OTTAWA — Some RCMP body cameras in Alberta and B.C. aren’t just recording people anymore, they’re writing about them too. For months, the police force has been testing a new technology where artificial intelligence writes a draft report based on body camera audio of an interaction.

In July, the RCMP launched a year-long pilot project in eight B.C. and two Alberta detachments where audio from officers’ body cameras is uploaded into an AI transcription service to automatically generate a draft incident report. The force budgeted up to $200,000 for the test.

The AI software is Draft One by Axon, the U.S.-based public safety giant that supplies the RCMP’s body cameras since the national police force began rolling out the technology to officers in late 2024.

Despite launching the pilot over six months ago, the RCMP’s first public reference to the use of Axon’s Draft One AI tool appears to be a cursory mention in its 2026-2027 Departmental Plan report published recently .

The testing comes as police forces look for ways to harness artificial intelligence, even as special interest groups and security experts have raised concerns about the technology’s impact on civil rights, privacy and the risks associated with increased surveillance.

“A potential time-saver, Draft One uses artificial intelligence to automatically draft report narratives based on the audio captured from body-worn cameras,” RCMP spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton told National Post in response questions about the pilot.

“The pilot will evaluate whether Draft One can improve and reduce the amount of time officers spend writing reports, freeing up more time to do active policing, rather than administrative tasks. The pilot and ongoing evaluation of it is still ongoing,” she added.

The force will not use video captured from the cameras to feed the AI-generated draft, nor will it test Axon’s facial recognition feature like the Edmonton Police Service , she noted.

Breton also said that an officer must sign-off on a report drafted by AI before it can be submitted. That process includes mandatorily changing a minimum of 10 per cent of the draft and removing “obvious errors” inserted intentionally by Draft One.

“Once these conditions have been met and the draft is fully reviewed, officers are required to sign off on the accuracy of the report via an electronic acknowledgement,” Breton said.

Christopher Schneider, a professor at Manitoba-based Brandon University who has studied how body cameras affect police work for over one decade, said he has many concerns about the RCMP’s testing of AI-generated draft reports.

A police officer’s report is normally informed by what they hear, see and analyze during an interaction; far more information than simply audio captured by a body camera’s microphone, he noted.

Furthermore, police discretion is a crucial part of policing. But AI can’t exercise discretion in its reporting, stripping away another valuable element of the first draft of a report, he added.

Finally, Schneider said that “hallucinations” — an AI-generated response that contains false, misleading or misinterpreted information presented as fact — could very well find themselves in court evidence if not caught by an officer when submitting a report first drafted by AI.

“I think we really need to slow down here and consider the possible consequences on people’s lives with the use of these technologies in industries like policing, and I don’t think that’s being done,” said Schneider, who recently published the book Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform .

“Rather, I think government and police officials are seduced by the idea of artificial intelligence, they’re seduced by the idea of body worn cameras. And again, the evidence is inconclusive that the cameras even work themselves.”

Axon bills its Draft One AI tool as a way to enable police to get a “head start” on drafting reports, arguing that the software can help an officer save one hour of paperwork per shift.

The company says the software, based on an OpenAI model, ensures the draft is proofread by including “insert” clauses that require an officer to manually add information in places suggested by the AI tool.

“The model was calibrated by the Axon team to remove creativity or embellishments — often referred to as ‘hallucinations’ — that may be more common in consumer-grade AI solutions,” reads the company’s website.

But the technology is not foolproof, as recently noted by a police force in Utah where Axon’s Draft One tool claimed in a draft report that a police officer had magically shape-shifted into a frog.

“The body cam software and the AI report writing software picked up on the movie that was playing in the background, which happened to be ‘The Princess and the Frog,'” a Herber City police spokesperson told FOX 13 News in December .

“That’s when we learned the importance of correcting these AI-generated reports.”

In a report last summer, the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation published a study that concluded that Axon’s Draft One “seems deliberately designed to avoid audits that could provide any accountability to the public”, largely because it’s virtually impossible to tell which part of a police report was drafted by the AI versus a human.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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Quebec and Alberta: the problem kids in Confederation. What have they learned from each other?

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has promised an October referendum on provincial autonomy. In Quebec, the CAQ government is drafting its own provincial constitution. Not long from now, both Quebecers and Albertans could face a stark question: Do you want to stay in Canada?

I recently connected with Patrick Taillon, a constitutional law professor at Laval University in Quebec City who advises Quebec’s justice minister. He’s been watching Alberta closely. Constitutional mechanics might sound dry, but Patrick’s insights cut through the jargon with refreshing clarity.

To many Canadians, Quebec already feels emotionally detached from Confederation. Is a provincial constitution just another step down that road?

“The prevailing approach in Canada has been constitutional status quo: take it or leave it,” Patrick says. Whether it’s Western alienation or Quebec’s autonomist and sovereigntist traditions, there’s been almost no appetite for serious reform to address the underlying tensions.

“In a mature federation, constitutional change isn’t abnormal,” he argues. “It is sometimes necessary.”

Patrick is too young to remember the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, but he understands their lingering shadow.

What really keeps Quebec in Canada, he suggests, is the sheer difficulty of getting 50 per cent plus one of voters to back a single, transformative break. “Quebec has been living with a kind of democratic impasse for decades.”

A provincial constitution won’t magically solve that. When I sat on former Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel, few Albertans got excited about the idea. Patrick agrees: no province needs a written constitution to function. “It’s more about clarification, affirmation and coherence,” he explains.

Quebec, as the only French-majority jurisdiction in North America, has unique cultural and linguistic realities that need protecting. Other provinces could follow suit, he says. “Quebec is simply moving first, and doing so in a more systematic way.”

Still, the language of a “distinct national character” sets off alarms — especially among First Nations and other Canadians who wonder what that even means in practice.

“Being Québécois does not mean not being Canadian,” Patrick responds.

“These identities are not mutually exclusive; they operate at different levels.” Even in a hypothetical independence scenario, he suggests, Quebecers born Canadian would likely keep their Canadian citizenship. Identity and citizenship, he says, are more complex than simple oppositions.

