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Saturday, May 17, 2025

TMU panel on Middle East reporting slammed for anti-Israel bias

By
Dave Gordon
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Source: TMU

An international advocacy group has harsh words for Toronto Metropolitan University after the university hosted a panel on media coverage of the Hamas-Israel war that devolved into 90-minutes of unchecked anti-Israel smears.

Earlier this month, the Toronto school’s Centre for Free Expression held a webinar about the media’s coverage of the Hamas-Israel war dubbed “Can editorial standards be applied fairly in highly polarized situations? The case of Israel and Gaza.”

The panelists included Toronto Star race and gender columnist Shree Paradkar, YouTuber Samira Mohyeddin, TMU journalism professor emeritus Ivor Shapiro, and freelance journalist Sakeina Syed.

For Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, the webinar exemplified the “violation of basic journalistic standards,” that included the “numerous false accusations aimed at Israel, and twisted to exonerate the perpetrators of violence against Jews and Israelis.”

He said the panelists displayed “blatant anti-Israel biases” and “very little knowledge” ostensibly to sell a single viewpoint: “Palestinians are victims; Israelis, Jews and Zionists are evil.” In one example he cited Mohyeddin in her “snarling reference” to “the Zionist narrative,” and peddling the idea that “media platforms that divert from this line are traitors to the cause.”

NGO Monitor, founded in 2002, is a research institute that examines and reports on the activities of NGOs involved in delegitimization campaigns against Israel.

During the discussion, Syed expressed moral equivalence between Israel and terrorist groups and compared Israel’s operations to the blitz of London and dropping the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II, without pushback from the moderator or any other speakers.

Syed also claimed without evidence that editors tell newsrooms to not report on Palestinians as human beings. 

Meanwhile, Paradkar blamed the Western media for apparently convincing the world that Hamas were the terrorists, and Israelis were the ones defending themselves.

Mohyeddin said that Israel wants the world to believe hospitals are not hospitals, and schools aren’t schools, because Israel wants to bomb them all. Shapiro, moreover, denied the extensive evidence that Hamas systematically exploited hospitals for terror, including holding Israeli hostages. In fact, mosques, schools, UNRWA buildings, schools and hospitals are used cruelly and callously by Hamas and other terror organizations for civilian cover, Steinberg pointed out. 

Responding to True North about the question of balance or imbalance of the panel, James Turk, director for the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University explained that the participants’ views were not relevant to deciding who to speak on the panel.

“So this was a panel not about Gaza and Israel. It was a panel about the application of editorial standards by media in a highly polarized situation,” he said.

“So in our view, in choosing people, it wasn’t what position they had on Israel or Gaza, but rather it was their experience and knowledge about editorial standards and how they’re applied. Ivor Shapiro, who was one of the panelists, is arguably the leading academic expert on the application of editorial standards in the country.”

Shapiro talked about how he can’t understand the difference between Hamas attacking Israel, and Israel bombing terrorist spots in Gaza.

Shapiro, the only academic on the panel, offered what Steinberg referred to as an “unsubstantiated, unacademic and immoral comparison” of the war waged by Russia in Ukraine, the conflict in Sudan, to Israel in Gaza. At the same time he whitewashed “the Hamas mass atrocity, slaughter, and kidnapping of 250 Israeli hostages, and no one raised a red flag.”

Steinberg characterized it as agitprop cloaked as discussion, legitimized by the cover of a university-led event – a university which happens to be funded in part by taxpayers.

Mohyeddin maintained that the Hezbollah pager explosion was a “terrorist attack” by the Israel Defense Forces, even though the Israelis were targeting known Hezbollah operatives in a precise military strike.

“The pseudo-academic event advertised as a panel discussion on editorial standards and fairness highlights the ease with which both frameworks are diverted for divisive propaganda,” Steinberg said.

In his statement to True North, Turk implied that the focal point of the discussion was not on Middle Eastern issues – simply the reporting of them.

“It wasn’t a debate about Gaza or Israel. It was rather what media are doing and how they apply the standards. So, I mean, that’s basically what I have to say,” he said.

