@GerryMRW:
Hey, be fair, Poilievre deserves some credit too. It must take some considerable mental effort to be such an odious lying shitbag.
David_Moscrop:
Mark Carney, heal the country by giving your victory speech while eating an apple.
@Noellenarwhal:
No matter the outcome of today’s election, I think we can all agree, an end to the incessant whining will be most welcome
@bittergirlerant:
Except it won’t end. Get ready for freedumb clownvoy part 2
@Axe_Grrl:
If the FreeDumbers try to bring their sh**show back here to Ottawa, let’s just say that citizens will be more ‘ready’ for them this time.
@TRyanGregory:
Liberals win. Not clear yet if majority or minority. Either way, this has been an incredible reversal from just two months ago. Credit to Carney — and especially Trump — where it’s due. It’s not going to be good that the NDP won’t have much of a voice, but at least it’s not PP.
@nls5.bsky.social:
it looks like trump just endorsed PP as the man who he knew would help canada be one the 51st state. Why would any Canadian vote for that?
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
Electoral interference doesn’t just apply to China, Russia, or India. The USA is the greatest enemy to democracy in the world right now.
@chadbourn.bsky.social:
Looks like Musk is boosting all Conservative tweets and downgrading Liberal ones for the Canadian election. Not even trying to hide it.
@costapow.bsky.social:
That’s why we aren’t on Twitter.
@jotates.bsky.social:
Still laughing at the Foreign Interference Committee that didn’t mention the US once. Breathlessly sweating over China and India while the US bends us over
@wallykibler.bsky.social;
Twitter is dead to me
Fuck Musk
@charlieangus104.bsky.social:
This election is not about Trump.
It is about standing up for Canada and defying the rage-baiters, conspiracy trolls and those who trash our nation to score points.
This election is about you Pierre Poilievre.
We reject your hate politics.
Canadians do your best. Don’t accept the worst.
@tamhodge.bsky.social:
Embarrassed American here – I am pulling for you all! I have hope you’ll do the right thing!! Much love to all my upstairs neighbors!
@mangygoat.bsky.social:
Much appreciated
Elbows Up & Hands Off
@tamhodge.bsky.social:
It looks like it’s gonna be close. How you feeling?
@marganne-nana.bsky.social:
Oh, a very worried senior here. In my 55 years of voting, I have never seen an election with so much at stake and never feared a candidate for PM as much as I fear Poilievre.
Me too. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. Piss Pants Poilievre = hate and rage farmer (about the only thing he’s any good at), racist, anti-democracy IDU member, incredibly stupid, Harper puppet, supporter of criminal fucker truckers and other abusive thugs, hater of women, hater of Canada, hater of science and education, hater of safe air, water, food, and land, hater of public health care, lover of the orange convicted felon rapist and his fellow rapists, many of them rapists of kids. If he wins, Canada and women and girls are fucked. I do not want to be raped again, ever.
@tamhodge.bsky.social:
I am hoping the good people of Canada do the right thing! Hang in there, breathe, you’ve got this!
@fatmadt.bsky.social:
As an American, I can honestly say that we fucked up. Don’t be like America.
@sharonsasaki.bsky.social:
Mark Carney: calm confident strength with plan for to be #1 in G7; Canada stays a free & sovereign nation
Pierre PoiLIEvre: hate-raging, fear-mongering Project 2025 Maple version; sells Canada out to Trump
Please choose calm, confident, loyal leadership & reject the hate when you go to vote
@jupitess.bsky.social:
I hope the rage baiting hate monger loses his seat! That is the best possible outcome. The CPC eat their own, i see PP on the dinner plate soon!
@trishly.bsky.social:
but we can’t rest…CPC and their right-wing wing goons will get nastier and come back fighting starting Tuesday.
CPC will replace Poilievre with an even worse loser.
@jupitess.bsky.social:
I don’t think they will have any choice but to accept that their current politics are a loser in this country; they will be forced back towards the center. I am also thinking the party will split, and the PC’s will leave, making the far right regional to Alberta and Saskatchewan only.
