Your middle-of-the-week vantage point ...
Carney announcing he's going to visit another country that just signed a multi-billion deal with Brookfield. China, UAE, Quatar, India and now Norway.
— G.M. Forbes (@gmforbes35) March 10, 2026
March 6 2026: Brookfield signs a $2.6B deal with Norway.
March 9 2026: Carney announces he's going to Norway. @dsimieritsch pic.twitter.com/tKsDQxOgon
Give the government installed to fail another
try:
This year alone, the prime minister’s website lists fresh agreements with China, Qatar, Luxembourg, India and Australia.
The latest list of putative deals from India suggests the government has now signed $85 billion worth of global investment agreements in the past 10 months. This would be big, if true, since foreign direct investment in Canada reached a 20-year high of $96.8 billion last year.
But the applause should be held until we see the evidence.
Adam Chambers, the Conservative critic on international trade, said the prime minister has no problems setting expectations very high on the world stage.
“However, the risk he faces is one of results. These memorandums of understanding and agreements to agree generally do not guarantee actions or results. The prime minister’s time spent as a central bank governor and as lead finance official for international engagements would often see heavily negotiated communiques tossed aside when the respective parties returned to their home countries. Success should be measured by results achieved — not on promises to deliver something in the future,” he said.
**
According to Statistics Canada’s January numbers , Canada employs 4.6 million people in government, representing 21.8 per cent of all workers. That’s over one in five working Canadians drawing a paycheque from a state-supported institution. We’re approaching the share seen in the early 1990s, just before federal and provincial governments undertook major fiscal reforms.
Even more striking: public sector workers now represent 11 per cent of Canada’s entire population, the highest share on record.
Public sector employees include all workers employed by federal, provincial and local governments, government agencies, Crown corporations, and publicly funded establishments like schools, universities, and hospitals. It’s a broader measure than just bureaucratic administration.
The pandemic sparked the surge, but the expansion continued well past emergency measures. Between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2025, Canada added approximately 822,000 public sector employees, a 21.9 per cent increase. Over the same period, Canada’s population grew by 3.7 million , or 9.9 per cent. Government hiring outpaced population growth by more than two to one.
Throughout this period, the federal government and many provinces ran budget deficits, meaning this workforce expansion is largely debt-financed. Canadians aren’t just covering the salaries; they’re paying interest on the borrowed money to fund them.
Every dollar of government spending must eventually be funded by current or future taxation. When businesses anticipate higher future tax burdens to service today’s deficits, they think twice about investing and expanding. When talented workers are drawn into stable government jobs, they are redirected away from the riskier businesses, startups and innovations that drive productivity growth.
**
Complaints of misleading “Made in Canada” labeling increased tenfold since tariff troubles erupted with the U.S., says the Food Inspection Agency. Inspectors attributed it to “an increase in awareness.”
**
Defence Minister David McGuinty fell billions short of promised spending on military preparedness equivalent to 2 percent of GDP in 2025, new figures confirm. Cabinet has promised to try again this year: ‘We are making reliable contributions to our allies.’
**
Defence Minister David McGuinty included costs of tree-planting in attempting to meet a minimum 2 percent NATO target on military spending, Access To Information records show. The defence department still fell billions short: ‘It’s for the ongoing planting of approximately 14,450 trees at strategic locations.’
The
Trudeau dynasty must be expunged from memory:
The 1968 federal election was the first for the new Progressive Conservative leader, Robert Stanfield. Like other leaders before him, Stanfield had a Quebec lieutenant, in this case, Marcel Faribault. Westerners were suspicious of Faribault.
At a candidate forum in the rural Alberta riding of Crowfoot, arch-conservative MP Jack Horner was asked about Faribault. Himself a bit skeptical of the fellow, Horner replied, “I don’t know much about Faribault, but at least I could say this: that he’d fought for our country in the last war. Need I say more?” The audience went quiet.
It was sufficient that Faribault had served in World War Two to get the respect of Albertans. Why? Because the new Liberal leader and prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had refused to serve. When war broke out in 1939, Trudeau was of military age, fit, and healthy. But he did not want to fight for Canada. He thought it was someone else’s war.
Even some of Trudeau’s admirers seem ashamed of his actions and statements about the war. A few years ago, John English, a former history professor at the University of Waterloo and also a former Liberal MP, wrote a favourable two-volume biography of Pierre Trudeau. In the first volume, Citizen of the World, Trudeau’s attitude and response to the war are explained.
When war broke out, English writes curtly, “Pierre could have enlisted, but he did not.”
