Australian police are investigating a severe assault on a Canadian man in Byron Bay.

Late Sunday local time, a police patrol car was flagged down by a 28-year-old man in the coastal town on Australia’s southeastern coast, when he reported being attacked, according to a statement from police .

Police were told by the man that he had been drinking in a main street park with a group of about five males that he had just met, before they turned on him. He fled into the bush and later stopped the police vehicle.

The officers provided first aid to the man, identified as a Canadian national, before taking him to the Byron Bay Hospital, according to the Australia Broadcasting Corporation .

The man was later reported to be “serious but stable condition with a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain and spinal injuries.” His name has not been provided.

A Canadian man has been hospitalized with a brain bleed and fractured skull after being attacked by five strangers in a popular tourist destination.https://t.co/lePzveSxhp

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) June 8, 2026

Police believe the Canadian had only arrived in the popular tourist destination the previous day , reports News.com Australia.

“Two of the males involved in the fight are believed to be aged about 16 or 17,” say police, but no further information is available at this time.

No arrests have been made, says Sky News .

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OTTAWA — The federal government is extending the amnesty period shielding firearms owners from liability for possessing guns that the Liberals have banned until 90 days after a Supreme Court ruling on the ban, which it expects next year.

The amnesty order, set to expire on Oct. 30, applies to owners of the roughly 2,500 makes and models of firearms the Liberals have banned since May 2020.

“When there is a Supreme Court hearing on a matter that is quite relevant to the program, I think it’s incumbent upon lawmakers to ensure that we respect that process,” Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, told National Post in an interview on Tuesday.

“While you know we would have preferred to have the amnesty in place for October … we have to respect the Supreme Court and their ability as the final arbiter of Canadian law to weigh in, and that’s what we’re doing today.”

The minister says the decision was made in concert with Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who oversees the amnesty period.

The top court’s decision to hear a challenge brought against the Liberals’ initial firearms ban back in May 2020 represents the latest hurdle the long-delayed and controversial policy has faced since then prime minister Justin Trudeau first promised it during the 2019 federal election.

The Liberals maintain that the decision to ban upwards of 2,500 makes and models of firearms targets guns deemed too dangerous for public use, such as the AR-15. Meanwhile, firearms owners and their lobby groups have argued it unfairly targets law-abiding gun owners and captures those that are used for hunting and sports shooting. The Opposition Conservatives have vowed to scrap the policy completely, slamming it as a waste of taxpayer money.

The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, which bills itself as “Canada’s gun lobby,” took the federal government to court after Trudeau’s cabinet enacted its first ban on some 1,500 makes and models of guns in May 2020, just weeks after a gunman killed 22 people in a shooting rampage across rural Nova Scotia.

At that time, an initial amnesty period was expected to end after April 2022. It has been extended several times since as the federal government struggled to get a compensation program for affected firearms owners off the ground.

The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights , which fiercely opposes the policy, has taken aim in its court challenge at the way the 2020 ban was enacted through an order-in-council by cabinet, rather than through a law passed by Parliament.

The Federal Court in 2023 dismissed its appeal for judicial review. The Federal Court of Appeal also dismissed its appeal last year.

Back in March, however, the Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal, with the provincial governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, all of which reject the federal policy, slated to participate as interveners.

As is the case with other appeals, the Supreme Court did not release its reasons for accepting the case.

Anandasangaree back in February blamed dwindling support for the initiative among municipal police services and premiers on the fact that it took the Liberals too long to launch its compensation program. He also previously said the federal government was not open to extending the amnesty order beyond October 2026.

The minister said on Tuesday that he still agrees with those comments.

“The one matter that we didn’t anticipate at that time was the Supreme Court challenge,” he said.

“In both the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal we were quite successful in defending our position,” Anandasangaree added, saying “we still are very confident of the position that we’ve taken.”

He said the decision to extend the amnesty period was being done out of “respect” for the judicial process and out of “the abundance of caution.”

Prominent gun control advocacy group PolySeSouvient, formed by victims of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique shooting, criticized the decision as risking public safety.

“With this decision, the government is protecting gun owners unwilling to surrender their prohibited weapons against criminal charges — at the expense of potential future victims of mass shootings in Canada,” it said in a statement.

“Continuing to allow access to these weapons increases the risk of this type of extreme violence.”

Tracey Wilson, vice-president of public relations with the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, welcomed Tuesday’s decision, saying it looks forward to presenting its case.

“We suspect that the government realized that a defeat at the Supreme Court of Canada after collecting guns and or prosecuting those in non-compliance would be an untenable position for the Mark Carney’s Liberals,” she said in a statement.

Public Safety Canada, the department overseeing the rollout of the program, expects the Supreme Court to rule next year.

Anandasangaree said collection efforts for the guns declared under the federal compensation program will continue until its scheduled end date of this fall.

“Look, the Supreme Court is not opining on the validity of the compensation program,” he said. “They’re two separate things.”

As of Tuesday, the Public Safety department said more 142,000 of what it calls “assault-style firearms” have been declared by individuals and businesses under the federal compensation program.

It said more than 68,000 firearms were declared under the individual side of the program, which launched this year

Anandasangaree said the rollout of the program has so far been “on time” and “on budget,” adding that a “very significant amount of resources” had been put into the collection phase of the program.

“This is both the respectful thing to do to those who have already enrolled, and I believe that if individuals do want to buy something else, they’re able to do so, but with the caveat that the Supreme Court will decide on the overall firearms and the our ability to prohibit them using our laws.”

National Post

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The state of Israel is “the most successful land‑back project, the greatest decolonization project,” a New Zealand Māori activist told the first-of-its-kind Building Indigenous‑Jewish Friendship conference in Toronto.

“From my Māori perspective, a key point is that there was always a continuous Jewish presence in the land; they kept the fires burning, and that is what indigeneity looks like to us,” Dr. Sheree Trotter told roughly 70 activists, academics and community figures convened at Toronto’s Beth Torah synagogue on Monday.

The conference was the culmination of a weekend of local Indigenous-Jewish programming that included nearly 40 Indigenous people marching in the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Walk with Israel, a Sunday dinner-talk with Concordia University professor Csaba Nikolenyi on early 20th-century Zionism, and a Sabbath lecture by Justice Harry S. LaForme at Temple Sinai.

“Indigeneity is demonstrated by historical, collective continuity with a distinct ethnic identity, language, culture, rituals or traditions, economic, social, legal, and religious and spiritual belief systems that predate subsequent invaders or colonizers,” LaForme told Temple Sinai congregants.

“In my view, Israel is the product of the greatest decolonization project in modern history, and this fact does not make it a colonial entity.”

LaForme is Anishibaabe, and a member of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation. In 1994 he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice, and in 2004 was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and is the first Indigenous lawyer to be appointed to an appellate court in Canada.

“The Islamist strategists correctly believe that their ideology-driven false narratives appropriating indigenous social justice language would resonate, and given traction with the academically ignorant and the academically sinister in Canada,” he continued in his synagogue speech.

Karen Restoule, an Ojibwe from Dokis First Nation and director of Indigenous affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, told attendees at Beth Torah that “political movements” have co-opted “Indigenous identity” and the term is “increasingly being treated as a universal political language, borrowed when convenient and deployed in conflicts that arise from very different histories.”

“Increasingly, indigenous identity is being treated as a metaphor, a branding exercise, a political strategy. Indigeneity isn’t any of that; it is a lived reality rooted in specific people and place.”

Trotter said in her talk that “settler colonialism has become a totalizing dogma: it over‑generalizes, homogenizes, and divides the world into saints and sinners, oppressed and oppressor.”

She earned her PhD in history from the University of Auckland, with a thesis on Zionism, and is a Fellow London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.

She added: “Jewish people really need to own their indigeneity for themselves. Even if you don’t live in Israel, your people originate there, and you are part of an indigenous people to that land.”

Ryan Bellerose, a Metis from Alberta, said the conference was “a valuable first step in building bridges between the indigenous Canadian and indigenous Judean people (Jews).”

“As someone who has been trying to build these bridges for years, it is great to see so many people of like mind, people who understand that it’s more than just a shared history of persecution, but also a shared history of love and veneration for our ancestral lands, that really helps bind us. And with Israel being a great example of a successful land back movement, there is much we can learn from our Jewish friends,” he told the Post.

Gilli Zemer and her family hosted two visiting Indigenous leaders, and she told the Post that she “came to learn more about the connections between Indigenous and Jewish communities, and left inspired by how deeply our foundational values align. We have much to learn from one another, and a key message was that Jews need to be more confident in advocating for our own indigenous story.”

Avi Attali, vice-president of Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF), one of the sponsors of the event, told the Post that it “allowed us to exchange views, to learn about each other’s cultures and issues, and tried to seek solutions on how we can help each other in the future.”

The conversation often focused on building a shared framework for allyship — positioning dialogue and relationship-building as tools to counter misinformation about both communities. Sponsors also included the Israel Consulate of Toronto and Western Canada, Kanada House, Indigenous Embassy of Jerusalem, Allied Voices for Israel.

Robert Walker, assistant director of HonestReporting Canada, told the Post that “radical activists have weaponized everything from international law to indigenous lingo in their attempt to rewrite reality. That only works in a vacuum.

“The time has passed to permit this shameless inversion of reality to continue unchallenged. First Nations and Jews are both indigenous peoples who have a right to reclaim the truth from those who try to twist it.”

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A retired Air Canada pilot is facing criminal charges in Ontario after allegedly flying more than 900 domestic and international flights without a proper licence.

The former airline captain from Barrie, Ont., was charged with fraud and forgery and using counterfeit licensing documents, Peel Regional Police announced at a Tuesday press conference.

The 59-year-old retired from the airline in 2025, before the criminal investigation, after a 27-year career.

Police said in a press conference on Tuesday that records indicate the pilot had a commercial pilot licence but he was not licensed to operate passenger planes as a captain.

Between 2009 and 2025, he earned over $2.9 million in salary, Peel Police said in an accompanying statement .

Meanwhile, police noted that the pilot held several positions with the Air Canada Pilots Association, including serving as chair of the master executive council, the governing body of the ACPA.

“The investigation and the details surrounding it read like a movie script,” said Peel Police Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich, during a press conference about “Project Icarus” on Tuesday morning. (He was likely referencing the 2002 Steven Spielberg film, Catch Me If You Can, a story about an alleged con artist, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who posed as a Pan American World Airways pilot (among other things) in the 1960s, and the FBI agent pursuing him, played by Tom Hanks.)

Investigators with the Peel Fraud Bureau arrested the retired pilot on June 1 after a four-month criminal investigation. It was launched after Transport Canada contacted Peel police with the results of a regulatory review into the pilot’s licensing credentials and conduct.

Evidence to support the alleged criminal behaviour was obtained through a search of the man’s home and gathered from Air Canada and Transport Canada, say police.

Peel Regional Police will announce the results of Project Icarus, a complex fraud investigation involving a former airline captain who allegedly flew hundreds of flights without the necessary licence. https://t.co/r43y9M2vAv

— Peel Regional Police (@PeelPolice) June 9, 2026

“We are alleging that, since 2009, (the pilot) had been flying for years, misrepresenting himself and his credentials to his employer and regulatory officials, using fraudulent licensing documents,” said Milinovich on Tuesday.

“As captain, the accused was considered a ‘pilot in command’ and was ultimately responsible for aircraft operation and safety during flight,” Detective Sergeant Chad Mitchell said during the press conference. And while the man was licensed to fly and was a commercial pilot, Mitchell said, he was not licensed to fly passengers internationally, “you know, on 777s, 767s, 787s, and tens of thousands of passengers.”

“The catalyst event” leading to the regulatory and criminal investigations was a routine operational evaluation of the accused’s credentials at Pearson International Airport in March 2025, according to Mitchell.

“Anomalies were detected within the pilot license documentation he presented,” he said.

The man is no longer flying for Air Canada, the airline confirmed in a statement released on Tuesday.

It said that while “captains and first officers are trained to operate aircraft, regulations require that captains of large aircraft operated by airlines in Canada hold an airline transport pilot licence (APTL).”

“ This individual, who had been promoted to captain, lacked the mandatory ATPL for the position,” the airline wrote. “Immediately upon Air Canada’s discovery of this, the individual was removed from active duty, and the company voluntarily reported the matter to Transport Canada.”

The airline also said flight safety was not compromised” because pilots are required to “undergo mandatory recurrent training every six months to validate their flying competency, including a flight check with a certified Transport Canada check-pilot every 12 months.”

The pilot has already been fined, according to the Montreal Gazette . On June 6, Transport Canada levelled $67,500 in fines for a pilot not having the “appropriate permit, licence or rating” on 18 flights between December 2024 and March 2025.

National Post has reached out to Transport Canada for confirmation of the offences and fines.

The criminal investigation included witness interviews, subject matter expert input, and forensic analysis conducted the RCMP’s National Anti-Counterfeiting Bureau in Ottawa, Mitchell said Tuesday, adding that there’s no indication that other people were involved, he added.

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OTTAWA — Chief Justice Richard Wagner warned against “attacks” against the justice system and took issue with criticism painting judges as partisan actors or obstacles to the will of the people.

During his annual press conference Tuesday, Wagner said that “rhetorical attacks” questioning the legitimacy of courts and judges weakens Canada’s judicial system. He also applauded unnamed chief justices who recently spoke out after critical comments from a politician.

“What happened in Canada most recently, if you refer to some attacks or attempts to politicize the judiciary, there was a strong reaction of the chief justices in some provinces… there were strong messages given by the chief justices, as that is their responsibility,” Wagner told reporters.

Though he refused to single out any particular criticism or critic, Wagner’s comments appeared to be thinly-veiled criticism of statements by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

In January, the three chief justices of Alberta courts issued a rare public message emphasizing the importance of judicial independence just days after Smith said she wished she could “direct the judges” on her weekly radio show.

“The judges get very, very prickly when you criticize them, but boy… they deserve the criticism,” Smith told a caller who complained that Justin Bone was out on bail when he allegedly killed two people in Edmonton.

On Tuesday, Wagner said that criticism and questioning is part of a healthy democracy, but drew the line at what he called attempts to undermine public confidence in the justice system.

“We have seen judges and courts sometimes portrayed as partisan actors, or described as obstacles to the will of the people,” he noted. “A non-partisan judiciary, sheltered from all politicization, is essential for the rule of law.”

In April of last year, Ontario’s three chief justices also issued a rare joint statement insisting on the importance of judicial independence in response to fiercely critical comments by Premier Doug Ford.

At the time, Ford ranted that judges were being soft on crime and called judicial independence a “joke”.

“The system is broken, and there’s a lot of terrible, terrible bleeding-heart judges out there,” the premier said.

Wagner said Tuesday that he liked the way the provincial chief justices had responded to date to “attacks” on the judiciary.

“Chief justices in Canada, in every province, and the chief justice of Canada have a responsibility, not an obligation, but a responsibility to speak out about any attempts on judicial independence, attacks on independence, or the rule of law… or any events that could jeopardize the justice system,” Wagner said.

During his press conference, Wagner reiterated his concerns about a lack of resources in courts across the country and warned that it is partly to blame for growing court delays.

But the chief justice declined to comment on the federal government’s decision to reject the recommendation by a quadrennial commission to boost judges’ $429,000 compensation by at least $28,000. Two associations representing judges are currently suing the government over the decision.

Wagner also cited ongoing litigation when he declined to explain his recent, controversial decision not to recuse from the Emergencies Act case currently being considered by his court.

Last month, Wagner told parties requesting his recusal that his 2022 comments about the Freedom Convoy protests had nothing to do with the issues on appeal.

In the months following the February 2022 Freedom Convoy protests, Wagner described the events as the “start of anarchy” and said participants took Ottawa residents “hostage.”

On Tuesday, Wagner also warned about growing use of artificial intelligence by parties, saying the technology is making the law more accessible but comes with considering risk of “hallucinations.”

“Artificial intelligence is now present in the courtroom in ways both promising and problematic. Just a few years ago, hallucinated legal cases were not something we imagined. Today, they are a part of our reality,” he said.

Wagner said the chances that fake cases generated by AI are submitted to the Supreme Court is “very low” because cases are “filtered” by the time they arrive at the apex court.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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One of the wildest days in Ontario’s courts has been revealed by a short appeal decision about the day a judge and everyone in his courtroom were held hostage in a terrifying bomb plot that has largely remained a secret.

The shocking incident played out in cinematic style: twisting drama and high emotions, heart-pounding terror and a surprise happy ending when a clever judge and a heroic cop outwitted the desperate, inventive villain who was threatening mass mayhem.

Rather than movies and screaming headlines, however, there came only silence. Over the next seven years, the case — called a terrorist incident — quietly tiptoed through court with barely a public mention or disclosing the antagonist’s name.

After last week’s court hearing for the bomb plotter’s appeal, National Post has unlocked the untold details and can now reveal how the hostage drama and attempted kidnapping unfolded, how it was thwarted, and its continuing aftermath.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2019, Ontario Superior Court Judge Frederick Myers called to order an acrimonious child-support hearing on the ninth floor of a downtown Toronto courthouse.

“How do we get to the bottom of this and get it settled,” Myers asked the couple who sat before him. The pair had already divorced, and the mother granted sole custody of their daughter, but they disagreed on child support and access. Along with the feuding parents and the judge, there were five court staff in the room.

“I’m afraid the settlement is not going to be the way you expect it to be,” the 37-year-old father in the case, Serkan Kesgin, replied.

“I’m leaving with my child from here today. It’s not a laptop. This is an explosive device. You can come check, sir,” he said, motioning to the computer bag he had with him in court, all while the remarkable exchange was being captured by the court’s transcription recorder.

“No one is leaving this room” he said. “If my heart rate goes below my resting rate, the device will explode. If my heart rate goes up, without my pressing the right button, device goes off. If my orientation changes too quickly without me pressing the button, right combination, device goes off. It’s a dead man’s switch.

“There is no way to stop this device.”

Kesgin gave his demands. His daughter was to be put on an airplane to Turkey within two hours. Authorities were to video call him to prove she was on the plane and one hour after she was in the air he was to be taken to the airport with his courtroom hostages and put on a second flight to Turkey, where he was born.

“Listen, sir,” Myers said, “you have to understand the police are going to be coming… You are holding people hostage in the courthouse? Really? You think this is going to work?”

“It doesn’t matter, sir,” Kesgin replied. “I died so many times you cannot imagine.”

Kesgin didn’t know it, but by then Myers had secretly pressed an emergency button under the judge’s bench and had dialled 911 on his phone. His iPhone was connected wirelessly to his hearing aid, and he could hear the emergency dispatcher’s questions and was trying to answer them as if he was speaking to Kesgin.

Myers said his staff should leave Courtroom 901 at 393 University Ave., a message also meant for the 911 dispatcher.

The man’s former wife, who sat terrified, saw that as her cue and suddenly bolted towards a door behind the judge’s bench and Kesgin chased her, allowing Toronto police court security officers who had arrived to rush in and grab him.

Myers ducked under his heavy wooden bench and braced for a blast.

“It’s going to go off,” Kesgin called to the officers.

“Well, if anybody’s dying, you’re dying too. Let’s go,” an officer can be heard saying as one officer held Kesgin and another pried his laptop bag out of one hand and a controller from the other, according to the officers’ notebooks from that day.

The court’s reporter later said she and a colleague were “like two chickens running out of the courtroom in a flight.” Staff were terrified and traumatized. Myers made sure he was the last to leave.

About 50 people from two floors of the courthouse were evacuated as police and fire crews arrived. A bomb sniffing dog searched the building and officers examined Kesgin’s bomb.

It was a fake, made of Play-Doh modelling clay, wax, wires, a 9-volt battery, circuit boards and a handheld device. Kesgin had also brought duct tape and zip ties, which can be used to restrain people.

Myers had been right. Kesgin’s bomb plot was not a good legal strategy. He was arrested and charged with possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, intimidating the justice system, hostage taking, attempted kidnapping, and failure to comply with a court order.

Kesgin’s marriage had lasted barely a year and had dissolved four years before his courthouse drama.

Long before the hearing, he was struggling with the process. He had already been found in contempt of a restraining order, in breach of child support orders, and threatened with a harassment charge if he didn’t shape up. Despite having a job as a software engineer that paid $150,000 annually, he was $30,000 behind in child support, court records said.

After his courtroom attack, Kesgin pleaded guilty to the charges in 2021 at a hearing held over Zoom without a single outside observer. He told court he understood there would be immigration ramifications to his guilty plea. “I am prepared to leave the country voluntarily,” he told the judge.

Judge Bruce Durno heard that Kesgin moved to Canada in 2010 and returned to Turkey after his marriage failed. He came back to Canada in 2018 on a work permit in a bid to regain parental rights. Kesgin presented letters from friends attesting to his intelligence, work ethic and friendly demeanour before his family turmoil. He had no criminal record.

The prosecutor, Marnie Goldenberg, called Kesgin’s crimes “an act of terrorism.”

“A free society cannot survive when activists or protestors, no matter how passionately they hold their beliefs, deliberately break the law in an effort to impose their will on others by dangerous and unlawful intimidation,” Goldenberg said.

She sought a sentence of between eight and 14 years in prison. Kesgin’s lawyer, Coulson Mills, asked for five years.

“I am frankly astonished how that device made it into the courthouse,” Mills said at one of his client’s hearings. Durno was told the courthouse didn’t have a screening device to detect such things at the time, which might be one reason authorities didn’t mention the incident. By the time Kesgin was sentenced, that had been fixed.

Mills described his client as “a man who has got many abilities, but unfortunately has been consumed, it appears, by the quest to have some contact with his daughter.”

At his sentencing hearing, victim impact statements from most of the seven he held hostage told of psychological damage from believing they might be blown to bits at work.

Mills then warned Durno his client wanted to deliver a two-hour speech. It’s an astonishing length for what is meant to be a simple allocution before sentencing. Most take a few minutes. As court discussed the prospect, Kesgin interjected with complaints of how he is treated in jail, claiming he was discriminated against and singled out for punishment.

“I have a particularly skeptical nature I guess I can attribute to my profession for the past 20 plus years, in which not only billion-dollar businesses but entire economies (and) human lives that depends on what I do, makes me a bit more cautious about things,” he said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

He said he had started an online inmate complaint service that automatically forwarded complaints to the Prime Minister, the United Nations and Amnesty International, which makes him a target of prison staff.

That, however, was not the speech he wished to make. On May 16, 2022, he had more to say. He started by apologizing to his victims.

“I said such things that make me want to throw my face on the floor and stomp on it. Things that even I find beyond outrageous today,” he said. To Myers, the judge he hijacked, he said: “The heroism you showed that day by ensuring your staff’s safety first and then remaining in ground zero to support the security officers is exemplary.

“I was a man who has finally giving in to a lifetime of tyranny, a lifetime of discrimination, a lifetime of injustice.” He said he was fearful his daughter would face the same discrimination because “I have made you a visible minority in this intolerant country. And not only a minority either, but the most unwanted kind, the Middle Eastern kind.”

Durno handed Kesgin a nine-year sentence.

“These offences have an impact on the administration of justice at large when offenders decide to terrorize a court,” Durno said. He considered the case terrorism, although it wasn’t charged as such, he said.

Since then, Kesgin has had a difficult time in prison.

In April 2025, he was denied parole. He appealed the Parole Board of Canada’s decision, and, in October, the parole appeals division also rejected his plea for early release.

Parole officials had several concerns. The board considered a letter he sent that contained “wide-ranging threats against a wide variety of people and threatened devastating consequences for the Canadian public,” according to parole records. He later said it was not a threat but a “wake-up call.”

