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 scheduled temporary shutdown of the year this weekend.

Goetz is asking Michel to launch an immediate investigation into the rolling closures and potentially take over the management of local hospitals in the southern Interior.

His municipality 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 local media 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.

Goetz didn’t respond to an interview request from National Post.

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.

“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.

Osborne’s office did not reply to a request for comment from National Post by deadline.

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.”

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

• Carney defends new pipeline in face of questions over wildfires, climate
• How Ontario First Nation escaped raging wildfire that burned down their community

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.

More than three weeks after a man’s dead body was discovered in the Debert area of Nova Scotia, Mounties have gone public with his death, which they believe to be criminal in nature.

In an area still scarred by the April 2020 mass shootings that left 22 people including a pregnant woman and a female RCMP officer dead, police officers appear to have been going door-to-door for quite some time asking about the human remains discovered on July 22. But until they sent out a news release Thursday, the RCMP wouldn’t provide any detail on the matter, or even confirm that they had found a dead body.

“Since the man’s remains were discovered, extensive searches have been conducted in the area,” Cpl. Mandy Edwards said in the news release.

“We understand there’s been rumour and speculation within the community, and that this may’ve caused distress. However, our primary responsibility is to protect our ability to investigate.”

Indeed, social media was rife with rumours about the grisly find.

“It would be really nice to know what the hell is going on in our backyards,” one resident said on Facebook days before the Mounties officially confirmed finding a dead body.

“Been wondering about this for weeks,” said another.

The “RCMP should be letting people know,” said yet another.

“They have learned nothing over the past six years,” said another commenter. “Secrecy continues to breed distrust. Shame on them.”

Mounties released few details about the body Thursday other than it was male and that “criminality is believed to be a factor in the death.”

Investigators are working with the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service to confirm the dead man’s identity and determine the circumstances surrounding his death, said the RCMP.

“The investigation is in the early stages. No more information can be released at this time.”

In an interview Thursday before police confirmed they were investigating a dead body, Colchester North MLA Tom Taggart said he hadn’t heard about the find. But he acknowledged that the community is still on edge when it comes to police officers, given that Gabriel Wortman, the Dartmouth denturist responsible for the 2020 mass killings, dressed up like a Mountie and drove a replica RCMP patrol car during his shooting rampage that started in Portapique on April 18, 2020, and ended the next day when a Mountie dog handler shot him dead at the Irving Big Stop in Enfield.

“People around here continue to be apprehensive about police coming to their doors given the events of Portapique,” Taggart said.

He suspects the dead body is somehow tied to organized crime.

“Like every other small community, there’s a history of talk of violent drug dealers living in some of these rural communities,” Taggart said. “It’s convenient for them … they’re a long way from police out here.”

• How Nova Scotia nearly got away to become part of the United States
• Halifax police charge man after bomb threat against U.S. Consulate

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.

The average Canadian family spends more of its income on taxes than it does on the basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing, a new report reveals.

Numbers from “Taxes versus the Necessities of Life: The Canadian Consumer Tax Index, 2026 Edition” by The Fraser Institute found that the average family loses 41.9 per cent of its income to a variety of taxes, while food, shelter and clothing combined eat up just 36 per cent.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in 1961, the first year for which the report has data, just 33.5 per cent of the average family’s income went to taxes, while more than half (56.5 per cent) covered basic necessities.

The report notes that, until about 1980, Canadians paid less on taxes than they did on the three categories of basic necessities. Taxes then outstripped necessities as a percentage of income until about 1992, when they were briefly about the same. But since then the gap has widened to where we see it today.

“At a time when the cost of living is top of mind across the country, taxes remain the largest household expense for Canadian families,” said Jake Fuss, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report.

“While Canadians can decide for themselves whether or not they get good value for their tax dollars, they should understand how much they pay in taxes each year and how much the tax burden has grown relative to other necessary costs they must pay.”

The report also breaks down taxes by type, with more than half the tax burden taken up by income taxes (31.7 per cent) and payroll and health taxes (22.3 per cent).

Next on the list are profit taxes (14.2 per cent), sales taxes (13.7 per cent) and property taxes (8.5 per cent). The remainder, about 10 per cent, includes liquor and tobacco taxes, fuel and vehicle licensing taxes and import duties.

