OTTAWA – Canada and the U.S. are “not even close” to a deal to alleviate existing tariffs and the Carney government is now focused on salvaging negotiations with an agreement solely to prevent sweeping new American border levies as of next week.

Three senior federal or provincial government sources told National Post that despite frequent meetings between the Canadian and American negotiating teams and the Damocles’ Sword of new sweeping U.S. tariffs in days, both teams are “very far apart” on a deal.

Now, the sources say, the Canadian side is refocusing its efforts to find an “interim” deal to prevent sweeping new tariffs on Aug. 19.

If that’s not possible, the Carney government is considering ways to financially support industries most harshly impacted by the new targeted tariffs.

To date, the negotiations for the federal government have largely two-pronged: alleviate Section 232 tariffs on Canadian autos, lumber, steel and aluminum that range from 10 per cent to 50 per cent, and prevent nearly $30-billion-worth of new tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods on Aug. 19.

But two sources, who were granted anonymity to discuss details of the private negotiations publicly, said the Canadian team is now focusing on preventing the imminent tariffs. One source said the Americans made it clear that this time, there would be no delaying their entry into force beyond the 19th.

One industry source said a relief package for industries impacted by Section 338 tariffs is in progress and the government is also considering further financial support for industries impacted by Section 232 tariffs. The source said the financial support will vary in size, depending on the industry.

In the last three weeks, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief Trade Negotiator Janice Charette have met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer four times over the last several weeks, sparking hope that the Americans were genuinely interested in striking a new trade deal.

But their tone was far from optimistic on a series of briefing calls Friday with provincial premiers and the federal government’s Advisory Committee on Canada-U.S. Economic Relations, two sources said.

Despite the slow progress, discussions are “sustained and comprehensive”, one senior source told National Post’s John Ivison .

On Friday morning, Greer said the U.S. will not tolerate retaliation from Canada but is hopeful Canadians may take a more conciliatory approach.

“If a country retaliates against us, we’re obviously not going to tolerate that,” said Greer, during a press conference in Des Moine, Iowa, on Friday. “We’ll take action. My sense is the Canadians, they want to have a more conciliatory approach, but we’ll see.”

Currently there are 50 per cent tariffs on primary steel, aluminum and copper products, 25 per cent tariffs on autos, and 10 per cent tariffs on softwood lumber.

Trade talks have ramped up between the two sides in recent weeks after Trump threatened to impose a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian goods effective Aug. 19, using powers under Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has not ruled out retaliation, should the U.S. follow through on the new tariffs.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said Canada made it clear last week to the U.S. that should the new tariffs go through, it would be difficult to make any trade deal due to domestic pressures.

Greer told reporters on Friday that the issues related to U.S. alcohol boycotts, quotas for the U.S. under Canada’s dairy supply management system and procurement rules must “be resolved” for Canada to avoid Section 338 tariffs.

One source familiar with talks said a proposal is expected to be presented to Trump on Monday.

Greer told CBC News on Thursday that “options” will be presented to both Carney and Trump.

Carney is on vacation in Italy until Aug. 17, but the prime minister’s office said he has remained in contact with officials regarding the trade talks.

National Post

• Former trade minister urges Canada to seek ‘grand bargain’ with Trump, not narrow CUSMA deal
• Negotiators are going all-out to get a deal before Trump's looming tariff deadline

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A new study claims that the Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Human Rights Museum “falls short of the facts,” arguing that the displacement of Palestinian people was the result of a complex conflict that forced hundreds of thousands of Jews and Arabs alike from their homes.

In a report co-written by David Bercuson and Logan Jaspers for the Calgary-based Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, the authors lay out a detailed history of the causes and effects of the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, which triggered a massive refugee crisis whose effects continue to define the region.

The study comes after the Winnipeg-based museum, which is majority funded by the federal government, has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for its exhibit about the displacement of Palestinian people. The “Nakba” — Arabic for “catastrophe” — describes the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinian people following the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.

Critics have said that the exhibit focuses too centrally on the plight of Palestinian refugees, while glossing over or failing to describe the similar experiences of Jewish peoples, who were also displaced during the conflict.

“The popular view of the Nakba presented by the Canadian Human Rights Museum falls short of the facts regarding events in Palestine following the U.N. partition vote of 1947,” the authors of the Aristotle study write in their opening remarks.

The pair argue that Palestinian displacement was partly the result of “weak leadership and military unpreparedness” of the Arab nations who were at war with the newly founded nation of Israel, among a long list of other factors. The authors also point out that Israeli refugees who fled conflict in the 1940s were welcomed in Israel and eventually assimilated, while Arab refugees were treated as “symbols of the heartlessness and murderous intent of the Jews.”

That in turn created a lasting divergence between the experience of the two groups, the authors argue. In the years following the 1948 war, the authors said by way of example, Iraq began placing “restrictions on Jewish life, commerce [and] religious practice,” causing many Jews to seek refuge in Israel.

“Jewish presence was virtually extinguished in just a few years,” the report said. “Those who fled to Israel were eventually absorbed, given Israeli citizenship, and began to play important parts in Israeli life. There was neither desire nor expectation that they would return to Iraq, unlike the desires and expectations of the Palestine Arab refugees in 1948.”

In the years following the outbreak of war, more than 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes and sought refuge in various Arab nations. Some historians say that many fled in response to violence against Arab civilians, most notably the alleged massacre of Palestinian people in the village of Deir Yassin, when Jewish paramilitary forces were alleged to have killed around 100 villagers (some accounts claimed that Jewish forces had thrown bodies down the village’s wells).

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights launched the exhibit, called “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present,” in June. Assembled around a short, 12-metre stretch of the sprawling seven-level museum, the exhibit uses photos, video testimonies, artworks and family heirlooms to describe the plight of Palestinian refugees, both in the 1940s and carrying forward to today.
While it is relatively small, the exhibit has caused an uproar from critics — many in the Jewish community — who argue that it omits key facts and context about the displacement.

For one, some have pointed out that a nearly equal number of Jews (around 800,000) have also been displaced from ongoing conflict in the region. Others point to the exhibit’s description of the Oct. 7 attacks, saying it fails to describe the victims as mostly Jewish people who Hamas targeted explicitly for their Jewishness (the exhibit describes the victims generally as “people.”)

Criticism of the exhibit, as well as public support for it, have been unusually public. Former CMHR board member Mark Berlin stepped down from his role earlier this year, citing what he called the exhibit’s omission of certain facts as the reason for his departure. Gail Asper, one of the chief philanthropists behind the CMHR, has said she is temporarily pulling funding. Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller said it had “errors” that “must be rectified.”

Meanwhile, a coalition of 74 civil society groups has called on Miller to retract his statements, saying they amounted to political interference in the museum’s operations.

In an interview with National Post last month, CMHR chief executive Isha Khan defended the exhibit, saying it is explicitly designed to centralize Palestinian experiences, as similar exhibits in the space had done before.

The focus on the Palestinian experience is not intended to come at the expense of Jewish people, she said. She also pointed out that the museum had dedicated a much larger permanent space to remembering the Jewish CAP H:holocaust. The “Nakba” exhibit is now scheduled to run until Nov. 30, 2028.

The Aristotle authors note that the “Nakba” term was first used by Syrian historian Constantine Zurayk in his essay “The Meaning of the Disaster,” first published in 1948.

While they say that Zurayk leaned heavily on ANTISEMITIC tropes, he also “argued that the Arabs were disunited [and] militarily weak.” It was partly that weakness, the authors argue, that created a complex set of motivations behind the original refugees to leave their homes — even if many of those issues stemmed from the original conflict.

The authors cite Israeli historian Benny Morris’s “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949,” which argued that much of the Palestinian displacement was due to local issues as well as the wider war.

“What then can we conclude from this brief history?” the authors ask in the conclusion of the report. “First, that the Arab refugees left for several complicated reasons, including weak leadership and military unpreparedness, but the root cause of their flight was the war itself.”

National Post

• Gail Asper isn’t visibly angry about ‘Nakba’ exhibit. But she’s resolute about fixing the rights museum
• Leading Jewish groups call on rights museum board to 'rectify' Nabka exhibit failures and hold CEO 'accountable'

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Grainy videos hide more than they reveal. They smooth out the texture and contours of life in a single moment. We often look back on these relics as beautiful, simpler times.

But it’s hard to grasp what life felt like for the protagonists in the frame. The anxiety and excitement. The stack of bills collecting on the counter or the sick grandparents out of view. The optimism or dread of whether a child’s life will be more promising than a parent’s.

