OTTAWA — As Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers boost exports to Canada, the country’s former spy chief warned that everything you do in or around one of those cars will be acquired by China.

In a rare interview last month , former CSIS head David Vigneault did not mince his words: China’s theft of Western intellectual property amounts to a “lost generation of prosperity” for Canada. Furthermore, the Chinese government will use Chinese electric vehicles to further harvest data on Canadians and foreigners, he told the BBC’s The Interview.

“Not to overhype it, but there is the reality that all of your data, what you say, where you go, with whom you are, who you associate with, everything you do around your car, will be acquired by China,” Vigneault said if had concerns about Chinese electric vehicles.

“It is not a question for me, it is a reality,” added Vigneault, who headed CSIS from 2017 to 2024.

Vigneault is not the first current or former Five Eyes intelligence chief to express concerns about Chinese-made electric vehicles. But he is the most high-profile recent Canadian intelligence official to plainly state grave concerns about how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will use them as intelligence-collecting devices.

The Chinese government has consistently denied any claims that its domestic companies can be used as information-gathering platforms.

In an interview with National Post Thursday, Vigneault further detailed how the PRC can use data harvested from Chinese gear like electric vehicles or cameras to build intelligence databases. He pointed to recent reporting by this newspaper on concerns over Chinese surveillance camera giant Hikvision’s presence in Canada as another example of China’s large-scale data collection.

Once that information is stored, analyzed and used to build artificial intelligence models, for example, then it can be used to monitor or spy on certain individuals abroad, he explained.

“If then they need to go after Chris, then they go and they say, ‘Do we have information on Chris? Oh yes, he does have a (Chinese-made) BYD car. Oh, and here is his information. Here’s his contacts’ numbers. Here’s where he’s going. And you know what? He’s using his car and he’s going to that that coffee shop regularly. Is that a place where we could send one of our guys to surveil him because we think we may have a mole inside our embassy?’,” he said.

“These are all the kinds of things that, when you when you have the data, you have the means to store it, analyze it, exploit it.”

Vigneault’s comments come as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government works to attract joint-venture Chinese EV manufacturing to Canada in a bid to replace fleeing U.S. automakers.

Earlier this year, Carney travelled to China where he announced wide-ranging new deals with PRC President Xi Jinping to boost trade between both countries, including dropping Canadian tariffs to the lowest level for nearly 50,000 Chinese EVs annually.

“To make Canada a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing, we’re working to attract significant new joint-venture Chinese investments,” Carney said in a statement at the time.

Last week, Chinese EV manufacturer Geely Auto — which also owns brands Lynk & Co and Zeekr — announced it would be introducing its vehicles into the Canadian market for the first time next year.

When asked about concerns linked to Chinese tech and espionage, the prime minister has repeatedly said he is entering “eyes wide open” into the new strategic partnership with China.

During the podcast, Vigneault said he understands that Canada “absolutely needs” to do business with the Asian economic behemoth. But “eyes wide open” isn’t quite enough.

“You need to have more than your eyes wide open; you need to also make sure that you’re protecting your wallet in your back pocket,” said the current chief intelligence officer at Strider.

That’s because China’s longtime efforts to steal intellectual property from Western governments, companies and research facilities has cost tens of billions to Canada and its allies, Vigneault told BBC.

CSIS and other Canadian intelligence agencies have also warned of increased Chinese efforts to steal Canadian IP, such as vaccine research during the COVID-19 pandemic or information that could be militarized by the PRC’s military.

In the interview, Vigneault suggested most people don’t fully comprehend the scope, value and impact of the PRC’s IP theft.

“The amount… of intellectual property that has been taken away from the West, from Great Britain, from Canada, the U.S. is essentially a lost generation of prosperity,” he said. “It’s not the amount of job losses in our society now, but also in the future.”

“Any new information innovation technology that comes into China is looked through the prism of, ‘Can we industrialize it to make to create jobs and opportunities’, but also, is there a way to weaponize it to essentially give new capabilities to the People’s Liberation Army.”

Private organizations and even the federal government rarely disclose successful IP theft by a foreign state. But speaking to National Post Thursday, the former spy chief said that there are “bad examples” of Chinese IP theft in Canada, though examples remain classified.

“People in national security and government understand (the threat) very well, but the private sector, far less,” he said.

Vigneault also expressed his concern about the rise of antisemitism across the world, noting that some anti-Jewish terrorists in Canada are radicalized by ignorance.

“With Israel, you can absolutely disagree with policies. Unfortunately, I’ve seen some of the more extreme groups recuperate some of the legitimate angst against those policies and turn that into anti-semitism,” he explained.

“I’ve seen that in terrorist attacks in my country, in Canada, where people who honestly have no idea what they’re talking about, but the radicalization online essentially brings them… to become anti-semite.”

National Post

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A man surrendered himself to police on Monday after allegedly punching a person repeatedly in the head at an anti-Israel demonstration on Oct. 10 in Toronto.

The Toronto Police Service’s hate crime unit alleges that Martin Salgatar, 20, of Mississauga, was walking in a demonstration near Yonge and Grosvenor Streets when he attacked the victim from behind without provocation.

The blows knocked the victim to the ground, injuring his face and leg, according to police.