The webinar, Steinberg concluded, was “the antithesis of basic standards of fairness and accuracy in journalism.”

Steinberg referred to it as a “blatant exercise in partisanship and unfairness, and highlights the deep bias and lack of professional standards among many journalists and their media platforms, particularly in Canada.”

The absence of any panelist to expose the “many false accusations” he said “add to the atmosphere of violence and intimidation against Jews” and should require an independent investigation by university trustees.

ANALYSIS: The worsening spectre of academic fraud

By
Lynne Cohen
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Source: Wikimedia

Jonathan Pruitt saw spiders do remarkable things. The evolutionary ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario claimed that the “personalities” of African social spiders played a major role in the tasks they performed. Bold and aggressive spiders, for example, were more likely to be hunters and group leaders. Pruitt’s fascinating observations rocketed him to prominence and he accumulated a long list of academic publications; in 2018 was named a Canada 150 Research Chair, one of the youngest scholars to be given the honour.

By 2020, however, Pruitt’s co-authors were having doubts about the reliability of his data and methods. By 2022, 150 of his papers were under scrutiny and a year later he resigned from McMaster following an exhaustive investigation that found he’d repeatedly engaged in data “falsification and fabrication”. Today, perhaps fittingly, he is a fantasy novelist.

Pruitt’s case seems outrageous – but it’s by no means unique. Revelations of academic malfeasance and error seem to be everywhere these days. Last year Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s first black president, was forced to resign after she was found to have committed plagiarism. Canadian-born neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned as president of California’s Stanford University in 2023 after an investigation found “serious flaws” in his work on Alzheimer’s disease.

And the well-publicized transgressions of Pruitt, Gay and Tessier-Lavigne are just the tip of the iceberg. Many other cases at major institutions receive no media attention. In 2022, for example, Romina Mizrahi, currently a psychiatry professor at McGill University, was sanctioned for “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly falsifying data” in U.S. grant applications.

Universities have long cultivated reputations as places of wisdom and integrity where scholars track and expand society’s collective knowledge. Lately, however, it seems many scholars are too busy making stuff up to care much about wisdom or knowledge. What‘s going on inside the ivory towers?

Retraction Watch is a free website that tracks academic papers pulled from publication because of serious errors or fraud. Last year it counted 13,000 such retractions, a record high. According to co-founder Ivan Oransky, this steady stream of academic errors is a constant reminder that science is not flawless and scientists are not unimpeachable. “We’ve somehow been sold this bill of goods that just because a paper is peer-reviewed and published that it is somehow perfect,” he says. “That’s simply not the case. Science is done by human beings.”  

Oransky estimates a mere 10 percent of flawed or fraudulent papers are properly identified and retracted. The rest slip under the radar, suggesting academic bad behaviour is even more prevalent than it appears.

Working hard to expose scholarly malfeasance is a host of independent scientific investigators. Among the most accomplished of these sleuths is Elizabeth Bik. “What fuels me is anger at people who cheat,” Bik says in an interview with C2C Journal. “How can people be so dishonest?” Since 2014 Bik has analyzed more than 100,000 papers and found signs of dishonesty in 6,500 of them.

One of Bik’s specialties is tracking down and exposing “paper mills.” As she explains, “These are networks of individuals who create false or low-quality [academic] papers, and sell the authorships to students and researchers who need the papers for their careers … These fake papers cause all kinds of scandals.” The world’s biggest offender: China.

Among the many ambitions of the Communist Party of China’s leader Xi Jinping is to see his country respected around the world as a scientific superpower. To achieve this, his government has prioritized volume above all else in academic research, with poisonous results.

Last year the journal Research Ethics published a shocking exposé based on anonymous interviews with Chinese professors. “I had no choice but to commit misconduct,” admitted one scientist. Cheating was essential if he was to meet the impossible publication goals set for him; this included paying others to write papers for him, bribing officials for access to information and altering data to fit his research hypotheses.