A loud “outburst” from him at his parole hearing brought prison guards rushing to the room, according to parole records. Kesgin later said Turkish men are passionate and “raising our voices when we speak is not necessarily a sign of anger, but passion.” He railed to parole officials about “blatant and merciless discrimination” and blamed his situation on his former wife, incompetent police and mistaken court officials, according to parole records.

“The Board is satisfied that you are likely, if released, to commit an offence causing death or serious harm to another person before the expiration of your sentence,” the parole board told him.

Then, on June 2, came his court appeal of his nine-year sentence. Representing himself, Kesgin complained his sentence was disproportionate and his sentencing judge failed to apply the principle of restraint.

After hearing his arguments, the panel of three judges dismissed his appeal.

“We are not persuaded that the sentencing judge made any reversible error,” the appeal court said.

Court previously heard that when Kesgin is released, he will face immigration inadmissibility proceedings because of his convictions.

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A new ban on certain fees for phone and internet plans in Canada will come into effect on Friday, making it easier for consumers to switch providers or change plans without incurring extra costs.

The changes to the Consumer Protections Action Plan were announced by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in March and are intended to make it easier for Canadians to access more affordable telecommunications services.

According to the new rules, telecommunications providers will no longer be permitted to charge activation, plan-change or cancellation fees for cellphone and internet services.

The CRTC said activation fees have ranged from roughly $30 to $80, creating a barrier for Canadians looking to take advantage of competitive offers.

Beginning Friday, Canadians will be able to switch plans or providers without worrying about added fees that could offset potential savings.

The new measure is a result of changes to the Telecommunications Act that came into force on Oct. 30, 2025, which required the CRTC to put new consumer protection measures in place.

As part of this work, the CRTC held a public consultation to see how service providers could offer Canadians more ways to make changes to their internet and cellphone plans. The consultation included input from consumers, advocacy groups and telecommunications providers.

“We are taking action to give Canadians more control over their internet and cellphone services,” CRTC chairperson and CEO Vicky Eatrides said in a news release in March.

“Today’s decision removes extra fees to activate, change or cancel a plan. This means that consumers can switch to a better deal without having to pay extra just to get the service that works best for them.”

Canadian internet and cellphone bills are some of the most expensive in the G7. According to 2024 data from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), Canadians pay the most out of the seven countries for ‘Level 7’ broadband services (defined as 900+ Mbps download speed) — the highest level available — at an average price of $113.11 per month.

The data also showed Canadians pay some of the highest mobile wireless rates in the G7, ranking first for Level 2 service (unlimited nationwide talk and text, 5+ GB of data) at $63.80 per month, second for Level 3 (with 20+ GB of data) at $65.40 per month, and third for Level 4 (50+ GB) and 5 (100+ GB) plans.

More recently, U.K.-based broadband comparison site Broadband Genie found Canada to be the most expensive country in North America for broadband prices, with an average cost of US$55.26 per month (roughly CAD$77).

That said, ISED’s data also showed that prices for both mobile wireless and broadband services declined across nearly all service tiers between 2020 and 2024.

And with the elimination of activation, plan-change and cancellation fees, consumers could see additional savings and greater flexibility when shopping for better telecom deals in the years ahead.

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The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off this week, with games being played in Canada for the first time.

Canadian soccer star Alphonso Davies, though plagued by injury, remains a key figure in the national program, and will be one to watch in the tournament.

Journalist Jolene Latimer joins the show to discuss the importance of Canada’s presence at the World Cup, why Davies is so integral to our soccer program, and pulls back the curtain on one of the key figures in the star player’s life.

Background reading: Alphonso Davies is Canada’s best soccer player ever. And the biggest mystery

Subscribe to 10/3 on your favourite podcast app

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On the New Year’s Eve she was 13, her 64-year-old sexual abuser told his adopted daughter, “the devil made him do it.”

The man, now 68, is identified only by initials in a recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision sentencing him to nine years in prison for sexually abusing his adopted daughter and a family friend.

“He told (his adopted daughter) that they would have to stop. He said that he felt guilty, was sorry for loving her in that way, and that the devil made him do it and that he had asked God for forgiveness,” Justice Jocelyn Speyer wrote in a May 22 decision.

“A short while later, (he touched her) in a sexual manner again. After that, (she) realized that it was not going to stop, and told her older brother … what happened. Other family members became involved, and the police were contacted.”

The abuser immigrated to Canada in 2002 with his wife and three children. He became a Canadian citizen and adopted several Zimbabwean and Botswanan orphans, including the one he sexually abused.

“In her victim impact statement, (she) eloquently describes how her childhood was stolen from her,” Speyer said.

“She was a child not fully aware of what was happening in the moment. She has experienced shame, anger, self-blame, numbness, anxiety, depression, betrayal, confusion and suicidal thoughts. Instead of learning what healthy love is like, she learned to associate love, as expressed to her by (her adoptive father), with fear, secrecy and silence. In her incredibly articulate victim impact statement, (she) revealed that the abuse did not just harm her body. It changed the way that she understands trust, and her ability to feel safe.”

Her adoptive father abused the girl between October 2018 and December 2022.

“At the time, (she) was between nine and thirteen years old,” Speyer said.

He touched her “in a variety of ways that amounted to an egregious violation of her sexual integrity.”

His wife helped the family of the other girl he sexually abused find a place to live when they immigrated to Canada. The court heard he was “like a grandfather” to the family’s daughter, and she addressed him as such.”It was customary for her to hug him as a form of greeting when the families visited together,” said the judge.

“He was in the position of father to (one victim and grandfather to the other) and took advantage of his time alone with them when they were in his care.”

He abused the family friend, starting when she was seven or eight, between 2017 and 2021.

The court heard that “on many occasions, usually when he greeted her when she went to his house, (he hugged her) and kissed her with an open mouth, forcing his tongue into her mouth. This behaviour started when (she) was seven or eight years old. If (she) tried to keep her mouth shut, (he) would push through to get his tongue into her mouth,” said the decision, which notes he also once “touched her buttock and squished or groped it.”

Police charged him in 2023.

A jury convicted him of sexually abusing the girls when he was between the ages of 60 and 64.

The Crown recommended he get 12 years in prison. His lawyer argued for seven.

Speyer sentenced him to eight years behind bars for abusing his adopted daughter, and tacked on another year for the family friend.

He’s banned from contacting either victim.

The judge found that the man poses a danger to children when he is in a position of trust. She issued several decade-long prohibitions aimed at protecting children under 16.

Those include bans on: “attending a public park or public swimming area, or a daycare centre, schoolground, playground or community centre, in the company of any grandchildren, except when he is in the direct company of an adult who is aware of the circumstance of his conditions.”

The man cannot be within two kilometres of anywhere the victims usually live, attend school or anywhere else he knows they typically frequent.

He is prohibited from working or volunteering in any position that involves having authority over children under the age of 16.

The man “abused a position of utmost trust,” said the judge.

“He breached his duty to protect and care for the victims and this enhances his moral blameworthiness.”

• Ontario special education teacher gets three years in prison for sexually exploiting student
• Calgary man who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl gets reduced sentence because he's Indigenous

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Ticks are pushing farther across Canada every year, and the diseases they carry are coming with them. Reported Lyme disease cases climbed from 522 in 2014 to 5,239 in 2024, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

National Post reached out to three experts for more information on where ticks are spreading, why and how to stay safe. Manisha Kulkarni is a professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health. Virginie Millien is a biologist at McGill University. Luis Anholeto is a lab manager at the Canadian Tick Research and Innovation Centre at Acadia University.

Millien spoke by phone. Kulkarni and Anholeto responded by email. Their answers have been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

How big is Canada’s tick problem now compared to a decade ago?

Kulkarni: We’ve seen a dramatic increase in tick populations across Canada in the last decade, especially the blacklegged ticks (deer ticks) that can carry Lyme disease. Ten years ago, there were established tick populations in defined pockets of southern Manitoba, southern and eastern Ontario, southern Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, but since then we’ve seen an expansion of these populations further north in all provinces, including around major population centres like Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

Which parts of the country have been hit hardest, and is that map still changing?

Millien: Ontario is actually a hotspot. It’s number one in terms of abundance of ticks and number of Lyme disease cases. Quebec is not far behind, but Ontario, this is where it started, Long Point.

Anholeto: Nova Scotia has consistently had the highest incidence rates in the country.

What’s driving the spread, and how much of it comes down to climate?

Kulkarni: Climate change and the associated warming temperatures are a major force behind the spread of blacklegged ticks in Canada. They can survive further north, where it was once too cold, and there’s a longer warm season for them to complete their life cycle. But other factors, like land-use changes, are also at play. Urban expansion into woodlands and resulting forest fragmentation creates an ideal habitat for white-tailed deer and white-footed mice, and in turn, ticks.

Millien: Up until recently, none of them would survive the winter. But now that we have ticks that survive, they reproduce locally, so the pathogen is circulating and it’s established.

Which tick-borne illnesses should people actually worry about, and how serious are they?

Kulkarni: The most common tick-borne illness in Canada is Lyme disease, which can be very serious if it’s not treated promptly. Other serious tick-borne illnesses are also on the rise, such as Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis and Powassan virus.

Anholeto: Beyond Lyme, anaplasmosis is increasing in Canada. Powassan virus is rare but can cause encephalitis. We also have Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a rare but potentially deadly infection that is spreading northward in Canada due to climate change.

How do people avoid getting bitten?

Kulkarni: People can avoid tick bites by staying on the trails in wooded areas where ticks live, and by wearing long clothing, using insect repellent that contains DEET or icaridin, or wearing permethrin-treated clothing.

Anholeto: Wear light-coloured clothing, it makes ticks easier to spot, and tuck your pants into your socks. After being outdoors, do a full-body tick check, paying special attention to under the arms, behind the knees, the waist, the groin and the scalp. Also, check children and pets.

If someone finds a tick on them, what should they do?

Anholeto: Stay calm, finding a tick early is actually good news. Ticks need to remain attached for hours before transmitting the bacteria. Use clean, fine-point tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull upward with slow, steady pressure. Do not twist or squeeze the tick.

Kulkarni: In Ontario and some other provinces, if you have been bitten by a tick, you can visit a pharmacy to see if you’re eligible for post-exposure prophylaxis. Monitor for symptoms and see a healthcare provider asap if you have a rash, fever, headache, or other flu-like symptoms.

What’s the biggest misconception about ticks or Lyme disease you’d want to clear up?

Anholeto: I have been seeing posts on social media lately about the lone star tick in Canada. This tick is associated with alpha-gal syndrome, the so-called red meat allergy from a tick bite. It’s a real condition, but the risk of locally acquired alpha-gal syndrome in Canada is low because the primary tick responsible, the lone star tick, is not established here. Right now, if you get bitten by a tick in Canada, the realistic threats are Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis and Powassan virus. Be wary of misinformation.

Anything else Canadians should know heading into summer?

Millien: They’re not that scary. The problem is that we become too comfortable. We need to be reminded, stay on the trail or wear long pants and then the tick check. It’s just a tweezer and 90 degree pull out straight, because you don’t want to leave the head in there.

• What to know about the rise of tick-borne anaplasmosis in Canada
• Tick-linked meat allergy may be far more common than previously known

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A former CIA officer allegedly concocted a fake spy program to funnel tens of millions in gold bars under the guise of “work related expenses.”

The Washington Post first reported that David J. Rush obscured the scheme through a special access program, a classification used for the most secret intelligence operations. Two colleagues were “read in” to the program, meaning they were bound by secrecy, sources familiar with the investigation said. They said Rush convinced one of them to transfer millions into the program using a fake government contract.

“He made up a contract,” a source told the Washington Post.

Rush, 49, was arrested on May 19 after FBI agents raided his home in Ashburn, Va., and found 303 gold bars, weighing about 1 kilogram each. The agents also found 35 luxury watches, many of them Rolexes, and more than US$2 million in cash. The stash of gold bars were worth about US$40 million under current rates, according to the FBI.

Rush is being held on one count of stealing public money. According to an affidavit filed on May 20 in the U.S. district court in Alexandria, Va., the charge is in connection to filing false timesheets. Rush collected approximately US$77,000 worth of pay in military leave by lying about joining the Navy Reserve after being discharged in 2015.

Rush also lied about his college degrees to obtain his CIA job, and about being a Navy pilot in his application to enter the executive ranks, according to an affidavit obtained by National Post.

“A review of Rush’s military personnel file does not indicate that Rush was ever a pilot for the Navy, nor does it indicate that he underwent any evaluations as a pilot,” FBI special agent Matthew Johnson wrote in the complaint.

“Instead Rush’s personnel file indicates that he had other responsibilities, such as an information systems technician.”

Rush also claimed he obtained a bachelor’s degree from Clemson University in 2000 and a masters in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2004, both of which turned out to be false, Johnson said. Rush was able to use those deceptions to climb the ranks and obtain higher pay, he added.

Rush, a CIA officer for 17 years, had top-secret clearance and worked in some of the CIA’s most sensitive intelligence-gathering operations, sources tell the Washington Post. Details of the operations are kept under wraps and only a handful of U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers are aware of their existence, they said. Rush worked in the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology arm, which creates espionage tools for that are used in intelligence activities abroad.

His most recent role involved working as a liaison for the U.S. Defense Department for a nuclear submarine program, NBC News reported . The role was given to him at the request of Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, with whom Rush had a close professional relationship, four people familiar with the relationship told the broadcaster. The billionaire Trump donor co-founded the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. The Pentagon has strongly denied any relationship between the two.

Rush allegedly requested money for his fake operation from around November 2025 through to March 2026, successfully obtaining a “significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.” It is unclear whether the two people Rush recruited for his fictional program were aware it was bogus.

During a detention hearing on Friday, prosecutors said a large sum of funds is unaccounted for, CBS reported. Federal lawyers described Rush as a “master manipulator” who lied to his neighbours about being a Navy pilot and “lied to his colleagues” about basic facts about his qualifications.

The judge ordered Rush to remain in detention, noting he had “means and motive” to flee. He is being held in solitary confinement pending trial. Rush’s lawyer, Jessica Carmichael, noted the gold was locked away securely in his home when it was recovered. When agents searched his home, he mentioned the gold bars and provided the combination needed to access them, she said, calling it a “nonissue.”

Carmichael, who called the allegations “sensational,” added that Rush’s job is “bizarre and secretive at times.”

Meanwhile, several senior agency officials have been put on leave as FBI and CIA investigations continue. The agency said it “identified potential violations of the law” during an internal investigation and referred the issue to the FBI.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — National political parties tend to steer clear of candidates with controversial pasts because they put future wins at the ballot box at risk.

But a U.S. Senate candidate in Maine is bucking that trend and is likely to leave Democrats in an awkward position this year.

Maine’s Senate race matters not only for control of the chamber, but also because the state sits on the front line of U.S.-Canada trade, where tariffs, border policy and cross-border supply chains are daily concerns.

Oyster farmer Graham Platner, 41, has gained early momentum with his progressive platform and populist style — striking a chord on affordability issues that matter to voters — and his bid to oust five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins.

Despite his popularity, Platner has also been dogged by scandal. He has faced criticism for a Nazi-symbol tattoo from his younger years (he claims he didn’t know what it meant and has since covered it up), his offensive posts on Reddit, and sending sexually explicit texts to other women while married . His latest scandal involved allegations from women he’s dated that he was toxic and behaved in unsettling ways. Platner has denied the accusations.

Heading into Tuesday’s Democratic primary, Platner remains the favourite, despite the controversies. That means he will almost certainly face off against Collins in November’s midterms. Governor Janet Mills had been running for the seat and remains on the primary ballot, but she suspended her campaign in the spring amid fundraising woes and Platner’s surge.

“It is deeply disturbing that senior Democrats, or anyone for that matter, would still stand by Graham Platner,” said Andrew Hale, fellow at Advancing American Freedom, “and his disgusting moral failures involving violence against women, online pornographic writings, sexting, sexual predation, and a Nazi tattoo.”

“Anyone else would have been immediately disqualified.”

Hale said that Collins and Mills have been “true public servants who have proven their dedication to Maine without the moral failings of Graham Platner.”

Nonetheless, Maine’s Democrats are likely to pick Platner for the job this week, and structurally, the odds are tough for Collins come November because Maine is the most likely GOP-held Senate seat the Democrats could win.

It’s the only Republican-held seat in a state Trump has never won — Kamala Harris beat the president by seven percentage points there — which makes it inherently vulnerable, explained Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor at The Cook Political Report.

“On paper, (it) should be the most competitive Senate seat because it’s the only one held by a Republican that a Democrat carried in the presidential election,” Taylor said.

For Democrats, it could be the different between controlling the Senate in November and watching Republicans continue to dominate there.

“I don’t think Democrats can win the Senate without winning Maine,” said Taylor.

Still, Collins has managed to win in the past by currying favour despite the state’s Democratic lean.

“(She) is really the only Republican in the Senate who sits in a state that tends to vote for Democrats at the presidential level but still reelects her,” said Erin Covey, Taylor’s colleague and the editor in charge of The Cook Political Report’s coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives .

“That’s because she has managed to separate herself from the national party, and she is one of the few Republicans who will criticize Trump or will vote against his policies from time to time.”

However, this year could be different, they both agreed.

“Even though (Collins) has built up a lot of goodwill with Democrats and independents in Maine over the years,” said Covey, “I do think that over time frustration has grown, because even as she occasionally does break with Trump or criticize him, people feel like she hasn’t done that enough.”

Taylor agreed, pinpointing that the race is likely to come down to one thing: anti-Trump sentiment.

“Donald Trump is the biggest complicating factor for Susan Collins’ reelection,” she said.

“If you want to voice your displeasure with Trump, the only way you have to do that is to vote against Susan Collins.”

A small survey of 100 people conducted by Trump-aligned pollsters Tony Fabrizio, David Lee, and Travis Tunis late last week found Platner and Collins tied at 46 per cent. Platner’s unfavourability rating, however, had plunged from 29 per cent in January to 49 per cent now, and the poll pointed out that “the recent revelation about Platner can further erode his support.”

A May poll by the Pan Atlantic Research Survey — taken before the latest scandal broke — put the oyster farmer ahead of Collins, 48 per cent to 41 per cent, while 11 per cent were undecided.

Taylor thinks Platner could overcome the controversy.

“Even with the baggage …,” she said, “there’s still a very good chance that he could still win this race.”

Collins, Taylor said, is in “the most vulnerable position she’s ever been,” making the race a true toss-up.

But what could it mean for Maine-Canada relations if the Pine Tree State loses Collins? That is less clear.

While Platner has been campaigning on pocketbook issues, he has said little about trade with Canada, and there is no guarantee that a Democratic win in Maine — and even control of the Senate — would lead to more pro-Canada trading policies.

Progressives like Bernie Sanders, for example, support tariffs as a trade tool, even if they oppose Trump’s chaotic approach to using them.

“If the midterms come and Democrats come in, I don’t see that necessarily being good for (Canada),” said Carlo Dade, director of international policy at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

“(Platner) is an AOC guy, and I could see him and the other progressives that are coming in and joining Bernie Sanders and AOC who have said tariffs are fine.”

“So thinking that the midterms are going to elect people who are gonna say, ‘Yes, on day one, I’m going to fix the relationship with Canada,’” is misguided, Dade explained.

“These aren’t bad people. They’re not going to be malicious, but they can’t be our friends,” he said.

National Post

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On Monday, a government official confirmed plans to propose a ban on social media use for children under the age of 16 in Canada.

The bill is expected to be tabled on Wednesday and will include provisions that allow platforms to seek exemptions if they can demonstrate that their platforms adequately protect young users.

It’s not the first time the Liberals have moved to tackle the harms users may face on social media. The Trudeau government’s Bill C-63 proposed requiring platforms to submit annual safety plans outlining how they would reduce users’ exposure to harmful content, but the bill died in Parliament in early 2025.

Meanwhile, Australia became the world’s first country to ban social media for children under 16 in December last year. Since then, governments around the world have signalled their intent to curb children’s social media access. Here’s a rundown of their plans.

Australia

Australia’s social media ban, which came into effect on December 10, 2025, was a world first, placing the responsibility for child safety online not on parents or children, but on social media companies.

The legislation forced major platforms to block minors under 16 and, a month later, the eSafety Commissioner said social media companies had so far removed about 4.7 million accounts held by under-16s.

But the legislation is not without its criticisms. Research shows that many children have evaded the restrictions and are still accessing social media in Australia, raising questions about the ban’s effectiveness. Online safety advocacy group the Molly Rose Foundation found that three in five (61 per cent) of Australian 12 to 15-year-olds who had accounts on restricted platforms before the ban came into force still have access to one or more accounts.

China

China’s cyberspace regulator has introduced “minor mode,” which includes limits on screen time depending on age, as well as imposing device-level ​restrictions and app-specific rules.

Denmark

Denmark said in November 2025 that the government had reached an agreement to implement a minimum age requirement of 15 years old on certain social media platforms. However, parents will be able to grant access to certain ⁠platforms for children aged 13 or older.

France

French lawmakers have passed a bill that would ban social media use by under-15s in January, but the bill must pass through the ​Senate before it becomes law.

Germany

Germany allows minors aged 13 to 16 to use social media only with parental consent. In February, Germany’s ruling conservatives passed a motion to ban social media use for under-14s and introduce more stringent digital verification checks for teenagers.

Indonesia

Indonesia began rolling out a ban on social media for children under 16 in March, but enforcement and account deactivation are expected to happen gradually.

Italy

Children under 14 need parental consent to sign up for social media accounts in Italy, but no consent is required above that age.

Malaysia

Malaysia’s communications regulator said on June 1 that the country has begun blocking users under 16 from registering new social media accounts. It added that age verification for existing users will be rolled out progressively over the next six months.

Companies that fail to comply could face penalties, but parents whose children manage to bypass the law will not be penalized.

Norway

In 2024, the Norwegian government announced plans to increase the minimum age limit on social media from 13 to 15. In April, Norway said it plans to present a bill in ​parliament before the end of the year that would ban children from using ‌social media until they turn 16 and make technology companies responsible for age verification.

Poland

In February, Poland’s ruling party said it is preparing legislation that would ban children under 15 from using social media and require platforms to verify users’ ages.

Slovenia

Slovenia’s deputy prime minister said in February that the government is preparing draft legislation to ban social media access for children under 15.

Spain

Spain plans to ban access to social media for minors under 16, with platforms required to implement age verification systems, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in February.

Sweden

On June 2, a government-appointed commission recommended that Sweden introduce a minimum age of 15 for the use of social media.

Turkey

On April 24, Turkey’s parliament passed a bill that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15. The legislation would also force social media platforms to install age‑verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful.

U.K.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to announce a ban on some social media platforms for under-16s next week.

Under the plans, businesses such as Google and Apple will be required to use technical solutions to detect and block nude images for children, and face fines or other regulations if they fail to do so.

U.S.

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) in the U.S. passed the Senate in 2024 but was met with concern from GOP leadership in the House.

The bill was reintroduced last month, and would require social media companies to “exercise reasonable care” in designing features that contribute to harm to minors.

KOSA is separate from ​the Children’s Online Privacy Protection ⁠Act, which prevents companies from collecting personal data from children under 13 without parental consent.

What are tech companies doing?

Many social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat, say users must be at least 13 to sign up. But critics say this is insufficient, especially as many children under that age have their own social media accounts.

Previous research by MediaSmarts , Canada’s centre for digital media literacy, found that close to nine in 10 Canadian youth (86 per cent) aged nine to 11 have an account on at least one platform that requires users to be 13 or older.

Meanwhile, Apple announced that it is expanding tools for parents to protect children online on Monday. Beginning with software updates this fall, parents will be able to use children’s account features to pick which apps they can use and control which websites they can view.

The tech company already lets parents create special accounts for children.

What do Canadians think?