Last year the average Canadian family earned an income of $121,111 and paid total taxes equaling $50,721 or 41.9 per cent. In 1961, in comparison, the average family had an income of just $5,000 and paid a total tax bill of $1,675 or 33.5 per cent.

In absolute terms, that’s about a 30-fold increase over the years, with the total tax bill of the average Canadian family growing by 2,928 per cent since 1961.

Data in the report shows only three times in which taxes as a percentage of income fell, the last during the pandemic, when wages continued to rise modestly while tax revenues fell. Aside from those blips, it has been a steady march upward.

The report also notes that taxes have grown much more rapidly than any other single expenditure on the list. Costs for shelter increased by 2,349 per cent between 1961 and the present, while food prices climbed 952 per cent, and clothing just 526 per cent in the same period. Even the Consumer Price Index, which measures the average price that consumers pay for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health and personal care, education, and other items, grew 946 per cent in that period.

Even taking inflation into account, the average tax bill has more than doubled in the time covered by the report. In constant 2025 dollars, the tax bill in 1961 amounted to $17,518. But by last year it had grown to $50,721, an increase of 189 per cent.

• Canadian family of four will pay $21K towards public health care this year: report
• Top 20% of Canadian earners pay more than half of all taxes, says study warning against increasing rates

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.

OTTAWA – Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was open to putting U.S. alcohol back on the shelves in his province if the federal government secures a “fair deal” with the U.S.

“If we get a fair deal that will protect our steel sector, our auto sector, our forestry sector, agriculture sector, manufacturing sector, then we’d be more than happy to bring booze back on the shelves only if we have a deal that’s going to protect those sectors,” said Ford, during a press conference in Guelph, Ont., on Thursday.

Canada and the U.S. are currently in intense trade talks in Washington, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened last month to impose a 50 per cent tariff on $29 billion worth of Canadian goods, effective Aug. 19. The president used powers under Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Canadian and American negotiators have been meeting daily, to hammer out a deal ahead of the new U.S. tariff deadline.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief Trade Negotiator Janice Charette are scheduled to meet with Trump’s top trade envoy on Thursday afternoon. It would be the second such meeting in the last three days.

Some concessions Canada is willing to make in trade talks include lifting counter tariffs on American autos and ending the boycott of U.S. alcoholic products by provincial liquor commissions.

There have also been discussions about how American quotas are allocated under Canada’s dairy supply management system.

In return, Canada is looking to avoid the Section 338 tariffs that are set to take effect next week. Negotiators are also looking for tariff relief on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.

The premier was asked on Thursday what he would consider a fair deal, noting the likelihood that any agreement with the U.S. would still include some tariff rate on these sectoral goods.

“We have to match tariff for tariff,” Ford replied. “We can’t negotiate through weakness.”

Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette also signalled earlier this week that she would be open to returning U.S. wines to Quebec liquor shelves, but only if progress is shown on the trade front.

Fréchette met with Quebec industry representatives on Thursday, where she noted the province’s economy has remained resilient, but stressed the importance of creating more stability amid an uncertain trade relationship with the U.S.

National Post

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 newsletters here.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new sovereign wealth fund risks repeating the problems of a troubled British fund he helped create, a new report warns.

The report, released Thursday by think tank the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), notes that Carney’s Canada Strong Fund echoes the United Kingdom’s National Wealth Fund , and argues that the resemblance should be a red flag for the Canadian prime minister and former Bank of England governor.

“Two years before selling this model to Canadians, Mark Carney recommended it to the British, who implemented it,” says Bryan Cheang, the study’s author.

Cheang, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, said that the model hasn’t worked in Britain so far and is unlikely to work in Canada.

Carney announced, in April, the creation of Canada’s first national sovereign wealth fund , with an initial endowment of $25 billion over three years . He said at the time that the fund would give private citizens an easy way to invest in major national projects.

While called a sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong Fund will use debt, rather than surplus revenues or resource wealth, to finance its activities.

Coincidentally, Carney was formerly part of a “Green Finance” task force that advised Britain’s Labour government on its National Wealth Fund, a public finance institution created in 2024.

