The SCC Ruling On Quebec's Secularism Law Will Be More Profound Than You Think

We've had a few weeks now since the hearings at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in the matter of Montreal English School Board, et al v. Quebec Attorney General, and I expect that it will be some months before we see a ruling from the SCC.  

However, the importance and scope of the ruling in this case needs to be discussed, because this case may fundamentally change our understanding of The Charter, as well as the powers of legislatures.  Much has been made of the impact this case may have on the rules around the application of the Notwithstanding Clause (S33).  I've written at length about it on this blog. 

However, while its impact on the ability of legislature to use S33 will undoubtedly be profound, it also will have significant implications for the concept of "legislative/parliamentary sovereignty" or "legislative supremacy" (pick your term - they seem to be used somewhat interchangeably).  

What Exactly Does The Alberta UCP Mean By "Neutrality" In Schools?

 When the Alberta government tabled Bill 25 last week, they made much ado about "bias" in the classroom - complaining that teachers were "telling students what to think", and engaging in "ideology".  Anytime a politician starts yammering on about "those guys are engaging in ideology", you should be suspicious.  When it's a UCP politician, we should absolutely suspect that this is far more insidious.   

Smith Attempting To Rule By Decree

Under Danielle Smith, Alberta is rapidly being transformed into a place where there are no guardrails on the exercise of power.  In this sitting of the legislature, the government has introduced a pile of legislation that in one way or another is a massive attack on everything from basic rights to division of powers in the Constitution. 

Consider the following: 

Bill 18 - "Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act"

Imposes arbitrary limitations on MAiD by abusing the Health Professions act to impose hard restrictions on practitioners, creating ethical double-binds and imposing "mandatory sanctions" which effectively turn regulators into policing bodies. 

Bill 23 - "Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2026"

Not only does this once again rewrite the rules for citizen initiatives (what is this - the third go-around for the UCP?), and allows the government to simply sit on, or ignore petitions it doesn't like.  

The bill also includes prohibitions on AI-generated "deepfakes" that go after politicians (fair enough - to a point), but it is so broad that it gives the government the power to go after people for parody and other long held "acceptable use" expression.  This will have a chilling effect on free speech, particularly during elections.

Bill 24 - "An Act to Remove Politics and Ideology from Classrooms and Amend the Education Act, 2026"

Again, this is another censorship bill.  Now the government is going to dictate to teachers what topics they can talk about.  If the government decides that a topic is "too political" (whatever that means), they can order teachers not to talk about it.  We all know what this really is - it's an import of the US "Don't Say Gay" legislation - although it's been broadly written so the UCP can simply write new regulations for anything they decide they don't like.  

Expect it to be used to attack 2SLGBTQ topics first (gotta keep the SoCons happy), followed by abortion, feminism, trade unions, and other subjects that conservatives have come to hate.

Bill 25 - "Immigration Oversight Act"

This is part of the government's attack on immigration.  In this case, it creates impediments to workers moving from other provinces by indirectly imposing controls on the hiring of foreign workers by Alberta companies.

The law is clearly designed to undermine the Federal legislation around immigrant workers, and tries to impose some bizarre "Alberta Standard".  

Over and above that, we have a Premier who seems all too willing to limit the rights of those she "disagrees" with, and willing to move the goalposts for those she favours (e.g. Alberta Separatists).  This isn't an accident. It's intentional, and it's meant to tie things up in the courts for years to come.  

Every piece of legislation I've enumerated here can be challenged on constitutional grounds ranging from unreasonable infringements on rights to breaches of the powers of the province.  The goal is to drive wedges into the bedrock of Canadian law by directly challenging The Constitution and demanding that it be changed to suit her desires.  

If you don't think you've seen this before, I invite you to consider the approach that the GOP has taken for _AT LEAST_ the least 26 years in the United States.  Obstruct everything your political rivals propose, and when you do gain power, do everything you can to polarize things further.  I could make longer ranging arguments here, but I think if you start with GWB's presidency and the approach taken to everything by the GOP then, and roll forward through the GOP's approach to both Obama and Biden, I think the pattern is clear enough.  Smith is engaging in very similar strategies here.