@sharonsasaki.bsky.social:
The hate has to stop
The Hate Has To Stop
This is not Canada & hopefully the polls will prove that Canadians reject this hate message inundating us from PoiLIEvre & Musk
The misinformation & lies stirring up all of this anger will hopefully fade away once the election is over & Carney remains PM
@jupitess.bsky.social:
I hope so. When I see the hate coming from the far right, I don’t recognize Canada anymore. We have always had political differences, but never to the point of rage against each other. We need to get back to being who we are and stop trying to be American!I don’t think it’s about trying to be America, I think it’s that Nazism and Zionism (which is more evil than Nazism) have taken over much of the world, and Putin and Musk are financing bots, the criminal fucker truckers, and the rage and hate farming so as to divide and conquer Canadians. The rich asshole Nazis want to destroy us, and steal our water, forests, oil, gas, bitumen and coal, hydro and more.
@trishly.bsky.social:
the Conservatoce party turned right when the Reform party took over.
Then it gave a voice to many right wingers over the years, such as the Convoy, Jeff Ballingall, Rebel news etc.
If PP loses, it will get worse.I fear civil war will break out if Pee Pee loses, or, another enslaught of fucker truckers abusing ordinary Canadians. They are hideous humans, I’ve experienced abuses from too many of them.
@jupitess.bsky.social:
Yeah i remember. I was a PC and i left when the merge happened. I still blame Peter MacKay for the Harper years and the destruction of the PC’s federally. His lust for power, was his only priority and i consider him a traitor.
@trishly.bsky.social:
I blame Mackay, too.ME TOO! disgusting ugly snivvling traitorous douche shit
I remember that picture of him with his dog on the front page of the newspaper after Stronach dumped him.
Pathetic man!
@sharonsasaki.bsky.social:
I think much of the extreme vitriol on X came when Putin was funding Tim Pool, Rebel Media & Russian trolls with $50M to attack Trudeau & when Musk bought X. The language became crude, vulgar. PP’s antiTrudeau hate-filled rhetoric worsened. The lies stirred up rage
THIS HATE MUST STOP
Carney4PM
@reginaphalange20.bsky.social:
It’s just so important. I don’t think I can take a deep breath until Carney’s name is announced Monday night. I appreciate you too!
@johnnydoey14.bsky.social:
Canada, as an American, believe you me, when I say: DO NOT VOTE FOR PEE-PEE!!!
Anyone who aligns themselves with Trump/MAGA will learn very hard lessons. Stay AWAY from anything associated with Trump/MAGA!
Your country is better than that!!!
@trishly.bsky.social
So is yours… you will recover soon, and we’ll support you along the way!!
I look forward to rebuilding our friendship and allegiance
@pamelabanting.bsky.social:
That’s a nice thing to say.
@henneypenny2020.bsky.social:
If PP loses his seat, that will make me one very happy Canadian
public 4 Public Health
@public4ph.bsky.social:
Me too!
@PaulChampLaw:
Interesting to ponder the fate and legacy of two leaders today. Poilievre will lose election and potentially his seat. Likely his party will move on. His legacy? Meanness and divisiveness, attacking anyone who he deemed a foe, incl in his own party, undermining media and other institutions, spreading conspiracies, etc. For Singh, likely big electoral collapse for NDP and end of his leadership. But legacy will be huge. Two major national social programs and, if he didn’t support Trudeau, likely Poilievre as PM a year ago. History will be kind.
Trump shows us what a rash narcissist can do to harm a country. Pierre Poilievre isn’t Trump. But they’re alike in several ways. by Bruce Anderson, Apr 26, 2025, Bruce’s Substack
I think so many women despising and terrified of Pee Pee is telling.
Pierre Poilievre goes out of his way to be seen as a firebrand. It’s a look he’s been working on for years. He loved ginning up partisan supporters by saying he would fire the Governor of the Bank of Canada and replace him with someone “who would reinstate our low inflation mandate”.
That was in May of 2022. Inflation peaked that month at 7.7% – part of a phenomenon that was happening around the world, not only in Canada. But today, Canada’s inflation rate is down to 2.3%. Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem has cut interest rates 7 times in the last year.