The fund absorbed the former UK Infrastructure Bank, created in 2021, and was given £7.3 billion (C$13.7 billion) to invest in wealth-generating projects. This includes investments in high-risk industries like green hydrogen, carbon capture and battery gigafactories.

Officials said at the time that the fund would attract three pounds of private money for every one pound from the public purse.

The study reports that the National Wealth Fund’s losses have nearly doubled since the 2024 rebranding, reaching £152.2 million (C$288 million) last year. It has delivered a cumulative return of minus 24.9 per cent in two years of operation. It has also fallen short of the three-to-one private-to-public funding ratio it promised Britons.

Notably, the fund led a massive bailout of rural broadband provider Gigaclear earlier this year, costing taxpayers nearly £100 million (C$188 million).

The fund, called the National Waste Fund in some corners of the British press, has been cited as a factor in the downfall of former chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves. Reeves left the Labour government’s top economic post last month, following the installation of new U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Cheang said the National Wealth Fund was set up to fail.

“This is a fund that’s used borrowed money to make investment decisions based on political priorities,” said Cheang. “This is different from how private investors spend money, which is guided by clear signals of profit and loss.”

Archie Hart, a spokesperson for the National Wealth Fund, said that it’s early losses were to be expected.

“(W)e invest in pursuit of the UK Government’s growth and clean energy missions. That involves taking on risks that the market can’t or won’t, meaning we will inevitably incur a loss on some investments,” wrote Hart in an email to National Post.

Hart said that internal projections showed the fund was “on track for profitability,” but didn’t say by when.

Cheang noted that, like the British fund, the new Canada Strong Fund lacks the strict guardrails of successful sovereign wealth funds like Norway’s multi-trillion-dollar oil fund . He said that, absent these restrictions, Canada’s abundant resource revenue will be largely irrelevant to the fund’s performance.

“Resource revenues could mean there’s more money in the pot to support investments, but that could also increase the temptation to make bad investments if there aren’t the right safeguards in place,” said Cheang.

Carney said in April that the new fund would not be a “resource wealth grab” but indicated that some resource revenues would end up in its coffers.

“Where the federal government is catalyzing the (resource) project … it is fair, right, just for Canadians to have a share directly of those profits,” said Carney.

A poll released last month by MEI and opinion research firm Ipsos found that nearly six in 10 Canadians don’t think the federal government should borrow $25 billion to fund the new sovereign wealth fund.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

• Alberta's fund a cautionary tale for Carney's national sovereign wealth fund
• Carney announces sovereign wealth fund ahead of spring economic update

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. — Canada’s trade negotiators are racing to avert 50 per cent tariffs on hundreds of Canadian exports, imposed under the never-before-used Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and scheduled to take effect on Aug. 19.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief Negotiator Janice Charette are reportedly working with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s team on a deal to present to Trump early next week, aiming to avert the Section 338 tariffs and secure relief from Section 232 tariffs that have battered the lumber, aluminum and steel industries

While a source close to negotiations said the Canadian side is “cautiously optimistic,” there has been no public indication of a breakthrough. With Prime Minister Mark Carney having warned that “everything is on the table depending on the outcome of the negotiations,” trade watchers are contemplating possible next moves should Team Canada’s efforts fail.

If the 338 tariffs are imposed, some analysts think Canada should be prepared to retaliate, but the thoughts range from tough countermeasures to pursuing legal remedies.

“I think that the Canadian government should [have] said, ‘Okay, here’s our list of possible tariff countermeasures,” said Lawrence Herman, senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute and a specialist in international trade and investment law.

In fact, he thinks that list should have been produced immediately after the 338 tariffs were announced last month.

“You maintain those tariffs and enact them on the 19th of August, here’s the list that we’re going to use for our counter-tariffs,” he offered as an example of how Ottawa should have responded to the threat.

“That is the only thing that would have given us, in my view, some lever to go into the current round of talks.”

Having a list of products for potential counter-tariffs would be handy, agrees Inu Manak, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. But she does not want to see immediate retaliation if Section 338 goes into effect.

Instead, she recommends that Carney’s team pause and let the markets react, giving time for U.S. business pressure and congressional concerns to build before Ottawa imposes any countermeasures.

“Canada can be effective [by] … itemizing where future retaliation is possible” if the talks fail, she said.

