This fall’s Ontario municipal elections are shaping up as the most compelling in years, thanks to stark left-right battles.

Much of the conversation has centred around Toronto, where Councillor Brad Bradford is challenging NDP stalwart Olivia Chow over what he says is a city in quick decline. But TVO’s Steve Paikin has declared that Hamilton, Ontario’s fifth biggest city, may have the province’s best race.

Like in Toronto, the incumbent is a prominent New Democrat – former provincial leader Andrea Horwath – who is facing accusations of allowing rampant crime, homelessness, waste and mismanagement. Among her challengers is Rob Cooper, a longtime business executive who was just elected to city council last fall in a byelection.

Cooper, a former progressive conservative party stalwart, was born and raised in Hamilton. He has held senior roles across some of the country’s biggest institutions, including Ernst & Young, Stelco, TD Bank, Manulife, McMaster University and Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board — experience he argues is directly relevant to a city hall wrestling with its own budget pressures and infrastructure backlog.

He stresses that every line item in the municipal budget should be tied to an outcome residents can see and feel in their daily lives. Dave Gordon interviews him for the National Post:

What convinced you to run as mayor?

I was elected in a by-election in September, and the platform I ran on was tackling violent crime, repairing infrastructure, addressing tax increases, capping the rate of inflation, and confronting the housing crisis.

Got to city hall, and the moment that it all became real to me I realized that because of strong mayor powers, I couldn’t achieve these goals as a councillor.

The city has no audited statements since 2022. The tax increase process we went through this year, there’s no benchmarks, there’s no peer data. And I’ve never seen an organization run like this before. So it became obvious to me that in order for us to make the change, I would have to run for mayor.

Where has Mayor Horvath fallen short?

We have homelessness at a level we’ve never seen.

One of the commercial property owners told me he lost three floors of tenants because their people don’t want to be in downtown Hamilton anymore.

The city spent $170 million in the last year on housing and homelessness. There are now 2,100 homeless, but in 2022 was 545 [in a single night snapshot]. What we have to do is recognize the fact that this isn’t about housing; it’s all mental health and drug addiction, and we need to get these people help, and off the streets.

For the amount of money that we spent on that whole file, Indwell [a non-profit organization that creates supportive housing communities] said they could solve homelessness in all of Ontario. They do it better than we’re doing it.

So we’re throwing money against problems, solving nothing.

Crime has just blown out of control here, where we set records for shootings. It’s a very dangerous place right now.

We just saw a 16-year-old shot by a 14-year-old in a mall store the other day. And in my neighbourhood, which is one of the sleepier wards in Hamilton, my neighbour was shot dead five years ago. A lady was getting off a bus and got killed by a gun shooting, driving down the street.

Mayor’s got wrong the fact that just because you’re spending, doesn’t mean you’re getting outcomes. And we’ve clearly seen that on the books for the next three years, another 27% tax increase.

Our taxes are 30% higher than Burlington, but Burlington’s property values are 30% more. If you start looking at the amount that we’re paying in taxes and match that against the incomes of Hamilton, which is a lot lower than Burlington, for example, we can’t keep coming back to the taxpayers of Hamilton, having to fill out a blank cheque for these things.

One of your platforms was to expand public transportation, and with about a quarter-million new residents expected by 2051, how would you deal with traffic swell?

Roads infrastructure is a real issue in Hamilton.

If it takes you longer to get to where you’re going, we’re not going to attract businesses. People are finding it challenging to just get around Hamilton, in general.

There are pockets of suburbs that are not reached by public transit.

We’ve got two of the worst roads in Hamilton, Aberdeen Avenue and Barton Street East, ranked the worst roads in the province by CAA. Potholes, poor maintenance, heavy traffic.

There is a lot of congestion, because the road system hasn’t been adequately adjusted for the number of people in Hamilton.

So the Lincoln Alexander Expressway, two lanes – bottlenecks in the morning, bottlenecks in the evening. What we should be talking about is the other lane that we need, on the Red Hill Valley Parkway and the Lincoln Alexander Expressway.

Another opportunity is to get people connected on the GO bus or transit lines, to and from the mountain, and suburbs, or Toronto. We have Mohawk College as a Metrolinx station with virtually no service.

Since 2008 the Light Rail Transit is stuck in endless delays, with timelines announced but no movement on anything. Doug Ford has said he’s going to pay for every penny of it. I want Doug to deliver the best LRT he can deliver for Hamilton. Let’s get it done, and heal the community.

You announced your mayoral campaign after just five months on council, a seat you won by just 87 votes. Why should voters look to you to manage a $2 billion municipal budget, and a city of 600,000, when you’ve barely had any time as a legislator?

So my background is such that I rescue organizations.

I’ve gone in and helped multi-billion-dollar organizations with strategies that have been challenged with execution.

And, so whether raising half a billion dollars in 30 days, helping them through their bankruptcy situation, the pensions funding, the organization, helping them get out of a bunch of products that really had no markets, or even McMaster University, where I came in and helped them with their business park.

I have experience running multi-billion-dollar corporations. Now, if you look at the mayor, Andrew Horvath has never run a multi-billion-dollar corporation. She’s run a relatively small political party, never governed before she took office.