Patrick acknowledges that political actors in Quebec and Alberta are watching each other, borrowing ideas and adapting strategies — though this cross-pollination gets little attention outside expert circles.

“Alberta, for example, has openly drawn inspiration from Quebec’s Quiet Revolution in its reflections on pension reform and the possibility of creating a provincial pension plan,” he points out.

There’s also growing alignment on judicial appointments, where Alberta’s Smith has pushed back against what Patrick calls a “federalism deficit” in how judges are chosen. The text of a motion for a constitutional amendment that recently appeared on the agenda of the Alberta Legislative Assembly is nearly identical to the one tabled in Quebec almost a year ago.

Rather than viewing these initiatives in isolation, Patrick sees them as part of an evolving interprovincial constitutional dialogue. It’s a compelling frame.

Yet the strategies differ in important ways. Quebec’s current approach under the CAQ has focused on autonomy within Confederation, rather than on the credible threat of separation. Alberta feels different.

“Premier Danielle Smith’s situation reminds me, in certain respects, of Robert Bourassa’s position in 1992,” Patrick observes.

“She appears constrained by a significant sovereigntist current within her own electoral base,” he says. “Maintaining that base may require being ‘somewhat sovereigntist’ — assertive toward Ottawa and open to the language of autonomy — without actually advocating a formal break from Canada.”

His read: Smith is using leverage, and the implicit pressure of rising Alberta independence sentiment, as a short-term bargaining tool to extract gains from Ottawa. It can work in the near term, he suggests, but over the medium and long term, Quebec’s experience offers a cautionary tale.

“In Quebec’s experience, the use of referendum pressure as a negotiating instrument eventually reached a ceiling,” he observes. “When the moment of decision arrived, a majority of voters hesitated to endorse outright independence. If the same dynamic were to unfold in Alberta, the strategy could produce a political boomerang effect.”

The independence movements themselves also differ profoundly, Patrick explains. Quebec’s rests on deep linguistic and cultural foundations, with decades of institutionalization behind it — think the disciplined political vehicle of the Parti Québécois under René Lévesque. Alberta’s movement is newer, more grassroots, driven by distrust of Ottawa, fiscal grievances and a desire for economic control over resources.

“It does not rest on a linguistic foundation,” Patrick notes. “To date, there is no leadership structure comparable to what the Parti Québécois represented.” That organizational difference may prove more significant than ideological contrasts, he says, when assessing the durability and trajectory of each movement.

Ottawa has experience managing Quebec separation referendums, but it has never faced the prospect of simultaneous movements in two provinces. Patrick’s of the view that if either province voted yes — hypothetically — negotiations would have to begin. And, he suspects, the federal government would suddenly become far less rigid about the possibility of constitutional change.

Finally, I asked the question that should keep Ottawa up at night: Does the potential willingness of a Trump administration to recognize a unilateral declaration of independence — by Quebec or Alberta — matter?

“The Trump administration is not only unpredictable,” Patrick says, “it is also politically unstable.” Still, he acknowledges, if a major external actor signalled it’s prepared to respect the democratic choice of Albertans or Quebecers, it could reshape the negotiation dynamics that would follow any vote.

“If any Canadian province could realistically cultivate alliances within segments of the American political class,” Patrick concludes, “Alberta would likely be well positioned to do so, given its economic ties and political affinities in parts of the United States.”

But, Patrick cautions, “building such diplomatic relationships requires sustained effort, and the results are rarely as decisive or as clear-cut as political rhetoric sometimes suggests.”

Quebec and Alberta may be Confederation’s problem kids, but they’re also teaching each other lessons — about leverage, identity, patience and the limits of brinkmanship. Whether those lessons lead to a stronger federation or deeper fractures remains an open and uncomfortable question for the rest of Canada.

National Post

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OTTAWA — Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney ended his remarks by making a tongue-in-cheek comment to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who was sitting at the head table with him.

“I know there are some stoics in the room,” said Carney, glancing at Poilievre. “So, I will close by channeling Marcus Aurelius,” added the prime minister in reference to the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher that Poilievre cited in a recent Economic Club of Canada address.

When it was Poilievre’s turn to speak, he couldn’t help but chirp back at Carney’s comment.

“Mr. Prime Minister, I think it is very appropriate that you quoted Marcus Aurelius, although he wasn’t much of a practising Christian,” Poilievre said in front of the crowd of faith leaders.

That interaction between Carney and Poilievre is just one snapshot of how both men are navigating a new political dynamic — one that is still confrontational in the House of Commons but is based on “mutual respect” behind the scenes, according to Poilievre.

“I think what you’ve really seen with Pierre Poilievre in recent months is a maturation and measured approach to how he communicates and presents himself,” said Jamie Ellerton, founder and principal at Conaptus and a former Conservative political staffer.

“I think this relationship with the prime minister is an example of that.”

On March 11, the National Post witnessed Carney and Poilievre having a private discussion in a hallway behind the chair of the Speaker of the House of Commons just before Poilievre was set to travel to the United States to make the case for tariff-free trade.

Carney was seemingly giving Poilievre some recommendations of people whom he should meet with in the U.S., while Poilievre joked that he would be enjoying eating ribs in Texas.

Speaking to U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan, Poilievre said he was keeping Carney apprised of his visit with text messages “to tell him what’s going on, to try and support his work.” Poilievre also refused to criticize Carney, claiming that he wouldn’t do it on “foreign soil.”

“I mean, we have a mutual respect,” said Poilievre.

“That is such a Canadian thing to do,” said Rogan.

Marci Surkes, who was a senior aide to then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and is now chief strategy officer at Compass Rose, thinks it is “mutually beneficial” to Carney and Poilievre to recognize that the mood of the country is to be more cooperative and united.

“I think that’s a recognition, to some degree, that Canadians are not interested in the sort of perverse, polarized partisanship that they are seeing in the United States,” she said.

