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Florida Panthers receive special honour during White House visit

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Visiting Washington to take on the home town Capitals, the Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers enjoyed the traditional White House visit by champion teams.

The team had to spend almost an hour in the penalty box so to speak, as the President delayed the ceremony for nearly an hour in order to deal with the emerging tariff situation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In the end, President Trump made it up to the team by escorting them into the Oval Office for a one of a kind photo.. which is not part of the typical ceremonies.

The Panther players all came dressed in typical Trump fashion, sporting blue suits, with white shirts and red ties.

In an interesting twist, turns out team owner Vincent Viola is a friend of the President’s. Back in 2016, Viola was Trump’s original nomination as Secretary of the Army. Viola withdrew from consideration.

During the ceremony which took just less than 20 minutes, President Trump repeatedly stopped to pay tribute to several stand out players and accepted a gift of a Panthers jersey and a golden hockey stick.

 

 

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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2025 Federal Election

RCMP Whistleblowers Accuse Members of Mark Carney’s Inner Circle of Security Breaches and Surveillance

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The Opposition with Dan Knight Dan Knight's avatar Dan Knight

A serving RCMP sergeant and retired national security detective accuse Trudeau-era ministers—and now Mark Carney’s inner circle—of illegal surveillance and intelligence cover-ups

In a stunning open letter dated April 12, 2025 which allegations are unverified went viral yesterday, RCMP Sgt. Peter Merrifield and retired national security detective Paul McNamara have accused a slate of former and current Liberal cabinet ministers—including members of Mark Carney’s leadership circle—of allowing and covering up serious breaches of Canadian national security, the Charter of Rights, and the public trust.

The letter, addressed directly to Prime Minister Mark Carney, lays out explosive allegations supported, they say, by documentation and communications records. The authors are demanding Carney remove specific individuals from his campaign and inner circle to demonstrate that he will not inherit or excuse the Liberal Party’s pattern of evasion and abuse of power under Justin Trudeau.

“You are presenting your financial background as the requisite and relevant experience to lead a nation,” they write. “Perhaps it was your lack of political and government experience that saw you mishandle the extremely serious matter with your current Member of Parliament Paul Chiang.”

“He openly called for the abduction…”

The letter references former Liberal MP Paul Chiang, who stepped down in disgrace after it was revealed he told a Chinese-language audience that they could claim a $1 million bounty from the Chinese government by delivering Conservative candidate Joe Tay—a Canadian citizen—“to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto.”

Merrifield and McNamara did not mince words:

“MP Chiang not only acted without integrity as a Member of Parliament and former police officer, but he also openly called for the abduction and handover of a Canadian citizen and political opponent to a foreign country that the Liberal government has criticized for human rights violations.”

They go further, directly accusing Carney of failing his first major leadership test:

“This unparalleled action in Canadian history was your first public test as a leader… You hesitated and did not publicly demonstrate the recognition of the seriousness of the offence.”

9 Trudeau-Era Officials Named and Shamed

The letter then shifts to its most consequential section: a list of nine former and current ministers—some of whom now work in Carney’s office—who the authors accuse of either enabling, ignoring, or directly participating in unlawful actions.

Among the most damning claims:

  • Marco Mendicino is accused of having “failed… to act in protecting Canadians abroad from potential arrest and detention,” and for permitting “breaches of law, breaches of process, and breaches of policy by both CSIS and the RCMP.”
  • Dominic LeBlanc, they allege, “failed… to address breaches against Canadians with improper use of electronic spyware by CSIS and the RCMP,” including breaches “against Labour Unions.”
  • Bill Blair is accused of “authorizing extreme powers for CSIS to undertake inappropriate actions against innocent Canadians,” and permitting violations of the Ministerial Directive on National Security Operations in Sensitive Sectors.
  • Anita Anand allegedly “failed to intercede and address improper use of spyware by the RCMP against a Labour Union Executive during a period of collective bargaining and unfair labour practice filing.”

They also accuse Melanie Joly and Arif Virani of failing to act after the “public release of protected Section 38 National Security documents… without redaction,” which they claim exposed Canadian operatives and their families to retaliation from the Chinese state.

“These individuals now and forever have a target on their backs.”

Merrifield and McNamara claim these failures led to tangible threats against Canadians who were caught in the middle of international espionage between China and Canada.

