Your middle-of-the-week gentle breeze ...
Your untrustworthy Eurocrat:
As governor of the Bank of England, he failed to stop Brexit but as prime minister his Project Fear II against the U.S. has been far more successful and far more galvanizing. If Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Carney is now trying to integrate Canada into the European Union, a move that would surely entail a loss of sovereignty and independence far greater than anything we could surrender to America. The prime minister suggested on Sunday that the Journal’s reporting overstated what the government is seeking.
**
“The EU wants to be close to Canada and supportive of Canada — that’s the political side,” she said.
Legally, however, “there is just no possibility (of that) as the EU stands,” she said, pointing to the Michel Barnier staircase of the available models. At the top is full membership, followed by looser forms of economic integration — European Economic Area (EEA) participation, Swiss-style bilateral accords, customs-union arrangements, and free-trade agreements. Canada is already on the bottom step with the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), an EU-Canada free-trade agreement provisionally in place since 2017.
Simon Usherwood, professor of politics and international studies at The Open University, also pointed to the lack of “off-the-shelf relationships with other countries.”
While Carney has said he’s not seeking it, full membership would simply not be feasible under the EU treaties as they stand.
“People jokingly say, ‘Oh, yes, Canada could join, join the EU,’” Barnard said. “Well, legally that’s impossible because Article 49 of the treaty says you’ve got to be a European state, and Canada is not that.”
Even if the focus is just on a bespoke partnership, the political room for this remains uncertain as it’s not just a question of what Canada hopes to obtain but also what privileges — and demands — the EU is willing to extend to Ottawa.
The EU could, in theory, devise a new arrangement for a country it wants to draw closer. But Barnard said Brussels would be wary of creating a precedent because any generous concession to Canada could prompt Britain, Switzerland, the EEA states, Ukraine and other countries outside the bloc to demand comparable
**
Carney told Bloomberg he’s not seeking EU membership—just a “unique alliance.” Then he listed deeper defence procurement (SAFE), AI, compute, minerals, energy, research, and “elements of enhanced labour mobility,” while admitting the EU’s four freedoms come as a package
— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) September 14, 2026
That’s… pic.twitter.com/RbkZP7Q0xa
**
Carney gets asked if visa free travel or other visa opportunities are part of the discussions between Canada and the EU. He says that’s one aspect of the discussions but then quickly brushes it off and goes into making Canada more sovereign. When all else fails, just keep repeating “sovereign” “resilience” “deepening” “strengthening” “building”
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) September 15, 2026
I read that as cronyism:
Prime Minister Mark Carney says his government will open up Canada's four largest airports to private investment, but that Ottawa will maintain ownership of airport land.
The prime minister said the private money will be sought through "long-term concessions" to operate these airports, which would include Toronto Pearson International Airport, Vancouver International Airport, Trudeau International Airport in Montreal and Calgary International Airport.
"The government of Canada will retain ownership of the underlying land and assets, but we will unlock their true value by bringing in new capital and expertise to their operations and growth," Carney said during an address at the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on Tuesday morning.
"We will reinvest the tens of billions of dollars of capital we raise into the infrastructure that Canada needs for the next generation."
Carney has invited over 100 of the world's largest investors from around the world to the summit in the hopes of securing $1 trillion in investments in some 167 projects across Canada over the next five years.
He is selling this country piece by piece.
But, please – worry about Trump is saying today.
Also:
Former prime minister Jean Chrétien proudly affirmed recently, in the context of trade issues, that Canadians do not bow to anyone — so true, Monsieur. But au contraire, you support Canadians who bow to the Laurentian Elite (LE). Quebec is a charter LE member, as its interests prevail, regardless of the Constitution and those of other provinces.
The most blatant example is the recent rush to immunize the dairy cartel from any trade agreements. This benefits Quebec, the major player in Canada with respect to dairy products, eggs, and chicken. Prime Minister Mark Carney (as did Chrétien) bowed to Quebec to confirm the provincial Marketing Board’s power to allocate production limits.
This socialist intervention, versus the competition of free markets, maintains high prices for Canadian consumers, limits choice, and enrages Donald Trump. He believed this issue had been otherwise dealt with when the original CUSMA was negotiated almost a decade ago.
Other problems abound. Sometimes the cows don't cooperate and overproduce the quota — that milk gets poured down the drain. Should Canadians accept policy that supports such irresponsible waste?
This cartel also raises a basic question — are we a free trading country? The non-answer, also sad but true, is that an important Quebec industry risks the articulated national priority of a free-trade agreement with the world’s largest economy sharing the world’s longest border.
Why then the policy?