A police spokesman told JNS it was a “pro-Palestine event” and that the hate crime unit investigates “any arrests made at demonstrations.”

Video footage that circulated on social media appeared to show the attacker strike the victim from behind, pull him to the sidewalk and punch him repeatedly, as fellow anti-Israel protesters tried to stop him.

The protesters then appear to berate the victim, who is on the ground bleeding from the face, and a man wearing a sweatshirt with an upside-down red triangle—a Hamas terror symbol—seems to curse the victim and accuse him of “trying to pick fights.”

“You f****** deserve it, you piece of sh**,” the man yells.

After a screenshot of the suspect’s face from the video footage circulated on Monday, Salgatar turned himself in.

He was scheduled to appear at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre on Oct. 13. Police announced the charge on Oct. 14.

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Less than two weeks away, the B.C. provincial election remains a close race between the Conservatives and the NDP, according to a new poll from Leger.

The Conservatives are holding a narrow two-point lead among decided voters, the Leger data suggests. Meanwhile, there is growing support for the two leading parties, but a significant share of voters are open to changing their minds before they go to the polls on Oct. 24.

At present, 42 per cent of decided voters support the Conservatives, compared to 40 per cent who support the NDP. Support for the Green party has dropped, falling 13 per cent in September to 9 per cent in October. That said, 26 per cent of British Columbians polled by Leger say they are likely to switch their vote, especially among voters 18 to 34 years-old.

Notably, 56 per cent of B.C. residents believe the province is heading in the wrong direction. That compares with 34 per cent who believe it is moving on the right track.

Since Leger’s September poll , Conservative support has climbed three points, while NDP support has increased by four points. With just two points separating the parties, neither has established a clear lead as the campaign enters its final weeks.

NDP support is concentrated on Vancouver Island. It holds a narrow advantage in Metro Vancouver. The Conservatives, meanwhile, are stronger in the rest of the province. Leger contemplates that the regional differences could be important in determining how the province-wide race translates into individual riding results.

The choices for voters supporting smaller parties could become important in ridings where their preferred party is not running a candidate. According to Elections BC’s official candidate list , not all parties are fielding candidates in every riding. Among supporters of smaller parties, 29 per cent say they will vote for the NDP if their preferred party does not have a candidate in their riding, while 21 per cent will vote Conservative. Another 22 per cent would vote for a party other than the NDP or Conservatives.

Green supporters may be the most open to reconsidering their choice, says Leger. More than one-third (37 per cent) indicate they are likely to switch parties, compared with 23 per cent of Conservative supporters and 20 per cent of NDP supporters.

Turning to the leaders, 39 per cent say their opinion of David Eby has worsened over the past week. Only 13 per cent report an improvement. Nearly half (47 per cent) of B.C. voters say their opinion of Eby remained unchanged.

For Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson, 20 per cent of voters say their opinion of him has declined, with 23 per cent reporting an improved opinion.A majority (56 per cent) report no change in their view of Doerkson.

Leger says that these differences should also be viewed in the context of each leader’s present position, with Eby as the incumbent premier possessing an established governing record, while Doerkson is relatively new to leadership and voters still forming their views of him.

With neither party holding a commanding lead, the remaining lead-up to the vote leaves room for shifts in support, particularly among voters who are not firmly committed, suggest the Leger survey results.

This online survey was conducted from Oct. 9 to 12, 2026, among1,000 British Columbia residents aged 18 or older. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of 1,000 respondents would have a margin of error of no greater than ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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OTTAWA — Quebec premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and the 58 members of the Parti Québécois caucus did not pledge allegiance to King Charles III at the swearing-in ceremony for the incoming PQ government on Thursday.

Instead, they pledged their loyalty to “the people of Quebec” — something that is technically possible to do under a provincial law that was adopted four years ago in the National Assembly of Quebec, but that constitutional lawyers remain skeptical about.

St-Pierre Plamondon entered the red room of the legislature to thunderous applause from his caucus and guests who were chanting for Quebec to become a country only moments before. The premier-elect looked visibly emotional.

“I, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, solemnly declare that I will be loyal to the people of Quebec and that I will perform my duties as a Member of the National Assembly with honesty and justice, in accordance with the Constitution of Quebec,” he said.

One by one, members of his caucus repeated the same phrase to be sworn in as MNAs.

Quebec’s Lieutenant-Governor Manon Jeannotte was nowhere in sight during the swearing-in ceremony. St-Pierre Plamondon has vowed to strip her office’s funding, instead dedicating those funds to fight homelessness in the province.

The National Assembly adopted a law in December 2022 that made swearing an oath to the King optional after the PQ members — including St-Pierre Plamondon — were temporarily barred from taking their seats in the legislature for refusing to do just that.

Philippe Lagassé, a professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University who is an expert in the Westminster system, said the constitutionality of the act remains “unclear” but is being challenged in court.

Last week, Lawrence David, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of law and president and founder of the Public Interest Litigation Institute, filed an application in Quebec Superior Court for an injunction to force MNAs to swear the oath to the King.

David and the Public Interest Litigation Institute had already filed a lawsuit seeking to restore the oath in August. But given the urgency of the situation with a PQ government promising to abolish the monarchy, he sought an injunction the day after the election.