Constant demands that Chinese scholars prioritize efficiency over integrity has caused the reliability of Chinese research to plummet. According to a survey by Nature, of 9,600 retractions from one publisher, 8,200 had a co-author in China.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that North American universities are immune to the pressures undermining China’s scientific research output. The same pernicious requirement that academic staff “publish or perish” is well established in Canadian and U.S. universities as well. As Bik recently observed on X, “In a ‘publish or perish’ culture, some scientists may resort to questionable research practices or even fraud.”

Given the apparent outbreak of academic malpractice, it is noteworthy that the most significant work being done currently to bring attention to the problem is coming from private efforts such as Retraction Watch and lone warriors such as Bik. There’s little evidence the academic world is collectively committed to going after the problem in any serious way.

Recall the case of McGill’s Mizrahi. In 2022 she admitted to manipulating data from her research into addictions to falsely improve the statistical relevance. A deception like this could send a corporate CEO to prison; yet the only substantial sanction Mizrahi faced was having her work supervised by a committee of her peers for one year.

Fearful of damaging their own reputations, universities are generally loathe to bring attention to evidence of academic malfeasance by their scholars or to harshly punish those caught. And rather than suffer the ignominy of being fired, most transgressors are allowed to resign or move to another institution.

This behaviour has serious consequences for the real world. Mizrahi’s actions may have set back actual progress in addiction research. The same goes for Tessier-Lavigne’s now-retracted work on Alzheimer’s. Every wrong step made by science, whether intentional or not, pushes the search for the truth farther down the road. It’s time to demand better from our institutions of higher learning.

Lynne Cohen is a non-practicing lawyer based in Ottawa. The original, longer version of this story first appeared in www.C2CJournal.ca

Fewer Canadians trust healthcare news reporting since last year: survey

By
Clayton DeMaine, True North Wire
-
Source: Facebook

A national polling institute and medical association found that Canadians’ trust in health news is declining.

According to a recent study, “2025 Health and Media Annual Tracking Survey” by Abacus Data and the Canadian Medical Association, fewer Canadians trust Canadian media’s reporting on health-related news than the previous year.

The survey asked 3,727 Canadians in both English and French between Nov. 12 to 19, 2024, their thoughts on “misinformation” and their level of trust in scientific papers and Canadian media organizations to report accurately on health news. 

The poll sample was statistically weighted from the most recent census data to represent Canada’s population. The study said a comparable probability sample of the same size reports a margin of error of no greater than 1.96% 19 times out of 20.

When asked how Canadians react to news stories on the safety of a new vaccine, only 12% reported that they fully trust the media. Nearly one-third, 31%, said they “generally believe” the media when it comes to vaccine safety, while 21% said they take that news “with a grain of salt.”

This marks a six-point drop in Canadians’ trust in the media on vaccine safety from the previous year. The decrease in Canadians’ perception of the media’s ability to report accurately on the safety of a new vaccine also marks the largest decline in trust among health news topics since 2024.

Another area where Canadians reported having less trust in the media was news reports about the health impacts caused by environmental factors such as pollution and water quality.

According to the study, over one in five Canadians, 22%, said they are skeptical about media reports on health and the environment. At the same time, 15% of Canadians reported fully trusting health news about environmental impacts. 

This marks a five-point decrease in trust in media reports on the impact of environmental factors on health compared to the 2024 report.

Only 11% said they always trust claims based on scientific studies, while 47% reported they usually trust them but like to consider other sources of information.

Nearly a tenth of Canadians reported being skeptical about scientific studies and prefer other forms of proof, while 3% said they don’t trust scientific evidence “at all.”

Despite an average decrease in trust of 4.86% among the various areas of health news report, there was a two-point increase in approval ratings for the quality of work that Canadian news organizations do in several places.

Less than half of respondents, 45%, said that Canada’s news organizations are doing well at covering all important healthcare stories. In terms of providing accurate information about health topics, 47% said they thought that overall the media was doing a good job.


Just over half of respondents said Canadian outlets do a good job at keeping the public informed during health crises and emergencies, with 54% giving their approval.

Quebecers were more likely than the rest of Canadians to say that the media was doing well at informing the public about health news.