Having spent much of his career in the Department of Finance in Ottawa, our smooth-operating Prime Minister understands ‘The Road to Power.’ Such special perks for Quebec are conditional on support for the Natural Governing Party, i.e. the Liberals. This explains why most federal elections are over before the Manitoba border, and why half of the Conservative caucus also supported this insidious legislation.
But inevitably, even these managed chickens come home to roost. Tolerance for this hypocrisy and political maneuvering for power no longer exists in many other parts of Canada, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The ‘smooth operator’ has made Canada his playground until he moves on to a global role. Already with a global brand, Canada is just a stairway to Carney’s greater ordained heights and destiny. His book compares himself to Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius — “rising in the morning to do the work of mankind.”
Yes, he wrote that.
Out-of-control ambition and superiority, claiming his “human values” are superior to “market values.”
He wrote that too.
Isn’t the market the outcome of millions of self-interested decisions and actions that ultimately reflect society’s values, not Carney’s?
The consequence of this superiority is the risk of consummating a free trade agreement with a difficult counterparty who clearly dislikes Carney and what he stands for.
It is only for crass political purposes that Quebec receives special treatment to enjoy an enhanced level of citizenship in our country. This is augmented by the Ottawa civil service, especially at the senior level, which requires bilingualism, also inevitably favouring Quebec.
Another significant manifestation of the LE is appointments; what follows is an abbreviated scan of actions by Carney, the unofficial head of the LE.
Jonathan Wilkinson was named Ambassador to the European Union. A previous adviser to Premier Roy Romanow and the Saskatchewan government, as Trudeau’s Minister of Energy, he led the attack on the energy sector. He has a heart, though, assuring a “just transition” for those destined to lose their jobs — what a guy!
Another Westerner cum globalist, Chrystia Freeland, was also an important Trudeau cabinet minister leading the original CUSMA negotiations, among other key roles resulting in Canada’s “lost decade.”
In addition to her recent appointment as advisor on Economic Development of Ukraine, this former deputy prime minister and author now presides over the Rhodes Trust at her alma mater, Oxford University. She continually takes potshots at the US President from the cheap seats, probably infuriating Trump more than any other Canadian.
Another Saskatchewan politico, also a LE, is Ralph Goodale. First elected in 1974, this USask law graduate made a career as one of the most talented politicians. He excelled at nodding his head for emphasis while saying almost nothing. That served him well — as other Trudeau colleagues stumbled, he became Minister of Finance notwithstanding a sparse background. After his defeat, Goodale was named High Commissioner for Canada in the United Kingdom from 2021 to 2025, a Trudeau appointee.
The most egregious appointment belongs to former Leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh. Roughly mirroring the career of Justin Trudeau, he kept Trudeau in power through his second and third terms.
The ‘smooth operator’ rewarded Singh as the new Chief Executive Officer of Destination Canada, the country's national tourism marketing organization. His salary of $350,000 will be a handy top-up for his already lucrative pension. The Ottawa cesspool is at work.
How many lower-profile appointments, made daily, institutionalize this reward system?
The dairy cartel is a clear example of tiered citizenship in Canada — Quebec’s special status, Ontario the base case, and the West with absolutely no say, even regarding important national issues like a free-trade agreement renewal.
And:
As Russian soldiers attacked trench lines in eastern Ukraine in 2024, Ukrainian artillery crews opened fire. But the rounds, instead of exploding near the advancing troops, flopped out of launch tubes or landed with quiet thumps, kicking up puffs of dust.
A Ukrainian arms factory, it turned out, had supplied the military with thousands of defective mortar rounds. A burly weapons factory boss, Leonid Shyman, would eventually be arrested and charged in one of the war’s most public examples of defense-industry fraud.
But even as the officials noticed that weapons were arriving faulty, government audits obtained by The New York Times show, Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency continued to award Mr. Shyman’s factory new contracts.
The case reflects a persistent phenomenon of the war in Ukraine. Seven of Ukraine’s top 10 military contractors won new business despite open criminal investigations for fraud, failures to deliver on earlier deals or the arrest of chief executives for corruption, according to the government audits obtained by The Times, court records and Ukrainian news accounts.
Mr. Shyman, for example, had been the subject of multiple investigations by anti-corruption agencies, including for embezzlement and fraud, when he won that first mortar contract. The government awarded the $280 million deal while he was out on bail on corruption charges.
Confidential reviews by the State Audit Service and an internal Ministry of Defense auditing department reveal a military procurement system riddled with mismanagement. Warning signs go unheeded, the records show, and there are seldom consequences for overcharging or failing to deliver.
Companies won contracts without demonstrating that they could supply the weapons, or without licenses to deliver them. Auditors identified 18 companies that signed deals despite defaulting on previous agreements. Six of those companies failed to fulfill a single contract.
