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Trudeau clinging like a ‘low-key autocrat’: Jeremy Nuttall

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By Jeremy Nuttall

Is Canada looking like a developing nation with a corruption problem and a soft authoritarian regime?

This isn’t normal. Not even close. Even the most eccentric of Prime Ministers in any other commonwealth country would likely be licking their wounds in Ibiza by now, watching the chaos unfold from a safe distance.

Not this Prime Minister. True to form as the head of a micromanaging Prime Minister’s Office, he couldn’t bring himself to step aside. In fact, he still hasn’t.

Trudeau’s stubbornness edges dangerously close to the behavior of a low-key autocrat. He was nowhere to be seen for days as he shrugged off demands to “get lost in the snow.”

Imagine a country with a leader so deeply unpopular within his own party that members, mostly speaking anonymously out of fear, pressured him for months to step down—only for him to deflect with vague promises of “reflection” whenever the pressure mounted.

Imagine that happening against the background of the leader refusing to release documents as ordered by Parliament, at the same time the political landscape is embroiled in a foreign interference scandal. Meanwhile, food bank usage has surged, and concerns over soaring housing costs continue to grow.

Then, after a top minister leaves and drives a stake through his government, that leader circles his most loyal comrades in a bid to fend off the resignation even more before finally admitting defeat.

But even then, after the admission, said leader is still in charge and only promising to resign fully once his successor is chosen, then stopping the work of government at one of the most crucial times in recent history to give himself and his party time to get their affairs in order.

If you had that explained to you without knowing it was Canada, would you think it was a western parliamentary democracy being described, or a developing nation with a corruption problem and a soft authoritarian regime?

Democracies aren’t meant to prioritize the personal interests of government members over the country’s welfare. Yet that’s exactly what Trudeau did by requesting the prorogation of Parliament, giving his Liberals time to strategize for their own political survival.

Meanwhile, for the first few months of a new U.S. administration threatening major tariffs, Canada will be limited in its ability to address whatever happens in the House. With so much at stake, this move seems almost vindictive to a Canadian public who are now rejecting Liberal leadership.

Governor General Mary Simon’s decision to allow this—and the time she took to consider it—deserves scrutiny. The public is owed an explanation.

The Liberal Party’s troubles are not the Canadian public’s troubles, but in proroguing Parliament to deal with them, the Liberals have made them such.

Trudeau’s plan for the country is incoherent, his ministers suddenly have a lot of family obligations, and even columnists who curiously supported him for years too long are now calling for his exit.

Additionally, with him waiting until the Liberals are at their most unpopular ever, the Conservatives—set to win in a landslide no matter what—can control the narrative of the election and claim to have won on any mandate they see fit. The public could be left out of the conversation.

When tallied up, it’s all so awful.

In reality, however abnormal this is, it’s the natural course of where Canadians have allowed their country to end up.

Years of not really getting that upset about anything or realizing that the government and what it does matters are starting to show the real harms a country can be haunted by when it shrugs off the chipping away of its democratic norms by shallow and venal political operatives.

As pressure mounted on Trudeau to resign, his own MPs sheepishly asked for him to step down, an illustration that the PMO holds far too much power over caucus. One was left wondering if a breaking point would happen and MPs would make a grand gesture on behalf of Canadians.

Such a climax never arrived. My incredibly small kingdom for a handful of Liberal MPs with cojones.

The really sad part is, so far, it seems Liberal MPs missed a chance to turn the tide and more forcefully oust Trudeau from the leadership role by any means necessary, even if it meant voting against their own party.

They could have sent a message that democracy is a cumulative effort, not the whims of one person, then followed it up with reasonable changes to party policy to allow for the removal of a leader should such circumstances occur again.

What this has done is set a new low bar. The next power-crazed PMO will have this one as a blueprint to disregard the public and its welfare before pushing the limit even further.

The only bar lower at this point would be if Trudeau goes back on his promise to resign. Yes, it’s a long shot, but considering this guy’s track record of keeping promises—right up there with an absentee father in a daytime drama—I’ll really believe he’s gone when he’s gone.

This is a moment Canadians really need to examine and question if the way their government has been operating is working for them. If it isn’t, a movement for change must spring up.