Less than half of Quebecers said that news outlets do a good job of avoiding sensationalism or fear-mongering on health topics, with 46% approving. At the same time, only 36% of the rest of Canadians felt the same.

The survey showed a nine-point gap between Quebecers and the rest of Canadians who think news outlets do a good job of providing accurate information on health topics and covering all critical healthcare stories.

Quebecers and the rest of Canada were closer to agreement on media bias, however. Less than half of Quebecers and the rest of Canadians, 43% and 42% respectively, said that outlets were doing a good job presenting a balanced view without biases in their reporting.

The survey also marked an increase in the amount of people getting their news from most mainstream sources. However, it did not allow respondents to choose independent media as an option to choose from when asking Canadians what news they consume.

Off the Record | Does the U.S. need Canada?

By
Isaac Lamoureux
-
Source: Facebook

President Trump doubled down on his criticism of Canada this week, arguing that the U.S. doesn’t need Canadian oil, auto or lumber. He said if Canada becomes the 51st state, it wouldn’t face tariffs. Does the U.S. need Canada?

Plus, Pierre Poilievre weighed in on the gender debate and says there’s only two genders. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh wants Canada to provide refuge for trans individuals from the U.S.

And Steven Guilbeault has endorsed Mark Carney for Liberal leader and seems to be backing down on the carbon tax after years of defending the tax a the only viable climate plan.

These stories and more on Off the Record with Isaac Lamoureux, Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Rachel Parker!

Danielle Smith tops premiers in fiscal performance: study

By
Clayton DeMaine, True North Wire
-
Source: X

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith ranked the highest in a new provincial report card on fiscal management, while British Columbia Premiers David Eby and Newfoundland’s Andrew Furey ranked the lowest.

The Fraser Institute report graded each premier’s economic oversight in the fiscal year of 2023/ 2024 on their relative budgetary performance. The study measured the rankings based on government spending, taxes, debt and deficits from the start of their tenure to the end of that fiscal year.

It measured program spending by analyzing total provincial spending while subtracting the tax dollars used to pay interest on the government’s accumulated debt. 

To measure a province’s performance in keeping tax rates competitive, the authors of the study focused on both corporate income tax and personal taxes. The report looked at both the province’s general corporate income tax rate in that fiscal year and the average annual change in that tax rate during the premier’s tenure.

To measure fiscal management of personal tax rates, the Fraser Institute used eight measures, including marginal tax rates on individual income and the annual change of those rates during the premier’s tenure. The top marginal tax rate in effect during that year and the number of tax brackets in each province were also measured.

The two premiers who ranked the highest, New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs and Manitoba’s Heather Stefanson, are no longer sitting as premiers but were included due to their governments tabling the budgets for that year.

The data showed that Higgs had the best record among current and former premiers at managing his province’s finances, while Furey had the worst record after considering the three measures of fiscal performance.

Furrey ranked last in tax rates out of all the provinces and ninth out of 10 for deficits and debt, while his government spending levels were middle of the pack among provinces.

To judge relative deficit and debt spending performance, the report evaluates the premier’s use of deficit financing for government spending and whether they reduced their province’s debt burden. It looked at the average annual deficit or surplus as a percentage of GDP and the percentage change of this measure throughout each premier’s tenure.

However, Smith ranked number one among those still sitting and received an overall grade of 63.7 out of 100. Her government did the best in keeping personal and income taxes low, scoring an over 80 point grade for taxes while scoring 100 and ranking the best at managing her province’s deficits and debt.

“Premier Danielle Smith of Alberta ranks the best among current premiers primarily due to maintaining relatively low tax rates and running budget surpluses during her tenure,” Jake Fuss, the Director of Fiscal Studies at the Fraser Institute, told True North.

Despite ranking first among premiers overall due to her management of the debt and Alberta’s tax rates, Smith ranked the worst in terms of government spending in relation to the provinces’ GDP.

Eby ranked ninth among the ten premiers in fiscal management. According to the study, Eby scored the worst out of the premiers on his management of the province’s debts and deficits, scoring a 3.1 out of 100 mark. 