Military contractors around the globe, including the world’s richest arms dealer as well as Ukrainian and American companies, have gotten wealthy through this system.
The internal government audits showed that in 2024 alone, Ukraine lost about $1.2 billion to fraud, waste and mismanagement.
Those losses, which have not been made public, piled up even as President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to allies for more weaponry and financial aid.
Ahem …
It’s just money:
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called Donald Trump’s tariffs “immoral” after Canadian trade talks with the United States (US) fell apart.
That’s quite a charge coming from a Canadian politician.
“[T]he government of Manitoba is 100 percent behind the prime minister’s direction to retaliate against Donald Trump’s unjustified and immoral tariffs,” Kinew said at a press conference at the Manitoba legislature on August 22.
The “immoral” actions Kinew referred to were the 50% tariffs Trump imposed on upwards of $20 billion of Canada’s annual exports to the US. Yes, that is a heavy burden on the affected products, but it is only 5% of the roughly $400 billion in total Canadian exports to the US.
Trump imposed those tariffs under Section 338 of the US Tariff Act of 1930, which allows a president to impose tariffs of up to 50% in response to discriminatory treatment of American commerce. The White House said Canada’s treatment of US autos, alcohol, and dairy justified its use.
In other words, Trump didn’t pull the 50% figure out of thin air. Whether his use of the law is justified is another question, but the law itself sets 50% as the maximum.
There’s a far more important number nearing 50% that Trump has nothing to do with: the annual tax burden on Canadians. According to the Fraser Institute, in 2026, the average Canadian family will earn $166,790 in income and pay an estimated $72,539 in total taxes. That’s 43.5% of their income.
Even worse, Fraser estimates that government spending is roughly 49% of Canadian incomes.
What is more immoral? An American president erecting 50% trade barriers on 5% of imports from another country, or Canadian governments spending the equivalent of nearly half of everything Canadians earn?
And if Trump’s approach is “immoral,” how does Canada’s reciprocal response become righteous?
That’s the first problem with Kinew’s argument. Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, which he supports, will also add costs for Canadian consumers.
“Gas prices are higher than ever because of the war in Iran. Prices at the grocery store are higher than ever because of his domestic policies, and now he continues to add to your cost of living woes by bringing in more tariffs, which is a tax on you. It’s a tax on you as the American people,” Kinew explained.
But Statistics Canada disproves Kinew’s fuel price claim. Winnipeg gas prices averaged $2.05 in June 2022 and just $1.66 in the latest figures in July 2026. Even stateside, the US Energy Information Administration recorded gas prices at $5.02 per gallon in June 2022 and $4.06 in August 2026.
Kinew’s grocery-price claim also needs context. In Canada, year-over-year grocery inflation was 11.4% in January 2023, 5% in December 2024, and just 3.1% in July 2025.
While energy costs can feed into grocery prices, blaming Trump for Canada’s affordability problems ignores what Canadian governments themselves have done. Industrial carbon taxes, clean fuel regulations, and electricity regulations make transportation and energy more expensive. Pipeline-killing regulatory regimes also handicap our energy sector’s potential.
How’s that for “immoral?”
And then there are the trade barriers Canada imposes on itself.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that internal trade barriers function like a 9% tariff in our own country, a barrier that rises to 40% in sectors such as education and healthcare. The cost to GDP is $210 billion.
Trump did not create those barriers.
Nor can Canada put all the blame on Trump for the failure to reach a trade deal. Canada and the US were very close to a deal when both sides introduced fresh demands. Canada walked away to protect aluminum exports, ensure French-language content appears first on Netflix screens in Quebec, and keep the door open for new trade deals with China.
But isn’t China the country Mark Carney called Canada’s “largest geopolitical threat” in the last election?
**
While not as expensive as lodging can be in Tuscany, Italy, where Carney vacationed this summer, staying in that Canadian castle is certainly not affordable.
(Sidebar: boy,
does he love Europe!)
Hopefully they got a special rate, but renting a room or hosting a conference does not come cheap. While booking sites say you can find a room there for $534 a night, the cheapest availability when trying to look for availability was in the $1,300 a night range on the low and $2,200 on average.
Renting the conference rooms and ordering the available dining menus are not cheap either. In fact, there is nowhere in Canada grander to hold a government meeting than where these people flying in there today are holding it. They could have these meetings in Ottawa where they all already have apartments and there is plenty of available space already paid for by Canadians.
**
Brampton, Ont.-based Royal Canadian Steel Inc., Farjess Inc. and Feroz Jessani, president and part-owner of the two companies, allegedly misrepresented the steel as being from Canada or the U.S., according to the DOJ.
