Your middle-of-the-week chaos ...
Happening now - Quebec Premier Francois Legault resigns:
Quebec Premier François Legault resigned Wednesday morning.
The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government has tanked in recent polls, with some predicting the party could lose all seats in the November election.
In recent months, the CAQ has faced intense backlash over its law changing how doctors in the province are remunerated and scandal over the auto insurance board’s $500 million digital transformation.
The Bloc and the Quebec Liberals will fight over the scraps that are Quebec.
Getting the economy one voted for :
Canadians are leaving — not in small numbers, not quietly, and not for trivial reasons. They are leaving because Canada is becoming economically uncompetitive, socially fractured, politically coercive, and increasingly intolerant of dissent. This is not a matter of pessimism or ideology; it is a rational response to a country that is steadily eroding the conditions that once made it attractive to live, work, raise a family, and invest.
For decades, Canada enjoyed a reputation as a stable, rules-based democracy with opportunity, fairness, and freedom at its core. That reputation is now under serious threat. People are voting with their feet, and the message they are sending is unmistakable: Canada is losing its way.
The economic reality alone is enough to drive people out. The cost of living continues to rise sharply while productivity stagnates. Housing is unaffordable in much of the country, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto, where ownership has become a fantasy for the middle class. Healthcare and education — pillars of national pride — are failing. Canadians wait years to find a family doctor. Students graduate without mastery of basic skills. Infrastructure decays while public projects run massively over budget.
At the same time, Canadians face suffocating taxation at every level: income taxes, carbon taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, and consumption taxes. Governments run chronic deficits with little concern for sustainability, saddling future generations with debt while delivering diminishing returns in services.
Unsurprisingly, investment is fleeing. Canada has become a hostile environment for business and capital. Endless red tape, prolonged permitting, regulatory unpredictability, ideological opposition to resource development, and governments openly choosing “winners and losers” have destroyed investor confidence. Canada is resource-rich, yet refuses to develop its energy, mining, forestry, and agricultural potential efficiently — or at all. Growth stalls, productivity falls, and opportunity disappears.
Social cohesion is also unraveling. Crime is rising, particularly violent and organized crime, while courts increasingly treat criminals as victims and law-abiding citizens as inconveniences. Public drug use, overdose deaths, homelessness, and urban decay are tolerated under the guise of compassion, leaving ordinary Canadians feeling unsafe in their own communities. Trust in institutions has eroded badly.
(Sidebar: like so.)
Perhaps most corrosive is the growing perception of a two-tier justice system — unequal enforcement, selective prosecution, and ideological bias. Parental rights are under sustained attack, particularly in education, where governments and courts increasingly override families in favour of ideological agendas. Parents who object are dismissed, marginalized, or labeled intolerant.
Canada’s drift toward authoritarianism is no longer hypothetical. Free speech is narrowing. Governments continue to expand surveillance, compelled speech, and vague “hate” laws that chill legitimate debate. Dissenting views — on climate policy, energy, public health, or social issues — are not debated; they are suppressed. Canadians watch other Western countries arrest citizens over social media posts and worry, with good reason, that Canada is moving in the same direction — with public support.
Religious tensions are increasing, and people of faith — particularly Jewish Canadians — feel under threat, while authorities appear reluctant to respond decisively. Meanwhile, churches and faith communities face growing scrutiny and surveillance. This is not pluralism; it is selective tolerance.
(Sidebar: case in point.)
Media, once a safeguard against government overreach, is widely perceived as compromised. Government funding, ideological conformity, and selective reporting have led many Canadians to see mainstream media as an extension of political power rather than a check on it. Unequal justice, censorship, and state overreach go largely unchallenged, further eroding public trust.
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Mark Carney’s and Canada’s Dangerous Refusal to Face Reality.
— James E. Thorne (@DrJStrategy) January 7, 2026
Mark Carney and most Canadians are behaving as if Canada is an independent pole in a multipolar order, when the world he actually inhabits is a hierarchy being brutally clarified by Washington. Trump’s revamped… pic.twitter.com/2WahDg5rCf
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Freedom is the right to make your own decisions and guide your life as you please (for good or ill) in the absence of outside interference — in particular, without government meddling. Freedom applies in different areas of life, and we know that economic freedom leads to better outcomes including higher income, lower unemployment, reduced poverty, and greater overall wellbeing. So, Albertans should be proud that their province was recently ranked as the economically freest in Canada. Unfortunately, that only puts it in 30th place among the provinces and states of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.