When you look at the race, I am the most experienced person. I’m five months in; it’s going to be over a year by time the election comes around. It’s really giving me a sense of what’s going on in the city, and what we need to change.

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Whether pursuing a legal case, leading his beloved Holy Blossom Temple, or charting a new corner of the globe, Eric M. Roher poured the same restless curiosity and care into every part of his life.

Roher, a senior partner at Borden Ladner Gervais and leading figure in education law, died in Toronto on April 23, 2026, after a battle with cancer, at 71, his family said. A third‑generation member and, at the time of his death, president of Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto’s historic Reform synagogue, Roher was remembered in law offices, classrooms, and pews, as a man whose professional excellence was matched by enthusiasm for community life.

“Eric was the kind of guy who would talk to anybody,” said Vernon Shaw, who remembers neighbourly nightly dog walks that evolved into a three-decade deep friendship. “If we bumped into 10 other people during the walk, he would talk to nine of them.”

They lunched weekly at a local Italian restaurant; staff quickly learned Roher’s name, and kept his favourite table by the window reserved.

“He was simply everywhere — a huge presence in our community,” Shaw said. “Eric sought no tributes, no acknowledgements, no reciprocation. He simply lived with quiet generosity.” Clients confided in Shaw that Roher was an “absolute delight” to work with: incisive yet fair-minded, seeking to understand every perspective, and devoted to forging settlements everyone could live with.

Professionally, Roher helped shape a field that barely existed when he started out: he became one of Canada’s leading experts in education law, building a practice that advised school boards and independent schools across Ontario and beyond on labour relations, employment, and governance, according to colleague Robert Weir. He taught education law at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law for 18 years, and co‑created the course there.

Roher practised law for nearly four decades at what is now Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG), one of Canada’s largest national firms, where he led the Education Law group. Weir, who worked with him from the mid‑1990s until Roher’s retirement from the firm in 2021, said “he was passionate about what he did so he could make education better for people.”

He became the trusted adviser to many school boards and independent schools, Weir said, guiding them through issues ranging from bullying and harassment, to human rights accommodations, and legal complexities that surfaced during COVID‑19.

Weir said Roher conducted “endless” professional‑development sessions for teachers and principals, pushing systems to treat students facing discipline “not as criminals, but as young people who had made mistakes, and were still there to be educated.” Roher was also author or co‑author of five books, including leading texts such as “An Educator’s Guide to the Role of the Principal.”

“All his clients called him the guru,” Weir recalled. “They relied so heavily on him.” Weir credits Roher with helping drive the shift from fragmented, board‑by‑board labour negotiations to centralized, province‑wide bargaining for teachers, arguing that Roher’s advocacy helped make the system more stable and coherent.

If Bay Street was his professional stage, Holy Blossom Temple was where Roher’s Jewish life unfolded, from childhood onward. The Roher name is stamped into the building itself, through the Roher Library and a Roher family stained‑glass window; he grew up attending religious school there, was wed there, and remained an active lay leader for decades.

He served for years on the board before being elected president in November 2024, a role he often described as among the greatest honours of his life, his family said. Rabbi Yael Splansky called his leadership a “sacred partnership,” noting that he acted as the congregation’s “greatest cheerleader,” leading the board with good humour and encouragement.

In his role as a regular gabbai on Shabbat mornings — the “stage manager” for the service — Splansky remembers looking over at the podium, and finding Roher so swept up in the melodies that he occasionally missed a cue, moments that only deepened her admiration for what she described as his “prayerful spirit.”

As president, he made a habit of walking through each office in the building to greet staff members by name, according to Splansky.

In 2026, as his illness became known, Holy Blossom dedicated a concert medley in his honour, and online described him as a “beloved president” whose life was “woven into the very fabric” of the congregation.

Giving back has been a common thread — he lent his time to the local Liberal Party Electoral District Association when living in the Annex in the 1990s, at one point serving as its president. He volunteered for Carolyn Bennett’s federal election, as well as, more recently, Leslie Church’s, as her campaign fundraiser.

Roher was described by friends and family as an energetic adventurer who never lost his curiosity. He met his future wife, Beth, in the late 1970s in Hay River, Northwest Territories, while working summers on barges along the Mackenzie River — a bearded young “barge rat,” according to daughter Jessica.

Their paths crossed again at a wedding on the shore of Great Slave Lake, and later, improbably, in Paris, where both ended up living for a time; two Torontonians finding each other abroad, they turned a chance housing arrangement into a first date and, eventually, a marriage. Together, they built a life steeped in travel.

The family paddled northern rivers, and explored the world with kids in tow, riding camels in the Sahara, watching the sunset on the Ganges, hiking in Patagonia, visiting Machu Picchu and swimming with turtles in the Galápagos.

At their cottage on Muldrew Lake, Roher’s love of the water extended to a temperamental 17‑foot motorboat that stalled so often, he became a familiar figure being towed home by strangers, or paddling back at dusk, his daughter Jessica recalled, adding that his positive and adventurous spirit would not let him abandon either the boat, or the chance to meet someone new.

With his grandchildren, that same spirit translated into hands‑on play: he volunteered as an instructor at his granddaughter Eva’s canoe camp and, at 71, was out on the raft trying to sink it, surrounded by shrieking children scrambling to stay aboard, while other adults watched from shore.

