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The letter reads like it was dictated by a drunk at the end of the bar who won’t leave when it’s closing time.

Donald Trump’s letter to Mark Carney, that is. Run-on sentences, ungrammatical, improper punctuation, irregular capitalization, lousy syntax, you name it: the Mango Mussolini’s letter to our Prime Minister is guaranteed to give your favourite English teacher a stroke. It’s that bad.

But it’s consistent. It’s predictable, too.

“Starting August 1, 2025,” writes Trump, “we will charge Canada a Tariff of 35 per cent on Canadian products sent into the United States, separate from all Sectoral Tariffs…If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise
them by, will be added onto the 35% that we charge.”

Here we go again.

In mob parlance, Trump’s letter is what is called a shakedown: pay the protection money, pay the pizzo, or else. You’ve got a nice little country, Mark-o. It’d be a shame if something bad happened to it, etc.

As objectionable as that is, it’s still a case of Trump being Trump. In fairness to the man, he doesn’t believe in free trade; he campaigned against free trade. But he’s certainly willing to use our desire for free trade to ruin us.  

As some may recall, Trump pledged to gut free trade in his inauguration speech. Ten days later, he declared a fentanyl “national emergency” and his intention to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada for everything we sell to the U.S.

Trump proclaimed his fraudulent “national emergency” for one reason and one reason only: to get himself out of the terms of the USMCA trade deal. You know, the deal that he himself signed, with his ubiquitous Sharpie.

And that’s how it’s been, for months. Whenever we think we have achieved a relative degree of sanity, whenever we think the worst is over, Trump threatens more tariffs. In the past seven months, it has happened many times. Supply management, our banking system, defence spending, and on and on: Trump will concoct just about any pretext to break the deal. And us.

But – still – it’s Trump being Trump. It’s what, and who, he is. What of Mark Carney?

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CUPE Ontario is undemocratic, unrepresentative and unhinged, say some of its own members.

And, increasingly, the union leadership’s animus towards Jews is getting worse, they say.

CUPE Ontario’s 2025 draft “Action Plan” provides ample proof, they say. The lengthy document contains scores of statements by the union adopted at their recent convention. But the Action Plan doesn’t reflect members’ priorities, they say – and it reveals that the union, led by Fred Hahn, is no longer representing its members.

“They’re not accountable to us,” said a member of the union, who was granted anonymity in exchange for their views. “They claim that they are, but they’re not. The vast majority of CUPE Ontario members have no idea that this is going on…And [the Action Plan] really does nothing to advance worker rights here in Ontario.”

Evidence of that are not hard to find in the latest CUPE Ontario Action Plan. A sampling:

• “CUPE Ontario will continue to advocate for the rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, including demanding a withdrawal of legislation which has adopted this definition.” The problem with that? The IHRA definition of antisemitism is the common-sense definition, and the one that dozens of countries have formally adopted – including every major democracy on the planet, critics of Israel included.

• “[CUPE Ontario will] continue to work with our allies to fight against ‘bubble zones’ that limit our constitutional right to protest.” The problem there? Fanatics have shown their willingness to attack people worshipping when they are at their most vulnerable, at mosques, synagogues or churches. Such “bubble zones” already are used to protect abortion clinics, so why doesn’t Fred Hahn’s CUPE Ontario object to that, too? We all know the answer.

• “Work with CUPE Nationals International Solidarity staff to advance education efforts on anti-Palestinian racism [APR].” The problem with that pledge is the benign-sounding “anti-Palestinian racism.” APR has been interpreted to mean that Israel is completely illegitimate – and that the Jewish state’s existence is considered “racist” towards Palestinians, and should therefore be wiped off the map. APR does not accept that Israelis and Palestinians can and should co-exist.

• “We commit unequivocally against genocide and for the rights of the Palestinian people.” The problem with that commitment, of course, is that the numbers – and the reality – simply don’t support the “genocide” blood libel: in April, no less than Zaher al-Wahidi, the head of statistics at the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, told Sky News that thousands of individual deaths in the Israel-Hamas war had been reclassified. “We realized a lot of people died a natural death,” he said.