Jessani did not respond to emails and the person who picked up the phone at Royal Canadian Steel said he is currently on vacation outside of Canada.
Royal Canadian Steel has a processing plant in Brampton and other facilities in China, Pakistan and India, according to its LinkedIn page.
In the U.S., companies must declare the country of origin and value of the goods being imported to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Between May 2019 and January 2025, Royal Canadian Steel, Farjess and Jessani avoided duties by "knowingly misrepresenting … the country of origin of certain flat-rolled steel," the DOJ said.
Shamsh Dhala, a broker who worked with Farjess, tipped the government off by filing a civil suit in the U.S. under the False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to receive a portion of any money recovered by the government. The DOJ said Dhala would receive US$3.61 million of the settlement.
"Our border is the frontline of American industry. Approximately half of all U.S.-Canada land trade flows through our district." Jerome Gorgon Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, where the case was filed, said in a press release. "And we will continue to protect our businesses from foreign fraudsters."
U.S. steel companies have long complained that Canada has acted as a backdoor for cheaper, unfairly subsidized steel to enter the U.S. They, along with U.S. trade representatives, said Canada's steel import regulations are too lax, which allows other countries to transship their steel through Canada and then into the U.S.
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump placed 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian steel, which he eventually doubled to 50 per cent under section 232 of the Fair Trade Act. That has affected all steel exports, including those that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, and devastated domestic steel producers, many of whom relied on the U.S. for a major portion of their sales.
**
Federal researchers will spend three years and $12.6 million attempting to substantiate claimed benefits of a Trudeau-era venture, the $1 billion National School Food Program. “More data are needed,” the Canadian Institutes of Health Research said in an internal memo.
**
Most Canadians who applied for subsidized dentistry under the federal Dental Care Plan were already regular patients in private care, new data show. Federal agencies to date have not accounted for billions in cost over-runs on the program: “If employers were to start dropping their plans because there is some new federal plan, that is a potential concern.”
I keep saying this over and over.
— 🇨🇦 Antonio Tweets (@AntonioTweets2) September 13, 2026
Mark Carney was placed here to destroy our nation. Hard Stop. pic.twitter.com/FH4RojlFWS
It was never about a virus:
Canadian corporate
media from the outbreak of the pandemic acted as government propagandists,
says a former foreign correspondent. Speaking at a public hearing, Rodney
Palmer said media dependent on cabinet for licenses or subsidies worked to
quash criticism of Covid-era mandates: “I know they shifted their allegiance
from the people of Canada.”
**
A federal labour board has ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to pay a total $13,500 in damages to two Christian employees suspended for defying its vaccine mandate. The discipline was discriminatory, an adjudicator ruled: “How does a manager decide?”
**
“I don’t think we have properly acknowledged the harm that was done to many people,” Conservative MP Blaine Calkins, who represents Ponoka-Didsbury, Alta., said at the hearing.
Among those discussed was Scott Gorry, who worked in Calkins’ office for nearly a decade. Gorry died July 4 at the age of 48.
“Scott worked for me for almost a decade,” said Calkins. “I don’t have any expert knowledge that I can impart here other than just to say he was a great friend.”
Blacklock's Reporter said Gorry was diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, after receiving a COVID vaccine while Parliament's vaccination mandate was in effect.
His sister, Barrie, Ont., physician Dr. Crystal Luchkiw, told MPs Gorry received the vaccine because it was required for him to continue working.
“He needed to get the vaccine to maintain his employment,” said Luchkiw.
“He ended up in hospital multiple times.”
Luchkiw said the evidence linking her brother's condition to vaccination was “irrefutable” and that his claim had been approved through the federal Vaccine Injury Support Program.
The $75-million program was established to provide financial support to people who experienced a serious and permanent injury after receiving a Health Canada-authorized vaccine.
Conservative MP Glen Motz, who represents Medicine Hat-Cardston, Alta., wept while remembering Gorry.
“Scott was a big man,” said Motz. “He made me look pretty small.”
Conservative MP Arnold Viersen of Peace River-Westlock, Alta., recalled discussing Gorry's health problems with him.
“I had a conversation with him about it,” said Viersen. “He seemed somewhat relieved by the fact that it was acknowledgement that he was injured, but that was about the extent of his relief.”
The hearing also revisited Parliament's vaccination rules, which prohibited people from working on Parliament Hill without providing proof of vaccination.
Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall of Yorkton-Melville, Sask., was prevented from taking her seat after declining to disclose her vaccination status.
“It’s not just about me,” Wagantall told reporters at the time.
“I have all kinds of people in my constituency. My office has dealt with people just beyond stressed, crying, because they have lost their jobs or they can’t get from where they are to where they want to go, and it’s deplorable.”