Last year, my father digitized the entire catalogue of our home videos that had piled up in basement boxes over the decades. My dad, being that dad, seemed to have a camcorder melded to his right hand throughout my entire childhood, his eye permanently fixed to the scope.

He captured the beauty of life in Toronto three decades ago. School recitals and Bar Mitzvahs. Cousins’ birthdays and baseball tournaments. The sun shined brighter in those years and, for some reason, the smell of sunscreen hangs in the air of memories. The Jays were champions and Vince Carter put us on the map.

My corner of the suburbs was still green then, with looping roads cutting through farmers’ fields and grain silos standing guard, artifacts attesting to an older way of life that once was but was no more. On summer evenings, my mom took the train home from her corporate job downtown, winding through the Don Valley. We’d pick her up at the Richmond Hill kiss-n’-ride, drive to Wonderland in a dozen minutes and walk around the spindly rollercoasters, the park wafting with the smell of cinnamon donuts.

They were good years for the Blaffs. My parents were in their 30s, had a house, three children, two cars and vacationed twice a year. They lived within their means. By the time my mom turned 40, they decided it was best to grow up with a parent home full-time, so my dad became the rare stay-at-home nineties father, dropping us off at school (frequently as the morning bell was pealing) and making lunches (often of the microwavable variety). My mom had done well for herself as a communications specialist, but we weren’t rich. We were part of a solid Canadian middle class that I saw everywhere around me.

My dad’s sister had a similar setup four doors down. In the wintertime, my dad and uncle shovelled a walking path between our houses in the new subdivision so that my cousins and I could tramp through the snow to see one another. We carpooled together and played baseball in our backyard, dreaming, one day, of playing for the Jays or my dad’s hometown New York Mets. My uncle’s house was home plate; my neighbour’s shed was second; and if you put one on the deck or roof beyond that, it was a home run.

It didn’t feel strange to be the house with the menorah in the window. If anything, to be a Jew in Toronto was a blessing. There were vibrant conservative and reform congregations filled with kids my age. Terrorism and antisemitism were things that happened over there — in the Middle East or Europe — some far-off places beyond the cognition of a child. North American shores were safe. We didn’t worry about wearing kippahs or walking to shul or saying we had family in Israel or believed in the Jewish state’s right to exist.

But now I see how peculiar all that was. Those damn cassettes and these damn memories. Seeing with fresh eyes those old frames soured my day. As the scenes unspooled, I realized the Canada I saw then was better, far better, than the one I currently inhabit today.

And that’s the reason why I’m planning on moving to America.

***

There’ve always been forces pulling me south: most not of my choosing. We joke that although my dad emigrated over four decades ago, he never psychologically left America. Despite spending the majority of his life in Canada, he still only carries an American passport. Every time he crosses the border from Ontario to New York, he takes a deep, over-acted inhale: “The smell of freedom,” he jokes. Under his rule, while we lived in Canada, inside my house was culturally American. We watched the Mets and Knicks; we listened to Paul Simon and James Taylor; and when we traveled, it was always to America.

Of all my siblings, my father’s long-running campaign had the deepest impact on me. I felt most pulled to America and became a Civil War buff after my grandfather passed along his love of American history. I was so fervent that my dad looked into getting me citizenship when I was a teenager, but his reading of the law suggested I was ineligible.

And with that, thoughts of building a life south of the border faded to the background. I went to grad school in Toronto, got a well-paying corporate job in a glassy tower and started seeing a University of Guelph zoologist who later became my wife. Under my own recognizance, I grew to love Canada.

My wife and I lived a Canadian iteration of a Johnny Cash song traveling across this country: Riding Mountain, Moose Jaw, Drumheller, Radium Hot Springs, Kluane. Seeing Canada made me love it and camping revealed the country’s beauty even more. After baby steps in Killarney and Tobermory, we matured to Jasper and Grasslands. Most Canada Days you can find me in Algonquin, reading in a hammock strung up alongside Pog Lake, with a fire and friends.

Every direction brought more memories. Family trips to visit an uncle in Halifax brought the Maritimes, road tripping to the sounds of Stan Rogers. I spent the days after October 7 interviewing Israeli survivors on Vancouver Island, taking day trips to Tofino and Ucluelet to wash my mind of the gore streaming on social media. And last summer, we went to the Yukon and saw the Canadian North. I picked up my first Pierre Berton book on the Klondike Gold Rush in Whitehorse.

Being a Canadian slowly seeped into my bones, an antivenom fending off my dad’s earlier attempts at forced inoculation. I felt it most after travelling overseas. Returning through Pearson airport, lining up with other Canadians in passport control, I felt the quiet nationalistic pride of my country folk. After clearing the border, I’d often hustle to Timmies for a black coffee and some timbits to reacclimate.

Joining the National Post two years ago solidified that future. Lured by the prospect of reporting on Canada, I decided to stop working in the States. Shortly before moving jobs, I spoke with a Canadian expat in Washington who recommended I speak with his immigration lawyer to see if my options were truly as closed as my dad believed. I took a chance, dropped a few thousand on a retainer and waited for my paperwork to snake through the labyrinth that is America’s immigration system.

***

I wanted to keep my options open, but I wasn’t racing to leave Canada. I have a massive family sprinkled throughout Toronto and satellites in Nova Scotia and British Columbia. Aunts, uncles, first cousins, grandparents and extended family. As my life became entwined with my wife’s, I took on a new set of guardians, a brother- and sister-in-law, two nephews, a niece and a Moroccan safta .

The thought of saying goodbye to Shabbat dinners and Sunday brunches felt disrespectful to the family reunification my ancestors worked so tirelessly to build. My grandfather moved his family from New York — my dad and his two sisters in tow — to reunite with his own sister and my grandmother’s siblings for this very purpose. He and my grandmother recently confided that a driving force behind their relocation was their fear of America and its tradition of casting off children across the country for school and work.

They wanted the Blaffs to be rooted, inseparable. And they succeeded. My great-grandparents escaped the Holocaust and fled Europe’s dark clouds not only for a better life, but for a together life. Growing up, birthdays and Passovers and high holidays were celebrated with dozens of relatives with seemingly tenuous family ties. Into the melting pot of pre-pubescent consciousness blurred figures like Hamu and Branca and Irving and convoluted stories of how both sides of my paternal grandparents’ families were, themselves, related.

My forebears’ decisions to come to North America saved us. The branches of the Blaff and David trees that remained in Europe were lost to history; black-and-white photos now the only proof of their short and bitter existence. Mobility and movement might be the most defining Jewish traits but my parents embraced becoming the first truly non-nomadic generation in recent memory. There were antisemites when they were growing up, but my parents were at the cusp of a Golden Age for American and Canadian Jews, which saw them climb social ladders, win Nobel Prizes and build businesses that bettered their communities.

That was my inheritance attending Jewish day school in Richmond Hill. I never felt different or threatened. To be Jewish and Canadian was neither incompatible nor controversial. I never hid my Judaism. Marching for Israel as a child was a breezy community affair with water breaks and strollers. A few oddballs lined up to protest the Jewish state’s right to exist but it never felt combustible. There wasn’t a need to hide the location of Jewish community events, erect barricades or employ round-the-clock security. Apart from the time my aunt pulled us out of school on the morning of September 11, when I first heard the name Osama Bin Laden inside her purple Ford Winstar, I felt insulated from the history of our ancestors.

The tragic Jewish past was just that. It was two-dimensional: confined to textbooks about the Holocaust and the Inquisition and Anne Frank. We didn’t live in any recognizably Jewish era of oppression and fear. Stories of Holocaust survivors felt vaguely comforting to my ears then. Of course, we survived Hitler’s executioners; history was inevitable and pointed in the direction of progress. My generation was the latest chapter of that story; our integration into Canadian life, another nail in the latest attempts to destroy us.

But now that all looks quaint. The survivor stories I heard weren’t part of an arc bending inevitably towards Jewish emancipation, but a warning sign. A momentary blip. My cohort and I were actually living in a historical vacuum, in the dying breaths of an age where Jew hatred was temporarily suspended in the afterglow of the Holocaust.

Reporting on antisemitism for the Post, I often told people, felt like whack-a-mole. One day, I’d cover Jewish union members led by people boasting the October 7 attacks illustrated the “power of resistance” and, the next, university students suing schools for “ poisoned ” learning environments. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve referenced synagogue shootings, Jewish children bullied in schools and empty promises like, “There is no place in our country for hate or antisemitism.”

However, there was ample room. Since October 7, I have seen antisemitism so many times that I’ve become desensitized to it. At street protests, I saw terror group paraphernalia and hook-nosed cartoons of Jews splashed on billboards. In my ears I heard chants demanding Jews “Go back to Poland!” and public pledges of support for designated terror groups. Discriminating against Jews became mainstream. Anti-Zionism became a voguish belief as Canada broke antisemitism records year after bleak year.