“He never, ever stopped,” Weir said, noting that while fellow travellers napped after a day of hiking up a Guatemalan volcano, Roher went out to explore one more corner.

Jessica shared a story she calls a quintessential Eric moment, from the late ‘70s: spotting a back door to Buckingham Palace propped open for a furniture delivery, he simply walked in and wandered the halls until Scotland Yard politely escorted him out. “When given an open door opportunity, he just walked through the door,” she said.

He was the son of Lila and the late Douglas Roher and is survived by his wife, Beth; daughters Jessica, Rebecca and Sophie; two grandchildren; and four siblings.

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Maritime musician Ashley MacIsaac is used to a rough ride in the public eye.

During a frequently controversial career, the Cape Breton-born fiddler’s political views, sexuality, pre-legalization cannabis use and on-stage antics have all prompted salacious coverage, some of which MacIsaac has taken issue with.

But the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of a planned December 2025 gig at Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia were unlike anything MacIsaac – or really anyone in the country – has ever experienced.

According to a statement of claim recently filed by MacIsaac in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the concert was called off after complaints from community members who had seen Google AI Overview descriptions falsely suggesting that MacIsaac had been sentenced for “sexual assault and internet luring” and placed on a sex offender registry for 20 years, among other erroneous statements.

“I’ve had to deal in the past with human reporters taking an angle, but this is a different scenario. It’s not an individual, it’s a mega company – one of the largest in the world – that decided it was OK to label me a sex offender,” MacIsaac said in an interview from his home in Windsor, Ont. “I felt like the only way forward was for me to follow through as far as I can in the Canadian legal system.”

MacIsaac is seeking at least $1.5 million in damages, alleging that Google is liable for the AI Overview’s statements, as well as the “foreseeable republication” that resulted in the concert cancellation.

“As the creator and operator of the AI Overview, Google is also liable for injuries and losses arising from the AI Overview’s defective design,” the claim continues, alleging that the tech giant had not taken reasonable steps to prevent harm to individuals when its AI system returns false information.

The $1.5m total includes a claim for aggravated and punitive damages, which the musician alleges is justified by Google’s “cavalier and indifferent response to its publication of utterly false statements.”

“If a human spokesperson made these false allegations on Google’s behalf a significant award of punitive damages would be warranted. Google should not have lesser liability because the Defamatory Statements were published by software that Google created and controls,” the claim reads.

In press coverage at the time of the concert cancellation, a Google spokesperson pointed out that the search results linking MacIsaac to the criminal offences no longer appeared in the AI Overview, adding that: “When issues arise — like if our features misinterpret web content or miss some context — we use those examples to improve our systems, and may take action under our policies.”

However, MacIsaac’s claim says that the company did not reach out to him at that time to offer an apology or retraction.
None of the allegations in MacIsaac’s statement of claim have been proven in court. Neither Google nor its Canadian legal counsel responded to the National Post’s requests for a fresh comment on the case.

Currently, AI Overviews for Google searches including Ashley MacIsaac’s name reference the now-removed errors, while a search for sexual offences committed by a Newfoundland man with the same surname returns a warning that they have been incorrectly linked to the musician. Many AI Overviews also include a disclaimer at the bottom of the warns users that “AI responses may include mistakes.”

In an interview with the National Post, MacIsaac says he was inundated with offers of legal help from around the world after the first wave of stories about the concert cancellation.

However, he stuck with the very first lawyer to reach out to him: Gabriel Latner of Toronto firm Advocan LLP.

“I spoke to Gabriel and he told me he’s married to a Cape Bretoner. I figured that’s good enough for me,” MacIsaac says.

Part of the reason he proceeded with the lawsuit is for the protection of others without his public profile, MacIsaac adds.
“The bigger argument is about whether Google has prevented that type of problem from happening to Joe Smith or whoever else,” he says. “It’s dangerous when you’re labelled like this and people can do some pretty crazy things.”

“Small disclaimers aren’t what people see when you type in a name and see confabulations of headlines that are completely inaccurate and can endanger somebody’s livelihood; somebody’s safety.”

Despite the anguish his recent AI experience has caused him, MacIsaac says it won’t stop him from experimenting with the technology.

“I myself use AI,” he says. “I don’t see that the downside of AI should supersede the benefits, but I believe that AI as a technology must have guardrails to prevent things like what has happened to me.”

Although he’s not involved in the MacIsaac case, Howard Winkler, a veteran media and defamation lawyer with more than 40 years of experience behind him, will be watching proceedings closely as they progress through the court system.

“The claim is very, very significant, and stands to have a big impact on the liability of AI product in the area of defamation,” Winkler says.

Since 2011, when the Supreme Court of Canada issued its landmark judgment in a case known as Crookes v. Newton , Winkler explains that internet users of all sizes – from search engine giants to lone bloggers – have enjoyed a great deal of protection from liability when linking to defamatory material.

In that case, a majority of the nation’s top court ruled that hyperlinking to a defamatory statement does not constitute “publication” of the material, as long as the hyperlink itself does not repeat or endorse the defamatory material.