“Alberta is the highest-ranking Canadian province, tied for 30th place with West Virginia,” according to the Economic Freedom of North America 2025 (EFNA) report, published last month by Canada’s Fraser Institute with the support of Mexico’s Caminos de la Libertad. “The next-highest Canadian province is British Columbia, tied with Rhode Island for 47th.”
We can't let the proles challenge us!:
The remnants of an early-pandemic political scandal land at the Supreme Court of Canada this week in a case that could have widespread ramifications, as the top court considers the limits of citizens’ ability to challenge some government decisions.
In June, 2020, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau said WE Charity, the international development group founded by the Kielburger brothers, would run a youth summer jobs program worth about $900-million. Conflict-of-interest accusations flared, and the plan was scrapped soon thereafter.
In May, 2021, the federal Ethics Commissioner concluded that Mr. Trudeau was in an apparent conflict of interest but that he did not violate the law.
According to the federal Conflict of Interest Act, that was supposed to be the end of the story. The law stipulates that orders and decisions made by the commissioner in most cases are final and “shall not be questioned or reviewed in any court.”
Democracy Watch, an advocacy group founded in 1993 by young lawyer Duff Conacher, believes that Mr. Trudeau was in a real, not apparent, conflict of interest, and fought to challenge the Ethics Commissioner’s decision at the Federal Court of Appeal. The group lost in 2024. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last May.
“If you can’t challenge their rulings, they’re all unaccountable czars that are handpicked by the government they watch over,” said Mr. Conacher of officials such as the Ethics Commissioner, in an interview ahead of a two-day hearing at the top court Jan. 14 and 15.
The stakes at the Supreme Court are high. According to lawyers at Dentons, in a review of the Democracy Watch case last July, a successful challenge could fundamentally change administrative law.
Mark Mancini, an assistant law professor at B.C.s Thompson Rivers University who specializes in administrative law and judicial review, said the Democracy Watch hearing is part of a series of cases in recent years that have revolved around when and how courts can review decisions of government actors.
“Fundamental accountability of government to the law is more important than ever,” Prof. Mancini said.
This week’s hearing at the Supreme Court is particularly meaningful for Mr. Conacher, who has worked for years to push governments to be more transparent and accountable. This is the first time that his activist group has been a main party in a Supreme Court case.
“It’s been a slog,” he said of many years battling governments. But he always recalls the advice of an early mentor, the American political activist Ralph Nader: “You’re up against a machine. You chip away – and try to win where you can.”
In Democracy Watch’s loss at the Federal Court of Appeal in October, 2024, Chief Justice Yves de Montigny said the courts should exercise restraint and adhere to the limits to legal challenges prescribed in the Conflict of Interest Act.
The law currently allows only narrow grounds such as jurisdictional overreach; questions of law and fact are not to be challenged.
Yet Chief Justice de Montigny noted an unresolved legal puzzle – the issue of how such limits jibe with the concept of the rule of law. Can governments truly limit such legal challenges? …
The federal government, which won at the Federal Court of Appeal, said in its legal arguments ahead of the Supreme Court hearing that decisions of the Ethics Commissioner are “a matter of political accountability,” not for the courts. Lawyers for Ottawa warned that the courts’ jurisdiction should not be expanded at the expense of Parliament’s powers.
“The Constitution does not require or permit Parliament’s authority to be curtailed in that way,” Ottawa argued in a legal filing.
Several provinces agreed. Ontario in a legal filing said laws that prevent legal challenges so that matters are decided by administrators, not the courts, represent “legitimate legislative objectives.”
The legal term for the government tool to limit court challenges in such situations is what are called partial privation clauses. These declare, like in the Conflict of Interest Act, that a decision is final, save for narrow grounds.
So, no accountability.
That's some real Iranian dictatorship level stuff right there.
Also:
Freedom of speech is under attack in the West, the Pope has warned.
Pope Leo XIV claimed an “Orwellian-style language” had taken root in the West and that democracies were becoming increasingly authoritarian by clamping down on “freedom of conscience”.
It marks one of the pontiff’s first interventions on the issue, which had also been taken up by his predecessor, Pope Francis.