***

I became perversely grateful for the surging housing prices and unaffordability of Toronto. It allowed my wife and I to put off buying a place and building a family, despite our wishes and Safta ’s unwavering demands to have children right away. We wouldn’t have to cross the bridge of concerned Jewish parents whom I regularly interviewed racked by anxiety over what future their children had in Canada.

In the span of my lifetime, we went from a country where the middle class could own a home near a city and have children before the age of 30 to living in 500-square-foot apartments ringing the suburbs. My parents, in their third decade, owned a 2,500-square-foot home with a front and backyard. My cousin, in his mid-30s, lives in a two-bedroom apartment with three children: both he and his wife have what once were middle-class jobs.

In the span of three decades since my childhood, Canada became one of the most expensive places on earth, while America remained far more attainable. Driving these differences are a few things: Canadians are bunched up in just a handful of cities and our biggest provinces have the most restrictive building codes .

Our economy has struggled to keep pace as life’s become more expensive. Despite humble bragging about our superior decorum and international standing compared to America, in the last decade our gross domestic product (GDP) has stagnated as theirs continues to climb. Our economy has languished as America invests more in its workforce and poaches our highest earners , coaxed by deeper labour markets and better tax brackets.

Despite the hype of Canada’s immigration website crashing following Trump’s election, the rate of Americans seeking permanent residency in Canada has declined in consecutive years of the latest Trump administration, as have American temporary foreign worker applications . Meanwhile, thousands of Canadians are scanning their own personal horizons and coming to the same conclusion. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 125,000 people left Canada for America in 2022, a 70 per cent increase from a decade earlier. The pain is felt most among highest earners: the Bank of Canada found that roughly 40 per cent of the top 1 per cent of Canadians have flocked south, alongside between a third and half of those of the following nine percentiles.

As much as we like to condescend about America’s political dysfunction, people vote with their feet. We have hemorrhaged talent and innovation, lulled by the story that America is some dying giant, instead of asking why the Canadian Dream feels more unattainable than ever.

***

A third factor that massively dampened affordability and changed how Canada feels is something few wish to acknowledge: mass migration, much of it from countries largely hostile to Jews. Statistics Canada called immigration “the major engine of population growth since 1999,” propelling our country from 30 million during my childhood to eclipse 40 million by 2023. By some measures, Canada welcomed three times as many newcomers, per capita, as the United States has in recent years. Census figures published by Statistics Canada in 2021 found nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of the country are now immigrants or permanent residents, the largest share in history.

On my street growing up, there were Jews and Italians and Chinese, but my neighbourhood echoed with the sounds of English. Parents knew songs by the Barenaked Ladies, Rush, Neil Young and Tragically Hip. We lived on sweet Canadian streets where houses were decorated with cobwebs and witches during Halloween, knots of kids bumping around in costumes trick-or-treating. Warm Christmas lights of green, white and red guided me home as I walked along plowed snowbanks in the winter. We played hockey on our streets and baseball in our parks.

But the pace and scale of immigration transformed my community. My neighbourhood has since swapped out the ball diamond for a soccer pitch. The people who now call my old neighbourhood in Richmond Hill home are all wonderful people: we have amazing Persian and Indian and Bangladeshi families, but they largely live in their own bubbles and the cohesion no longer exists.

Unlike America’s emphasis on cultural assimilation, Canada brands itself a tapestry of different fabrics which elevates the whole. “A mosaic doesn’t dissolve its pieces. Each is stitched to each, all holding all,” Prime Minister Mark Carney explained in mid-June on a trip to Ireland.

There is much to like about that vision. But in reality, the evolution of Canada’s expectations for immigrants has endangered the Jewish community. The recent taboo against insisting newcomers adhere to certain values has seen Canada import Old World bigotries that were extinct when my mom was born here and my dad immigrated here. Canada’s approach to immigration remains in tension with our core values, an impossible balancing act Carney still struggles to address.

“We do not welcome the world’s hatreds,” Carney told Jewish attendees at a Toronto synagogue in early June. “When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your tradition, your language, your story. You leave behind your animosities.”

Carney’s speech was murky, a fine misting of pleasantries that obscured what his actual plans were. There was no mention of Zionism or the febrile passion among pockets of Canadians that the Jewish state cease to exist. The central question Carney let sit in the haze that June night was one that Jews across the country want clearly articulated: who is driving this surge of antisemitism and what can be done about it.

There are plenty of progressive allies and white nationalists pulling their weight since October 7, but there is one community in this country — and most of the Anglosphere — that punches above its weight in antisemitism: Muslim fundamentalists. Sociologist Robert Brym wrote in a 2024 study that “of all the groups” he polled — including liberal Canadians, Quebecers, racialized Canadians and university students — “Muslims have the highest level of negative attitudes towards Jews.”

Many Muslim-Canadians don’t feel that way and have ​ first-hand experience lived under oppressive Islamist regimes. In some cases, Muslim-Canadians have reported potential antisemitic hate crimes to authorities and Iranian-Canadians have become stalwart allied of the Jewish community. The interests of both diasporas have converged in recent years.

But over a quarter (28 per cent) of Canadian Muslim respondents in Brym’s study agreed that Jews were “largely to blame for the negative consequences of globalization” and over a third (34 per cent) said Jews “talk too much about the Holocaust.” They are also far more likely to believe in conspiracies of Jewish control of banks and media, in line with the views expressed by their co-religionists across Europe.

While the size of the Canadian Jewish community has inched slowly upward since my birth, Muslim immigration has skyrocketed, growing from less than 100,000 in 1981 to over 1.75 million in 2021. In barely four decades, Canadians Muslims went from representing half a per cent of the country to nearly 5 per cent. Regardless of Carney’s wishes, the views and baggage of many immigrants from Pakistan and Lebanon and Syria and Afghanistan have been planted in Canadian soil.

Increasingly, these beliefs have translated into alleged action: Mohamed Ilyess Akodad ; Amir Arvahi Azar ; Waisuddin Akbari ; the father-son duo of Mostafa Eldidi and Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi ; Razaali Bahadur ; Omar Elkhodary ; Hosaam Hemdan, Omer Turcan, Hasan Aydin, Yasaf Shaikh and Syed Hussaini ; Ruslan Novruzov ; Muhammad Anas Sial ; Shahram Nayeb-Yazdi ; Western University’s pro-Palestine group chat praying “Allah will burn them,” plastered with smiling Hitler cartoons.

Although white nationalists have been around domestically for decades, often bumping around obscure online forums, I venture that most of the names listed above are immigrants themselves or first-generation seedlings. That partly explains why two-fifths of Canadian Jews now feel less immigration would improve their safety: a figure I believe is conservative.

For those who plan to build a Jewish future in Canada, it isn’t uncertain or fuzzy. Canadian Jews don’t go to bed at night fearing their children are harassed at schools or discriminated in hospitals at the hands of white supremacists; our politicians remain alltooeager to condemn these fringe actors of little electoral influence. But when condemnations of antisemitism are boltedtogether with Islamophobia, the arrows and vectors of hatred are erased.

***

Canadian Jews have become endangered because Canadian values have become endangered. A national insecurity has descended across the country, triggered by leaders questioning whether there is something worth preserving, whether the next generation should be proud of the heritage being passed down.

Entrenching the multicultural legacy of his father, Justin Trudeau articulated the miasma of nothingness modern Canadianness ought to embody. “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,’’ he told the New York Times a decade ago. He spoke of generic values “openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice,” which made Canada “the first postnational state.’’

National icons were shuffled off stage during his years in office, boxed up and crated off, never to see the light of day again. Statues of Sir John A. Macdonald, our closest thing to a founding father, were graffitied and destroyed from coast to coast. Egerton Ryerson, the former namesake of Ryerson University (today Toronto Metropolitan), was toppled . Nothing about our history was sacred in the vortex of our swirling postnational moment. The poppy , a rare national symbol honouring Canadian veterans, founditself in the crosshairs when Don Cherry was disappeared for saying he didn’t see many Canadian newcomers wearing one and showing solidarity.

The threadbare identity weaved under Trudeau’s leadership culminated in 2021, after misreadings of ground-penetrating radar seemingly mistook geologic anomalies for Indigenous mass graves. Trudeau placed a teddy bear in a pastoral Saskatchewan field, beneath which no remains were ever found. Indeed, no bones were located anywhere despite countless alleged burial sites emerging. Trudeau ordered flags lowered for more than five months, the longest period in Canadian history.

