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Time to choose.

Do you support Canada, or do you support the hostile power that intends to use “economic force” against us?

Do you support this country, or the dyspeptic Yankee president-elect, who refers to us as the 51st state, and who publishes maps showing that we no longer exist?

Because, make no mistake: that is the choice, now – Trump or Canada. And what Trump is actively promoting is not entirely unlike the pro-Hamas forces’ “from the river to the sea,” is it? It means that Donald Trump wants to see an imagined adversary wiped off the map.

Us.

The Canadian fans of Donald Trump – less than 20 per cent of us, and a number that is shrinking with every passing day – have a standard response to any of this. They use it all the time.

This is what they start with: “Trump is joking! It’s not serious.”

When that inevitably fails, they say: “You’ve got Trump Derangement Syndrome, snowflake.”

And then, when it becomes apparent to everybody that Trump is indeed serious about imposing his manifest destiny madness on Canada (and Mexico, Panama, Denmark, and Greenland), they say: “I agree with him. Our country doesn’t exist anymore. It’s all Trudeau’s fault.”

Rinse and repeat.

No fan of Justin Trudeau, is this writer. There are several hundred opinion columns over more than a decade to prove it.So forgive us for pointing out that Justin Trudeau wasn’t the one talking about using “economic force.” It was Donald Trump. With his own mouth.

And, while we are on the subject of the soon-to-be-departed Liberal leader, here’s another headshaker: The people in Canada who love Trump and wanted Trudeau gone? They are now blaming Trudeau for leaving when Trump is threatening to use “force” against us.

Pick a lane, Trumpkins.

Consider this, too: Trump isn’t going after Canada simply because he objects to the woke-ist government of Justin Trudeau. On Tuesday, in his rambling and saturnalian press conference in Florida, Trump went after Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre as well. Viciously.

Trump said he “didn’t care” about the eminently reasonable pro-Canada stance of Canada’s Tory leader. “I don’t care what he says,” said Trump about Poilievre. That’s a direct quote.

So there you go. Trump isn’t just attacking Canada because of Trudeau, folks – he’s attacking the man who is almost certainly going to be our next Prime Minister, as well. (So much for the vaunted influence of Conservative MP Jamil Jivani on his college buddy JD Vance, by the by.)

Who speaks for Canada now? Ontario Premier Doug Ford, for one. Finance minister Dominic LeBlanc, for another – who put aside his personal political ambitions to confront the Trump threat. This newspaper, too, whose Wednesday front page expressed it perfectly: PUT CANADA FIRST!

That is indeed the choice. Put Canada first, or put Trump first. You cannot do both.

Many Canadians have been in denial, in recent weeks. Since the moment Trump posted his intention to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods coming into the United States – which will indisputably send our economy into an economic tailspin, and likely a recession – many Canadians have refused to believe it.

Don’t the Americans remember that we fought on their side against the Nazis, against the Taliban, against many other foes over many years? Don’t they know that we have deeply-integrated economies, and cultures, and values? Don’t they recall that we have always been their best and closest ally?

None of that matters anymore. Not with the new guy. Donald Trump is saying, over and over, what he intends to do. It is in our self-interest to start believing him.

And it is time for Canadians to choose: stand with him, or stand with us.

And if you’re with him, get the Hell out. 

We don’t want or need you.

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And they’re off!

The Liberal Party’s leadership contenders, that is. Although some have been quietly organizing for many months. Does that give them an advantage?

Not necessarily. Here’s the LPC race card, so far:

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: She was Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister until Justin Trudeau clumsily attempted to fire her in December, and replace her with the unelected Mark Carney. Livid, Freeland hit back, calling Trudeau’s signature policies “expensive political stunts” – and warning him he faced electoral defeat. She’s been working the phones with Grits ever since. She’s a contender, but can Freeland win? She has two problems. One, she’s still going to be tarred with every Trudeau scandal and misstep. Two, going back to Brutus, history rarely ever rewards the ones who stab their leader in the back (or the front).

