Former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall on working with (or against) Justin Trudeau

From a FaceBook post by former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall

Your Mom likely told you what mine told me – if you can’t say something nice ..don’t say anything at all. So maybe that’s why it has taken me a day to offer a few thoughts on Trudeau’s resignation announcement yesterday. I miss my Mom everyday but I’m not sure I will be able to follow her advice for this post. (On the other hand.. remembering some of her comments during the Trudeau years – she might be fine with this!)

I truly believe that those who put their name forward for public office, no matter how much I might disagree with them personally and politically should be thanked for their willingness to wade into the increasingly toxic waters of politics. But the undeniable truth is that Canada would be better off today had he decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps.

His Prime Ministership was manifestly the most divisive and economically damaging of any in our history…including the record of the elder Trudeau ..who generationally knee-capped the economy of western Canada with the National Energy Program.

I dealt with this particular Trudeau in my old job at First Ministers’ Conferences, in bilateral relations and one on one discussions. He struck me as someone who was the product of an abiding central Canadian/Quebec world view with a focus on progressive trends rather than policy development or political and economic thought. That was my impression anyway.

Somewhere along the way he found and then clung to wokeism and an obsession with man-made climate change. They were very trendy things for those on the left. Shiny buttons that permanently distracted Trudeau.

His government continues to risk our economy, our trade competitiveness and exacerbate affordability issues for all Canadians with his forced march to a carbon tax that in 4 years will be a debilitating $170.00 per tonne. All in the name of reducing Canada’s emissions that account for less than 2% of global emissions. Imagine – stubbornly pursuing a policy like his carbon tax that is that damaging – in the name of maybe, possibly reducing emissions by a quantum that will make no impact..no change on this thing you’ve sworn us all to fight – climate change. A leader shoving his citizens ahead of him into a winless fight, forcing them to pay for the costs of that fight and risking the competitiveness of the entire economy (at a time when we are now facing the threat of Trump’s tariffs).

The carbon tax is just one policy on a laundry list of damaging and often feckless policies that Trudeau has introduced in his 10 years as Prime Minister. He all but declared his disdain for the western Canadian resource sector. He never much liked how we made a living in the west; how we live by and rely on fossil fuels in rural Canada. He never respected the values that a majority of western or rural Canadians hold dear.

He, more than any PM in contemporary Canadian political history, was found wanting in ethics and third party investigations. He chose to fire or force out strong female Ministers rather than be held accountable for things he very much said…and very much did. All this from a self-proclaimed feminist who would regularly lecture Canadians on the importance of his ‘feminist’ view.

He offered the same when it came to Reconcilation yet he failed to fulfill his promise for clean drinking water on First Nations reserves.

He demonized millions of Canadians who were represented by the Freedom Convoy or who had concerns about lock- downs and vaccine mandates – dismissing them as un-Canadian and fringe and ..much worse.

His fiscal record and tendencies were so bad that even the big spending, big government advocating Chrystia Freeland quit his cabinet.

People will observe that Canada has never had an NDP Prime Minister. I beg to differ.

He was unserious. He said things and believed things like “The budget will balance itself” and “I don’t think too much about monetary policy “

Incredible.

I recall when I was the lone Premier and Saskatchewan was the lone province opposing his carbon tax. I know the kinds of things he and his Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said about us…about Saskatchewan..behind closed doors and to some whom they believed had assured discretion.

And yet despite all of this – I did not feel as gratified as some did when the news broke yesterday. You see yesterday was a good day for the Liberal Party of Canada. Or at least a better day than they have had in a long while. Granted the Liberals have huge hole from which to dig out but the digging could not begin until Trudeau quit.

I’d rather he had decided to lead his party into the next election. We would be much more assured of much needed change had that been the case.

Because make no mistake – with him or without him – this is a new Justin Trudeau-shaped leftwing, woke, anti-resource development Liberal party of Canada. Long gone is the pragmatism of the Chretien/Martin era. Trudeau policies for the most part will continue to be front and centre with the Liberal party long after he is gone.

I hope the Conservative Party of Canada keeps it head down, humbly asking Canadians to be their agents of much needed change.. and running like they are 10 points behind – not 20 points ahead.

I believe that Canada as we have known it- hangs in the balance of the next election. If somehow, we continue to have a federal government with the ghost-vestigial policies of the man who announced his departure plans yesterday… well that would very bad for the west and not much better for the rest of the country.

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Métis will now get piece of ever-expanding payout pie

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Fraser Institute

Métis will now get piece of ever-expanding payout pie

Published on October 20, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tom Flanagan

The history of Ile-à-la-Crosse (IALC) in northern Saskatchewan goes back to 1776, when Thomas Frobisher established a fur trading post. Catholic Oblate missionaries arrived in 1846 and founded a small day school the next year, which was turned into a boarding school in 1860. Louis Riel’s sister Sara taught there until she died of TB in 1883. Under various names and at various locations, the school survived until the early 1970s.

The students were mainly Métis from northern Saskatchewan, with a sprinkling of Indian and white children. It was never an Indian Residential School (IRS) in the legal sense, though the federal government did at times make financial contributions proportional to the small number of status Indian children who attended. The school was mainly supported by the Oblate order and the Grey Nuns, with contributions from the province of Saskatchewan in later years.

Because the school was not an IRS, those who had attended were excluded from the IRS Settlement Agreement negotiated by Paul Martin’s government in 2005 and implemented by Stephen Harper’s government afterwards. Most students had been Métis, and the Settlement Agreement generally excluded Métis who had attended mission boarding schools that were not IRS. Wanting to share in the $5 billion financial compensation provided by the Agreement, the IALC students started legal action, using Tony Merchant’s law firm. Merchant, however, moved too slowly for the complainants, so the Sotos firm started another class action in 2022.

