments need to gain the trust of the voters. In order to achieve this, transparency is paramount. Mark Carney needs to open up and be transparent. Tell us exactly where he is taking us — and then let us judge for ourselves whether or not we wish to follow.

 

 Also:

Two climate programs launched on a $300 million promise of new jobs and lower emissions could prove neither after seven years, says a Department of Natural Resources report. Managers “stopped collecting” data that would establish whether taxpayers received value for money: “It will most likely be too difficult and too late to identify weaknesses or errors.” 

 

 

Is Carney sure that he can afford to lose Alberta?:

Alberta’s 2024-25 fiscal year ended with a record-breaking $8.3 billion surplus, exceeding budget projections by $8 billion, according to the 2024-25 Final Results Year-end Report. 

Fueled by $82.5 billion in revenue, including $22 billion from non-renewable resources and a $713-million tobacco settlement, the surplus reflects robust economic growth driven by the Trans Mountain pipeline, record oil production, and a weaker Canadian dollar. 

Nate Horner, President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance believes this surplus shows the province’s strength. 

“The road ahead may be rough, but Alberta is built to last,” Horner said. “We’re paying down debt, saving for the future and backing the services Albertans count on. 

“This surplus lets us save smart, spend wisely and stand strong for the long haul.”

Revenues were listed at $82.5 billion, $8.9 billion more than projected in the 2024 budget. 

Expenses reached $74.1 billion, with increased spending on health ($27.6 billion), education ($9.9 billion), and wildfire response ($3 billion).

Capital spending was $1.1 billion below budget due to project delays. 

Despite issues such as wildfires and global economic challenges, Premier Danielle Smith credited disciplined fiscal management for Alberta’s stability. 

“Alberta’s financial strength isn’t just luck, it’s the result of disciplined decisions and a clear commitment to responsible government,” Smith said.

“While others reach for higher taxes and more debt, we’re focused on stability, savings and respect for the people who keep Alberta’s economy moving.” 

 

 

Just as I suspected:

The Department of Employment confirms it has begun writing off millions in unrecoverable pandemic relief cheques paid to ineligible claimants. It would not say how much taxpayers lost: “We knew.”

 

 

Quelle surprise:

It’s now more than four years since the federal Liberal government pledged $30 billion in spending over five years for $10-a-day national childcare, and more than three years since Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government signed a $13.2-billion deal with the federal government to deliver this childcare plan.

Not surprisingly, with massive government funding came massive government control. While demand for childcare has increased due to the government subsidies and lower out-of-pocket costs for parents, the plan significantly restricts how childcare centres operate (including which items participating centres may purchase), and crucially caps the proportion of government funds available to private, for-profit providers.

(Sidebar: this is where Canadians fail. They think because they are not paying X price up front that it is, therefore, cheaper. What they never factor in is that they are paying for something twice, once through taxes and once through a direct deposit. Throwing more money at something as opposed to keeping the money is making the problem worse.)

The result? Widespread childcare shortages across Ontario. For example, according to the City of Ottawa, the number of children (aged 0 to 5 years) on childcare waitlists has ballooned by more than 300 per cent since 2019, while families face “significantly higher” costs for before-and-after-school care. Ottawa families find the system “complex and difficult to navigate” and “fewer child care options exist for children with special needs.” And while 42 per cent of surveyed parents need flexible childcare (weekends, evenings, part-time care), only one per cent of childcare centres offer these flexible options.

Moreover, according to Peel Region’s 2025 pre-budget submission to the federal government (essentially, a list of asks and recommendations), it “has maximized its for-profit allocation, leaving 1,460 for-profit spaces on a waitlist.” In other words, families can’t access $10-per-day childcare — the central promise of the plan — because the government has capped the number of for-profit centres.

Similarly, according to Halton Region’s pre-budget submission to the provincial government, “no additional families can be supported with affordable child care” because, under current provincial rules, government funding can only be used to reduce childcare fees for families already in the program. And according to a March 2025 Oxford County report, “provincial expansion targets do not reflect anticipated child care demand.”