Recent polling suggests the majority of Canadians are in favour of a social media ban for children.

In May, a national survey conducted by Leger found that seven in 10 Canadians support banning social media access for children under 16.

Meanwhile, 83 per cent of Canadians said they are concerned about the potential negative impact of social media on children and teenagers, with concern especially high among women and Canadians aged 55 and older.

Similarly, research from the Angus Reid Institute published in March found that three-quarters of Canadians support a full ban on social media use for anyone under the age of 16. However, the majority said that the responsibility for regulating social media use should fall to the parents (72 per cent) rather than governments (20 per cent).

Provinces are also weighing their own approaches to banning social media, with Manitoba announcing a move toward restrictions on social media and AI chatbots for children earlier this year. Government officials from other provinces, including Ontario and Saskatchewan, say they are considering doing the same.

• Carney government to ban social media for kids younger than 16, but will allow exemptions
• Chris Selley: Sorry, parents, government won't save your kids from social media

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National Post reporter Sharon Kirkey is being honoured by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, marking the third straight year a Postmedia journalist has won the group’s Medical Journalism Award.

Kirkey will receive the prestigious award tonight at the CAEP’s annual conference in Winnipeg. Her feature story diving deep into “Canada’s shockingly violent hospitals” ran in Postmedia papers across the country.

“This well-deserved award reflects Kirkey’s commitment to excellent journalism. Her dogged reporting has exposed serious gaps in Canada’s health-care system and highlighted the plight of violence in our hospitals,” said Aileen Donnelly, deputy editor of National Post. “She approaches all her work with an unwavering desire to get to the bottom of an issue, while handling sensitive subjects with compassion and care.”

The award is only the latest for Kirkey, who has been with the Post since 2002 and has previously been honoured by the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association and the National Newspaper Awards, among others.

According to the CAEP, “the recipient of this award has told an emergency medicine-related story that demonstrates fairness and balance through accurate, well-researched reporting; timeliness and relevance; and strong insight, offering clear perspectives on complex issues with creativity and human context. The work also reflects meaningful impact on public understanding, along with high-quality writing and production that is clear, compelling, concise, and accessible.”

Last year’s winner was Elizabeth Payne of the Ottawa Citizen; the previous year’s recipient was Aaron Derfel of the Montreal Gazette.

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

A much-convicted, 71-year-old schizophrenic man now free after brutally strangling a cellmate remains “a significant threat to the safety of the public,” according to a new ruling that singles out his unauthorized use of marijuana for concern.

George Veerman of Hamilton, Ont., was released in 2015, seven years after being found not criminally responsible for the murder, and now lives with his brother.

But Veerman “remains incapable of consenting to psychiatric treatment. He is treated with a long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication every 14 days and 350 mg of Clozapine nightly,” said a decision from the Ontario Review Board (ORB).

“His insight into his mental illness and the need for treatment remains extremely limited, and there is a recent emerging concern regarding cannabis use.”

Veerman was being held at the Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre on charges of robbery and breach of probation when he killed his cellmate on Oct. 19, 2004.

“Mr. Veerman dragged his cellmate out of his lower bunk and wrapped a white towel around his neck. Mr. Veerman pulled on each end of the towel until the circulation of blood was cut off from the victim’s brain,” said the June 5 decision from the independent tribunal that regularly reviews the status of individuals found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.

“The victim was pronounced dead the next day. The post-mortem examination cited preliminary findings on the cause of death as ‘consistent with ligature strangulation, no trauma to the body.’”

Veerman — who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia compounded by various substance abuse disorders — was found not criminally responsible for second-degree murder in February 2008.

A single man born in the Dutch Indies who immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 12, he has been under a conditional discharge since February 2019, under orders not to smoke marijuana, report to hospital monthly and undergo drug testing.

In its new ruling, the ORB found that Veerman “continues to represent a significant threat to public safety,” and “concluded that the necessary and appropriate disposition, which is also the least onerous and least restrictive in the circumstances, is a continuation of the existing conditional discharge.”

Veerman started drinking at 17, said the decision. “His alcohol use was followed by a long history of polysubstance abuse including use of cannabis, cocaine, and various inhalants.”

Veerman has a “lengthy criminal history” spanning from 1976 until 2004, said the decision. “It includes more than 20 convictions, including seven for assault, six for robbery and theft-related offences, and others for mischief and failure to comply.”

Veerman was sentenced to two years less a day for aggravated assault in 1988. He got a 30-month penitentiary sentence for the robbery charge he was on remand for when he strangled his cellmate.

After being found not criminally responsible, Veerman “was an inpatient at Oakridge in Penetanguishene” until November 2011, when he was transferred to a Hamilton hospital.

He was discharged in October 2015 to live with his mother, said the decision. She died last year and his brother took over as his substitute decision maker, living with Veerman in the family home.

After her death, “there was a noticeable withdrawal from previously tolerated activities and community participation,” the ORB panel said. According to his hospital report, Veerman “continues to demonstrate only partial insight into his illness and the need for ongoing treatment.”

In March, Veerman told staffers at the Forensic Outpatient Clinic he had smoked a joint the night before.

“He reported that it was precipitated by ‘curiosity’ and he was ‘just relaxing.’ When asked about his frequency of use, Mr. Veerman reported ‘not very often.’ When the case manager followed up with him, Mr. Veerman denied engaging in further cannabis use.”

Veerman tested positive in April for marijuana, and admitted some use. His brother said he had no idea Veerman had been using, but Veerman told the ORB both men smoked cannabis.

The ORB noted Veerman complained of being tired, missed a required appointment and resisted blood tests, and found that he needed to be monitored “to assess his risk to the public.”

In the meantime, it said, he isn’t ready for an absolute discharge.

“Veerman continues to require structure and oversight to maintain psychiatric stability and public safety. This is especially true at the current time given that new concerns have arisen with Mr. Veerman’s use of cannabis. It was clear that this was a new development, and the treatment team needs to monitor Mr. Veerman very closely to determine whether it is a pattern of consistent use, and how it affects his mental status and physical health.

“The panel also had concerns that Mr. Veerman and his brother were not being transparent with the treatment team, and this should also be taken into account moving forward.”

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An Ontario Provincial Police officer who was once in charge of security for the premier of Ontario is suing his police service and his police union claiming he was ruined by an arrest on gun charges that were later dismissed by a judge who savaged the flawed prosecution — including concerns that police witnesses lied.

The lawsuit, filed last Tuesday by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Staff Sergeant Roberto Manca, claims the OPP’s actions destroyed his law enforcement career and drained him financially while his union failed to adequately support him.

Manca, 56, remains an OPP officer who has been under suspension since 2020, after a fellow officer complained that Manca and three other officers exhibited “tyrannical conduct,” including during firearms training, according to Manca’s lawsuit. The complaint turned into a criminal probe and led to his arrest and a trial.

“That day was a pretty traumatic day for sure,” Manca said in an interview with National Post of a meeting in March 2020 when he was told to turn in his police badge and gun pending an internal investigation. An even worse day, he said, came six months later when he was suddenly and publicly arrested outside his Barrie, Ont., home.

“It is the most shocking thing I’ve ever experienced, for myself and my wife. I’ve arrested many people. I’ve done it as a uniformed officer. I’ve done it as a tactical officer. I’ve done it in civilian clothes as well. And there are processes,” he said.

Manca said that despite him reporting to work at an OPP detachment each day and cooperating with the internal probe, two uniformed officers pulled up in a cruiser and arrested him on his driveway and then several more officers swarmed into his house.

“It was something out of a movie scene. You would think I had murdered someone or did something along that line,” he said. “And then to find out later that I was being charged with some significant, fairly serious charges for incidents that didn’t even occur just blew my mind,” he said.

After Manca was arrested, the OPP issued a media release saying he was charged with four counts of recklessly discharging a firearm and four counts of carelessly using a firearm. The release said the incidents did not involve the public.

“I was accused of drawing my pistol and firing into the ground behind the officers while they were in front of me (preparing to shoot at targets at a firing range), which is something you would never do,” Manca said. “Had I done that, with the three or four other supervisor officers there, I would have been arrested on the spot. It never happened. It was all rumour and hearsay,” he said.

Manca said he believed it would soon be cleared up, but the case carried on and last year he faced a criminal trial.

By the time the trial began the reckless use charges had all been dropped and the Crown proceeded only on the careless use charges. During his trial the charges against him were halved again, down to two, after the Crown conceded two weren’t viable.

At the conclusion of Manca’s trial, Ontario Court Judge Peter West said he found the prosecution flawed and inadequate — and that some of the testimony from officers could not be trusted.

In his decision, the judge said the case was “doomed from the beginning.”

The eight police officers the Crown called as witnesses gave testimony that was incomplete and sometimes contradictory, West said. The long passage of time didn’t help. The charges spanned two incidents, years apart.

“A couple of the witnesses, in my view, left much to be desired in terms of their honesty. I do not believe one of the officers in particular was honest with the court in his evidence,” West said in his oral judgment, according to the court’s transcript of the hearing. “It caused me concern about veracity of his evidence.”

“The evidence in both counts, in my view, is filled with unanswered questions. No witness observes Staff Sergeant Manca actually discharge his firearm,” West said in his judgment.

”No one saw where he was standing … no one saw where his firearm was aiming or pointing when it was discharged, none of the witnesses observed any craters, holes, or divots in the ground which would establish that the firearm was in fact discharged into the ground, (or) where the conduct occurred in relation to the OPP officers on the firing line.”

The judge said none of the police officers who testified had complained to a superior after the shooting exercises.

“It is only improper speculation for the Crown to jump to the inference that Staff Sergeant Manca fired into the ground behind the firing line.”

Even the prosecutor’s expert on firing range safety testified that it was important to know where the shooter was and where he was aiming to determine if the actions could be considered careless.

Manca was acquitted of everything.

Manca has not returned to work, however, because the internal OPP investigation has not concluded, he claims in his lawsuit. He still logs in each day at an OPP detachment and remains on the payroll but can’t do police work, he said.

Instead, he works his new career as a realtor.

The lawsuit names the OPP, which is Canada’s second largest police force, and the Ontario Provincial Police Association, the union for more than 6,000 uniformed OPP officers and 3,000 civilian employees.

Both the OPP and the OPPA declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“The OPP is aware of the court’s decision in this matter…. The OPP is not in a position to comment on the decision or on any related matters before the courts,” the OPP said in an email.

“With this matter being before the court, we are unable to comment at this time,” said Scott Mills, a spokesman for the OPPA.

Manca’s claims have not been tested in court.

Manca joined the OPP in 1997 and has been a member of a Tactics and Rescue Unit, the Emergency Response Team, a training coordinator at the Provincial Police Academy, and commander of the Dignitary Protection and Investigations Section (during which he was in charge of the premier of Ontario’s protection in 2011 and 2012 when Dalton McGuinty was in office). Manca was named commander of the Emergency Response Team for the Central Region in 2013, according to his lawsuit.

Manca is claiming damages against the OPP for lost income, expenses of starting a new career, and for leading a “negligent investigation.” Against the police union he is claiming damages for negligence and breach of duty of care. Against both he claims damages for, among other things, $477,000 in legal fees, and more than that for “injury to reputation, pain, suffering, humiliation, and emotional distress.”

“I’ve remained silent for the last six years, basically since the inception of this investigation,” Manca said. “I’d like to know how this happened, why did it happen?”

Manca’s lawyer, Kathryn Marshall, said of his lawsuit’s claims: “What happened to my client is appalling. He is a man of integrity and proud of his service as an officer. It is time for justice to be done and for accountability…. The public places a lot of trust in the police and cases like this erode that trust and faith.”

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OTTAWA — No matter what the decision is, the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on Quebec’s controversial secularism law will probably inspire violent extremist rhetoric, warns a federal intelligence assessment.

In a March intelligence brief, Canada’s Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) said it was “very unlikely” that violent extremists would target the court’s four days of hearings later that month on the challenge of the law known as Bill 21.

But, ITAC noted, “it is a realistic possibility that the Court’s decision — whether the law is found to be constitutional or not — will inspire violent extremist rhetoric.”

Quebec’s controversial secularism law Bill 21 prohibits certain Quebec public sector workers, such as judges, police officers, teachers and prison guards, from wearing religious symbols at work. It also requires them to perform their duties with their faces uncovered.

Though popular in the province, the 2019 law is fiercely opposed by religious groups, civil liberties advocates and many groups representing women’s or anglophones’ rights.

To pass the bill seven years ago, then-Quebec Premier François Legault invoked section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, better known as the notwithstanding clause.

The pre-emptive invocation of the clause — which allows a government to suspend the application of certain Charter rights for up to five years before needing to renew it — to block a court challenge of the law is at the heart of the case at the Supreme Court.

Over four hearing days in March, dozens of challengers and interveners opposed the law and asked the top court to rule it to be unconstitutional or impose limits on the invocation of the notwithstanding clause.

On the other hand, seven provinces including Quebec and Ontario argued that the court had no power to limit the invocation of the clause and to do so would amount to a constitutional amendment.

The top court’s decision is expected in the coming months.

In its unclassified March brief, ITAC assessed that there was a higher chance of a violent extremist attack linked to the enforcement of Bill 21 than there was against the apex court.

“State actions seen to be sacrilegious or blasphemous could be a mobilizing factor for a violent extremist with intent, or a radicalizing factor for an individual with existing grievances,” reads the brief, though noting that there was no information at the time indicating such action was brewing.

ITAC is a part of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that focuses on assessing the risks of violent extremism in the country. It also sets Canada’s national terrorism threat level, which is currently at “medium” or “realistic possibility.”

In an interview, foreign interference and national security specialist Jean-Christophe Boucher said no matter the decision, he expects the outcome of the decision to be “instrumentalized” by groups on either side of the issue.

“If Bill 21 gets shut down, then you’ll have probably a lot of possibly far-right, but also Quebec separatists… amplifying issues around judicial overreach,” said the political science professor at the University of Calgary.

“If Bill 21 is upheld, then of course ethnic communities will feel wronged, and that will increase… not necessarily extremism, but at least kind of conversations around whether or not Canada is as welcoming as it used to be,” he added. “And I can see how other actors could actually kind of use this as a way to recruit and radicalize.”

He also said foreign actors who are trying to undermine Canada’s democratic institutions like the courts or governments will also seize on the decision to sow further division.

In a statement, Supreme Court spokesperson Vanessa Racine said the court had the appropriate security measures in place during the March hearings.

She also noted that “any potential security concerns will not affect the outcome of the decision in this case.”

In its assessment, ITAC said it that violent extremists in Canada are unlikely to even be able to breach the security of a secure location like the Supreme Court.

In the unlikely eventuality of an attack on the fortress-like building, “it would likely involve an inspired lone actor using basic weaponry and targeting security checkpoints or areas outside the building perimeter,” reads the brief.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has vowed to listen to Albertans who want to separate from Canada, as he urged the rest of the country to do the same and cautioned against “name-calling” and “fearmongering.”

Poilievre spoke from Calgary to deliver what his office billed as a speech arguing for a “stronger Alberta within a united Canada,” kicking-off his efforts to campaign for the province to remain in Canada ahead of an October provincial referendum, which asks whether Albertans wish to stay, or begin the process of holding a binding vote on separating.

“Just as I speak to Bloc Quebecois members of Parliament every day on Parliament Hill, I will be speaking to Albertans on both sides of this referendum to hear their thoughts and to make the respectful case for Canada,” the federal Conservative leader told the crowd Monday.

“The goal should not be to beat one another in this referendum, it should be to unite us all when it is over, to show our fellow citizens, all of them, that they belong in Canada, that they are a treasured part of our national family.”

Poilievre’s speech comes after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced last month that the set of referendums she had previously scheduled her province to hold in October on different immigration and constitutional questions would include one on independence.

That came after an Alberta court quashed efforts for a citizen-led petition that organizers of the separatist movement said had garnered upwards of 300,000 signatures from getting onto an official ballot, citing how the province failed to consult with First Nations under Section 35 of the Constitution.

Smith called the ruling “anti-democratic” and pledged to appeal, but outlined how she was adding a question on independence to October’s referendums because of the time an appeal would take and the thousands of signatures gathered, including those tied to a pro-Canada petition.

Poilievre, who after losing his Ottawa-area seat in last year’s election successfully won a byelection in the rural Alberta riding of Battle-River Crowfoot, pledged that the federal Conservatives would spend the summer campaigning for the province to stay.

With 33 out of the province’s 37 MPs hailing from the Conservatives, the federal party with the deepest routes in Western Canada, some of Poilievre’s MPs have begun speaking out about the importance of Alberta remaining a part of the federation.

Monday’s speech was the first time the Conservative leader, who grew up in Calgary, outlined what his pitch would be on the question of keeping the country together. He delivered it by weaving in memories from his childhood spent watching the 1988 Winter Olympics, which the province hosted, and working as a kid collecting trash off tables during the Calgary Stampede.

He argued that frustrated Albertans have “legitimate grievances” that deserve to be addressed through policy changes by Ottawa, which he said ought to be met by banding together with other oil-producing provinces like Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, and pushing for change.

Poilievre also warned against dismissing those concerns as illegitimate.

“Those who caused the problems in Canada today will tell you to pretend those problems don’t exist, and they will denounce as unpatriotic anyone who speaks honestly about them.”

“Doing that in this referendum would only drive people further away. If you want frustrated Albertans to vote for Canada, the absolute worst thing we can do is dismiss their legitimate grievances and thus signal there’s no hope of fixing them at all.”

Later in his speech, he delivered a message directly to those participating in the debate, urging them to see Albertans wishing to separate not as “enemies” but as fellow citizens.

“Demonizing people who have lost hope in Canada is no way to restore it,” Poilievre said. “Name-calling, fear mongering, and ostracizing will only worsen and broaden the divide.”

Instead, the federal Conservative called for understanding and persuading Albertans to stay by tackling what he characterized as “the easily solvable problems they are asking us to fix.”

“We should not just tell Albertans how bad it would be to have separation. Let’s instead talk about how great it can be if our country is truly united and respectful of Alberta.”

Poilievre repeated his party’s longstanding calls for the federal government to repeal the Impact Assessment Act and oil tanker moratorium off British Columbia’s northwest coast.

Carney’s government has signalled it stands ready to amend the tanker ban, according to a memorandum-of-understand the prime minster signed with Smith last fall, which paves the way for the construction of a new oil pipeline to the West Coast, in exchange for Alberta increasing its industrial carbon tax.

The federal government is also eyeing more regulatory reforms to speed up the timelines it takes to approve major projects, after ushering in a separate process last year that gives cabinet the power to grant upfront approvals for projects deemed to be in the “national interest,” and that would undergo evaluations by a special projects office Carney established.

Last week, the federal government announced it would be extending the consultation period it had announced on the upcoming reforms that had been set to expire on Monday, pushing the date back until mid-July.

National Post

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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is expected to table its long-awaited legislation aimed at online safety this week, including a ban on social media platforms for children under 16 years old.

A government official, speaking on the condition of background, confirmed plans to present a bill in the coming days, which will usher in a path to create a new regulator and target different types of harmful content online.

The official confirmed that the government’s plan to establish a social media ban for minors younger than 16 will include provisions that allow platforms to seek exemptions should they demonstrate an ability to keep the youngest Canadians safe while using their products online.

The bill is expected to tabled on Wednesday, with the House of Commons set to rise for its summer break next week.

The legislation is not expected to include the same type of ban for AI chatbots, but will establish a set of responsibilities platforms need to meet.

Kaitlynn Mendes, a professor and researcher at Western University, said she welcomes the federal government’s allowance of exemptions under its social media ban, saying it creates room for platforms to fix their design, which is where she and other academics believes the focus ought to be placed.

“I’m maybe optimistic that we’ll see more of the push towards getting platforms to change their design rather than just …regulate and monitor young people, and try to chase them off these platforms, which we know doesn’t work,” she said in an interview on Monday.

She pointed to figures from Australia that suggest many children have found ways to circumvent its social media moratorium, adding there exist “larger questions” about whether such bans even work and what platforms a Canadian model would include.

When it comes to platforms making design changes, Mendes says the government could act by compelling companies to be more transparent with their data and limiting the use of features, such as auto-play.

Since taking office last year, Carney has faced calls from child safety advocates and children’s health organizations to revive efforts that were advanced under former prime minister Justin Trudeau to legislate tech platforms to tackle the harms users face.

The Trudeau government’s last bill, known as Bill C-63, died in Parliament in early 2025. Advocates and other proponents of tech regulation have argued that Canadian children are less protected than those living in the United Kingdom and Australia, which have their own online safety regimes and regulator.

Under the previous bill, the government had proposed requiring platforms to submit annual safety plans outlining how they were mitigating users’ exposure to the most harmful content online, from the non-consensual sharing of intimate images to content that encourages a minor to engage in self-harm or incites extremism.

Canadian Heritage Minister Marc Miller, who is tasked with shepherding the Carney government’s new efforts to legislate against online harms, had previously said the federal government was “very seriously” looking at the idea of banning social media for minors, a policy first introduced by Australia.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has said his province wanted to do the same.

The tabling of the Carney government’s online safety bill comes just days after the prime minister and Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon released the government’s AI strategy, which underscored how Ottawa would spend millions of dollars helping encourage more mass adoption of the nascent technology and claimed that tens of thousands of new jobs would be created in the field.

Opposition parties last week called that AI strategy short on details, including when it came to what safety measures and privacy protections the government would offer. The strategy did suggest that the Carney government would be moving ahead on measures to legislate around online safety.

Concerns about online safety grew earlier this year when reporting by The Wall Street Journal revealed that OpenAI had previously flagged internal exchanges Jesse Van Rootselaar had with its chatbot, ChatGPT, months before they killed family members and opened fire on a school in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., located in the province’s interior, but did not communicate any of its findings to police in Canada.

That prompted B.C. Premier David Eby’s NDP government to call on federal ministers to regulate AI chatbots and legislate a mandatory “national reporting threshold” for platforms when information is received that a user may be plotting violence.

Unliked the last Trudeau-era online harms bill, the Carney government has signalled it will not be introducing legislative changes to the Canadian Human Rights Act to allow for complaints of online hate speech to be brought forward, which was of major concern to the Opposition Conservatives and other civil liberties advocates.

National Post

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The Ontario home where Colonel Sanders, KFC founder and face of the fast-food brand, once lived recently hit the real estate market with an asking price of $1.5 million.

When Harland David Sanders, accompanied by his wife Claudia, moved north in 1965 to oversee the expansion and operations of the brand then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, they settled on 1337 Melton Drive, “a modest bungalow near the corner of Dixie Avenue and The Queensway” in Mississauga as their home, according to Visit Mississauga .

The Sanders lived in Mississauga for part of the year until his 1980 death in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Sanders was 75 at the time and already a millionaire, having sold off most of his franchises to a group of U.S. investors a year prior, but he retained franchising rights and stayed on as the trademark and quality controller.

Sanders himself originally hailed from Indiana, and while he first sold his fried chicken at a roadside restaurant in Kentucky during the Great Depression — during which time Governor Rub Lafooon bestowed him with the honorary title of Kentucky Colonel — the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in 1952 in Salt Lake City, Utah. A store remains there to this day. (The original franchisee was also the first to use Sanders’ likeness in branding, created the “finger lickin’ good” catchphrase and was the first to introduce the cardboard bucket of chicken.)

Sanders later abandoned his own restaurant and started travelling the U.S., franchising his “Original Recipe” to restaurateurs and turning it into the largest fast-food chain in the U.S. at one point.

Upon his relocation to Canada, Sanders turned to Toronto lawyer Terrence Donnelly, whom he’d met at the CNE Food Pavilion during an earlier visit, to assist in expansion. Donnelly became his counsel, sat on Sanders’ board of directors and eventually became the head of the Harland Sanders Charitable Organization, a registered Canadian charity that has donated millions to health care initiatives and carries on his legacy.