The hearing is expected to be held sometime between Oct. 19 and Nov. 9.

David claims that MNAs who do not take the oath to the King are not constitutionally authorized to sit in the National Assembly or to pass any laws.

Lagassé noted that the federal Department of Justice seems to have accepted the constitutionality of the Quebec law prima facie, as has its provincial government.

“However, we don’t know if that is the case yet, since it has not been tested before the courts. And I would say that there is a strong view amongst experts of the Constitution that this is likely not constitutional,” said the professor.

Even Governor General Louise Arbour has expressed skepticism, in recent public comments made to Radio-Canada , about MNAs refusing to swear allegiance to the monarchy, saying that Canada operates within a constitutional framework.

She added that St-Pierre Plamondon, as a lawyer, is well-aware of this reality.

Constitutional or not, the option to swear to the King or not crosses party lines. Quebec Liberal Leader Charles Milliard told FM93 radio that he does not intend to swear allegiance to the King while saying he does not want a “monarchical crisis” in Canada.

The swearing-in ceremonies for opposition MNAs should take place next week, as will St-Pierre Plamondon’s swearing-in as premier and of his members of cabinet.

Lagassé said the PQ’s decision to cast aside the lieutenant-governor will be even more interesting when forming cabinet, since members of the Executive Council — the Quebec equivalent of the Privy Council — are effectively advisors to the Crown.

“So, it’ll be interesting to see if they go out of their way to have a separate public ceremony, and then secretly do all their oaths with the lieutenant-governor behind closed doors. It’s entirely possible,” he said.

Lagassé said there are lots of things the incoming PQ government can do to reduce the symbolism of the lieutenant-governor’s office such as kicking her out of her office or cutting her budget, but the federal government can always swoop in to help.

Lagassé said he doesn’t think a PQ government would necessarily object to that, because they still need the lieutenant-governor to do certain things like sign bills into law.

“But if, symbolically, they don’t want to fund it, but then the federal government comes and backfills it and allows them to have an office somewhere and allows them to still have a small office, in a way they’d be able to have their cake and eat it too.”

— With files from Kalina Laframboise, Montreal Gazette

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OTTAWA — Nearly two years after her shocking resignation from cabinet that shook the halls of power in Ottawa, Chrystia Freeland is telling her side of the story of how she was about to get dumped by Justin Trudeau as finance minister.

Her new book “Unreliable Boyfriend” is in part a political memoir and in part a reflection of Donald Trump’s America. But it also contains so-far undisclosed details of why she chose to resign from Trudeau’s cabinet the day she was supposed to present the fall economic statement — thus precipitating Trudeau’s own departure weeks later.

Freeland writes that while she thinks history will be kind to Trudeau because he stood up to Trump and implemented social programs such as childcare, she thinks she probably left Trudeau’s cabinet “a year, or maybe two years, too late.”

Here are a few revelations from Freeland’s new book.

Jean Chrétien — among others — encouraged her to resign from cabinet

Freeland said while many were encouraging her to leave cabinet in her final six months in Trudeau’s cabinet, the pivotal moment was when she was drinking chardonnay with former prime minister Jean Chrétien at his Ottawa home in November 2024.

Chrétien, she writes, started the conservation with a “healthy dose of flattery” — calling her a “very good finance minister” and said she had been “unfailingly loyal” to Trudeau which was “admirable.”

But the tone of the conversation took a turn when Chrétien said Freeland had a responsibility not only to Trudeau, but to the Liberal party and to Canada.

“As long as you support him, he will stay on as PM. And he will lose the next election,” she recalls the former prime minister saying.

He added that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would become prime minister, the Liberal Party would be devastated, and she would be partly to blame for that.

“After the gentle caress of Mr. Chrétien’s earlier compliments, those words felt like a slap in the face, or, since we’re Canadian and winter was coming, like stepping out from a warm house into forty-below weather,” she wrote.

Freeland said she did not go back to her hotel room that evening planning to step down from Trudeau’s cabinet, but she did go to bed with “a new and horrible understanding” that she would be partly at fault if Trudeau led the Liberals into the next election.

Trudeau had assured her that she would stay on as finance minister days prior

Despite having served as one of Trudeau’s top ministers for nearly a decade, Freeland said she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she met with the prime minister alone. That was about to change in the days prior to her departure.

At the end of a meeting in his office on Dec. 2, 2024, she said that Trudeau called her aside for “a few rare private minutes” to tell her he wanted her to continue serving as his finance minister until the next election, which would happen in less than a year.

Six days later, on Dec. 8, 2024, Trudeau invited her to his home at Rideau Cottage.

“It was probably the longest time I have spent alone with him,” she wrote.

Freeland said they drank glasses of water and Trudeau mused about his determination to lead the Liberals into the next election. He then made a surprising statement.

“At one point, apropos of nothing, he told me he believed that one day I would become prime minister, and that I would do a good job,” she wrote.

Later that week, Trudeau and his team removed $12 billion in spending cuts she had pushed for in the fall economic statement. The Globe and Mail also reported that Trudeau was again trying to convince Mark Carney to replace her as finance minister.

On Dec. 13, 2024, Trudeau and Freeland had their infamous one-on-one Zoom call.