It was a fitting and ultimate act of virtue signaling, deepening self-doubt across the country. Calls mounted to cancel Canada Day celebrations. “Muted” was the word on people’slips as Canadians were informed of our fraught history , of our mistreatment of minorities, that our flag was steeped in white supremacy. That force continues today: in June, a statue of Samuel de Champlain, a French explorer who once was viewed as a figure of “ national unity ,” was removed in an Ontario town.

Canadianness in the last decade felt hollow and reactionary ; a petty patriotism trumpeted in response to American bullying, not an eternal flame that burns brighter in times of crisis. Out of the depths of our national insecurity, Canada regained its footing courtesy of Trump’s return to the White House in 2024.

Canadian nationalism under the threat of tariffs became a corporate marketing bonanza rivalling Pride Month. Companies raced and bent over backwards to signal they were on board. Maple Leaf Foods, overnight , became “Proudly Canadian.” So did Crave , the streaming platform whose value proposition rests entirely on its access to American-made HBO.

Driving through rolling Pennsylvania farmland and upstate New York this July, we saw a sense of pride where flags draped porches and people took off their hats during the national anthem. Americans also toppled statues during the past decade, largelyConfederate military figures and explorer Christopher Columbus , but the deeper self-loathing seems confined to the progressive fringe.

The level of pride I witnessed from the heart of diverse big cities to rural communities was something unrecognizable in Canada. The nationwide celebrations of 250 years of independence were everywhere: we couldn’t escape the flags, stickers, hats, air shows, bumper stickers, fireworks and pro-America graffiti murals. My wife and I want to be in a place where people are proud of their history, who feel their country is a force for good in the world, no matter how imperfect it looks to our modern eyes.

America checks this box more than Canada does at the moment.

***

This isn’t to paint a utopian picture of America that has answered the timeless questions of antisemitism and affordability. Although I feel more culturally American in some ways, guns, school shootings, single-payer healthcare and charter schools all strike me as deeply foreign. America is a more polarized place, with millions more in tenuous legal and economic circumstances than Canada. Its Jewish communities may be more militarized than Canadian ones.

But when I received American citizenship back in March, my wife and I began to think about which country we believe is better for a young Jewish couple looking to build a family. The sober accounting of real-life. We’re placing a bet on where to build our lives, animated by the dreams that our future children will have better lives and more opportunities than we did. A home closer to better jobs, a stronger currency and more affordable housing.

Our lives in Canada have grown painfully – and all too visibly – worse than our parents’. I can see it in the people around us: a first cousin with a baby on the way living in her parents’ basement; the desperate clawing for family help to secure a down payment; that haggard look of resignation across a generation, future Millennial octogenarians by the time their mortgages are paid off.

I met many of these people sitting shiva for my grandfather in June. I lost count of the number of people who came up, offered their condolences and were soon volleying questions about how to get to America. People with established careers and retirees. Old Jews and young Jews. They were fearful of the direction Canada is heading and saw across their own lifetimes the country become unrecognizable; to be a Jew, a rapidly vanishing minority, in a country that couldn’t articulate how to protect them.

How strange, I thought afterward, these confessions were. If Black or Indigenous Canadians were prodding friends in mourning about tips on how to emigrate because of intolerance, it would be a front-page emergency in every newspaper, not just the Post. But, in my eyes, it was just another chapter in the story of Jewish peoplehood, bouncing like random electrons to the nearest low-energy orbit where we could reside more safely until the next emergency erupts.

***

One close family member flew a Canadian flag in front of his house as long as I can remember growing up. Patriotism in Canada, especially in cities and suburbs, I’ve found to be a rare sight. He was the lone house on his street that kept the red-and-white up until the early winds of winter blew in around October. He was Canada-proud and didn’t need a trade war or the Olympics to stir his pride.

It felt perpetual. Timeless. Every April, he would unfurl a new, crisp flag above his garage. Months in the Toronto sun and rain and wind slowly eroded these flags, and every year was an occasion to take down the old weathered one and replace it with a fresh one.

But the spring after October 7, he didn’t replace it with one right out of the box; he hoisted up the old tattered one. He felt Canadian Jews had been let down by the government, scapegoated and left to fend for themselves as antisemitism became tolerated and ignored. “It’s symbolic to me of Canada right now,” he confided to his wife when she asked him at the time why his tradition had suddenly changed.

It was a silent protest, an act of grieving for a country he feels has been lost, a pride that has disappeared in our lost decade of stagnation and self-doubt. “I put that up hoping that things would change,” he told me recently. “It only got worse and has continued to spiral.”

Growing up in Toronto in the seventies, he still argues, was the best generation to be alive. There was a social fabric and community. Respect for the Canadian ways of life. Promise that his life would be better than his parents’.

None of this applies to his children, he feels. He fears how financially difficult it will be for them to raise families and buy houses. Antisemitism highlighted the incompetence of Canadian leaders: Conservative and Liberal, alike.

“ I think this is one of the first generations,” he said, “where our kids are not necessarily gonna have a better life than we did.”

The first time we spoke after I got citizenship, I was floored when he half-joked, “So, where are we moving to?” He now talks about moving in with us on our “shtetl” that we want to build in upstate New York. He recently confided that if it weren’t for his children building families in Toronto, who are not dual citizens, he would move to America.

I feel that same sense of bewildering malaise looking back in the rear-view, a sense of loss at what Canada was and what it’s become today. I’m not happy to be leaving. Until a few years back, the thought of living anywhere but Canada was unthinkable. The plan was to continue camping trips with friends every summer, seders with cousins every April and family trips with young ones to introduce them to this amazing country.

We still have those plans, but now they’ll be done from a distance, short visits instead of the life-building we once envisioned. It’s difficult saying goodbye to our orbit of love in Toronto, to confront the inevitable withering that comes from distance and time. I’m still scared by the prospect of actually leaving.

Maybe homesickness or life circumstances will bring me back to Canada. Maybe this is all the starry-eyed ramblings of a naïve thirtysomething who’s never paid American taxes or voted in American elections, who hasn’t visited an American hospital or feared for his children in an American school. I certainly don’t understand all the challenges of American life, the same texture and feel missing in those old family videos escapes me here, too.

But I just don’t see any better alternative at this point.

• Canadians like Jews and Israel less than 2 years ago: new survey
• Many Canadian Jews have lost their sense of belonging in a country they no longer recognize

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In 2009, there were only 144 reported human cases of Lyme disease in Canada. According to the most recent Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) data , there were 5,809 reported cases in 2024, and the preliminary number of cases for 2025 is 7,105. There’s no denying Lyme disease is on the rise.

Caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and spread through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks, the disease can cause fatigue, rash, fever, chills and muscle aches, among other symptoms . If left untreated, the infection can spread to joints, the heart and the nervous system.

Previously, a vaccine called LYMErix was administered to prevent Lyme disease. It was approved by the FDA in 1998, but withdrawn from the market just three years later, following reports of adverse reactions causing a lack of demand. Now, Lyme disease is treated with a course of antibiotics.

But Lyme disease vaccines for dogs have been available for years, so why isn’t there one for humans?

Is there a Lyme disease vaccine for humans?

No, there currently is no Lyme disease vaccine for humans. LYMErix was shelved in 2002, and there have been no new Lyme disease vaccines approved since.

However, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and French biotech firm Valneva are currently working together to develop a new vaccine, PF-07307405. As of March 2026, it has completed Phase 3 clinical trials.

And Moderna is working on two more potential Lyme disease vaccines, called mRNA-1975 and mRNA-1982. These vaccines are not as far along in development as PF-07307405, and are both currently in Phase 2 clinical trials.

What do we know about the Pfizer and Valneva vaccine?

In March 2026, Pfizer and Valneva announced results from Phase 3 clinical trials of the Lyme disease vaccine they are co-developing.

It demonstrated more than 70 per cent efficacy in preventing Lyme disease in individuals aged five years and above after four doses, with Pfizer now planning submissions to regulatory authorities.

Annaliesa Anderson, senior vice president and chief vaccines officer at Pfizer, said in a news release that the result is “highly encouraging” and “creates confidence in the vaccine’s potential to protect against this disease that can be debilitating.”

PF-07307405 works by causing a vaccinated person to create antibodies that are ingested by ticks when they bite them. These antibodies then inhibit the bacterium’s ability to leave the tick, preventing it from being transmitted to the human host.

Dr. Isaac Bogoch , a professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Medicine and an infectious diseases specialist, tells National Post that while a Lyme disease vaccine is “definitely needed,” the positive results from the Pfizer-Valneva aren’t a sure indicator of success just yet.