Where monetary policy goes from here will have a lot to do with the uncertainties caused by Trump’s tariff threats.
But what lesson can we take about Poilievre? Coming out of a crisis, Canada needed steady hands and careful, considered choices. Not overheated, political posturing. Poilievre wanted to dismantle a principle that has served Canada and many other countries well, for a long time: that a central bank should be insulated from political pressures and can make independent judgment calls to protect our currency for the long term.
Poilievre’s ego was such that he thought he should burn down that custom and pick someone to follow his political agenda. Lately, he doesn’t talk as much about all of this.
And it’s not hard to figure out why. He’s worried people will see how his personality seems to resemble that of Donald Trump.
Trump is showing us just how badly things can go, when voters pick a reckless narcissist and let him tear down norms. Here’s a few things to consider:
There are varying estimates of how much shareholder value Trump has destroyed with his roller coaster announcements on tariffs, but most seem to be above $5 trillion.And put into billionaire pockets, same as the riches stolen described below.
The Tax Foundation estimates that Trump’s tariffs will cost each American household $1243 in 2025 alone. Penn Wharton predicts US GDP will slide by 6% and US wages will drop by 5%.
The US tourism industry – worth $2.3 Trillion – is seeing massive declines in business. Tourism Economics, a forecasting company, had predicted a 9% increase in in International travel to the US, and is now predicting a 9% decrease. The decline in Canadian visits alone will cost 14,000 American jobs. American, Southwest and Delta all suspended forecasting their business for the coming year, based on uncertainty and weakening demand.
Goldman Sachs says that while tariffs could create 100,000 manufacturing jobs in America, they will destroy 500,000 other jobs.
Beyond the reckless tariff moves, Trump’s rash approach is causing a host of other problems for Americans.
His Secretary of Health, RFK, Jr. has closed measles immunization clinics in Texas amid the worst measles outbreak in 25 years, in what one expert observer called, the “revenge of the COVID contrarians”. The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is looking at cutting $40 billion in spending, has cut a quarter of its staff, and would even put an end to a suicide hotline for LGBTQ+ youth.
Trump’s controversial FBI Director Kash Patel arrested a judgesounds like another judge was arrested too, and Trump supporters shared a photo of the judge being led away in handcuffs. This is widely seen as a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
What is the point here?
On Monday, Canadians can choose to support Pierre Poilievre, and no doubt a good number will do so.
But for those who haven’t made up their minds, there are more than a handful of parallels between Poilievre and Trump to think about.
Both rage against central bank independence.
Offer comfort to radical anti-vax conspiracy believers.
Run down the idea of global economic relationships.
Both love to break norms, rules, customs.
Promote their own names, more than their parties.
Pick noisy fights with journalists, and members of their own parties.
Both talk a lot about fake news and radical woke ideology.
Both lead parties that include a lot of people who would like to end a woman’s right to choose.and much much worse
Both have been looking at ways to work around the constitution when it comes to their law and order agenda.
No Poilievre isn’t Trump. But Trump is a clear warning of just how much damage a rash and reckless narcissist can do, in a very short period of time
Mike:
Thank you for this post, I am a big fan! You are missed on Good Talk, though I get that your new partisan role necessitated the step back.
If I could suggest a few additional concerning similarities:
- both vilify their political opponents as enemies, which leads to a toxic polarization that undermines the very fabric of our democracy
- both routinely assault the impartiality of the public service, another key pillar of a functioning democracy
Terry Quinn:
The ten years of “liberal failure” include almost three years of dealing with the pandemic and it’s after effects. The only ideals I’ve seen from Canada’s conservatives are attack dog policies. Their proposal to run Canada for the next four years was filled with pictures of their leader. Who does that remind you of? I am a liberal but strongly believe in the exchange of ideas, but the CPC leader restricts the main stream media and openly supports groups that despise our democracy and freedom. Their goal is to kill our charter of rights and freedoms.