“This spirit of cooperation may not last forever, but in this moment, it meets the moment in terms of what Canadians are looking for from political leaders.”

Poilievre’s new, relaxed tone in public and in private with Carney is a 180-degree shift from his time with Trudeau, according to a Liberal source with knowledge of their interactions.

The source said that whenever Trudeau would invite opposition leaders for briefings on a specific subject matter, while Yves-François Blanchet, Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May would generally be friendly and constructive, Poilievre would never let his guard down.

The source said Poilievre treated those meetings as if he were still in question period in the House of Commons, reading out a prepared list of questions, instead of engaging with Trudeau and other leaders on the topic at hand.

Surkes acknowledged that Poilievre’s style, both in public and in private, “has been bombastic and pitbullish from day one,” but he is now purposefully switching course.

“I do believe we are seeing a shift because, quite frankly, he has nowhere left to go politically,” she said. “He can either change or he can continue to live as yesterday’s man, which is how he appeared in the last general election campaign.”

Poilievre has mentioned in media interviews that the moment when all federal party leaders travelled to a vigil following the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. , was a turning point in Carney and him getting to know each other better and forging a respectful relationship.

“I think, unfortunately, sometimes it takes very tragic incidents to get people to recognize the serious nature of the work that they do,” said Surkes. “These are the two leading political figures in our country and they do need to be able to work together.”

Is there a risk, however, to have Poilievre seen to be too friendly with Carney?

“I guess that’s a two-sided coin,” said Ellerton. “The risk is you look like Jagmeet Singh, where what you’re offering becomes indistinguishable from the government of the day, which is what happened to Jagmeet Singh, and why the NDP were completely wiped out.”

“But for Pierre Poilievre, I think the circumstances are different. I think people fundamentally understand there’s broad disagreements on approaches.”

National Post, with files from Christopher Nardi
calevesque@postmedia.com

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Canadians booking packages with Air Canada Vacations to designated “SUN destinations” will pay an extra $50 per passenger fuel surcharge, starting April 6, 2026, travel agents are saying.

Air Canada Vacations is the airline’s subsidiary offering vacation packages. It has notified travel agents about the fuel surcharge, which will be reflected in the taxes and surcharges at the time of booking. The airline uses “ SUN destinations ” to designate its sunny getaway markets, mainly Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and some U.S. sun spots.

Brett Tabor, a travel agent with the Stewart Travel Group in Charlottetown told the Post in a Thursday email: “I think Canadian travellers are seeing the higher gas prices at the pump, and understand that this also means prices will rise on their airfares and vacations as well.” 

“It’s great that Air Canada Vacations disclosed this increase,” he said, adding some travellers have been reaching out trying to book ahead of increased fares.

Michell shared the Air Canada Vacations notice Wednesday on Facebook .

National Post has reached out to Air Canada for comment but has yet to receive a response.

In late March, Porter Airlines notified VIP members via email of “a temporary fuel surcharge on all VIPorter flight (point) redemptions” to be applied as a “Peak Surcharge,” as of March 23, 2026.

WestJet has also remarked on the rising cost of fuel and the impact on fares. “Airfares reflect current operating costs and typically fluctuate based on market supply and demand. In recent days, fuel prices have continued to rise, and fares have adjusted accordingly,” according to WestJet spokesperson Julia Kaiser .

Air Transat was the first Canadian airline to offer a response to skyrocketing fuel costs. The airline’s chief financial officer, Jean-François Pruneau, stated the airline will be increasing fuel surcharges for flights to Europe.

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The federal government is beefing up its accountability for processing passport applications.

As of April 1, passport applicants will get a full refund of their passport fee if it takes more than 30 business days to process their application, said Lena Metlege Diab, federal minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship in a statement on Wednesday.

The refund will be automatic.

The clock will start when a complete application is received by Passport Canada. It will end when the passport is printed and verified.

However, mailing time is not included . Neither is additional review time for complex applications or holds on an application while the passport office collects additional information.

A complete application includes a filled-out form, all the required supporting documents, passport photos and the full payment of fees. If anything is missing or the application has errors, the application will not count as complete until the outstanding issue is fixed.

The “30 days or free” guarantee will provide “a clear and consistent standard” for applicants, said Diab. “Most passport applications are processed within service standards, but applicants should be compensated when the government does not meet them.”

Service standards for passport applications vary between 10 and 20 business days plus mailing time, says the IRCC , depending on the Service Canada Centre where it is submitted. Applications can also be made at Canadian embassies, consulates or through the mail.

This policy does not apply to urgent and express services, which have separate, shorter timelines, according to IRCC. “If those timelines are not met, fees are refunded under existing authorities.”

Applicants can check on an application status using the Passport office’s online tool , by contacting the passport office handling your application or by telephone.

For people who applied in person or by mail, the refund will be sen t as a cheque to the mailing address on file. For online applicants renewing their passports, the refund will be sent to the credit card used for payment, or a cheque will be issued if the refund to the card doesn’t work.

Applicants whose applications weren’t processed within the service standard, and haven’t received a refund by July 1 of the fiscal year after they applied, are asked to contact Passport Canada about it.

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A new bill that would explicitly criminalize forced or coerced sterilizations as aggravated assault punishable by up to 14 years in prison could inadvertently harm women, Canadian leaders in the field of women’s reproductive health are warning.

While well-intentioned, the bill as now written could impact life-threatening emergencies and scare some doctors away from offering women voluntary, consensual permanent contraception, leaders of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) wrote in an op-ed published online this week at healthydebate.ca.

“We want it to be very clear that the SOGC strongly condemns coerced or forced sterilization,” the organization’s president, Dr. Lynn Murphy-Kaulbeck, and CEO Dr. Diane Francoeur wrote.

“No woman should ever receive permanent contraception without her free and informed consent.”

Coerced sterilizations are not just part of Canada’s distant past, but “sadly and unacceptably remain a present-day issue,” they said.

Indigenous groups have urged passing of the law — Bill S-228 — which is now making its way through Parliament. More than 12,000 Indigenous women were subjected to forced sterilization in Canada between 1950 and 2018, according to cases documented by the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice. Cases have been reported as recently as 2025.