Earlier this year, the Quebec Court of Appeal punctured a hole in Google’s usual defamation defence, upholding a trial judge’s decision that Crookes did not apply in the case of Quebec businessman targeted by false claims online. The province’s appeal court ordered the search engine to pay the businessman $1.5 million for continuing to index a link to false allegations of a criminal conviction for child molestation, even after the man provided proof that he had never been convicted of any sex crime.

According to Winkler, this decision may not have much influence beyond the borders of Quebec, since the result turned on provisions in the province’s Civil Code that expose technology intermediaries to liability once they become aware that their services are being used for illicit activity.

However, Winkler says that Google may have trouble convincing a judge that the Crookes case applies to the facts of MacIsaac’s claim, which remain to be proven in court.

“The AI Overview is reviewing content from the internet and publishing its own summary. Under those circumstances, I find it hard to imagine that Google will be able to escape the conclusion that it is a publication and that they are the publisher,” Winkler says.

He’s keeping his fingers crossed that the case makes it to trial for a decision on the merits.

“In terms of finding a good case to establish new law, this is a great one,” Winkler says.

“One of the societal issues that needs to be grappled with respect to AI generally is…from a policy perspective, when it messes up, whether it’s for fair for those that are harmed to be compensated,” he adds. “For Google, paying to compensate those people it harms is – and should be – a cost of doing business.”

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An Ethiopian immigrant who pulled out a loaded handgun, pointed it at another driver and threatened to shoot during a fight that was sparked by a “minor traffic infraction” in Calgary failed to convince a judge to tailor his sentence to avoid deportation.

Instead, an Alberta Court of Justice judge sentenced Thomas Kahsay Berhe to three years in prison for being in possession of a loaded Glock 19 9 mm pistol, pointing it at the other driver, threatening to shoot him, and for, eleven days later, when police finally caught up to him, being a passenger in a car that he knew contained a loaded .38 calibre revolver.

But Justice A.J. Brown pointed out there’s not much danger of Berhe being deported to Ethiopia any time soon.

While any sentence longer than six months behind bars would make Berhe “subject to an automatic removal order,” said the judge, “Immigration Canada does stay removal orders to enumerated countries that are in a state of war or otherwise subject to violence, danger, terrorism, etc.; currently, Ethiopia is one such country.”

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The Crown argued for three years behind bars, said the April 22 decision.

Berhe’s lawyer asked for a conditional sentence order of two years, less a day, followed by two years of probation.

The court heard that Berhe, now 27, got in an argument with another driver around 5:15 p.m. on June 9, 2023.

“The argument was over a minor traffic infraction and took place in the Mission district in Calgary, roughly 10 blocks south of the downtown business core of the city,” said the decision.

The other driver “soon disengaged from the argument and drove two blocks further south to pull into the parking area for a pub,” said the decision.

As he was parking his truck, “Berhe approached the passenger side, hands in the pockets of his jacket, concealing a fully loaded Glock pistol, and opened the door of the truck to confront” him, said the decision.

The other driver asked Berhe if he wanted to fight, “to which Mr. Berhe replied that, no, he was going to shoot him.”

A physical fight ensued, “during which the Glock fell out of Mr. Berhe’s pocket to the ground. As the fight continued, Mr. Berhe retrieved the gun and tried to point it, finger on the trigger, at” the other driver.

As he pointed the Glock, Berhe struck the other driver on the right side of the head with it, said the decision.

“This action caused the gun once more to be knocked to the ground, out of Mr. Berhe’s hand,” said the decision.

“The physical fight continued until the two men were separated by bystanders.”

Berhe took off with a woman in a white Hyundai before police showed up. After investigators reviewed surveillance video of the altercation, they put out a Need-to-Identify bulletin that included a description of Berhe.

“Eleven days later, a detective recognized Mr. Berhe from the bulletin as he left a home several blocks away from the location of the events of June 9 and entered the white Hyundai,” said the decision.

“Police then conducted a high-risk vehicle stop of the Hyundai in which Mr. Berhe was the front passenger and seized from the floor under his seat a .38 calibre revolver, fully loaded with five live rounds.”

Aggravating factors in the case, according to Brown, “are the extreme danger posed to public safety (the June 9 events occurred towards the end of rush hour on a Friday in the densely populated Calgary downtown core); on both occasions, the handguns were fully loaded; and, the attack on Mr. Gabel was persistent and ended only when bystanders, at risk to their personal safety, intervened.”

Her decision points out that “at no time did Mr. Berhe have a firearms licence, or any registration for a firearm.”

Mitigating factors in the case include Berhe’s youth, guilty pleas, lack of a previous record; “his remorse, insight and post-offence rehabilitation; and his family and community support,” said the judge.

“While there are serious immigration consequences flowing from a lengthy term of imprisonment for Mr. Berhe,” Brown said, a landmark Supreme Court of Canada case that established that sentencing judges may consider collateral immigration consequences “makes clear that they must never result in imposition of an unfit sentence.”

Berhe was born in Ethiopia and came to Canada on a student visa in 2015.

“He describes his upbringing as loving and supportive, although strict. Both he and his brother came to rebel against their parents, in their twenties; his brother is currently incarcerated, and Mr. Berhe was effectively estranged from his parents once he moved out of their home.”

