2025 Federal Election
Canadian construction worker goes viral for saying he refused to shake Mark Carney’s hand

From LifeSiteNews
‘I’m the guy in the black hardhat. I didn’t want to be there. I’d vowed not to shake his hand. I told the organizers I wouldn’t,’ wrote the construction worker on X.
A Canadian construction worker has gone viral online after making a video saying he “vowed” not to “shake the hand” of Prime Minister Mark Carney at a recent press conference in Alberta.
The construction worker from Edmonton, Alberta, who goes by Job B online, vented his frustration on X last week saying that he was more or less forced to be a prop in a Carney press conference on March 20.
“I’m the guy in the black hardhat. I didn’t want to be there. I’d vowed not to shake his hand. I told the organizers I wouldn’t,” said Jon B in response to a video of the incident which has since gone viral.
He didn’t get a handshake because he walked up to them with his hands in his pockets and he looked at them like they were supposed get his car for him.
— James Griesbach (@JamesGriesbach) March 20, 2025
I'm the guy in the black hardhat. I didn't want to be there. I vowed not to shake his hand. I told the organizers that I wouldn't.
— Jon B (@Jon_Brake_tri) March 21, 2025
Carney, who has only been prime minister for about two weeks after taking over as Liberal Party leader from Justin Trudeau, was in Edmonton last week for meetings. Carney is not an MP and was never elected by the Canadian people.
Jon B said that he and the other construction workers were more or less forced to be used as props in the photo shoot, noting, “we didn’t have much choice.”
According to Jon B, his co-workers “all felt the same” in terms of their negative view of Carney.
Carney, an admitted “elitist” and “globalist,” triggered a general election on Sunday to take place on April 28.
Since taking office from Trudeau, Carney has admitted that he will “probably” have to recuse himself from certain governmental matters due to potential conflicts of interest. The prime minister made the concession shortly after lashing out at a reporter when asked whether his large private investment holdings present an ethical issue.
Before becoming prime minister, Carney worked for Brookfield Asset Management and the United Nations special envoy on climate action.
Recent reports claim that Carney held $6.8 million in Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. stock options before quitting the company.
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
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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.
2025 Federal Election
AI-Driven Election Interference from China, Russia, and Iran Expected, Canadian Security Officials Warn

Sam Cooper
Canada’s election monitoring agency is warning that foreign powers, led by the People’s Republic of China, are expected to target Canadian politicians and political parties in the coming weeks using increasingly convincing AI-generated cyberattacks—part of a broad set of malign strategies that could be impacting the 2025 federal election.
The warning came Monday from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, whose officials detailed how foreign state actors, including China, Russia, and Iran, are likely to use so-called “hack-and-leak” operations, generative AI, and social engineering to undermine confidence in Canada’s democratic process.
“Canadian politicians and political parties are likely to be targeted by threat actors attempting to hack into their systems, steal information, and leak that information,” said an official from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, a branch of the Communications Security Establishment. “We assess that AI is making social engineering attacks more personalized, pervasive, and harder to detect.”
Officials cited a 2024 U.S. Department of Justice indictment that charged Iranian-linked cyber actors with stealing and leaking campaign material belonging to U.S. political figures, including to rival campaigns. The case, SITE said, was emblematic of an evolving threat model now being deployed globally.
“Increasingly, nation states are incorporating AI into their cyber operations,” SITE warned. “Generative AI tools enable cyber threat actors to create realistic audio and video content impersonating trusted individuals or deepfakes.”
These tools, SITE added, are being used to craft emails that mimic natural human writing, using convincing grammar and tone to fool even seasoned professionals—including campaign staff, journalists, and elected officials.
SITE said that the cyber programs of China, Russia, and Iran represent the greatest strategic cyber threats to Canadian democracy during the current election. Among them, the PRC was flagged as the most persistent in targeting Canadian political figures, public officials, and institutions.
“The PRC regularly targets Canadian government networks and public officials to acquire information that will advance its strategic economic and diplomatic interests,” an official said. “This information is likely also used to support the PRC’s malign influence and interference activities against Canada’s democratic processes.”
SITE linked these activities to broader campaigns of transnational repression. Chinese cyber actors have been publicly tied to operations targeting Uyghur activists in Canada, as well as journalists and dissidents from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The tactics include spyware, phishing campaigns, and digital tracking.
“PRC actors very likely facilitate transnational repression by monitoring and harassing these groups online,” an official added, noting that Beijing has labeled Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and pro-democracy advocates among its so-called ‘five poisons.’
Russia and pro-Russian non-state actors were described as the most aggressive actors globally over the past two years in targeting elections, using cyberattacks and information warfare to influence outcomes and undermine faith in democratic institutions.
SITE officials emphasized that the task force is actively monitoring signals intelligence, cyber intrusion attempts, and online manipulation in real-time — and will issue public alerts if they identify specific incidents linked to foreign actors.
But the challenge, they said, is that these operations increasingly blend foreign state capabilities with domestic narratives and influencers, making detection and attribution more difficult.
“The environment is rapidly evolving,” the official concluded. “We are asking everyone — from parties to voters — to be vigilant in the face of increasingly deceptive and technologically sophisticated foreign interference.”
Two weeks ago, Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force identified a sophisticated PRC information campaign targeting Chinese-language social media in Canada. On March 10 and March 25, the WeChat account Youli-Youmian, linked to Chinese Communist Party propaganda efforts, shared widely amplified posts portraying Mark Carney in a highly favorable light.
One post, titled “The US encounters a ‘tough guy’ Prime Minister,” framed Carney as standing up to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
At the SITE briefing Monday, The Bureau questioned whether the task force would investigate the Carney campaign’s “ButtonGate” scandal as potential domestic election interference—especially given the operation echoed a PRC disinformation playbook from 2021 that falsely depicted the Conservatives as Trump-style extremists. The question also raised whether SITE had the capacity to examine any crossover between this Liberal narrative and a broader foreign campaign.
A SITE spokesperson replied cautiously: “National security agencies take any attempt to undermine our democracy really seriously… Not all disinformation is foreign-backed… but SITE is committed to informing Canadians when emerging issues can be linked to foreign state actors.”
Alongside its public briefing Monday, the SITE Task Force released a visual guide warning Canadians about how disinformation spreads during elections.
The schematic emphasizes vigilance, encouraging Canadians to scrutinize domain names, design inconsistencies, and suspicious endorsements. It also urges users to verify sources, use fact-checking tools, and avoid sharing unverified content.
The Bureau is a reader-supported publication.
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