“It’s already three doses and a booster, so let’s just call it four doses,” he says. “The more doses, the more challenges you’re going to have with uptake and adherence. And if there are annual doses, and if it’s expensive and inconvenient, I think that’s going to limit the uptake.”

As for how long it could be until the vaccine rolls out, “that’s the million dollar question,” he says. At the moment, it’s unclear whether regulatory agencies might ask for more clinical data or improvements.

He adds that while the efficacy and side effect profile look good, “you don’t really know until it’s approved and it rolls out.”

“You can have the best phase three clinical study, but you’re still going to be capped on the enrollment numbers, and until you see it used in a community, you won’t have the most realistic picture,” he says.

What happened to the LYMErix vaccine?

LYMErix was withdrawn by the manufacturer amid falling sales, prompted by widespread coverage of reported side effects and a class action lawsuit, despite the FDA determining it to be safe for public use.

According to a scientific paper outlining the development and eventual shelving of the vaccine, which was published in the journal Epidemiology & Infection in 2006, LYMErix had nearly 80 per cent efficacy in preventing Lyme disease after three doses. However, the trial was conducted on subjects between 15 and 70 years old, meaning LYMErix was not approved for use on children.

Around a year after LYMErix was first rolled out, reports of adverse reactions, including arthritis, began to circulate. A class-action suit against the developer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which was called SmithKline Beecham at the time, was filed in 1999.

By 2001, 1.4 million Lyme vaccine doses had been distributed in the U.S., and there were 59 reports of arthritis associated with vaccination. “The arthritis incidence in the patients receiving Lyme vaccine occurred at the same rate as the background in unvaccinated individuals,” the paper explains.

And after reviewing the Phase 3 trial that allowed the licensing of the vaccine, the FDA found no suggestion that LYMErix caused harm to its recipients.

Nevertheless, press coverage of vaccine risks and ongoing litigation caused sales to fall dramatically and, in February 2002, GSK decided to withdraw LYMErix from the market.

“Even though the regulatory agencies didn’t find any proof that the vaccine caused arthritis, it just wasn’t profitable,” Bogoch says. “What’s interesting, though, is a very similar vaccine is still used to this day for dogs.”

Why is it taking so long to develop a new Lyme disease vaccine?

Only the vaccine manufacturers know the real answer to this question, says Bogoch. “Is it hard to make a vaccine? Of course. But it’s not like there isn’t the human capacity to come up with target candidates and a pipeline to develop this.”

He speculates that the fate of LYMErix may have disinclined manufacturers from developing a new Lyme disease vaccine. “Vaccine manufacturers are not just in the business of helping humanity; they’re also in the business of making money,” he says.

“They might have seen the earlier challenges with the prior vaccine — how there was negative press associated with it and a limited market. And some of these decisions could have been driven by market demand as well.”

What else can be done to prevent Lyme disease?

The best way to prevent contracting Lyme disease is to prevent tick bites. This can be done by wearing pants and long-sleeve shirts, using insect repellents and doing a tick check after being outdoors. Bogoch says insect repellents that contain 30 per cent DEET or 20 per cent Icaridin are usually the most effective.

If you find a tick, remove it using a pair of tweezers to pull it out, rather than twisting or squeezing, which could leave the head behind and increase the chances of infection.

“The infection isn’t transmitted right away after a tick bite,” explains Bogoch. “It actually takes 24 hours or more for the tick to be attached before Lyme is transmitted. If it’s removed quickly enough, the risk of transmission is low.”

Meanwhile, pharmacists can prescribe antibiotic prophylaxis after exposure to prevent Lyme disease in provinces including Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

If you’re worried, or you’re experiencing symptoms, talk to your physician. Tests are available at provincial health laboratories, and treatment is a course of widely used antibiotics.

• Lyme disease is on the rise. Here's how to prevent it and what to do if you get bitten
• Invasion of the ticks: Watch their remarkably fast spread across Canada

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OTTAWA — A southern Interior B.C. mayor is asking Ottawa to help keep area emergency rooms open while firefighters and thousands of evacuees contend with nearby wildfires.

Mike Goetz, mayor of Merritt, B.C., sent a formal request for help to federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel this week, with the city’s local emergency room facing its 10th temporary shutdown of the year this weekend.

In a letter seen by National Post, Goetz asked Michel to take action to ensure that local hospitals in communities like his can provide “continuous emergency care.”

“While healthcare delivery is primarily a provincial responsibility, the federal government plays a critical role in … ensuring that Canadians have equitable access to medically necessary services regardless of where they live,” wrote Goetz.

Merritt is currently sheltering some 300 wildfire evacuees and 150 firefighters. A wildfire outbreak last weekend forced roughly 13,000 residents to flee the nearby town of Summerland.

Goetz told National Post on Friday that he was driven to reach out to Ottawa by the desperation of the circumstances facing his community.

“I’d done everything I possibly could and I thought, you know what, I’ve got to take it to the next level, because this just is not getting any better,” said Goetz.

Goetz told local media earlier this week that his community’s emergency room was an indispensable source of 24-hour medical care for first responders putting their lives on the line.

“These firefighters are working shift, they’re out there on the fire… and somebody gets hurt, well you know, now they’re making a one-hour trip to Kamloops or Kelowna,” said Goetz.

Merritt, a community of 7,000 permanent residents, is one of several small towns in the southern Interior that have been hit by intermittent emergency room closures, due primarily to a lack of available doctors and nurses.

According to data previously cited by Mayor Goetz, there were 137 emergency room closures across B.C.’s Interior in 2025, averaging one closure every 2.6 days.

Goetz said he’d lost confidence in the B.C. government’s ability to handle the situation, and criticized provincial Health Minister Josie Osborne for what he called a lack of communication about the situation.

(Osborne was moved to finance in Friday’s cabinet shuffle, with jobs minister Ravi Kahlon moving into the health ministry.)

“There has to be some sort of a higher power look at this because whatever they’re trying to do right now isn’t working,” said Goetz.

Goetz has been a staunch critic of the rolling emergency room closures, sending B.C. Premier David Eby a $103,831.87 invoice for the service interruptions last month.

Spokesperson Emilie Gauduchon-Campbell said Michel received Goetz’s letter on Tuesday and is monitoring the situation closely.

Gauduchon-Campbell didn’t comment on the substance of the letter but said that Michel is in regular contact with Osbourne.

“Minister Michel has regular conversations with her provincial and territorial counterparts, including Minister Osborne in BC, and remains committed to working closely with the Province to support British Columbians,” wrote Gauduchon-Campbell in an email.

MLA Anna Kindy, health critic for the Opposition B.C. Conservatives, expressed support for Goetz in a statement.

“It’s deeply unfortunate that the situation has gotten so critical that Merritt’s mayor, Mike Goetz, has had to make an extraordinary call for Ottawa to assert control over provincial jurisdiction,” said Kindy.

“Merritt is not only sheltering wildfire evacuees but firefighters who are putting their lives at risk. Major burns and inhalation injuries need immediate airway (respiratory) management as well as cardiovascular resuscitation. Travelling a further hour due to an ER closure could be fatal.”

The B.C. Ministry of Health said in an email that decisions to temporarily close emergency rooms are only made as a “last resort” and that such closures are coordinated across regional health networks to maintain safe patient care.

The health ministry said that, from January to June 2026, temporary emergency department closures were down by 19 per cent compared to the same period in 2025.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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The Canada Border Services Agency is replacing its Remote Area Border Crossing Program with a telephone reporting system.

The RABC program involves travel permits that allow travellers to enter Canada through remote areas that cross the Canada-U.S. border. However, the telephone reporting system has yet to be fully launched. This week the CBSA extended the RABC program for the third time in less than a year.

In an August 10 statement, the CBSA said RABC permits will be extended to Nov. 30, 2026. They cover several remote areas, including: the Northwest Angle Area, Pigeon River through to and including Lake of the Woods, the Canadian shore of Lake Superior, the Sault Ste. Marie upper lock system and Cockburn Island.

As of Dec 1, all travellers entering Canada through these remote areas will be required to report to the CBSA at a port of entry or a designated telephone reporting site.

“The CBSA has identified over 15 new telephone reporting sites and is currently in the process of formally designating them,” CBSA media relations spokesperson Kelly Cameron told National Post in an email. “As sites are officially designated, they will be announced on social media and on the CBSA Directory of Services .”

Cameron said, “Travellers will be able to use their cellphones to call the telephone reporting centre (1-888-CANPASS) to report their entry to Canada, or they can use the phones provided at the reporting sites. Travellers will need to provide information including – but not limited to – their full name, date of birth, citizenship, and acceptable identification.” They must also declare any goods being brought into Canada.

