News
PM’s pre-election shuffle eyes border, trade and bruising provincial relations
OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau has unveiled his pre-election cabinet in a shuffle designed to showcase new faces and to address increasingly troublesome files — from border security, to trade promotion, to the potential for bare-knuckle scraps with the provinces.
In Wednesday’s shuffle, the prime minister gave new portfolios to six ministers and expanded his cabinet by promoting five other MPs to his front benches. The shakeup will boost the profiles of more members of Trudeau’s team, which has long relied on his personal brand, ahead of next year’s federal election.
The moves also look to reinforce possible weak spots.
In one key change, Trudeau confidant and long-time MP Dominic LeBlanc moved from fisheries to intergovernmental affairs, elevating him into a higher-profile role that’s destined to become particularly turbulent.
As a result, Canadians should expect to see a lot more of LeBlanc. At the helm of the unpredictable provincial relations file, the sometimes-pugnacious politician will have more bureaucratic powers at his fingertips with support from several departments.
The federal-provincial dynamic is set to become more confrontational for Trudeau’s Liberals following the recent election of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government led by Premier Doug Ford. Over the coming months, there’s potential for more conflicts if Quebec and Alberta elect right-leaning governments of their own.
The new cabinet lineup has also been crafted to handle Canada’s complicated relationship with the United States. Following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, Ottawa has faced growing challenges related to irregular border crossers and big unknowns surrounding Canada-U.S. trade, including an escalating tariff dispute and the difficult renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“I think there’s no question that the international context is constantly changing,” Trudeau said Wednesday after announcing his new cabinet at Rideau Hall.
“There is certainly a level of clarity for Canadians, for businesses, for everyone across this country that we need to diversify our markets, we need to ensure that we are not as dependent on the United States.”
To expand Canada’s trade interests beyond the U.S., Trudeau moved natural resources minister Jim Carr into the international trade portfolio. Carr’s job will be to re-energize stalled efforts towards a trade deal with China, to promote the Canada-EU free trade agreement among European countries that have yet to ratify it and to continue to push for deeper economic integration into Latin America.
The shuffle will also raise the profiles of five Liberal MPs entering cabinet for the first time.
The newcomers include Bill Blair, who was named minister of the new portfolio of border security and organized crime reduction.
The former Toronto police chief will be responsible for the thorny political issues of border management and a surge of migrants at unofficial entry points, as well as gun violence and the complex process of cannabis legalization.
Other new ministers include Mary Ng, who oversees small business and export promotion. The Toronto-area MP was an adviser to Trudeau before her byelection win last year.
Filomena Tassi, a Hamilton MP and former high-school chaplain, assumes the new cabinet file dedicated to the needs of seniors.
Jonathan Wilkinson, a North Vancouver MP, is taking over from LeBlanc as minister of fisheries, oceans and the Coast Guard. The Rhodes Scholar served as parliamentary secretary to Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.
Mandate letters for the new ministers are expected later this summer.
In Quebec, veteran MP Pablo Rodriguez will succeed Melanie Joly, a fellow Montrealer, as heritage minister. The move will position Rodriguez as a key minister responsible for selling the Liberals to Quebec, a critical electoral battleground for the party.
Joly, who struggled at times in her role as heritage minister, was shunted to tourism, official languages and la Francophonie.
Trudeau put the controversial pipeline file in the hands of Amarjeet Sohi, who represents an Edmonton riding. Sohi, who will take over Carr’s natural resources portfolio, handed off his infrastructure file to Francois-Philippe Champagne, the former international trade minister.
The responsibilities of five existing ministers were also revamped. Many cabinet members with key roles stayed put, including McKenna, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
Conservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt said Trudeau’s shuffle highlights areas where the government has failed to deliver on its promises.
“They’re failing in trade, they’re failing in pipelines, they’re failing in infrastructure and as a result those ministers have been moved to other portfolios — this is desperate attempt to hit that reset button,” Raitt said.
“If Justin Trudeau had thought the last two-and-a-half years had gone well, he wouldn’t be making these kinds of changes.”
Raitt also said she’s concerned about Ottawa’s decision to have LeBlanc — whom she described as “extremely partisan” — and Blair deal with the provinces. Blair sparred with the Ford family during his time as police chief.
Ian Brodie, who served as chief of staff for former prime minister Stephen Harper, said in a tweet that Blair’s appointment shows the Liberals are worried Ontario’s Ford government can hurt them over border security and the migrant issues. Brodie believes Blair will make things personal for Ford and the Liberals will hope the premier “gets unhinged.”
Indeed, the Liberals will have to manage a progressively vexing provincial landscape.
Provincial ballots are coming in Quebec this fall and Alberta next spring, and Ottawa already has a difficult relationship with British Columbia’s NDP government over federal support for the contentious Trans Mountain pipeline.
At the moment, there’s also risk the Ottawa-Ontario relationship could be severely strained over key issues, including the federal carbon-pricing plan and management of the migrant influx.
— with files from Lee Berthiaume, Janice Dickson and Mike Blanchfield
Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press
International
UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female

Susan Smith (L) and Marion Calder, directors of ‘For Women Scotland’ cheer as they leave the Supreme Court on April 16, 2025, in London, England after winning their appeal in defense of biological reality
From LifeSiteNews
By Michael Haynes, Snr. Vatican Correspondent
The ruling, in which the court rejected transgender legal status, comes as a victory for campaigners who have urged the recognition of biological reality and common sense in the law.