“We fully support the intent of this bill to ensure that this practice — which is already against the law — is finally stopped and that those who perpetuate these assaults against women are held to account,” Murphy-Kaulbeck and Francoeur, of the SOGC, wrote.

However, the legislation could inadvertently and paradoxically restrict women’s access to reproductive care, they said.

Doctors could hesitate to intervene in life-threatening medical emergencies — for example, a massive postpartum hemorrhage following childbirth, they wrote.

“If there is even a perception these interventions could later be treated as potential criminal offences, hesitation becomes a real risk.”

The bill could also have a “chilling effect” if doctors fear criminal prosecution for providing tubal ligations for women who don’t want children, or more children, they wrote.

“If procedures involving women’s reproductive organs are now treated as legally exceptional or higher risk, will that OB/GYN grant this woman’s request? She (the doctor) has real concerns it could land her in jail, so why would she take the risk?”

“In effect, a law intended to protect women could inadvertently contribute to a more restrictive and risk-averse environment in the delivery of reproductive care,” the authors wrote.

“We call on Members of Parliament not to pass this bill in its current form and focus instead on improving policies and funding that could enhance enforcement of existing laws that prohibit coerced sterilizations.”

Beginning in the 1920s, sterilization policies emerged across Canada — practices that were formalized by law in Alberta and British Columbia until those laws were repealed in 1970, Conservative MP Jamie Schmale, who is sponsoring the bill in the House of Commons, told parliamentarians in February, when the bill passed second reading.

“However, the repeal of those laws did not end the mindset that made them possible,” Schmale said.

“Survivors continue to report being pressured, misled, threatened and sterilized without full and informed consent, often during the most vulnerable moments of their lives: during labour, immediately after childbirth or while under medication and distress,” he said.

“Some were told their babies might be taken away if they refused. Others were told the procedure was reversible, but it was clearly not.”

While assault laws already apply, “they’ve never been used to prosecute forced sterilization,” Senator Yvonne Boyer, the bill’s sponsor, said at a February news conference.

“That silence has allowed confusion, inconsistency and ultimately impunity.”

Boyer said the bill removes any legal grey area and makes “one thing unmistakably clear: That sterilizing a person without their free and informed consent is aggravated assault.”

The National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls documented forced and coerced sterilization. People with intellectual disabilities have also been targeted, Schmale told reporters.

The bill has the support of the The Canadian Medical Association.

Murphy-Kaulbeck and Francoeur were unavailable for interviews Thursday.

According to background material from the Survivors Circle, the bill doesn’t criminalize “lawful, medically necessary or consent based care.”

Life-saving emergencies would not be impacted, nor would the bill interfere with voluntary, reproductive choices, the group said.

There would be no need for the bill “if forced and coerced sterilization wasn’t still happening,” Survivors Circle executive director Harmony Redsky said in an email.

“The absence of clear legal accountability has allowed forced and coerced sterilization to continue.”

Care provided during emergencies is already protected from criminalization under the Criminal Code, she added.

“Physicians can be assured that when they are saving lives, they will not be held criminally accountable if those lifesaving measures result in permanent sterilization” because of that lifesaving care, she said.

National Post

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Once a friend of the former astronaut-turned-viceregal, John Fraser describes how Julie Payette crumbled into “perpetual petulance,” in this excerpt from his new book, The Governors General: An Intimate History of Canada’s Highest Office.

It should not have ended this way. It should have ended with a national celebration of an amazing, vibrant, and still young woman who managed to surmount all the challenges in a mostly male world; who managed to storm through a mostly male engineering school right up to the day she graduated summa cum laude ; who managed to get through mostly male selection and training at the Canadian Space Agency; and ultimately, who managed two trips to outer space with mostly American male crews at NASA. As if all that were not enough, she also managed to crown this extraordinary record by being appointed governor general, the highest and noblest position Canada has to offer its most outstanding citizens.

Except it didn’t end that way. Not at all.

Instead, it ended in national obloquy and left bitter feelings on all sides, which have yet to heal. On all sides. In effect, Julie Payette was forced out of high office before her term was over, having suffered all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as well as some undeniably self-inflicted wounds. After she severely irritated senior officials in the Privy Council Office who should have been her stout defenders, after she alienated more than a dozen institutions that looked to her office for moral and honorific support, after she reputedly bullied her own staff to a level of toxicity unprecedented in the history of the office, she more or less served herself up to a united and censorious media.

When it all came to a head, she woke up one day to find her appointment abruptly terminated by Royal Letters Patent and was immediately succeeded in her responsibilities by the Chief Justice of Canada Richard Wagner, in the rarely aroused and temporary office of national administrator to the government of Canada. To add to all this, she was booted out by the man who just a few years earlier had told her what an amazing woman she was and how proud Canadians would be to see her at the very pinnacle of the nation’s governance and honour system. That fantasy-spinner was Justin Trudeau, for whom due diligence was never his strongest suit.

Almost exactly one year after her unceremonious departure from Rideau Hall, on January 27, 2023, we literally bumped into each other in the main hallway of Massey College in the University of Toronto. It was following the college’s annual dinner honouring Adrienne Clarkson and the Clarkson Laureates in Public Service. In the good-natured melee in the hallway after the dinner, Payette and I were suddenly face to face. It was the first time we had met since her ouster. We had been good friends for quite a while before. She was, after all, a distinguished alumna of my college, having made her mark at Massey during the years that my predecessor, Professor Ann Saddlemyer, was master of the college, and she  maintained the relationship after I was elected master of the college. She came several times to stay, and the Junior Fellow scholars — and everyone else — were very happy to see her around the place. But the relationship had soured as she started digging her viceregal grave deeper and deeper at Rideau Hall and declined all help, even from those who admired her.

“Hi Julie. It’s nice to see you here.” A brief interlude of embarrassed silence ensued. We had stopped communicating as she careened off into her own limbo land of inexplicable rebellion against what was considered appropriate behaviour of a governor general, and she had clearly resented my point of view. “Are we talking to each other now?”