Smith's approach is basically daring the Federal Government to challenge her directly, which she will immediately weaponize by claiming the mean old Feds are trying to strangle Alberta.  It's a lie, and she knows it - but she has the backing of enough of Alberta's idiot class to make it a viable political strategy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now She Wants To Amend The Constitution

 So, having had her public temper tantrum over appointing judges, Smith now wants to amend the Constitution so that the decision about who gets to sit as a judge is made by her alone. 

To be abundantly clear - painfully so - this is a power grab.  Worse, given Smith's track record, this would ultimately turn out to be nothing less than the politicization of the judiciary.  

She claims that Alberta doesn't have a say in appointing judges to the senior courts in Alberta.  This is false - Alberta very much has a seat at the table, but the political seat at the table is not the controlling seat, and that's what Smith is actually upset about.  

A Rant About Media Coverage of SCC Hearings

I want to take a moment to express my disappointment in Canada's media and how they have chosen to cover this week's hearings at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in the matter of Montreal English School Board, et al v. Quebec Attorney General.  This is likely the most significant constitutional case in Canada since the reference case that resulted in The Clarity Act.  

Overall, national media barely covered the case, and for the most part reduced it to a simplistic "dust up" over powers between the Federal and Provincial governments.  I wish it were so straightforward.  Some news outlets tried to frame it as "mean old Ottawa trying to restrict what provinces can do" (you can guess which ones I'm talking about).  Others talked about it in such milquetoast language that you would think the argument was over shades of the colour beige.

Did any of them bother to really explain the implications of how the Notwithstanding Clause (S33) has come to be used by the provinces?  No, they did not.  The implications are far more serious than you might expect.  If you adopt the position that Quebec and other provinces have, S33 turns into a political weapon used to strip rights from Canadians, resulting in a nation with a "patchwork" of rights defined by the provinces not by The Charter.  

The media had enormous opportunities to educate the public on how The Charter is interpreted by the courts, and the relevant cases over the last 4 decades that have been used to develop reasonable methods to interpret it.  Did they bother to do any of that?  Again, the answer is largely no.  Instead we got a small number of talking bobble-heads that have always hated The Charter spouting off and misleading people. 

Did the media take any time to explain the different positions and arguments put forth by intervenors in this case?  Not really.  I've done far deeper work on this blog trying to explain the legal arguments in layman's terms.  Sadly, the media took the coward's approach and did little more than "both sides" the matter without providing any kind of useful critical analysis.

At a time when the very fabric of rights law in Canada - and your ability to be confident that no matter where you live in Canada that you will enjoy the same rights as your fellow citizens - is under siege, Canada's media chose to treat the whole affair as if it was a relatively minor spectacle of little import.  

Canadian media:  You failed all of us this week. 

On "Novel" Readings Of The Constitution

One of the loudest criticisms of the Federal Attorney General's submission in English Montreal School Board, et al v. Quebec Attorney General is that it relies on "novel" interpretations of The Charter of Rights and Freedoms (The Charter) and the Canadian Constitution (The Constitution).  

I am going to explain why I think that line of reasoning is incorrect, and why the more "linear" interpretations that the critics are advocating for are in fact the "novel" interpretations which should be examined with suspicion.  

Supreme Court Hearings on Quebec Bill 21

 The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) is holding hearings in the matter English Montreal School Board, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, et al.  Before you yawn and walk away, this is probably the single most important SCC case in 20 years.  I've written about the arguments in some depth here.

Among the issues on the table is very much the question "Does the Charter of Rights and Freedoms truly apply to all Canadians, or do we have a patchwork of rights where provinces decide what rights are available to Canadians living in their borders?".  Do I have your attention yet? 