“It is painful to see how, especially in the West, the space for genuine freedom of expression is rapidly shrinking,” Pope Leo, the first American-born pontiff in history, said in an address to the diplomatic corps on Friday.
“At the same time, a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fuelling it.”
He went on to warn that “freedom of conscience” was under attack and said the rights of conscientious objectors or doctors who oppose assisted dying should be respected.
A B.C. Supreme Court trial starting this week is challenging the constitutionality of faith-based hospitals in the province opting not to provide medically assisted death for terminally ill patients.
The case stems from the death of a terminally ill woman, Sam O'Neill, who sought medical assistance in dying (MAiD) while receiving care at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.
The woman’s parents, Gaye and Jim O'Neill, argue their 34-year-old daughter’s Charter rights were violated when she was subjected to “considerable pain and distress” while being transferred out of St. Paul’s to receive MAID in 2023, according to court documents. The trial began Jan. 12 and is scheduled to run until Feb. 6.
The Charter is a garbage document written by a communist.
Do not legitimise it by even mentioning it.
Why should anyone be obliged to kill the sick?
Why make everyone complicit in your act?
Are those reports buried, too?:
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty’s department yesterday was cited for breaching an Act of Parliament in concealing records on the purported graves of 215 children at an Indian Residential School. The department was ordered to begin releasing files within 36 days: “Nothing in the Act allows the department to delay.”
Cabinet is commissioning million-dollar research into impacts of its National School Food Program after admitting previous claims were guesswork. The Department of Social Development in a briefing note said it needed “evidence” to support the $1 billion program: “This is a game changer.”
We don't have to trade with China:
Prime Minister Mark Carney will make an official visit to China next week as his government tries to rebuild relations with the Asian superpower and reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the US.
Carney is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the visit and will have discussions on trade, energy, agriculture and international security, his office said Wednesday.
It will be the first trip to China by a Canadian prime minister in nearly a decade, after a diplomatic row was sparked by Canada’s 2018 arrest of Huawei Technologies Co. executive Meng Wanzhou on a US extradition warrant. Shortly after, China detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and held them until a deal to release Meng was reached with US prosecutors in 2021.
This Michael Kovrig:
Canada's Mark Carney will travel to China next week. It's the first visit by a Canadian PM since 2017, and the next step in a multi-year attempt to recalibrate relations between Canada and China that requires trying to heal some deep rifts, I told @CBCNews. The reality is that… pic.twitter.com/5yqCihDLTY
— Michael Kovrig (@MichaelKovrig) January 7, 2026
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Government caucus Liberal MPs Helena Jaczek and Marie-France Lalonde were part of a delegation to Taiwan that includes three Conservative MPs. The trip was sponsored by the government of Taiwan.
In a joint statement to The Epoch Times explaining their departure from Taiwan, Jaczek and Lalonde said their decision was “informed by advice from” the Canadian government.
“We have been pleased to work with MPs of all parties on this delegation as part of an effort to strengthen relationships between Canada and the people of Taiwan, who represent Canada’s sixth-largest trading relationship in Asia,” the Liberal MPs said.
Tory MP Michael Chong, who serves as his party’s foreign affairs critic, accused Ottawa of “kowtowing to Beijing” in cutting the trip short.
“Two Liberal MPs cutting short a visit to Taiwan because of pressure from government officials is nothing short of kowtowing to Beijing’s authoritarianism,” he said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
And how!
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— wealthmoose (@wealthmoose) January 8, 2026**
China doesn't discuss. It delivers its expectations.
It certainly won't allow Canada to have "autonomy":
As Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives in China on Wednesday, his hosts see an opportunity to peel the longtime U.S. ally away from their rival, at least a bit.
China’s state media is calling on the Canadian government to set a foreign policy path independent of the United States — what it calls “strategic autonomy.”
**
Canada has long been one of the United States’ closest allies, but Chinese officials and commentators appear to see an opportunity to loosen those ties. Beijing has been critical of past U.S.-led efforts to strengthen cooperation among Western allies to counter China’s influence, including initiatives involving Canada, Europe, Australia and India.
Carney has framed his visit as part of a broader effort to diversify Canada’s trade relationships and reduce reliance on the U.S. market. His government has faced tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Canadian exports, alongside rhetoric suggesting Canada could one day become a U.S. state.