In 2000, the community-based, academically affiliated Ontario health network Trillium Health Partners named its women’s and children’s care center in the Colono Hardland Sanders Family Care Centre in honour of his donations over the years.

Donelly also helped facilitate the purchase of the Sanders’ Lakeview home, which was listed by Jaclyn Deme and Meta Realty without specifying that it was once the residence of a fast-food franchise icon.

The “impeccably maintained 4-level side split” spreads four bedrooms, three full baths, two laundry rooms, an open-concept kitchen and multiple living and family rooms over its 2,000-plus square feet of finished space.

“A standout feature is the private main-floor primary bedroom retreat, complete with an accessible ensuite bathroom (with skylight and heated flooring), and private laundry/mudroom with ample storage,” the listing reads.

The home’s footprint has changed in the 46 years since Sanders and his wife lived there, the most recent being an addition in 2014, partially designed by award-winning Mississauga-based interior designer Jane Lockhart.

Other feature perks include an attached garage, a powered garden shed, front and rear lawn irrigation systems, a home alarm system, a carpet-free interior, a central vacuum, a backup generator, electrical sliding back doors and two fireplaces.

Property taxes are listed at $8,446.67 annually.

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OTTAWA — Former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour became Canada’s 31st Governor General on Monday, bearing warnings about artificial intelligence (AI) and failing Canadian youth.

Speaking in the Senate, she also spoke about the importance of embracing different points of view. She thanked Prime Minister Mark Carney and King Charles III for entrusting her with the opportunity to “serve another great Canadian institution,” along with her predecessor, Mary Simon, for her “remarkable service” as governor general.

In her first address to the dignitaries in the room, Arbour called on Canadians to not let fear of their differences stop them from building a better Canada.

“Extreme polarization is dangerous, but so is extreme consensus,” she said in a bilingual speech in English and French. “It is through our differences and our fundamental right to express them that we will nourish critical thinking, creativity and innovation.”

“It is through our differences that we will build a common future.”

She said it is important to continue to protect institutions where different views can be expressed, whether they are schools, the media, courtrooms or art disciplines.

In his own speech, Carney called respect for institutions “vital” and said that is why “we are each called to share each other’s perspectives and work for our common good.”

“The Governor General is the guardian of our constitutional order, a symbol of unity, and above all, a steward of our commitment to peace, order and good government,” he said.

Arbour, 79, said she “lived through the comfort and the discomfort of homogeneity” first being raised and taught by women in Montreal, then working in a male-dominated field as a lawyer and a judge, and finally working for human rights on the international stage.

Arbour said her work exposed her to a “great diversity of perspectives” and she built relationships with people who, at first glance, she seemingly had nothing in common.

She also shared a story about how she was confronted with her own “biases” to illustrate how easy it is to have preconceived ideas about people one may have just met.

Arbour said she was standing outside the United Nations headquarters in New York in the 1990s when she came across a group of Chinese tourists. She asked a young woman in the group about her impressions of New York, to which she replied the city is “so old.”

“I was surprised, and then I realized that I had been projecting a story onto her, imagining her as coming from a civilization of centuries-old splendour, and gazing at a vibrant city in a younger country,” said Arbour.

Arbour said she realized that young woman was more likely born in a “futuristic” city like Shanghai, which would make a city like New York pale in comparison.

In her viceregal role, she said she is preparing to be surprised and confronted again by her own stereotypes and unconscious biases.

Arbour also had stark messages, the first one about inequality at a time when youth unemployment is still too high in Canada.

“Young Canadians are citizens of the world,” she said. “They’re well-educated with both deep climate awareness and remarkable digital literacy, and yet not all of them are able to reach their full potential as they face the headwinds of inequality.

“In that, we are failing them and it is our shared responsibility to correct course.”

Speaking to young people, she called on them to create the world in which they want their own children to grow up. “You have between your hands, like the generations that preceded you, tools that did not exist when your parents were born. So, surprise us.

“And do not underestimate the chance that you have to grow up here, even if you are preoccupied, rightly so, by the issues of our time,” she added.

The King’s representative also notably delivered a warning about new technologies like AI at a time when the government has just unveiled its strategy on it.

“They’re highly attractive and widely accessible, but we must ensure that their convenience doesn’t lead us to overlook the profound societal shifts that they are driving with instant access to vast amounts of information,” Arbour said.

“AI could be threatening not only the way we live and work, but also the control we exercise over our own destiny.”

Yet, she continued, these challenges are “not insurmountable” if they are met with trustworthy public institutions, a strong education system, investments in science, research and development and with a public sector upholding standards of integrity.

NDP Leader Avi Lewis said he shares the new governor general’s fears around AI and the fears of young people “entering a world that seems designed to exclude them.”

He said he hopes Arbour’s messages about inequality are “getting through” to the government.

National Post, with files from Jordan Gowling.

calevesque@postmedia.com

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North Korea has made out handsomely amid an East-West divide.

Russia and China have sought closer military and economic ties with the hermit kingdom amid the war in Ukraine and a strategic shift away from the U.S. It’s reportedly made North Korea wealthier than it’s ever been.

Foreign visitors who returned from Pyongyang, the country’s capital, in recent years are describing signs of newfound prosperity, including restaurants serving “brick-oven pizza and chicken wings,” QR-code systems for mobile payments and Chinese EVs on the streets, not to mention “pet stores, an internet-gaming cafe and car dealerships selling BMWs,” the Wall Street Journal reported .

Likewise, families are using home-delivery apps to order take-out, people are lining up at beer-halls and car ownership has seemingly become more ubiquitous, according to The New York Times . That’s in addition to more buses, trucks and construction starts sighted across the country, according to one analyst.

Satellite imagery is also capturing nighttime lights in Pyongyang burning more intensely than in the past. South Korea’s central bank estimated that the North Korean economy grew by 3.7 per cent in 2024, the fastest growth rate in eight years. It’s a significant turnaround for a country that underwent severe food shortages during COVID five years ago, according to the Wall Street Journal, when leader Kim Jong Un was visibly thinner and shedded tears when reporting the shortages. “Almost all sectors fell a long way short,” he said at the time.

However, some 12 million North Koreans out of a population of 27 million are undernourished, according to the UN. And the heavily sanctioned centralized economy reported a trade volume of only US$2.7 billion in 2024. Due to multiple sanctions on trade, fake hair and wigs are North Korea’s primary export, most of which goes to China. By comparison, South Korea’s economy, at US$1.86 trillion, is almost 70 times bigger, according to Germany’s public broadcaster DW.

The Bank of Korea attributed North Korea’s GDP growth to increases in manufacturing, construction and mining industries, citing a military and economic cooperation pact with Russia signed in 2024.

Following the landmark mutual defence pact, North Korea has supplied Russia’s war effort with unprecedented resources and manpower. It deployed more than 15,000 troops to western Russia, South Korea’s spy agency reported in 2025. The troops have suffered a casualty rate of about one in three, according intelligence officials. North Korea has also shipped large amounts of artillery, missiles and ammunition to its northern neighbour and received food, military technology and energy in return.

North Korea has collected up to US$14.4 billion from these dealings, a Seoul-based think tank reported earlier this year.

The state coffers are also lined by North Korean hackers, who account for the bulk of global crypto thefts, according to analysts. North Korean workers also send money home from foreign countries, notably China. Train service between Beijing and Pyongyang resumed this year after closing during COVID. North Korea has reportedly shown more willingness to open its borders to allies.

North Korea’s deepening ties with Russia has provided it leverage in discussions with China, which has been Pyongyang’s biggest trading partner for decades. Experts say China would like to keep it that way.

On Monday, President Xi Jinping made his first visit to North Korea in seven years. In that time, North Korea has ramped up testing of intercontinental missiles. Last week, while unveiling a new nuclear facility, Kim said that North Korea’s production of weapons-grade nuclear would be “exponential” and that production capacity had more than doubled in five years. A day before Xi’s trip, Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, said the country’s atomic weapons program was “absolutely non-negotiable” and that “officials in the United States have failed to wake from their escapist and anachronistic dreams,” according to Bloomberg.

The Xinhua readout of the meeting made no mention of eliminating nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula — a goal China had maintained publicly for years. That language has been missing from official Chinese statements since Kim’s visit to Beijing last September, prompting speculation that China has now tacitly accepted North Korea as a de facto nuclear power.

The new coalition was evident in Beijing last September, during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, where Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin stood flanking Xi.

National Post, with a file from Bloomberg

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Tomorrow, June 9, the average Canadian family will have earned enough in 2026 to cover the taxes imposed on it by the three levels of government, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute .

The think tank estimates that the average family will earn $166,790 in 2026 and pay an estimated $72,539 in total taxes, representing 43.5 per cent of their annual income.

This means that, if Canadian families had to pay their tax bills upfront, they would need to work for more than five months, or 158 days, before they had earned enough to pay off all the taxes imposed by federal, provincial, and local governments.

In other words, June 9 — which the Fraser Institute has dubbed “Tax Freedom Day” — is when Canadians finally start working for themselves, and not government.

Taxes used to compute Tax Freedom Day include income taxes, payroll taxes, health taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, profit taxes, taxes on the consumption of alcohol and tobacco, fuel taxes, motor vehicle license fees, carbon taxes, import duties, natural resource fees, and a host of other levies.

This year, Tax Freedom Day arrives one day later than in 2025, when it fell on June 8.

According to the Fraser Institute, the later date is because forecasts for personal income are slower than forecasts for growth in income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes, resulting in a higher estimated tax burden than last year.

The study estimates that the average Canadian family’s total tax bill increased by $2,098, or three per cent, between 2025 and 2026.

However, some areas of the country will have to wait a bit longer before they reach the earnings threshold this year.

The Fraser Institute also examined the total annual tax burden at the provincial level and found that Tax Freedom Day varies depending on the extent of taxes levied by provincial and local governments.

This is why average Canadian families in Newfoundland and Labrador won’t reach Tax Freedom Day until June 19, while the date falls even later, on June 27, for Quebecers.

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan’s Tax Freedom Day was the earliest in the country, on May 20, followed by Alberta (May 25) and Manitoba (May 28).

Four more provinces have also already reached Tax Freedom Day this year: British Columbia (June 4), Prince Edward Island (June 5), New Brunswick (June 6) and Ontario (June 8).

Nova Scotia’s Tax Freedom Day falls on June 9, matching the national average.

“Tax Freedom Day helps put the total tax burden in perspective, and helps Canadians understand just how much of their money they pay in taxes every year,” Jake Fuss, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute, said in a news release on Monday.

“Canadians need to decide for themselves whether they are getting their money’s worth when it comes to how governments are spending their tax dollars.”

Meanwhile, the Fraser Institute also calculated a “Balanced Budget Tax Freedom Day,” the day on which average Canadians would start working for themselves if governments were obliged to cover current expenditures with current taxation.

In 2026, the Balanced Budget Tax Freedom Day falls on June 25.

• Canadian, 93, wanted to give her kids a gift. Instead she got slapped with $40K in capital gains tax bill
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Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon has commented publicly on an airport bag tag scheme in which airport employees have been allegedly using unsuspecting travellers as drug mules.

He was challenged by Conservative MP Dan Albas in committee testimony recently who asked: “How is it that people right now are being detained, arrested, and then caught up in the CBSA system forevermore for something they didn’t do? It is your responsibility to make sure bad people can’t get those jobs and stay in those jobs.”

MacKinnon responded by saying that credentials for airport workers are revoked on a regular basis. “We have a constant system of ongoing revocation of credentials,” he said.

“Many of the people who were the objects of interest in the recent television report all had their credentials revoked.”

He added: “The system that we implement requires us to assess the risk to aviation safety. I’ve asked my officials to examine whether that is an appropriate test,” and said that his officials have gone “very deep” in their review of the system.

But when pressed on specific measures he has taken in response to the scam, MacKinnon was unable to provide an example.

“What one concrete measure have you done beyond talk to your officials?” Albas asked.

MacKinnon responded by saying that “these are very intricate and delicate interconnected systems” and that he wasn’t going to do anything “rash.”

“But I can tell you that in federal transportation infrastructure, security is something that preoccupies me,” he said.

It’s been two weeks since a CTV News investigation revealed a widespread criminal operation involving airport workers swapping passengers’ luggage tags onto suitcases loaded with drugs.

The report found that at least 17 passengers on flights out of Canada were detained on drug smuggling allegations in the past year as a result of the scam.

In instances where the drug shipments were discovered by foreign customs officials, the innocent passengers whose names appeared on the luggage were arrested.

In one such case , RCMP officers were called after the Canada Border Services Agency found 33 kilograms of cannabis in each checked bag of two German citizens scheduled to depart on a commercial flight from Toronto to Germany.

The RCMP arrested the pair, but each denied ownership of the luggage. Investigators then found that an Air Canada employee working in the baggage room had allegedly placed luggage tags bearing the passengers’ names onto suitcases that contained cannabis. Both passengers were released, and the Air Canada worker was arrested and charged.

National Post previously spoke to Mitesh Shah, CEO of Ontario-based professional security company Empire Protection , about steps airports can take to prevent similar incidents in the future.

He said that he would like to see more screening of airport personnel. “Airport employees don’t go through the same scrutiny that travellers do,” he commented.

Meanwhile, a security expert interviewed by CTV for its investigation said that workers in secure baggage areas should wear body cameras and be prohibited from carrying personal cellphones while on duty.

When it comes to passengers protecting themselves, Shah recommended taking pictures of personal luggage before it’s checked in at the airports and adding a ribbon or something else unique to make each bag stand out.

Such measures could help travellers demonstrate ownership if authorities mistakenly link them to a different suitcase.

• How Canadian flyers can stop their luggage from turning into a drug shipment due to airport bag tag swaps
• Chris Selley: The chilling airport bag-switching scandal suggests Canada still lacks adult supervision

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.

Another record-breaking crowd clad in blue and white and waving Israeli and Canadian flags marched along Bathurst Street in Toronto Sunday for the annual Walk with Israel, a celebration of community that organizers and participants said also served as a show of solidarity against mounting antisemitism in Canada.

The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto said Toronto Police Services estimated this year’s attendance at 60,000, eclipsing last year’s tally by about 4,000 people and “making it the largest turnout in the event’s 57-year history.”

“It’s been a fabulous day,” UJA chief development officer Sara Lefton told National Post earlier Sunday as the sea of people left Temple Sinai Congregation and headed north to the awaiting festival on UJA’s Sherman Campus.

“Lots of allies, lots of members of the Jewish community. The mood is certainly very celebratory and strong.”

60,000 strong. That's the power of our community.
Am Yisrael Chai 🇮🇱❤️🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/9e3523VQh1

— UJA Federation of Greater Toronto (@UJAFederation) June 7, 2026

Also present in larger numbers this year, as promised by Deputy Chief Frank Barredo on Friday, were police officers charged with keeping the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish protesters at bay as they flanked the walk or set up outside barriers to hurl insults and obscenities at participants.

A group of roughly 35 protesters got very close to the participants as they passed the intersection with Canyon Avenue, but more police quickly responded to push them back away from the walkers.

At one intersection, volunteers use a large Israeli flag and others to create a wall obscuring the protesters from view, though their chants and shouts could still be heard.

TPS said four people were arrested at the event — a woman for allegedly obstructing a police officer before the event began, a man alleged to have assaulted another officer , a woman for alleged breach of the peace , and a man who allegedly operated a remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) , who was fined under Canadian aviation regulations.

Later in the day, another man was arrested for alleged assault near Bathurst and Wilson Avenue and a woman in Earl Bales Park was taken into custody for allegedly obstructing police .

Lefton called the police presence “remarkable.”

“I think that so many people out walking is just an indication of how we feel about what the police have been doing for us and to support us,” she said.

A wall of Israel blocks off protestors from view of the families in the walk for Israel pic.twitter.com/oYtf72yma8

— Ross McLean (@McLeanChronicle) June 7, 2026

Lefton said participation from allies outside the Jewish community was “way beyond” what they’ve witnessed in past years and serves as “a tremendous source of hope” that others believe in fighting hate and extremism in Canada.

Visible amid the fluttering flags were several Iranian standards from the rule of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, according to National Post photojournalist Peter J. Thompson.

Among the participants were approximately 30 Indigenous representatives from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities, including several former and current Chiefs, Grand Chiefs, and leaders.

“What we witnessed today was an extraordinary expression of solidarity, Jewish pride, and hope,” UJA president and CEO Adam Minsky said in a press release.

“Tens of thousands of people chose to come together publicly and proudly in support of our community, our values, and our connection to Israel.”

This year’s walk is happening against the backdrop of ever-increasing acts of antisemitism and hate against Canada’s Jewish population, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area. Synagogues have been vandalized, Jewish people have been assaulted, and the community at large has been the largest target of police-reported religious-based hate crimes.

Lefton said the intensifying antisemitism has led to schools conducting multiple lockdown drills and “indoor recesses because of security threats,” things that make the community feel isolated.

“So I think even more, a moment like this, a moment like today, where we actually can celebrate and feel the strength of coming together as a community and a broader Canadian society, is incredibly important to isolation and make sure that we’re not facing it alone,” she said.

It also comes on the heels of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech last week at a Toronto synagogue, where he said antisemitism in Canada has reached levels “not seen in the post-war period” and that the nation is “failing Jewish Canadians.”

He announced a federal advisory council to examine the causes of antisemitism, improve hate-crime data collection and evaluate government policies on education, prevention and community safety.

Carney, nor any federal party leader, appeared to attend Sunday’s walk, but the Conservative Party of Canada was represented by Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsmand, and fellow Toronto MPs Roman Baber, Jacob Mantle and Anna Roberts.

2026 Walk With Israel - 56,000 strong, through the heart of York Centre!

Huge shout-out to all the police forces involved.

Am Israel Hai! 🇨🇦🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/M5qNXjNlvl

— Roman Baber (@Roman_Baber) June 7, 2026

Liberal MPs Vince Gasparro, Ali Ehsassi and Leslie Church also attended.

“No Canadian should ever feel unsafe for who they are or how they worship. Combatting antisemitism is a responsibility shared by every level of government and part of our society,” Gasparro, the parliamentary secretary combatting crime, wrote on X.

It also appears Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow also opted not to participate.

On hand for the province was York Centre MPP Michael Kerzner.

“ I am inseparable from our Jewish community and Israel, today and always,” he wrote on X.

Today, I joined over 60,000 incredible participants from the #Ontario Jewish and Persian communities in allyship at the #WalkForIsrael, proud and unapologetic!

I am grateful to @UJAFederation and the sponsors for hosting the walk and for reminding us that our umbilical tie to… pic.twitter.com/LCeQN9jWCb

— Michael Kerzner (@TeamKerzner) June 7, 2026

Toronto mayoral hopeful Brad Bradford also attended.

“We walk for peace, justice, pluralism, and the right of every person to thrive in a Toronto that is welcoming, tolerant, and safe for all,” he wrote on X.

Jewish civil rights group Tafsik said the huge turnout proves that the majority of Jews are Zionist.

“ The tiny few ‘Jews’ who don’t stand with Israel and are not Zionist aren’t even a ‘fringe’ minority,” it posted on X. “They are totally non existent. Microscopic in numbers.”

Next time they say “a lot of Jews are against Israel” show them this photo. The far, far majority of Jews are Zionist. We as a people have believed in self autonomy and self determination on the ancestral homeland of Israel since Moses led us to the promised land.

The tiny few… pic.twitter.com/QihR2WvNFx

— Tafsik Organization (@Tafsikorg) June 7, 2026

60,000 strong at this year’s @UJAFederation Walk With Israel🇮🇱 Am Israel Chai 💙🪬 pic.twitter.com/taURMFIZct

— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) June 7, 2026

• 'More allies than ever before': Tens of thousands expected for Walk with Israel
• 'Crime scene': Toronto synagogue damaged amid wave of antisemitic violence

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A week after Mark Carney’s June 1 speech at Toronto’s Holy Blossom synagogue, Jewish Canadians have had a chance to come up for air, many coming to terms with the grim possibility that even a prime minister finally naming a “crisis of antisemitism” may not translate into the protection they need, or the country they thought they lived in.

Carney was moved to reassure the Jewish community, yet, according to many leaders, he largely failed.

The prime minister acknowledged “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” but his answer is yet another committee, another study — involving no one with a deep familiarity on the topic — that some community members said leaves them just as exposed as before.

Canadian Jews, already traumatized and angry, are now wondering more than ever: what now? What is next?

Rabbi Adam Cutler, of Toronto’s Adath Israel synagogue, concluded that “we have to be open-eyed that the government is not a reliable partner.”

With four police cars now surrounding the synagogue, he told the Post, “security is foundational, but insufficient. I don’t want to be a hostage in my own shul the rest of my life.”

And in a sentiment echoed by many others, he said the Jewish community is now on its own.

“In terms of standing up for Jewish rights – for Jews to be proudly and openly Jewish, and proud Zionists — that’s something we have to support ourselves. It’s not that long ago that prime minister Trudeau stood up and proclaimed he was a Zionist. But his successor did not say the same thing, and that’s telling.”

Matthew Taub, who attended the speech, said Carney “scattered crumbs of concern, and acted like it was a feast.” The director of Canadian advocacy group Unapologetically Jewish said the prime minister was “playing a politically-charged 4D chess game. He moved his knight, and now we respond, as a Jewish community, by moving our queen,” he told the Post.

The counter-play he proposed: whereas Carney “came on our turf to lecture us, to have us listen to our own problems,” Taub wants community leaders, as a group, to meet Carney on Parliament Hill, and “have him sit and listen to us, while we tell him the real roots of the problems, and offer our own recommendations. All with the cameras on, too.”

Amir Epstein, director of Toronto-based pro-Israel advocacy group Tafsik, said Carney’s speech vindicated the idea that it’s time for Jews in Canada to start thinking about Plan B: moving elsewhere, as things get worse.

“We have nothing to expect from this government. They’ve made it very clear they’re not interested in supporting the Jewish community. They’ve made it very clear that they don’t really even see much of a problem,” he said. The U.S., though compelling for many as a next stage, could face worsening Jew-hatred, he believes, and so his suggested choices would be Israel or Panama “because it’s been incredibly friendly towards the Jewish community for over 100 years.”

He says all of this with a caveat: “It doesn’t mean that they need to pack their bags and run. It means be prepared. We’ve seen this before. And if we pretend like nothing’s happening, and we go home, and we watch our hockey games, and pretend like everything’s fine, eventually you’ll be too late, and you won’t be able to go anywhere.”

He added: “Until regular Canadians realize the threat that they are facing, the fires will continue to burn. And the worst thing that can happen is we find a nation filled with boiled frogs.”

Michael Teper, president of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, said the speech was the latest in a “series of slaps in the face” from the prime minister.

All within May, Carney issued back-to-back official statements admonishing Israel, had a “cordial phone call” with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and a call to Israeli President Isaac Herzog that, by Carney’s own description, sounded like “he left the conversation having given Israel more carpet burns,” as Tepper puts it.

The Prime Minister also chose Louise Arbour as Canada’s next governor-general. As UN human rights chief, Arbour drew sustained criticism from UN Watch and other NGOs, who argued that she repeatedly singled out Israel, lent support to a regional human‑rights charter that equates Zionism with racism, and applied double standards that, in their view, emboldened Israel’s enemies and undermined its claim to self‑defence.

As such, Teper concludes the Jewish community is now on its own, in light of “betrayal after betrayal.” Of the federal funding package for security, “they threw us a little bone.”

“We don’t need little consolation prizes,” he said. “We don’t need nickels and dimes thrown at us.”