The House of Commons voted 180-140 in 2021 to uphold the vaccination requirement. Wagantall was escorted from the chamber after challenging the order.
The public hearing was organized by Conservative MP Dean Allison of Niagara West, Ont., to hear testimony from Canadians about vaccine mandates and their experiences with the Vaccine Injury Support Program.
“We had over 1,400 people apply to be here,” Allison said. “Unfortunately not all could make it.”
**
🚨ALLISON INQUIRY BOMBSHELL🚨 Former CBC producer Rodney Palmer just delivered a forensic presentation to the panel on how Canada’s public broadcaster morphed into a Chinese-style propaganda arm. Called out his former colleagues — and DESTROYED whatever credibility they had left.
— Wiretap Media (@WiretapMediaCa) September 11, 2026
Remember
– we have no “core values”, we’re a “post-national state” and apparently no
history:
What, then, do Canadian teens know of their history? National Post asked a half-dozen high school students or recent grads two questions: “Who was the first prime minister of Canada?” and “What happened in Halifax in 1917?”
One gave a lightning-fast response on the prime minister: “John A. Macdonald.” Another said: “Holy, I should know this.”
Among the other four, two got it right when hints were given. Two more confessed to learning about the first prime minister but couldn’t remember. “It’s been too long,” said one.
On the Halifax question, one student answered correctly that the 1917 explosion that levelled much of the city and killed up to 2,000 people involved “two boats crashing into each other and causing a major blast.”
Two more students provided correct answers, and two more were unsure.
Canada the cruel:
Canada’s 9-8-8 suicide prevention helpline has received more than 1 million calls and text messages since its launch in late 2023. That averages out to more than 300,000 per year.
Yet under current law, Canada is set to expand euthanasia, or medical assistance in dying (MAID), to people with mental illness as their sole underlying condition beginning March 17, 2027. If that expansion happens, some will be deemed worthy of suicide assistance while others will receive suicide prevention.
That contradiction goes to the heart of Canada’s suicide prevention efforts. Canada must continue to direct people to the help they need rather than offering MAID to people suffering from mental illness. …
Crawford also noted fears of suicide contagion due to public messaging that promotes death via MAID as a solution for mental suffering, undermining suicide prevention efforts.
This time, the committee has gone further, recommending an indefinite exclusion of MAID for mental illness. Despite repeated study, the problems with MAID for mental illness have not gone away since Parliament first took up the issue in 2021.
In addition to concerns about undermining suicide prevention, there are no consensus or established criteria for determining whether mental illness can ever be considered irremediable. If it cannot be determined that a person will not recover, offering MAID rather than continuing treatment risks ending the life of someone who could get better.
As a result, most psychiatrists continue to oppose MAID for mental illness and instead seek to treat hopelessness and prevent suicide.
**
It was Sunday, October 24, 2021, when 61-year-old Donna confessed to her family that she had been approved for Canada’s assisted-dying programme, officially known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
Her death was scheduled for the following Tuesday - expedited due to her having qualified for Canada's streamlined 'Track 1' pathway, reserved for individuals whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.
But Donna was not terminally ill, according to her daughters, who insist she was in the midst of a spiralling mental health crisis, triggered by a car accident and exacerbated by the isolation of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The retired psychiatric nurse was exhibiting peculiar behaviour: she was too paranoid to leave her own house, in case she was shot by a sniper, and was paying $6,000 to a 'medical' psychic, who was informing her about the heavy metals apparently lurking in her food.
Hellbent on preventing their mother's death, Alicia and Christie delayed the appointment by calling the police, and persuaded a judge to grant them a last-minute arrest warrant under the Mental Health Act, which would see Donna transferred to a psychiatric ward.
But once the cogs were set in motion, MAiD seemed inevitable: Donna was discharged from the ward without her daughters' knowledge, and died via lethal injection on the Friday.
The sisters didn't have time to say goodbye, and the next time they saw their mother was in the crematorium.
We don’t have to trade with China:
Foreign Minister Anita Anand in 2023 had experts with the Canadian Armed Forces train members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, newly-disclosed Access To Information records show. Internal records indicate staff tried to conceal the fact, but were warned to be truthful if asked: “We know we will be training and we have Minister approval to do so.”
**
Several Chinese state-backed investors are taking part in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit, another sign of warming relations with Beijing after years of Ottawa publicly spurning money from China.
(Sidebar: the Liberals have never kept China
at bay.)
The Prime Minister’s Office said Monday that, like everyone else, Chinese investors will be subject to federal rules governing foreign investment in this country.
