A long-time Canadian Senator who has boasted of being an “avid traveller” spent close to a million dollars of public money on international travel since she was appointed to the role of speaker of the Senate, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has learned.

Raymonde Gagné and her entourage billed taxpayers $875,677 across at least 14 international trips since she was appointed speaker of the senate by former prime minister Justin Trudeau in May 2023, according to the financial records . The total cost of Gagné’s international trips is undoubtedly higher because the records do not include costs of her recent trips to Chile, Tunisia and the Netherlands.

“It’s hard to imagine why an unelected senator should be travelling anywhere outside of the country on taxpayers’ dime, so Gagné billing taxpayers almost $1 million to fly around the world is completely unacceptable,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF’s federal director. “Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to hold Gagné accountable and make sure senators aren’t globetrotting on the taxpayer credit card.”

The most recent trip for which there was records was a “courtesy call” by Gagné to Horii Iwao, Japan’s state minister for foreign affairs, a visit which lasted about 45 minutes.

Gagné’s seven-person entourage included fellow senators Fabian Manning, Raymonde Saint-Germain and Duncan Wilson, as well as two parliamentary staff and a person listed as Gagné’s spouse. The trip cost $107,594 , of which $92,000 was spent on travel, and another $6,600 on accommodation. The records do not indicate any reimbursements to taxpayers.

“If Gagné wants to make a courtesy call to a Japanese politician, then she should pick up the phone instead of billing taxpayers six figures,” Terrazzano said. “In what world is it acceptable for an unelected senator to bill taxpayers thousands of dollars for meals and receptions?”

Another trip to Spain and the United Kingdom in March 2025 included an audience with King Charles III, and cost a total of $105,156 , including $77,000 for travel and $13,00 for accommodation. Again, the entourage included three other senators, Gagné’s spouse and two staffers.

A 2024 trip by Gagné and seven others to New Zealand for “business calls” in Rotorua, a popular tourist destination, Christchurch and Wellington came to $118,965.

During the visit, Gagné posed for a photo with the mayor of Rotorua Lakes, an event the CTF likened to “a foreign senator visiting the city hall in Whistler, British Columbia.”

Other trips by the speaker since her appointment three years ago include Switzerland, France, the United States, Belgium, Brazil, Romania, the Czech Republic and South Africa, as well as travel within Canada.

Senators are unelected and have no constituency, meaning Gagné isn’t representing any specific Canadian constituency when abroad.

Said Terrazzano: “If senators aren’t going to represent anyone but themselves then they need to not represent anyone for a lot less money.”

Gagné has publicly discussed her passion for travel. In a 2024 interview with SenCA+, the Senate’s in-house magazine, she was asked about being “an avid traveller” who had visited 30 countries and almost every continent.

She said that after her husband passed away in 2007, “a friend encouraged me to travel and I decided to visit the Galapagos Islands with her. As a biology teacher, I have always been fascinated by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. I had read his book and attended exhibitions on the subject. This trip was an important step for me because I felt the need to keep exploring. I couldn’t stay stagnant. It was a pivotal moment.”

She added: “My current partner also likes to travel, and we have explored India and Japan together. These are countries that are completely different from what we are used to; I cherish those experiences.”

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Trips to the United States by Canadian residents rose for a fourth straight month in July, but the entire increase came by car, according to new federal data.

Statistics Canada counted 2.3 million return trips from the United States last month, up 10.2 per cent from the same month in 2025, in preliminary figures released Tuesday. It was the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year growth. Automobile trips rose 12.8 per cent while air trips fell 1.4 per cent.

The agency attributed the increase largely to a base-year effect, because Canadian travel to the United States fell sharply in 2025. Measured against July 2024, before the pullback, car trips were down 28.9 per cent and air trips down 26.8 per cent. Statistics Canada said in an email that comparing a month with 2024 “helps illustrate the trend relative to the period before the trade-related conflict.” The counts show Canadians made 1.1 million fewer trips to the United States in July 2025 than in July 2024. About 210,000 of those have come back.

Wayne Smith, director of the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research at Toronto Metropolitan University, said in an email the four-month run amounts to “a stabilization and return to a new normal,” at least for the foreseeable future.

Smith wrote that the trips coming back are most likely visits to friends and relatives, short excursions and business travel, while “longer vacations are still down.” The figures count border crossings rather than travellers and do not record why a trip was taken. Statistics Canada wrote that there have been no changes in the way it counts over that period. Complete counts for July are due Sept. 22.

Statistics Canada publishes the trip-length breakdown only in its daily tables . Totalled across July, Canadians made 1,093,132 same-day trips to the United States and 1,183,922 overnight trips. Same-day travel rose 13.2 per cent from last July and overnight travel 7.5 per cent, so three-fifths of the month’s increase was trips that ended the same day. Overnight trips remain 30.3 per cent below their July 2024 level, against 26.5 per cent for same-day.

A separate Statistics Canada study released July 22 measured that split for last year. Visits to see friends and relatives in the United States fell nine per cent in 2025 (536,000 visits), while leisure visits fell 21.5 per cent (3.2 million). Family travel was “less prone to destination substitution,” the study found.