Let's talk about that:

The Dangers Of The UCP's MAID Legislation

I have lots to say about the UCP's Bill 18, which is clearly another piece of red meat legislation for the slavering Social Conservative base, but I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time critiquing the legislation for its declared purpose.  Beyond stating the obvious that this is the UCP stepping in between a patient and their care team, and removing personal autonomy from the patient - others will no doubt point out those issues (and probably already have).  

What I want to address is the much darker, more insidious aspect of this legislation.  

What Is Gender Ideology?

I have long asserted that Gender Ideology is fundamentally a "straw man" construct that the political right has co-opted and turned into a bucket that they fill with all of their fears about transgender people (in much the same way that the word "transgenderism" is another term they love to throw around to invalidate transgender people).  

This morning, I went to Google and asked its AI to define "Gender Ideology", here's what it came back with: 

"Gender ideology" is a term primarily used by conservative, religious, and anti-LGBTQ+ groups to describe, and criticize, a set of beliefs regarding gender identity, sexual orientation, and reproductive rights. It is largely employed as a pejorative, catch-all phrase to frame modern understandings of gender—particularly those that decouple gender from biological sex—as a dangerous, artificial, or fabricated construct. 

Core Beliefs Criticized as "Gender Ideology"
Those who use the term "gender ideology" often argue it encompasses the following ideas: 

• Social Construction of Gender: The belief that gender roles and identities are not fixed by nature or biology, but are constructed by society and culture.
• Gender Identity over Biology: The assertion that a person's internal sense of their gender ("gender identity") is more definitive than their assigned sex at birth.
• Gender Fluidity: The concept that gender can be fluid, non-binary, or chosen, rather than strictly male or female.
• Separation of Sex and Gender: The distinction between biological sex (chromosomes/anatomy) and gender (socially constructed roles), which is foundational to gender studies.

Unsurprisingly, GLAAD notes that this is a term which is used not by either academic researchers in the area, nor by actual transgender people.  It is used primarily by the same actors who used the term "gay agenda" (similarly devoid of meaning for the people it is intended to attack).  

Looking closer at the broad ideas that "Gender Ideology" is charitably intended to encompass, we see a pattern that in domains like psychology and sociology we call "biopsychosocial" (BPS), where the concepts involved encompass the domains of biology (the physical), psychology (the individual), and sociological (the social) dimensions in a manner where they intersect with each other.  

About Those "Violent" Trans People

Over at The Western Standard, flag bearer for their anti-transgender propaganda Christopher Oldcorn wrote a column titled "The Transgender Shooter Epidemic - When Ideology Turns Violent". (Again, I'm not going to link to the article, I will provide screenshots of it at the end of this column. 

Mr. Oldcorn subtitles his column as "demanding honest discussion".  So, let's take him at his word for now.  

Well, Mr. Oldcorn, that's nice - you have a list of mass shootings where the perpetrators were transgender.  So what?  That's a handful of events over multiple years - the vast majority of mass shootings are carried out by cisgender, white, males.  Are you also advocating for an "honest discussion" of those events, or is it just about the transgender people? 

Oh, I see - even living with someone who is transgender is dangerous now, is it?  Oh, and watch out for those Furries - that's just one step removed from being transgender, isn't it? 

"... connected to a specific ideology" - that's quite a loaded phrase.  Except what Mr. Oldcorn is referring to is a political canard dreamed up by the political right - specifically "gender ideology".  I've argued repeatedly that gender ideology is largely a straw man construct that the right wing fills with all of their fears, misconceptions and ignorance about transgender people.  Mr. Oldcorn's version of gender ideology contains a specific fear that transgender people are "mentally unstable".  

What he is doing, of course, is whipping up the old bogeyman that anyone who experiences mental health concerns is "unstable" (and therefore "dangerous").  

Here is where I would start with insisting that Mr. Oldcorn provide citations to support his claims, and more specifically to spell out in detail what he means by "other serious mental health conditions", because he's being extremely broad here and making some inferences that may or may not be supported by his claims. 