Both China International Capital Corp. (CICC) and China Investment Corp. − China’s sovereign wealth fund − are attending Mr. Carney’s summit. CICC is roughly 40-per-cent owned by Central Huijin Investment, a subsidiary of China Investment Corp.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which manages investments for the territory’s Exchange Fund, is also a participant.
In a blog post Monday, Michael Kovrig, a geopolitical analyst and former diplomat, and researcher Patricia Xavier warned of the possible consequences of Chinese state-backed investment.
Mark Carney plans to thread the needle on trade with Asia, Europe through investment summit
“Money is a diplomatic tool: once investments materialize, as Canadian projects, provinces and unions feed on Chinese funding, expect growing domestic resistance to any future re-hardening of Canada’s China policy,” they wrote.
(Mr. Kovrig was arrested in China in December, 2018, along with fellow Canadian Michael Spavor, ostensibly in retaliation for the arrest in Vancouver of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. The two men were released on Sept. 24, 2021, after the U.S. reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Ms. Meng.)
Audrey Champoux, deputy director of communications in the PMO, when asked about potential Chinese state-backed investment, said investment screening rules would protect Canadian interests.
“We have existing laws in place to protect Canadian economic and national security assets, such as through the Investment Canada Act. The government will continue to apply that,” Ms. Champoux said Monday in an e-mailed statement.
Bull. Crap.
**
Canadian exports to China rocketed by 30 per cent in the first half of 2026, with overall trade up 3.6 per cent year over year, according to Statistics Canada data analyzed by researchers.
The numbers, part of a new report published by the Canada China Business Council and the University of Alberta's China Institute, appear to reflect the re-engagement between the two countries, which is part of Canada's attempt to diversify its economy amid deteriorating relations with the U.S.
Overall trade in goods between Canada and China totalled $66.6 billion in the first half of 2026, up 3.6 per cent, while exports increased 30 per cent to $21.74 billion year over year.
Energy and minerals dominated, making up 58.4 per cent of all domestic exports to China in that time period, with energy (largely crude oil and liquified propane) alone growing by 81.8 per cent. Metal ores and non-metallic mineral exports (including copper ore) rose 29 per cent.
"This is a record for our first half of the year exports to China," said Bijan Ahmadi, executive director of the Canada China Business Council.
While there has long been trade between the countries — even through the geopolitical tensions of the last few years — the recent jump is likely a result of a confluence of factors.
**
As the White House notes, “President Trump is taking decisive and appropriate action to respond to Canada’s additional retaliation and continued discriminatory treatment of crucial American exports.”
This means that as of September 29, Canadian beer, wine, spirits, whey, molasses, and heavyweight motorcycles will not merely be taxed at the American border. Under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, they will be banned.
This is the lawful and entirely predictable consequence of a choice Prime Minister Mark Carney made three weeks ago. It will end very badly, not for America but for the Canadian economy and people.
Roughly three-quarters of everything Canada sells abroad, it sells to the United States. A country in that position launching a tariff war against its largest customer is a rowboat opening fire on an aircraft carrier. The carrier will notice. The rowboat will sink.
And here’s Carney’s worst mistake: he and his Keystone Kops sidekick, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, are trying to outflank the U.S. by lying down with the mercantilist and predatory dog of Communist China.
**
At a moment when Canada is reassessing its economic sovereignty and Prime Minister Mark Carney is charting what he describes as a deeper strategic partnership with China, a long-running but poorly understood vulnerability is quietly advancing — one that cuts across the most sensitive fault lines in Canadian public life: Indigenous land rights, natural resource development, and Beijing’s patient, methodical campaign to secure the commodities it needs without ever having to negotiate with Ottawa.
(Sidebar: damn
UNDRIP …)
The strategy, as intelligence documents obtained exclusively by The Bureau reveal, is not new. It is simply becoming more consequential.
Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, in a Top Secret 2019 report obtained by The Bureau, found that Beijing was already targeting First Nations leaders through intelligence operations disguised as tourism. The goal, a People’s Republic of China Embassy official acknowledged in intercept reports reviewed by Canada’s intelligence watchdog, was never cultural exchange.
The tourism invitation extended to a national-level group of Aboriginal leaders, the report says, was merely “beipian” — Mandarin for “to be fooled.” The true purpose was to pursue Aboriginal-controlled natural resources. Chinese intelligence, the report notes, conducted research on each delegate before they arrived, seeking to identify their “potential usefulness.”
That is the covert face of Chinese resource strategy in Canada’s north.
But it has an overt companion, pursued through British Columbia Indigenous business councils, Canada’s most powerful pro-Beijing trade lobby, and quickly evolving legal frameworks.