A pre-sentence report “described Mr. Berhe as sincere, forthright, insightful, remorseful and genuinely committed to a prosocial life following the birth of his daughter in April 2024,” said the decision.

His “life took a dramatic and positive turn with the birth of his daughter. Although he does not live with his daughter and her mother, he is a fully engaged father, determined to be a positive role model for his child and remain a prosocial member of the community. His father confirms Mr. Berhe’s complete turnaround.”

The judge “concluded that the seriousness of Mr. Berhe’s crimes requires a sentence of three years incarceration, to properly address denunciation, deterrence and public safety, and cannot be reduced despite his very sympathetic current circumstances that have come about following the birth of his daughter.”

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Toronto police are searching for a suspect vehicle after visibly Jewish victims were shot with a replica firearm in a suspected hate-motivated assault in North York last week, an incident the community’s leaders said reflects a “dangerous escalation” of antisemitic violence.

According to the Toronto Police Service (TPS), an undisclosed number of victims, who were clearly “identifiable members of the Jewish community,” were shot with what was “described as an Orbeez-type gun” on Thursday in the area of Bathurst Street and Lawrencetown Avenue West, an area with a large concentration of Jewish residents, synagogues, schools and other facilities. Police said the victims sustained minor injuries.

The shots were fired from a vehicle described as a blue SUV, which fled the scene and was captured by a nearby residential surveillance camera at 9:47 p.m. Anyone with information is asked to contact the police directly or Crime Stoppers anonymously.

An Orbeez gun, also called a gel blaster, is a non-lethal firearm-like device that shoots small, relatively soft, water-absorbent beads. While available to children as young as five, they are often designed to resemble actual firearms and marketed to older users.

“Usually, getting shot by a pistol-like Orbeez gun feels like a quick pinch and may result in a temporary red mark,” according to Technology.org . “Rifle-like Orbeez guns are more powerful. It may result in significant short-term pain and bruises that last a day.”

TPS said investigators are exploring whether the incident was hate-motivated.

News Release - Suspected Hate-Motivated Assault with a Weapon Investigation, Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue West area, Video Releasedhttps://t.co/TLJ6qBe9J2 pic.twitter.com/17CwAqqKoP

— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) May 2, 2026

Jewish organizations, such as the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, have marked it as another indication of the growing wave of antisemitic violence in the city, home to Canada’s largest Jewish population.

In a statement on X , it counted an assault outside a synagogue and the vandalism of a Jewish-owned store the week before.

“These targeted attacks are intended to threaten our community and force us to hide our identity,” it wrote.

“It won’t work. We are resilient, strong, and determined to live our Jewish lives freely and openly.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said Canada is “facing a wave of violent extremism and radicalization” that threatens everyone and “endangers the personal safety and democratic values of all Canadians.”

“Confronting these forces requires everyone to stand up and demand action before we face the kind of loss of life seen in Australia, the UK, and the U.S.,” it wrote on X .

The Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI) and its founder and CEO, Avi Abraham Benlolo, anathematized the latest incident and demanded swift action to protect the Jewish community.

“This brazen, hate-motivated assault is unacceptable and reflects a dangerous escalation of antisemitism in Toronto,” it wrote in a statement.

“We commend the Hate Crime Unit’s investigation and urge swift identification of the suspect. Enforcement of the law must be paramount.”

The Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI) strongly condemns the targeting of visibly identifiable members of the Jewish community with a weapon in the Bathurst and Lawrence area and demands immediate action by police and authorities to protect the community. This brazen,… pic.twitter.com/JvDyr23M8g

— Avi Abraham Benlolo (@AviBenlolo) May 3, 2026

On Friday, the organization called on the Ottawa to invoke the Emergencies Act to counter growing antisemitism and violence.

“If the previous government could invoke the National Emergencies Act on account of peaceful trucker protests and gridlocks in Ottawa, it can legitimately call the attacks on the Jewish community a national emergency,” Benlolo wrote in a National Post column .

Idit Shamir, Consul General of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada, said that the incident was not minor.

“ This is a hate crime committed in broad view, in a Jewish neighbourhood, against visibly Jewish pedestrians,” she wrote on X, welcoming the hate-crime investigation.

“Jewish Torontonians should be able to walk their streets without fear. We stand with the victims and with the entire community, and we call on all levels of government and law enforcement to treat antisemitic violence with the urgency it demands.”

The National Council of Canadian Muslims also denounced the “disgusting and deeply concerning” incident.

“This kind of violence has no place in Canada. Those responsible should face the harshest possible penalties,” it wrote on X.

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The cost of air travel is quickly rising, but packing light can help offset some of the expense.

The conflict in Iran is a key driver of recent price hikes, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sending jet fuel costs soaring, and airlines are looking for ways to ease the pressure.

The result has been a wave of route cancellations, surcharges and increased luggage fees.

In Canada, WestJet and Air Canada have raised the price of checked bags, both adding $10 to first and second checked bags and $50 to excess, overweight, and oversized bags.

So, with airline CEOs suggesting higher fares might be here to stay , it pays to pack light.