Trudeau said she would be shuffled out of the finance portfolio the day after presenting the fall economic statement. When she asked who would replace her, Trudeau said with a “half-proud, half-defiant smile” that it would be Carney.

“The Zoom call with Trudeau had taught me that I simply couldn’t trust the PM — and that he had decided not to trust me. I had to leave.”

Trudeau corrected female minister for referring to something as “crazy”

Trudeau took a lot of heat for correcting a woman who used the word “mankind” instead of “peoplekind” in a town hall meeting in 2018 — but it turns out cabinet ministers also had to mind their language in private, according to Freeland.

In one cabinet meeting, Trudeau apparently took issue with “a very progressive female colleague” casually referring to something as “crazy.”

“That earned her a long, harsh public scolding from Trudeau, who informed her that using ‘crazy’ as a derogatory adjective was insulting to people with mental health issues,” wrote Freeland.

Trudeau suggested they instead use the word “bananas” which was less offensive.

Freeland said that while she has always bristled at accusations of “wokeness” and “political correctness,” she said that “linguistic-purity tests” can also be off-putting to regular people who struggle with which words are okay or not to use.

“And they can give people the sense — and rightly so — that their leaders are more focused on the performance of virtue than on actually improving people’s lives.”

There was some crying in cabinet — and sometimes some bullying too

“Crying was routine at cabinet meetings. There were always boxes of Kleenex on hand, and really sad colleagues would sometimes get a hug from the PM,” Freeland wrote.

Yet what troubled her the most about the crying and the lectures “was that it sometimes went along with what seemed like bullying,” she added.

Freeland did not go into detail about the alleged bullying but said one of Trudeau’s “favourite homilies” to cabinet and caucus was talking about the necessity of eating “shit sandwiches” from time to time.

He would also instruct his ministers to stay on message until they “wanted to vomit a little bit in our mouth.”

“By the time he stepped down, PM Trudeau had been so thoroughly caricatured as a woke poser that it was easy to forget that one of the things that had captivated Canadians when he first burst onto the scene was his macho charisma,” she wrote.

Freeland referred to one of his early breakthrough moments as the charity boxing match against Senator Patrick Brazeau, a member of the Algonquin Nation.

In a controversial interview with the Rolling Stone, Trudeau boasted about his wager with Brazeau that the loser of the fight would be required to have his hair cut in the lobby of the House of Commons.

Brazeau apparently resisted as long hair carries deep spiritual significance in many First Nations cultures. Trudeau said that is why he proposed that bet. “When a warrior cuts his hair, it’s a sign of shame, so it’s very apropos,” he told the magazine.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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U.S. President Donald Trump has reignited his rhetoric around Canada becoming the “51st state,” shortly after his administration warned Canadian politicians against getting involved in U.S. affairs.

In a podcast appearance on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said America is “closely watching Canadian activities” for election interference, referencing comments from Canada’s Industry Minister, ⁠Mélanie Joly, about retaliatory tariffs. “Keep your nose out of American politics,” he said.

Joly has hit back against his claims, saying: “We never do that, and we never accept that also being done to us in Canada,” while speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday. “What I’ve done in the U.S. is to attract investments…and that will continue to be my strategy in the U.S. and also around the world.”

Later that day, Trump reiterated his ongoing stance that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state at a campaign rally in Arizona. Here are seven key occasions the U.S. president has suggested annexing Canada.

‘They’ll end up being the 51st state’

On Wednesday, Trump listed a number of grievances he has with Canada in his speech at Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport, adding: “They’ll end up being the 51st state, because that’s the only way it works.”

He said: “Canada treats us very badly. They always have. Not anymore. It’s a whole different ball game now that Trump is in town.”

The U.S. president also suggested Canada will “be doing something just like Greenland,” adding that it “just adds to our beautiful plate,” referring to the U.S.

He made the comments the same day Hoekstra warned Canadian politicians against engaging in behaviour that could be inferred as election interference.

Trump on Canada:

They’ll end up being the 51st state because that’s the only way it works.

We don’t need them, but they need us. pic.twitter.com/u2fl3xkY3a

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 14, 2026

Canada’s technical recession

After almost a year of silence from Trump on the 51st state topic, the U.S. president renewed the rhetoric after Canada entered a technical recession in June this year.

In a post on Truth Social , Trump wrote “51st state!” with a link to a Bloomberg report about the technical recession. Hoekstra then shared the post on his X account just hours before the Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and chief trade negotiator Janice Charette were due to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington, D.C.

‘Join our country and you get it for free’

In September 2025, Trump referenced his desire for Canada to become the 51st state during his address to U.S. military officials in Virginia.

In the speech, he claimed work on the “Golden Dome Missile Defence Shield” was proceeding and that Canada had recently contacted him to say “they want to be a part of it.”

“To which I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just join our country? You become the 51st state and you get it for free,” he suggested.

Election Day comments

On April 28, 2025, the day of Canada’s federal election, Trump told Canadians to “elect the man” who will let Canada become the 51st state in a Truth Social post.

“Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st,” the post read.

He added: “America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”

Good luck to the Great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in…

— Commentary Trump Daily Posts (@TrumpDailyPosts) April 28, 2025

The post came just a few days after Trump sat down for an interview with TIME magazine ’s senior political correspondent Eric Cortellessa and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs.

