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Liberal leadership debate sees candidates bash Trump, promise to fight ‘climate change’

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Monday’s debate saw candidates Chrystia Freeland, Mark Carney and others accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of being the nation’s biggest threat while also restating their commitment to fighting ‘climate change.’

The first debate among Liberal leadership hopefuls Monday night saw the candidates focus heavily on bashing U.S. President Donald Trump, with all in the running also pledging their commitment to fighting “climate change.”

The French language debate, held in Montreal, saw frontrunner Mark Carney, former Finance Minister Chyrstia Freeland, and the two other lesser-known candidates, former House leader Karina Gould and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis, debate for two hours on a variety of topics, with Trump-bashing taking center stage. Freeland and Carney in particular, both of whom have ties to the globalist World Economic Forum, claimed Trump is the biggest threat Canada has faced in decades. 

When asked about Trump’s ongoing threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods at the start of March, Carney said, “Today’s Trump is very different from the Trump of the past,” asserting he is “more aggressive” than ever and that “he wants our country.”

Carney, who has a history of pushing the climate change narrative, was asked about his recent comments suggesting he would use emergency powers to combat Trump’s tariff threats by green-lighting energy projects in an attempt to make Canada less dependent on its neighbor to the south.

In response, Carney, whose proficiency in French seemed weaker than the others, appeared to hold back on committing to the building of pipelines from Alberta to Eastern Canada, but saying that such a project could be “possible.”   

“70% of our oil comes from the U.S., our neighbor. No longer our friend, of course,” he added. 

For Freeland’s part, she claimed that “Trump represents the greatest threat to Canada since World War II,” later boasting that she is the “only” one who could take on Trump via negotiation. 

All the candidates said they “completely agree” that Trump is Canada’s largest “threat,” and all took turns bashing their biggest political rival, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, labeling him incompetent.  

The leadership candidates also all agreed that “fighting” climate change was a priority but did not elaborate on what they would do differently than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom they all praised for his “climate” leadership. Carney and Freeland, both of whom have long supported carbon taxes, vowed to eliminate the consumer carbon tax despite standing by it for years.      

Freeland is known by many as being the finance minister responsible for freezing the bank accounts of the 2022 Freedom Convoy participants and donors, actions Carney endorsed at the time.

Carney also recently admitted to being a “globalist” and an “elitist,” but defended the labels as positives.

The Liberal Party of Canada will choose its next leader, who will automatically become prime minister, on March 9, after Trudeau announced that he plans to step down as Liberal Party leader once a new leader has been chosen.

With respect to Trump, he has mentioned multiple times that he desires to annex Canada and turn it into a state. 

Trump’s talk of taking over Canada by economic force comes at the same time he has threatened to impose massive tariffs on the nation. 

Canada was given a 30-day reprieve from 25 percent tariffs by Trump at the end of January after Trudeau promised in a call to increase border security and crack down on fentanyl at the border. However, Trump has imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum products. 

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Cuba has lost 24% of it’s population to emigration in the last 4 years

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A new study finds Cuba has lost nearly a quarter of its population since 2020, driven by economic collapse and a mass emigration wave unseen outside of war zones. The country’s population now stands at just over 8 million, down from nearly 10 million.

Key Details:

  • Independent study estimates Cuba’s population at 8.02 million—down 24% in four years.
  • Over 545,000 Cubans left the island in 2024 alone—double the official government figure.
  • Demographer warns the crisis mirrors depopulation seen only in wartime, calling it a “systemic collapse.”

Diving Deeper:

Cuba is undergoing a staggering demographic collapse, losing nearly one in four residents over the past four years, according to a new study by economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos. The report estimates that by the end of 2024, Cuba’s population will stand at just over 8 million people—down from nearly 10 million—a 24% drop that Albizu-Campos says is comparable only to what is seen in war-torn nations.

The study, accessed by the Spanish news agency EFE, points to mass emigration as the primary driver. In 2024 alone, 545,011 Cubans are believed to have left the island. That number is more than double what the regime officially acknowledges, as Cuba’s government only counts those heading to the United States, ignoring large flows to destinations like Mexico, Spain, Serbia, and Uruguay.

Albizu-Campos describes the trend as “demographic emptying,” driven by what he calls a “quasi-permanent polycrisis” in Cuba—an interwoven web of political repression, economic freefall, and social decay. For years, Cubans have faced food and medicine shortages, blackout-plagued days, fuel scarcity, soaring inflation, and a broken currency system. The result has been not just migration, but a desperate stampede for the exits.

Yet, the regime continues to minimize the damage. Official figures from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) put Cuba’s population at just over 10 million in 2023. However, even those numbers acknowledge a shrinking population and the lowest birth rate in decades—confirming the crisis, if not its full scale.

Cuba hasn’t held a census since 2012. The last scheduled one in 2022 has been repeatedly delayed, allegedly due to lack of resources. Experts doubt that any new attempt will be transparent or complete.

Albizu-Campos warns that the government’s refusal to confront the reality of the collapse is obstructing any chance at solutions. More than just a demographic issue, the study describes Cuba’s situation as a “systemic crisis.”