China’s overt power play — which seeks to leverage not only direct access to resources on lands claimed by Indigenous groups, but to rhetorically counter Canada’s arguments against Beijing’s human rights abuses by citing Canada’s own historical abuses against First Nations, and to do so, in some cases, at the behest of Canadian First Nations leaders themselves — is no less significant than any activities uncovered by Canadian intelligence.
It is conducted in plain sight, in Canadian courts and political offices and public forums, and it is moving quickly.
For years, Indigenous organizations in British Columbia have openly articulated a desire for direct, state-level relationships with Chinese mining and resource interests — explicitly bypassing Ottawa. The First Nations Energy and Mining Council launched its “First Nations and China: Transforming Relationships” strategy in 2011, establishing trade desks in Vancouver and China and dispatching a ten-day trade mission to Beijing that same year. The Council was explicit: if the Canadian state was not adequately representing First Nations interests, First Nations would represent those interests themselves, including to Beijing.
In his study “Disrupting Canadian Sovereignty? The ‘First Nations & China’ Strategy Revisited,” York University professor Jean Michel Montsion examines “the ways BC First Nations are engaging with Chinese investors and opposing the Canadian state, notably through the First Nations & China strategy” — describing the Council’s role as “reproducing a third space of sovereignty to resist the hegemonologue of state sovereignty in contemporary Canada–China relations.”
It is, in Montsion’s framing, not merely an economic initiative but a structural challenge to Canadian diplomatic authority over its own territory.
The national security implications of that posture have not been lost on experts who have studied Beijing’s methods closely. In a prior interview with The Bureau on Canadian Security Intelligence Service findings regarding the covert targeting of Indigenous leaders, Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat, said “the idea of making friends with Aboriginal people for Chinese strategic purposes, would be part and parcel of their overall agenda to get access to the Canadian north and the natural resources that are there.”
**
In a statement, Chinese Ambassador to Canada Wang Di praised links with First Nations communities and expressed his hope that they would “lay an even more solid foundation for the China—Canada new strategic partnership.”
“The roundtable meeting discussed the future direction of China-Canada economic and trade cooperation, including cooperation on green transition, indigenous finance and community development,” read a summary by the embassy.
Also in attendance were former federal finance minister Bill Morneau and B.C. senator Yuen Pau Woo.
Summits between PRC officials and First Nations representatives have happened before. The Canada China Business Council, for one, has organized three all-Indigenous trade missions to Beijing, the most recent in 2024.
But the Sept. 3 roundtable is the Beijing-sanctioned event convened in the wake of a series of developments that have markedly increased Indigenous power, particularly in B.C.
Some people are special:
According to the report, this involves acknowledging the destructive effects of colonialism, celebrating the veracity of Aboriginal knowledge, and partnering with indigenous people in conducting research. Decolonizing Science also stresses the need for employee training and information about “reconciliation,” while omitting that implementing this concept always involves financial and other reparations for alleged past and present transgressions against indigenous peoples.
“How can we as public servants be actors in reconciliation?” asks the report.
It answers by asserting that “In the spirit of reconciliation, research practices must free themselves from the colonial legacy,” claims the 2025 report republished on September 4 for reading by all federal agencies.
“Ideally, the decolonization of research implies full Indigenous ownership of research,” the report claims.
What “full Indigenous ownership” means and whether this ownership should be monopolized by indigenous people goes unmentioned.
Instead, the report admits that “… it is still hard to fulfil this ideal. At the very least, the simplest expression of decolonization would represent research undertaken in partnership with Indigenous people.”
This undertaking must acknowledge the “devastating effects of colonialism” and “recognition of Indigenous knowledge,” the report also asserts.
Surely, one of these “devastating effects” has been the exposure of indigenous people to Western scientific knowledge and its technological and other achievements, phenomena indigenous people have eagerly embraced from first contact to the present, thereby making them willing agents of their own colonization.
As for any “partnership,” this would be impossible given that indigenous and scientific knowings are irreconcilable, as argued below.
The department, in a separate October 7 internal report, opined, “As a science-based department, Natural Resources Canada has made important efforts to transform the way it conducts science and research activities. With efforts often still developing in maturity, case studies highlight a deliberate shift toward recognizing and respecting Indigenous knowledge systems, data sovereignty and cultural identity.”
Though promoted for decades in Canada’s universities, the institutionalization of a radical indigenous assault on Western science, aided and abetted by the federal Liberal government, took a dramatic leap in July 2022 with the appointment of Myrle Ballard, an Anishinaabe woman from Lake St. Martin Indian Reserve, as first director of Environment and Climate Change Canada's (ECCC) new permanent division of Indigenous Science.
This attack was reinforced on September 18, 2023, when the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research (HCSCSR) adopted the following motion: “…the committee undertake a study of how best to integrate Indigenous Traditional Knowledge [ITK] and science into government policy development; how to resolve conflicts between the two knowledge systems.”