Parker Donham:
… Poilievre has been aping MAGA in tone and policy for more than a decade, and only charged course when Trump launched his deranged attacks on Canada, and Poilievre realized how unpopular these approaches are in Canada.
I don’t think Poilievte is fascist, but he is the latest in a series of Conservative Party leaders attempting to nationalize the regional grievances of provinces beholden to the US oil industry.
Terra Incognita:
PP and his voters are such disgusting PoS.
***
@hab3261.bsky.social:
PM Mark Carney Rally – Edmonton
No one will ever convince me that Alberta is just a province of separatists and rednecks. Today’s rally for Prime Minister Mark Carney in Edmonton was a powerful reminder that this province is home to an incredibly diverse and engaged community.
@ricochet_en:
Stephen Maher: Separatism is in the #Alberta air, as Liberal victory looms. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, support for separating from Canada now matches Quebec, as resentments grow and Trump stirs the pot.
Stephen Maher: Separatism is in the Alberta air, as Liberal victory looms, Support for separation in Alberta and Saskatchewan now matches Quebec, as resentments grow and Trump stirs the pot by Stephen Maher, April 28 2025
Editors’ note: As part of our coverage of the 2025 federal election, Ricochet assigned veteran political journalist Stephen Maher to investigate the state of separatist movements in Quebec and Alberta. Earlier this week, we published Stephen’s feature report “Strange bedfellows: In Québec, Trump’s threats driving sovereigntists into the arms of the Liberals.” Today, we’re publishing his investigation of the separatist movement in Alberta.
Nobody even thinks about booing when Miss Rodeo Taber, Shaylynn Amen, rides out on horseback, holding the Stars and Stripes aloft as she gallops around the arena while Bill Lawson sings the American anthem, a capella, in a gravelly but tuneful cowboy baritone.
This is not a hockey game in eastern Canada, where the Star-Spangled Banner has regularly been booed.
The fans waiting in the stands to watch the bucking-horse riders risk life and limb in the Taber Agri-Plex don’t have their elbows up. They like the United States. They clap and cheer when the U.S. anthem is done.
In Taber, a corn-growing town of almost 10,000, many would just as soon drop the song Lawson sings next, O Canada.
Taber sits along a Canadian Pacific Railway line, an hour north of the Coutts border crossing. Many people have family roots south of the border, and share the libertarian values, cowboy culture and healthy appreciation for the value of petroleum money of their American cousins.
In the dry prairie just north of the 49th parallel, where oil derricks and grain elevators interrupt the undulating yellow grass and the snowy tips of the distant Rockies are visible on a clear day, many people are tired of Canadian politicians impeding their industry. Many of them like the idea of Alberta leaving Canada and joining the United States.
“From what I’ve heard, there’s quite a lot of people interested in it,” says Jake Fehr, who stops on his way into the rodeo to share his opinion.
Fehr, like many Albertans, has had it with being governed by Liberals in far-off Ottawa. “They’re pushing a lot of their agenda over here that we don’t agree with. They’re taking advantage of a lot of our population here.”
“We grew up on cows and oil, right?” says Wayne Powell, a former saddle bronc rider from Turner Valley who is visiting Taber so his son can compete in the rodeo. “It’s directly threatened by Canadian politics.”
Freedom-loving Albertans share values with their American neighbours, says Justice Grigor, 25, a construction worker who has come down from Calgary. He would like to join the United States.“I think we’d all benefit more as part of the U.S.”
The feeling is widespread but not universal. Separatism is in the air, although everyone assumes Alberta would end up as part of the United States.
Brian Waldie, 81, a retired feed salesman who drove over from the nearby university town of Lethbridge, might agree with complaints about politics, but he isn’t interested in separating.
“I think we’re getting rough handling,” he says. “I hope our premier changes that, but I’m a Canadian, and I like Quebec. I’m glad they have that language and their law. We’re Canada.”
The maple leaf hangs in storefronts in Lethbridge, and nobody I meet there shopping on a sunny Friday afternoon is thinking about separating. Many of them are surprised by the idea.