Air travel went the other way. The agency recorded 378,482 return flights from the United States in July, down from 383,703 a year earlier and 517,256 in July 2024. Air travel has not recovered any of what it lost.

Canadians kept flying, just not south. Return flights from overseas totalled 988,884 in July, above the 947,347 recorded in July 2024, while flights from the United States fell more than a quarter over the same two years.

Americans are going the other way, and have been for longer. The July release also recorded 2.7 million U.S.-resident trips to Canada in July, up 6.5 per cent and a sixth consecutive month of year-over-year growth. Trips by automobile rose 7.2 per cent and trips by air 4.8 per cent.

Forty-nine per cent of Canadian travellers said they intend to visit the United States in the next 12 months, up from 43 per cent in April, according to a Longwoods International tracking study. The travel research firm surveyed 1,000 Canadian adults online from July 9 to 14 and published the findings July 28. Twenty-eight per cent said they had visited in the past six months, up from 23 per cent a year earlier.

Fifty-six per cent said U.S. government policies, trade practices and political statements make them less likely to visit, down from 63 per cent a year earlier. Thirty-seven per cent of Canadians said they believe the United States is a safe place to visit, up from 34 per cent in April but below the 42 per cent recorded in April 2025.

“Canadian travel to the U.S. and intent to travel to the U.S. are improving, albeit slowly,” Amir Eylon, president and CEO of Longwoods International, said in the release.

Longwoods surveyed Canadians before the latest round of tariffs was announced. U.S. President Donald Trump signed three proclamations on July 20 imposing 50 per cent duties on certain Canadian goods including wine, hockey sticks and cement. They are set to take effect Aug. 19.

“The economies and societies are intertwined, so there was bound to be a regression to the mean but the new mean seems to be much lower overall,” Smith wrote.

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B’nai Brith Canada is calling on the City Council of Montreal to reject a motion by opposition party Projet Montréal to cut institutional ties with the State of Israel, calling it “divisive” and “deceitful.”

In an open letter seen by National Post, B’nai Brith Canada accuses Projet Montréal of “explosive falsehoods” in the labelling of Israel as an “apartheid” regime and accusing its government of “genocide,” adding that the motion contains “calculated lies and extreme characterizations.”

“For the City of Montreal to weigh into this conflict would be inappropriate and exacerbate tensions between communities,” the letter reads. “It is not in the city’s purview to dictate foreign policy for its residents, as our federal leaders are elected to do that, and no other elected officials are charged with that mandate.”

In an interview with National Post, B’nai Brith Canada regional director for Quebec, Paola Samuel, emphasized that this motion is not just an issue for Jewish Montrealers.

“This is an issue for all Montrealers,” she said. “It’s inappropriate for (the City of Montreal) to weigh in on an issue that has nothing to do with everyday Montrealers…city councillors are elected to run the city, rather than be distracted by things that are lies and dishonest and not factually correct. Every single Montrealer should be concerned about this.”

The motion was introduced by Projet Montréal on June 4 , and called on the city council to “recognize and denounce the apartheid regime in Palestine and the genocide being perpetrated there, and affirm solidarity with Palestinians and other civilian victims of hostilities in the Middle East.”

This would include suspending institutional ties with Israel’s current government by not inviting representatives of the state to official events held at city hall “until Israel returns to its internationally recognized borders, ceases its violations of the rights of the Palestinian people, and ends its violations of international law.”

Originally set to be presented at the city council meeting on June 15, the motion was later pushed to Aug. 24, after Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada pushed it from the agenda . On Aug. 24, Projet Montréal will bring forth another motion.

“Jews are facing extreme hostility based on fallacies about apartheid and genocide in a country on the other side of the world,” Samuel said. “Just bringing (the motion) up increases the concern for our safety.”

Meanwhile, Projet Montréal leader Ericka Alneus said in an interview with Montreal Gazette that the motion is in line with positions the city has taken in the past, such as when it denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the South African apartheid.

“This is an important message that we are putting in the motion: That we’re against antisemitism, that we’re against Islamophobia — any kind of discrimination and racism,” she said.

However, B’Nai Brith counters in the open letter that Projet Montréal is being “deceitful and inflammatory” in conflating Israel with Apartheid South Africa as part of the motion, pointing out that “Canada has rejected the view that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid.”

Meanwhile, it reads, “The war in the Middle East is highly polarizing, impacting Jewish Canadians, Israelis, Palestinians, Muslims, Iranians, and others who call this city their home.”

It adds that “all have powerful emotions and beliefs about what has happened during the past three years,” and that “Montreal must be a place for each and every one of us.”

The letter goes on to highlight the correlation between conflict in the Middle East and increases in antisemitism. Data from Statistics Canada and previously reported on by National Post showed that incidents targeting Jewish people peaked at 959 in 2023, the same year as the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. And last year’s 788 incidents was still 60 per cent higher than the 492 police reported in 2021.

Last June, thousands of Montrealers made their voices heard and played a major role in preventing the adoption of Projet Montréal’s divisive and inflammatory BDS motion. The same motion is set to come back on August 24th and city councillors will have a choice: to put Montrealers… https://t.co/UOS6LNz8J5

— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) August 12, 2026

Samuel tells National Post that while the Jewish community in Montreal and in Canada is “extremely resilient and extremely proud to be Canadian, to be Quebecer, to be Montrealer,” there is a lot of concern within the community.