And so on and so on. The CUPE Ontario Action Plan, to some of its own members, is an extremist manifesto, and one that doesn’t truly reflect what a union is supposed to be doing. And it’s wildly undemocratic, they say.

“[CUPE Ontario’s conventions] are the furthest things from a democratic process,” one says. “CUPE Ontario has roughly 290,000 members – but only about 1,100 have voting rights at conventions and attend conventions. And union locals have limits on who they can send – and [they are] very selective about who can go.”

And when anyone goes and tries to oppose the anti-Israel extremism? Says a member: “Other viewpoints, other opinions, they get shut down.” There’s no democratic process in CUPE Ontario, they say.

The most extreme example of that came last month, when CUPE Ontario actually endorsed and promoted a “HANDS OFF IRAN” protest at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto. Despite the fact that Iran is considered by many to have the worst human rights record in the world – despite the fact that Iran’s Islamist rulers murder, torture, imprison, dismember, rape and brutalize their own people, all the time – CUPE Ontario officially embraced the world’s number one supporter of terrorism.

Says one member: “We don’t truly believe that CUPE Ontario’s leaders are invested in workers rights anymore. Look at the ‘hands off Iran’ protest that CUPE Ontario put their stamp on…They’re so twisted in their ideology and where their allegiances lie, now.”

So, what can be done? Some members are looking at signing with other unions. Some are talking decertification. Neither is an easy process, however. But something has to be done to get CUPE Ontario back to representing its members, they say.

“Union members need to be made aware of what’s actually happening and where our money is going,” one says. “We need people to step up.”

So, CUPE Ontario members: step up!

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Lloyd Axworthy stirred.

The Manitoba Liberal MP looked around the paneled boardroom in 409-S, the office of the Leader of the Opposition, in Centre Block. “I think I am going to express outrage about this one,” he said to the room. Someone laughed.

It was long ago, 1992 or so. We were gathered for the daily meeting to determine what we – the Liberal Party Official Opposition – were going to ask about during Question Period. I can’t remember what Lloyd had decided to be outraged about. But I remember that he said that.

I was reminded of it again when Lloyd unloaded both rhetorical barrels on Mark Carney this week. The Prime Minister was “a boot-licker,” Lloyd had said, quote unquote. For capitulating to Donald Trump’s demand that Canada scrap the Digital Sales Tax, Lloyd suggested last week, Carney had revealed himself to be a craven coward.

Axworthy continued in his blog post: “A pattern is now set: Trump harrumphs, we comply. What else will we quietly surrender? Cultural industries? Environmental standards, agriculture security, Arctic sovereignty?”

Wow. Shots fired, as they say. So, the obvious question: was what Lloyd said genuine, or was it a bit of political performative theatre? Either way, it was something Mark Carney would be ill-advised to dismiss as the rantings of a Grit ghost.

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Carney did cave on the digital sales tax. And he may do so again when Trump goes after supply management.

Is it fatal? Don’t think so. My sense is people think he’s doing fine. Nobody is mad at him like they were at Justin, post-2021.

That may change, but for now he’s fine.

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Swing, batter!

Full disclosure and I confess: I campaigned for the Democrats.

Now, not every Democrat lacks a soul.  Many of them are decent. But a quite a few of them, as recent events make clear, have became willing hostages of Jew-hating, democracy-destroying, Hamas-fetishizing crypto-Nazis.

As a volunteer on Democratic presidential campaigns – for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024 – I was on the team that played against Donald Trump several times. In so doing, I learned three important things.

One, Trump campaigned on killing free trade, and he’s doing just that. He’s got a mandate to kill free trade, in fact, from 77 million registered voters.

Two, he may have written a book called The Art of the Deal – but he never, ever does a deal where he doesn’t come out on top. Ever.

Three, he loves making the elites look bad.