 

 

Not A Dent

The myth of Canada hurting the US is just that:

There are undoubtedly other product lines that saw declines. But after several hours spent combing through thousands of separate data points, I can’t find clear evidence of boycott-driven changes. Perhaps it will just take more time for shifts in consumer spending to affect store inventories and, ultimately, imports. And perhaps I just missed a few more interesting cases.

Either way, even in areas where I found an effect, those were modest. In April, meat and fish imports were down just $4.5 million from January. Prepared cereals fell only $3 million over the same period. In the aggregate, whether April’s numbers for imports of non-tariffed items are lower than January’s also seems to depend on how the data is seasonally adjusted.

In short, government measures—like removing U.S. wine from store shelves or imposing tariffs—had clear, measurable impacts. The same cannot be said of consumer boycotts. While individual choices may have shifted behaviour at the margins, the data reveal no consistent or large-scale changes in imports outside of tariffed goods.

More data in the months ahead may tell us more. But for now, the conclusion is clear: while retaliatory tariffs had measurable effects on Canadian trade flows, and consumer boycotts—however well-intentioned—reflected genuine public anger with the U.S., neither has yet produced any meaningful economic impact south of the border.

 

Our economy is smaller, dwindling, less productive, less even in terms of what is produced, and it certainly isn't growing.

The Liberals have missed (decidedly) several opportunities to grow he country's economy and missed.

But they still get their pensions.

 

Some People Are "Special"

But Trump doesn't see it that way:

U.S. President Donald Trump cited Canadian dairy quotas in threatening a new round of tariffs by July 4. His remarks Friday on social media came the same day Bloc Québécois MPs celebrated passage of their private bill shielding milk producers from trade concessions: “Passing this bill would no doubt be a provocative move.”

 

It's provocative on this side of the border, as well. 

 

He Blinked

Elbows up, everybody!:

Canada and the United States have restarted trade talks after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government dropped Canada’s digital services tax.

U.S. President Donald Trump suspended negotiations with Canada over the tax on Friday. Following a phone call between Carney and Trump on Sunday, Ottawa announced that it was eliminating the tax.

 **

Tech giants such as Amazon and Google will not have to shell out close to $2 billion as expected today, as Canada moved to cancel the controversial digital services tax on Sunday, just one day before the first payment was due.

The announcement from Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne came late Sunday evening, following a phone call between Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump. ...

The tax was announced in 2020, but the legislation to enact it didn’t pass until last year. While it has been in effect for a year, the first payment, retroactive to 2022, was to be submitted on June 30.

The government intended it to overcome what Canada saw as a tax loophole, with big tech companies operating in Canada digitally, making money off Canadian users and data, but not paying tax on it in Canada.

The tax was to apply to companies that operate online marketplaces, online advertising services and social media platforms, and those that earn revenue from some sales of user data.

It meant companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb, would pay a three-per-cent levy on revenue from Canadian users.

(Sidebar: READ - costs passed on to the consumer.) 

The tax was only to cover large companies, those that have worldwide annual revenues greater than 750 million euros per year and Canadian digital services revenue greater than $20 million per year. The parliamentary budget officer had estimated it would bring in $7.2 billion over five years.

Because the first payment was retroactive to cover three years, the expectation was the companies collectively could be on the hook for an initial payment of around US$2 billion. ...

Critics of the tax took issue with Canada’s refusal to wait for a global deal. They also opposed the retroactive application of the tax, which means companies will have to pay several years’ worth of taxes at once.

U.S. businesses and politicians argued the tax targets U.S. companies. The tax applied to all large tech companies no matter where they were based, but because so many of those companies are American, U.S. firms would have paid the bulk of the money.

In a letter earlier this month, 21 members of Congress said U.S. companies will pay 90 per cent of the revenue Canada will collect from the tax, and that first payment will cost U.S. companies US$2 billion.

 

Trump looked after his country's interests which is what he is expected to do.

Carney, carrying on from the village idiot's bad law, expected the shakedown to proceed so that he can fund the CBC and other news agencies no one cares about. 

**

If this sounds familiar, it is because the Canadian government misreading the tech sector has become a hallmark of its policy. Talk tough, practically dare companies and foreign governments to respond, and then frantically seek an exit strategy when they do. This was the case with the Online News Act and Meta’s blocking of news links, with the government’s AI regulation which new Minister of AI Evan Solomon says will not be re-introduced, with the online harms bill, and now with the DST.