It wasn’t just that he didn’t enlist. He openly opposed Canada’s participation. Indeed, English notes, “Trudeau’s virulent opposition to the war was publicly expressed.”
In November 1942, during a federal by-election in Montreal, Trudeau actively campaigned for an anti-conscription, Quebec nationalist candidate. At a major campaign event, Trudeau gave a fiery speech that was subsequently published in the newspaper, Le Devoir. According to English, in this speech, Trudeau “minimized the Nazi threat” and stated that “the government had irresponsibly declared war even though North America faced no direct threat of an invasion.”
Of course, the Second World War led to hardships for millions of Canadians. Coming from a wealthy background, however, Pierre Trudeau lived a life of ease. “Throughout this period, Trudeau lived at the family home, with its chauffeur and servants, while denouncing the bourgeois life.”
Perceptively, English adds, “It was easier to be anti-bourgeois when your circumstances were thoroughly bourgeois.”
The basic point is this. While Canadian soldiers were fighting and dying overseas, “Trudeau and his associates stood on separate ground, avoiding the battles in Europe while furiously debating what their future as francophone professionals would be in a modern North America.”
Useless sack of crap.
It wasn’t only the
government buoyed by replacement immigration.
Others
were in on the scam, too:
However, the government does not bear the full blame for the sharp increase. Between 2020 and 2022, numerous business, educational and non-governmental organizations supported raising permanent and temporary immigration levels and easing restrictions on temporary workers.
The provinces, with the exception of Quebec , also generally went along with the federal immigration strategy, backing large numbers of international students, whose higher tuition helped fund post-secondary schools.
Ontario, which is dead last in government funding for post-secondary education, was particularly egregious in its use of international students to maintain the financial stability of its universities and colleges. This strategy aimed to compensate for its freezing of provincial funding since 2019, a policy that was only recently reversed .
The education sector overall was similarly bullish on international students, driven by limited provincial funding and the lucrative gains from higher enrolments. Universities Canada urged the federal government to “invest in diverse talent, both undergraduate and graduate, domestic and international. ”
Colleges and Institutes Canada argued that, “International talent will play a critical role in tackling skills gaps in may sectors and meeting the labour needs of Canadian employers.” Neither seem to have considered the broader, longer-term impacts. Some academics noted the growing “education-immigration nexus ” and institutional implications, but did not question the societal effects of high immigration.
Many academics and numerous conferences, including Metropolis and Pathways to Prosperity , supported higher levels of immigration. The Canadian Council for Refugees predictably argued for increased numbers of refugees after the pandemic.
The business community prioritized immigration as a cheaper means to meet labour-market needs than raising wages and investing in technology.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business , which represents small and medium-sized enterprises, argued that the federal government should make it easier for businesses to bring in foreign workers, including those categorized as lower-skilled.
The Business Council of Canada surveyed companies and found that half thought Canada should increase the number of permanent residents, with the majority supporting the levels outlined in the government’s 2022–24 immigration plan.
The Conference Board of Canada and the Century Initiative similarly argued that, “Increasing Canada’s immigration levels remains the most effective lever to grow our economy and address persistent labour-market needs,” with the latter recognizing the need for “ growing well ,” rather than just higher numbers.
However, some demographers, geographers and labour-market economists offered a more balanced view of higher permanent and temporary immigration.
David Ley , a geography professor at the University of British Columbia, for example, highlighted immigration’s impact on housing costs. Economists Fabian Lange, Mikal Skuterud and Christopher Worswick noted that, “Increasing low-skilled immigration to increase the overall size of the economy risks driving down average living standards in Canada.”
Post-pandemic recovery and stakeholder pressure do not excuse the previous federal government’s ill-advised expansionist policies, even though those pressures are real, and hard for politicians and policymakers to ignore.
The recent decline in public support for immigration has not prompted serious self-reflection on the impacts to housing, health care, social services and infrastructure. In terms of the five stages of grief , most stakeholders have not progressed beyond the early states of denial, anger and bargaining.
Returning to measured, human-capital-based immigration policies depends on the grieving parties reaching the acceptance stage. They need to learn to live with the new reality, rather than trying to roll the stone back up the mountainside.
Also:
Anyone in the world who shows up in Canada and makes an asylum claim is entitled to free subsidized daycare if citizens get it too, said all but one judge of the Supreme Court on Friday. They framed their decision as a matter of social justice — seemingly ignorant that their words degraded the value of Canadian citizenship by extending our social safety net, which we pay for, to unvetted foreigners.