He said it’s time Jews took matters into their own hands. “It’s all up to us now,” said Teper. “I would like to see the community proactively mobilized, for sure.”

“I think that what we’re failing to do is show up in large numbers … I think that this is partially the failure of our own leadership. When the encampments went up, what was the reaction? Hand-wringing and feeling terrible. But the number of people who actually showed up to confront the people involved in the encampment was minimal,” Teper told the Post.

“It’s just that our own numbers stay home. Maybe it’s exhaustion, but we’re not, to be honest, doing our part to defend ourselves. If we want to have standing in the community, it’s not going to be given to us. We have to stand up and demand it.”

Rabbi Yael Splansky, of Holy Blossom Temple — where Carney gave his speech — also encouraged individual action.

“Every peace-loving, democracy-loving Canadian ought to make antisemitism their concern, and make their voices heard by their own elected leaders,” she said. “The Jewish community has been doing this work for years, but we cannot do it alone. Because antisemitism has been allowed to seep into Canadian waters, only a groundswell response can turn back the tide.”

In a June 5 statement , the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), with cross-Canada signatories of United Jewish Appeal offices, said the next step is for Ottawa to “name the problem clearly … antisemitism in Canada is being driven in significant part by anti-Israel and antizionist hatred.”

Among their recommendations is to “ensure that terrorist organizations, their proxies, and their adherents cannot operate here.” They also demanded that “public funds do not support organizations or initiatives that promote hatred against the Jewish community. This must include addressing the weaponization of national institutions, including the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.”

Noah Shack, chief executive officer of CIJA, told the Post, “This isn’t a time to shrink back, but to further engage elected officials. It’s time for all of us to be active and make sure that they’re hearing directly from us, and that we are doing our part in the equation to push them to do their part.

“Regardless of what party they’re from, regardless of what part of the country you’re in, their job is to listen to you, and represent you in the parliament or the legislature or city hall.”

• How the synagogue audience reacted to Mark Carney’s 'covenant' speech on antisemitism
• Carney says Jewish Canadians are being 'brutally targeted' and the country is failing them

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A woman sexually assaulted by a man who used a sleep disorder known as “sexsomnia” as part of his defence at trial has been awarded just over $210,000 in damages by the Supreme Court of B.C.

In convicting Karl Richard Antonius of one count of sexual assault in July 2020, now-retired Justice Austin Cullen didn’t dismiss his “impressive array of parasomnias” — conditions that cause abnormal experiences or behaviours during sleep — but rejected the notion that his newly-diagnosed history with them supported an argument that “his conduct was involuntary.”

Antonius, then 53 years old, was sentenced to two years less a day that October and was granted day parole after serving seven months and five days, according to Justice Warren B. Milman’s recently published lawsuit decision.

The assault in question occurred more than a decade ago on Sept. 27, 2015, in Vancouver when Antonius, in his late 40s at the time, was on a blind date with the victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban.

During the trial, she testified to having no interest in having sex with Antonius that night, but trusted him enough to sleep next to him at his hotel apartment after realizing a friend had her house keys. Wearing a t-shirt and shorts he supplied, the woman got into the bed and lay on her left side and was joined then by Antonius, who touched her bottom at least once and also attempted to move the shorts down.

She said she denied his advances, swatting his hand away at one point, and he seemed to accept that she was only interested in sleeping. When she awoke in the same position some time later, however, she found Antonius had removed her shorts and her underwear and was having unprotected sex with her.

“(The victim) said she was ‘kind of was still waking up and not really sure of what was happening.’ She ‘was like slowly coming out of sleep’, ‘was kind of in shock’, and ‘didn’t know what to do,” Cullen summarized. “She said it took a moment for her to realize what was happening and she just froze.”

Antonius finished, rose without saying anything and left the bedroom. The two soon parted ways without mentioning what had occurred and the woman never responded to his calls or messages thereafter.

When charged in 2016, Antonius told police he thought she was lying in an attempt to extort money from him and “attributed the finding of his DNA on her to the fact she was wearing his boxer shorts and the absence of semen being consistent with his belief that she was not being truthful,” Cullen wrote.

But three years into the case, Antonius began to wonder if the woman had dreamt about the sexual assault and said his research led him to the topic of sexsomnia, which he said gets “lumped together” with “sleep eating,” something he did but was never formally diagnosed with.

“As a result of what he has learned about sexsomnia, he now accepts that he did have sexual intercourse with (the victim),” Cullen wrote. “He said that he feels terrible for her, terrible for himself, but especially for her.”

Several witnesses called by the defence at trial recounted stories of a fully-nude Antonius sleepwalking and sleep eating. One witness, a former sexual partner, testified that he appeared to initiate sex while asleep, only to roll over and resume sleeping immediately after.

Three medical experts also diagnosed him with parasomnia, two of whom cast a degree of doubt as to whether it was an incident of parasomnia and a third who categorically said it wasn’t.

Cullen accepted that “those experiencing parasomnia episodes can perform relatively complex tasks” but said Antonius’s actions with the woman “involve consciousness of the context in which it was occurring.”

“The accused had to undress himself, undress her by removing her boxer shorts and her panties, and initiate sexual intercourse with her without awakening her,” the judge wrote, noting it “implies a cautious approach and a conscious purpose.”

Before he was convicted, Antonius was removed as President of Vancouver-based Boreal Metals Corp., a mineral exploration company focused on historical mining project areas in Sweden and Norway, after the allegations against him and the sexsomnia defence came to light in November 2019. The company said its board of directors “had not been made aware of the nature of charges made against Mr. Antonius or his defence to them.”

In an affidavit for her sexual battery civil suit filed in November 2022, the victim said she was worried that Antonius impregnated her or “given her the herpes virus, with which she was diagnosed four years later,” Justice Warren B. Milman wrote.

She described herself as a “confident” and “outgoing person” who liked spending time with friends and meeting new people before the assault.

“Now, after 11 years, she describes herself as a ‘shadow of her former self,’” as she struggles to maintain relationships, forge new ones, and trust people, men in particular.

“Her world has become much smaller because she is reluctant to venture from her safe haven at home. Her view is that the defendant robbed her of her safety and sense of self.”

Many of her struggles are also documented in an affidavit filed by her mother, who said her daughter “has not been able to move forward with her life.”

Antonius failed to file any response to the court, resulting in a default judgment against him in October 2024.

The woman had been seeking $250,000 in non-pecuniary damages (pain and suffering), but was awarded $200,000, which includes a $50,000 in aggravating component due to the betrayal of trust and the “profound impact… on the course” of her life.

Milman denied her request for $50,000 in punitive damages, finding that the trial judge imposed an “adequate” sentence.

She will also receive $7,640.62 for counselling already obtained and another $3,042 for future sessions, for a total award of $210,682.62, plus the cost of her legal fees.

• Ottawa 'sexsomniac' not criminally responsible for sex assault on daughter because he was sleepwalking
• Man acquitted of rape after claiming 'sexsomnia'. What is it and how is it affecting sex assault trials?

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This Sunday, thousands of people are expected to attend the annual Walk with Israel. We have been working closely with organizers and our policing partners to prepare for the event and support public safety throughout the day.

Listen to @TPSMyronDemkiw discuss our approach. https://t.co/6zsWwXVruK

— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) June 5, 2026

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 hall at St. Vladimir’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Calgary is packed. Three gigantic, artistically painted wooden Easter eggs dominate the stage. Heavily accented voices rise and fall amid the chatter as attendees nibble on poppyseed cake and other Ukrainian delicacies. No one wears the bright blue-and-yellow of the war’s early days, but embroidered vyshyvanky peek from under sweaters and jackets.

These are the faithful still committed to Ukraine’s cause. They came to hear Michael Bociurkiw — a Canadian journalist of Ukrainian heritage now based in Odesa — deliver a sobering assessment of a war grinding into its fifth year. A familiar face on CNN and the BBC, Bociurkiw has become one of the most credible English-language voices on the ground. On this night, he mixes high-level strategy with raw human cost, offering unvarnished predictions about Putin, Xi and Trump — and a blunt warning to his Canadian compatriots.

China, he reports, has gone beyond secretly shipping drone components labelled “refrigerator parts” to Russia. Beijing is now training Russian forces in drone warfare, electronic warfare and explosives. Beijing denies it, of course.

Yet Bociurkiw’s most urgent message isn’t geopolitical intrigue. It is a warning about the quiet hollowing out of Ukraine itself.

“Millions have left — many of them young and able-bodied,” he tells the room. Heads nod. “You see them here in Calgary.” His stark assessment: many will never return permanently. That poses a devastating problem for postwar reconstruction: You can pledge billions to rebuild Ukraine, but without human capital, the effort collapses.

Nearly 300,000 Ukrainians arrived in Canada under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program between 2022 and 2024. As emergency visas expire and extensions run until 2027, only about 2,500 have secured permanent residency. In Germany, Bociurkiw reports, “asylum seekers at the start of the war are now beginning to qualify for citizenship there.” Here, the pathway remains murky.

A 2025 survey found just three per cent had returned to Ukraine. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada still officially expects most to go home once fighting stops. Bociurkiw questions that assumption.

“They’re here on temporary status. They can work, but it’s very, very difficult,” he says. Canada must decide soon what to do with them. Yet returnees face grim realities: “People are not going to come back if no inch of Ukraine is safe — and I don’t use those words lightly. That’s what Ukrainians tell me they feel.

“No one voluntarily leaves their home,” he continues. “So the question is, if we give them citizenship, does that make it easier — or harder — for them to return? I’ll be honest, that needs to be decided.”

Bociurkiw turns to broader Canadian policy with pointed suggestions.

First, expel Russian diplomats. Every other G7 country has done so since 2022; Canada has not. Bociurkiw dismisses fears of reciprocity: “We know Russia is waging hybrid warfare here, including election meddling. Our friends in Ottawa seem to think if we expel theirs, they’ll expel ours and we’ll lose so much. We can get other countries to represent us.”

Second, he voices frustration over social media. Many younger CUAET arrivals post TikToks critical of Canadian housing, homelessness, drug use, cost of living and even ethnic tensions. Bociurkiw pushes back online, urging gratitude.

His worry is twofold: the clips hand Russia propaganda ammunition, and they gift Canadian immigration skeptics powerful visuals.

“Criticism is normal in a democracy,” he says, “but our parents came here with almost nothing and endured tough times.” If you truly despise it here, he adds, there are no exit controls; you can leave.

Third, and more measured, he urges Canada to help rebuild Ukraine’s shattered independent media. Martial law forced channels into a single 24/7 “United News” telethon — patriotic, repetitive and increasingly unwatched. Advertising is banned, funding is strained, and many journalists have been killed, drafted or fled. “I feel we’re not far from Ukrainian media joining the Afghans, Persians and others who have fled their countries,” he warns.

Bociurkiw speaks from lived experience. In Odesa — once Ukraine’s most entrepreneurial city — the energy is fading. Friends are leaving; restaurants, bars and businesses are closing for lack of staff and customers; men hide indoors to avoid mobilization sweeps. Drones strike closer: one hit an apartment building just 500 metres from his home recently. His “green zone” near foreign consulates no longer feels safe.

“In war,” he says quietly, “you find your senses become very well-attuned. Your hearing, your sense of smell, eyesight.” The drones flying overhead are louder, faster, more powerful now.

“You start to see this hollowing out of people’s eyes because they can’t sleep,” he adds. “It’s the loss of spirit… the mental health collapse that’s very difficult to portray in a media interview.”

When will it end? Bociurkiw’s answer is blunt: “When either Putin decides he can declare victory, thus ensuring his political survival … or he gets assassinated.

“Ukraine is still fighting,” he assures the room. “It will fight to the end. This is an existential war.”

Events following his spring talk in Calgary attest to Ukraine’s resilience. Earlier this week, smoke rose over St. Petersburg just as the Kremlin-hosted “Russian Davos” — the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum — was opening. Ukrainian drones had struck a nearby oil terminal and a naval hub. In Washington, “a small but significant band of Republican lawmakers broke ranks to advance both an Iran war powers resolution and legislation that could unlock fresh U.S. military aid for Ukraine,” Bociurkiw shares in an early June media briefing. And in Brussels, the EU moved against four Chinese companies accused of fuelling Russia’s war machine, doubling down on its strategy of targeting Moscow’s enablers.

Yet in his talk in Calgary, Bociurkiw took great care to challenge Western narratives of endless resilience. No society can endure this level of trauma indefinitely; people are reaching a breaking point. The drip-feed of Western support has prolonged the conflict without delivering decisive advantage.

“Whether it’s the missiles, either defensive or offensive military kit, or really hardcore sanctions,” he says, “I think many Western leaders are actually still afraid of Putin … we’re afraid that if we push him too hard, he’ll do the worst and reach for the nuclear button.”

His message landed with quiet force in Calgary. The diaspora wants to help, but sentimental solidarity isn’t enough.

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MISCHIEF/DAMAGE:
Bathurst St & Glencairn Ave
-police responded to reports of damage at a synagogue
-a window was broken with an unknown object
-damage believed to have occurred overnight
-no suspect description(s) currently available
-no injuries reported
-Hate Crime Unit…

— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) June 6, 2026

Idit Shamir , the Consulate General of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada, issued a statement saying that it “strongly condemns the antisemitic attack against Congregation Mishkan Avraham in Toronto, where an object was thrown at the synagogue, shattering a window and causing damage to the building. ”

The Consulate General of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada strongly condemns the antisemitic attack against Congregation Mishkan Avraham in Toronto, where an object was thrown at the synagogue, shattering a window and causing damage to the building.

Yesterday, in Montreal,… pic.twitter.com/Y1qhZELwQb

— CG Idit Shamir 🇨🇦🇮🇱 (@ShamirIdit) June 6, 2026

“A synagogue should never become a crime scene. A community should never have to wonder which Jewish institution will be attacked next. The time for symbolic gestures has passed. Canada must demonstrate, through concrete action, that antisemitic violence will be confronted with the full force of the law.”

Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed , wrote on X Saturday afternoon that the damage is “a ppalling, alarming, disgusting and shameful beyond words! Today in Toronto, yet another Jewish community has been targeted!”

🚩Appalling, alarming, disgusting and shameful beyond words! Today in Toronto, yet another Jewish community has been targeted!

There cannot be any misunderstanding: demonising Israel, delegitimising Israel, dehumanising Israel all lead to unchecked intimidation, to extreme… https://t.co/E8G8UZSXNy

— Iddo Moed (@MoedIddo) June 6, 2026

He added: “There cannot be any misunderstanding: demonising Israel, delegitimising Israel, dehumanising Israel all lead to unchecked intimidation, to extreme violence and even to destruction.”

Toronto city councillor echoed the consulate’s comments in his own post on X: “ No one in this city should have to wonder whether their place of worship is safe. Antisemitism has no home in Toronto, and an attack on one community is an attack on all of us.”

Overnight, the window of a synagogue near Bathurst and Glencairn was smashed. A place where families gather to pray was targeted, and the Toronto Police Hate Crime Unit is leading the investigation.

No one in this city should have to wonder whether their place of worship is… https://t.co/PGqbXfD4nQ

— Brad Bradford (@BradMBradford) June 6, 2026

• 'More allies than ever before': Tens of thousands expected for Walk with Israel
• Four new arrests made in connection with 'deliberate' attacks on Toronto Jewish community members

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An 84-year-old man declared a dangerous offender for kidnapping a hitchhiking couple in 1979 and trying to stab the man to death, then escaping the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital in 1992 and abducting a 16-year-old girl he confined, sexually assaulted and threatened to kill, has not “‘aged out’ of posing a physical and sexual aggression risk,” according to a recent decision from the Ontario Review Board (ORB).

Denis Russell McCullough was found “not guilty by reason of insanity” in July 1980 for the kidnapping and attempted murder. After his Kingston escape, McCullough was declared a dangerous offender and sentenced in October 1994 to detention in a penitentiary for an indeterminate period. He was living at Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison, while under investigation for “sexual misconduct,” but returned this past April to the Regional Treatment Centre at the Bath Institution, and testified at his recent ORB hearing.

“He stated that he has lung cancer, heart problems, and finds walking difficult. When asked if he thought he posed a risk to the safety of the public he stated, ‘If I see a person as a danger to me, then I’m a risk… it doesn’t matter who you are.’ He added that he would not be the aggressor, denied having raped anyone — stating he would never touch a woman — and did not know why he was in custody,” said a May 26 decision from the independent tribunal that regularly reviews the status of individuals found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.

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The board heard that McCullough was paroled in Canada in May 1978 after a U.S. crime spree, but “absconded” 15 months later.

“While unlawfully at large and on his way to the west coast he picked up a male and a female who were hitchhiking,” said the decision.

“During that trip he stabbed the male several times. He and the female victim were able to stitch the male’s wounds and Mr. McCullough tied the male victim to a tree when they stopped in British Columbia.”

The man was able to free himself and police arrested McCullough a short time later.

While he was a patient at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, McCullough “stashed provisions outside the hospital,” then on June 6, 1992, kidnapped his teen “victim and kept her for many hours, including overnight, and forced her to walk from Kingston to the greater Napanee area in Ontario. During the abduction he sexually assaulted her, a fact he now denies,” said the decision.

McCullough “has an extensive criminal record,” said the decision. “In 1963 he was convicted of two counts each of robbery and break and enter. Following those offences, he purchased a car and fled to Texas but was deported back to Canada and sentenced to 12 years.”

Mcullough “was paroled in October 1969 and a month later absconded to the United States, where he was convicted of armed robbery in Nevada. He served 18 months in a mental health facility in that state before starting a term of five years to life in Carson City prison, Nevada. He was paroled in 1976 and returned to Canada.”

McCullough, who was born and raised in Quebec, “reported that illicit drug use began in his 20s. He has spent the majority of his youth and adult years in some form of custodial setting. He has no family support and has not communicated with his family in over 40 years.”

His April 2025 psychological risk assessment “describes Mr. McCullough as a moderate risk for general, violent, and sexual offence re-offending,” said the decision.

“The assessment notes that he suffers from serious mental health issues, although he is not receiving regular mental health service intervention or medication. He is described as ‘highly institutionalized.’”

According to the Parole Board of Canada, “various professionals have assessed McCullough as having a complex personality construct that is rooted in psychopathy and narcissism” and “McCullough’s antisocial values are deeply entrenched into the construct of his personality, which renders change difficult.”

In the last two years, McCullough exposed himself to staff, for which he was fined $25, and was “involved in nine security incidents,” said the decision.

On Oct.19, 2024, “during medication delivery, Mr. McCullough continuously attempted to grab at the nurse.”

He’s been “accused of sexually assaulting an inmate and being sexually inappropriate with another inmate,” said the decision. “A report was received on March 2, 2023, that he had threatened to kill another inmate on his range, but he denied making the threat. He put another inmate in a headlock on June 1, 2023, and minor use of force was used to remove his arm from around the inmate’s neck.”

His caretakers had to physically handle McCullough to get him back into his cell on Dec. 27, 2023, “when he refused direction to do so,” said the decision.

“Information was received on February 24, 2024, that Mr. McCullough was telling other inmates that he was receiving oral sex from another inmate at the Regional Treatment Centre at the Bath Institution.”

McCullough “has recently been diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder — in remission for over 10 years — and has been assessed as having some developing cognitive impairment,” said the decision.

While McCullough uses a wheelchair and attended the ORB hearing in one, “he is still able to ambulate and engage in sexual activity and physical altercations,” it said.

His parole officer testified McCullough “would need a great deal of support if living in the community, which halfway houses could not provide. She noted that Mr. McCullough has no plan to live in the community and no community support.”

His parole officer “considered Mr. McCullough a significant threat to re-offend,” said the decision.

Lawyers for the hospital and the province “maintained that Mr. McCullough continued to represent a significant threat to the safety of the public and that detention at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care – Provincial Forensics Program (Ontario’s most secure forensic facility) was appropriate if he were released from federal custody,” said the decision.

McCullough’s lawyer “questioned whether significant threat to public safety had been established to the legal standard of a balance of probabilities. He noted his client has not had a criminal conviction since 1994, suffers from significant health issues, and is only partially ambulatory.”

The ORB ordered that McCullough “be detained at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care – Provincial Forensic Programs Division, should his incarceration in a federal penitentiary cease,” said the decision.

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Alberta is the most attractive destination for Canadians who move between provinces, while Newfoundland and Labrador is the least, a new study shows.

The Fraser Institute report measured that movement, known as interprovincial migration, over the 30 years from 1995 to 2024 using Statistics Canada data. It counted only moves within Canada, not immigration from abroad.

Alberta was the magnet. Over the period it gained 538,824 more people from other provinces than it lost, the largest net gain in the country and more than double British Columbia’s 214,883. It drew people from every other province and every age group.

The gains came in waves. Alberta drew people heavily in the late 1990s and mid 2000s, lost some between 2015 and 2020, then surged again after 2021.

“Alberta across multiple dimensions has been the top destination for people moving within Canada,” said Grady Munro, a senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and a co-author of the study. The province stands out, he said, for “some of the highest levels of economic growth, a plethora of job opportunities, relatively higher wages, and for much of its time relatively lower taxes compared to the rest of the country.”

The study counts who moved, not why, and Munro said the data cannot prove a cause. Past research points to jobs, wages and taxes, he said, but “we can’t say for certain why exactly we’re seeing the trends that we are.”

Alberta was also the top landing spot for the young, drawing a net 192,329 people aged 18 to 24. “These are high school graduates, college students, people very early in their career who have a lot to provide in terms of economic activity for the rest of their life,” Munro said.

Quebec and Ontario lost the most people, a net 255,988 and 168,166, respectively. For a province that big, the outflow is a small share of Ontario’s population, but it has been steady for most of the 30-year period. “Frankly, its economy has stagnated and fallen behind the rest of Canada,” Munro said, after decades as the country’s economic powerhouse.

Quebec and Manitoba lost people every single year for 30 years.

The bigger losses were relative to size. Over 30 years, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba and Saskatchewan each lost a net outflow worth about a tenth of their current population. By comparison, Quebec’s loss equalled about 2.8 per cent of its current population and Ontario’s about one per cent.

The sharpest losses were among the young. Newfoundland and Labrador saw a net 40,480 residents aged 18 to 24 move away over three decades, equal to 97.3 per cent of its current population that age. It does not mean almost all its young people are gone. It means 30 years of steady losses add up to nearly the entire young adult population living there now. No other province came close. New Brunswick, the next-hardest hit, lost a net total equal to about a third of its young.

The data does not follow individuals, so it cannot track who moves back to Newfoundland and Labrador. But Munro said “there are greater amounts of younger 18 to 24 year olds leaving than there are coming back.”

Newfoundland and Labrador has aged as a result. It now has the oldest population in Canada, with seniors making up about a quarter of residents, and 18 to 24 year olds less than eight per cent, both the most lopsided figures in the country.

The numbers also miss one large group. The data leaves out interjurisdictional workers, people who keep a home in one province but travel to another for work, which Munro said is “fairly significant in the Atlantic region.” The figures for the most recent year, 2024-2025, are also preliminary, meaning Statistics Canada could still revise them.

Munro said the trend should be a signal to the provinces losing people. The data “can be a wake-up call,” he said, for places that have watched significant numbers leave over the last 30 years.

• How Alberta fell out of love with mass immigration
• Fewer than half of Albertans say they would stay in a newly independent province: poll

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OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada’s artificial intelligence strategy on Thursday, with a plan for “large-scale AI data centres” and a goal of massively increasing the country’s computing capacity by 2030.

That means lots of new AI data centres, with the hopes of increasingly keeping Canadian data within the country’s borders.

But until recently, developing these facilities has been primarily a matter of local concern for communities where they will be built. As Ottawa ramps up investment in hopes of dramatically scaling up AI compute capability across the country, the federal government is now wading into controversies involving data centres that have primarily played out at the municipal and provincial levels before now.