Unfortunately, this misreading does not end there. The Bill C-2 lawful access provisions create significant new costs and scope in surveillance requirements that may place Canadian and foreign companies into legal quagmires where they cannot comply with both Canadian and U.S. laws. The opposition to the bill will grow in the fall until the government tries to find a way out. Further, last week, the government released a joint statement with the European Union that says Canada and the EU will “align our frameworks and standards in the regulatory field, to make online platforms safer and more inclusive, to develop trustworthy AI systems and to establish interoperable digital identities and digital credentials to facilitate interactions between our citizens and our businesses.” This suggests more of the same on online harms, AI regulation, and speech regulation.

There is a need for smart tech regulation in Canada. Unfortunately, the government has too often viewed tech primarily as a source of revenue for policy projects – the proverbial “make web giants pay” – while overestimating the attractiveness of the Canadian market and underestimating the risks of costly regulation. Canada desperately needs a tech regulation reset. Perhaps the embarrassment of walking away from $7 billion will provide the wake up call.

** 

Mark Carney has decided to put Canadian auto jobs, manufacturing jobs, and the whole steel and aluminum industry at risk over a yet-to-be implement tax. It’s a foolish move for the Liberals from both an economic point of view and from a negotiation standpoint.

On Friday, Donald Trump announced that trade talks with Canada, the ones to try and ease the tariffs, were off. The reason, Carney’s insistence on pushing ahead with a Digital Services Tax that comes into effect next week.

It will require big tech companies like Apple, Uber, Amazon and others to pay 3% of their revenue from Canada — that’s revenue, not profit — to the Canadian government. It also comes with a retroactive payment of roughly $3 billion for the American tech companies to cover the period going back to 2022.

The bill imposing this legislation and the retroactive payments to 2022, only passed Parliament on June 20, 2024.

No wonder President Trump calls this legislation unfair. Trump, like Biden before him, has been asking us to drop this tax, which both sides in America believe violates CUSMA, and we have refused to budge so now, he’s walking away from talks. ...

The Carney Liberals, much like the Trudeau Liberals refuse to listen to the Americans when they have issues with us on trade, but we expect them to listen to us. The Liberals seem to think this is a one-way conversation where we talk, they listen, and we get what we want.

I’ve been hearing for months that we haven’t caved on the DST because we are holding out to get something in return for dropping it. The tax comes into effect Monday, we have refused to drop it and we have gotten nothing in return.

This isn’t a Mark Carney elbows up moment; this is a complete and utter failure that anyone paying attention could have predicted.

 

The entire bill is a shakedown, one that the credentialed Carney should have seen through and disposed of.

But no.

 

Mid-Week Post

 

Your middle-of-the-week spate of humidity …

 

Israel needs Iran neutralized and the Arab states have often felt threatened by it.

Trump wishes to appear the arbiter in this (his surprise attack knocking out the three nuclear sites was superb) but Israel cannot afford to be patient, nor can it believe that Iran will abide by the terms of a ceasefire:

Iran has hidden sites housing “hundreds if not thousands” of advanced centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade uranium, an expert on Iran’s nuclear programme said.

The regime also moved much of its highly enriched uranium to a secret location before the US was able to bomb the Islamic republic’s three known nuclear facilities, they added.

It means Tehran could have all the capabilities to build a nuclear bomb, said Sima Shine, an expert on Iran’s nuclear programme who has worked within the Israeli military establishment for more than 30 years.

“I’m sure they have a hidden place somewhere with some hundreds, if not thousands of centrifuge[s] and they have material all there in several places all over Iran,” Ms Shine told The Telegraph.

She added: “They cannot do anything now, tomorrow, but in the future, they have all the capabilities [to build a bomb]”.

The warning comes as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, reportedly granted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) full control over defending the country from Israeli strikes and domestic unrest. …

“The [known] sites in themselves, for the time being, are not a lot of threat”, she said. “The problem is, as you know, the material and the advanced centrifuges that I’m sure they have somewhere”.