“That seems like that would never happen,” says a young man having a beer on the patio in front of the Telegraph Taphouse.
“Although the Liberals do suck,” his friend says. “We would appreciate it if you would publish that.”
Separatist sentiment is regularly amplified by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, by journalists like Rick Bell, a Calgary Herald columnist who predicts Albertans will “raise a little hell” if the country elects the Liberals again, and by former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning, who has been repeatedlypredicting that another Liberal government could lead to Western separatism.
“Voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession – a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it,” he wrote in the Globe.
A poll this month shows that 30 per cent of Albertans and 33 per cent of Saskatchewanians would vote to separate if the Liberals are re-elected, about the same level of support for secession as in Quebec.
The message from Bell, Smith and Manning is that Prairie voters are full of righteous anger over federal environmental policies that frustrate the petroleum industry and an equalization program that takes money from the West to subsidize Quebec, where people are hostile to oil and gas.
Resentment is concentrated in rural areas. In rural Alberta, 67 per cent believe their province is treated unfairly by the federal government. In rural Saskatchewan, it’s 71 per cent, according to Pollara Strategic Insights.
In a February poll, 23 per cent of rural Albertans told Pollara they would vote to separate, compared with 15 per cent in Calgary and 15 per cent in Edmonton.
There is no regional breakdown within rural Alberta, but a study done by Jared Wesley, a political science professor at the University of Alberta, found that separatists are likely to be older white men who were born in Alberta and were involved with or sympathetic to the “freedom convoy” against COVID health restrictions.
That could be why support is higher in Taber, where COVID vaccination rates were low, than in Lethbridge.
Wesley says many of the people drawn to right wing populist movements feel a perceived loss of success or social status: “We are starting to hear a lot of that narrative come out, first in the convoy and now in the Alberta separatist movement, saying that folks here are just tired of losing and need to see some major kind of change.”
But it is not a new sentiment.
Gordon Kesler won a provincial byelection for the separatist Western Canada Concept party in 1982, when anger at Ottawa was at a high point because of the National Energy Program, an industrial policy brought in by Pierre Trudeau that Albertans blamed for a huge economic setback when oil prices fell.
Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University, thinks that moment was more dangerous.
“As much as Danielle Smith and Preston Manning want to talk about it rising, it’s actually lowering in Alberta,” he says. “But it’s being driven at the top. They want it to be an issue, and they’re desperately trying to make it an issue.”
From a distance, Smith appears to be acting like a separatist, issuing demands and portraying Alberta as a victim at every turn.
Bratt thinks she likes a lot of Trump’s agenda, but it’s also clear that she is facing pressure from the grassroots of her party to take on Ottawa. She took over the leadership of the United Conservative Party after a rebellion linked to the anti-mandate movement brought down former premier Jason Kenney. Her party’s base is angry at the prospect of another Liberal government in Ottawa, so she is channeling that anger.
Smith has warned that if Canadians elect a Liberal government, she will set up a panel to consider Alberta’s options, and she has spoken about the possibility of a citizen-initiated referendum.
But the current process allows for a referendum on a constitutional question only after citizens collect signatures from 20 per cent of registered voters (almost 600,000), which seems like an impossible threshold. Smith is now facing pressure to make it easier.
Cameron Davies, a longtime political organizer in the province, thinks there will be a referendum one way or another.
He is trying to make the Republican Party of Alberta the vehicle for Alberta’s exit from confederation. He favours separation over joining the United States, although the group’s name and logo reflect a heavy American influence, and he spent five years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
There is something in the air, he says. “I am shocked, actually, by the number of people that I’ve had conversations with — at town halls, coffee meetings, dinner parties — that have said, ‘I’ve never thought myself a separatist, but I think that might be our only choice left.’”
Davies, like a lot of Albertans, has roots in the United States. They are mostly not Loyalists (people who fled the American Revolution), as in Eastern Canada, but people who came north to ranch and to work in the oil industry. Since they weren’t driven out, they are naturally more pro-American, more libertarian and more individualistic than easterners, and the long political dominance of Easterners chafes like a badly fitted saddle.