Travellers can access information in advance about entry documents at Travel and identification documents for entering Canada, she said .

Cameron pointed to the CBSA website, Reporting requirements for private boat operators for additional information on telephone reporting.

After speaking with an officer, travellers will be informed whether they can proceed to their destination or whether further examination of their request is required.

Several factors are used in determining if an individual is admissible to Canada, said Cameron. She noted the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which provides the grounds for prohibiting entry into Canada, as well as removal of people who are inadmissible.

The complete list of inadmissibility grounds can be found in sections 34 to 42 of IRPA, she said . For example, convictions outside of Canada must equate to an offence in Canada for a foreign national to be found inadmissible. She pointed to online information for travellers who want to overcome prohibitive criminal convictions .

Previously, the CBSA said the telephone reporting system would align with requirements for travellers entering the U.S. Cameron pointed to the U.S. reporting requirements set out by U.S. Customs and Border Protection .

These changes will primarily impact Americans, who make up 90 per cent of the approximately 11,000 RABC annual members, according to the CBSA.

Permit holders have not needed to present themselves in person at a port of entry. However, they have always had to declare any goods they are bringing into Canada. Applying for a RABC Program permit requires the applicant to be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada or the U.S.

At least two telephone reporting sites have been established for paddlers entering northwestern Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park, at the Prairie Portage and Cache Bay ranger stations.

According to Minnesota newspaper, The Ely Echo , the two sites were set to open in early June. Anyone else entering Canada from a border lake would need an active RABC permit, said the Echo. But after the RABC program shuts down, telephone reporting sites are to be available outside of Quetico.

Paddle and Portage media reported in late June that the response to the new telephone reporting system set up for entering Quetico has “been positive.”

CBSA officials also told the magazine that frequent cross-border travellers can enroll in the long-standing NEXUS program, which aims to speed up crossings between Canada and the U.S. for low-risk, pre-approved travellers. It is jointly run by the CBSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

NEXUS memberships are valid for five years. There is a $120 non-refundable application processing fee.

“NEXUS members may call 30 minutes to 4 hours in advance of their arrival,” the CBSA told Paddle and Portage.

For less frequent cross-border travellers, said the media outlet, “the (new) telephone reporting sites are efficient and extremely easy to use.”

Back in March, Paddle and Portage reported that more than 200 people responded to a request from the Canadian government as to where people should report from when they cross border lakes near or in boundary waters. Approximately 240 responses were received between Jan. 26 and Feb. 13, according to the CBSA.

Meanwhile, the publication states that there continues to be concern about who will be able to utilize the telephone reporting system. For example, it notes that the CBSA said telephone reporting will not be allowed for “chartered vessels, including fishing charters” or by people in “vessels carrying passengers for remuneration (money paid for work or a service).” That includes a fishing guide with paying clients.

As reported by NWOnewswatch.com this week, cancellation of the RABC program will not affect boaters who cross into Canadian waters, as long as they don’t land on Canadian soil, anchor, moor or make contact with another boat while in Canadian waters, and don’t take on or allow people to disembark in Canada.

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Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With Canada and the United States engaged in tense trade negotiations over tariffs , and U.S. President Donald Trump’s team signalling that it wants annual reviews rather than a renewal of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), National Post reached out to former International Trade Minister Ed Fast for his view on the current state of Canada-U.S. trade relations and the ongoing talks.

Fast served under Prime Minister Stephen Harper from 2011 to 2015, helping negotiate major agreements, including CETA, the Canada-South Korea deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He argues that Canada should seek a broader continental bargain — encompassing trade, critical-mineral supply, energy and defence — rather than negotiate CUSMA in isolation.

Why should Canada pursue a “grand bargain” with the United States rather than a narrow CUSMA review? And how can Canada move the Trump administration toward a broader bargain?

Ed Fast: The reason Canada should be broadening out the negotiation with the United States is because of the asymmetry in our economic partnership. The U.S. economy is 10 times the size of our own, and any tariff war we get into is going to hurt us more than it hurts the United States.

Within the narrow confines of CUSMA, Canada has very few, if any, bargaining chips. Where our strengths and assets lie is within the broader continental relationship. If we broaden it out to provide assurance of supply and broaden it out to address the continental national-security implications of our relationship, suddenly, Canada has assets at the table that we can use to push back against some of the more unreasonable requests coming from the Americans.

If we make a compelling case that there are many areas, especially on assured supply — things like nuclear uranium, critical minerals, energy, oil and gas, electricity grids, potash and food security — there is a compelling case to be made that, notwithstanding Donald Trump’s protestations to the contrary, the United States would benefit significantly from broadening out a trade negotiation to include the totality of our relationship, including assured supply of commodities that matter most to the American economy.

Eighty per cent of American potash imports come from Canada.

What would Canada need in return for putting energy, critical minerals and continental defence on the table?

We would need a legally binding and enforceable agreement that tariff-free trade among the CUSMA partners will continue. That is the trade-off.

Many of the commodities that Canada could provide assurance for are covered under CUSMA. The challenge is that there are no provisions within CUSMA that provide assurance of supply. When we’re talking about issues like energy, food security, potash, and critical minerals, the actual trade in those commodities is addressed within CUSMA; the assured supply that the United States needs is not. We have an opportunity to broaden out the discussion to perhaps discuss assured supply.

How do you assess the Carney government’s approach to negotiations so far?

My concern is this: every time we have made concessions so far — for example, with the digital services tax — it has not provided us with any additional concessions from the United States. Each concession we make results in additional demands from the United States, and that’s the nature of negotiating with Donald Trump.

He is a zero-sum type of guy who believes that he has to win and his negotiating partner has to lose. Understanding that mentality should help inform our negotiating position at the table.

What concerns you about the potential Section 338 tariffs?

I’m not an insider in those negotiations, so I wouldn’t presume to know what’s happening inside those discussions.

I can say the Section 338 tariffs represent a special challenge because Section 338 actually delegates authority to the president himself, so it becomes more difficult to challenge those tariffs.

What deeply concerns me is the fact that the 338 tariffs actually are coming out of the Smoot-Hawley Act, or the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930. Those Smoot-Hawley tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression in the 1930s. We are reliving history and failing to learn the lessons of history.

The irony is that Trump’s Section 338 tariffs appear to be premised upon Canada’s own retaliatory tariffs. So the question I have is: have we actually provided a pretext for the legitimate use of these tariff powers that have never before been used by the United States? Have we unwittingly strengthened Donald Trump’s hand by actually retaliating?

I understand the urge to retaliate, but when we retaliate, we are less capable of absorbing the additional retaliation that comes back from the United States simply because of the asymmetry of our relative economies.

What should Canada’s overall strategy be?

We need to bring the United States to the table in an environment where we appeal to Donald Trump’s baser instincts to want to have these big deals that he can boast about.

Let’s talk about a much larger continental bargain that brings in assurance of supply for the critical commodities the United States needs, brings into the discussion continental security issues, and brings into the discussion our defence spending and our commitment to robust continental security.

The suggestion that we can somehow pivot away from the United States in terms of our trade relationship, somehow diversify by pivoting away from the U.S., is hopelessly naive. The United States will always be our largest trade partner. We have to have that front and centre in our discussions with the U.S.

We should ask for the restoration of the original bargain we have, which is CUSMA or NAFTA. But we should also be prepared to make commercially meaningful concessions where the U.S. has some legitimate complaints. We should not negotiate CUSMA in isolation. We need to broaden out this discussion to talk about continental economic security.

What American demands should Canada resist?

I would resist perpetual annual review (of CUSMA). That affects so much uncertainty in our investment environment. Annual reviews are poisonous to Canada’s investment interests.

When companies are making 15-, 20-, 25-year commitments, if their access to the U.S. market comes up for renegotiation every 12 months, they’re not going to make those investments.

Finally, I would subordinate retaliation to a broader negotiating strategy. Don’t give in to our emotional instinct to retaliate. Negotiate with an understanding that this is an asymmetrical relationship, and that we have to be very clever, very tactical, very focused on Canada’s long-term interests.

How could Canada persuade Washington to stop imposing Section 232 tariffs against Canadian products?

One of the things that would move the United States towards eliminating those tariffs and not using them again against Canada is if our broader outcome includes very clear provisions that help address American security concerns.

Obviously, continental defence, including ballistic missile defence, would be one of the things that should at least be part of the discussion. The second issue would have to be how do we address Chinese transshipment, where the Chinese use Canada as a backdoor for shipping subsidized goods, non-free-market goods into the U.S. marketplace.