Laura Lindsay, Skyscanner travel trends expert, told National Post in an email: “It’s worth checking your airline’s hand luggage policy ahead of time, especially when flying with a new carrier, as size and item limits can vary. A bit of planning goes a long way and can help avoid last-minute surprises at the airport.”

And if you’re worried about the cost of your next vacation creeping up, here are five clever packing tips that could help you dodge extra fees. Lindsay, however, warned travellers to be cautious. “While some viral packing hacks can seem clever, they’re not always as reliable as they appear. Approaches like concealing extra items can depend heavily on the airline and airport staff, and in some cases may lead to delays or additional fees at the gate,” she told National Post.

Should you buy a duty-free bag?

Duty-free bags are often treated as separate from standard carry-on allowances, and some savvy travellers say they use them to bring extra items on board.

Travel expert Chelsea Dickenson, also known as @cheapholidayexpert , shared a TikTok that showed her putting extra items into a duty-free bag she’d taken from a self-checkout in the terminal. She then reportedly walked onto her flight without anyone questioning her.

Travellers should check airline policies before attempting this. Air Transat and WestJet both note on their websites that duty-free items must fit inside cabin baggage.

Porter Airlines, meanwhile, on its website says: “Duty-free items in reasonable quantities do not count towards your carry-on baggage allowance for your next flight.”

What about neck pillows?

Another travel hack that’s been shared widely online for allowing travellers to take a few extra items on board involves repurposing a neck pillow.

TikTokers the world over have shared videos of themselves removing the stuffing and swapping it with items of clothing that they would otherwise be unable to fit in their carry-on bag.

Be careful with this one, though. In 2024, a TikTok surfaced appearing to show a man being denied boarding after staff discovered a pillowcase filled with personal items.

View this post on Instagram

How far can bulky clothing go?

Possibly the oldest trick in the book is wearing a big coat, or your bulkiest item of clothing, on the plane, to free up room in your luggage — you might even be able to fit a couple of extra layers underneath it.

Some travellers have even had success concealing a small bag under oversized clothing.

TikToker @travelingwithtals took this to the extreme in a video that showed her cutting down a large backpack by wearing as many of her clothes as she could and keeping a smaller backpack hidden under a poncho, before walking onto the plane.

Can compression bags give you more room?

If you’d rather avoid the risk of extra fees or delays, compression bags and packing cubes are your best friends.

Lindsay told National Post: “What tends to work more consistently is making the most of the space you’re already allowed. Using packing cubes or compression bags, rolling clothes, and wearing your bulkiest items on the plane can significantly increase what fits in a carry-on without added stress.”

Compression bags save space by using a second zipper to squash down bulky items to a fraction of their original size. They also fit neatly into suitcases and help organize items, making unpacking easier at the destination, too.

Is there a washing machine at your rental?

If your accommodation has a washing machine, you can save plenty of space by packing fewer clothes and doing laundry while you’re away.

Most rental homes, like those listed on Airbnb, offer a washing machine or communal laundry room, and some may even supply detergent.

Many hotels have laundry available for a fee, or, if you’re really trying to save your pennies, you can wash smaller items in a sink with a little laundry detergent.

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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 new book by Toronto-based photographer Marnie Salsky explores how Jewish identity “is shaped, witnessed and archived in the present moment, particularly amid rising antisemitism.”

Salsky’s book, A Peoplehood | Amiut Yehudit , will be published in mid-May, coinciding with Canadian Jewish Heritage Month. It is based around photos documenting life in Toronto’s Jewish community, press clippings of antisemitic incidents in Canada as well as pictures of European Jewish life before the Holocaust.

“One of the goals of this book is to show that there’s just not one way of being Jewish,” Salsky told National Post. “Jewish identity gets projected upon you by those outside of the community as well as various ways within the community.”

Salsky’s inspiration for the book came when she began restoring photographs of a Jewish community in Poland before the Holocaust. She was struck by the diversity of Jewish life along socioeconomic, religious and geographic lines. The front cover of her new book is dotted with the names of some of the different communities of the Jewish world today, including Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Reform, Haredi, Just Jewish and Reconstructionist.

“I really want this book to be a document that goes beyond the headlines and stats today to create a living texture of what it means to be Jewish; how complex it is. Sadness, joy and resilience,” she said.

Salsky calls the book a “poetic or conceptual documentary.” The photos are accompanied by quotes from anonymous Jewish people she interviewed, which “highlight some common themes that are expressed and then, also, voices that dissent from what others are saying.”

One powerful image, rendered in red-and-black, shows a traditional Jewish wedding in Poland. The undated photo was taken before the Holocaust, Salsky said. On the opposite page, there is a quote that came out of one of the many conversations Salsky had with Jews after October 7: “In the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, we were people, you know, and now we’re Jews again.”

Salsky said she hoped the book’s intimate portrayal of the community will be a window for those struggling to appreciate what Canadian Jews have experienced since October 7.

“My ultimate goal,” Salsky said, “is not a book that’s to explain or to defend anything. It’s really to spotlight Jewish identity. It’s nuanced. It’s complicated. And I hope it helps people who aren’t in the community to think about the impact of hateful rhetoric and to reflect upon what true solidarity looks like.”