“Why would I talk to you? You were part of the lynch mob that hounded me out of office.”

“Julie, you can’t use the word ‘lynch’ around Massey College. It will just lead to trouble and …”

She didn’t linger. Abruptly turning her back on me, she returned to the nearby Upper Library. I wasn’t surprised or particularly hurt by the snub, because things had been bad between us for some time. But it deeply saddened me because I could see so clearly the wreckage that her life had become, despite her best intentions. It was also sobering to see how little she understood her own complicity in her troubles.

I am still gob-smacked that it took the Toronto Star about ten nano-seconds (that’s journalistic exaggeration for an easy search) to discover Payette had accidentally killed a (pedestrian) by running them over in her car, and also that she had spent time at a police station for allegedly going after her estranged husband with a dangerous weapon. That Star story ran three months before Payette was sworn into office. Due diligence takes on a special negative meaning in the PMO, as this sad but easily researched history demonstrates. I do not believe for a moment that if anyone in the PMO had known of these unfortunate incidents she would have ever been asked to take on the job of governor general.

Nevertheless, she did get the viceregal gig, which turned out to be a disaster on most fronts, and now the wreckage was before the entire nation’s eyes. And my own eyes because here she was at a place we both loved and I was deeply recalling all this when she returned a few minutes later, this time with eyes brimming with tears: “I came back to apologize. I shouldn’t have just said that to you, but you do know I was lynched.”

“I do know what happened to you, Julie, and no one should have to go through what you went through. But you mustn’t use the word ‘lynch’ around here. Not since my successor screwed up everything at the college by mishandling a racial incident …”

I was cut off mid-sentence, trying to explain how an ill-timed, ill-spoken barb was directed at a Black student at Massey College. The incident, wildly taken out of proportion, made front-page news and was then allowed to fester and poison the whole place for months to come. It’s still a blot on the college’s reputation.

“But I was lynched. How else do you explain what I was supposed to do when the prime minister comes and tells me I have to go? I wasn’t given a chance to have my own lawyer present. I tried phoning the chief justice for advice, and he didn’t return my calls. There was no one to come to my help and now I am a pariah. People at the CBC or the Globe and Mail aren’t interested in any viewpoint I might have. They were all part of the lynch mob, too. You didn’t help me. No journalists would help me. No one in the Privy Council would help me. I was completely alone.”

“I’m so sorry, Julie, for all this trouble, but I did actually try to reach out to you several times leading up to the showdown, but you never returned any emails or phone calls. I think you had already decided I was an enemy, which I never was. And I’m so sorry for the mess your life seems to still be in. You do know you have the right to present your own case to the public, don’t you? You could write about it. There would be some pushback, but it would still be a chance to show your side of those events.”

“How can I? I’m not a writer. I’m an astronaut. You could write it if you wanted to.”

“For God’s sake, Julie, I can’t write that particular story. Only you can. I mean you can always get a ghostwriter, just like Prince Harry …”

“I’m not Prince Harry.”

“I’m sorry. I was trying to be funny. That was a stupid thing to say. But look: I do have some ideas on what you can do to reclaim your better identity. I’ll send you an email tomorrow so we can set up a lunch and work out a strategy. Only if you’d like to. It’s fun to turn adversity into a challenge.”

I don’t think she was listening. All my words seemed to fly up into the fetid air. The hallway was quite crowded with people getting set to go home for the evening, but everyone was making a wide circle to avoid any contact with us. It was obvious that a troubled conversation was going on, but she soon disappeared into the throng.

I sent the email the next morning, but there was no response. Still haven’t heard, although I remain available. I would tell her to keep lying low, but get involved in some public organization where her presence would make a difference and just keep at it. Eventually, people would take note and as for the dear old media, well, the dear old media loves nothing more than rehabilitating someone it has already dragged down. That advice never got delivered, although in setting down this sad encounter, I did rediscover our last email exchange. It came out of the blue shortly after she was thrust out of office and the chief justice had taken over her responsibilities, the same chief justice who never returned her calls, probably because he had already been asked by the prime minister to take on the job temporarily:

2021-02-08: Hello John. Shouldn’t the monarchists and expert constitutionalists of this country be worried that the Crown’s office has been taken over by the ministry of the PCO (Privy Council Office), and that the administrator is currently from the judicial branch? What happens if we have elections this spring and it is tight? Who will decide?

Best

Jp

To which I replied:

2021-02-09: Dearest Madam, Of course it’s a concern and a serious one, but not as serious as what has happened to your venerable office! The country has survived an administrator from the Supreme Court before (I think you have even availed yourself of the office from time to time), but the office of governor general is going to be a long time recovering from all the recent damage.

I feel so badly for you. On the one hand, no one should have to go through what you did. On the other hand, I criticize myself for not being more honest and forthright when I knew you were heading straight for shoals and all the parameters of danger. I did not want to lose you as a friend and I also highly valued and esteemed your kindness and generosity to Massey when I was at the helm there. I’m not sure you realized it, but I actually stepped down from the presidency of my small institute of the Crown to make sure I wasn’t going to be in any conflict if you needed my help. The one time I really tried to get through to you and was almost in tears (shortly after the pandemic began), I think I just irritated you.

For me, the office was always more important than any of its holders and I still believe its ceremonial and emotional power is far greater than any vestiges of political power it has retained. I especially thought its symbolism was amazingly powerful during this period of historic reconciliation with the Indigenous nations, but here too I think I became an irritation and I sensed how uncomfortable you were at the Massey-Indigenous events a couple of years ago. In the end I was not of much use to you and that is a great sorrow for me. You have just gone through a terrible, terrible time, but it too will pass and you will have beautiful moments again. That’s the way life works. I shall always be grateful for your immense love of Massey College and the generosity you showed us, especially the time you came with your fellow astronauts — or “pathfinders” as Ursula Franklin called you.

Please take care of yourself.