Here’s what you need to know about the concerns and debates involving these facilities.

What are AI data centres, and what makes them different from standard data centres?

An AI data centre is a facility designed to power artificial intelligence systems by storing data and running the massive computations needed to train and operate AI models.

Unlike traditional data centres, which mainly handle web hosting, cloud storage, email, or business software, AI data centres are built around high-performance processors such as graphics processing units and specialized AI chips. They require far more electricity, advanced cooling systems, and ultra-fast networking to manage the intense workloads created by machine learning.

AI data centres are optimized for parallel processing and large-scale data movement, making them significantly more energy- and hardware-intensive than conventional facilities.

There are just over 300 data centres operating throughout Canada, though most are located in or near major metropolitan areas.

Why is the federal government investing in AI data centres now?

When the Trudeau government announced the launch of the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy in December 2024, the intent was to develop “cutting-edge AI solutions across all sectors of our economy helps Canada remain a destination of choice for investment and top talent.”

Then in April 2025, the first budget by the Carney government proposed to provide over $925 million during a five-year period to “support a large-scale sovereign public AI infrastructure” throughout Canada. Updated last month, the AI Compute strategy indicates the government plans to “make strategic investments in public and commercial infrastructure.”

The goal of the “sovereign AI” compute strategy is to develop and maintain technical capabilities within Canada to harness the full potential of emerging digital automation technologies.

Michel Richer, president of Bell AI, told National Post that “data sovereignty” is primarily about “two pillars.” Those involve “ensuring that no actor outside of the country” either has the ability to access data generated within Canada or to stop Canadian computer systems from operating.

According to Richer, establishing data sovereignty within the country helps “guarantee that we are in full control over our access to data and full control over which systems are running or are prevented from running.”

Announcing the sovereign AI compute strategy, the federal government said the plan “will make strategic investments in public and commercial infrastructure to ensure that Canadian innovators, businesses and researchers have access to the compute capacity they need.”

Why have AI data centres been so controversial at the local and regional level so far?

Initiatives such as zoning approval and implementing tax breaks for AI data centres have been divisive and hotly contested issues for municipal governments throughout Canada and the United States.

The small council for the rural municipality of Sherwood near Regina had to exclude the public due to repeated disruptions during a meeting in April during which a proposal for a Bell AI data centre was ultimately approved. Controversy has also erupted in Nanaimo, where an active online petition encourages community members to “push to stop” a prospective data centre “from being built.”

Similar debates are playing out across the United States as well, where a recent Gallup poll reports that seven in 10 Americans oppose having AI data centres constructed in their local area. In the small municipality of Independence, Missouri, the two city council members on the ballot for a local election who had previously supported tax breaks for an AI data centre were voted out of office last month. Staunch opposition has also emerged in states such as Virginia and Maine where these facilities have been proposed or built.

A report published by the University of Michigan in July 2025 highlights a number of issues that have plagued proposals to develop AI data centres. Increased utility rates driven by higher electricity demand, large volumes of water necessary to cool high-output electronics straining local resources, and tax breaks that fail to deliver economic benefits promised to the local community are a few of the most contentious concerns often raised about these facilities.

However, many of the most common objections are based on outdated perceptions of AI data centre models, according to Simon Ahdoot, CEO of global technology company Hypertec, which is based in Montreal. Ahdoot told National Post that “the market has adapted to” develop more efficient methods for powering and cooling advanced electronics utilized in data centres.

For example, he said many new builds today implement a “closed loop” cooling system that gets filled with a “certain amount of water” that is then recirculated rather than constantly drawing in and discharging massive amounts of liquid. Ahdoot also said Canada has an advantage compared to many places in the United States because colder temperatures provide “a lot of free cooling” that can be put to use in these facilities.

According to Ahdoot, local officials and the general public should have a realistic and updated understanding of the “practical sustainability” solutions that have been developed in recent years in response to growing concerns about AI data centres.

What’s next for AI data centres in Canada?

Heavy investment by the federal government marks a new chapter in the development of these facilities across Canada. Ottawa has so far avoided becoming entangled in disputes over approving and constructing AI data centres, though that may soon change as federal subsidies are increasingly injected to back proposed capital projects.

While demands for a moratorium on new data centres grow more popular among critics, proponents insist that onerous restrictions risk sending investment and skilled jobs elsewhere.

Riyadh Nazerally of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada told National Post that although municipal governments remain “responsible for planning and zoning decisions,” the federal government may nonetheless “engage with partners to share information and support coordination where appropriate, particularly on large infrastructure projects.”

With the rapid infusion of federal funding, it remains to be seen whether controversy over AI data centres will be increasingly directed at the Carney government rather than municipal officials as before.

As these debates continue to play out across the country, Michel Richer of Bell AI said policymakers should focus on “using the full resources of the different levels of government to help remove roadblocks and accelerate projects” to ensure data sovereignty and AI innovation “translate into economic benefits throughout Canada.”

National Post

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Fewer than half of Albertans are certain that they would continue living in their newly independent province should it separate from Canada, according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll, as a referendum later this year is set to decide if the province wants to vote on breaking from the federation.

According to the survey conducted between May 29 and June 1, 39 per cent of respondents said they would “continue to live in my new independent country” in the case of separation, while 38 per cent said they would move elsewhere in Canada. Nineteen per cent said they weren’t sure, and the remaining two per cent said they would move to another country altogether.

The proportion of those of who would remain is much larger in Quebec, where 56 per cent of respondents said they would stay in their “new independent country,” with just 24 per cent saying they would move elsewhere in Canada.

Among respondents polled outside of Alberta and Quebec, 10 per cent of respondents said they would move to an independent country of Alberta should the province separate from Canada, while just one per cent said they’d move to an independent Quebec.

Andrew Enns, executive vice-president of Leger’s central Canada operations, said the survey should serve as a loose indication of peoples’ views toward separation rather than true moving intentions. Opposition to the independence movement in the province are strong, he said, yet the number of people who would actually pack up and leave might be lower in reality than the results suggest.

“I would fully expect that that number will be less,” Enns said. “I think that number is more of a temperature gauge on peoples’ emotions. This is a big deal for people.”

Respondents widely viewed Alberta’s hypothetical separation from Canada as having a much greater economic impact on the rest of the country than Quebec’s, with 33 per cent saying Alberta’s would have the biggest negative impact of the two. Just eight per cent of respondents said Quebec’s separation would have the greater economic impact, while 45 per cent said it would be equal. The remaining 14 per cent said they didn’t know.

Enns said those results were hardly surprising given the amount of focus on the Alberta economy over the last year under Prime Minister Mark Carney, including Ottawa’s emphasis on using natural resources to combat Canada’s overdependence on U.S. trade.

“We’ve heard a lot of talk, especially in the last 18 months, about how important our natural resources sector — particularly the Alberta energy sector — is for Canada’s economy,” he said.

On the question of which province’s exit would have the greatest impact on “Canada’s national identity,” 17 per cent said Quebec and 15 per cent said Alberta. A majority (54 per cent) said the impact would be equal, while the remainder (14 per cent) didn’t know.

The poll results come just as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has confirmed that the province will see a separation-related question in its October referendum, appearing alongside nine other questions on issues like immigration and Senate reform. Separatist sentiments in Alberta have hit new highs in recent years, as frustrations over the province’s perceived place in Confederation are reviving resentments that have lingered for decades.

Smith’s referendum question will ask voters whether they wish to remain in Canada, or have a second, “binding” referendum that could trigger separation negotiations with Ottawa. Support for the referendum still seems somewhat narrow: According to public polls, about 70 per cent of Albertans appear to prefer staying in Canada, with the remaining 30 per cent saying they are either deeply supportive or somewhat supportive of separation.

Despite the separatist sentiment in the province, most respondents to the Postmedia-Leger survey from Alberta still appeared to think the province is appropriately represented by the federal government. Among those in Alberta, 33 per cent said Ottawa was doing a “good job” of representing their interests, while 16 per cent said it was doing a “poor job.” Fifteen per cent said they do a “very poor job,” and the remaining 11 per cent said the government is doing “very good.” Twenty-six per cent said they didn’t know.

One of the biggest sources of Western frustration is the federal government’s treatment of its oil and gas sector, which has prompted Smith to seek an energy alliance, or memorandum of understanding (MOU), with Carney.

The deal, aimed at helping to unlock fossil fuel investment by cutting back proposed environmental restrictions and building a new West Coast pipeline, appears to have broad support, based on the results of the Postmedia-Leger poll.

Among those surveyed, a majority (66 per cent) support measures to expand Alberta’s oil and gas sector, compared with 17 per cent opposed. The remaining 17 per cent said they did not know. Those who “strongly support” that expansion were most prominent in Alberta (80 per cent), and the lowest in Quebec (58 per cent).

Notably, the “strong” supporters of such policies were also almost equally distributed between Conservative and Liberal respondents: 77 per cent of people who intended to vote for the Conservative Party of Canada in the next election were highly supportive of expansion, compared with 76 per cent who back the Liberal Party of Canada. Just 41 per cent of NDP supporters expressed strong support, and 40 per cent of Bloc Québécois voters.

Enns said the near-equal split between Liberal and Conservative supporters underscores the major policy shift of the Liberal caucus during Carney’s leadership, which has seen the government pivot sharply from environmental to energy security priorities.

“I don’t have any sort of party affiliation to draw on, but I would suggest that a couple of years ago Liberal voters wouldn’t have been as keen on expanding the energy sector in Alberta by a long shot,” he said.

The Postmedia-Leger poll drew from 1,532 Canadians using an online survey. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of the same number of respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times of out 20.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has proposed a meeting with his Russian counterpart to negotiate an end to the war face to face.

In a rare open letter to President Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy renewed his appeal for “direct engagement,” acknowledging the U.S. has become “fully focused on the issue of Iran.”

In the letter, Zelenskyy said he was ready for a “full ceasefire” and “all-for-all exchange of prisoners of war” ahead of in-person negotiations. He also called for the return of Ukrainian civilians and children who have been taken during the war.

At times combative in tone, Zelenskyy cashed in on recent Ukraine’s battlefield successes and reproached his foe’s time in power.

“Yes, you can still force Russians to exist this way. But your resources are shrinking significantly ,” he wrote. “You will not have enough money or political capital to keep buying the loyalty of Russians the way you have for the past 26 years.”

Zelenskyy’s letter said the meeting would have to take place in a neutral country. Any peace deal would have to involve Europe and the U.S., which would “monitor a ceasefire along the line where hostilities stop,” he added.

“We in Ukraine do not want a permanent war. We know very well that life without war is infinitely better. And we want to achieve that,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Zelenskyy, who has previously said that the war is “all about the land,” rejected the idea of giving up more territory as part of a deal. “The front line today is the line from which diplomacy must begin,” he wrote.

Putin rebuffed Zelenskyy’s request on Friday. Speaking at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he said: “I see no sense” in a meeting. Putin said he skimmed over the letter, noting that it came across as rude.

“Is it a way to create conditions for a personal meeting and negotiations, or is it creating an environment in which it’s impossible to hold any personal meetings at all? I think it’s the latter,” he said, according to Bloomberg .

Zelenskyy has rejected a peace proposal reached by Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska last year, which required Ukraine to give up land to end the conflict.

“You can see for yourself that Ukrainian and European issues are not decided in Anchorage,” Zelenskyy wrote in the letter. Previous trilateral talks in Istanbul, Abu Dhabi and Geneva have failed. Neither leader participated in the talks and have not met face to face since the war began in February 2022.

On Thursday, Trump told reporters he was in support of Putin and Zelenskyy brokering peace directly.

“I’m glad that they’re maybe talking about meeting, I think we had a lot to do with it,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “But I think it would be great if they met, they should get it done.”

Zelenskyy cited Ukrainian figures that say more than 30,000 Russian soldiers were killed or seriously wounded in May.

“We have been maintaining that level month after month, and we have video confirmation of every one of your losses — these are not empty claims,” he said. “In the 21st century, no army can afford such a ratio. And the share of those killed will continue to grow.”

Long-range Ukrainian drones have also brought the war into Russian soil, Zelenskyy noted, dragging Russian civilians into the war, which Putin has tried to avoid. “They do not like our drones and missiles,” he wrote.

Putin addressed the matter speaking to reporters on Wednesday. “To our regret, some of them break through,” he said of the strikes, according to a translation by the Associated Press. “Russia has an air defence system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”

Talks have stalled since late February as the U.S. is increasingly preoccupied with the Iran war.

The letter could help talks resume, but a peace deal won’t be immediate, said Alex Kokcharov, geoeconomics analyst at Bloomberg Economics.

“Zelenskyy is using Ukraine’s improved battlefield position to push for talks, while Putin still appears to view diplomacy as a way to secure Russian territorial gains and gain time,” he said .

The more likely outcome is intensified coercive bargaining, with more long-range strikes, Russian air attacks, and pressure on both sides’ domestic and external support bases, he said.

• Senior officials warn Putin he's overspending on his war
• At least 352,000 Russian soldiers have died fighting Ukraine: report

National Post

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OTTAWA — Some Liberals are defending Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership style, saying he can be tough when needed but has always stayed respectful in their experience.

Carney’s caucus management has been under close scrutiny ever since a report by the Toronto Star came out alleging he has lashed out at caucus members — with one saying he’s yelled at them — or made them feel like he is not interested in their concerns.

Ministers and MPs said this week they have never heard Carney yell at them or others.

Speaking on his way to question period, Charlottetown MP Sean Casey said the prime minister can be “tough when appropriate” but “not tough for the sake of being tough.”

“He has a good way with people, I would absolutely say that, and it’s genuine,” he said.

“He’s a no bullsh-t kind of person. If he says it, he means it.”

Élisabeth Brière, MP for Sherbrooke, said “no, never” when asked if she had ever heard Carney yell. But she said the 61-year-old former central banker has high standards for his caucus.

“Of course, he’s demanding,” she said. “As prime minister, you have to be.”

The National Post has reported that Carney rapidly imposed his leadership style upon taking office last year. Insiders described him as running a tight ship, starting meetings on time, and not being afraid to call out underperforming members of his entourage.

As one person described it at the time, Carney “does not suffer fools.”

Montreal MP Anthony Housefather said he has never seen Carney act anything other than “respectfully” with caucus and that he appreciates the “back-and-forth” with him.

Winnipeg MP Doug Eyolfson was mentioned in the Toronto Star piece as having been told to not come to Carney with his concerns over the lack of federal response to controversial Alberta legislation that creates a two-tier health care system in the province.

Eyolfson acknowledged he had a disagreement with Carney but did not make light of it.

“I’m glad that we can disagree and still have a good working relationship,” he said.

Other examples cited by the Toronto Star included Nova Scotia MP Jaime Battiste receiving a rebuke for raising concerns over the government’s changes to the Indian Act and Laval MP Angelo Iacono asking Carney to visit his riding with Carney insisting he’d already been.

Culture Minister Marc Miller dismissed the report as “gossip,” while Whitby MP Ryan Turnbull said he had never seen Carney act in the ways that were described in the article.

“He respects caucus, he regularly meets with us, and I think he would have a lot of trust in our caucus,” said Turnbull.

Speaking in Shawinigan, Que., on Friday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said that Carney has “inspired” Canadians, judging by a recent Postmedia-Léger poll that found the Liberal government now has the support of half of all Canadians.

The last time the federal government topped 50 per cent in support was over two decades ago, when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said Canada would not take part in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reached 49 per cent in the polls in 2016, during his first year in the top job.

“Listen, it’s rare in the history of the country where you have a leader of a party, a prime minister who can create unanimity,” Champagne said in French, adding that the polls prove “the extent to which people appreciate the work of Mr. Carney.”

Government House leader Steven MacKinnon claimed that while Carney has “great expectations,” the Liberal caucus is united on the government’s objectives.

Despite complaints from anonymous sources, Casey said the mood in caucus has improved since Trudeau’s tenure.

“Everybody loves a winner.”

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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A new elementary school set to open in August will be named after former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) announced on Friday.

Education Minister Paul Calandra said the board’s newest elementary school will be named Brian Mulroney Elementary School, in honour of Canada’s 18th prime minister and his lasting contributions to Canada and the world.

The school will welcome close to 700 students when it opens and will be the first public school in Canada named after Brian Mulroney.

“Brian Mulroney was one of the most consequential leaders in modern Canadian history,” said Calandra. “He strengthened Canada’s economy, championed the French language and francophone communities, led on the environment as the greenest prime minister in Canadian history, and earned international respect for his leadership on human rights and the fight against apartheid.

“It is fitting that a new generation of students will learn in a school that bears his name, and I hope they will be inspired by his commitment to public service and nation-building.”

Mulroney’s daughter, Caroline Mulroney, who has just stepped down as Ontario’s Treasury Board president and MPP for Ontario’s York-Simcoe riding, said her family is “deeply honoured” by the naming of the school.

“We are grateful that future generations of students will carry this legacy as they learn and grow within its walls,” she said in a social media post.

My family and I are deeply honoured that a new school in Orléans will open this fall bearing my father’s name.

With strong English and French programming, it reflects his lifelong belief that bilingualism strengthens Canada and helps bring communities together.

He dedicated his… https://t.co/HhE2EpS0rI

— Caroline Mulroney (@C_Mulroney) June 5, 2026

The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney served as prime minister from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993, and passed away on February 29, 2024.

Caroline Mulroney said in a letter to constituents that her father’s death two years ago, as well as her four grown children leaving home, were major factors in her decision to leave Ontario’s legislature.

She said in the letter: “Two years ago, I lost my father. Last year, my husband Andrew and I became empty nesters. These are the kinds of moments that clarify what matters. Together, they have led me to the conclusion that now is the right time to step back from elected life and begin a new chapter, one I am genuinely excited about.”

I was honoured to make my final announcement as York—Simcoe’s MPP in Bradford, where I shared progress on bringing care closer to home in the community.

Thank you, York—Simcoe, for eight incredible years! 💙 pic.twitter.com/5eg8h5idNp

— Caroline Mulroney (@C_Mulroney) June 4, 2026

The OCDSB has previously named seven schools after Canadian prime ministers and governors general, as well as after Sir Winston Churchill, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth II.

The school is located in Ottawa’s east urban community near Mer Bleue and serves a growing area with a strong francophone presence.

In a news release, the OCDSB said the naming of the school recognizes Mulroney’s contributions to Canada, including his support for the French language and francophone communities, his role in advancing free trade and economic growth, his environmental leadership, and his advocacy for human rights on the international stage.

“Teaching Canadian history is an important element of our curriculum. I hope the students of Brian Mulroney Elementary School and students across the OCDSB district will be inspired to learn more about Canada and the importance of public service,” said OCDSB Supervisor Robert Plamondon.

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Millions of Canadians will receive a top-up payment of as much as $717 from the federal government directly into their bank accounts this week.

The top-up is part of the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, formerly known as the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) credit, and is equal to 50 per cent of the annual value of the GST/HST credit from July 2025 to June 2026.

The federal government said the new benefit will provide relief to more than 12 million low- and modest-income Canadians by helping them afford day-to-day essentials. Eligible individuals will receive the payment on Friday, June 5.

According to the Department of Finance, Bill C-19, the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit Act, will deliver $3.1 billion in immediate assistance through the top-up.

Anyone who received the January 2026 GST/HST credit — or was eligible for it — will automatically receive the one-time payment into their bank account, as long as they have a direct deposit set up with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). If not, they will receive a cheque in the mail.

The Department of Finance also outlined how much eligible Canadians can expect to receive.

A single individual with no children will receive a one-time top-up of up to $267, while those who are married or have a common-law partner could get a maximum payment of up to $349.

Those eligible with children will receive up to $441 if they have one child, $533 with two children, $625 with three children, or up to $717 with four children.

Those who have shared custody of a child will get half of the amount they would have received if they had full custody of the child.

Meanwhile, Bill C-19 also increases the value of the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit by 25 per cent for five years, starting in July 2026 — a change the government says will deliver $8.6 billion in additional support over the 2026-27 to 2030-31 period, including to 500,000 additional individuals and families.

However, while eligibility for this week’s top-up is determined by 2024 tax returns, the increased quarterly payments are based on 2025 returns.

This year’s upcoming quarterly payment dates are July 3 and October 5.

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A trans prisoner was convicted of assaulting a 12-year-old girl and two women in 1998. Amanda Joy Cooper was living as a biological male at the time of the crimes.

Cooper grabbed the girl while she was rollerskating in a parking lot, and told her, “I’ll rape you,” according to Quebec court documents. Days later, Cooper attacked a young woman at the same location. Two days after that, Cooper assaulted a 19-year-old woman at a bus shelter.

Prior to those incidents, Cooper had been convicted of sexual assault multiple times. While in federal custody for the first time in 1986, Cooper sexually touched female prison staff and sexually assaulted a female parole officer. Cooper was designated a dangerous offender in 2001.

Cooper now identifies as a woman and, while in prison, had gender-affirming surgery, described by the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons as surgery to help a person “physically actualize their internal sense of self.”

Cooper wants to be transferred from Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison for men west of Kingston, Ont., to the Fraser Valley Institution for Women in British Columbia.

Cooper’s case, which will be reviewed by a federal court judge on June 15, is part of a growing debate over how to handle inmates who request prison placement based on gender identity, rather than anatomy.

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The debate pits the wishes of transgender women to be in an institution that matches their gender identity with the concerns of other women in those institutions over their own safety and privacy.

The issue stems from a policy change by Correctional Services Canada (CSC) in 2017 to align with federal legislation prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity. Nearly a decade later, transfer requests made by transgender women are being increasingly rejected, an Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) investigation has found.

While the rate of transfer approvals reached 80 per cent in the first few years following the 2017 policy, it has since fallen to 23 per cent, according to data obtained by the IJB. In 2018-19, for instance, 10 individuals applied; eight requests were approved. In 2024-25, 13 people applied; three requests were approved (the rest were either rejected or withdrawn). The number of individuals making requests has numbered between eight and 15 annually, according to a breakdown from CSC.

“I think this speaks to the question of the policy on paper versus the policy in reality,” said Nicole Kief, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services, based in British Columbia.

“Women who are trans or Two Spirit or gender non-conforming in another way, who feel that an institution for women best aligns with their gender, are being prevented from having that placement.”

Heather Mason, a non-trans woman, was in and out of prison for drug-related offences between 2014 and 2018. The former inmate told the IJB that while she was incarcerated, a sex offender — a trans woman — saw her naked while she was being strip searched. Mason screamed and grabbed her shirt, trying to cover her body. She said the offender was pulled away by a guard.

“I felt very violated, and I also felt that it’s the duty of the correctional system to provide safety for us, because we are locked in an institution where we cannot leave and we have no recourse to protect ourselves.”

She said that incident occurred in March 2015 at South West Detention Centre, a provincial facility in Windsor, Ont., not under CSC’s jurisdiction. Only months earlier, the province said prison placement would be based on “self-identified gender or housing preference.”

Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General did not respond to a request for comment.

In an unattributed statement, CSC said it recognizes that the placement of gender-diverse offenders in its institutions “is a complex and evolving area of operations” and it “continues to adapt its practices and respond to emerging issues.” CSC falls under the ambit of the federal minister of Public Safety (currently Gary Anandasangaree).

Each transfer request is “assessed on a case-by-case basis,” says the statement. The agency added that it considers risks to other offenders and staff “particularly in relation to a history of gender-based violence or sexual violence,” and “risks to the offender’s personal safety.”

Transfer requests and denials

From 2017 to 2025, 57 trans women made 129 requests to transfer to a women’s prison and 35 requests were approved. More than 70 requests were denied by CSC in that period. (An offender can make more than one request, resulting in several decisions over the course of their incarceration, CSC said. If the application is denied, another can be submitted within six months, or sooner depending on the circumstances.)