Despite this, Eby ranked first in his record on government spending and taxes, though Fuss explained that this is due to his brief stint as premier of the province compared to other premiers.

“While he scores well on government spending, this is an anomaly since there is only one year of data to evaluate him on and B.C.’s spending in subsequent years is expected to climb dramatically,” Fuss said. “Premier Eby scored last on deficits and debt due to the size of B.C.’s deficit and his record on debt accumulation.”

After Canada’s Atlantic provinces, Quebec Premier Francois Legault was ranked the next worst premier for the fiscal year 2023/ 2024. Though he scored middle of the pack in overall rankings, Quebec’s government spending ranked the second worst in the country.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was ranked the second highest overall for fiscal management though he ranked seventh for deficit and debt management and sixth in terms of his government’s management of tax rates.

According to Fuss, economic success and responsible fiscal management “go hand in hand.”

“To adopt prudent fiscal policy, governments must restrain spending, work intentionally to balance budgets, and avoid substantial tax burdens that harm economic activity,” he said. “These fiscal fundamentals lay the best foundation for an economy to grow and people to prosper.”

Taxpayers group challenges CRA over “illegal and undemocratic” capital gains tax hike

By
Isaac Lamoureux, True North Wire
-
Source: Flickr

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is taking the Canada Revenue Agency to court to stop the federal agency from enforcing a capital gains tax hike that has not gone through the proper legal processes.

“This tax grab violates the fundamental principle of no taxation without representation. That’s why we are asking the courts to put an immediate stop to this bureaucratic overreach,” said Canadian Taxpayers Federation Legal Counsel Devin Drover.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is representing Debbie Vorsteveld, an Ontario resident who sold a property last year that included a secondary home. Vorsteveld and her husband rented the property to their children and decided to sell it when they moved out. The CRA is allegedly forcing the Vorstevelds to pay higher capital gains under the tax change.

The capital gains tax change would raise the inclusion rate for capital gains tax from 50% to 66.7% on amounts exceeding $250,000. The Liberals estimate receiving an extra $19.4 billion in revenue from raising the tax.

“The CTF is seeking urgent relief from the Federal Court to block the CRA’s enforcement of the proposed tax increase. In its application, the CTF argues the tax increase violates the rule of law and is unconstitutional,” reads a press release issued by the federation. 

While a ways and means motion for the tax increase was passed last year, it was never introduced, debated, or passed as legislation in Parliament. 

Legal Counsel of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, Josh Dehaas, told True North that tax hikes must be debated and voted on by the people’s representatives in Parliament before it can be legally implemented.

“Hiking taxes without parliamentary approval violates the principle of responsible government,” said Dehaas.

He said it’s a longstanding tradition for the CRA to enforce tax measures from the day a ways and means motion passes, which for the capital gains tax hike occurred on June 11. He explained that this is normally a nonissue because the bill received royal assent by the time the CRA starts charging interest to those who don’t comply.

“However, that doesn’t mean it was ever constitutional for the CRA to have had this policy. The ‘ways and means’ motion is a signal of what the executive wants to do, but under our constitution, the hike doesn’t exist until Parliament has voted to pass the bill, and the bill has gained royal assent,” said Dehaas.

Legal Counsel for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Devin Drover, told True North that the constitution supports their legal challenge.

“The CRA is planning to enforce a capital gains tax hike when the legislation required to impose the hike – including an amendment to the Income Tax Act – was never authorized by Parliament,” said Drover. “Thus, unelected bureaucrats at the CRA are pushing a tax change on Canadians without legislative approval, which is illegal and unconstitutional.”

Drover said that the CTF has filed for an expedited hearing and is seeking for the enforcement of the tax hike to be halted immediately. He said Canadians cannot afford to wait months for this to be decided, especially considering the deadline to file their taxes by Apr. 30, 2025. The federation has requested an urgent hearing from the court.

“This is truly a unique circumstance as the CRA has never acted so brazen to ignore our country’s constitutional order before. So we are looking forward to the Federal Court hearing this issue and setting a precedent on the importance of there being no taxation imposed on Canadian taxpayers without approval by the elected representatives,” said Drover.