We don’t have to trade with China:
The big trouble is that when dealing with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a little “stabilizing” can slide into “normalizing” relations with a state that’s anything but normal or trustworthy. And when the costs of dependence and arbitrary political decisions are calculated, far fewer economic agreements look worthwhile. All four countries have been down that rough road before: Canada (and I) had the ordeal of the Meng-Michaels affair; India got a border war that killed 20 of its soldiers; Australia spent years in the Party’s doghouse losing billions of dollars in trade; and Japan is currently suffering its economic and diplomatic wrath after Takaichi stated publicly what has been longstanding policy on Taiwan. The uncomfortable reality is that accommodating Beijing’s demands at best yields temporary relief, and at worst incentivizes further bullying.
All four Indo-Pacific prime ministers can see how the CCP is increasingly contesting the balance of power in their region. China seeks not only to supplant the United States, but also to divide, co-opt and weaken any other countries it fears might band together to constrain its ambitions. To that end, and to prop up its own unbalanced economic growth, for the past decade Beijing has been rolling out the biggest industrial policies in history. It wants to seize the commanding heights of advanced technology and manufacturing, make other countries more dependent on China, and reduce China’s reliance on others. Chinese officials insist they support the WTO and free trade and oppose tariffs, but their policies put the lie to this propaganda. Their aggressive mercantilism, which last year generated an unprecedented US $1.2 trillion trade surplus, has played a key role in provoking Trump’s tariffs and now is subjecting the world economy to a Second China Shock.
**
The partnership suggests Canada “won’t disrupt China’s operations in Canada, and espionage and influence operations, so that they can continue to expand their influence in Canada for the future when, from their point of view, China becomes the dominant power on the planet,” Burton said.
Burton’s comments come after Prime Minister Mark Carney said during a visit to China in January that Ottawa’s relations with Beijing had entered “a new era” and the two countries were in a “strategic partnership.”
**
On the surface, these are noble goals. But the MPS is not a standard police force; it is the primary arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s internal security apparatus — the same body responsible for "Operation Fox Hunt" (whose purported aim is to capture or harass political dissenters), as well as the establishment of illegal overseas police stations on Canadian soil.
Why the great wall of secrecy? Why the silence?
Despite repeated calls from opposition MPs Michael Chong and Frank Caputo, this Liberal government has officially deemed the MOU "confidential." Unlike trade deals, which at least offer high-level summaries, the operational protocols of this police pact remain locked in a vault. If you are not deeply disturbed by this, you should be.
The government’s excuse is predictable: "operational security" and the "sensitivity of diplomatic relations." However, this lack of disclosure masks a deeper failure. By refusing to publish the full text, the government has failed to provide any public evidence of safeguards that prevent the RCMP from inadvertently sharing data on Canadian dissidents under the guise of "criminal investigations."
Or oversight mechanisms. For example, we do not know who, if anyone, monitors the "bilateral working groups" to ensure they don't become pipelines for Chinese intelligence.
Or any indication of jurisdictional boundaries. It remains unclear whether this MOU grants Chinese "liaison officers" increased access to Canadian information, territory, or security and intelligence databases.
The backlash has been swift and severe. The critics of this MOU have spoken out, and we really need to pay attention. Diaspora groups, particularly the Hong Kong Watch and various Uyghur advocacy organizations, have expressed "profound alarm." For those who fled Communist China’s reach in Asia, seeing the RCMP shake hands with their former oppressors is nothing short of a betrayal.
Former RCMP senior officer Garry Clement and other security experts warn that the MPS uses "cooperation" as a cover for transnational repression. Without a public list of "no-go" zones, critics fear the RCMP could be tricked into assisting in the "return" of political targets labelled as "financial criminals" by Beijing.
The mere existence of a secret police pact creates a "trust crisis." If a Hong Kong-Canadian activist believes the RCMP is sharing information with Beijing, they stop reporting threats. They stop speaking to the media. They disappear from the democratic process. In effect, the Carney government is outsourcing the silencing of its own citizens.
The timing of this is particularly galling. Justice Hogue’s inquiry into foreign interference recently concluded that China’s activities in Canada are "real and persistent." To sign a secret police pact with the very entity accused of that interference is, as one critic put it, "inviting the fox to help guard the hen house.”
B!#ch,
please – we’re
poised to kill more people than the
Second World War did:
Trade with the United States is compromising Canada’s “moral compass,” a Commons committee chair said yesterday. Liberal MP Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre-Don Valley East, Ont.) said internal American immigration enforcement raised “serious human rights questions.”
Someone
owes Sarah Palin an apology.
She’s waiting.