For example, while we are aware that anxiety and depression occur at elevated rates among transgender people, but we also know that when those same people are treated with kindness and respect (including having access to gender affirming medical care), that concerns around suicide drop off significantly (Allen, Dodd, Moser, & Knoll, 2026).  (See how easy it is to provide actual evidence to support your claims, Christopher?)

We already know that when you start with the premise that the person's stated gender identity is valid, that things work a whole lot better.  But, let's go a little further here, because mental health concerns are much more complex than Mr. Oldcorn's simplistic view of them is.  For example, Mr. Oldcorn implies that if someone says they are transgender that no attention is given to other comorbid mental health conditions is given.  This is simply false.  

Gender Affirming Care (GAC) is about dealing with the experiences of someone's gender dysphoria.  If a particular individual's anxiety or depression symptoms are driven by their gender dysphoria (either in whole or in part), then yes, there is a reason to expect that GAC will alleviate those symptoms to some extent.  However, anxiety or depression are often more complex and driven by multiple factors in the person's life.  So, yes, there are certainly reasons that you would address those issues concurrently with providing GAC.  Unfortunately, Mr. Oldcorn seems to be stuck in the idea that you deal with these things "one at a time", and in his apparent way of thinking, you deal with gender last (because ... reasons?)

Further, Mr. Oldcorn wants us to think that there's an "epidemic" of transgender violence going around.  There isn't - even if I add up all of these cases, they still don't even add up to a drop in the bucket of mass shootings when you add in those conducted by straight, white, cisgender males.  Worse, Mr. Oldcorn has fallen into making a correlation fallacy.  In his argument, the shooters were transgender, and therefore that was the reason for their actions.  Using that same logic, should we not be extremely concerned about cisgender men who are in possession of firearms - after all they are by far the most common perpetrators of mass shootings?  

The tell on the dishonesty of Oldcorns argument is that he hasn't provided a single shred of evidence that tells us that these events had anything at all to do with the shooter's gender identity beyond coincidence.  

Of course Oldcorn has to pull out questions about the characteristics of the victims.  As if mass shooters are picking out targets based on beliefs and ideology.  Again, Mr. Oldcorn might want to spend some quality time looking at mass shooting cases and the motives of the shooters.  

I am not going to speculate on what drove any one person to violence here.  The reality is that every story is unique.  We should strive to understand the broad picture of what is going on that provokes mass shootings, rather than grasping at straws.  As I pointed out earlier, if Mr. Oldcorn is so concerned about transgender shooters, where is his concern about cisgender male shooters who are by far the vast majority of shooters. 

To the best of my knowledge, there is no clinical evidence that supports the idea that transgender identity is in any meaningful way connected to a person becoming violent.  Without more substantive evidence, all Mr. Oldcorn seems to be doing is making a supposition - which really isn't terribly useful.  

Further, one might want to consider the barrage of hate being directed at the transgender community overall, whether that is ill-informed columns like Mr. Oldcorn's which insinuate things about the transgender community that simply don't make any sense, street pastors who spread fear and ignorance about transgender people, or legislatures who choose to attack the transgender community because they make a convenient target to attack that throws a bit of "red meat" to a voter base that demands such.  

While it seems unlikely that the hate itself is a direct cause of the actions of a handful of shooters who happen to be transgender, it does speak to a broad pattern of public hostility towards a small group that is poorly understood.  Perhaps Mr. Oldcorn would like to reflect on the impact of his "oh-so-earnest" protestations that he "just wants a conversation" before he writes his next anti-transgender column. 

References

Allen, L. R., Dodd, C. G., Moser, C. N., Knoll, M. M. (2026) Changes in Suicidality among Transgender Adolescents Following Hormone Therapy: An Extended Study. Journal of Pediatrics 289.  

Appendix - Original Column

This column was published on February 17, 2026 and captured from the Western Standard's website on February 19, 2026.  

Barry Neufeld and the Wages of Being Evil

Two BC Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) decisions came down last week, and they're important for a number of reasons.  Both are in the matter of Chilliwack Teacher's Association v. Barry Neufeld.  