The prime minister is attempting to reset relations with Beijing after years of tension under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
(Sidebar: tension? Would that include giving China whatever it wants?)
Diplomatic ties deteriorated following the 2018 arrest of a Chinese technology executive in Canada at the request of U.S. authorities and were further strained in 2024 when Canada imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles, aligning with similar measures announced by the Biden administration.
Ottawa also imposed a 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum.
China responded with tariffs on Canadian exports, including canola, pork and seafood.
In an editorial published this week, the state-run China Daily said Canada should reflect on what it described as policy decisions made “in lockstep with the United States” and warned that renewed alignment with Washington could undermine efforts to repair bilateral relations.
The government-backed Global Times echoed those sentiments, suggesting economic costs from past tariffs had prompted Canada to reconsider its approach.
Canadian officials have said they expect discussions during the visit to yield incremental progress on trade but do not anticipate the immediate removal of existing tariffs.
Other Chinese analysts cautioned against overstating the significance of Carney’s visit, noting Canada’s geographic proximity to and alliance with the United States limit how far it can shift toward Beijing.
Despite tensions between Washington and its allies, analysts say countries such as Canada remain dependent on U.S. economic and military power. While that reliance may be reduced in the short term, it is unlikely to be eliminated in the foreseeable future.
China is giving its marching orders to its vassal state.
Greenland may find itself a protectorate of the US.
All it has left is Canada and its greedy, corrupt and horribly incompetent political class of kleptocrats:
Liberal appointee Senator Colin Deacon (N.S.) breached conflict rules as founding shareholder of a company that solicited a federal loan. The Senate Ethics Officer granted Deacon a waiver: “My view is your situation falls under the exception.”
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Freeland - Trump - Uranium - Cameco - Brookfield - Westinghouse - Nuclear Energy - Ukraine pic.twitter.com/86kyRCuIxy
— Coco McCool 🇨🇦 (@CocoMccool) January 5, 2026
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Canada’s last Ambassador to Afghanistan in an Access To Information email released yesterday acknowledged diplomats were “not able to help everyone” in their hurried flight from Kabul aboard a half-empty military aircraft. The comment by Reid Sirrs is the only acknowledgment to date by the Department of Foreign Affairs that it failed to save thousands of Canadian citizens and allies from the Taliban: “There was a lot of scrutiny and negative publicity.”
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Lori Idlout, the second-term MP for Nunavut, told CBC she’d been asked to consider making the move, not only by Liberals, but also by some constituents in Canada’s northernmost riding, who she said believed her decision would be based on what is “best for Nunavummiut.” ...
Her admission comes the day after B.C. Conservative MP Scott Anderson said he’d also been courted by the Liberals to join their ranks, a move he said “would be a betrayal of my constituents, a betrayal of the office to which I have been elected, and a betrayal of my own personal core beliefs.”
“It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I even consider betraying my constituents, and you should probably stop asking because I will certainly advertise it every time you try,” he wrote in a Facebook post that also criticized Liberals for not achieving results and not taking the concerns of Canadians seriously when raised in the House of Commons.
Anderson has already seen two of his caucus mates jump ship for the Liberals — Chris d’Entremont (Acadie—Annapolis, N.S) in November and Michael Ma (Markham—Unionville, Ont.) in December. The latter left Prime Minister Mark Carney one seat short of the 172 required for a majority in the House.
Really?:
South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday called for the death penalty to be handed down to former President Yoon Suk Yeol for his December 2024 declaration of martial law, which plunged the country into chaos.
Yoon triggered a political crisis when he announced an end to civilian rule in December 2024 and sent troops to parliament to enforce it. But his attempt failed and he became the country's first sitting president to be taken into custody when he was detained last January.
Yoon's criminal trial for insurrection, abuse of power and other offenses linked to the declaration drew to a close on Tuesday after 11 hours of proceedings.
In closing remarks, prosecutors accused him of being the ringleader of an "insurrection" motivated by a "lust for power aimed at dictatorship and long-term rule." They accused Yoon of showing "no remorse" for actions that threatened "constitutional order and democracy."
"The greatest victims of the insurrection in this case are the people of this country," they said. "There are no mitigating circumstances to be considered in sentencing, and instead a severe punishment must be imposed."
The greatest victim is South Korea and its sanity by leaning more towards the north.
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