“You’ve talked about acquiring Greenland, taking control of the Panama Canal, making Canada the 51st state,” Cortellessa said. “Maybe you’re trolling a little bit on that one. I don’t know.”

Trump’s answer was short: “Actually, no, I’m not.”

Super Bowl interview

Trump’s comments in the TIME interview doubled down on statements he made earlier that month in an interview that aired during the Super Bowl pre-show.

When asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier: “Yeah, it is.”

“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. loses hundreds of billions of dollars a year to Canada during his second term as president. But according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative , the U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was US$48.3 billion in 2025, a 21 percent decrease ($12.9 billion) over 2024 and far less than Trump has claimed.

The artificially drawn line

In January 2025, before the inauguration for his second term, Trump threatened to use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st state and called the border between the two countries an “artificially drawn line.”

“You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security,” he said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “And don’t forget, we basically protect Canada.”

Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded with a post on X, in which he said: “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”

There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.

Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 7, 2025

‘Governor Justin Trudeau’

Trump first floated the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state during a dinner with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago in November 2024.

A few days later, in December that year, Trump called Trudeau “governor.” In a Truth Social post on Dec. 10, 2024, the U.S. president said it was a pleasure to have dined “with Governor Justin Trudeau of the great state of Canada” and that he looked forward to seeing “the governor again soon” to continue their “in-depth talks on tariffs and trade.”

It was the start of a long-running commentary from Trump on the annexation of Canada, which has now lasted almost two years.

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OTTAWA — Canada needs to overhaul the Trudeau-era immigration system so that applicants are selected largely on their ability to boost the economy, a new think tank report suggests, part of a wide-ranging set of policy suggestions for governments at all levels.

The C.D. Howe Institute report , to be released Thursday, argues that Canada should go back to assessing skilled immigrant applicants based on a points system designed to evaluate their likelihood to succeed economically. That system, which was quietly dropped by former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government in 2023, ran for two decades by rating applicants on key metrics such as education, work experience, language skills and a demonstrated ability to earn a living.

But that changed about three years ago, the report says, when Ottawa started focusing on other metrics, such as preferences for certain professions and applicants who could speak French.

The think tank’s report, a wide-ranging set of policy recommendations to boost Canada’s lagging productivity and economic growth, said the old system worked better because it focused on applicants who were most likely to do well and meant fewer new Canadians doing work that didn’t match their skills.

“The highest scores got in,” the report says.

If adopted, the change would mark another key policy from the Trudeau era to be cancelled or sharply curtailed by Prime Minister Mark Carney. The current Liberal government has already changed direction on such Trudeau-era policies as the consumer carbon tax, a proposed capital gains tax increase and higher immigration levels.

The recommendations on immigration form a key part of the report’s focus on human capital, one of eight policy areas that it addresses. It also calls for governments to do more to verify foreign credentials used in immigration applications, raise admission standards for international students, link immigration levels to economic growth and select more immigrants who are likely to be entrepreneurs.

The report, called The Productivity Blueprint: An Agenda for Higher Living Standards in Canada, calls for more than 100 policy changes that would help close the gap between the country’s lagging productivity and that of other industrialized countries. Between 2014 and 2024, real gross domestic product per capita, one of the most common measures of living standards, grew just 3.5 per cent in Canada, the worst performance among nine peer countries. In the U.S., by comparison, the economy grew 20.2 percent during that same period based on the same metric.

Productivity, which measures how much is produced per hour worked, is considered the primary lever behind rising incomes and living standards.

Jeremy Kronick, the institute’s chief executive officer, was quoted in a release saluting some of the Carney government’s steps to boost the economy, such as its new Major Projects Office and the accounting changes for business investment, but said long-term improvement will take a commitment to change. “There’s no quick fix for productivity,” he said. “If Canadians want stronger wages and living standards over the long term, raising productivity needs to be Canada’s number one priority.”

The Carney government is also trying to inoculate the Canadian economy as much as possible from the trade war started by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

The federal government’s initial response was to offer short-term support payments for companies and workers hit by the disruption from the south, but has in recent months been focusing more on structural factors such as pipelines, transportation infrastructure, faster approval times for major projects and making Canada a more competitive place to invest.

The C.D. Howe report also calls for sweeping changes to the country’s tax policy regime, including a reduction in the general corporate income tax rate to 10 per cent from 15. Ottawa has already cut corporate income taxes almost in half since 2000-01, when the rate stood at 28 per cent. Yet during that time, the federal government’s revenue from that stream has climbed in the last fiscal year to $97.1 billion from $28.3 billion.

The report, which draws on decades of research, also calls on Ottawa to reduce the number of personal income tax brackets to three from five and to replace most existing tax credits with a $10,000 basic allowance. To help spur business, the report also calls on the federal government to rein in business subsidies, which have grown 125 per cent since 2015, consuming $37.4 billion of taxpayer dollars.

It also calls on governments to improve the country’s transportation networks, boost competition, make regulations smarter, and cut spending to reduce debt.

While many of the proposed changes carry hefty price tags, a more productive, competitive economy means higher wages and profits that lead to healthier government coffers. The C.D. Howe report says the suggested changes would unlock $140 billion in new business investment and would add 2.5 per cent to the overall economy.