“The community feels vulnerable…You don’t feel unsafe every day walking down the street, but you do feel like you have to be careful who you talk to and if you’re gonna be honest about how you feel.”

Last month, a Jewish family was subjected to antisemitic abuse during a confrontation at Montreal’s La Fontaine Park , when a woman was recorded telling them “Jews aren’t allowed here.”

Three weeks prior, several men were harassed while walking home from Shabbat services in Outremont , and three had their shtreimels snatched from their heads.

“Jewish people are, as has been well-documented in numerous surveys, reporting significant hostility and hate related to the conflict overseas,” B’nai Brith’s open letter reads. “If passed, Projet Montréal’s proposed motion would further normalize the targeting of our Jewish community.”

It concludes by accusing Projet Montréal of introducing “a policy of division, anger, and no substance.”

Meanwhile, The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has also criticized the motion, accusing Projet Montréal of “sowing division and importing a foreign conflict into municipal politics” in a statement on Tuesday.

“In a climate that is already toxic, including arson attacks on synagogues, the hanging of a Jewish effigy in our streets, and violent assaults on community members, this declaration only adds fuel to the fire,” they said, calling on individuals to demand the withdrawal or rejection of Projet Montréal’s motion.

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OTTAWA — Trade negotiators on both sides of the border are working feverishly to get an interim trade deal done before an Aug. 19 deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose a 50 per cent tariff on some Canadian goods.

Members of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new advisory committee on cross-border trade have been told to be on standby for a meeting on Monday as talks heat up ahead of next Wednesday’s deadline, according to multiple sources.

Two sources familiar with the negotiations said negotiators are meeting daily in an effort to get a deal done as quickly as possible.

Trade talks have increased since last month, when Trump threatened to impose a 50 per cent tariff on $29 billion worth of Canadian goods, ranging from alcohol products, sports equipment to cement, effective Aug. 19. The executive order was signed using powers under Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Carney and Trump agreed to “intensify” trade discussions.

Two sources said Canada made it clear to the U.S. last week that if the tariffs were to go forward on Aug. 19, it will be difficult for Canada to make a deal.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief Trade Negotiator Janice Charette have been in Washington for trade talks for the last three weeks.

Charette and LeBlanc met with United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for the third straight time on Tuesday.

In statement on X following the Tuesday’s meeting, LeBlanc said, “discussions remain ongoing, and we continue to engage at the negotiation table to firmly advance and defend Canadian interests.”

In addition to avoiding the Section 338 tariffs, Canadian negotiators are looking for relief on Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.

In return, Canada is willing to provide concessions on provincial U.S. alcohol bans and counter tariffs and quotas on American autos, irritants that were cited as the reason for the president’s latest tariff threat.

There have also been discussions about how American quotas are allocated under Canada’s dairy supply management system. One source said the Americans are looking for a similar treatment the Europeans have under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

Ottawa’s willingness to provide concessions in the current trade talks has been a point of criticism, most notably from the Leader of the Official Opposition Pierre Poilievre.

On Sunday, Poilievre sent a letter to Carney, which took aim his trade strategy with the U.S.

“For the past year and a half, you have backed down to one American demand after another while getting nothing in return, with concession after concession,” wrote Poilievre.

Carney is currently vacationing in Italy and is on a reduced schedule. The prime minister is due to return Aug. 17, just two days before the tariff deadline.

A release from the prime minister’s office said during this period “he is in close contact with his team and officials on several priorities, including the ongoing Canada-U.S. trade negotiations.”

The bilateral interim agreement, if reached, is expected to be just the first step, in what will be a broader negotiation with the U.S. and Mexico on the Canada-United States-Mexico-Agreement (CUSMA) next year.

On July 1, the U.S. decided not to renew the trade pact for another 16 years. That means CUSMA will now run for 10 years and has entered a phase of annual reviews. Any party can pull out of the agreement with six months’ notice.

Greer said last month that he hopes to get separate bilateral interim deals with Canada and Mexico before the end of this year.

Duncan Wood, visiting fellow at the Wilson Center, said the risk of these interim agreements is how they might impact the effectiveness of the existing CUSMA trade pact.

“Will we end up with a USMCA, a side agreement with lots of carve-outs for Canada and the U.S., and another side agreement with a lot of carve-outs for Mexico and the U.S., and ultimately the USMCA only truly applies to Mexico-Canada trade in its entirety,” said Wood.

“It’s a very messy situation. We’ve lost the simplicity of a free trade deal.”

National Post

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A New York woman has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court for her role in smuggling illegals across the border from Canada multiple times, even after having been arrested for doing so.

According to court documents, Stacey Taylor, 43, of Plattsburgh, N.Y., was involved in a failed human smuggling event in January 2025 involving immigrants from India and Canada brought illegally into the United States.

U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped the suspect’s vehicle near Churubusco, N.Y., in the early morning hours of Jan. 20, 2025, and discovered four men inside. Churubusco is a hamlet within the town of Clinton, N.Y., and is just five kilometres from the border with Quebec.