Some of the images in the book were part of a gallery installation Salsky ran in 2021 and were featured two years later at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. She was in the midst of turning the original images into a book when Hamas invaded Israel on October 7 and killed more than 1,200 people.

“I think that this is the exact right time for the book to come out because when you look back at the source material, it clearly shows a community that was on a precipice,” Salsky said. “ I think all people who are Jewish have had to have a moment of reckoning about their identity, either subconsciously or consciously.”

Salsky will be doing a book signing at Indigo in downtown Toronto on the evening of May 20 and is hosting an exhibition at the Avant Garde Gallery in late May as part of the CONTACT photography festival in Toronto.

Salsky said the above photo is one of her favourite images. It shows a man blowing a shofar on a big screen and was taken during a drive-in Rosh Hashanah service in Toronto during the pandemic. She was drawn to the photo because of how “people are physically separated, yet still participating in a shared experience.”

The first photo was taken in Toronto in 2022. “ It feels cheerful because it’s hot pink and it’s a sunny day, but the message in it — does your church need armed guards because our synagogues do — kind of stops you in your tracks,” Salsky said. She wanted to pair the image together with Toronto police in front of Beth Tzedec, a Conservative Jewish synagogue, because she felt it spoke to the genuine concern over security in the community.

The first image was taken outside the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Toronto. The lawn signs were a common sight following October 7 across the city’s Jewish community, encouraging Torontonians to oppose intolerance and be “proudly Jewish.” Salsky compared it to the burned sign outside the Kehillat Shaarei Torah in Toronto that has been attacked over ten times since the October 7 attacks.

Salsky photographed this torn kidnapped poster for Israeli hostages that had been displayed in Toronto. She said the “defacement of such images worldwide after October 7, 2023” spoke to the inability of people to sympathize with Jewish and Israeli victims of terror.

Members of the Jewish community and supporters clashed with counterprotesters during the Walk with Israel in 2024. An anti-Israel protester used his fingers to display an inverted triangle at the crowd, a symbol used by Hamas in propaganda videos to denote enemy combatants.

Salsky took this image at her family celebration of Hanukkah in 2024. Salsky said the arrangement of the menorahs and use of multiple menorahs reflects “how Jewish ritual is adapted and practiced across personal and domestic contexts.”

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.

He was one of eight siblings, a poor New Brunswick farmboy who scraped his way into university and went on to a storied political career that saw him touted as a potential prime minister and ascend the highest levels of Bay Street finance.

On Saturday, Frank McKenna, the former Canadian ambassador to the United States, pledged $20 million to his alma mater, St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) in Antigonish, N.S.

“The scholarships will be the largest in the country,” McKenna told National Post shortly before the announcement was made public. “The program will be large and prestigious and should attract the strongest students in the country, both academically and in terms of their leadership skills.”

The McKenna Scholarship Program will transcend specific disciplines and be awarded across all StFX faculties , including arts, science and business. McKenna viewed the endowment as a means of making post-secondary education more accessible and encouraged Canadians across the country to consider StFX and other Maritime schools that might not be front of mind for students in major cities.

McKenna, now chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, remains grateful for everything StFX has done in his life and credits the university with setting him on a path to long-lasting career and family success.

“I’ve been hugely blessed in my life. I come from a very poor farming family in New Brunswick, a large family of 10. I was able to go from that background to be honoured as premier of the province of New Brunswick, and later became blessed to become ambassador for Canada,” he said. “I just am hugely grateful for those blessings and I wanted to give back to my country and back to my region.”

McKenna graduated from StFX with a bachelor of arts in 1970 and served as president of the students’ union during his time on campus. His family roots continue to run deep at the Antigonish campus. His wife, children and several of their spouses are alumni. Today, McKenna said, five of his grandchildren are also at the university.

“I’ve got two grandchildren graduating, so I don’t want to diminish: that’s why we’re all here,” he joked ahead of their convocation ceremony in May, where he is to speak. “We’ve had a strong emotional connection to that institution because it’s been a huge part of our lives during our formative years.”

Following his undergraduate studies at StFX, McKenna pursued a graduate degree in political science at Queen’s University and then attended the University of New Brunswick Law School. McKenna built a promising career as a lawyer and is best known for successfully defending boxing champion Yvon Durelle against a murder charge in 1977.

In 1982, McKenna entered provincial politics as a Liberal and won a seat in the New Brunswick legislative assembly. Five years later, McKenna became premier and, true to his word, resigned precisely 10 years after that. Upon leaving public office in 1997 , he spent nearly a decade in the business world, serving on corporate boards and as legal counsel for various law firms.

In 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed McKenna as Canada’s ambassador to the United States, a position he held for just over a year. After Martin’s electoral defeat in January 2006 to then-Conservative leader Stephen Harper, McKenna was widely touted as a potential leader of the Liberal Party, but decided against a run. McKenna remembers his stint in Washington, D.C., fondly to this day.

“As a Canadian, you only really value the country when you’re out of it. When I was in Washington, I used to have ambassadors talking to me every day telling me how lucky I was ’cause I represented Canada, the most envied country in the world,” he recalled. “We as Canadians have to step back from time to time and smell the flowers and understand how blessed we are.”