National Post

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Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal is facing a dramatic new wave of legal pressure, with police asking for help investigating alleged fraud and other wrongdoing by the lawyer and his colleagues, Ontario’s legal regulator moving to take over the law firm Grewal founded — and even his own father-in-law accusing him of multi-million-dollar fraud and forgery.

The impact of the affair on Grewal’s family is particularly striking.

Father-in-law Kailash Kasal said in an affidavit last month he’s struggling to preserve good relations with his lenders based on “the fact that I have no connection to this fraud perpetrated by Raj Grewal and others and that I am a victim of the fraud.”

The businessman confirmed that his daughter and her husband are estranged, but said he had held off asking Grewal about allegedly tainted funds that appeared in one of his companies’ accounts.

“I did not want to do anything to antagonize Mr. Grewal in a manner that may affect my grandchildren or my daughter,” Kasal said in the affidavit.

The latest developments come after numerous businesses and individuals have filed legal action against Grewal, his associates, the law firm and numbered companies in recent months, charging them with mortgage fraud, misappropriation of funds and handling fake cheques.

Recently filed lawsuits have estimated that $200 million or more is in dispute, based on allegations that are so far unproven but, if validated, would constitute one of the largest-ever cases of financial misconduct by lawyers in Canada.

None of the charges has been proven in court.

Simon Bieber, one of Grewal’s lawyers, said Wednesday that his client denies any wrongdoing, is co-operating with the Law Society of Ontario and “looks forward to continuing his defence.”

As he has indicated before, Bieber said Grewal is involved in many commercial transactions and, especially in uncertain economic times, the parties sometimes have a falling out that leads to litigation. He is the plaintiff in some cases and defendant in others and is “working diligently to resolve all outstanding litigation in a manner that is fair to all involved,” the lawyer said.

Grewal, the former Liberal member for the Brampton East riding west of Toronto, quit Parliament in 2018 after admitting to racking up millions in gambling debts. He later started RSG Law, the name based on his own initials. A paid advertorial in the Toronto Star last July that featured Grewal and was headed by his photograph called it a “thriving legal enterprise” with a 40-person team.

Earlier this year, he voluntarily gave up his licence as the Law Society of Ontario investigates him and others and seeks to have his credentials suspended.

The society went further recently, asking the Ontario Superior Court for permission to take over all accounts, client files and safe-deposit boxes of RSG Law, Grewal and Davinder Khattra, the junior colleague now listed as the firm’s owner. The regulator earlier suspended Khattra’s licence.

The society notes that various plaintiffs name Grewal and Khattra in legal actions related to “the alleged misappropriation of at least $17 million.” Today, $340,303 remains in RSG Law’s accounts, its notice of application says.

The regulator “has a statutory duty to protect the public interest and advance the cause of justice and rule of law,” it said in a notice of application asking to be made a trustee of the firm.

Peel Regional Police had until recently stayed silent about the affair. But last Friday the force issued a news release confirming that it’s investigating “multiple” allegations of fraud and breach of trust involving lawyers at RSG Law.

Detectives believe there are additional victims who have not yet come forward, the release said, asking that people contact police if they’ve suffered a financial loss or have information relevant to the cases.

It’s too early in the investigation to discuss potential charges, Peel spokeswoman Const. Laurie McCann said Tuesday.

Father-in-law Kasal alleges that, unbeknownst to him, Grewal and associates used the in-laws’ names and companies to fraudulently garner millions in loans.

Kasal is named as a co-defendant in at least two lawsuits dealing with mortgages taken out by RSG Law on properties he owned. The money was supposed to pay off previous loans as part of refinancings, but the lawyers never cleared the earlier debt or removed those loans from the properties’ title, alleges one of the suits, launched by the National Bank and others. The “funds are unaccounted for and appear to have been misappropriated by the defendants,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Frederick Myers said in a June decision.

In the affidavit he swore on Sept. 25, father-in-law Kasal says he knew nothing of the mortgages, and received none of the borrowed money.

He alleged the electronic signatures on the mortgage documents that purport to be his were not his, and one in ink that claims to be that of his wife — who had no involvement with the properties — is what he called a “clear forgery.” Evidence indicates that Grewal was behind the allegedly bogus mortgage papers, he charges in the affidavit.

Another case that named Kasal as a co-defendant involves $107 million lent on properties that he and others owned, the lenders alleging that the mortgages were not properly secured or insured and some of the funds re-directed for the RSG lawyers’ “own purposes.”

In legal action he filed late last month Kasal again said he had no knowledge of the mortgages and cross-sued his son-in-law, Khattra and RSG Law, demanding they pay $1 million in damages for “negligent and/or fraudulent misrepresentation.”

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During her time as Canada’s unofficial first lady, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau said she never saw her “former partner as a prime minister.”

“I knew it was his job, but come on,” the soon-to-be 52-year-old told Talia Bronfman and Jessica Green, hosts of Canadian podcast Built For This , in a recent episode.

“Like snap out of every role you’re in, because if you believe it for half a second you’re doomed, and including celebrity.”