Agents determined the four men, three from India and one from Canada, were illegal immigrants and had just crossed the border illegally, without inspection, in the freezing cold.

“When law enforcement later examined the defendant’s cellphone, they learned that Taylor had received coordinates for the aliens’ location and instructions for picking them up,” the Department said in a press release . “The four aliens illegally entered the United States by foot through a wooded area and got into Taylor’s waiting vehicle, and she then drove them away from the border and further into the interior United States.”

While stopped, Taylor admitted to law enforcement that she had picked up the four men and expected to receive payment for doing so. “Additional review of Taylor’s phone revealed text messages that indicated that she had been involved in multiple other human smuggling events in the days prior,” authorities noted.

Following that arrest, Taylor was subsequently stopped in a suspected human smuggling venture the following August, and was again implicated in human smuggling in September.

Taylor pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in alien smuggling and four counts of alien smuggling for profit. She is scheduled to be sentenced in December, and faces a statutory minimum penalty of five years in prison. The case remains under investigation.

The investigation and indictment were supported by Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA), the Department of Justice’s lead effort in fighting human smuggling and trafficking. To date, JTFA says it has resulted in more than 477 domestic and international arrests of leaders, organizers and facilitators of human smuggling, more than 431 U.S. convictions, and more than 370 significant jail sentences imposed, and forfeitures of substantial assets.

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Indigo CEO Heather Reisman is speaking out about rising antisemitism and the anti-Israel protests that have dogged her for years — and revealed she no longer supports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She said in a podcast interview that she and her husband Gerald Schwartz, the founder and chairman of Onex Corporation, have known the statesman “for a very long time” and “had a very warm relationship with him for many years.”

But she said she now aligns with “the views of some of the individuals running against him” – citing how “he became further aligned with the right,” and “allowed all those West Bank settlements to keep going.”

She appeared on Unholy: Two Jews on The News podcast, with hosts Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland, published Aug. 4. In the 40-minute interview, she expressed her thoughts on why antisemitism has become prevalent in Canada, her political views, and spoke about how she has been the target of protesters.

During the interview, she said “what has animated that (political) middle… is deep hope that there will be a change” in Israel.

Her view is that Netanyahu’s choice to build a coalition with two controversial Knesset members — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — was “just so unbelievably unacceptable to everything we hold dear about liberal democratic values.”

Though she did not elaborate, both men have received backlash for certain statements. Ben-Gvir remarked in August 2023 that “My right … to roam the roads of Judea and Samaria [is] more important than the right of movement of the Arabs.” Smotrich said in August 2024 it might be “justified and moral” to starve two million Gaza civilians until hostages were returned, while saying international constraints prevented it.

On the topic of “fomenting” antisemitism, Reisman described “three strands” behind the rise.

One was the “critical race social justice movement, that moved into DEI” that excluded Jews, that laid the “seeds for all these efforts on campus,” against Israel.

Secondly, she faulted “the left-leaning union movement in Canada,” with which some have a “fraught relationship with the Jewish community.”

Without naming him, it appeared she referenced Fred Hahn, one-time president of CUPE Ontario, who drew widespread condemnation for social media posts immediately following October 7 referring to the “power of resistance” and declaring that “resistance brings progress.”

And finally, she pointed to “social media discussion of this war” that paints Israel as a “big, strong military, this economically sophisticated country starving children.” These campaigns will prove “very difficult indeed to disabuse people of the view entirely gleaned through social media in the last two years.”

“I mean, the people who are fomenting antisemitism, they have been brilliant on social media since the day it came out. They use that; it’s a bit like a reverse David and Goliath,” said the co-founder of the HESEG Foundation, which assists lone soldiers in Israel.

Reisman declined a follow-up interview with the National Post.

Often appearing as a headliner for Jewish community programs, she interviewed Rachel Goldberg-Polin in Toronto on June 4, at a live Chabad on Bayview event, the Canadian launch for Goldberg-Polin’s memoir, When We See You Again.

Reisman and her husband are major philanthropic supporters of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, notably through their lead gift for the Schwartz/Reisman Centre on UJA’s Jewish Community Campus and through a UJA legacy commitment

Both Reisman and Indigo have been attacked by anti-Israel activists many times since the Israel-Hamas war began.

In October 2023, Indigo’s flagship Toronto storefront was plastered with posters bearing her image, with red paint splashed over them, and the word “genocide” written across. “So that language was being introduced long before social media could ramp it up, and long before those aspects of the war that I think some of us would question,” she told the podcasters.

Protesters came into the store posing as customers, wrapping themselves in white sheets, and lying on the floor with what appeared to be blood all over them, she described. In another example, screaming protesters stood outside, accusing her of being “responsible for killing babies” and “genocide,” and that she personally funds the IDF. It is “a narrative not one bit rooted in one iota of truth.”

She said she was targeted because she was “high profile” and Jewish.

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The lawyer for the female complainant at the centre of the strange sexual assault mistrial for business tycoon Frank Stronach said he feels he was a pawn in the high-profile case against one of Canada’s richest men.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ontario lawyer Shale Wagman, whose indiscreet discussion with Stronach’s defence lawyer led a judge to overturn her own guilty verdict last month, told National Post he doesn’t think a mistrial was the right call, accused Stronach’s lawyer of “sneakily” getting information from him, and complained the verdict led to his character being attacked.