Many families recall old injustices having to do with the creation of the province, the Crow rate, long-forgotten tariff regimes. They believe they were treated for decades like a regional hinterland, set up to be exploited by bigger communities far away. A popular cartoon from 1915 shows Canada as a cow eating in the prairies and being milked in the eastern cities.
Davies says current conflicts over equalization and environmental limits on the oil industry fit into a long-standing pattern, and people have just had enough. “In the last couple dozen events that we’ve conducted — low-key organizing, having interesting meetings with diverse groups across the province — the party’s membership has exploded by an additional 8,000 in the last three and a half weeks. And that’s without a lot of effort.”
Davies, who recently resigned from Smith’s United Conservative Party in protest of her handling of a health scandal, says his RPA has lots of money and is ready to run candidates in Alberta’s next provincial election.
Davies is the real deal, says independent journalist Rachel Parker, who has been covering the separatist movement closely. “His plan is 100 per cent serious. I know he’s been working on this for some time.”
Parker has been covering the Alberta Prosperity Project, whose spokesperson, lawyer Jeff Rath, has gone to Washington, D.C., to talk to American officials about how to get Alberta to join the United States.
But Kenney has described Rath as a “treasonous kook,” and the two former Conservative MPs involved in the project do not look like potential leaders: Rob Anders, who was widely seen as eccentric, and LaVar Payne, a low-profile backbencher.
Parker is married to former UCP organizer David Parker, who played a key role in ousting Kenney and is now pushing for Alberta to separate. She says opinion is divided on whether separation is the real goal: “Some people say we should start putting pressure for independence because that will force the federal government, Conservative or Liberal, to take us seriously, and we can pass some of our objectives and get a better deal at confederation. They basically still want to fix confederation. Other people want an Albertan state, and other people want Alberta independence.”
She thinks the movement needs a clear plan, and she thinks Davies is the guy to provide that.
But so far the math doesn’t look good. Separating from Canada does not appeal to Albertans with parents in Cape Breton, Vancouver or New Delhi.
Many Albertans will be angry if the Liberals are elected again, but there would have to be a decisive shift in public sentiment for the separatist movement to be electorally significant.
Monte Solberg, a former MP for Medicine Hat and a former minister in Stephen Harper’s government, says most Albertans can’t be convinced.
“They can enumerate all the wrongs that have been done to Alberta in their mind, but they also look south and say, ‘But you think in my wildest dreams I would ever consider joining America with that crazy man at the helm?’” he told me in a recent interview.
Polling suggests that Mark Carney may pick up seats in the Prairies, which would make the situation more complicated.
“They won’t be pleased at the prospect of a Carney win, but if he wins with some seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan, he’s got an opportunity to be a uniter and do some things,” says Solberg.
But it is not clear what a Carney government can do to take the steam out of Smith’s complaints. The equalization system was set up when Harper, an Albertan, was prime minister, and Pollara’s polling shows that about 40 per cent of people in Saskatchewan and Alberta wrongly believe it redistributes tax dollars from rich provinces to poor provinces. It is actually funded by all federal taxpayers.
On resource development and pipelines, Carney may have more leeway to act than the previous Liberal government, since polls show voters may be more open to development than they were in the past.
Wesley doesn’t think the movement will even work as a way to seek leverage, because Alberta is by far the richest province.
“A lot of Albertans that we’ve interviewed in focus groups see that tension,” he says.
On the one hand, they are saying: “Oh no, we’re very downtrodden. We’re held back. We’re falling behind.” On the other, they are saying: “Move to Alberta! It’s the best place in the world.”
Around the world, most secessionist movements have been based on cultural and linguistic communities, not political and economic disagreement.
Jean-François Lisée, who made a thorough study of secessionist movements while he was a senior adviser to Parti Québécois Premier Jacques Parizeau during the 1995 referendum, is not aware of any successful movements based on economic arguments.
“It would be quite singular,” he says, “to have a nationalist movement based on the fact that our economic development is shackled by federal policies on the environment and energy, and so we must be free to be richer — although we’re already very rich — but we want to be richer, and that’s a national impetus.”