The U.K. Supreme Court has issued a ruling stating that “woman” in law refers to a biological female, and that transgender “women” are not female in the eyes of the law.
In a unanimous verdict, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled today that legally transgender “women” are not women, since a woman is legally defined by “biological sex.”
Published April 16, the Supreme Court’s 88-page verdict was handed down on the case of Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v. The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). The ruling marks the end of a battle of many years between the Scottish government and women’s right campaigners who sought to oppose the government’s promotion of transgender ideology.
In 2018, the Scottish government issued a decision to allow the definition of “woman” to include men who assume their gender to be female, opening the door to allowing so-called “transgender” individuals to identify as women.
This guidance was challenged by women’s rights campaigners, arguing that a woman should be defined in line with biological sex, and in 2022 the Scottish government was forced to change its definition after the court found that such a move was outside the government’s “legislative competence.”
Given this, the government issued new guidance which sought to cover both aspects: saying that biological women are women, but also that men with a “gender recognition certificate” (GRC) are also considered women. A GRC is given to people who identify as the opposite sex and who have had medical or surgical interventions in an attempt to “reassign” their gender.
Women Scotland Ltd appealed this new guidance. At first it was rejected by inner courts, but upon their taking the matter to the Supreme Court in March last year, the nation’s highest judicial body took up the case.
Today, with the ruling issued against transgender ideology, women’s campaigners are welcoming the news as a win for women’s safety.
“A thing of beauty,” praised Lois McLatchie Miller from the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group.
“They looked at the whole argument, not just who goes in what bathroom and trans women. This is going to change organizations, employers, service providers,” Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, told the Telegraph. “Everyone is going to have to pay attention to this, this is from the highest court in the land. It’s saying sex in the Equality Act is biological sex. Self ID is dead.”
“Victory,” commented Charlie Bently-Astor, a prominent campaigner for biological reality against the transgender movement, after she nearly underwent surgical transition herself at a younger age.
“After 15 years of insanity, the U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that men who say they are ‘trans women’ are not women,” wrote leader of the Christian political movement David Kurten.
Leader of the Conservative Party – the opposition to the current Labour government – Kemi Badenoch welcomed the court’s ruling, writing that “saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either.”
Others lamented the fact that the debate even was taking place, let alone having gone to the Supreme Court.
“What a parody we live in,” commented Reform Party candidate Joseph Robertson.
Rupert Lowe MP – who has risen to new prominence in recent weeks for his outspoken condemnation of the immigration and rape gang crisis – wrote, “Absolute madness that we’re even debating what a woman is – it’s a biological fact. No amount of woke howling will ever change that.”
However, the Supreme Court did not wish to get pulled into siding with certain arguments, with Lord Hodge of the tribunal stating that “we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.”
The debate has taken center stage in the U.K. in recent years, not least for the role played by the current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer himself has become notorious throughout the nation for his contradictions and inability to answer the question of what a woman is, having flip-flopped on saying that a woman can have a penis, due to his support for the transgender movement.
At the time of going to press, neither Starmer nor his deputy Angela Rayner issued a statement about the Supreme Court ruling. There has been no statement issued from the Scottish government either, nor from the office of the first minister.
Transgender activists have expectedly condemned the ruling as “a disgusting attack on trans rights.” One leading transgender campaigner individual told Sky News, “I am gutted to see the judgement from the Supreme Court which ends 20 years of understanding that transgender people with a GRC are able to be, for all intents and purposes, legally recognized as our true genders.”
International
Tulsi Gabbard tells Trump she has ‘evidence’ voting machines are ‘vulnerable to hackers’

From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing federal election-related funds to be conditioned on states “complying with the integrity measures set forth by Federal law, including the requirement that states use the national mail voter registration form that will now require proof of citizenship.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced during a Cabinet meeting last week at the White House that voting machines across the U.S. are not secure.
“We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time, and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast,” she said about a half hour into the meeting.
Gabbard’s remarks confirm what millions of Americans have long suspected about elections across the U.S.
President Donald Trump himself has maintained skepticism of current voting methods and has called for paper ballots to prevent cheating.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was one of only a few voices to publicly argue that voting machines, like those run by Dominion and Smartmatic which were used during the 2020 presidential election, were compromised. GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene took to X to praise the businessman after Gabbard made her remarks.
“Mike Lindell along with MANY others vindicated!!” she exclaimed on X. “Another conspiracy theory being proven right! Guess what Democrats already knew this and publicly talked about it in 2019! And then lied and lied and lied!!!”
Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing federal election-related funds to be conditioned on states “complying with the integrity measures set forth by Federal law, including the requirement that states use the national mail voter registration form that will now require proof of citizenship.”
Congress has also taken steps to ensure election integrity by voting on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (also known as the SAVE Act) last week. Dubbed “controversial” by the media and left-wing groups, the common sense bill would require persons to show proof of citizenship before voting. The House approved the measure 220-208 with four Democrats in support. The bill now heads to the Senate where it will face an uphill battle for the required 60 votes. Republicans currently have a 53 seat majority.
Gabbard told Trump at the meeting that the evidence she found “further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.”
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