In retort to Wagman’s claims, Leora Shemesh, who led Stronach’s fiery defence at the lengthy trial, denied being sneaky and said the lawyer’s discussions on his client’s behalf “seemed like a shake down.”

The sharp comments from the lawyers followed Friday’s release of the written reasons — detailed and notably frank — by the judge overseeing Stronach’s trial, revealing her extraordinary internal wrestling over retracting her own guilty finding and declaring a mistrial on one of the sex crimes the billionaire faced.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy faced a rare quandary after she was told of an unusual discussion — “bizarre” she called it in court — that Wagman initiated with Shemesh after Molloy’s guilty verdict against Stronach but before she had sentenced him.

That timing is important because until sentencing, a trial is still in the hands of the trial judge.

After the complicated trial that stretched through three seasons in Toronto this year, Molloy issued her lengthy verdict in June, finding Stronach guilty on two of the 12 sex charges he faced: an indecent assault of a woman in 1977 or 1978 and a sexual assault of a woman in 1983 or 1984.

The original indictment against Stronach had alleged offences against seven different women, but by the end of the trial prosecution lawyers conceded charges relating to four had not been proven and Molloy acquitted him of charges against a fifth.

The complainant in the 1980s incident can be identified only by the initials A.S. because of a court-ordered publication ban.

Before a sentencing hearing, however, court was unexpectedly reconvened last month to hear a surprise motion filed by Shemesh for a mistrial, based on emails she recently exchanged with Wagman.

In open court, lawyers and the judge were guarded about the details of the emails, but in her written reasons, Molloy documents them clearly.

On July 2, 2026, at 11:00 a.m., Shemesh received an emailed letter from Wagman saying he had been retained by A.S. who was seeking civil damages from Stronach. He asked her to forward the letter to Stronach’s civil lawyer, according to Molloy’s written ruling.

Over the next few hours, the two lawyers exchanged a series of emails.

Shemesh asked how much A.S. was seeking. Wagman said $275,000 plus interest at five per cent from the date of the assault plus $10,000 in costs for an amount totalling more than $900,000.

Shemesh replied that her client would want to understand the basis for the claim and pointed out that A.S. had worked for Stronach for six years after the encounter.

Wagman then summarized to her the complaint: That A.S. was traumatized by the events; worked for Stronach under fear; had relationship problems for 40 years afterward the encounter; still lives with the pain; and courts do not blame the victim, according to Molloy’s written reasons.

“If you prefer the statement of claim route, that’s no problem. I just thought to try and settle this would be mutually beneficial,” Wagman wrote, according to the court record. In reply to questions from Shemesh, Wagman added: “She was humiliated when she saw Mr. Stronach at work and he often smirked at her, knowing what had taken place.”

This portrayal was much different from what A.S. had said during her testimony at Stronach’s trial.

In Molloy’s written reasons, the judge noted the rarity and seriousness of the decision she faced.

“Declaring a mistrial is a remedy of last resort,” Molloy wrote.

“One of the most difficult tasks facing any trial judge is making credibility findings. Sexual assault trials are among the most difficult for credibility assessments because there is rarely corroborating evidence or testimony from anyone other than the complainant and the accused, and sometimes just the complainant. When the case involves a historic sexual assault, the task is even more difficult.”

That is precisely why the exchange between Wagman and Shemesh was so troubling for her.

Molloy wrote that she found Stronach guilty because she believed A.S. was telling the truth about her encounter with Stronach during her testimony in court.

“I based that conclusion in large measure on some factors that are now called in question,” Molloy wrote. The new information would require her to make a fresh credibility assessment.

“I am not confident that any future analysis of A.S.’s credibility based on new evidence would be unaffected, at least to some degree, by my previous reasoning. I would like to think I could do that objectively, but it is difficult to say that my previous findings would not affect my assessment, even if unconsciously. More importantly, I am concerned about how a reasonable person would perceive my future decision,” she wrote.

“If I were to find that I still believed her core evidence about the assault, would I be seen as having difficulty admitting that I was wrong?”

Molly said she could not ignore the emails: “I know what it was that persuaded me to find that A.S. was telling the truth, and many of those things are directly contradicted by the emails from Mr. Wagman.”

A.S. claimed at trial that Stronach invited her up to his waterfront apartment to see the view and then kissed and groped her over top of her clothing. She often minimized the harm done to her rather than amping it up, which added to her credibility, Molloy said, because it “is not typical of a person with a motive for financial gain.” During her testimony in court, A.S. said that after the encounter she was hired at Stronach’s large company, Magna International, had a good experience there, and that Stronach was polite and professional when she saw him at work.

Molloy said she wondered whether A.S. should be recalled to the stand, or if Wagman should be called to testify. She decided against either action because it didn’t much matter what they said, Molly wrote, because “all roads lead to a mistrial.”

Wagman said in an interview that he was surprised his emails triggered the hearing and led to a mistrial.

“I never thought this would happen,” he said.