“Several innocent Canadians have been placed at risk of direct retaliation by Chinese foreign intelligence… These innocent individuals now and forever have a target on their backs.”

They argue that had ministers acted when first informed in 2022, this exposure never would’ve happened.

The letter ends with a final challenge to Carney:

“If indeed you are presenting Canadians a choice of ‘something new’, then take action now rather than making election campaign promises to ‘look into it’ later.”

They tell Carney that surrounding himself with “the failed engineers of the past” will only prove that his leadership is a continuation—not a break—from the rot of the Trudeau years.

Who Are Merrifield and McNamara?

Peter Merrifield is a veteran RCMP sergeant who served on the executive board of the National Police Federation, the official RCMP union. He has previously filed lawsuits against the force for political retaliation and harassment. He alleges he was targeted by spyware (ODIT)—the same kind used to track terrorists—during union negotiations with the federal government.

Det. Paul McNamara (Ret.), a seasoned national security investigator, has worked with Merrifield for several years compiling documentary evidence of alleged abuses by CSIS and the RCMP. He co-authored the letter and claims they are in possession of “documents, communication records, and evidence” to back every charge.

Final word

So now the stakes are laid bare.

This election isn’t just about policy. It’s not about carbon taxes or housing slogans or who can shake the most hands in Brampton. It’s about whether Canada is still a country governed by the rule of law—or a decaying shell run by insiders, spooks, and bureaucrats who answer to no one.

Because Mark Carney has a choice: lead with integrity, or carry water for the same Liberal machine that gave us surveillance on union reps, CSIS interference, and national security scandals buried under layers of Ottawa spin.

And Canadians have a choice too.

If the allegations are true do we want more of the same? More willful blindness, more gaslighting, more foreign interference and media complicity dressed up as “safety and stability”?

Or are we finally ready to demand something different?

This election is a referendum on accountability. And for once, the line is crystal clear.

Choose wisely. Because this time, the country’s not going to survive on autopilot.

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2025 Federal Election

MEI-Ipsos poll: 56 per cent of Canadians support increasing access to non-governmental healthcare providers

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  • Most believe private providers can deliver services faster than government-run hospitals

  • 77 per cent of Canadians say their provincial healthcare system is too bureaucratic

Canadians are increasingly in favour of breaking the government monopoly over health care by opening the door to independent providers and cross-border treatments, an MEI-Ipsos poll has revealed.

“Canadians from coast to coast are signalling they want to see more involvement from independent health providers in our health system,” explains Emmanuelle B. Faubert, economist at the MEI. “They understand that universal access doesn’t mean government-run, and that consistent failures to deliver timely care in government hospitals are a feature of the current system.”

Support for independent health care is on the rise, with 56 per cent of respondents in favour of allowing patients to access services provided by independent health entrepreneurs. Only 25 per cent oppose this.

In Quebec, support is especially strong, with 68 per cent endorsing this change.

Favourable views of accessing care through a mixed system are widespread, with three quarters of respondents stating that private entrepreneurs can deliver healthcare services faster than hospitals managed by the government. This is up four percentage points from last year.

Countries like Sweden and France combine universal coverage with independent providers and deliver faster, more accessible care. When informed about how these health systems run, nearly two in three Canadians favour adopting such models.

The poll also finds that 73 per cent of Canadians support allowing patients to receive treatment abroad with provincial coverage, which could help reduce long wait times at home.

Common in the European Union, this “cross-border directive” enabled 450,000 patients to access elective surgeries in 2022, with costs reimbursed as if they had been treated in their home country.

There’s a growing consensus that provincial healthcare systems are overly bureaucratic, with the strongest agreement in Alberta, B.C., and Quebec. The proportion of Canadians holding this view has risen by 16 percentage points since 2020.

Nor do Canadians see more spending as being a solution: over half say the current pace of healthcare spending in their province is unsustainable.

“Governments shouldn’t keep doubling down on what isn’t working. Instead, they should look at what works abroad,” says Ms. Faubert. “Canadians have made it clear they want to shift gears; now it’s up to policymakers to show they’re listening.”

A sample of 1,164 Canadians aged 18 and older was polled between March 24th and March 28th, 2025. The margin of error is ±3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The results of the MEI-Ipsos poll are available here.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

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