Why this family is quitting Canada; U.S. says it won’t tolerate trade retaliation from Canada; and more
- Journalist Ari Blaff expresses a sense of loss over Canada’s current state, citing rising antisemitism, declining living standards, and national insecurity as reasons for his family’s decision to leave the country.
- Trade talks between Canada and the U.S. are intensifying, with differing views on retaliation; some Canadians prefer a conciliatory approach while others emphasize a firm response to potential U.S. actions.
- Analyst Kline suggests that increasing pressure on the U.S. through trade retaliation could be an effective strategy, especially with midterm elections approaching, given Canada’s significant trade relationship with the U.S.
- The court ruled that legislatures can remove bike lanes without violating the Charter, and critics argue that opposition to such political decisions should focus on elections rather than legal challenges.
It’s Friday, August 14. Here are the top stories we’re following today.
“I feel that same sense of bewildering malaise looking back in the rear-view, a sense of loss at what Canada was and what it’s become today. I’m not happy to be leaving. Until a few years back, the thought of living anywhere but Canada was unthinkable,” states journalist Ari Blaff, who lists antisemitism, a declining standard of living and a “national insecurity” among the reasons his family is leaving.
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“If a country retaliates against us, we’re obviously not going to tolerate that. We’ll take action. My sense is the Canadians, they want to have a more conciliatory approach, but we’ll see,” Jamieson Greer said on Friday, as trade talks have ramped up between the two sides.
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Kline writes that the only strategy that appears to work with Trump is to up the ante — a tactic successfully employed by China and Iran. He argues that because Canada does more trade with the U.S. than China, any retaliatory measures we impose could have a big impact on the American economy. “And with the midterm elections looming, now would be the time to make our move.”
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“The legislature is free to legislate to remove a bicycle lane from a road — indeed, it may remove a road entirely — without implicating the Charter,” the court ruled. Stinson writes that while he personally is in favour of bike lanes, the place to stop Doug Ford from removing them “was not in the courts, but at the ballot box.”
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“Woke 1 was deeply tied to racial tensions,” Russ writes. “Alongside that came the rise of land acknowledgements and activist students ripping the gender signs off campus washrooms.” He says Woke 2 will be dominated by Middle Eastern affairs and will swap out rants about “privilege” for removing “barriers,” in effect, curtailing the career advancement for straight, white men to the benefit of everyone else.
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The federal government first ordered Vincenzo (Jimmy) DeMaria out of Canada in 1982, while he was in prison for second-degree murder. He successfully defeated that deportation — and every other attempt to remove him since.
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