DOMINIC LEBLANC: LeBlanc has been the Trudeau government’s Mr. Fix It and is well-liked by most, including Conservative Premiers. He’s worn many hats: LeBlanc has been an advisor to Jean Chretien, held multiple senior cabinet portfolios, and studied at Harvard. Dom, as he’s called, is the son of former Governor General Romeo LeBlanc and was even Justin Trudeau’s babysitter. Some, however, would say that LeBlanc never stopped being Trudeau’s babysitter – and is therefore too close to Trudeau’s many scandals and controversies. Has had a leadership team in place for months.

ANITA ANAND: Telegenic, affable, capable. Lots of ambition – but no name recognition. Currently slated to lose her Toronto-area seat in a big way. Therefore not a serious contender. If you can’t win your own seat, how can you win the country?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Frankie Bubbles, as Brian Lilley famously dubbed him, is a centrist Liberal. He is well-respected within the party and represents Jean Chretien’s former Quebec riding. That’s the biggest problem he faces, however: he’s another Quebecer. The Liberal Party has a long tradition of alternating between Quebec and non-Quebec leaders. Many will accordingly say that it’s not Champagne’s turn.

MELANIE JOLY: Joly, like Champagne, is a Francophone Quebecker. That’s a problem. Also a problem: she is arguably the worst cabinet minister in Canadian history, and has energetically destroyed the Liberal Party’s reputation with Jewish voters, likely for good. In the Trudeau government, there is no minister closer to the pro-Hamas position than Joly. If she wins, it’s lights out for a once-great political party.

MARK CARNEY: He’s got the highest IQ, and he’s run big organizations. Born in Canada’s North, fluently bilingual, Carney is clearly favored by Trudeau and his circle. But he’s essentially Michael Ignatieff with a pocket calculator: if you were to look up the word “elite” in the dictionary, you’d see Carney’s high school graduation picture. One upside: if you are getting ready to enter tough negotiations with Donald Trump about debilitating trade tariffs, having the former Governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England representing you is not a bad thing.

CHRISTY CLARK: She may not be the one to beat, yet, but she’s the one the Liberals should pick. She’s brilliant and a scrappy political fighter, and it’s dangerous to underestimate her. Unlike most of the others, too, Clark is an outsider and untouched by the many Trudeau regime scandals. Unlike most of the others, she is a blue Liberal, and actually believes in balanced budgets. Unlike several of the other others, she is a woman who has held the highest public office (Premier of BC) – and it’s well past time that the Liberal Party had a female leader. (They are the only party which hasn’t.) The one who makes Pierre Poilievre nervous.

Other names will enter the race, but mostly just to improve their name recognition. They won’t matter.

The ones above are the contenders. They are the ones to beat!

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Justin Trudeau didn’t decide to resign this week, sources say. The decision was made weeks ago, in plain view. 
 
And few noticed. 
 
It happened on December 18. On that date, Trudeau’s PMO abruptly cancelled interviews with multiple media outlets: Global News, CBC, CTV, Radio-Canada, TVA Nouvelles, along with what was to be a joint interview with CityNews and OMNI Television. The move was unprecedented.
 
Few Canadians understood the significance of that decision. But senior Liberals knew it almost certainly meant the government end of Trudeau’s reign had arrived. 
 
One very senior Liberal, who has years of experience with different Prime Ministers and their offices, said that is the moment when Trudeau had truly decided to go. “No leader has cancelled year-end interviews, ever,” said the Liberal. “They’re a tradition. They’re important, because lots of Canadians watch them. And Justin cancelled.”
 
Trudeau’s behavior in the days that followed did nothing to alter that decision, sources said. Trudeau made a some canned remarks at the Liberal Christmas party on the Hill, and then just a few words to the media after he shuffled his cabinet for the last time. He then got on a Challenger jet and flew to British Columbia to ski. 
 
Few, if any, heard from Trudeau during the crucial days when he needed to be working the phones to save his leadership. Trudeau mainly communicated only with the small circle who remain loyal to him, and with family members. Some urged him to stay and fight.  
 
But Trudeau had no fight left in him. Everywhere he looked, sources said, his prospects were bad and getting worse. President-elect Donald Trump was mocking him on the world stage, calling him the governor of the 51st state. Caucus members – including the crucial Atlantic, Quebec and Ontario caucuses – started to publicly demand that he step aside. And an Angus Reid Institute poll was issued, suggesting that the Liberals had fallen to only 16 per cent support nationally.
 