Wagman said he only contacted Shemesh to get in touch with Stronach’s civil lawyer to discuss a proposed lawsuit, after he was contacted by A.S. about suing.

“She wanted damages from Mr. Stronach for what he did to her. I didn’t know the civil lawyer’s name,” Wagman said. When Shemesh responded by asking how much his client wanted he thought she was opening negotiations.

“I thought she was genuinely interested in making a discussion for settlement, because I thought it would assist Mr. Stronach if he settled with the A.S. victim before his sentencing,” Wagman said.

“But she wasn’t interested in trying to settle the case. She was just trying to get information from me, to sneakily try to get this, I guess, mistrial, or just to gather information.”

Wagman said he thinks Molloy was wrong to declare a mistrial.

“I don’t think she should have based a mistrial based on what I said. She could have called A.S. back, but I think A.S. would have confirmed that what I said was what she told me.”

He is unhappy with the backlash.

“My character has been attacked in the press when, in reality, I have helped hundreds if not more people in civil and criminal cases,” he said. “I was the first lawyer in Ontario to successfully act for a female plaintiff in a civil lawsuit against her attacker after the man was found not guilty by a jury.”

Shemesh said the way she sees it, it was a “ desperate attempt” to extract money from Stronach. “It is incumbent on all counsel to ensure that they have at least read their client’s narrative given under oath in court before they share a different narrative with counsel,” she said.

Wagman said in hindsight he wishes he had waited until after Stronach’s sentencing. Asked about A.S.’s proposed lawsuit he said, “I’m not sure if she’s still going ahead or not.”

A mistrial does not mean A.S.’s complaint will not still be prosecuted. The Crown may decide to mount a new trial. Stronach still faces another sexual assault trial involving six different complainants in York Region, based on allegations from 1988 to 2024.

At the mistrial hearing, Shemesh also sought a mistrial for Stronach’s remaining conviction — the 1970s indecent assault — but Molloy dismissed it. Stronach is expected back in court in front of Molloy for sentencing arguments on that conviction next month.

Stronach, who turns 94 next month, became a famous business titan and one of the country’s richest men through Magna, a hugely successful auto parts manufacturing company he founded.

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The final quarterly Canada Carbon Rebate (CCR) payment was issued in April 2025, but eligible Canadians who have yet to claim all the money they are entitled to can still receive retroactive payments of up to $1,800 per family. But that might not last much longer.

On his first day in office , Prime Minister Mark Carney ended the federal fuel charge and, with it, the CCR. Carney said at the time : “This will make a difference to hard-pressed Canadians, but it is part of a much bigger set of measures that this government is taking to ensure that we fight against climate change, that our companies are competitive and the country moves forward.”

Despite the end of the rebate, eligible Canadians can still claim CCR payments by filing any outstanding tax returns for the 2021 through 2024 tax years. Once the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) assesses those returns, any government payments not yet claimed will be issued.

However, Budget 2025 proposed a hard deadline for when Canadians can file tax returns from previous years and still receive the payments. And it means those sitting on unclaimed CCR money could lose it in less than three months’ time.

What was the Canada Carbon Rebate?

The CCR was a quarterly payment for residents of specific provinces to help offset the cost of the federal pollution pricing.

From 2021 to 2023, it was known as the Climate Action Incentive Payment (CAIP). From 2018 to 2020, it was known as the Climate Action Incentive (CAI) and was a refundable tax credit claimed annually on personal income tax returns.

Who is eligible?

The CCR applied only to Canadians in provinces where the federal fuel charge was in place. This included residents of Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan.

Canadians living in B.C., the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec and Yukon were not eligible for the CCR.

Those who were eligible and are up to date on filing their tax returns will already have received their payments, but anyone who hasn’t filed a tax return from 2021 to 2024 could be missing out on unclaimed money for the years they were eligible.

How much could you get?

The amount Canadians could receive varies depending on where they live, their family size and the year for which they are filing their tax return.

The Canada Carbon Rebate amounts for 2024-25 , for example, went up to as much as $1,800 annually for a family of four living in Alberta. In Saskatchewan, this amount was $1,504, compared to $1,200 in Manitoba and $1,120 in Ontario.

The figure was less than $1,000 for families in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where the payments for a family of four were $880, $824 and $760 respectively.

For a single adult, annual payments ranged from $900 to $380 based on the province, with payments for a second adult going up to as much as $450 and the maximum per child set at $225.

There is also a rural top-up for families in rural communities, which was increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent in 2024.

When is the deadline?

Budget 2025 , which was tabled in Parliament on Nov. 4, 2025, proposes amending the Income Tax Act so that no CCR payments would be made in respect of tax returns or adjustment requests filed after Oct. 30, 2026.

The change is part of Bill C-31, which was introduced and read for the first time in the House of Commons on May 6. It passed second reading in the House of Commons on June 3, and is now before the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance.

Therefore, the cut-off remains a proposal and not law until the bill receives royal assent.

How can Canadians receive a CCR payment?

Canadians who are eligible and are not up to date on their tax returns for the 2021 to 2024 tax years can receive retroactive payments by filing any incomplete returns.

To check if you have any missing years, log in to your CRA My Account and check which tax years are still unfiled or unassessed. You can file any missing years electronically.