He added that the “illegal and undemocratic” tax hike will decimate Canada’s economy.

A previous report highlighted that the capital gains tax hike could cost nearly $90 billion in lost GDP and over 400,000 jobs. Another study said it would drive down competition and chase away investment. 

“No taxation without representation is not just a slogan. It’s a core principle of Canada’s constitutional architecture that can not be ignored by unelected bureaucrats or the Trudeau government,” said Drover.

Supreme Court of Canada will hear court challenge to Quebec Secularism bill, Bill 21

By
Clayton DeMaine, True North Wire
-
Source: Facebook

The Supreme Court of Canada will hear a contentious court challenge to Quebec’s ban on religious symbols.

Quebec’s controversial Bill 21 invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause when it was first passed in 2019, but that hasn’t stopped numerous challenges and appeals, which have finally made their way to the country’s top court.

The Supreme Court of Canada announced its decision to grant the English Montreal School Board and various civil liberties and community groups leave to appeal a lower court decision that upheld the Quebec government’s “secularism” bill.

The bill declared Quebec a secular state and banned government employees from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs, turbans, or crosses to work. It was first passed in 2019 in the National Assembly of Quebec and later defended from litigation using the notwithstanding clause. 

The “notwithstanding clause” is a part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows legislatures to override some Charter protections. Use of the notwithstanding clause lasts only five years but was renewed last year to uphold the ban.

The law has faced legal challenges since it was enacted in 2019; in February 2024, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the law, maintaining the religious symbol ban for public sector workers in the province.

The Supreme Court’s decision did not establish a date for the hearing.

The decision grants six separate applications for leave to appeal, including from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the World Sikh Organization of Canada, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, and those allegedly affected by the law. There are a total of 25 interveners involved.

“We are ready to vigorously defend the rights and freedoms of everyone who has been harmed and impacted by Bill 21 since this discriminatory law came into force,” Harini Sivalingam, the director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s equality program, said on Parliament Hill Thursday.

“Allowing Bill 21 to continue to harm religious minorities is a setback for equality, justice and freedom in Canada,” she said. “The Quebec Court of Appeal decision cannot be the final word, and we are glad that the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with us on this.”

Quebec Premier Francois Legault said his government will “fight to the end to defend” Quebec’s values and identity.

Quebec’s Attorney General Simon Jolin-Barrette and national assembly member Jean-Francois Roberge echoed the point in a joint statement shared on X.

“The Government of Quebec will use the parliamentary sovereignty provision as long as necessary to defend our societal choices,” the letter said. “We also call on other federated states to defend this position. It is a matter of our autonomy—an autonomy that is at the very foundation of the federal pact.”

Though Trudeau’s government often stayed out of Quebec politics in a bid to keep Quebec in confederation, Trudeau’s government became a vocal advocate against the bill. It pledged to challenge Quebec’s decision to use the notwithstanding clause to kill the religious symbol ban.

Roberge and Jolin-Barrette said an intervention from the federal government in the Supreme Court would “not only be disrespectful but could only be considered as an attack on the autonomy of the federated states.”

Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said he didn’t mind that the case goes to the Supreme Court but that using Quebec taxpayer’s dollars against the “duly adopted” law in Quebec was unacceptable.

“Liberals, Conservatives and the NDP who pretend to like Quebec, let’s doubt it, want to use my money against me and against my will, which is not to be accepted,” Blanchet said on Parliament Hill. “The notwithstanding clause is a legitimate clause of their constitution. One of the meanings of this appeal is to challenge the Canadian Constitution in the Supreme Court. That’s quite something.”

The Montreal English school board welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to hear its case, saying the law prohibits its school staff from wearing religious symbols and also limits the “career advancement” of its employees.“

We value the diversity of our students and staff and respect their personal and religious rights which are guaranteed both by the Canadian and Quebec Charter of Rights,” said board chair Giuseppe Ortona in a statement. “This legislation runs contrary to what we teach with regard to respect for individual rights and religious freedoms.”