Fondly,

John

I can be naïve. Much of her time in office, I kept wishing she would wake up and realize that the best impact she could make for the country during her mandate was with settler-Indigenous relations. The Canadian Crown has a unique role there. The historic opportunity for reconciliation past all the cruelty and tragic initiatives and misapprehensions of the past was occurring on her watch. No previous governor general was ever handed such a remarkable file so admirably suited for such a high office. What I failed to see was why “reconciliation” has gone down so badly in Quebec and for French Canadians, and this lost soul, Payette, was definitely a child of her native culture. Maybe it was because it was so obvious that I simply couldn’t see it.

The first stumbling block, and it’s a huge one, is that reconciliation begins with rethinking Quebec’s mystique as the founding nation. The point has been made earlier but bears repeating. Sorry. In the new dispensation, the French settlements in Canada were simply those of another European intruder, different in time but not in substance from the British intrusions. More devastatingly, Indigenous reconciliation totally undermines Quebec’s once primary claim of victimhood. Sorry again. Get in line behind historic Indigenous victimhood — and not just in line, but way back.

There wasn’t a hope in heaven or hell that this governor general would wade into these unpleasant realities. The few times I saw her with Indigenous leaders at their ceremonies, I wanted to shed tears at her evident frustration and irritation.

* * *

Nevertheless, even if it was her own damn fault, Julie Payette wasn’t wrong to fuss about either the fact that she was railroaded out of high office or the potential conflict between a chief justice of Canada’s Supreme Court acting as governor general, and a government caught out in conflict over the prorogation or dismissal of Parliament. We saw some of the potential damage to our constitutional equilibrium when Michaëlle Jean was faced with a prorogation request from Stephen Harper just under a decade earlier. The residual powers of a governor general mean that if an election is indecisive, handling how the country can proceed to fashion its governance falls directly on the lap of whoever resides at Rideau Hall. If there were any objections to that course of action, say brought by an opposition party, it would be up to the Supreme Court of Canada to adjudicate the constitutionality of it all, but if the chief justice is already the acting governor general then, how to put it delicately, we have something of a problem here.

There was no precedent for the way Payette was evicted from Rideau Hall. Well, that’s the wrong way to put it, because she managed to stay clear of Rideau Hall except for official functions throughout her foreshortened mandate. That was another problem she created out of what seemed pure petulance and a desire to exercise what she considered her freedom as viceregal. But the fact that she didn’t like the deal she was served doesn’t diminish the arbitrary and unfair way she was shown the door. Not only was she not allowed time to consult a lawyer, she wasn’t even allowed time to even consider if she, in fact, could call a lawyer or a constitutional adviser. But then she didn’t care in general for advice from constitutional experts, because she clearly thought she knew better about the parameters of power for a governor general.

All her determination, courage, and stamina that got her into space — graduate engineering school surrounded by alpha males, training at NASA surrounded by alpha males, a bruising marriage according to her own account to an alpha male — had hardened her and taught her to be tough, talk tough, and act tough. Personal security officers didn’t daunt her, government ministers didn’t daunt her, constitutional advisers (myself included) certainly didn’t daunt her. She was made for outer space. Stuck on Earth, she was like a caged lioness.

Sometimes it was even cruel to watch her so hemmed in. To call things as she saw them, that meant not pussyfooting around stupidity like vaccine denials, or, for that matter, like vacuous trust in religion of any sort. In some worlds that would all have been refreshing, especially when she was selling the rewards of space adventures or getting girls and young women to understand that the only thing holding them back from doing exactly what they dreamed of doing was to be like her and not accept boundaries. And yet, all these qualities conspired to ensure that she would be about the most unsuitable person imaginable for the high office of governor general.

By the time Justin Trudeau dropped by to tell her that her time was up, she was beyond being able to do or influence anything constitutionally or otherwise, because — to buy into the self-imagery she shared with me in conversation — she was already swinging from a tree.

Here’s a rule of thumb for all viceregal wannabes: governors general are influential to the degree that their slate is clean and that their reputations are unsullied by either controversy or toxicity. On both those counts, Julie Payette was well beyond repair by the time she was required to step down. She never really got it, never saw it coming, and is presumably still saying she was “lynched” without fully understanding why.

And here’s some advice for prime ministers who think they know how to make sexy appointments by raising up a “girl astronaut” to high office: look at the nature of the assignment you are asking someone to fulfill, and if it looks too good to be true, it is probably because it is too good to be true.

It didn’t start this way. She was sworn in during an emotional ceremony in the Senate chamber on October 2, 2017. I was sitting right beside my successor at Massey College, the Honourable Hugh Segal. Two years into his mandate, we had not hit it off very well, a common and unfortunate reality between successors and predecessors and we could barely speak civilly to each other. After all the oaths had been taken in both official languages, the newly sworn-in governor general declined to stay glued to the elaborate and hilariously pompous throne chair. Instead, she simply stood in front of the throne to address all those in the Senate chamber and across the nation. It was an arresting image that was both daunting and endearing: a woman who had winged her way through outer space to become a shining symbol to her fellow citizens of what a determined pioneer could achieve. My God, she was even a single mother, with her amazingly lookalike son, Laurier, nearby.

This was the high point of her time in office: all the rest was downhill, slowly at first with the dawning realization that she would never move into her official residence because it didn’t suit her fancy, and ultimately building up steam when she largely disappeared during the two years of COVID emergency in which she failed utterly to deploy her symbolic office to reassure Canadians: the sort of stuff expected in a position like that, the sort of stuff the Queen herself did so effectively, the sort of stuff that was left for the prime minister to do, almost daily, until we could hardly stand the sight of him.

When she did eventually emerge, post-COVID, we were subjected to what was basically a concentrated act of perpetual petulance. I first noticed it particularly just before COVID, the day she and all the lieutenant governors and territorial commissioners came to Massey College during the annual viceregal retreat. It was hosted by members of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation, and the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the charismatic Perry Bellegarde, was scheduled to make a historic address to all attendees. A sacred fire was lit in the college quadrangle, where all the viceregal grandees were invited to join the Mississaugas in a ritual dance. Payette clearly found this ridiculous. The look on her face as she grimaced toward her private secretary at one turn of the dance said it all: this is unbelievably stupid and please get me out of here as fast as you can.