She said that The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had not visited the key facilities in the country for four years, “so I’m sure they have a hidden place”.

The IAEA estimates that Iran has 400kg of uranium concentrated to 60 per cent purity, which would be enough for nine to 10 nuclear bombs if the material were to be enriched to weapons grade, generally said to be 90 per cent.

It is not known what has become of this material after the recent attacks, but there is widespread speculation it was moved ahead of time.

 

Also – Carney, you are useless:

Prime Minister Mark Carney says he’s hopeful the unsteady ceasefire between Iran and Israel will provide an “opportunity” for an end to hostilities in Gaza and ultimately broader Middle East peace, including a “Zionist” Palestinian state committed to Israel’s security.

In an interview with CNN International that aired Tuesday ahead of the NATO summit at The Hague, Carney said U.S. President Donald Trump “has the potential to be decisive” after he displayed “U.S. power” by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend.

That action and the resulting ceasefire announced by Trump on Monday, Carney said, “does create the possibility of moving forward” on stabilizing Gaza as well.

“Can there be a lasting peace in the Middle East without peace in Gaza, that takes into account Gaza and West Bank and effectively working on a path to a Palestinian state? I would agree with all of those,” he said.

“(Palestinians) living side by side in security with Israel — a Zionist, if you will, Palestinian state that recognizes the right of Israel not just to exist, but to prosper and not live in fear — we can’t have peace unless we move towards that.”

(Sidebar: there it is! Appeal to the anti-semite voters block, Carney! Do their dirty work for them!)

**

More than 250 prominent Canadians have signed a letter calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to dial up the pressure against Iran.

The letter, sent by pro-Israel group Allies for a Strong Canada, urges Carney to take decisive action to counter Iran’s “malign influence” on the Middle East and broader global landscape.

“In light of Iran’s persistent aggression, including its support for terrorist organizations and its attempts to undermine stability in the Middle East, we urge Canada to take a leadership role against it in the international community,” reads the letter.

The letter calls for Carney to tighten sanctions on Iran’s regime, root out Iranian agents operating on Canadian soil and bar fleeing Iranian officials from taking refuge inside the country.

Signatories include former foreign affairs minister John Baird, Retired General Rick Hillier and ex-Conservative leaders Rona Ambrose and Erin O’Toole. It also includes former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney and former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall.

 

And – we don’t air-lift enough people to global hot-spots:

As tensions returned to a simmer between Israel and Iran amidst a ceasefire agreement, a new poll conducted before the shaky armistice found that far more Canadians are distrustful of Iran than those who have faith in the Islamic Republic.

But data from a Leger Marketing poll for the Association for Canadian Studies poll showed that younger generations are more apt to trust Iran and think it wouldn’t be good for the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to collapse and be replaced by new leadership.

The polling also attempted to gauge whether respondents “think that Iran wants the destruction of the State of Israel,” with 71 per cent believing that to be the goal, and even 59 per cent of the 18-24 cohort.

 

 

The passage of Bill C-5 will give Carney absolute power:

The Senate by Friday is expected to pass Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “nation building” bill under closure. The Commons approved the bill Friday by a 306 to 31 vote on warnings it grants cabinet extraordinary powers to reward corporate friends: “We’re becoming a banana republic with this type of legislation.”

 

 

It’s not like it’s Carney’s money or anything:

Canada will reach an even higher NATO spending target in part by developing its critical minerals and the infrastructure needed to get them to market, Prime Minister Mark Carney said as the annual leaders’ summit of alliance members got underway in the Netherlands.

(Sidebar: the same minerals kept in the ground for a decade? Those ones? Why not build four or five pipelines? How is $150 billion 5% of Canada’s GDP, anyway?)

 

Now, about this:

Canada’s top soldier says the military should keep buying at least some additional F-35 fighter jets from the United States, which she said will remain a key partner as Prime Minister Mark Carney pursues deeper defence ties with the European Union.

Gen. Jennie Carignan, the chief of the defence staff, said Monday that the F-35 jet comes with many advantages, from the capacity to cover Canada’s immense territory, to the ability for regular upgrades to keep up with rapidly advancing technology. Canada has already signed off on buying 16 of the jets through the American government, but the Liberal government put the rest of the purchase under review in March, amid tensions with the U.S. over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and talk of making Canada the 51st American state.