Decision 10

Decision 11

This all goes back to when Neufeld was a School Trustee in Chilliwack and began actively publishing anti-transgender, anti-2SLGBTQ material online.  I won't spend a bunch of time tearing into Neufeld's claims - they are in the large the usual assortment of bogus claims about 2SLGBTQ people and transgender people in particular.  

The case as framed by the original complaint is interesting because the Chilliwack Teacher's Association (CTA) filed a complaint on behalf of a class of its membership rather than individual complaints.  Given that Neufeld was a person in a position of public power, this is a bit different than your average discrimination case involving direct attacks on an individual.  Neufeld appears to have used his position as a public figure to amplify his messaging, and it had direct impact on staff working for the Chilliwack school system who were members of the 2SLGBTQ community as a whole.  Consequently, what we have is a form of "class action" human rights complaint which is a bit unusual. 

My goal here is not to "relitigate" the decisions of the BCHRT - I'm certain that Neufeld will be appealing these into the courts with the assistance of any number of right wing legal agitprop organizations like Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) that routinely take on these cases both to grift donation money and in the hopes of driving a wedge into the existing body of case law.  The outcome of those appeals remains to be seen. 

However, I'm seeing a lot of people expressing "shock and outrage" over the amount of the awards, which runs to some $750,000.  However, I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the bigger issue.  Most discrimination cases involve actions that affect an individual, or possibly a couple of people.  

Here we have a case where the impact is much different because the actions taken by Neufeld affected teachers within the Chilliwack school system - not a single individual, but rather many individuals who were in the school system's employ at the time Neufeld was campaigning against 2SLGBTQ recognition in the schools.  

This is, to my knowledge, the first time in Canada that a discrimination case has been filed where the victims are not recorded as individuals who have been directly affected, but as members of a class of individuals who were directly and indirectly affected by the impugned activities.  This is what makes the amount of the fine so high.  Instead of the BCHRT assessing each case individually and handing out penalties, the amount is to be distributed by the CTA to its affected members.  This is not unlike a "class action lawsuit", where the amount of compensation per individual may not be a lot, but when there are a sizeable number of individuals in the Class, the gross amount can appear to be a "huge sum".  

Where this becomes interesting is in terms of its importance in future human rights case law.  It provides a means to pursue someone where they are attacking a class of individuals rather than actual individuals with their rhetoric.  In general, human rights law in Canada focuses on individual rights and has tended not to recognize attacks on identifiable groups very well.  

Neufeld made accusations in his publications that stated flat out that 2SLGBTQ people were pedophiles, or worse.  These aren't nuanced statements - they are cases where he deliberately associated 2SLGBTQ people as a whole with acts and behaviours that are both criminal and profoundly harmful to the victims.  It is not a small matter to accuse an individual of being a pedophile, it is no less harmful to accuse an entire class of people of such - especially from a person who is in a position of public power.

I have mused in the past about the need for some kind of "class libel" law in Canada where global aspersions against a class of people are often the tool of choice in justifying legislative attacks on those minorities.  In these cases, we often find - as we have seen with Barry Neufeld in BC, and certain pastors in Alberta, a tendency to claim that they are "merely expressing deeply held religious beliefs".  To me, these claims are the refuge of scoundrels - an escape hatch where anything can be justified by claiming it's "religious".  

"Deeply held religious beliefs" are fine - I don't actually care what a person believes.  However, there is a line that is crossed when those beliefs become justification for attacking the rights and freedoms of others in society.  If you want to believe that "all trans people are pedophiles", knock yourself out.  However, if you then turn around and demand that those same transgender people be banned from using public washrooms based on that belief, that's a different matter (especially when those "deeply held beliefs" have as much validity as claiming the world is flat).

Public figures need to understand that even if they "sincerely believe" something, there is a higher standard that they must hew to given their influence and sway.  Just because they "believe" something does not grant carte blanche to simply spew whatever they believe.  They have a duty and responsibility to ensure that their public utterances are in fact grounded in reason and fact, not supposition.  