It was duly noted by many at the event, and in the amazing speech Chief Bellegarde subsequently made that night. I’m paraphrasing, but he effectively said: Your offices and mine tend to be regarded by unimaginative observers as unpowerful. But they are wrong, because we all have important platforms where we can make a real difference in the national debate on what we can do as a  people working together on reconciliation, and the preservation of the natural gifts the bountiful Creator has bequeathed all of us on Turtle Island.

As soon as this extraordinary encounter concluded, Payette was off — seemingly to places unknown, freed from the tedious necessities of high office.

* * *

Let’s go back to a far happier time. At the end of the eighties, Payette had been an outstanding junior fellow at Massey College, where she was living while pursuing her engineering degree at the University of Toronto. She was dynamic and popular and was remembered particularly for her enthusiasm in college events, even dressing up as Queen Elizabeth I at a costume ball. She loved the college deeply. Thanks to its small size and warmth of its buildings and community, she left part of her soul there, and would return to it time and again to recharge her batteries or to try and heal emotional wounds or just to get regrounded. By the time I came on the scene there, she was already an astronaut. She took her first jaunt into space in 1999, with the whole college watching the take-off and subsequent landing. She even took college souvenirs with her on that flight, which were subsequently returned, framed, and put up in the college’s common room along with a fabulous, shining portrait of her in her NASA space suit.

We were so proud of her then. Well, the college is still proud of her — although we had to learn to accept a wider understanding of her humanity, flaws and all.

The first time she returned to Massey after that flight will not be forgotten by anyone present. She arrived at Massey straight from one of the NASA headquarters, still wearing her astronaut’s jumpsuit, a strong royal blue that had a prominent zipper going from top to bottom on the front. Her plane had been late coming to Toronto, she said, and thus had been unable to change for dinner. Some of us doubted that she wanted to come as anything less than a fully-fledged astronaut. We didn’t blame her. We loved her brio and self-confidence.

She spoke to the whole community that night in Ondaatje Hall. She was just someone who had always wanted to be an astronaut, whatever the obstacles, being a woman from a working-class Quebec family. We all understood how significant those obstacles were. Her luxuriant head of dark blonde curly hair fell onto her shoulders with beguiling charm, and she became everyone’s ideal, especially to the female students, for whom she was an amazing model. Ditto for the male students, who wanted to have their picture taken with her. Well, with them she was both an inspiration and a fantasy figure.

Later that evening, on what Scandinavians politely call “a health break,” I went to the men’s washroom only to find the two stand-up urinals each occupied by junior fellows talking animatedly while they did their business. Neither knew I had stepped into the room. I went to one of the enclosed cubicles directly behind them.

“My God,” said one of the fellows to his neighbour as they were both mid-pee. “Did you get a load of that outfit she was in?” “Are you kidding?” said the other. “I fantasized about slowly pulling down that zipper and …”

From behind them in the enclosed cubicles, the stern voice of the master of the college cut them off and boomed out: “Steady on, Chaps. You’re talking about a guest of the college.”

Sometimes the art of being an effective head of a diverse community is purposely not seeing and hearing some things. Sometimes, certain issues have to be dealt with. Sometimes, if you are really lucky, you can make your point somewhere in between these two poles. I gave them both time to zip up, wash their hands quickly, and clear out before I emerged, chuckling.

* * *

The second big time she came back to Massey during my time there, she brought most of the crew of her second mission in the space shuttle Endeavour along. It, too, was a night to remember. The crew members, along with some of their spouses or partners, came to dinner in Ondaatje Hall and were distributed to different tables to sit with both the students and quite a number of eminent senior fellows. They were treated as the stars they really were, like the stars in whose universe they had actually travelled in.

Julie Payette was in her element. She was with her peers in the college she adored and had told them all about. There was a glow about her that night that everyone recognized. The person who recognized it the most was one of the most famous senior scholars of the college, Ursula Franklin: a companion of the Order of Canada, a Holocaust survivor, a holder of the United Nations’ Pearson Peace Prize, and the pioneer researcher in the field of archaeometry, which applies modern materials analysis to archaeology. She may well have been the most honoured academic in Canada, with more honorary degrees than anyone. In her lifetime, she had a school named after her and, after her death, a street in the heart of the University of Toronto campus. But on this night, she might easily have been a young engineering and physics student thrilled at being in the presence of a beautiful female astronaut, confirming all Franklin’s fervent beliefs and theories about women in science and public life.

“Feminism isn’t an employment agency for women,” Franklin once famously said. “It’s an alternative way of ordering the social space, in which women are the prototype rather than the men. It is based on collaboration rather than competition. As a youngster, I still remember my feeling of joy that one could look at the earth differently. That’s feminism: everything is differently oriented. Seeing the same world with different eyes.”

After the joyous dinner with the visiting astronauts, everyone gathered in the common room and then Franklin took centre stage with Payette, as the other (male) astronauts surrounded them in a semicircle. “You are all pathfinders,” she began pianissimo, and then taking Payette’s hand and raising it a little. “We all want to know a little bit about the paths you have been treading for us,” she began, and an amazing discussion ensued that lasted for well over an hour.

The audience was transfixed as these two voyageurs led us on: the traveller in space in the twenty-first century and the traveller through all that was evil on earth in the twentieth century, but here in this extraordinary moment, their journeys had intersected. My eyes fixed on Julie. She was absolutely radiant, her eyes taking in everything from the general excitement, from the wood crackling in the giant fireplace buttressing the warm glow of her favourite room in all of the college with its leather furniture, oriental carpets, its polished oak floors, from the transfixing and thrilling focus Ursula Franklin had a way of creating in the world of ideas, and from all the hope, ambition, and youthful brio of a hundred of the brightest young minds in the country. There, in the midst, was Julie Payette almost ready for takeoff.