McKenna’s time in Washington has given him a unique vantage point as bilateral relations with the United States have become increasingly tense following the return of Donald Trump to the White House. McKenna applauded Canadian political leaders across the aisle for navigating this uncertain moment.

“I think it’s no secret that the relationships are fraught at the moment. I like the way that our country is conducting itself; it’s very bipartisan,” McKenna said. He commended Harper, Pierre Poilievre and “our Prime Minister” – Mark Carney – for representing Canadian interests well on the world’s stage.

“The provinces are standing up to be counted and I think the country’s responding to this leadership,” he continued. “We may look back at this as a moment where Canada grew up.”

After leaving politics, McKenna became chairman of Brookfield, a director of Canadian Natural Resources and an executive with TD Bank Group.

For all of McKenna’s professional success, it is life out east that is never far from his mind when asked to contemplate his legacy. Although he splits his time between Ontario and New Brunswick, the latter “is my home.”

“I live in the bigger world, I travel all over the world on business and stuff, but when I’m home in the Maritimes, I just kind of leave the chaos behind. I find that we’re a supportive region,” he said.

“I always feel like we’re brothers and sisters and neighbours and we look after each other. That we’ve got a quality of life that is just enviable. So I’ve never felt a time when I was a Maritimer that I didn’t feel blessed at where I grew up.”

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The Canada Revenue Agency is refunding approximately $647 million collected as a result of the now-defunct digital services tax.

The federal Liberals repealed it in an attempt to keep trade talks on track last summer, when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut Canada off.

“Before the government halted collection of the digital services tax on June 30, 2025, the Canada Revenue Agency collected approximately $647 million,” CRA media relations officer Nina Ioussoupova told National Post in an email on Friday.

Of the amounts collected, Ioussoupova said, about $358 million was used to cover “outstanding tax liabilities of the same taxpayer(s).”

By late April, about $154 million was refunded to taxpayers, including close to $4 million in interest.

Ioussoupova said the CRA planned to have the refunds completed in April.

Over fiscal years 2021–22 to 2025–26, the CRA was provided with $30 million to administer the digital services tax. That covered “implementation of the new tax, systems and form development, and related accommodation and information technology costs,” wrote Ioussoupova.

Back in 2023, the Parliamentary Budget Office projected the digital services tax would increase federal government coffers by $7.2 billion over five years.

The legislation to repeal the tax was part of Ottawa’s fall budget bill, which was passed on March 26. The legislation was necessary to enable the CRA to issue the refunds.

When it was in active operation, the digital services tax was applied annually as a three per cent tax on digital services revenue generated within Canada by large tech giants, mainly companies primarily based in the U.S.

The U.S. government had protested the digital services tax, which Washington saw as unfairly targeting American tech companies.

However, last year, the U.S. backed away from threatened tax hikes on companies from foreign countries such as Canada that applied taxes seen by Washington lawmakers as discriminatory against American companies.

The retreat was a reaction to G7 finance ministers announcing that the U.S. would be excluded from the OECD-led global minimum tax regime, which was designed to ensure certain multinational enterprises are subject to a minimum tax rate in every jurisdiction they operate.

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OTTAWA — The Liberal government is overhauling Trudeau-era air passenger rights rules it now admits are largely toothless.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said Friday at a media announcement at Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport that he was taking action to clear an “unacceptable” backlog of nearly 100,000 passenger complaints.

“We hear repeatedly, the regulations themselves are too complex,” said MacKinnon. “We need a practical regime that safeguards passengers’ rights when travel does not go as planned.”

MacKinnon announced that the government would raise the maximum fine for airlines found to have repeatedly violated passenger rights to $1 million.

He added that the government will outsource passenger complaints to a private sector adjudicator, noting that it can take more than a year for the Canadian Transportation Agency to resolve disputes under the current system.

MacKinnon also announced the elimination of a federal gag order prohibiting travellers from publicly discussing their complaints.

Canada’s existing Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) were developed under the Trudeau government, coming into force in 2019.

MacKinnon told reporters that COVID was partly to blame for the failure of Trudeau-era air passenger protections.

“We put in place a system that, in hindsight, was onerous, expensive, took too long. It must be said, and to be fair, the system was implemented during a pandemic, which certainly did not help,” said MacKinnon.

MacKinnon didn’t address why a subsequent 2023 initiative to impose a fee on airlines when passengers lodged complaints fell by the wayside.

Gábor Lukács, head of Air Passenger Rights (Canada) says that COVID had nothing to do with the regulations’ shortcomings.

“Mr. MacKinnon may wish to refresh his memory. APPR 1.0 was designed in 2017-2019, well before COVID. The APPR was a failure by design,” said Lukács.

Lukács says his group warned about loopholes in the regulations as far back as 2017.

He added that, while he commended MacKinnon for owning up to past failures, he was hoping to hear more details about how the government intended to close these loopholes.

Lukács said a loophole allowing airlines to claim delays were “required for safety reasons” is in critical need of tightening. He noted that a Transport Canada official recently admitted in sworn testimony that it takes roughly a day to for adjudicators to vet the “safety reasons” excuse.

Lukács called the privatization of adjudication a “PR stunt.”

“If the rules are simple, then they can be applied effectively by public employees,” said Lukács.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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