 

Europe can never be the ally and trading partner that European Carney thinks It can be.

 

And I thought things were supposed to get better:

A developer lobby group is renewing calls to introduce tax cuts for new projects as housing starts continue to slow, warning that if something doesn’t change, tens of thousands of jobs could be at risk.

On Monday, the Building Industry and Land Development Association released a brief calculation considering how far new home construction could fall and how many jobs could be lost if the sale of new homes remains low.

So far this year, new single-detached family homes sales are down 50 per cent in and around Toronto, while condo sales have dropped 65 per cent compared to last year.

“We are seeing sales have stopped,” President and CEO of BILD Dave Wilkes told Global News. “Without sales, you don’t have that ability to undertake new projects, to make those investments, to provide those well-paying jobs the sector is known for.”

A research brief prepared for the advocacy group by Altus Group found that if housing starts remain low, they could bottom out at 4,000 new single-family homes per year and 10,000 new apartments.

“Importantly, this is not a forecast or projection; there may be many reasons why sales will recover,” a note of caution in the paper explains. 

If home sales do not recover, however, the research suggested tens of thousands of construction jobs could be on the line. It found 40,000 direct homebuilding jobs could go, as well as 30,000 construction supply chain jobs.

**

Emigration is when a Canadian or permanent resident leaves the country permanently. Outflows happen, but persistent and rising outflows indicate growing discontent with local conditions—whether it’s economic, political, housing, or brain drain. Ultimately, it signals a country failing to offer opportunity or inspire long-term confidence. It’s not just any group leaving either—it’s primarily talented, prime-aged workers with the most opportunities.

 Policymakers don’t pay much attention to the gross volumes, preferring net numbers. As long as they can make more Canadians than they lose, a worker is a worker. Replacing an experienced worker with a fresh graduate isn’t a straight trade—at least not immediately. It ignores the fact that Canadian talent is also some of the most coveted in the world. Training new talent while ignoring losses after they’re trained isn’t a benefit to Canada. It’s a competitive edge to the countries we’re losing these people to. 

 When policymakers start to frame talent as replaceable or frame those who leave as the problem, we’re cooked. They’re not focusing on long-term success, but on short-term optics and insider deals. In other words, the longer they ignore the outflow, the more talented labor should consider external opportunities—at least temporarily. 

Canada’s population growth rate is stalling, but emigration retained its breakneck growth rate. The country estimates 27.1k Canadians emigrated in Q1 2025, a 3% increase from last year—which also saw 3% growth. Second only to 2017, it was the largest Q1 outflow ever recorded.

 Emigration is a seasonal trend, and that can be bad news. The highest volume tends to occur in Q3, and if this trend persists we may have another record-setting year on our hands.

 

Canada is unlivable.

Even those expecting hand-outs are leaving.

 

 

Some people are special:

An elected Ontario school board councillor has been suspended by her board for expressing an opinion about land acknowledgements. It was not explained to her the exact offence she had committed, or who complained, only that the opinion she expressed apparently caused harm.

Catherine Kronas was first elected to Ancaster High Secondary School as chair in 2023 and then re-elected as a council member in 2024. …

“In my view, the Board’s imposition of a land acknowledgment during our school council meetings undermines the democratic process and constitutes a form of compelled speech, which I believe contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There is no school board policy mandating its inclusion. In my opinion, the sentiments implied by the land acknowledgment, are political in nature, highly controversial, and therefore divisive and inappropriate within a government institution. And I respectfully request that my objection be noted in the minutes of this meeting.”

As far as Kronas knew, her objection had been noted for the minutes and that was that.

But then on May 22, she received a letter from HWDSB, informing her that her role as an Ancaster High school councillor was “paused,” and that she didn’t have permission to attend the next meeting. It suggested that Kronas had “allegedly engaged in conduct that has caused harm and is not in compliance with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board — HWDSB policy.”

The letter did not explain how Kronas’ behaviour was not in compliance or what harm she allegedly caused.