Those are things that start to reorient the discussion towards something that I believe the United States would welcome. We’d have to be serious about addressing those issues. I think that could reframe the discussion back to a broader one about our continental relationship and continental security writ large.

Is it unhelpful for Canada to try to negotiate away one-off tariff threats?

When we negotiate with the United States on one-off issues, on one-off tariff discussions, I think we should be aware of the fact that no matter what agreement we come to with the United States, there’s no assurance that the United States will actually honour that agreement right now.

Donald Trump has made it very clear that he’s willing to break American commitments to free trade. That’s why it’s critically important that any broader agreement, any resolution to our trade relationship with the U.S., include truly enforceable provisions that ensure that the agreement will not be breached by either party.

I would bake in a critical role for Congress to be involved in any revisiting of whatever agreement comes out of these discussions, to make sure that it’s not simply one person in the Oval Office that makes the decision to walk away from our agreements.

What would meaningful enforcement look like?

Getting Congress involved would be by far the most effective way of ensuring that tariffs aren’t reimposed on a whim of one person. Thirty-six U.S. states have Canada as their number one trading partner. Can you imagine the senators and representatives from those states, the governors of those states, how they would react if there was a suggestion that the U.S. retreat from a free-trade agreement between our two countries?

The second way we could improve enforceability is to have snapback provisions, where Canada would have the ability to impose punitive measures in a way that is immediate and doesn’t require any special appeal mechanisms, and that those measures are baked right into our free-trade agreement.

Our existing agreement does not have clauses that trigger congressional decision-making in terms of retreat from the provisions of our trade agreement. If we’re going to move ahead with an agreement, we need to bake in very clear enforceability provisions that make it much less likely that a future president could walk away from this agreement without having very good reasons for doing so.

The pretext of national security (for imposing the 232 tariffs) should be much more limited than it is being applied right now. Canada is not a national-security threat to the United States, except if you define that very, very broadly.

How do you assess the government’s defence-spending commitments?

I’ve been much happier with Mr. Carney’s commitments on defence spending than I was of Justin Trudeau’s commitments — which actually didn’t exist.

For 10 years we did nothing to make our defence spending more robust, and now we’ve been forced to do so by the United States. I think a mea culpa is appropriate — a very clear mea culpa that we neglected our critical defence spending for too long, and that we’re now committed to actually beating the targets that NATO set and going beyond those to recognize that the global threats have simply become more acute and require additional commitments on defence spending.

When I look at some of the European nations, countries like Poland, for example, that are on the front lines of a fight against tyranny, I think Canada can do much better. In the process, by doing much better, I think we have a better opportunity to secure a lasting and durable, fair, reasonable free-trade agreement with the United States.

What should Canada seek on procurement and investment certainty?

Public procurement and government procurement have been a constant source of friction between Canada and the United States, where the deck has typically been stacked against Canadian companies.

If we really want to have a fully integrated North American marketplace with robust supply chains that deliver the highest level of efficiency when it comes to trade and value, we have to ensure that government procurement is one of those areas that truly is free and open and transparent.

How should the softwood lumber dispute be handled?

The softwood lumber dispute was effectively initially resolved through the Harper government outside of NAFTA and continues to be an irritant that has largely been outside of CUSMA negotiations.

We have made very clear that those kinds of issues should be brought into the broader negotiation of our continental partnership. Absolutely, the softwood lumber dispute needs to be resolved as part of this ongoing negotiation.

When I hear rumours coming out of Ottawa and Washington that somehow there’s an agreement that they’re going to put to the president (early next week), it’s not going to be an agreement. It might be broad outlines of what a future framework agreement could look like. I just can’t understand how the fairly short period they’ve had to negotiate these issues would result in anything that looks like a comprehensive outcome.

Whatever they’re talking about putting to the president will be a very sketchy framework that would provide the basis for further negotiations. I hope that framework includes, for the most part, the totality of our bilateral relationship.

Should Canada make concessions on dairy supply management?

Canada has Bill C-202, which now has the force of law, which says that Canada will not put dairy on the table, or anything under supply management, in its future negotiations for free-trade agreements.

In my mind, we’re not going to come out of this negotiation well without making some concessions on this. I do not believe that the United States actually is demanding that Canada get rid of its supply-management system. There are very strong, sound reasons for Canada maintaining that system.

But the United States has rightfully pointed at situations where the way supply management has been administered in Canada has violated, if not the letter, certainly the spirit of CUSMA. It’s reasonable, I think, for Canadians to expect that there will be some refinement of how our dairy quotas are administered. I think that should be negotiable notwithstanding Bill C-202.

What about provincial restrictions on American alcohol?

That’s somewhat more complicated because it surely implicates the provinces. Some of the provinces have made it very clear that unless they see a deal coming out of these negotiations that they are happy with, they will not be putting American booze back on the shelves.

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable position for our provinces to take because that issue, in my mind, is clearly within provincial jurisdiction. Any government is going to have to make sure that the provinces remain at the table as a broader trade outcome is negotiated.

If you’re going to have free trade, you’re going to have to include booze, but that’s going to have to be done within the context of a challenging federal-provincial environment where the provinces rightfully demand that they be at the table when these issues are being discussed.

I would not put alcohol back on the table unless there is significant progress being made within the negotiations. We’ve seen how this plays out: put something on the table, the Americans say thank you, they pocket it. Now they come up with new demands. This is a never-ending process of Canada conceding and the Americans demanding.

Why are rolling CUSMA reviews dangerous for Canadian business?

These one-year reviews — which, by the way, don’t terminate CUSMA — and the five-year reviews are provisions that were incorporated when CUSMA was originally negotiated.

The expectation from Canada was that the agreement would be enforceable and could not result in spurious tariffs based on very questionable premises rooted in legislation that in some cases goes back to the 1930s. That expectation has not been borne out.

We have to go in there clear-eyed, understanding that one-year renewals inject profound uncertainty into Canada’s investment environment. It will undermine Canada’s ability to ensure the prosperity of Canadians.

What we don’t want to see is a hollowing out of our own economy when the Americans are insisting that we dramatically ramp up defence spending. If we don’t have the fiscal capacity that is supported by a robust economy, robust investment and a robust trade environment, we’ll never be able to actually fund the defence spending that the Americans are demanding.

On the one hand, they’re demanding these massive increases in defence spending; on the other hand, bit by bit, they’re undermining our ability to grow our fiscal capacity to fund that defence spending. That’s the irony of it.

What is your bottom line for Canada?

Canada should be willing to modernize CUSMA substantially and willing to address some of the legitimate concerns that the U.S. has regarding the issues we’ve already talked about: Chinese transshipment, economic security, alcohol, dairy, chicken and egg administration.

But in return, we should be asking for the United States to restore tariff-free treatment for CUSMA-originating goods and remove all those sectoral and Section 338 tariffs.

I would change the negotiation from “What must Canada surrender to maintain access to the American market?” to “What bargain does the United States need from Canada to secure the North American continent?”

If we reframe the discussion as I’ve suggested, I think our prospects for a better outcome for Canada — one that serves Canada’s national interest writ large — are much better.

National Post

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Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, pleaded guilty to federal charges in court on Friday, renewing public interest in the case, his alleged motive and what could happen next.

Mangione is charged with stalking in his federal case, while separately facing a state murder charge in New York. Friday’s hearing comes less than a month before his scheduled court appearance in the state case.

However, Mangione’s guilty plea could have significant implications for his state case due to New York’s double jeopardy law. Here’s what has happened in the case so far, and what could come next.

What did Luigi Mangione do?

Luigi Mangione, 28, faces both federal and New York state charges over the shooting of UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, outside a midtown Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealth held an investor conference.

In the early hours of that morning, Thompson was on his way to the conference when he was approached by a suspect who was “lying in wait,” New York Police Department said at a press conference at the time.

These are images of the individual sought in connection to this investigation. If anyone has information as to the identity or location of this individual please contact @NYPDTips at 1(800)577-TIPS. pic.twitter.com/sm2GuEOYk1

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) December 4, 2024

Items left at the scene included bullet casings inscribed with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” and the possible use of a silencer on the suspect’s weapon led police to deem the killing a “targeted attack.”

After a manhunt that lasted less than a week, police arrested a man identified as Mangione at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania, after an employee recognized the suspect from photos released by authorities.

Why did he do it?

A combination of Luigi Mangione’s diary entries and social media activity uncovered by authorities has suggested that he was motivated by his frustrations with the health insurance industry in America, and that the shooting was planned weeks in advance.