A
country that has allowed Nazis into its borders, allows
Jews to be terrorised, films
a man as he is being murdered, dissolves
traditional marriage for votes, wallows
in its political corruption, appeals to the
basest jingoism while forgetting
the country’s original underpinnings is not a country that is serious.
It is a country incapable of self-reflection but indulges in
self-congratulation and hypocrisy.
A survey of 25 countries by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center has found that Americans are most likely to rate others living in their country as morally or ethically bad. In fact, it was the only country where more people defined others as bad than good.
At the other end of the scale was Canada.
Participants in the survey were asked: “Generally, how would you rate the morality of (survey country nationality) – are their morals very good, somewhat good, somewhat bad or very bad?”
In America, four per cent of respondents chose “very good,” while 43 per cent said “somewhat good,” for a total of 47 per cent on the good side. Meanwhile, 11 per cent thought other Americans were “very bad,” and another 42 per cent went with “somewhat bad,” putting 53 per cent on the bad side.
Several other countries — Turkey, Brazil, Greece and France — had a near 50-50 split on the good and bad responses, but the United States was the only one where the bad outweighed the good.
Canadians, however, were the most likely to view their fellow citizens as morally and ethically good. To the same question, more than a third of Canadians said others in this country were very good (38 per cent) and more than half chose somewhat good (54 per cent). A mere five per cent said they thought Canadians were somewhat bad, and just two per cent chose very bad. (One per cent did not know or refused to answer.)
It’s about time someone mentioned this:
Autism should not be considered a “spectrum”, according to one of the architects of the theory.
Dame Uta Frith, a pioneer of research that underpins our understanding of autism, said the spectrum was now so “accommodating” it was “completely meaningless”.
The 84-year-old said while the factual definition of autism remained, the interpretation of the condition had changed over time, becoming “more inclusive”.
“The basic definition of autism that I’ve given you – that it’s lifelong and neurodevelopmental, and that there are communication difficulties and restricted behaviour – has remained the same,” Dame Uta told the Tes magazine.
“It is generally accepted. But the interpretation of that definition is a different matter, because we have made it more inclusive.”
Dame Uta, an emeritus professor in cognitive development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, said the “spectrum” concept came about because “nothing is a neat category, and we wanted to include the not-so-typical cases”, and so widened the criteria.
“But that’s very difficult, because what’s notable about being part of a huge spectrum that we all belong to? We’re all neurodiverse; we can accept this because all our brains are different. But it makes a medical diagnosis completely meaningless,” she said.
Dame Uta said they had adopted a spectrum approach because the “categorical approach” had meant lots of people did not fit within the precise definition. She warned, however, that “because of various cultural factors, the spectrum has gone on being more and more accommodating, and I think now it has come to its collapse”.
“This is something that I don’t think has been quite recognised, because people still hang on to the idea that there is something that unites all the people who are diagnosed as autistic. I don’t believe that any more,” she said.
Dame Uta added that it seemed now that there were “two big subgroups” which included those diagnosed early in childhood, typically under five, and those diagnosed later in life, who she suggested could be called “hypersensitive”.
The latter, she said, was “made up of a lot of adolescents, and among them, a lot of young women” who are “without intellectual impairment, who are perfectly able to communicate verbally and non-verbally, but who might feel highly anxious in social situations”.
This group of primarily young women and teenagers, Dame Uta said, was growing at a “frightening rate”, but that the first group was “only moderately increasing”.
“In autistic children with intellectual disability, there has not been any real increase; that group seems quite stable,” she said.
“I think the people in the second group really do have problems. I would definitely not say they are ‘making it up’. But I would say that these are problems that can perhaps be treated much better than under the label of ‘autism’. I would fight for that label to be limited to the first group,” she added.
Dame Uta also said the condition “existed from birth” and would still call it a “disorder” despite some objecting to this.
The professor said many people were “self-diagnosing” and putting pressure on doctors to diagnose them, while also criticising the current testing methods, which rely on a patient’s “subjective experience, rather than on objective clinical observation”.
It’s some sort of fashion to pretend at being “neurodiverse”,
as if the social currency of simply being awkward, as opposed to being trapped
in one’s own mind and body, was not at all pretentious and utterly insulting.
It is.
Also – this
is fiction, too:
A Canadian journal has issued corrections on 138 case reports it published over the last 25 years to add a disclaimer: The cases described are fictional.
Paediatrics & Child Health, the journal of the Canadian Paediatric Society, has published the cases since 2000 in articles for a series for its Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program. The articles usually start with a case description followed by “learning points” that include statistics, clinical observations and data from CPSP. The peer-reviewed articles don’t state anywhere the cases described are fictional.
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