On the other hand, Lisée would be pleased if it happens, since it could show a way for Quebec.
“Probably nothing will happen, but if Carney wins and Smith heats up the base, they get to 50 per cent, they leave Canada,” he says. “If they fail leaving Canada, then it’s very bad for the PQ. But if they succeed and then Saskatchewan succeeds, OK, it can be done.”
Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, thinks the lack of a national culture in Alberta holds the movement back. “It’s true that Alberta doesn’t have the kind of conditions for what we call sub-state nationalism,” he says. “To me, it’s a form of regionalism more than nationalism. You can say First Nations, it’s parallel to nationalism in a way. They have their own specific language and culture.”
And Alberta First Nations are said to be unenthusiastic about the idea of Alberta separating.
“They can’t,” said Ninastako Oka, a young man from the Blood tribe, part of the Blackfoot confederacy, on Saturday. Oka spoke with absolute certainty, sitting with his family outside Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where there is a museum of Blackfoot culture. He spoke knowledgeably about Blackfoot history, which he said he learned from his grandfather. He pointed out that the treaties were signed before Alberta was created and mentioned the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which recognized Indigenous title. In his view, Alberta cannot separate from Canada.
“Alberta’s on treaty land,” he said. “This is still treaty territory. No matter what part of Alberta. None of it is fully Alberta, which we negotiated. It’s not theirs. We’re sharing the land. The treaty protects this land. The treaty protects the soil, the people, the animals, everything on it.”
Ricochet’s coverage of the 2025 federal election is supported in part by the Covering Canada: Election 2025 Fund, an initiative of the Michener Awards Foundation, the Rideau Hall Foundation and the Public Policy Forum. You can help us do more award-winning journalism by signing up for our free newsletter, and becoming a monthly donor. You can also watch our election night livestream, featuring an expert panel of all-star journalists, real-time results and correspondents across the country — presented in partnership with Canada’s National Observer.
Saskatoon woman questions her removal from Conservative rally by police by Dylan Robertson, April 26, 2025, The Canadian Press
Piss Panties Pierre is a coward, a lying bullying greasy creepy cheating coward.
@charlesrusnell.bsky.social:
Conservative Party needs to explain what happened here.
OTTAWA — A woman escorted by Saskatoon police out of a rally held by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on April 24 says she was ordered to leave without any explanation.
Teri Redekop told The Canadian Press she is questioning the commitment the police and the Conservatives have to democratic principles following the incident.
“If you’re going to drag people out of places, you should at least explain why,” Redekop said.
The Conservative Party and Saskatoon Police did not respond to a Saturday request for comment.
Redekop said she’s an engaged citizen who often has email exchanges with her local Conservative MP, particularly about a growing toxic-drug problem in her city and concerns about homelessness.
She said she signed up for Poilievre’s Thursday evening rally in the city to learn more about the leader’s approach to those issues, and perhaps have a chance to discuss them with Poilievre or the local candidate, incumbent Brad Redekopp.
Teri Redekop, who is not related to the candidate, said she went through security with a friend and stood at the back of the room, trying to avoid the noise of the crowd, as she is autistic and loud sounds give her headaches.
She said a man with an earpiece asked whether she and her friend were excited to see Poilievre, and she recalls responding that she’s an engaged citizen who wants to ask questions and hear about the party’s policies.
She said the man asked if the pair were “looking to cause trouble” and she said they replied they definitely weren’t. When she asked his name, she said the man replied that he was “nobody.”
A few moments later, after a few candidates spoke, and while Poilievre’s wife Anaida was hyping up the crowd, a different man asked the pair to step back so they weren’t blocking a pathway in the crowd.
A few moments later, the man returned and told the pair “you guys aren’t welcome, you need to leave,” she recalled. She asked why, and he replied they were now trespassing, and grabbed her arm, which she pulled away.
The man said the pair were not welcome in the venue, at which point the police arrived and took both of her wrists and walked the pair outside.
The police told her to leave, and she said she would do so if they let go of her arms, at which point she says they accused her of resisting.