Once the CRA has assessed your return, the payment will be made. If you get your tax refund by direct deposit, you will also get your CCR by direct deposit.

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Islam remains the most negatively viewed faith in Canada, but opinion of Judaism fell furthest over 15 months, according to a new national survey.

Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, which commissioned the Leger survey, said in an email that “the biggest change is in views toward Judaism.”

Twenty-six per cent of Canadians said their opinion of Islam was positive and 50 per cent said it was negative, the only faith tested where more people were negative than positive. In March 2025, when Leger last asked the same questions, the split was 30 per cent positive and 49 per cent negative for Islam.

Judaism shifted on every measure. Forty per cent said their opinion was positive (down from 49) and 32 per cent said it was negative (up from 25).

The strength of those opinions changed as well. Nine per cent called their opinion of Judaism very positive, down from 16, while 12 per cent called it very negative, up from eight. For Islam, 28 per cent called their opinion very negative, up from 24 in March 2025.

Statistics Canada recorded 788 hate crimes targeting Jewish people in 2025, down 16 per cent from 943 a year earlier, but still 71 per cent of all religion-motivated incidents. Religion-motivated hate crime fell 18 per cent overall, to 1,115 incidents, and Muslims were targeted in 204 of them, down 11 per cent.

Incidents targeting Jewish people peaked at 959 in 2023, and last year’s 788 remained 60 per cent above the 492 incidents recorded in 2021.

The crime data runs to the end of 2025, while the most recent polling was completed in June of this year. The two measures capture different phenomena, Jedwab wrote. Hate crime counts show how “an intensely hostile minority can generate a disproportionate number of incidents against a particular community even when attitudes toward that community are less negative.”

Half of Canadians express a negative opinion of Islam, Jedwab wrote, “but more than half of that group place themselves in the most negative category.” That suggests attitudes are “not merely characterized by uncertainty or discomfort but are fairly entrenched for more than one in four,” he wrote.

The survey asked separately about Jews and Arabs as groups. Sixty per cent were positive on Jews, 20 points higher than for Judaism, and 44 per cent said the same of Arabs against 26 per cent for Islam. The categories are not equivalent, since most Muslims are not Arab and not every Arab is Muslim. Negative views of Arabs rose to 33 per cent from 26 in March 2025, while negative views of Jews rose two percentage points to 16 per cent.

Christianity held its lead. Fifty-seven per cent were positive, down from 58, though the share calling it very positive fell six points to 20 per cent.

Atheism was added to the survey for the first time in June. Fifty per cent were positive about atheism and 29 per cent had no opinion, the largest share of no-opinions in the survey.

Christianity “is more familiar and elicits a response from a larger share of Canadians,” Jedwab wrote. It “consequently has the higher positive rating across the complete sample, but not among respondents who actually express a view.”

The youngest Canadians broke from the rest. Among those aged 18 to 24, 41 per cent were positive on Islam, against 22 to 26 per cent in every other age group. That figure rests on 130 respondents.

The cohort “appears to combine greater secularism with greater openness toward religious diversity,” Jedwab wrote, though he cautioned against drawing conclusions “without more surveys given the sizeable difference.”

Quebec and francophone Canada sat apart. Among francophone respondents, 16 per cent were positive on Islam and 25 per cent on Judaism, the lowest on both of any language group, and they were the only group to rate atheism above Christianity. In Quebec, Judaism sat at 27 per cent positive, 13 percentage points below the national figure.

Antisemitism is producing “an exceptionally high and disproportionate share of religion-motivated criminal incidents,” Jedwab wrote, but that “shouldn’t diminish the importance of addressing hostility towards all faith communities.”

Leger conducted the online survey for the Association for Canadian Studies , reaching 1,528 people from June 19 to 21 through a non-probability online panel, so the poll carries no margin of error. Leger says a random sample that size would be accurate to within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times in 20. The earlier survey reached 1,539 people on March 1 and 2, 2025. Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism were not among the categories tested.

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Tinned fish has found an all-new fanbase. Searches for “sardines breakfast” and “tinned fish charcuterie boards” are through the roof . Thanks to TikTok, sardines have become a gateway, helping cans shake their utilitarian image. According to producers, purveyors and industry specialists, sales are booming, and the trend shows no sign of slowing.

Drawn to tinned fish’s aesthetic, nutrition, skincare benefits, ease and versatility — and, it must be said, high protein content — a younger generation is giving the centuries-old foodstuff a fresh look.

“Typically, it was always, ‘Oh, my grandfather ate sardines.’ Fortunately for us, there were always new grandfathers coming along,” says Phil LeBlanc, owner of IMO Foods , a cannery on Nova Scotia’s Yarmouth waterfront. “We’ve got both markets now — the older and younger. So we didn’t lose the older market, I don’t think. Maybe they’re not watching TikTok, but they’re still buying product.”

IMO Foods started canning wild-caught fish from the Bay of Fundy in 1968, producing tins for their own brand, Kersen , and various others worldwide. They’ve seen double-digit growth since tinned fish took over social media.

“Once people realize, ‘Hey, this is a great staple to have in my cupboard,’ I think it’s going to continue forever,” says LeBlanc.