That’s not all: Liberal leadership campaigns started organizing, more or less openly, and talking to the media – anonymously, of course – about their prospects in the post-Trudeau era. Among them was Dominic LeBlanc, who Trudeau considers one of his closest friends – and Chrystia Freeland, the former Deputy Prime Minister who had dramatically quit Trudeau’s cabinet two days before he canceled his year-end interviews.
 
“He’s human, you know,” said another Liberal insider. “He was down. He asked his circle [of advisors] if there was any way to hold on and avoid a full caucus revolt. They came up with nothing.”
 
“It had nothing to do with Poilievre,” said one Liberal. “He still thinks that Poilievre is a pipsqueak.”
 
But the Parliamentary holiday recess was like bankruptcy, another Liberal said. The process of unraveling is very slow, and then it suddenly reaches its grim conclusion very, very fast.
 
“He knew it was all over,” said the senior Liberal. “His kids were saying to him, ‘Dad, it’s time to go home’.”
 
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The Left is antisemitic.

It was not always thus. The manifestations of Jew hatred – both hardcore (Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, Heritage Front et al.) and fringe (Jim Keegstra, Malcolm Ross, et al.) – were almost always on the Right. Not so long ago, either.

Something changed. For sixty years, the Anti-Defamation League did polling in North America about antisemitism and its malevolent variants. Year after year, the polls showed that young people considered themselves progressive. They passionately opposed racism and antisemitism.

Five years or so ago, there was a shift. Progressive young people still considered themselves anti-racist – but they started to associate Israel with racism.

Israel, young progressives eventually told ADL and other opinion-seekers, was a fascistic, colonial, apartheid state. The reality was otherwise: a quarter of Israel is Arab, and about 45 per cent of the Jewish population is from Africa or Asia. Non-white, in other words.

It didn’t matter, because hate is always disinterested in reality and facts. To oppose Israel was to oppose racism, young progressives told themselves. Every Israel-hating protestor you now see in our streets – every bit of “anti-Zionist” libel you see on social media – can be traced back to that lie: Israel is white supremacist empire, subjugating and oppressing the impoverished, brown-skinned people who were there first.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a renowned Israeli author. He shakes his head when asked about the antisemitism that has now infected the Left and young people in the West, like a virus that defies any vaccine. “There’s been a progression of accusations against Israel,” he says. “Beginning with colonialism, moving to ethnic cleansing, accelerating to apartheid – and now culminating in genocide. And there’s nowhere else to go after genocide.”

“That is their ultimate goal,” Klein Halevi says of those who have persuaded young progressives to embrace a lie. “Because if Israel is a genocidal state, like Nazi Germany was, then Israel becomes incapable of waging a legitimate war of self-defence. Because a genocidal state has no right to self-defence.”

It is not just young people who have been seized with this hateful virus, of course. It is seen everywhere in this country – even with those who have power. Those who, without exception, are on the ideological Left.

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The Left is antisemitic.

It was not always thus. The manifestations of Jew hatred – both hardcore (Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, Heritage Front et al.) and fringe (Jim Keegstra, Malcolm Ross, et al.) – were almost always on the Right. Not so long ago, either.

Something changed. For sixty years, the Anti-Defamation League did polling in North America about antisemitism and its malevolent variants. Year after year, the polls showed that young people considered themselves progressive. They passionately opposed racism and antisemitism.

Five years or so ago, there was a shift. Progressive young people still considered themselves anti-racist – but they started to associate Israel with racism.

Israel, young progressives eventually told ADL and other opinion-seekers, was a fascistic, colonial, apartheid state. The reality was otherwise: a quarter of Israel is Arab, and about 45 per cent of the Jewish population is from Africa or Asia. Non-white, in other words.