 

Havana (Cuba, February 2023)” by Bruno Rijsman licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED.
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Tariff-driven increase of U.S. manufacturing investment would face dearth of workers

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From the Fraser Institute

By Jock Finlayson

Since 2015, the number of American manufacturing jobs has actually risen modestly. However, as a share of total U.S. employment, manufacturing has dropped from 30 per cent in the 1970s to around 8 per cent in 2024.

Donald Trump has long been convinced that the United States must revitalize its manufacturing sector, having—unwisely, in his view—allowed other countries to sell all manner of foreign-produced manufactured goods in the giant American market. As president, he’s moved quickly to shift the U.S. away from its previous embrace of liberal trade and open markets as cornerstones of its approach to international economic policy —wielding tariffs as his key policy instrument. Since taking office barely two months ago, President Trump has implemented a series of tariff hikes aimed at China and foreign producers of steel and aluminum—important categories of traded manufactured goods—and threatened to impose steep tariffs on most U.S. imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union. In addition, he’s pledged to levy separate tariffs on imports of automobiles, semi-conductors, lumber, and pharmaceuticals, among other manufactured goods.

In the third week of March, the White House issued a flurry of news releases touting the administration’s commitment to “position the U.S. as a global superpower in manufacturing” and listing substantial new investments planned by multinational enterprises involved in manufacturing. Some of these appear to contemplate relocating manufacturing production in other jurisdictions to the U.S., while others promise new “greenfield” investments in a variety of manufacturing industries.

President Trump’s intense focus on manufacturing is shared by a large slice of America’s political class, spanning both of the main political parties. Yet American manufacturing has hardly withered away in the last few decades. The value of U.S. manufacturing “output” has continued to climb, reaching almost $3 trillion last year (equal to 10 per cent of total GDP). The U.S. still accounts for 15 per cent of global manufacturing production, measured in value-added terms. In fact, among the 10 largest manufacturing countries, it ranks second in manufacturing value-added on a per-capita basis. True, China has become the world’s biggest manufacturing country, representing about 30 per cent of global output. And the heavy reliance of Western economies on China in some segments of manufacturing does give rise to legitimate national security concerns. But the bulk of international trade in manufactured products does not involve goods or technologies that are particularly critical to national security, even if President Trump claims otherwise. Moreover, in the case of the U.S., a majority of two-way trade in manufacturing still takes place with other advanced Western economies (and Mexico).

In the U.S. political arena, much of the debate over manufacturing centres on jobs. And there’s no doubt that employment in the sector has fallen markedly over time, particularly from the early 1990s to the mid-2010s (see table below). Since 2015, the number of American manufacturing jobs has actually risen modestly. However, as a share of total U.S. employment, manufacturing has dropped from 30 per cent in the 1970s to around 8 per cent in 2024.

U.S. Manufacturing Employment, Select Years (000)*
1990 17,395
2005 14,189
2010 14,444
2015 12,333
2022 12,889
2024 12,760
*December for each year shown. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Economists who have studied the trend conclude that the main factors behind the decline of manufacturing employment include continuous automation, significant gains in productivity across much of the sector, and shifts in aggregate demand and consumption away from goods and toward services. Trade policy has also played a part, notably China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 and the subsequent dramatic expansion of its role in global manufacturing supply chains.

Contrary to what President Trump suggests, manufacturing’s shrinking place in the overall economy is not a uniquely American phenomenon. As Harvard economist Robert Lawrence recently observed “the employment share of manufacturing is declining in mature economies regardless of their overall industrial policy approaches. The trend is apparent both in economies that have adopted free-market policies… and in those with interventionist policies… All of the evidence points to deep and powerful forces that drive the long-term decline in manufacturing’s share of jobs and GDP as countries become richer.”

This brings us back to the president’s seeming determination to rapidly ramp up manufacturing investment and production as a core element of his “America First” program. An important issue overlooked by the administration is where to find the workers to staff a resurgent U.S. manufacturing sector. For while manufacturing has become a notably “capital-intensive” part of the U.S. economy, workers are still needed. And today, it’s hard to see where they will be found. This is especially true given the Trump administration’s well-advertised skepticism about the benefits of immigration.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current unemployment rate across America’s manufacturing industries collectively stands at a record low 2.9 per cent, well below the economy-wide rate of 4.5 per cent. In a recent survey by the National Association of Manufacturers, almost 70 per cent of American manufacturers cited the inability to attract and retain qualified employees as the number one barrier to business growth. A cursory look at the leading industry trade journals confirms that skill and talent shortages remain persistent in many parts of U.S. manufacturing—and that shortages are destined to get worse amid the expected significant jump in manufacturing investment being sought by the Trump administration.

As often seems to be the case with Trump’s stated policy objectives, the math surrounding his manufacturing agenda doesn’t add up. Manufacturing in America is in far better shape than the president acknowledges. And a tariff-driven avalanche of manufacturing investment—should one occur—will soon find the sector reeling from an unprecedented human resource crisis.

Jock Finlayson

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institut
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