At Toronto’s Good Cheese , owner and operator Luke Champion had a feeling that tinned fish’s time would come. He was impressed by the quality, but distributors were hard to come by when the shop opened in the late 2010s. “I was like, ‘I want to have the best selection anywhere,’ so I just went all in right away, and whatever I could find, I’d try and bring in.”

Today, Good Cheese stocks a wide range of cans from countries including heavy hitters Spain and Portugal, as well as homegrown producers, such as Chasse-Marée in Rimouski, Que.

Demand has “exploded” in the last year or two, says Champion. “It’s just flying off the shelves. We’re shipping it to every province and territory” — including Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. Tinned fish now comprises roughly one-third of the business — on equal footing with cheese and wine.

Sardines in olive oil are the top-seller, but Champion notes that tastes are expanding. Customers are snapping up a richer array of seafood, such as barnacles and sea cucumber. There’s also a wider variety of seasonings, such as salsa verde, moqueca and curry sauce .

Recognizing the growing interest but also hesitation about unfamiliar products inspired an upcoming Conservas Club — a monthly food subscription aimed at discovery. “Often, there’s a barrier to entry when people are discovering something new,” says Champion. “People feel like they don’t know what they want to try. They don’t know what’s good, and so we wanted to introduce a curated club to help people get over that initial kind of unsureness and introduce people to this line of product that we think is really, really great.”

Champion credits the rise of tinned fish to a few factors, including satisfying a desire for protein in one handy, high-quality package. While in the past, LeBlanc says they considered heart-healthy omega-3s the selling point, today, it’s all about protein. With 20 grams per 100 grams of drained sardines, for instance, tinned fish can be an affordable source.

The trend is also rooted in a return to “real food” and the concept of skincare from the inside out, says Jo-Ann McArthur, president of Nourish Food Marketing . With “Sardine Girl Summer” now in its second year, expressing itself in everything from silvery nails to fish-shaped clutches, “eating your skincare” is big on TikTok. Oily fish, such as sardines and mackerel, “seems to be a tasty way of bypassing the pill supplements.”

As with many other food trends, McArthur says the premiumization of tinned fish in Canada started in fine dining. The modern charcuterie trend gave way to sea-cuterie boards, and tinned fish adopted a fashion aesthetic.

Chef Grant van Gameren brought attention to conservas (high-quality tinned seafood from Spain and Portugal) at the Spanish restaurant Bar Isabel , which opened in Toronto in 2013, and sister spot Bar Raval , a Barcelona-inspired pintxos bar founded two years later.

Companies such as Los Angeles-based Fishwife and Scout , both of which entered the market in 2020, helped further transform it. Chef Charlotte Langley, a Prince Edward Islander based in Prince Edward County, Ont., conceived of Scout in 2014, “and now she’s taken it, I think, a step further with her very cheeky, Nice Cans branding,” says McArthur.

Plus, more Canadians are travelling to Portugal than ever before. There, tinned fish shops are a sight to behold, adds McArthur. “They’re absolutely like little jewel boxes.”

Tinned fish cans are often colourful and collectible. Some companies hire artists to illustrate limited-edition releases, which helps create excitement, says Champion. Part of what’s fuelling the explosion of tins “is the sort of Pokemon-esque-ness of it,” he adds. “This kind of ‘gotta catch ’em all’ thing, where people want to try all the different varieties of fish and seafood out there.”

Nice Cans’ vibrant packaging was inspired by European conservas culture, says Langley, founder and CEO. “We’re getting a taste of this beautiful packaging and this lifestyle.” After launching in Canada in April 2025, Nice Cans expanded to Australia, Mexico, the United States and the U.K.

Langley calls sardines “a gateway fish to new experiences,” and notes that it took “an intense amount of marketing and education” on the part of Fishwife, Scout (which she’s since exited) and a few others to turn them into the sought-after product they are today. Nice Cans started with three types of sardines because Langley recognized their conversion potential. “It’s going to grab the most attention, be the most dramatic, and be perfectly timed to encourage people to have more diversification in their diet.”

She appreciates the creativity surfacing with tinned fish, and jokes that it’s “can-venient” cuisine. “People are looking for convenience that provides what they need for their bodies and what makes them feel good. It’s as simple as that, I think.”

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Tips for building a sea-cuterie board

“Complement and contrast your flavours and textures,” says Luke Champion of Good Cheese, adding that variety is key. Choose two or three different cans to build your board around and add textural elements. Champion likes a crunchy potato chip and a crusty baguette. For a hit of acid, which “plays nicely with the richness of the oil and fish,” try lemon wedges, cornichons, briny olives or capers.

Charlotte Langley of Nice Cans also goes all in on texture, whether it’s chips or cucumbers — and especially when serving sardines. “Add a bunch of crunchy stuff because sardines are quite soft and luscious and unctuous and all the nice things.”

Champion also recommends adding some soft cheeses. “I really like fresh goat’s cheese with seafood. It works really well. Maybe it’s a Triple-Crème de Charlevoix, which is a triple cream brie from Quebec, and manchego is a pretty classic pairing as well,” he says. “You could add some serrano ham or prosciutto, and you’re pretty good to go.”

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