Kronas secured a lawyer, Hatim Kheir, from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) to find out. He sent a letter to the Human Rights Office (HRO) of the HWDSB arguing that the decision to suspend Kronas was “unconstitutional and contrary to administrative law principles of procedural fairness.”

Her lawyer advised the board that the decision to suspend Kronas was “a clear attempt to restrict her speech based on its content,” speech which, in absence of such evidence of harm, is protected by Section 2(b) of the Charter.

The board either couldn’t, or didn’t think they should have to, articulate how Kronas’ objection to the use of land acknowledgments during meetings allegedly caused harm. But they knew they didn’t like her objection.

In addition to trampling over Kronas’ right to freedom of expression, her lawyer argued that the manner in which the board enacted its decision also violated Kronas’ right to procedural fairness.

Kronas was given a letter of suspension which her lawyer referred to as an “extraordinary and drastic step of preemptively prohibiting Ms. Kronas from attending Council meetings,” especially since she was never even given an opportunity to respond to the allegations before they suspended her.

In order to effectively respond to these allegations, her lawyer points out that Kronas would need to know a number of things, including: who the complainant was; who Kronas allegedly harmed with her statement; what the nature of the alleged harm was; what the particular words were that caused the alleged harm; as well as which policies she allegedly breached.

But Kronas’ suspension letter provided none of this information, nor did it say when she would be able to respond. All the letter says is that the “Board is currently reviewing these allegations.”

The JCCF letter defending Kronas ended with the demand that the Board “immediately reinstate Ms. Kronas to the Council and permit her to attend the upcoming meeting on June 4, 2025. We look forward to your response.” To this date, the board has not responded to the JCCF.

National Post reached out to the HWDSB for comment, but did not receive a response.

The suspension of an Ontario school councillor who respectfully objected to the use of land acknowledgments in meetings and was later suspended without explanation suggests the use of these statements has become religious and sacred — not to be questioned — and that those who state objections or dare not to conform, may be severely punished, without even being given the opportunity to respond.

If everyone refused this Khmer Rouge-style brow-beating, this issue would go away.

 

Also:

Sometimes, it suits alien peoples to co-operate because they have reciprocal interests. In a new study of early relations between the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and Indigenous peoples on the coast of British Columbia, “The Vancouver Island Treaties and the Evolving Principles of Indigenous Title,” the historian Ted Binnema reveals that land itself was not a bone of contention. While the company wanted to trade and gain access to natural resources, the Natives wanted the goods and opportunities that the British brought — including blankets, weapons, wage-labour and medical services.

They also wanted security. The peoples of the Pacific Northwest subsisted on salmon, which perishes quickly unless processed. Processing was labour-intensive, requiring far more work than women alone could provide. So, all of them depended on slave-labour. Consequently, slave-raiding and war were endemic. The HBC, however, made it clear that it wouldn’t tolerate warfare on its doorstep. As a result, the Native peoples coveted the security and status that proximity to the company’s trading posts offered. And when the foreigners cleared and cultivated land, or mined coal, they had no complaint, for land and the black stuff weren’t what mattered most to them. Moreover, when they wanted to establish reservations, the company complied. It wasn’t until the HBC first offered compensation in the 1850s that the Natives began to demand it. After all, when one set of them seized from another what did matter — slaves — they weren’t in the habit of paying.

This reminds us that relations between colonizers and Indigenous peoples weren’t always characterized by conflict. In many cases, and for long periods, they co-operated to their mutual benefit. But it also shows us that the value of land differs not only between cultures, but over time. Even if it were true that, in the early 1800s, the territorial expansion of European settlement in British Columbia did deprive Indigenous peoples of their livelihood by trespassing on their fishing or hunting grounds, to surrender huge tracts of territory to them in 2025 is not to unravel history and restore the past. That’s because what mattered in the past was not land but subsistence. And British colonization replaced traditional means of subsistence with new alternatives — trading, farming and wage-earning. Now, through the Canadian state, it offers welfare payments, too.

 

Let someone else take care of the needy:

Donations to religious charities have dropped nearly a quarter since 2018, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. The decline followed one churchgoing MP’s unsuccessful attempt to raise the basic charity tax credit on par with political donations: “God keep our land glorious and free.”