There were 90 transgender women in federal prison as of October 2025, according to CSC data, 73 of them housed in men’s prisons and 17 in women’s prisons. Of the 17, eight have had gender-affirming surgery.

The list of offences committed by those 17 transgender women include murder in the first and second degree, assault with a weapon, manslaughter, arson, forcible confinement, sexual interference of minors and printing or publishing child pornography, CSC said. Two of the 17 trans women are dangerous offenders, which means they were convicted of a serious violent or sexual crime and may pose a threat to others.

A 2022 study by CSC found trans women made up 80 per cent of gender-diverse offenders with sexual offence histories. The majority of offences happened while the offenders were “living as their biological sex” and most victims were women and children.

Most female offenders are accused of nonviolent crimes, with property crimes making up the largest proportion, followed by drug offences, according to a 2019 Statistics Canada report.

CSC said it has not seen “an increased risk level to offenders” when a gender-diverse person is placed in an institution that better aligns with their identity.

Stacey Love-Jolicoeur, a trans woman and advocate, has visited 35 Canadian prisons to meet with incarcerated trans people since 2012.

“They’re still human beings, that’s the bottom line,” said Love-Jolicoeur, who is familiar with Cooper’s case. The reason Cooper should be in a women’s prison is “pretty simple,” she says. “Amanda is a post-op trans woman with no male anatomy.”

According to court documents, Cooper said she “has been harassed, bullied, threatened, and assaulted by other inmates because of her gender identity” while in the men’s prison.

A previous transfer request was denied by CSC due to “overriding safety concerns” including concerns that Cooper’s transfer would “jeopardize the health and safety of the inmate population and staff,” court documents show.

A lawyer for Cooper declined comment. CSC would not comment on Cooper’s case, saying it is before the courts.

Transferred back

At least one trans woman has been removed from a federal women’s prison after being transferred, the IJB found.

Michelle Autumn, a trans woman, started a life sentence in 2007 for first-degree murder. The offence involved luring a 13-year-old Edmonton girl to a golf course, where she was sexually assaulted and killed by a group that included Autumn, court documents show. The crime was committed when Autumn was 17 and living as a man.

Autumn was transferred to Grand Valley Institution for Women on March 6, 2025, according to court documents. During a strip search, Autumn exhibited “highly inappropriate behaviour,” including playing with her genitalia “in a sexually suggestive manner.”

When staff decided to move Autumn to a single occupancy cell, she barricaded herself in a common room and tried to use a broken television remote as a weapon, court documents say. The incident ended when a chemical irritant grenade was deployed.

Autumn was transferred back to a men’s prison on March 10, 2025, and did not respond to a request for comment.

“CSC has the authority to transfer an offender to a more suitable institution at any point, if deemed necessary,” the agency said in its statement. CSC said involuntary transfer decisions “are not automatic and are not based on gender identity.”

Mason, the former prisoner, insists women are being silenced about their experiences in prison.

“It’s not transphobic to speak about reality, and women deserve to be protected. And it’s also not transphobic to say, ‘Hey, this isn’t working.’ You have two groups of people who have competing rights here, and it’s women that are being harmed.”

Canada’s first trans woman transfer

Fallon Aubee was Canada’s first trans woman to be transferred to a federal women’s prison after spending more than 15 years at various men’s facilities. In 2017, she was moved to B.C.’s Fraser Valley Institution, where she completed her first-degree murder sentence. She was released on day parole in 2023 after serving 22 years.

Before her conviction, Aubee was privately exploring her feminine side while publicly presenting as male, she said. Being in prison forced her to reflect on how she wanted to live her life.

After she told prison officials at Saskatchewan Penitentiary that she was transgender, she was held in segregation for six months. She was told it was due to her maximum-security rating but she believes it was because of her gender identity.

She said she was harassed and her food was contaminated after she disclosed she was transgender.

“I was threatened (by inmates) with being set on fire, stabbed, (having) my cell burned out, thrown over a balcony, (having my) head caved in with a weight bar.”

CSC said it was not aware of these allegations.

Aubee said she spoke to the prison doctor, a psychologist and her case manager about identifying as a woman. “I just kept telling myself I’m not going to live 25 years (in prison) and not be able to just be who I am,” she said. It took more than a decade of fighting, but she made it to Fraser Valley, where she said she was “treated exceptionally well.”

Coming out as trans is “one of the most difficult things, the most emotionally stressful, painful things you’re ever going to go through,” she said.

The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters.

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University of Toronto law professor Peter Biro has resigned his fellowship from Massey College after he says the institution wanted an “advisory committee” to vet an antisemitism conference he was organizing.

“A good portion of Canadian society is utterly oblivious to the fact that our current age represents the next great transmutation of jew-hatred in human history,” Biro wrote in his resignation letter dated May 31. “That only underscores the critical importance of this conference.”

The one-day conference titled Antisemitism in Our ‘Free and Democratic Society’: A Canary’s Song was scheduled for Sept. 15 at Massey, a college affiliated with — but independent of — the University of Toronto. The event, according to Biro’s resignation letter, was set to feature Canada’s former special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism Deborah Lyons, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights founder Irwin Cotler, as well as American Holocaust historian and diplomat Deborah Lipstadt.

This is far longer than my typical post, but it tells an important story of what appears to be an attempt by leadership at Massey College to censor a major conference on antisemitism, leading to the resignation of one of its senior fellows.

The disappointment that greeted Mark… pic.twitter.com/31D7bWPUUO

— Michael Geist (@mgeist) June 3, 2026

“Massey College accepts with regret the resignation of Mr. Biro. Massey College condemns antisemitism in any form and is committed to playing its role in addressing it,” Massey College Principal James Orbinski said in a written statement.

Biro wrote that Massey’s concerns stemmed from a lack of coordination with the college and questions surrounding the appropriateness of “partner organizations.” The conference was due to be co-hosted with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

Biro dismissed the Massey College president’s concerns as “absolutely false,” writing that everything was developed with “full cooperation with and the full contemporaneous knowledge of the Principal, beginning in mid-January and continuing through to May 27.”

He wrote that he had previously chaired and participated in other conferences at Massey without any issue.

Orbinski said that he “cannot comment on prior processes” given that he only became principal of Massey College in 2025 .

“When Massey was first approached by Mr. Biro with his written draft conference proposal on antisemitism, after some conversation, I agreed to hold a programmed conference on antisemitism. I welcomed the initiative and told Mr. Biro that Massey would engage in a process of consultation about the proposed conference,” Orbinski said.

Orbinski told National Post that he and Biro had “two meetings on the proposed conference,” during which he “particularly emphasized the centrality of consultation and collaboration in defining the agenda and speakers, and my responsibility as Principal to seek appropriate advice, and that I would do this.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Biro did not check back on the process of consultation,” he wrote. “I had begun that process of consultation with colleagues, when I was informed by email that all Mr. Biro’s proposed speakers had been invited, that the Prime Minister of Canada had been invited, and that a partnership with another organization had been established. Much of the necessary collaborative process was ignored. In a subsequent phone call with Mr. Biro, he informed me that the agenda was fixed, that he was moving the conference to another venue, and that he was resigning from the College.”

Biro called Massey’s concern “one of substance rather than one of process” from “undisclosed senior members of the College about whether the subject of antisemitism is being curated in an appropriate fashion, (and) about whether the salient issues are being framed in a politically and socially appropriate way.”

Orbinski said “no substantive concerns were identified” so far, given the “process of consultation was in process.”

News of Biro’s resignation, and the uncertainty it cast over the future of the conference, provoked strong reactions from other professors. Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor, called the incident “an important story of what appears to be an attempt by leadership at Massey College to censor a major conference on antisemitism.”

“Massey College, much like Mark Carney, had a chance to lead, but both failed to meet the moment,” Geist wrote in an X post on Wednesday, referring to the prime minister’s recent visit to a Toronto synagogue to address antisemitism in Canada earlier this week. “The stain on Massey College will not come off as easily.”

University of Toronto chemistry professor Dvira Segal commented on Geist’s post, saying, “Our academic institutions and government are willing to address antisemitism only insofar as the discussion sanitizes the connection between Judaism and the land of Israel.”

“That clearly is the oversight they wanted, that the conference not touch the historical, cultural, and religious connections of Jews to the land of Israel, nor the extent to which the denial and politicized erasure of those ties has become a modern form of antisemitism,” Segal wrote.

Biro said that life on campus at the University of Toronto, where he is an adjunct professor, has materially changed in recent years, particularly after the Hamas atrocities of October 7.

“There’s been a radical change in the atmosphere and in the civic culture of campus,” he told the Post on Thursday. “But it’s a microcosm of what’s occurring in the broader society, accentuated significantly on campuses across the country. And U of T is no exception.”

Biro said the changing spirit of academic life has been driven by higher education shifting “from being a research institution, particularly in the social sciences, to being a driver of social justice agendas.”

“Activism has supplanted truth-seeking as the dominant spirit and driving force of much of the work, both on the research side, (and) even on the teaching side,” he said. “Israel vilification has become the currency, cornerstone and language of much of what transpires in the social sciences.”

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

Just six weeks after airlines operating in Europe seemed to be facing disruptive fuel supply shortages, Air Canada and Lufthansa are saying it’s safe for customers to book their summer holiday trips.

In April, a wave of concern swept the travel industry after Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, made pronouncements that there was “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left due to Iran’s blockade preventing oil tankers from getting through the Strait of Hormuz to the rest of the world, as the Iran-U.S. war raged on.

However, in an email to Air Canada customers shared with National Post on Thursday, the airline assured prospective flyers that it is completely safe to book.

“You may have seen recent headlines about the global fuel supply and its impact on travel to Europe and wondered what it means for your personal travel,” reads the email provided to the Post by Air Canada’s manager of communications, Peter Fitzpatrick.

“Please be assured that we are fully expecting to operate our current summer schedule. While global fuel markets remain dynamic, Air Canada has a diversified and sophisticated fuel supply in place. There is no fuel shortage affecting our operations, including across Europe, and we do not anticipate any significant impact through the summer.”

Air Canada continues in the email to point out that it has a sizable roster of destinations across Europe and therefore customers can “feel … confident” when they book their travel.

“There is no fuel shortage affecting our operations,” says #AirCanada. https://t.co/inItQJb4v0 pic.twitter.com/qyQNZpGMHP

— PAXnews (@PAX_news) June 2, 2026

Contrary to Europe, Canada has its own sources of jet fuel, as previously reported by National Post. The fuel concern became an issue in April for international operators flying back from Europe. One aviation expert cited a fuel shortage in northern Italy.

Shortly after, Air Canada announced the cancellation of flights from Montreal and Toronto to New York’s JFK airport. And several other international carriers, such as Air France-KLM, Air India, Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, United Airlines and Vietnam Airlines also announced cancellations.

But Lufthansa has changed its tune. The airline’s chief commercial officer, Dieter Vranckx, said in a recent interview shared on the airline’s website that “there are no signs from our suppliers that fuel supply will be at risk this summer.”

Echoing Air Canada’s position, he said, Lufthansa’s summer flight operations are not expected to be disrupted by fuel supply concerns . That includes its flights across six European hubs: Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Brussels and Rome.

Less than a quarter of jet fuel shipments destined for Europe need to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, Vranckx said. And to compensate for any shortfall, he noted that “imports are now increasingly reaching us from other continents — for example, from North America and Africa. In addition, European refineries have ramped up their jet fuel production to maximum capacity.”

When asked whether it’s safe to book a holiday, he responded: “Absolutely — fuel supply is stable so summer’s good to go.”

It should be noted, however, that supply and the cost of fuel are separate issues. In mid-April, Air Canada announced fuel-price-based cuts to domestic, U.S. and international destinations. That included the cuts to JFK, as well as cuts to routes out of Montreal to Algiers and Mexico.

“Jet fuel prices have doubled since the start of the Iran conflict, affecting some lower profitability routes and flights which now are no longer economically feasible,” Air Canada said in an April 18 statement. “Schedule adjustments including some frequency reductions are being made in response.”

Jet fuel prices have since been volatile, but they have recently fallen, as per the latest weekly data from the International Air Transport Association.

However, that may not translate into a reduction in ticket prices. As National Post has reported, many airline executives have indicated that current high prices may become the new normal, even if fuel costs ease.

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

Smack in the middle of the Alberta prairie, a couple of hours away from Edmonton, and even Red Deer, sits one of most crucial points in Canada’s oil infrastructure.

Despite being a key hub for Alberta oil heading south to the U.S. and elsewhere in Canada, Hardisty has faced many of the challenges small towns across Canada face.

Financial Post feature writer Joe O’Connor joins the show to discuss the history of Hardisty, why it plays such a major role in the oil industry, and how the community is rallying to attract newcomers.

Background reading:Welcome to the most important oil town in Canada — population 623

Subscribe to 10/3 on your favourite podcast app

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A man convicted in the brutal killing of his three children has been granted conditional discharge by the British Columbia Review Board.

In 2010, Allan Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for the first-degree murders of his three children: Cordon, aged five, Max, eight and Kaitlynne, 10, at their Merritt, B.C., home in 2008.

He appeared before the board for his annual hearing on Monday to request the 12-month conditional discharge.

The B.C. Review Board decision , which took effect on June 2, says Schoenborn is to attend a psychiatric clinic for treatment, live in a supervised place, and stay at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., if ordered to do so by the board.

He must also report any intimate relationships, be on good behaviour, and not possess or use any weapons or drugs.

Former B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad said the Review Board’s decision was “wrong” in a social media post on Thursday.

“This man needs to be locked away,” he wrote. “He should not be getting any kind of discharge, conditional or otherwise. After what he did, the public has every right to expect that he remains under the strictest supervision for the rest of his life.”

Today’s decision by the BC Review Board to grant Allan Schoenborn a conditional discharge is wrong.

This is the man who stabbed and smothered his three young children, Kaitlynne, Max, and Cordon, to death in their home in Merritt back in 2008. He killed his own kids.

I’m sorry,… pic.twitter.com/5Eem2Rg9LQ

— John Rustad (@JohnRustad4BC) June 4, 2026

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West also addressed the decision on social media , saying that he is “outraged” by the decision.

“I am outraged by the B.C. Review Board’s slippery slope normalization of someone who killed their children.”

“A conditional discharge is not a minor administrative step. It is part of a process that moves him closer to greater freedom.”

Dave Teixeira, a spokesperson for the victims’ family, said in a video shared to X on Thursday: “In my opinion, (Schoenborn) is more evil than he is ill. He’s interested in getting out, he’s not interested in getting better.”

He added that he’s concerned that the conditional discharge is a “waiting room for the absolute discharge,” saying: “It’s very rare that people on a conditional discharge do not advance forward.”

“Should he ever get an absolute discharge, I promise you we will be hearing about him on the news after he’s created more tragedy,” he said.

Brief history and update on the 3x child killer Allan Schoenborn and the BC Review granting the killer a conditional discharge even though he is still considered to be a threat to public safety. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/3dcsgfBKBm

— Dave Teixeira 🎧 (@davedotca) June 4, 2026

In May 2021, Schoenborn legally changed his name to Ken John Johnson, a move that led the B.C. government to pass legislation preventing those convicted of serious crimes from changing their names.

The Name Amendment Act (No. 2) came into effect in September 2024, and requires all applicants for a legal change of name in British Columbia aged 12 years and older to have a criminal record check.

The legislation intends to prevent convicted criminals from evading accountability and the consequences of their actions by changing their name.

The disposition, written by B.C. Reviewboard Chairperson Geneviève Boudreau, will be reviewable in one year’s time.

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The Toronto Transit Commission is facing criticism from the Jewish community over its new staff jerseys dedicated to the FIFA World Cup.

Photos show an upside down red triangle emblazoned on the jerseys’ shoulders. In the abstract, a triangle is just a geometric shape, a common design element in sports branding. In the current climate, however, that specific motif is politically loaded, say Jewish leaders.

Since late 2023, an inverted red triangle has been widely used in Hamas propaganda videos to mark individuals and targets for attack, and has migrated into Western protests and even antisemitic vandalism of Jewish homes and institutions.

“Everybody has Google, Grok, Gemini, and can check in 10 seconds if there are any cultural or political references,” Talia Klein Leighton, president of Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, told the Post.

“Like at best, it’s an oversight. At worst, somebody is targeting the Jews with their shirt design. Well, I tend to be a little more cynical, because I’ve just seen so much in the last two and a half years.”

She added: “If I was the TTC, I would be taking it very seriously, because it’s their employees walking around with the political symbol.”

Toronto Councillor James Pasternak, whose York Centre district has one of Canada’s largest Jewish populations, told the Post that he “wondered how it (the red triangle) contributed to the jersey design, and whether a member of the anti-Israel mob inside the TTC or one of its suppliers played a sick trick. I’m going to look into it.”

The Post first learned of the story from a photo via the X feed of Caryma Sa’ad, a Toronto lawyer and video archivist, who captured the new jersey on June 3.

Not only is that an incredibly poor use of money for an organization perpetually crying for cash, but the upside down triangle looks like the Hamas symbol used to target people for death. https://t.co/mQ7vEWC1km

— Jon Fraser (@JonFraserTF) June 4, 2026

“(It’s) more than just tone‑deaf,” said Matthew Taub, director of advocacy group Unapologetically Jewish. “Toronto is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, already on edge from a sharp rise in harassment and intimidation.”

“It suggests that no one in the decision‑making chain paused to ask what it might resemble,” said Taub. “Even my own (group’s) logos and apparel, five pairs of eyes see it, several times over, before we all sign off on it. I don’t think this was missed. I think it was intentional.”

He added: “The question is why, in 2026, an organization so steeped in equity jargon appears oblivious to one of the most discussed hate symbols of the last two years.”

Jon Fraser, a technology executive, chimed in on X, saying “not only is that an incredibly poor use of money for an organization perpetually crying for cash, but the upside triangle looks like the Hamas symbol used to target people for death.”

The image of a cash‑strapped transit system rolling out bespoke shirts is itself a jarring sight, given the TTC’s perpetual warnings about budget shortfalls and service constraints, Taub added.

Facing a $232 million budget hole this year from decreased ridership and fare evasion, “now’s not the time to spend money on fancy shirts,” he said.

Taub said riders who endure delays, overcrowding and safety concerns are entitled to ask how many bus repairs or platform staff hours “this marketing gimmick could have funded instead.”

The Post asked TTC media relations about the cost to design the shirts, the time involved, the cost of the current inventory, and how they respond to the apparent similarity between symbols.

They replied via email: “The TTC Ambassador shirt design features a modern, stylized maple leaf, a traditional and iconic Canadian symbol, blended with distinct TTC station tiles and names, tied together with the same TTC red that is seen on our vehicles.”

Isha Chaudhuri, spokesperson for the Brad Bradford mayoral campaign, told that Post that “If these new uniforms actually helped move traffic and transit more efficiently, that’d be a conversation. But they don’t,” she said.

“So, we see a system that is chronically saying they don’t have enough money, spending on something that will literally do nothing to help them achieve their mandate. Which is to move people safely and efficiently. We believe the TTC should focus more of its time, energy and resources on fixing transit and serving riders. Torontonians work hard for their money, and they expect taxpayer dollars to be spent wisely.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said his trip to D.C. on Tuesday “has not been without some turbulence,” but that he remains optimistic that a trade deal with the Americans will be reached.

This week, Canada signalled that it wants to see the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) renewed for 16 years to preserve trade growth on the continent even as U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his calls to make Canada the “51st state” in a post shared to Truth Social.

LeBlanc and Canada’s chief trade negotiator Janice Charette arrived in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, a day after LeBlanc’s office sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and his Mexican counterpart, Marcelo Ebrard, with Canada’s recommendations for CUSMA.

The letter said Canada would like to see the agreement renewed to sustain North American economic growth while pointing to the huge level of trilateral trade, which is reaching $1.9 trillion in 2026, a 32 per cent jump since CUSMA was created.

LeBlanc and Charette met with Greer, whose team held negotiations with the Mexican trade team last week and demanded a change to CUSMA’s rules of origin requirements. LeBlanc said the meeting with Greer was positive, although he refused several times to get into details when prompted by reporters.

“Sitting with Ambassador Greer at his office, we took the time to talk about specific issues on which Canada can propose, we think, measures that should give the Americans a lot of comfort,” said LeBlanc.

Just hours before the Canadian duo’s arrival in the U.S. capital, however, Trump posted his fiery reminder of his intentions on Truth Social : “51st State!” his post read, linking to a Bloomberg report about Canada’s technical recession. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra then shared the post on his X account this morning , hours before the LeBlanc-Charette-Greer meeting.

In response to a reporter’s question about expelling the U.S. ambassador, Prime Minister Mark Carney said that wasn’t on the table.

“It’s an administration that we have to work with. It’s our biggest trading relationship. It’s our biggest security relationship,” said Carney, at a news conference in Montreal. “We take the administration as it is.”

Carney also defended his record on economic matters, saying his government was “laying the foundations” for a stronger Canadian economy.

“We see some weakness in part because of clear decisions by the government,” he told reporters in Ottawa, avoiding the term “recession”.

He pointed to the federal government’s rollback of immigration, which has impacted the country’s population growth, as well as the tightening of government spending.

“There’s some other choppiness in terms of how investment is happening, but we’re also seeing at the same time the foundations coming into place, settling in for that stronger, more resilient economy.”

When it comes to the pace of trade talks with the U.S. and the fact Mexico appears further along than Canada, Carney pointed to how the list of technical issues the Trump administration has with its southern neighbour is longer than its one with Canada.

He says Canada was focused on what Carney called “more fundamental structural issues” like the Section 232 tariffs Trump applied to steel and aluminum, as well as other levies charged on autos and forest products.

“We’re looking to determine whether there’s a possibility of a new partnership there.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also took the opportunity to renew his war of words with the U.S. administration about Trump’s rhetoric.

“I can’t believe I have to say this again, but Canada will never be the 51st state. Canada is not for sale,” said Ford, on social media .

In D.C., the Canadian negotiators walked into a tense situation after the U.S. talks with Mexico.

The Mexican team was told on Friday that Trump wants them to agree to a deal where CUSMA-qualifying autos would see 82 per cent of the vehicle parts content made in North America, with 50 per cent of that value produced solely in the United States. There was no mention of Canadian content.

“The United States concluded discussions with the goals of reducing the trade deficit with Mexico and strengthening American supply chains,” USTR said via a statement after the meeting, noting that the White House “continues to emphasize the importance of ensuring the Agreement benefits U.S. manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, workers, service suppliers, and businesses of all sizes, and of addressing free-riding from third countries.”

Mexico has not said whether it will agree to the change — talks between the two sides continue in Washington in mid-June. But if President Claudia Sheinbaum’s team bows to this stipulation, trade watchers fear the White House could simply present Ottawa with a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

While news of LeBlanc and Charette’s trip dropped last week — before the 82 per cent demand — the U.S.-Mexico talks have added a new sense of urgency for Ottawa to get the U.S. and Canadian trade teams talking again. The last time LeBlanc and Charette met with Greer was in early March.

After his meeting with Greer on Tuesday, however, LeBlanc was keen to push back on the narrative that Canada was behind Mexico or that talks between the U.S. and Canadan trade negotiators have not taken place.

Talks have “been unfrozen for a number of months,” LeBlanc said, noting that he met with Greer by video meeting on Memorial Day and that Charette has been holding multiple discussions with Ambassador Jeffrey Goettman.

As for formal or technical trade talks, LeBlanc simply said, “we’re doing a lot of that work now.”

“The Americans have decided to publicly say that they’re doing that work with the Mexicans. That doesn’t surprise us in the sense that we always knew there would be these bilateral conversations.”