A law enforcement bulletin obtained by the Associated Press said that Mangione had written that the U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and that the profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not. It added that he appeared to view the targeted killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO as a symbolic takedown.

Weeks before the shooting, he wrote about the need to “wack [sic] the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise and doesn’t risk innocents. Most importantly, the point is self-evident. The point is made in the news headline ‘Insurance CEO killed at annual investors conference.’”

Meanwhile, the shell casings from the crime scene with the words “deny” and “depose” written on them were an apparent nod to a 2010 book critiquing insurance industry tactics .

The New York Times previosuly reported that, in posts made by a since-deleted Reddit account, Mangione spoke about his own health issues, specifically back pain he had struggled with for several years, eventually undergoing a spinal fusion surgery in 2023.

He also wrote about “brain fog” that had gotten worse during his college years, making studying more difficult. Doctors couldn’t figure it out, he said, adding: “It’s absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue.”

What has happened in the case so far?

Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate and former data engineer, was arrested on Dec. 9, 2024, and charged with forgery and false identification to law enforcement, it was reported at the time.

He was later charged with one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, and one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office .

He was also charged with one count of using a firearm to commit murder, two counts of stalking and one count of discharging a firearm equipped with a silencer, according to the U.S. Department of Justice .

Mangione’s lawyers have succeeded in reducing the charges in both cases. They persuaded U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett to dismiss a federal murder charge that could have led to the death penalty and won dismissal of a first-degree murder charge by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Meanwhile, New York Judge Gregory Carro dismissed a state terrorism count, saying the evidence behind it was “legally insufficient.” That ruling eliminated a possible mandatory life term in the state case, but the remaining charges include second-degree murder, meaning that, if convicted in state court, Mangione faces 25 years to life in prison.

Mangione had pleaded not guilty to all charges against him in both federal and state court, but on Friday, he pleaded guilty in his federal criminal case. Mangione is not charged with murder in the federal case.

Despite the horrific nature of the crime, Mangione has become a cult-like figure for many who also feel frustrated by the American healthcare system, with social media users praising his actions and, in some cases, his looks.

Elsewhere, a campaign launched on the fundraising platform GiveSendGo has raised more than US$1.5 million towards Mangione’s legal fees to date.

View this post on Instagram

What will happen next?

Mangione’s guilty plea in the federal case comes less than a month before he is scheduled to go on trial on a state murder charge on Sept. 8.

However, his lawyers could now argue that he can’t face trial in state court under New York’s double jeopardy law, which prohibits defendants from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.

But Bragg’s prosecutors are likely to oppose any attempt to invoke double jeopardy, because the state charges of murder address a different harm than the federal stalking case, according to the New York Times . The decision is up to Judge Carro.

On Friday, Judge Garnett set sentencing for Dec. 18, 2026 in the federal case. It’s unclear whether Mangione is also weighing a plea deal in New York state court.

• Mangione expected to plead guilty in murder case of insurance CEO: reports
• 'Murder will solve everything': The imagined thoughts of Luigi Mangione

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On the 42nd anniversary of Ottawa trying to deport a man who police named as Toronto’s top Mafia boss, the government has again failed to prove he should be deported back to Italy.

The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) rejected arguments that Vincenzo DeMaria, better known as Jimmy DeMaria, has been a member of the shadowy and powerful ’Ndrangheta, which is the proper name of the Mafia formed in Italy’s southern region of Calabria, and that he engaged in Mafia activities, including money laundering.

If the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) had succeeded, it could have led to DeMaria being deported from Canada.

The government’s latest effort ended in failure with a decision by the IRB’s appeal division quietly released in July after a year of hearings, arguments and deliberation.

DeMaria and the Canadian government have been fighting a monumental legal and bureaucratic war on many fronts over whether he is a Mafia boss and the related question of whether he can remain in Canada.

So far, the war has tilted decidedly in DeMaria’s favour.

Now 72 years old, DeMaria has lived in Canada for all but the first nine months of his life, after he was born in Siderno, Italy, and came to Canada in 1955 with his parents.

Although he has lived here, he never became a Canadian citizen. His eligibility for citizenship ended in 1981 when he shot dead a man who owed him money. DeMaria was convicted of second-degree murder in 1982. He was released on full parole ten years later, but as a convicted murderer he remains on parole for the rest of his life.

He was first ordered out of Canada in 1984, while still in prison. He successfully defeated that deportation — and every other attempt to remove him since.

At immigration tribunals, parole hearings, and in court, DeMaria has mounted well-resourced and successful challenges, rebutting various allegations of involvement in organized crime. By disputing, denying, and delaying, he has remained with his wife and children in Canada.

His latest battle began last summer.

The minister of public safety appealed a 2023 decision by the IRB that the government had not proven that DeMaria is or was a member of the Mafia.

As is typical of DeMaria’s battles, the latest hearing was long and complicated; it stretched over 10 days of hearings in the summer and fall of 2025, followed by lengthy written submission from both CBSA officials and DeMaria’s team of lawyers.

Documentation filed in the case was so lengthy — more than 20,000 pages — that the IRB’s computer system kept crashing at the hearing when more than one of the huge files was opened at the same time.

“There is a long history of administrative hearings and judicial reviews in this case,” IRB member Benjamin Dolin said in a stroke of understatement in his written decision.

At past immigration proceedings, police named DeMaria as an influential member of the ’Ndrangheta, but conceded their inability to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in criminal court. An officer from Peel Regional Police said DeMaria was the “top guy in Toronto” for the ’Ndrangheta.

In 2018, the IRB declared him inadmissible in Canada for having a “high-ranking position within this organization, which engages in criminal activities, including weapons smuggling, drug trafficking and counterfeit products.” DeMaria appealed that decision to the Federal Court and won a new hearing.

The new proceeding in 2023 came to a different conclusion, finding no viable evidence of DeMaria’s link to the Mafia, writing: “The Panel finds the Minister’s evidence to be no more than unfounded suspicions based on flimsy and circumstantial evidence.”

It was then the government’s turn to appeal that decision, which sparked the latest IRB hearing, that featured new controversies.

At the hearing, CBSA entered transcripts of wiretaps that secretly recorded conversations of alleged mafiosi visiting Canada from Italy in 2019. As first reported by National Post , Italian police used spyware to surreptitiously force the visitors’ own cellphones to record and transmit their conversations, regardless of whether the phone was in use or not.

The IRB heard from a police officer from Italy, called by CBSA as a witness, who said the visitors, one of whom was a relative of DeMaria’s, came to Canada to meet with Angelo and Cosimo Figliomeni, alleged to be senior mob figures, to investigate the murder of a mobster in Italy. The Italian officer testified that the visitors talked about DeMaria.

DeMaria’s lawyers argued the wiretaps were illegal, unconstitutional, and unreliable, calling it “foreign interference.” A lawyer for CBSA then said they would no longer rely on the wiretaps to make their case.

The government alleged that DeMaria used the family’s cash services business to launder mob money.

DeMaria testified at the hearing, denying any link to the Mafia and involvement in organized crime. He denied any criminality by the family’s money business, saying he left the family’s cheque cashing business years earlier, and none of the transactions questioned by authorities had been linked to him or to the mob.

In his written decision, Dolin said the government’s evidence of DeMaria’s involvement in money laundering amounted to “nothing more than speculation.”

Dolin rejected the government’s contention that the murder DeMaria was convicted of was related to the ’Ndrangheta in DeMaria’s capacity as a mob enforcer.

Dolin also said evidence heard at the hearing of DeMaria interacting with men suspected of alleged Mafia involvement, including Cosimo and Rocco Remo Commisso, the Figliomeni brothers, and Carmine Verduci, was not evidence that DeMaria was a mobster himself. DeMaria told the hearing the few interactions mentioned were mostly social occasions at ethnic community events.

He also rejected the government’s evidence that various underworld snitches or other gangsters caught on wiretaps alluded to DeMaria as being involved in the mob. Dolin characterized it variously as unreliable or untrustworthy.

“The Respondent is a convicted murderer who came to Canada as an infant from an Italian province associated with the ‘Ndrangheta,” Dolin wrote in his conclusion. The government’s case against DeMaria, he wrote, does not amount to evidence that he is a mobster or criminally involved in the mob.

“In my view, the Minister’s case amounts to no more than conjecture and speculation.” He dismissed the government’s appeal, and confirmed that DeMaria was not deemed inadmissible to Canada.

A request for comment from DeMaria’s immigration lawyer was not responded to prior to publication deadline.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

• Mafia bosses in Italy secretly voiced 'great respect' for Toronto man now fighting to stay in Canada
• When cops can't convict a 'top Mafia boss,' they turn to desperate measures

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