Dignity, tradition, integrity, the common good—all of these principles risk becoming meaningless unless Canadians begin to take them seriously.

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Canadian Police Raid Sophisticated Vancouver Fentanyl Labs, But Insist Millions of Pills Not Destined for U.S.

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Sam Cooper

Mounties say labs outfitted with high-grade chemistry equipment and a trained chemist reveal transnational crime groups are advancing in technical sophistication and drug production capacity

Amid a growing trade war between Washington and Beijing, Canada—targeted alongside Mexico and China for special tariffs related to Chinese fentanyl supply chains—has dismantled a sophisticated network of fentanyl labs across British Columbia and arrested an academic lab chemist, the RCMP said Thursday.

At a press conference in Vancouver, senior investigators stood behind seized lab equipment and fentanyl supplies, telling reporters the operation had prevented millions of potentially lethal pills from reaching the streets.

“This interdiction has prevented several million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl from being produced and distributed across Canada,” said Cpl. Arash Seyed. But the presence of commercial-grade laboratory equipment at each of the sites—paired with the arrest of a suspect believed to have formal training in chemistry—signals an evolution in the capabilities of organized crime networks, with “progressively enhanced scientific and technical expertise among transnational organized crime groups involved in the production and distribution of illicit drugs,” Seyed added.

This investigation is ongoing, while the seized drugs, precursor chemicals, and other evidence continue to be processed, police said.

Recent Canadian data confirms the country has become an exporter of fentanyl, and experts identify British Columbia as the epicenter of clandestine labs supplied by Chinese precursors and linked to Mexican cartel distributors upstream.

In a statement that appears politically responsive to the evolving Trump trade threats, Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said, “There continues to be no evidence, in this case and others, that these labs are producing fentanyl for exportation into the United States.”

In late March, during coordinated raids across the suburban municipalities of Pitt Meadows, Mission, Aldergrove, Langley, and Richmond, investigators took down three clandestine fentanyl production sites.

The labs were described by the RCMP as “equipped with specialized chemical processing equipment often found in academic and professional research facilities.” Photos released by authorities show stainless steel reaction vessels, industrial filters, and what appear to be commercial-scale tablet presses and drying trays—pointing to mass production capabilities.

The takedown comes as Canada finds itself in the crosshairs of intensifying geopolitical tension.

Fentanyl remains the leading cause of drug-related deaths in Canada, with toxic supply chains increasingly linked to hybrid transnational networks involving Chinese chemical brokers and domestic Canadian producers.

RCMP said the sprawling B.C. lab probe was launched in the summer of 2023, with teams initiating an investigation into the importation of unregulated chemicals and commercial laboratory equipment that could be used for synthesizing illicit drugs including fentanyl, MDMA, and GHB.

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2025 Federal Election

Carney needs to cancel gun ban and buyback

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 Gage Haubrich

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Liberal Leader Mark Carney to stop the gun ban and buyback after he announced he would  continue with the scheme.

“Carney needs to scrap this plan and stop wasting taxpayer’s money on it,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “Planning to spend potentially billions of dollars on a program that is not going to make Canadians safer is a waste of money.

“Carney needs to be cancelling this wasteful plan, not doubling down on it.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to get rid of Ottawa’s gun bans.

The government said the buyback would cost taxpayers $200 million in 2019. Only buying back the guns could cost up to $756 million, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Government documents show that the buyback is now likely to cost almost $2 billion.

The banned gun list includes more than 2,000 different types of firearms.

Every year since the gun ban was announced in 2020, violent gun crime in Canada has increased.

New Zealand conducted a similar, but more extensive, gun ban and buyback in 2019. New Zealand had 1,216 violent firearm offenses in 2023. That’s 349 more offences than the year before the buyback.

Experts also agree that the buyback won’t make Canadians any safer.

The National Police Federation, the union representing the RCMP, says Ottawa’s buyback “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”

“Buyback programs are largely ineffective at reducing gun violence, in large part because the people who participate in such programs are not likely to use those guns to commit violence,” said University of Toronto professor Jooyoung Lee

“Experts say that this gun ban and buyback won’t do anything to make Canadians safer,” Haubrich said. “Carney needs to listen to the experts and commit to cancelling this scheme before it costs taxpayers any more money.”

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