Grégoire Trudeau and former prime minister Justin Trudeau have been separated since August 2023 after 18 years of marriage and three children together — Xavier, 18, Ella-Grace, 17, and Hadrien, 12. Trudeau, 54, has been in a heavily publicized romantic relationship with American pop star Katy Perry since the summer of 2025.

Grégoire Trudeau recounted keeping herself and her ex grounded when ordinary people they would encounter in their official capacity started “losing it.”

“Right away I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. This is not going to happen. Look into my eyes right now. We belong to each other. We’re doing this for each other. So, let’s put all the titles and the accolades and the lighting aside and let’s just come back to like we’re walking each other home,’” she explained.

Those were the only mentions of Trudeau during their nearly hour-long conversation posted on Oct. 10, World Mental Health Day, and focused largely on Grégoire Trudeau’s debut self-help book, Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other. Grégoire Trudeau is a long-time mental health advocate and the first national volunteer for the Canadian Mental Health Association .

But she did discuss the realities of political life, which is both an “incredible opportunity” and often quite trying.

“People still think politics is like glamorous and it’s champagne and I’m like ‘Oh my goodness, if people only knew the sacrifices that you make in your life. Like your time is not yours anymore. Your family is almost not yours anymore,” she explained.

“So to be honest, if people would ask me today, would you tell anybody to go into public service? I would say if you don’t have little kids, yes.”

To keep herself grounded, she said she avoided most articles written about her because “it was already a situation in which the physical and psychological safety” of her loved ones “was at play every single day.

“I can’t even tell you as a mother what that does to your nervous system, “ she said. “So my main work was to keep that calm so that when they came back … they could feed from somebody who was grounded.”

The podcast was recorded in Montreal, where Grégoire Trudeau returned to live this year in a rented home about four streets from where she spent most of her youth. She has mixed feelings about returning to her hometown now, most of it “melancholy.” Trudeau, who also grew up in the Quebec city, bought a $4.26 million home in Outremont earlier this year.

“I’m in a period of life that there’s been a lot of years of sadness and tears because so much shedding, so much letting go, so much deconstructing what I thought my life would be like, and when you’re a separated mother and you coming into an empty home… ” she said, fighting back tears, “I’m still not used to it and I’m not built for that. So, I’m learning non-stop.”

Grégoire Trudeau said she’s not sure what chapter comes next in her life, but she did allude to a potential romantic partner when questioning out loud why she moved back to Montreal.

“And I’m like, why am I back here? Is he here? Is he waiting for me,” she asks, giving the female hosts knowing looks and drawing equally knowing replies.

Earlier in the show, she divulged that her second book — a children’s “emotional literacy” book — will be published in 2027 and will feature illustrations inspired by her childhood growing up in nature with her parents.

During the rapid-fire question round, she said her go-to karaoke track is the Four Non Blondes’ What’s Going On?, she’d recommend Little Italy for anyone looking to dine out in Montreal and once accidentally ran over a baby mouse on the road that she’d stopped to help.

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With just days to go before Albertans vote on whether to pursue independence, polls suggest residents who want to stay in Canada have a safe lead. Support for remaining is in the high 60s, while the leave sentiment is in the low 20s. But it could go differently. Pollsters have been wrong before, even on separatist votes. The National Post’s Joseph Brean surveys various possibilities for how this referendum on a referendum could turn out to be an October surprise.

1. Low voter turnout

This is a question of confidence, both in the polls and in the broader issue. Confidence is a subjective attitude, shifting and hard to measure or predict. If turnout is low, public opinion polling could be a less reliable guide to the actual results.

“Fervent separatists will crawl across broken glass to make their vote count,” said remain campaigner and former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk in a recent speech. The danger, he meant, is that a pro-Canada majority will think they have it in the bag and stay home.

In 1980, Quebec’s sovereignty movement under a Parti Québécois government soundly lost a referendum that would have given it a mandate to “negotiate a new constitutional agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations.” In 1995, however, the PQ came within a single percentage point of a vote to leave. Turnout of over 90 per cent is thought to have boosted the remain numbers such that projections of a leave victory by a few points turned out to be wrong. Now, another vote seems likely, and is at least promised by the newly elected PQ government.

In Scotland, separatists lost their referendum in 2014 by fully 10 percentage points, with voter turnout at more than 80 per cent.

Alberta’s voter turnout in the last provincial election was 60 per cent, and in the last federal election 67 per cent, but this is obviously a different sort of ballot question.

2. An incomprehensible question

Curiously, the referendum is not a simple “Yes/No” question. It is a rambling offer of two numbered options. You can almost ignore the setup and get straight to the options, which are clear enough on their own without the wordy question, which reads: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

Still here? Did you drift off a bit at “commence the legal process”? Did you need to be told “the Constitution” is “Canadian”? Did you already assume the “legal process” would be “required”? This referendum has more words than it needs.

Eventually, it gets to the key parts: “Option 1: Alberta should remain a province of Canada. Option 2: The Government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”

It is a referendum, but the ballot reads like a lawyer’s letter. There are also nine other questions, all of which are yes/no, on things like immigration control, immigrant access to social services, voter identification, judicial appointments and provincial-federal relations. How and even if people read through all that could have measurable impact on the emotionally charged central question among an electorate with a wide spectrum of interests and motivations.

