Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week clarity of thought ...

Alberta has voted to remain under the Laurentian lash.

They must be dreaming if they think that Ottawa will let them determine things like immigration:

More than half the Albertans who voted in Monday’s referendum want more control over immigration to the province and to limit new immigrants’ access to social services.

While the star of the historic vote was the question on whether Albertans wanted a referendum to leave Canada  — more than three-quarters of those who voted nixed that option — nine other questions on the ballots delved into whether Alberta should wrest power away from Ottawa.

Albertans seem to want a say in how many newcomers they accept and appear willing to crack open the Constitution to abolish the Senate and choose their own judges.

Official results, with 86 per cent of the votes counted, show more than 840,000 Albertans voted yes when asked if they support the government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration “for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities.” Just over 700,000 voted no on this question.

When asked if they support the government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that “only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status” will be eligible for health care, education and other social services, more than 736,000 voted yes, and over 592,000 voted no.

Ottawa will consider the vote results in the nine questions, “and look where we can find solutions together,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Tuesday morning in Ottawa.

Carney is a petty, small man.

He will never allow Alberta that indulgence.

Indeed, he will make an example out of Alberta in no time.

No one can unseat him or his ticket on the gravy train.

Oh, will you look at that!:

Canadians are being sold “associate membership” in the European Union without being told what it means or what Ottawa has already offered Brussels in the backrooms. A recent Nanos poll found significant support for the idea among Canadians. Were respondents shown the leaked document Ottawa drafted for discussions with Brussels, given a clear definition of associate membership, or reminded that Canada already has comprehensive trade and defence agreements with the EU? No. 

While Mark Carney tells Canadians and Albertans that Confederation rests on sovereignty, consultation, and strong provincial partners, the document his government sent to Brussels in September tells a different story: Ottawa is prepared to bargain away pieces of that sovereignty without consulting the people and provinces that hold it. Albertans who still believe the federation will protect their resources, their industries, and their constitutional powers may not have much time left to decide whether staying is worth the risk of closer EU alignment.

The nine-page draft covers digital technology, critical resources, financial services, people-to-people ties, security, and trade and regulatory cooperation. Most concerning are regulatory cooperation and alignment. 

Paragraph 6 says Canada and the EU “will align strategies and standards” and focus on “low-carbon, reliable energy” from LNG to hydro, solar, wind, and nuclear, plus critical minerals, semiconductors, vaccines, and space-based communications. Oil is absent. 

Paragraph 10 keeps the 2023 Green Alliance as the compass and names carbon pricing and industrial decarbonization as central to 2050 goals. 

Paragraphs 13 and 16 promise regular summits, early consultation on major regulatory initiatives, and associated-country status under a restrictive EU digital law. 

Paragraph 18 proposes an LNG export feasibility study based on the “environmental sustainability of long-term off-take agreements.” 

Paragraph 19 discusses exporting Canadian critical minerals to Europe. Paragraph 21 proposes “financial market integration,” which would likely mean adopting European climate-related financial rules. 

Paragraph 29 calls for improved regulatory cooperation. None mentions provincial consent.

Regulatory and standards alignment means Canada will be expected to adopt or match European rules that don’t currently apply here. Climate rules would set emission pathways and carbon emissions-pricing expectations Brussels can recognize. Disclosure rules would require companies to report emissions and supply chain risks in European formats. Finance rules, including the EU taxonomy, would steer capital toward activities Brussels classifies as green and away from those it does not. Methane rules would impose measurement and intensity limits matching European import standards. Due diligence and ESG rules would require companies to police suppliers, with liability reaching back to Canadian operations. These are compliance systems with auditors, lawyers, and constant reporting. They raise costs before a barrel or tonne is sold. How would Canadian companies compete with American or Asian firms that don’t face those costs?

For energy, alignment would mean methane and carbon-intensity tests written for European importers, an industrial carbon price Brussels would credit under its carbon border adjustment mechanism, and European biodiversity and climate screens layered onto Canadian assessments. Is it any surprise that oil receives no mention among the favoured sources? 

Even Europe is buckling under the regulatory morass. Eurochambres says cumulative regulation is suppressing growth. Thirteen EU countries have called for a “Year of Simplification.” Yet Mark Carney is offering to align with standards their authors are trying to loosen? That should set alarm bells ringing.

These costs would leave Canadian companies, at best, competitive with European firms already carrying the same burdens, but priced out of the North American market where American producers face neither the EU rulebook nor a matching Canadian version. The proposal risks turning Canada into a regulatory island inside North America, cut off from the huge market next door.