Following the “resistance is futile” policy enunciated by Jodi Wilson-Raybould when she was minister of justice, the federal government had already decided not to litigate, having signed in 2019 a memorandum of understanding to negotiate the claims. In March 2025, the federal government reached an agreement-in-principle with IALC students, which will go before a federal court judge for approval in January 2026. Saskatchewan announced its own agreement-in-principle in September, which will also go before the federal court.

Canada is putting up $27 million and Saskatchewan $40 million for individual compensation. With an estimated 600-700 “survivors,” this equates to individual payouts of about $100,000 apiece. This is admittedly guesswork, because neither agreement-in-principle has been published. News reports indicate that “families” will be involved in the compensation, so a larger number of claimants may materialize.

The federal news release says that compensation is being paid for “cultural loss abuse,” which includes loss of proficiency in the Cree and Michif languages spoken by the Métis in that area. Sexual and physical abuse are not mentioned, even though “survivors” claim to have been abused. Payments will be made to all who attended, as with the federal day school settlement and the “common experience” payment in the IRS settlement.

In the world of government, the joint payout of $67 million is a penny-ante affair, but the long-term implications are much greater. There are tens of thousands of Métis adults who attended mission boarding schools, both Protestant and Catholic, that were not considered IRS and were not admitted to the IRS Settlement Agreement. For them, the IALC settlement is like a dam breaking, setting a precedent for compensation. Class action law firms will commence new actions. Individual cases will be small, but there will be so many of them that the federal government will probably consolidate them into one multi-billion-dollar settlement, and the provinces will fall into line.

When Prime Minister Harper decided to implement the IRS settlement Agreement, he thought it would bring peace on the Indigenous front, allowing the government to move forward. It was an understandable hope, but in fact that decision unleashed a series of class actions that have cost taxpayers more than $50 billion and rising. When Harper was in power, he kept the lid on; but payments exploded after Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015 and made Wilson-Raybould minister of justice. Her instruction to Department of Justice lawyers to negotiate rather than litigate, which is still in force, caused resistance to Indigenous class actions to collapse and facilitated enormous payouts culminating in the $40 billion-plus child-care settlement. Now the Métis will get their piece of this ever-expanding payout pie.

Tom Flanagan

Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Distinguished Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary

Business

US government buys stakes in two Canadian mining companies

Published on October 20, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Steven Globerman

Prime Minister Mark Carney recently visited the White House for meetings with President Donald Trump. In front of the cameras, the mood was congenial, with both men complimenting each other and promising future cooperation in several areas despite the looming threat of Trump tariffs.

But in the last two weeks, in an effort to secure U.S. access to key critical minerals, the Trump administration has purchased sizable stakes in in two Canadian mining companies—Trilogy Metals and Lithium Americas Corp (LAC). And these aggressive moves by Washington have created a dilemma for Ottawa.

Since news broke of the investments, the Carney government has been quiet, stating only it “welcomes foreign direct investment that benefits Canada’s economy. As part of this process, reviews of foreign investments in critical minerals will be conducted in the best interests of Canadians.”

In the case of LAC, lithium is included in Ottawa’s list of critical minerals that are “essential to Canada’s economic or national security.” And the Investment Canada Act (ICA) requires the government to scrutinize all foreign investments by state-owned investors on national security grounds. Indeed, the ICA specifically notes the potential impact of an investment on critical minerals and critical mineral supply chains.

But since the lithium will be mined and processed in Nevada and presumably utilized in the United States, the Trump administration’s investment will likely have little impact on Canada’s critical mineral supply chain. But here’s the problem. If the Carney government initiates a review, it may enrage Trump at a critical moment in the bilateral relationship, particularly as both governments prepare to renegotiate the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

A second dilemma is whether the Carney government should apply the ICA’s “net benefits” test, which measures the investment’s impact on employment, innovation, productivity and economic activity in Canada. The investment must also comport with Canada’s industrial, economic and cultural policies.

Here, the Trump administration’s investment in LAC will likely fail the ICA test, since the main benefit to Canada is that Canadian investors in LAC have been substantially enriched by the U.S. government’s initiative (a week before the Trump administration announced the investment, LAC’s shares were trading at around US$3; two days after the announcement, the shares were trading at US$8.50). And despite any arguments to the contrary, the ICA has never viewed capital gains by Canadian investors as a benefit to Canada.

Similarly, the shares of Trilogy Minerals surged some 200 per cent after the Trump administration announced its investment to support Trilogy’s mineral exploration in Alaska. Again, Canadian shareholders benefited, yet according to the ICA’s current net benefits test, that’s irrelevant.

But in reality, inflows of foreign capital augment domestic savings, which, in turn, provide financing for domestic business investment in Canada. And the prospect of realizing capital gains from acquisitions made by foreign investors encourages startup Canadian companies.

So, what should the Carney government do?

In short, it should revise the ICA so that national security grounds are the sole basis for approving or rejecting investments by foreign governments in Canadian companies. This may still not sit well in Washington, but the prospect of retaliation by the Trump administration should not prevent Canada from applying its sovereign laws. However, the Carney government should eliminate the net benefits test, or at least recognize that foreign investments that enrich Canadian shareholders convey benefits to Canada.

These recent investments by the Trump administration may not be unique. There are hundreds of Canadian-owned mining companies operating in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions, and future investments in some of those companies by the U.S. or other foreign governments are quite possible. Going forward, Canada’s review process should be robust while recognizing all the benefits of foreign investment.