Are you like me? Do you resist reading the morning news because there only seems to be “bad news”?
I remember a time not so long ago when Leah and I felt it our civic duty to be informed. While enjoying our morning coffee, we would spread our newspapers out on our kitchen counter and pore over the headlines, picking out what we believed to be the must-read stories of the day. We would proceed to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly.
On Nov. 6, 2024, Canada ordered TikTok’s local offices expelled but left its influence engine untouched. The result? Fewer Canadian jobs, no new oversight, and continued foreign control over our digital public square. It makes about as much sense as banning foreign diplomats while allowing their propaganda broadcasts to continue uninterrupted.
Canada’s shutdown order, issued after a national security review, eliminates TikTok’s 350 Canadian employees and halts cultural sponsorships worth millions. Yet the algorithm that shapes what Canadians see, share, and believe remains entirely in Chinese hands. We have managed to achieve the worst of both worlds: less accountability with zero additional protection.
OTTAWA / LOS ANGELES — In this discussion with Chris Meyer of Widefountain, we dig deeper into my findings on an explosive narcotics precursor case quietly dropped by Canadian prosecutors—and what it reveals about Canada’s growing vulnerabilities to foreign infiltration.
We unpack the story of a Chinese chemist, known here as Dr. X, who was charged with importing more than 100 kilograms of PMK ethyl glycidate—a key chemical used in the production of MDMA (ecstasy). Court records show Dr. X had direct ties to a bio-pharmaceutical firm affiliated with the University of British Columbia, and was reportedly recruited under Beijing’s “Thousand Talents Plan”—a program U.S. intelligence agencies warn is used to facilitate espionage and the transfer of dual-use technologies.
OTTAWA — Taiwan’s ambassador to Canada has dismissed a series of full-page newspaper ads taken out by the Chinese Embassy as little more than sabre-rattling over the communist regime’s claims over the east-Asian nation.
We are approaching the end game of the current round of negotiations between Canada and the U.S. on a new comprehensive trade deal.
The outcome of the talks is still very much uncertain. While it appeared early on as if progress was being made, President Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that several major obstacles remain. Favourite targets of his have been our banking rules and regulations and our protectionist digital and cultural sectors (in addition to non-trade irritants like our border policies).
Fifteen per cent seems to be the new magic number being bandied about for a U.S. tariff rate after Japan and the Americans announced a trade deal, with the European Union now signed up too and South Korea apparently headed in the same direction.
… If 15 per cent is the “new normal” as Stretch wondered, what does that mean for Canada?
In supporting the concept of a pipeline corridor across Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney shifted from his predecessor’s approach to oil and gas exports. Carney so far has shown signs of recognizing that if Canada could expand oil and gas exports into overseas markets, the nation wouldn’t be as vulnerable to tariffs and other trade clashes with the United States.
In 2023, 97 percent of Canada’s crude oil exports went to the United States, as did nearly 100 percent of the natural gas exports. Meanwhile, Canada purchased nearly $20 billion worth of foreign crude oil, most of which came from the United States.
Maybe not so much Carney enthusiasm …
Requiring First Nations approval of nation-building projects will allow Mark Carney to talk like he supports building pipelines but blame treaties for not starting them. Liberals are gonna liberal, no matter who the PM is. pic.twitter.com/ER5xxYZaAQ
— Tokyo Rosie (@RosieRocks29) July 26, 2025
Canada’s Soviet-style supply management system on dairy, poultry and eggs has been screwing citizens for decades with higher food prices, obliterated family farms and disrupted international trade deals. The dairy cartels are deeply entrenched in Canada and have effectively cowed every federal political party (so to speak,) including the Conservatives. No major federal leader will dare question supply management for fear of upsetting Quebec which benefits from the program. The standoff on this terrible policy robs Canadians of billions.
Mark Carney has been prime minister of Canada since March. He’s been called many things by many people in this short time period. It never came to mind that he would be described as a “progressive conservative” along the lines of Brian Mulroney.
This, in a nutshell, is the nonsense that the Globe and Mail’s editorial board is currently peddling.
I’m not a fan of either.
Federal officials pushed to approve Islamic-compliant home loans despite repeated internal warnings that the proposal was unworkable, according to newly released Access To Information records.
Blacklock’s Reporter says emails reveal the Department of Finance wanted to move “extremely fast” on Sharia-compliant mortgages in the months leading up to the April 28 election, despite concerns from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) that the financial structure conflicted with tax laws, liability rules, and existing mortgage insurance policies.
The country is a NATO ally and G7 member. While the U.S.-U.K. relationship is often touted as Washington’s most “special,” the Canadian relationship is arguably the most critical to the future of the U.S. economy and soft power. The projection of U.S. hard power abroad depends in part on positive global public perception of Washington’s leadership. This stems from the United States being a beacon of freedom and arsenal of democracy in World War I, World War II, crises across the Taiwan Strait, the Korean war, and others. If after all of that, we now treat Canada with a lack of foresight for short-term trade interests, we lose at least some of our moral high ground, which negatively affects our soft power, and as well our long-term national interests.
Donald J. Savoie has spent decades studying the inner workings of Canada’s federal bureaucracy. He’s watched Ottawa grow more centralized and more crowded with what he calls “poets,” policy thinkers and advisers, while the “plumbers,” the front-line workers delivering services to Canadians, have not been prioritized. In an interview with National Post about the concept, as discussed in his recent book Speaking Truth to Canadians About Their Public Service, Savoie explains why that imbalance matters. Savoie is Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at Université de Moncton.
The civil service convinced themselves they were the ruling class.
The Canadian government released a statement Saturday condemning Hong Kong authorities who issued worldwide arrest warrants for pro-democracy activists — including some Canadians.
Hong Kong police announced rewards on Friday for information leading to the arrest of 19 overseas-based activists for their roles in what they called a subversive organization abroad, accusing them of violating a national security law imposed by Beijing.
We should send an angry note!
TORONTO — In 2024, the grand prize at the Canadian Whisky Awards went to Paradigm Spirits. Its entrant, made with Canadian corn, aged for 19 years in American oak barrels and blended with a splash of Spanish sherry, beat some 200 competitors to be crowned Whisky of the Year. A judge called it “remarkable.”
It was a break for Paradigm, which had opened in an old Kellogg’s factory in London, Ontario, just a few years earlier. The women-owned-and-operated distillery was soon inundated with messages from Canadians across the country eager to buy the award-winning spirit, co-founder Irma Joeveer said.
But there was a problem: Canada’s internal trade barriers. With few exceptions, alcohol producers in one Canadian province are prohibited from selling directly to consumers in another. Vintners in British Columbia, for instance, can often more easily sell their merlots to oenophiles in other countries than within their own.
One thing about Trump – you can never call him all bad.
OTTAWA—One candidate is a 22-year-old university student living four hours north of Toronto.
Another is a Montreal-area teacher and tour guide with a fondness for dinosaurs.
A third lives in Nebraska, working in IT.