LeBlanc also made it clear that the July 1 CUSMA review date should not be seen as a real pressure point.

“All three countries could agree also, on a different scenario and a renewal after July 1. So I think we’ve gotta be careful not to set up a cliff that doesn’t exist,” he said.

LeBlanc reiterated that his team has put “specific proposals” to the U.S. side in a bid to address the longstanding trade concerns, but he declined to share details.

Tariffs, however, remain the biggest friction between the two sides, and Canada has repeatedly sought relief on the Section 232 sectoral tariffs against autos, steel, aluminum, and softwood lumber.

There has been no real breakthrough on that, and the U.S. Section 301 investigation on forced labour could soon result in additional tariffs against Canadian products.

But LeBlanc refused to discuss hypotheticals or any possible retaliatory measures Ottawa might take in response to American tariffs.

Instead, he and Charette prioritized stability and the need for continued negotiation.

When asked whether Canadian industry was prepared for the bumpy road ahead, for example, Charette said their work is all about getting the best deal and best market access for Canada’s goods.

“We’re fighting very hard in their interests, and their interests are in us getting to an outcome where we have the lowest possible tariffs on the narrowest basket of goods with the most market access for Canadian products.”

With files from Stephanie Taylor

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An accused sleeper agent for al-Qaida’s terror network who Canada has been trying to deport for 24 years won another reprieve when a Federal Court judge granted him a new review instead of deportation.

Mohamed Harkat, an Algerian citizen, came to Canada in 1995 claiming refugee protection, but in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States the former pizza delivery driver and gas station attendant was accused of being a sleeper agent in Osama bin Laden’s global network.

His arrest in 2002 sparked an enormous legal fight that has been running up and down in Canada’s highest courts ever since.

On Thursday, Federal Court Justice John Norris said that Ottawa’s latest effort to remove him was unreasonable. He sent the decision to be reassessed and redetermined by a different decision maker.

Harkat was formally granted refugee protection in 1997. Five years later, Canada issued a security certificate against him under new laws enacted amid heightened attention and concern of Islamic terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Harkat, now 57, has denied the allegations.

Ottawa used a security certificate to declare him inadmissible to Canada as a security threat, which was supposed to speed his removal from the country. It didn’t. The certificate was argued in court and upheld in 2005, but the security certificate system had to be reworked after a constitutional challenge.

In 2008, after amendments to the law, a second security certificate was issued against him. This one declared him inadmissible to Canada on security grounds for engaging in terrorism, being a danger to the security of Canada, and being a member of the Bin Laden network, an organization engaged in acts of terrorism.

This second certificate also had to be assessed by the Federal Court, which Justice Simon Noël did in 2010, ruling it was reasonable.

Noël found in his 2010 decision that while Harkat had been involved in the Islamist extremist movement before and after coming to Canada, there was no evidence he personally engaged in violent acts in Canada or elsewhere.

Harkat’s role, Noël said, “would have been largely one of logistics and facilitation.” Before Harkat came to Canada he ran a guest house in Peshawar, Pakistan, for a known extremist, where he helped move mujahideen to and from training camps and ran errands, court heard. The groups involved, Noël found, had material and ideological links to bin Laden, meaning they were part of the Bin Laden Network — making Harkat part of it as well.

Noël also found that while Harkat’s activities constituted a danger to the security of Canada, that danger has lessened by the passage of time, his public exposure as a target of a security investigation, by his previous detention, by his current release on stringent conditions, and by severing his past ties.

Noël’s decision was appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the decision in 2014. That was supposed to be “conclusive proof that the person named in it is inadmissible,” meaning that a deportation (or technically a “removal order”) can move forward without a further admissibility hearing.

However, immigration law generally prevents deporting someone to somewhere they are likely to face persecution or a risk of torture or cruel and unusual treatment. It’s called “non-refoulement.” There are a few exceptions — one is if the government believes it is justified on security grounds because of the severity of the person’s acts or their danger to Canada. Ottawa next leaned on that to try to trigger Harkat’s removal.

That process takes time, too. Canada Border Services Agency officials and Harkat’s lawyers went back forth with arguments and submissions for years.

It wasn’t until 2018 that Ottawa determined that Harkat should not be allowed to remain in Canada even under non-refoulement risk, “based on the nature and severity of acts committed.”

Harkat applied for a judicial review of that decision by the Federal Court, as well. Harkat argued the decision was unreasonable and the process leading to it was unfair.

A decision on that application was released late Thursday and Norris, the judge, granted Harkat’s request for a judicial review.

“I am not persuaded that the process followed by the decision maker breached the requirements of procedural fairness,” Norris wrote in his decision.

“On the other hand, I have concluded that the delegate’s determination that the applicant should not be allowed to remain in Canada on the basis of the nature and severity of acts committed is unreasonable because a key finding by the delegate — that the applicant was complicit in acts of terrorism committed by Chechen extremists — is not reasonably supported by the delegate’s analysis of the record, including Justice Noël’s findings supporting the reasonableness of the security certificate.”

Norris said that Ottawa’s focus on facts deviating from the record when ordering his removal was a “fundamental flaw.” Norris rejected requests by Harkat’s lawyers that the court order special conditions that Ottawa needed to follow when making the new determination.

The hearing raised constitutional issues but did not formally elicit a notice of a constitutional question.

Under immigration law, an appeal of this decision to the Federal Court of Appeal can only be made if Norris certifies that a serious question of general importance is involved. Norris left a decision on that issue open for later.

Harkat’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment prior to deadline.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Mexican leaders are weighing a U.S. proposal to revise the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement’s (CUSMA) auto rules of origin — changes that could force a major restructuring of North America’s tightly integrated auto supply chains.

Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s team told their Mexican counterparts that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration wants to raise the overall required North American parts threshold from 75 to 82 per cent and, more controversially, require that 50 per cent of all components originate specifically in the United States.

Bilateral talks between the U.S. and Mexico have been progressing, but Canada has been sidelined from formal technical talks in recent months, despite ongoing backchannel conversations. Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc visited Washington on Tuesday to meet with his chief negotiator, Janice Charette, and Greer. He said afterward he remains hopeful for a positive outcome.

“I remain optimistic,” he told reporters at the Canadian embassy in Washington, “that there will be a conclusion by all three parties — that the economic interest of North America is served by committing to what Ambassador Greer has previously, publicly referred to as the load-bearing walls of their trade relationship with Canada and Mexico.”

He also downplayed concerns about the rules-of-origin proposal, adding that Canada is “very confident that we will have those conversations with the Americans and the Mexicans” on such important changes to the trilateral agreement.

Still, some trade watchers fear that if the American and Mexican trade teams reach a bilateral agreement, Canada may be pressured to accept that framework or risk exclusion — a similar approach was used the first time in 2018.

“It is clear the Trump administration is trying to drive a wedge between Canada and Mexico,” said Andrew Hale, fellow at Advancing American Freedom in Washington. “The countries should be negotiating trilaterally given that this is a trilateral free trade agreement.”

Carlo Dade, director of international policy at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, agreed but said the outcome is up to Canada.

“The Americans have forced their hand to make that choice. So the way this will logically read is that the Americans concluded negotiations with the easier of the two partners, and it’s now turning to the third partner to sign on,” he said.

“That’s what the Americans tried to do (in 2018),” he said, referring to the original CUSMA negotiations, “and last time Mexico was able not to go for it.”

Mexico’s trade team will be in Washington for a continuation of the bilateral negotiations in mid-June.

“(The Mexican team) should reject this proposal,” said Hale. “Not only is it unfair, but it’s counterproductive to the long-term integration of the North American supply chains.”

But the Mexican side was probably not surprised, said Diego Marroquín Bitar, fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to how former USTR Robert Lighthizer originally wanted it at 85 per cent.

“It makes sense for them to go back to their original position,” Marroquín said, though that doesn’t mean Mexico will accept it.

“There’s a reason why the Mexicans and the Canadians didn’t accept the original 85 per cent request … because the auto industry couldn’t take it,” he said.

He also pointed to how the sides negotiated a gradual approach last time, giving auto companies time to adapt to comply with the agreement.

“So anything that’s negotiated from now on will definitely have to include some gradual implementation,” he added.

But Marroquín is more concerned by the proposed 50 per cent U.S. content floor.

“The 50 per cent minimum US content floor would be devastating for the auto industry. It would cause major disruption,” Marroquín said, referring to the need for flexibility to make auto production efficient.

But that may not be the case for Canada.

According to Matthew Holmes of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, most Canadian vehicles already effectively meet the 50 per cent U.S. content threshold.

“It’s not as acute an issue for us,” he said.

The real disruptor for Canada, he said, are the Section 232 tariffs on autos, steel, and aluminum, which are driving layoffs in Canada and raising U.S. car prices — all while failing to boost U.S. production as intended.

Marroquín also emphasized that layering stricter rules of origin atop the 232 tariffs would risk job losses in all three countries while reducing North America’s competitiveness against Asia and Europe.

“If you make the rules of origin more stringent and you still have tariffs on top of them, that can really destabilize the auto industry,” he said.

While the 50 per cent U.S.-specific requirement may be less vexing for Canada, Canada is more vulnerable than Mexico when it comes to boxing out China, which Washington is keen to do.

Dade urged Canada to recognize that Mexico faces a different set of strategic pressures – namely the need to retain jobs and avoid civil unrest — and has an easier path on the China question.

“This time around, China is front and center,” Dade said, referring to how it’s been a key part of the 19 trade agreements Washington has forged with other countries.

Canada exports far more to China than Mexico, he said.

“We can’t afford to do what Mexico can do.”

Negotiations over rules of origin changes are likely to continue in the weeks to come, running up to the July 1 review date. But LeBlanc has repeatedly said he is not concerned by having a resolution before then.

“We’ve got to be careful not to set up a cliff that doesn’t exist,” LeBlanc said Tuesday, noting how CUSMA remains in place for 10 more years even if there is no consensus by the three parties to extend it for 16 years.

Besides, biding their time might benefit Canadian negotiators, some trade watchers say, especially if control of Congress swings to the left in the November U.S. midterm elections.

“Wait it out,” said Hale. “A future Congress and president will likely come to their senses by then.”

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TOP STORY

Canada is only 10 months away from a March 17 deadline under which MAID could become legal for the mentally ill. This would make Canada one of only six countries on earth where otherwise healthy citizens can be euthanized by their government for conditions such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

And according to a new survey by the Angus Reid Institute, a majority of Canadians had no idea any of this was happening. Of respondents, 56 per cent were “unaware that mental illness eligibility for MAID could arrive in March 2027.”

The survey illustrates an underappreciated aspect of Canadian politics, if not democratic politics generally. As political parties jockey for favour among the electorate, they’re often up against an audience that does not follow current affairs and may even struggle to define the basic workings of their political system.

Below, a cursory summary of other instances in which Canadians were found not to have the best grasp of what’s going on.

Canadians wildly underestimate the deadliness of cancer and car crashes

Just days before Canada was swept by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ipsos published a poll asking Canadians the most likely causes of death in their country.

These types of polls are famous for highlighting public overestimates of the murder rate, and Canada was no different: Respondents said six per cent of deaths were from homicide, against the true figure of 0.2 per cent.

But it also showed that Canadians were simultaneously underestimating the deadliness of the things most likely to kill them. At the time, cancer was responsible for 29 per cent of Canadian deaths, although Canadians thought it was 17 per cent.

Cardiovascular diseases represented another 29 per cent of deaths, with Canadians instead pegging the figure at 13 per cent.

And they were most inaccurate when it came to deadly accidents. At the time, one fifth of Canadian deaths were due to car crashes, plane crashes and other “transport-related” fatalities. But poll respondents guessed it was closer to one death in every 14 (seven per cent).

In 2012, most Canadians didn’t know how the prime minister is elected

A chronic problem with Canadian politics is the mistaken belief that U.S. norms are Canadian. Even Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is on record as thinking that she has pardon powers, even though that’s a prerogative of U.S. state governors, and not Canadian premiers

In a 2012 poll, Ipsos found that a majority of respondents seemed to think that the prime minister of Canada was directly elected, similar to a U.S. president.

Of survey participants, 49 per cent got the question right, answering that elections decide the composition of Parliament, which then determines who the prime minister will be. But 51 per cent got it wrong, saying the prime minister is “directly elected” by voters.

Although, this same survey showed excellent results on Canadians’ knowledge of royal prerogative. Ninety per cent of respondents got it right that the Governor General can refuse requests by a prime minister, including a request to call a snap election.

A third of Canadians have ‘never heard’ of our deadliest terror attack

Recent years have seen a notable ramping-up of violent rhetoric and actions from Canada-based pro-Khalistani extremists. That is, Sikh nationalists seeking the secession of a chunk of Indian territory to be transformed into a Sikh ethnostate known as Khalistan.

This has included pro-Khalistani attacks on Hindu temples , and in 2023, a Brampton, Ont., parade featuring a pro-Khalistani float glorifying the 1984 murder of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.

This should be particularly relevant to Canadians, given that Khalistani extremists are responsible for Canada’s single worst act of mass murder, the 1985 Air India bombing. But as the Angus Reid Institute found in 2023 , many Canadians have never even heard about it.

In 1985, pro-Khalistani elements in B.C. placed a bomb on an Air India 747, killing 329 people, including 280 Canadians, when it exploded off the coast of Ireland.

But according to Angus Reid Institute respondents, 28 per cent had “never heard of this until now” when provided with the details of the tragedy. This included clear majorities of Canadians under 34 (53 per cent for the men, 62 per cent for women).

Nearly half of Canadians hadn’t heard about an alleged Indian assassination plot on Canadian soil

Speaking of Khalistanis, in 2023 the pro-Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot and killed in Surrey, B.C., in a targeted hit. And according to details released in a related U.S. investigation, the hit may have been ordered by an agent working for the Indian government.

If true, it would mark the first time in history that a successful, state-sponsored assassination had occurred on Canadian soil.

But as this was all playing out, a poll by Leger found that almost half of Canadians hadn’t heard of this. When asked if they knew about allegations that the “Indian government has interfered in Canada,” 47 per cent said they were “not aware.”

In 2014, Canadians guessed that unemployment was as bad as in the Great Depression

In 2014, Ipsos conducted a poll across 14 countries to gauge how much people knew about the demographics of their own country. While Canadians were pretty good at guessing their country’s life expectancy, it was a completely different story when it came to unemployment.

Respondents guessed that 22.7 per cent of the working-age population was unemployed , a rate in line with some of the worst years of the Great Depression. In reality, it was about seven per cent, roughly the same as in 2026.

IN OTHER NEWS

It’s been two weeks since a CTV report revealed a widespread criminal conspiracy that involved airport employees using unwitting Canadian air passengers as drug mules. Specifically, employees at Canadian airports were taking tags from legitimate luggage and slapping them on suitcases filled with drugs. In instances where the drug shipments are discovered by foreign customs agents, the innocent passenger with their name on the suitcase is then arrested. In committee testimony this week, here’s how Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said his office was dealing with the issue: “These are very intricate and delicate interconnected systems. We’re not going to do anything rash, but I can tell you that in federal transportation infrastructure, security is something that preoccupies me.”

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Brad Bradford is once again vying to become Toronto’s mayor, pitching himself as the planner-turned-politician who wants City Hall to tackle congestion, crime and the cost of living.

Bradford, a city councillor from the city’s east end, first sought the mayor’s chair in the June 2023 byelection triggered by John Tory’s resignation. In that race, which saw multiple candidates splitting the centre-right vote, he finished eighth, with just under 10,000 votes.

He emerged determined to try again, and early signs are good: As of mid-May polls show Mayor Olivia Chow in the lead, but Bradford in second place.

Born in Ancaster, Ont., in 1986, he was first elected city councillor for Ward 19, Beaches–East York in 2018. As chair of council’s planning and housing committee, he has championed measures to speed up approvals, promote office-to-residential conversions, expand modular housing, and make it easier and cheaper to build rental homes and multiplexes.

If elected on Oct. 26, he will be the first professional urban planner, and Toronto’s first Millennial mayor. Dave Gordon interviewed Bradford for the National Post. The interview has been edited for brevity.

What convinced you to run again?

One of the things that changed in my life was the arrival of my second daughter. I see the world and the city differently. I see it as a young father.

I see it as someone who has to have a conversation with my wife about which parks we’re taking our daughters to, because too often the parks have become a mess. I see it with the commutes — that have Toronto as the most congested city in North America.

We are paying more money in taxes. We are getting less service.

We have all of the ingredients to make this one of the best cities in the world — the best city to raise a family, to build a business and unlock our potential. But right now we’re falling down on those basic things, that really play a big role in our quality of life. I want this to be a city that we can be proud of again.

What would you change, as mayor?

Crime, congestion, cost of living.

With respect to crime, leadership and tone starts at the top. We need the rule of law to apply equally across the board.

The collective bargain that we have as Canadians and Torontonians is that there are rules on the books. The vast majority of us agree to respect them. But if you don’t, there’s going to be consequences. And those consequences must be applied equally across the board.

I will be actively engaged, and sit on the police board. The reason I mentioned that, is Mayor Chow decided to depart from the previous mayor, and not sit on the police board. Mel Lastman sat on the police board. John Tory sat on the police board. That’s where the tone and the direction is provided. For two reasons.

Safety is job No. 1 of any government. It’s the most important thing is keep all of our residents safe.

And number two, the police budget is the largest line item in the city budget. So from a fiscal discipline and financial sustainability perspective, you want to be there. Mayor Chow has abdicated that responsibility. She’s delegated it away. In my view, that’s mayoral malpractice.

Congestion, number two. The most important thing we can do is get people back on transit. Transit ridership is 20 per cent less today than it was in 2019.

It’s a staggering number. You think about any other line of business, if you had 20 per cent fewer customers than you did seven years ago, you’d be out of business. Now you ask the question: Why are people not riding transit? Because it’s not safe, and not reliable.

So I introduced a three point plan for safety and reliability on the transit system. It starts with police officers in all of our stations. There is a deterrent factor that comes with a uniformed officer.

For congestion, we’re going to invest in technology.

A Canadian-based company has the best traffic AI software in the world. They install cameras at intersections and they monitor traffic flow in real time and can make light timing signal adjustments down to the second. Intersections are responsible for 30 per cent of the delay in your driving.

On the cost, the third C; the biggest bills you get every year is your property tax. Mayor Chow has increased that 25 per cent, over this course of council.

On the housing side, we are going to reduce the cost to build housing in Toronto by expediting the timelines, cutting the taxes and the fees associated with development, which are always passed through to the end user, the renter, the first time homebuyer, the new Canadian. We tax housing more than cigarettes and alcohol. Thirty to 35 per cent of the cost of a unit of housing in Toronto is taxes, fees, and delays.

Antisemitic violence has increased year over year — how do you intend to face that?

We have become a global centre for this type of abhorrent behaviour, and it’s putting Toronto on the map, for all the wrong reasons.

That’s why I led the charge to create bubble zones, actually called safe access zones. It’s delineating a perimeter around places of worship or faith-based community centres, because we’ve seen those come under attack.

Mayor Chow fought me every step of the way. It took three different attempts to get that through council.

I was able to put together a coalition of the willing at council … and it has been helpful. Because if you are a first-year constable, trying to determine in that moment what is free speech versus hate speech, is a very difficult task. But if you have a clearly demarcated perimeter around a place of worship … you can do your protesting here, but you can’t do it there; when you cross the line, that makes it clear for everybody.

The other thing was, I led the charge for the injunction on Al-Quds Day lately. The premier followed the next day. It’s regrettable that it wasn’t done sooner. In light of the fact that we’ve had three synagogues shot at that past week, and the U.S. consulate.

This is an event that historically has been quite controversial. A lot of antisemitic messaging, genocidal messaging.

I will never stand at a podium (as Chow did) and offer a declaration of a (“Palestinian”) genocide, that I am unqualified to opine over. Because my job is in Toronto. My job is taking care of this city. She’s actually driving division and pulling the city apart.

Progress Toronto accuses you of voting to cut police funding, but then says you switched gears. Could you explain your current position?

It really was a reallocation of the money there — from the police budget, to the mobile crisis response team, which is where we have police officers, social workers and street nurses responding to particular types of calls. We didn’t have that at that time. I think it was 2020. We have that now. It’s actually very valuable.

But look, a lesson learned would be it should not have come at the expense of the police budget. We just needed to find a funding offset for it.

The answer is we needed to fund both. So that’s actually the nuance of that, that nobody ever talks about.

I was out with 51 Division a few weeks ago on an overnight, and I was with the mobile crisis response team and they provided two naloxone injections to a guy who was effectively dead on arrival and brought him back to life.

But look, this idea of flip-flopping is a bit torqued. I think reasonable people when they are presented with new and different information or anecdotal experiences are permitted to evolve their perspective on things.

What projects wasted taxpayer money recently?

There’s lots of waste and inefficiency at City Hall.

Our budget is $19.5 billion operating. That’s bigger than five provinces. And I can tell you there’s lots of room to deliver better value and performance.

We spent millions of dollars to put stickers on your recycling bins to tell you that we don’t pick up your recycling anymore.

We purchased half a million condoms to give away at the World Cup.

Mayor Chow hired 200 information agents for the TTC, as soon as she was elected. The information agents are the folks that wear the red smocks and stand outside of the station and tell you where the station is. But they don’t do anything for safety.

They don’t do anything for reliability. They don’t do anything for the $130 million a year that we lose in fare evasion. Was that the best use of 200 new full-time staff? I would suggest not.

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New data from Statistics Canada shows that food prices rose by 3.5 per cent year-over-year in April 2026, although many grocery staples saw their prices increase by significantly more than that.

Meat is one of the biggest drivers of food price inflation, with beef prices continuing to climb amid tight supplies and strong consumer demand.

Beef striploin cuts saw their price increase most year-over-year to $42.42 — an increase of $9.61 or 29.29 per cent.

Similarly, the average price of beef top sirloin cuts increased by $2.74 to an average price of $28.94 per kilogram, while beef rib cuts per kilogram increased by $2.35 to $30.56 as of April 2026.

Beef stewing cuts saw a price increase of $1.86 per kilogram to $22.51 on average, and ground beef reached $15.59 per kilogram in April, a $1.42 increase compared to last year.

Other protein that saw price increases include salmon (+$1.24), canned salmon (+$0.73), chicken breasts (+$0.88), chicken drumsticks (+$0.59), whole chicken (+$0.32) and bacon (+$0.31).

Elsewhere, coffee also saw steep price hikes compared to other products. A 340g bag of roasted or ground coffee now costs $9.39, compared to $7.78 in April 2025.

Bananas rose in price by roughly 12 per cent, from $1.66 to $1.87 per kilogram. The price of tomatoes increased by $1.49 from $4.69 to $6.18.

Not all grocery prices moved higher, however. A handful of products became slightly cheaper compared with a year ago.

These include eggs, which fell from $4.92 to $4.80 per dozen; onions, which declined from $5.64 to $5.54 per kilogram; and chicken thighs, which edged down by one cent, from $12.17 to $12.16 per kilogram.

Overall inflation increased to 2.8 per cent in April, up from 2.4 per cent in March. RBC said in a report last month that this figure is “less than expected, driven primarily by higher gasoline prices and fading favourable energy base effects.”

Meanwhile, the latest data on food prices comes just days after new figures indicated Canada has entered a technical recession.

Recessions are generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. On Friday, Statistics Canada announced that GDP contracted by 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, following a one per cent contraction in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note to investors that the decline in the Canadian economy seen over the last six months is “barely a scratch in GDP terms.”

But Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Canadians need answers about why Canada has the only shrinking economy in the G7 while speaking in front of the House of Commons on Monday, and blamed Liberal economic policies for the result.

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