Words continue to have great power, and can be used to cause great harm.  That is ultimately the underlying lesson here - and perhaps we have a precedent here that can be used in the future when other public figures use their position to foment hate and fear. 

Understanding Alberta Separatist Claims As Gaslighting

The arguments that the Alberta separatists make to justify their positions are carefully crafted to seem almost reasonable, while at the same time are actually distorting the picture entirely to support their claims of "legitimate grievances".  This is a form of gaslighting which Albertans are being subjected to on a scale most have never seen before.  Gaslighting is using manipulation to cause someone to question their own perception of reality (I have linked to the Wikipedia definition because it's in fairly straightforward language without getting bogged down in the details and nuances that you would find in more psychological analyses of the topic.) 

I think it's worth taking apart some of their complaints and explaining exactly how they are twisting things in order to create their arguments, in the hopes of convincing people that Alberta is really hard done by in confederation.  I'll explain in more detail why I see this as a form of manipulation through distortion as we go through the example. 

The Seemingly Endless Saga Of Canada Buying New Fighter Jets

Those moderately familiar with the seemingly endless saga of replacing our aging fleet of F-18 fighters cannot be faulted for thinking "just get on with the job!".  It has been back and forth for what seems like decades.  (It has been - the F-35 development program started in the 1990s and the debates over whether Canada should buy them have been raging since 2010 or so.  

That was then, this is now.  In 2010, the US was a reliable partner for trade and defence.  Then January 2025 happened, and all that changed. The geopolitical context shifted as the US entered Trump's second term as president.  Alliances that had been tried and true since WWII were called into question, the US started throwing up trade barriers everywhere, and so on.  

Suddenly, Canada's earlier decision to replace the F-18s with F-35s fell into question, and in fact our whole approach to defence did.  An ally we had long looked at as "a good neighbour" suddenly was making noises about annexing Canada.

The parameters of the decision around the F-35 changed enormously.  Concerns about everything from parts supply and maintenance to rumours of Washington having a "kill switch" available that rightly spooked a lot of people.  The newly elected government in Canada, led by Mark Carney committed to reviewing the F-35 decision.  

In response, Sweden's Saab group sweetened its offer around the Gripen - promising partnership and helping Canada set up a military aviation manufacturing capacity, where the F-35 deal ultimately restricts Canada's ability to service its own aircraft, with regular servicing having to be done by Lockheed Martin, and there is no visibility for Canada into the software systems that manage the aircraft.  Suddenly, even if the F-35 is the technologically superior aircraft, it is no longer clear that it would be suitable for Canada, especially if Canada finds itself in a standoff with its neighbour.  

Amid the backdrop of negotiations with the US for a renewed CUSMA, ongoing threats from the Trump administration, and the Canadian government reaching out around the world to forge new trade agreements outside of the multilateral agreements like CUSMA, Canadians are getting increasingly concerned about decisions that would tie us more closely to the US.

Like the Auto Strategy that the government released a few weeks ago, the new Military Strategy released this week marks a sharp turn away from the existing structures that depend so much on the US.  It's an ambitious plan, one that will shift Canada's economic and military posture significantly (and one that will no doubt make certain corners of the Trump Administration angry).  

Unjust Laws and Restricting Rights Unnecessarily

Alberta has already begun restricting transgender rights, and in the wake of the shooting in Tumbler Ridge this week,  I fully expect that the UCP government will move to further restrict transgender rights in Alberta - there's already plenty of noise on various conservative discussion forums demanding "action", and if there's one thing that Danielle Smith is good at, it is doing her party's bidding when it is at its most loathsome.  

I have spent considerable time analyzing those laws, and at best they are ill-thought out reactionary responses to imagined problems rather than actual issues.  However, in a country where politicians can legitimately override rights by invoking the Notwithstanding clause, what can we the public do to undo the damage done by a reactionary government?  