“There’s a lot of people who want to send a message,” said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Oct. 7. “There’s a lot of people who think voting for Option 2 will give leverage. If those are your reasons, I would say there is a better way to send a message or to give leverage. And that is to give us a mandate on the other nine questions.”

Scotland was more concise, not troubling voters with too much windup or alternative messages. “Should Scotland be an independent country?” the 2014 referendum asked. The answer was no, according to 55 per cent of Scots.

3. Invalidated votes

Another way the true will of Albertans could be misrepresented in referendum results is by invalidation of good faith ballots.

More than 3,000 ballot packages have been invalidated for reasons such as missing declaration forms or problems with identification, though there remains time to fix those problems.

All ballots are to be counted by hand. Question 10, the central one about a referendum on separating, will be counted and reported first, followed by the other nine, with a deadline of 48 hours, according to Elections Alberta.

4. Quebec inspiration

Quebec sovereigntists have marched farther along the road to separatism, and their history offers cautionary tales for Alberta sovereigntists. But with a new Quebec government seeking the same goal, they also offer inspiration.

The idea that Canada is broken has lately had a run as a political slogan. The idea that it is actually breaking up is a less familiar notion, not exactly new, but surging to unprecedented levels of public interest with two provincial sovereignty movements campaigning simultaneously. So the successes of one could boost the fortunes of the other, even without actual cooperation.

As separatist advocate and leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project Mitch Sylvestre said after a cordial meeting with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon prior to his election as Quebec’s new premier, according to Rick Bell of the Calgary Herald, “You know, we both agreed, and this came out of Paul’s mouth not mine. He said the only level of government neither of us needs is at the federal level.”

5. Poor weather

The folk wisdom is that bad weather lowers turnout. It has even been measured in the U.S. at one percentage point per inch of rain, and half a point per inch of snow. In Canada, University of Ottawa researchers found that from the 2004 to 2015 federal elections, “each millimeter of precipitation decreases turnout by more than 0.1 percentage points.”

Higher temperatures boost turnout, they found, but only in spring, summer and fall elections. In the winter 2006 election victory for Stephen Harper, warmer temperatures “triggered lower turnout, in particular, when there was also high precipitation.”

6. American meddling

This is the October surprise, in which U.S. President Donald Trump could say or do something provocative, or perhaps offer something like the $5,000 payment he has offered American voters if Republicans win the midterm elections. In Alberta’s referendum, he could see some usefulness to his side in the wider trade war.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, therefore, is in a tricky strategic position, needing to both advocate for the Albertan remain side while managing his chaotic conflict with Trump, who is on record as coveting not only Alberta, but all of Canada.

Carney’s play was a Thanksgiving video, posed in a classroom at his Edmonton high school with a world map behind him, on a long-weekend holiday that was thematically useful.

“It is a chance to give thanks for Canada,” he said. “This year, Thanksgiving is a bit different. A week from today, Albertans will have the opportunity to make an important decision about their future, whether to remain part of Canada, or begin a long and uncertain process through which Alberta could separate from Canada.”

His voice lilted on “could,” a little rhetorical emphasis on the inherent risk of Option 2, in contrast to his pitch for Option 1.

“I’m back home a lot these days, because we are building big things again in Alberta, thousands of new homes, high-speed rail, a new pipeline to the West Coast that will create lasting opportunity and prosperity,” he said. “Canada’s working. Truth is, we can’t achieve any of this if we’re divided. We can’t build big things on fault lines.”

7. A Brexit-style, surprise generational shift in political attitudes, and the emergence of a new archetype of politician

Of all the referendum results that few saw coming, Brexit, Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016, stands out as maybe the most shocking.

It cost Prime Minister David Cameron his leadership, and was a failure of sorts also for Carney, who as Governor of the Bank of England had warned Brexit would cause a recession. He then agreed to extend his term to help avert one.

One immediate political winner was Boris Johnson, the now former prime minister whose appeal was to seem “shambolic,” as the British say, clownish, chaotic, disruptive, but massively likeable, like the earlier Torontonian archetype, the former mayor Rob Ford, who died a few months before Brexit.

A few months after Brexit came the equally momentous surprise first election of Donald Trump, who took that same archetype to new extremes of political power.

Britain still labours under the consequences of that political sea change. So does their Conservative Party’s revolving leadership of less charismatic figures. So, indeed, does the rest of the world, including Alberta.

8. Elon Musk

The tech titan does not have a perfect track record for sage prediction of domestic affairs in other countries, such as Britain where he once said civil war is “inevitable.” But he does take an interest. And, as in Germany, he can speak influentially in support of a populist right-wing movement on its way from the fringe to the mainstream of power, such as the Alternative for Germany.

Often his interest is personal. Musk once posted, then deleted, that “Canada is not a real country” in response to news of a petition to revoke his Canadian citizenship, which is not legally possible.

Musk posted last week on X, the social media platform he owns, in response to news of the Parti Québécois’ election: “Good. Quebec should separate. They would be better off. Alberta and Saskatchewan should separate too.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe replied with the word “No.” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith likewise voiced her disagreement.

She said she has already voted for Option 1, “and I hope to be able to convince all of you to vote the same way.”

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