It didn’t matter, because hate is always disinterested in reality and facts. To oppose Israel was to oppose racism, young progressives told themselves. Every Israel-hating protestor you now see in our streets – every bit of “anti-Zionist” libel you see on social media – can be traced back to that lie: Israel is white supremacist empire, subjugating and oppressing the impoverished, brown-skinned people who were there first.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a renowned Israeli author. He shakes his head when asked about the antisemitism that has now infected the Left and young people in the West, like a virus that defies any vaccine. “There’s been a progression of accusations against Israel,” he says. “Beginning with colonialism, moving to ethnic cleansing, accelerating to apartheid – and now culminating in genocide. And there’s nowhere else to go after genocide.”

“That is their ultimate goal,” Klein Halevi says of those who have persuaded young progressives to embrace a lie. “Because if Israel is a genocidal state, like Nazi Germany was, then Israel becomes incapable of waging a legitimate war of self-defence. Because a genocidal state has no right to self-defence.”

It is not just young people who have been seized with this hateful virus, of course. It is seen everywhere in this country – even with those who have power. Those who, without exception, are on the ideological Left.

[To read more, subscribe here]

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It’s a big, big one. I went over the whole year (three times – thanks, Apple elf lords) and assembled some of the best stuff for you.  Click here or on the fancy pants flowery graphic below. And happy Kinsellacasty 2025.

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Texas born and raised. All-American.

U.S. Army veteran, too, and a member of the Army Reserve.  Senior Information Management Officer in the Army. Army team leader and human resources supervisor. Member of Army Corps of Engineers. Honors graduate. U.S. Army combat training. And on and on.

How did Shamsud-Din Jabbar go from all that, from serving under the American flag, to murdering ten people under the ISIS flag? How did he decide he would kill innocent New Year’s revellers with a rented truck in New Orleans in the early hours of 2025? How did he reach that point?

Those are questions that will be asked many times in the days ahead. Answers are so far elusive. Jabbar’s act of mass-murder happened just hours ago, so we don’t know yet the names of the web sites the “Senior Information Management Officer” was frequenting. But we can hazard a guess.  

They are likely the same web sites and social media platforms favoured by the masked figures who have shot up and firebombed synangogues and Jewish schools multiple times in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in the past year.  They all use the same source material, after all.  The only qualitative difference is that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was much more effective at spilling blood than his fellow monsters up here.

Now, this writer does not ever profile mass-murderers, or even name them. The victims are the ones who deserve to be remembered, not their executioners.

But like Timothy McVeigh before him – another medalled U.S. Army veteran, who would go on to murder 168 men, women and children in Oklahoma City in April 1995 – Jabbar became radicalized somewhere along the way.  And, like McVeigh, he was an American who had sworn allegiance with these words: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

So how did Shamsud-Din Jabbar, having sworn an oath to defend the United States against all enemies, become one himself?

The Internet, almost certainly, will be the reason.  Because the Internet – social media platforms, mostly, but also old-fashioned Internet platforms, like YouTube or web sites – have been the recruitment office for Islamist terror groups for a generation. From al-Qaeda to ISIS to Hamas and Hezbollah and back to ISIS again: the Internet has provided terrorists – McVeigh’s neo-Nazis and Jabbar’s Islamists – with an abundant source of funds, recruits and public relations muscle. 

Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas don’t merely use Internet platforms – they actually are Internet platforms themselves. On TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Discord and many other variants, Islamic terrorists address two distinct audiences. One is found in the West, and they use horrifying images – Hamas slaughtering 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, or al-Qaeda slaughtering 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 – to terrorize us, often in English with slick production values.

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2024.

Ungood: first full year without a parent. Lost Roxy. Lost only campaign worked on. Lost friends and family member to the dark side. Anguished over antisemitism that was everywhere.

Good: great kids – law school, golf pro, happy Haligonian. E, amazing and brilliant. Wrote book for Penguin Random House, out in 2025. Doing a big global documentary, also out next year. 52 more podcasts. Worked for Kamala, proud of it. Got Tommy. Daisy turned 18, more successful than ever. Big gig at the Bovine; recorded some not-bad punk music. Painted, got a bit better. Healthy. Wrote for scrappy tabloid who don’t censor me. Israel, NYC, Jamaica, Maine.

Feel pretty lucky. Feel blessed. Here’s hoping your 2025 is blessed, too. Keep fighting for the light.

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