Correlation Fallacy and the Tumbler Ridge Tragedy

Yesterday, a person in Tumbler Ridge, BC went into the high school and shot a large number of people, killing 6 at the school, and injuring dozens more.  This is after they had shot and killed two family members in their home. 

Today, we learned that the shooter was a young transgender woman who had dropped out of high school a few years ago.  Predictably, our friends over at The Western Standard jumped on this to argue that somehow transgender identity is therefore intrinsically dangerous. (I won't link to material I consider overt hate literature - a series of screen copies will be provided at the end of this which will contain the offending column).  

The writer, Christopher Oldcorn, has been carrying the "anti-transgender banner" for Western Standard since at least 2022, possibly earlier.  His working thesis here seems to be "well, because the shooter was transgender, clearly gender affirming care doesn't work", or something to that effect. 

Poilievre Gets an 87% Approval Vote

 CPC leader Pierre Poilievre won his leadership review vote with over 87%. What does this tell us? 

I'm sure that within Liberal party ranks, there is a certain amount of cheering going on, since Poilievre is polling well behind Mark Carney for "preferred PM".  Almost certainly if an election were held today, the Conservatives would lose (again).   While in the short term, Poilievre's victory might appear to be a boon for the Liberals, I wouldn't be quite so quick to cheer.

Having replaced Jenny Byrne with Steven Outhouse, I think we can expect to see yet another round of "rebranding" applied to Poilievre's image.  His speech last night gave some hints of that beginning.  There was a definite effort not to be quite as obnoxious as he has been in the last year or two (although I doubt very much that he's going to be able to pivot away from a reflexive tendency to attack after 20 years of practice).  Branding, or image, whatever you want to call it, does matter in politics today, and conservatives have a disturbing ability to make otherwise unpalatable candidates look "good enough" to voters who don't pay close attention. 

The real issue with the CPC isn't "the leader", and it really never has been - it's what the party represents and has become over the years from its beginnings as the prairie rump "Reform Party" through to its current form.  Reform was always a party of extremes - weirdly authoritarian and libertarian at the same time, and substantially driven by a bunch of Social Conservative (they aren't really conservative) grievance groups.  

As the party expanded eastward, it ran into a number of roadblocks where they just couldn't seem to make headway - especially in Ontario and Quebec.  That led to a shift and some rebranding efforts that tried to paper over the perception that the party was dominated by Christian Fundamentalists from the Prairies.  Fast forward through the merger with the old Progressive Conservative Party to today, and we need to spend some quality time reading through the party policy book and the policy motions.  

Unfortunately, in these documents lies a ton of policies that the party doesn't talk about - policies which ultimately are designed to implement many aspects of the socially conservative (regressive) state that Prairie Evangelicals have been pushing towards for decades.  Journalist Marci McDonald documented it really well in her book "The Armageddon Factor".  Although the book is now somewhat dated, it does document much of the drive for the religious right to gain control over the Conservative Party.  

Now, in part, we need to understand that when people are accusing the CPC of having a "hidden agenda", it's not that the agenda is "really hidden" - it's well known and documented.  However, when politicians sit there and say "oh, I won't do _THAT_", they're engaging in deceit.  Poilievre has done this repeatedly on the abortion topic, only his party keeps these topics alive in their policy declaration.  

In more recent history, in Alberta we've seen this deceit used by the UCP under Danielle Smith.  So much of what she said she "wouldn't do" while she was running in 2023 mysteriously became legislation starting in 2024.  At this point in time, I wouldn't trust any party that refuses to talk about any topic that's in their policy manual.  

This is fundamentally the core of where Poilievre has a problem - he is at the helm of a party that I characterize as half a dozen angry badgers in a trench coat.  No amount of rebranding is going to address the fundamental issue that the CPC has major players in it that have "views" that are radically divergent from those of most Canadians. 

I take last night's confidence vote in Poilievre as a sign that the CPC has turned inward.  They aren't receptive to the opinions of the broader public, rather they have decided that they are going to attempt to deceive Canadian voters into electing them so they can impose an agenda that is regressive at best.