It’s this memory more than any other that makes me so angry when I project the fate that was in store for her in the catastrophe that was to come. It’s also a memory I pray fervently she will be able to rediscover in some form before her days are done. It will come the moment she realizes that the great honour she was given to be the symbolic and inspiring leader of her country was never really about her; it was about the country’s needs and desires. That lack of understanding remains at the heart of this tragedy.

The Governors General: An Intimate History of Canada’s Highest Office, published by Sutherland House, Toronto, is out on April 7, 2026.

Main image: Governor General Julie Payette delivers the throne speech in the Senate on Sept. 23, 2020. Photo by Adrian Wyld/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Istanbul on Saturday for security talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The visit comes a day after Erdogan spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who accused Kyiv of attempting to target the gas pipeline between Russia and Turkey that also supplies several European countries.

“Arrived in Istanbul, where important meetings are scheduled. Substantive talks have been prepared with the President of Turkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” said Zelenskyy on X.

“We are working to strengthen our partnership to ensure real protection of people’s lives, advance stability and guarantee security in our Europe, as well as in the Middle East,” he added.

The Turkish presidency also confirmed the visit, saying that the meeting will focus on “efforts towards a ceasefire and a lasting solution, particularly within the framework of the Istanbul process.”

An AFP correspondent saw a heavy police presence around the lavish Dolmabahce Palace on the shores of the Bosphorus, which also hosted several rounds of talks between Moscow in Kyiv in the past.

Zelenskyy will also meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of most Christian Orthodox churches.

This takes place a week before Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated in both Ukraine and Russia on April 12.

Kyiv has been pushing for a truce over the Orthodox Easter holidays that would include a halt in attacks on energy infrastructure.

Russia, which is seeking a permanent settlement rather than a brief ceasefire, said it had not seen any “clearly formulated” proposals from Kyiv.
Ukraine has struck Russian energy infrastructure throughout the more than four-year war in a bid to weaken Moscow’s ability to finance its offensive.

Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities have cut power and heating to millions of people since the beginning the war in 2022.

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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.

A Quebec judge says Canada cannot have a separate judicial system for immigrants who come into conflict with the law amid a national debate over the role immigration status plays in sentencing.

Provincial court Judge Dennis Galiatsatos made the observation in the case of a married immigrant in Montreal who harassed his former girlfriend for six months. The man wanted her as a second wife, which he considered acceptable under Sharia Law.

“Immigration consequences cannot take a sentence out of the appropriate range or justify what would otherwise be an unfit sentence,” said Galiatsatos in his March 23 sentencing decision. “They must not be allowed to dominate the exercise or skew the process either in favour of or against deportation.”

The judge cautioned that the consideration of immigration status must not lead to a parallel system of criminal justice in which non-citizens would receive lighter sentences than those imposed on Canadian citizens for the same offence committed in similar situations.

He cited several examples where appeal courts have stepped in to overrule discharges given to immigrants in domestic violence cases and substituted jail time.

Federal Conservatives have seized on the issue.

Last fall, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner introduced a private member’s bill, C-220, that would prohibit judges from taking into account the impact a sentence would have on an offender’s immigration status.

“It should be a stated policy of our system to get criminals out of Canada,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in December, while speaking in favour of Bill C-220. “If someone is not a citizen, not a Canadian, and commits a crime, then they should be shown the door.”

In the case before Galiatsatos, the defendant, Raed Ahmad Sariss, arrived in Canada in 2018.

He was born in the United Arab Emirates from Palestinian refugee parents, according to the judge’s ruling.

He immigrated to the Philippines in 2010, where he married his pregnant girlfriend. His wife and children still live in Manila.

He met his victim at a Montreal bar where they worked. She was his employee and 22 years younger than him.

“Even though he was married, Sariss was comfortable with the relationship, since polygamy is permitted for Muslims,” the judge noted.

“In fact, he planned to marry the victim.

“He loved her. Besides, under Sharia, he is entitled to love more than one woman.”

The court heard that when the victim decided to end the relationship, Sariss refused to accept it. He embarked on an intense campaign of writing to her, following her and watching her, despite her pleas to be left alone.

“Even his arrest left him undeterred. Despite signing release conditions, one month later, he was again caught watching her at her home,” the judge said.

Sariss, 46, pleaded guilty to criminally harassing his former girlfriend, who was 22 at the time, between November 2023 and April 2024. He also pleaded guilty to breaching the terms of his release on May 16, 2024, by going to the victim’s home while prohibited.

His defence lawyer asked for a conditional discharge, which would not result in a conviction or a criminal record if the defendant fulfilled the conditions of the sentence.

The aim of a conditional discharge, the judge pointed out, is to avoid a potential deportation or other consequences on an offender’s immigration status.

At the time of his sentencing, Sariss had already been found inadmissible to Canada and was fighting to stay and bring his wife and children here.

But Galiatsatos said it is not the court’s role to use the sentencing process to solve an accused’s immigration predicament.

“It is certainly not my function to usurp the jurisdiction of Canada’s immigration system by crafting a sentence that will circumvent the proper mechanisms that are already in place,” he said, adding that Sariss had given conflicting accounts of his situation to him and the Department of Immigration.

The judge said a discharge would be contrary to the public interest.

“The level of criminal harassment was particularly intense. It was premeditated, longstanding, impervious to pleas to be left alone and rooted in unacceptable values of domination and control. The accused’s insight is severely lacking. He thinks he did nothing wrong.”

Instead, the judge said “a short and sharp sentence of imprisonment in a custodial setting is warranted in order to impress upon the accused and other like-minded men that stalking of this nature is no trivial matter.”

Galiatsatos sentenced Sariss to 75 days in jail, to be served intermittently on Wednesdays and Thursdays, to be followed by three years of probation.

The Crown had argued for a sentence of six to nine months in jail.

The judge’s sentence might have no effect on Sariss’s pursuit of permanent residency. In Canada, a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissable  if they are convicted of a criminal offence that leads to jail time of more than six months.

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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.