“They should list it because then what it does is it creates this conversation …” she added, pointing to political candidates seeking votes in this year’s U.S. midterm elections.

“It then also puts pressure on members of Congress to do something, and those who are trying to run for Congress to actually take a stand on some of these contentious issues that will hurt their constituents.”

As for measures that Canada should take, Herman said Ottawa should start by leaving the sales bans on U.S. alcohol in place, applying tariffs, and restricting exports, and he’s sure LeBlanc has shared these possibilities with Greer’s team.

“I’m confident that the Carney team has made this known to the U.S. side,” he said, reiterating that a list of counter-tariffs would have been a good idea.

Manak suggested targeting agricultural products in electoral swing states, as well as auto production and inputs in Michigan. She also highlighted historically politically sensitive goods like Florida orange juice and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Counter-tariffs, however, may not prove that fruitful, according to Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security.

“I think the retaliatory strategies that Ottawa is probably considering would be ones that would not necessarily move the needle too much.”

But retaliation or countermeasures, she said, should not be treated as a binary choice. In other words, Ottawa’s response would not necessarily be limited to matching U.S. tariffs, Tronnes said, but declined to identify possible measures, saying Canada had “a lot of different options” and that discussing unconfirmed steps could move markets.

The analysts differ not only over what Canada should retaliate against, but over whether retaliation would strengthen Ottawa’s hand or simply deepen the damage.

Richard Stern, of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Washington-based Advancing American Freedom, sees any retaliation as a repeat of Trump’s economic mistake: tariffs hurt consumers in the imposing country.

“When Canada responds by imposing their own tariffs or their own increased quotas, they’re just doing the same thing Trump is doing,” he said. “They’re just hurting Canadians and Americans.”

“It would be one thing if that harm was done only to the other side, but it’s going to be done to Canadians.”

Stern thinks even creating a list of potential counter-tariff targets could help the U.S. administration build a stronger protectionist case.

“If the conversation is, ‘Look at Canada threatening American companies,’ you will actually make the case for the isolationist pro-tariff crowd,” he warned.

He doesn’t see a target list helping build pressure or momentum to push back against the tariffs in the United States.

“It’s cleaner … to be an American company that’s saying, ‘We’re being harmed by our own government,’” he said, and noted that even that pressure hasn’t worked.

“There’s already a lot of industries that are being harmed by Trump’s policies, and they’re already mounting a lot of pressure, and that hasn’t done anything.”

Ed Fast, Canada’s former minister for international trade under PM Stephen Harper, also cautioned against retaliation. He urged Canadian negotiators to keep the economic asymmetry between the two countries front of mind.

“If we retaliate with tariffs, as some have suggested, the Americans are much better able to absorb that retaliation than we are to absorb their tariffs against us.”

“As more and more tariffs get levied, the more difficult it becomes for Canada.”

While many trade watchers have labelled the 338s as illegal, some urge caution on whether there’s a strong legal case against them while others simply dismiss the timelines as unhelpful.

Stern, for one, questions whether the administration followed the required process for finding discrimination under Section 338, but the measure is untested, and courts have historically given presidents a wide berth on tariff statutes.

Canada could also pursue a dispute settlement through CUSMA’s Chapter 31, but that too would take time, and it might mean little to the Trump administration.

“In theory, you can go through the dispute panel. In theory, you can go through the courts,” said Stern.

But neither route, he said, would force the Trump administration to comply with a ruling in the near term.

National Post

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 newsletters here.

A Canadian man who has been wanted since 1991 for allegedly sexually assaulting a child has been arrested by ICE in the United States after 30 years on the run.

Charles Peter Billone, 64, was arrested in Santa Cruz, Calif., earlier this month. According to ICE records, he is currently in custody at the Golden State Annex detention facility pending removal proceedings.

On Aug. 4, following Billone’s arrest, San Francisco’s Enforcement and Removal Operations X account shared a post detailing his crimes.