There is no public record that premiers saw this text before it went to European officials. The resources, mines, electricity systems, and farms it would subject to aligned standards fall under provincial jurisdiction through Section 92A of the Constitution. Giving precedence to the EU rulebook would undermine that jurisdiction and effectively return Canada to colony status. Carney says Parliament will vote on the summit outcome, but a Liberal majority makes that just political theatre. This is how sovereignty is eroded: negotiated in backrooms, then presented as “Canada strong.”

Provincial jurisdiction over energy and resources is not a favour from Ottawa. It’s a constitutional right and part of the bargain that makes Confederation possible. Canada already has comprehensive trade and defence cooperation with Europe. We don’t need this. What Ottawa is proposing would diminish Canadian and provincial sovereignty. As Albertans head to the polls to vote on independence, they should think carefully about whether Ottawa has their interests at heart and whether remaining is worth the risk.

Also - speaking of small and petty:

In January 2025, Justin Trudeau’s government was in freefall. The Liberals trailed by more than 20 points, his finance minister had resigned, and his own MPs were calling for him to go. On Jan. 6, Trudeau announced he would step down. But he stayed on as prime minister and prorogued Parliament until March, preventing a confidence vote.

Two weeks later, on Jan. 20 and 21, Trudeau gathered his cabinet behind closed doors at the Fairmont Le Château Montebello to discuss Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The location was not publicized, but we tracked it down.

Alongside my producer Guillaume Roy, we arrived before sunrise. The Rebel News billboard truck joined us, carrying a “Hands Off Alberta” message. After speaking with security at the gate, we were allowed onto the property, where we then waited hours in the cold for the prime minister.

When Trudeau arrived, we attempted to question him — only to be physically stopped by Terry Guillon, Lead of Media Advance in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Shortly after we left the resort, two Sûreté du Québec (Quebec provincial police) cruisers were parked beside our truck. Seconds after pulling onto the road, we were stopped. Officers asked Guillaume, the driver, for identification. When I declined to identify myself, Officer Marquis said I was not wearing my seatbelt. But the microphone and multiple cameras were still recording.

The stop resulted in two tickets, totalling close to $1,000 and three demerit points.

Rebel News contested those charges. On Sept. 4, at the municipal court of the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais, Officer Marquis and Sgt. Latulippe arrived, spoke with the prosecutor for about 10 to 15 minutes, and the Crown then dropped all charges.

If we were really breaking the law, then why did the case collapse the moment our footage was on the table?

Film everything and live-stream it.

If this was Canada, he would be home by now:

Ontario man Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 28, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after stabbing two prison guards at U.S. Penitentiary Allenwood in Pennsylvania, an attack that led to one of them losing his eye.

The sentence for El Bahnasawy will run consecutively with the 40-year sentence he is already serving for his part in plotting a mass-casualty terrorist attack in New York City on behalf of ISIS.

Looting, setting people and places on fire and threatening people is all a part of a cause, apparently:

Over the weekend, the supposed campaign by France’s youth for better classroom conditions took a detour through Marseille’s Louis Vuitton. Looters armed with hammers and crowbars also cleaned out Hermes and Rolex. According to one estimate, just under half the stores in the city centre were looted by a crowd police say reached 30,000. The bookstores, as far as anyone can tell, were spared.

The looters, who ransacked some 1,500 stores across France, seemed to view their work as a kind of redistributive justice. One Parisian store was graffitied: “This is for the high school students.” It did not specify which high school. One wonders if the Lycee Nelson Mandela in Nantes, a delightful newbuild completed in 2014 and set alight earlier this month, was among those the looters felt they were championing. Indeed, there appears to be little correlation between the schools being torched and those which are underfunded. And the looters are yet to put forward an argument for the educational benefits of a Louis Vuitton handbag.

What began in earnest one month ago as a campaign around classroom sizes and staff shortages has hardened into wanton criminality. The scars left on French cities in recent weeks leave little doubt: torched cars and buildings, more than a thousand injured police officers, dozens of teachers assaulted, and several hundred million euros in damage.

Yet it is clear that many of those still marching, to borrow a line from Chaucer, know little of the things for which they pray. One woman, reportedly a left-wing protester, was filmed imploring her erstwhile comrades to stop looting a store. “This isn’t the cause,” she screamed at a group of balaclava-clad, predominantly migrant-descended French youths. She was ignored, and eventually pushed aside, by young men who evidently felt otherwise.