The Candice Malcolm Show | Trump and Milei Humiliate the WEF and are the Federal Liberals making a comeback? (with pollster Hamish Marshall)

By
Candice Malcolm
-
Source: World Economic Forum

Happy Friday! Today on the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice discusses the biggest news stories in Canada, including the latest from Davos, WEF elite being stunned by Trump and Argentinian PM Javier Milei’s defiant speeches, and the latest in the Liberal leadership race.

Candice is joined by analyst and pollster Hamish Marshall of ONE Persuades. They talk about a new poll showing the Liberals jump 30% in just a few days, painting the picture of a potentially competitive election.

Are the Liberals making a comeback? Will it be a close election?

Hamish says the Liberals are making some gains, but that Conservatives still hold a strong lead. He does, however, suggest a terrifying scenario of a Liberal-NDP coalition that delays the next federal election until 2026.

The Daily Brief | Trump says the U.S. doesn’t need Canada

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-
Source: Facebook

U.S. President Donald Trump used his World Economic Forum special address to say that his administration could do without Canadian energy or imports from its auto and lumber sectors.

Plus, Chrystia Freeland has reversed her support for both the capital gains tax increase and the carbon tax now that she’s running to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

And a former school trustee is appealing an Alberta court ruling that upheld her expulsion from the Red Deer Catholic school board over a controversial meme.

Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Isaac Lamoureux!

Smith no longer lone wolf on provincial response to tariffs as Quebec, Saskatchewan shift

By
Quinn Patrick, True North Wire
-
Source: Facebook

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s response to U.S. tariffs has started to gain traction with several other premiers, following her highly criticized decision to refrain from signing a joint statement to take a ‘Team Canada” approach regarding retaliatory measures. 

After being the only premier of 13 to refuse to sign a joint statement on Canada-U.S. relations, it now appears she has some support from premiers Scott Moe and François Legault.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose 25% tariffs as early as Feb. 1 on Canadian imports has many worried about the devastating impacts it could have domestically. 

While Ottawa’s response has been to threaten “robust” retaliatory measures, potentially even cutting off energy exports to the U.S., Smith stood alone in urging for a more cautionary approach. 

Being the only premier to have personally met with Trump ahead of his inauguration, Smith was vocal about her refusal to act in a tit-for-tat manner until the Trump administration had fully implemented its plans.

Instead, she vowed to return to Washington as needed for ongoing negotiations, alleging that her attitude would better “strengthen and grow the trading relationship between our two great and independent nations.

Her sentiment was echoed by Quebec Premier François Legault who, this week, said any retaliatory action involving energy exports south of the border should first require the approval of provinces and those most affected.

“Regarding energy, I think it is important that if it affects a province, that this province has to give its consent first,” said Legault during a caucus retreat in St-Sauveur, Que.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has also since expressed his desire for a similar approach to the issue.

“Saskatchewan is most certainly not supportive of export tariffs, and will be working actively to ensure that an export tariff couldn’t be applied on Saskatchewan products,” Moe told reporters in Regina on Wednesday.

“If you’re going to put a tariff on oil and potash, Saskatchewan is going to have an issue with that.”

Both premiers agreed in their opposition to placing a dollar-for-dollar tariff on the U.S., contrasting the position of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. 

However, Moe did confirm his support for “small, targeted tariffs” akin to those implemented by Canada during Trump’s first presidency when Ottawa levied tariffs on U.S. aluminum and steel in 2018.

“They’re very targeted… a couple million dollars on a couple billion dollars of imports from the U.S.,” said Moe. “They’re not there to have an impact on the (U.S.) economy, they’re there to change the… hearts and minds of specific policy decision-makers.”

Former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall shared his support for Smith being the sole premier to hold out from the premiers’ joint statement with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“The rest of the country should be grateful for her leadership,” wrote Wall in a social media post. “So far she is the one  highlighting for US friends that when you remove discounted Canadian oil which the US benefits from because they add value to it there  – it is the US that has the trade surplus with Canada.  She is also meeting with State Governors  to find allies – as we tried to do in 2016.”

Wall served as the premier of Saskatchewan from 2007 to 2018 before resigning.

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