“ICE San Francisco arrested Charles Peter Billone, 64, in Santa Cruz,” the post read. “A fugitive from Canada since 1991, he has stolen property, assault, and drug convictions, and is wanted in Canada for sexual assault involving a child. He is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”

ICE San Francisco arrested Charles Peter Billone, 64, in Santa Cruz. A fugitive from Canada since 1991, he has stolen property, assault, and drug convictions, and is wanted in Canada for sexual assault involving a child. He is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. pic.twitter.com/dgViEQelwO

— ERO San Francisco (@EROSanFrancisco) August 4, 2026

Billone, who was living in Hamilton, Ont., when he was accused in Canada, was arrested in 1991 for two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference. However, he failed to appear in court after being released on a recognizance, as reported by CBC .

Under Section 151 of the Criminal Code of Canada, sexual interference is defined as touching any part of the body of a person under age 16 for a sexual purpose.

Toronto Sun previously reported that Billone is accused of sexually assaulting his nine-year old stepdaughter for three years, and that Hamilton police also believe he sexually assaulted his stepdaughter’s friend.

In 2014, Hamilton police renewed efforts to track Billone down. “Charles Billone no longer exists,” Det. Paul Henderson of Hamilton police’s fugitive apprehension unit said at the time. “We can’t find him through any traditional means.”

They said Billone may have assumed another identity to evade capture and believed at the time that he could have been living in Manitoba or New Brunswick, where he has family connections.

His arrest in Santa Cruz marks the end of a three-decade-long manhunt. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security also shared news of his capture on X , writing: “Foreign criminals cannot hide in the shadows — we will do whatever it takes to find them and remove them from our nation.”

Officials have not shared details of how he was tracked down.

The news comes shortly after Kaitlyn Tracey, 33, also from Canada, was detained by ICE following an incident in which she slapped a teenager in Trump-branded clothing on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk in New Jersey.

It later emerged that Tracey was living in the U.S. on an expired visa and, on Aug. 4, a Texas immigration judge ordered that Tracey return to Canada after she entered a guilty plea on an assault charge.

• U.S. to deport Canadian woman who slapped girl in 'Trump' sweatpants
• Ontario woman charged with stealing $43,549 in gold and silver arrested at Canada-U.S. border

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 newsletters here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Canada is less than a week away from 50 per cent tariffs taking effect on nearly US$20 billion worth of exports to the United States, after the White House invoked the never-before-used Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose duties on more than 400 Canadian products beginning Aug. 19.

Trade watchers said the move was designed to create leverage and force Ottawa back to the negotiating table. Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief Negotiator Janice Charette have heeded the call, repeatedly showing up for meetings in Washington in recent weeks to try to head off the 338 tariffs and reach a deal on the Section 232 sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber.

The pair returned to Washington this week, meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday afternoon, but both sides have been tight-lipped about progress.

“Discussions remain ongoing, and we continue to engage at the negotiation table to firmly advance and defend Canadian interests,” LeBlanc posted on social media after his Tuesday meeting. His posts in recent weeks have been similarly opaque, but a source close to the negotiations told National Post that the Canadian side remains “cautiously optimistic” of a breakthrough.

Others expect the tariffs to take effect, even if only briefly or in altered form.

“I don’t see anything that indicates that the U.S. side is interested in doing a balanced, comprehensive, mutually beneficial deal,” said Lawrence Herman, senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute and a specialist in international trade and investment law.

“I think we’re going to have those 338 tariffs next week, and I don’t know what can be done to prevent those coming on.”

Richard Stern, of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Washington-based Advancing American Freedom, also thinks there will be some tariffs, but not in the threatened form. He thinks the Trump team will find a way to claim victory while making some adjustments.

“I expect some version of them to go into effect,” Stern said, adding that he would “be surprised if they go into effect in full.”

Others believe there could be a delay or quick reversal if the duties are implemented.

Inu Manak, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said she thinks it’s more likely that Trump will avoid full implementation, announce a deal of some sort, or reverse course quickly after the tariffs spark a market reaction.

“Looking at patterns of how he’s done things in the past, I would say it’s likely that he probably won’t impose them, that he’ll want to have a deal to announce,” she said, cautioning that any deal would be narrow and unrelated to the CUSMA renewal.

But even if Trump imposes the full tariffs, Manak believes they’ll be short-lived owing to market pressures.

“When President Trump imposes very large tariffs, you get an immediate market reaction, and typically a few days later he reverses course.”

The unresolved question is what Washington would accept as a win.