Terming the relation between both “knowledge systems” as “conflicts” that need resolution denies the elementary observation that the two systems are fundamentally incompatible because they are rooted in competing systems of knowing.
Not so said Ballard, who claims she is using a process called “bridging, braiding, and weaving” in trying to unite Western and “Indigenous Science.” For her, bridging means raising awareness about “Indigenous Science” within the government, while braiding is when Western scientists work together on research with indigenous peoples on the land. “The weaving process will be when the government, when the department ECCC, starts weaving Indigenous and Western science for better-informed decision-making,” she said.
In her November 6, 2023, HCSCSR testimony, Ballard argued that such “weaving” is possible because:
“Indigenous and Western science are both sciences … For example, when we develop traditional medicines, we have the traditionalists, the medicine-makers who take the medicines from the land. They know they have to take the plant or whatever it is they're using from as far away from human contamination as they can. They have recipes that they use as well. That's the same as in a lab. There are recipes that have to be tested. There's the colour and the consistency. That's the same as Western science.”
Then why not use Western science, Madame Lysenko?
**
The non-profit group hoping to operate the daycare and an advocate for not-for-profit daycares are now pleading with the province to open the East St. Paul facility, which has yet to care for a single child.
The 74-space daycare was built in 2024 on behalf of the Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust. It was one of 22 daycares built in Manitoba as part of a project started by the former Progressive Conservative government along with JohnQ Public, a company owned by 11 Manitoba municipalities.
The structure has been vacant since, even though the daycare operator waiting to use the building has 800 kids on its waiting list.
**
According to police reports, Darris Wilson’s Dodge Ram pickup truck was strewn with empty and partially consumed cans of beer when, in 2022, it slammed head-on into a vehicle carrying a mother and daughter en route to a sleepover.
Sierra Beverly, 12, was killed at the scene. Her mother, Naomi, suffered debilitating brain injuries for which she still requires 24-hour care.
The crash occurred at 4:24 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, and investigators would determine that Harris seems to have made no attempt to brake before slamming into the Mitsubishi sub-compact carrying the two Beverlys. He was also driving at about 90 km/h in a 50 km/h zone.
But in a sentencing decision released last week, Ontario Justice Gethin Edward predominantly focused on how Canada’s “colonial past” had turned Harris into a drunk driver.
Wilson, he ruled, was suffering from cultural “disconnection” as a result of colonization, which “crystallized into the tragic events of Feb. 11, 2022.”
Wilson was convicted of dangerous driving causing death and bodily harm, a crime which can carry a maximum jail term of 14 years.
Instead, as per a report in the Brantford Expositor, Edward handed down a sentence of two years of house arrest — and specifically cited the offenders’ Indigenous background as the reason for the light sentence.
Also:
A Haitian woman who disfigured a stranger in a Montreal-area biting attack has been given a reduced sentence by a Quebec judge on the grounds that a harsher prison term would endanger her “precarious immigration status.”
Just two days after Christmas in 2022, Macdala Monfiston spent eight minutes viciously attacking a woman outside a bar in Laval, Que., leaving the victim with bite marks all over her arms and face.
Court records described one of the facial wounds as being “several centimetres long, necessitating repeated treatments and leaving a prominent scar.”
Video of the assault obtained by The Journal de Montreal shows Monfiston pulling the victim’s hair, kicking her motionless form on the ground and straddling her body while biting at her face.
“When I tell people I was bit, they ask me what kind of animal, if it was by a pit bull. They can’t believe it’s a person who did this to me,” the victim told the paper in a French-language interview.
Although good Samaritans attempted to intervene, they were held back by Monfiston’s boyfriend.
After Monfiston pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in early 2025, a Court of Quebec judge sentenced her to four years in prison – the sentence already a fraction of the maximum 14-year sentence set for the crime under the Criminal Code.
But in a decision released this week, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that four years was too harsh, in part because it could possibly get her deported.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, anyone jailed for longer than two years is deemed guilty of “serious criminality,” and loses their appeal rights in the case of a removal order.
“The prison sentence has a much greater impact on the defendant than on other offenders who might have committed similar acts,” reads the French-language decision, rendered on Sept. 14 by appeals court judges Suzanne Gagné, Christine Baudouin and Geneviève Marcotte.
The three judges instead handed down a sentence of two years minus one day, thus shielding Monfiston from any loss of her immigration appeal rights.
It’s an established Canadian legal precedent that judges are required to consider the “collateral immigration consequences” of a criminal sentence.
If a criminal conviction risks getting a foreign national removed from the country, judges must weigh this as a form of punishment, and then reduce the offender’s actual punishment accordingly.
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