So, Trump Wants To Decertify Canadian-Built Aircraft

 So, the latest Trumpian temper tantrum is that the US will decertify Bombardier built aircraft.  On the surface, this is as ridiculous as it seems.  Ostensibly, this temper tantrum is over Canada having not (yet) certified several newer models from Bombardier rival Gulfstream.  But is it really?

Consider the following:  only 4 days ago, US Ambassador to Canada Hoekstra was making threats over the purchase of F-35s, and an orchestrated defence of the F-35 started last fall.  The Americans started sweating over the F-35 sale to Canada quite a while ago, and Sweden/Saab's offer presents Canada with the ability to reboot its aerospace industry in a way that we haven't seen since the cancellation of the Avro Arrow project.  

Now, here's where Trump's outburst may in fact finalize Canada's pivot away from the F-35 - let me explain:  

That Is Not A Sales Pitch

According to US Ambassador Hoekstra, if Canada doesn't buy the full fleet of F-35s, "that will affect NORAD".   Coming from the Trump regime, this is another mafia-esque threat that boils down to "do as we tell you, or else".  

Hoekstra might think that yammering on about NORAD, interoperability, and how the F-35 is "the superior aircraft" is some kind of sales flex.  It's actually telling us all that buying the F-35 is ultimately going to be a huge mistake for Canada. 

Every second day, the US is threatening to annex Canada, and as our European friends just learned in the dust-up over Greenland - a deal with Trump made today isn't worth the paper it's written on tomorrow. Why would Canada think we'd be treated any differently if we bought the F-35? 

If I was a defence planner for Canada (I'm not), I'd be looking at the current situation and saying to myself "why would Canada buy a major military asset from a country that is threatening to invade us?".  

The F-35 is very much a "closed, proprietary platform".  What assurances do we have that any planes sent to Canada don't have a "kill switch" buried in their software that Washington can use at will? Fundamentally, there are no such guarantees, and that has been a concern about the F-35 in my mind for a very long time.  

Then there is the servicing of the F-35 itself.  Need parts for the F-35?  Buy it from Lockheed-Martin (now a division of Boeing) ... need major service?  Well that plane now has to be shipped to facilities in the US.  Software updates?  Oh yeah - that's a thing, and those will also have to be installed in US facilities.  Starting to see a problem here, when the US has decided that we're the adversary?  

Hoekstra wants to talk about the F-35 as the "superior aircraft".  Maybe the F-35 is on some levels a "better" aircraft technologically than its rivals - but when the country selling it can so easily turn a fleet of F-35s into "Tarmac Princesses" by choking off parts supply, or by leaving booby traps in the software that enables these craft to fly, technical superiority takes a back seat to "actually flies".

If I were making the buying decisions for Canada's military, I'd be looking at the ground game as it looks today, not how it looked prior to 2016.  The ground game today is very different.  The US has shown itself to be not merely an adversarial nation, but it is one where an agreement today means nothing tomorrow.  This is a purchase that will affect Canada's military for the next 3 decades or more.  Even if the F-35 is technologically "the superior aircraft", that means very little if it effectively hands the US control over the fleet either directly or indirectly.  

Implications For Alberta Separatists From Trump's Invasion of Venezuela

 Yesterday, the US attacked Venezuela and captured its president and his wife.  This move has significant implications not only for Venezuela and its people, but it also stands to have significant consequences for Alberta and its oil industry.

To put it mildly, this has major implications for Alberta separatists, and in particular those who are in a great big hurry to make Alberta "the 51st State".  Let's talk about that.

Alberta Separatist Math Isn't Mathing

So, over at "Alberta Prosperity Project" (APP), they have a "Fully Costed Fiscal Plan".  Besides having a whole ton of wishful thinking in its numbers, it demonstrates that the APP is either wildly optimistic about how things will work out post-separation, or they're assuming that you the voter is only slightly smarter than room temperature milk. 

Let's dive in, shall we?