“I wrestle with this question every day,” said Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security. “It’s really hard to know if you can meet the goalpost if you don’t know what the goalposts are.”

“I think it changes every day. At the end of the day, Trump just wants to win. I don’t know if he knows what that looks like, and I think whatever it looks like, it looks like (Prime Minister Mark) Carney taking a public loss,” she added.

Most trade watchers agree that any deal beneficial to Canada must still give Trump a political victory he can sell at home — a prize to show Republican and Independent voters ahead of the November U.S. midterm elections.

Any agreement Trump could portray as a victory, says Manak, would likely involve Canadian concessions on the irritants being discussed — namely the provincial restrictions on U.S. alcohol sales, the retaliatory auto tariffs, and dairy access.

Dropping the provincial alcohol sales bans should be the easiest concession politically and economically, says Manak, who noted that selling U.S. liquor doesn’t change Canadian purchasing behaviour.

“Canadians may just not want to buy American liquor anyway,” she said. “Preferences have changed.”

But dropping the bans, of course, requires provincial approval, and keeping the provinces on-side for any U.S.-related deal is key to Carney’s political strength domestically.

The auto tariffs, most trade watchers agree, could be lifted in exchange for real tariff relief from the U.S., as they hurt Canadian as well as American consumers.

But dairy is tougher. Manak says Ottawa can likely adjust or expand the U.S.-specific tariff-rate quotas but won’t be able to eliminate the supply management system as a whole.

Herman says Washington really wants Ottawa to change its dairy import-quota system so more quotas go directly to retailers and distributors, allowing American exporters to sell directly to Canadian chains, rather than going through Canadian processors that compete with them.

Canada could make that relatively limited, politically manageable concession, he says.

“I think that there can be some adjustment on the quota allocation system by Canada that is not going to be painful,” he said.

Other concessions, such as aligning Canada’s trade policy on China with Washington’s, would be more problematic.

But Stern believes the complaints over alcohol, auto, and dairy are really just part of a broader political exercise aimed at demonstrating that Trump forced Canadian movement.

“To be hardball negotiating with Canada as if America doesn’t already have its own protected government-involved dairy market is absurd,” Stern said.

He says Greer’s team is really just out to score optical wins, and that those wins are not based on tangible trade parameters or industrial conditions or needs.

“They’re here to score optical wins that they can go back home and tell people that they got.”

If Canada obtains any tariff relief on the 338 or 232 duties while offering Trump enough visible movement or promises of movement to declare a victory, Tronnes is happy for Trump to take a victory lap.

“Let them claim victory… if it’s seen by the White House that Trump has a victory over Mark Carney, then I think that’s great. That’s exactly the position Canada wants to be in,” she said.

“Whether that’s an actual victory is a different situation,” she added.

The central disagreement is whether Washington would settle for a symbolic Canadian movement that Trump can portray as a win or demand major policy concessions in exchange for tariff relief.

Herman, for example, says Trump wants Canada to pay for any tariff relief through major concessions and to align more closely with U.S. economic-security policy.

“We’re dealing with a strong-arming bully who wants to extract the most from Canada in return for allowing some form of tariff relief,” he said, noting that he thinks they’re looking for a total cave-in by Canada on dairy, auto tariffs, and on aligning with U.S. trade policy with respect to China.

“I think what they’re interested in doing is slamming Canada as hard as they possibly can and forcing Canada to pay an entry fee to get some goods into the U.S. market.”

Whether the White House is prepared to accept a symbolic win or insists on a substantive Canadian retreat will likely become clear before the tariffs are scheduled to take effect at 12:01 a.m. next Wednesday.

National Post

• Negotiators are going all-out to get a deal before Trump's looming tariff deadline
• Will Canada talk Trump out of new 50% U.S. tariff? 'We'll see,' says Carney

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 newsletters here.

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.

National Post has contacted the CBSA for more details about the planned sites.

The CBSA has said in the past that the telephone reporting will build on processes already in place across Canada and ensure “a consistent level of security” with expectations of compliance. The CBSA also suggests it will be equal to U.S. Customs and Border Protection measures, used when entering the U.S. via remote areas.

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 must 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.

• Canada to end remote border crossing program used largely by Americans
• Canadian border agency wants international flyers with stopovers in Canada to skip customs

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 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'

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.