Those are the guiding principles in Donald Trump’s political career, and – along with my friends Hillary, Joe and Kamala – I’ve never forgotten them. Despite his penchant for fibbing, Trump is pretty transparent about the big picture stuff.  He is who he is. (Unfortunately.)

Which brings us to Friday afternoon, and Prime Minister Mark Carney learning the above-noted Trump Truisms™ the hard way. It’s unclear, at this point, whether Carney’s political popularity is going to take a hit.  But there’s no doubt that the Liberal leader has just experienced his first major policy and political failure.

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In a week of terrible news – antisemitic protests getting worse in Toronto and elsewhere, an Israel-hating candidate coming first in the New York City Democratic primary, polls showing a substantial number opposing Donald Trump’s justifiable attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program – there is some good news.  There is.

It comes in the form of a quiet, almost-shy young woman, Noa Argamani. 

You may be unfamiliar with Noa’s name, but you have probably heard about the 28-year-old Israeli’s story.  It is an extraordinary one, and it is a story that provides some hope in dark and dangerous times.

On October 7, 2023, Noa and her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, were at the Nova Music Festival in Israel’s South. Early on the morning of that terrible day, hundreds of Hamas terrorists descended on the festival site, and commenced killing and raping and torturing the young people who had gathered there.

Nearly 350 of them were killed that day, and many more were wounded, some grievously.  Some 44 were taken hostage by Hamas.

Noa and Avinatan were among them.

Hamas filmed much of it, and posted their crimes online.  In one video clip, Noa is seen being taken away on the back of a motorcycle by a Palestinian civilian, calling out: “Don’t kill me!” Her arms are outstretched, reaching for Avinatan.  It would be the last time she saw him.  

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What’s it like living in Israel, right now?

When this writer was there last month, there were lots of sirens and alerts, but not much in the way of anxiety. Even when a Houthi ballistic missile penetrated the Iron Dome and landed right beside Terminal Three at the country’s main airport – where my partner happened to be, along with dozens of Canadian kids – nobody seemed to lose their cool. They swept up the shrapnel and the dirt, and flights continued.

These days, it’s different. There’s lots of anxiety, now.

On June 13 – one day after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censured Iran for continuing to enrich uranium that could be used in the dictatorship’s covert nuclear weapons program – Israel acted. It had no choice. It commenced bombing Iranian military and nuclear facilities.

Iran, meanwhile, responded by targeting Israeli civilians: hospitals, schools and apartment buildings, in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Rishon Lezion, Bat Yam and Rehovot in central Israel, and Haifa and Tamra in the North. Everywhere, really. And Iran continues to target civilians.

So what is that like?

Mark Berlin is an Ottawa lawyer (and, full disclosure, a longtime friend). He was invited to Israel for a mission by its Foreign Ministry to meet with the country’s thriving LGBTQ community, and to celebrate Pride month. Then war broke out. Says Berlin, now back home in Ottawa: “It was otherworldly. It was like something I’ve never experienced before.”

For Berlin, that’s no small thing. He worked in Ramallah in the West Bank for a decade, during the first and second Intifadas. He’s worked in war-torn Sudan. I know him to be brave and determined man.

After visiting the site of the Nova Music Festival and some of the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023 – when thousands of Jews and non-Jews were murdered, wounded, raped and kidnapped by the terror group – Berlin and his delegation went to Tel Aviv to join in Pride celebrations. And that’s when Hell broke out.

Says he: “The sh*t hit the fan, and we were in a war zone… When the alarms go off, you have one minute, 30 seconds to get to the shelter. And so you scramble to it. And the first day, we thought, okay, it’s gonna be once a night. Then it was twice a night.” And then, he said, it started to happen multiple times, every night – and then during the day, too. It hasn’t stopped.

“It was unrelenting,” he says. “We were getting two, three hours of sleep at best, in 45 minute chunks.” They’d sleep on the concrete floor in their hotel’s parking garage, which they’d been told was reinforced and the best protection against Iran’s barrage.

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