A video shows Redekop in handcuffs surrounded by five police officers, one of whom says “for whatever reason, they told us they don’t want you here.”
They remove her handcuffs after asking her address and telling Redekop she will be arrested if she breaches the property line again.
“If I had yelled something, or tried to be threatening in any capacity, I would have understood why they asked us to leave. But we were literally there to hear him speak,” she said in an interview.
“That doesn’t seem very democratic.”
Redekop says she’s not sure why she was forced out of the venue, but wondered if her T-shirt with a transgender-rights flag and the phrase “You Will have To Go Through Me” might have drawn suspicion, despite not being an issue at the security check.
Redekop is not transgender but says it’s important to stand up against rising hate toward that community.
Her only other suspicion is that asking why she was being removed and asking to have her hands freed might have been seen as an escalation. She says it’s normal for autistic people to ask for the reasons for people’s actions, and shouldn’t be seen as confrontational.
“How is that an inappropriate escalation of force,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to be like, ‘well I’m autistic, so you have to explain things.'”
Political parties have wide latitude over who and what they allow into rallies, many of which have been disrupted over the course of the campaign, particularly from protesters raising concerns over the Israel-Hamas war.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 26, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
@BobRae48 Feb 20, 2025:
A truck is not a speech. A horn is not a voice. An occupation is not a protest. A blockade is not freedom, it blocks the liberty of all. A demand to overthrow a government is not a dialogue. The expression of hatred is not a difference of opinion. A lie is not the truth.
Paranoid Humanoid @DRodbone:
If Pierre loses on Monday the TruckBeards are going to have a Convoy about it, aren’t they?
@kinsellawarren:
The Conservatives deserve to be punished for something as disgusting as this.
@senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social:
I didn’t think this story could get any more tragic. But this report, from the remarkable Kim Bolan, just makes everything more heartbreaking. And I hope it will help to quell the conspiracies, along with the craven political exploitation of this horror. It’s just tragedy piled atop tragedy.
@asytsema.bsky.social:
Mark Carney is going to Vancouver & cutting his campaign short. That’s what true leaders do. I’m proud of our Prime Minister. My heart is breaking today, but it brings comfort to me knowing that our PM brings empathy, compassion and strength for all #Canadians, to these tragic times.
Driver charged with 8 counts of murder in Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Day tragedy, Kai-ji Adam Lo had dozens of interactions with police related to his deteriorating mental health. His own brother was murdered last year and his mom later attempted suicide by Kim Bolan, Apr 27, 2025
The man who allegedly plowed through a crowd enjoying a Filipino festival in southeast Vancouver on Saturday, killing at least 11, lost his brother to murder last year.
Kai-ji Adam Lo, charged Sunday with eight counts of second-degree murder, had dozens of interactions with police related to his deteriorating mental health.
Vancouver Police said that more charges are expected as the investigation continues. And they said Sunday that some of the victims of the unprecedented slayings remain unidentified.
About 10 Vancouver officers executed a search warrant just after 7 p.m. Sunday at the east Vancouver house Lo, 30, shared with his mother. They carried boxes as they entered through a side gate that appeared to lead to both a basement suite and a laneway house.
Police vehicles were parked both in front of the house and in the alley.
Last year, Lo wrote on a fundraising page to cover his brother Alexander’s funeral costs that “it pains me deeply to put these words down, but my brother has been taken from us in a senseless act of violence, something we never saw coming.”
“Our reality has abruptly shifted. Despite our disagreements, the harsh truth that he’s no longer with us hits me with an overwhelming force,” Adam Lo said.
The body of Alexander Lo, 31, was found in a home near Knight Street and East 33rd Avenue about 1 a.m. on Jan. 28, 2024.
Dwight William Kematch, 39, was arrested at the house and later charged with second-degree murder. His trial begins in the fall.
Lo wrote about how devastated his family was as he thanked donors for contributing more than $9,000 for his brother’s funeral.
“I’m burdened with remorse for not spending more time with him,” he said. “I implore you to keep his soul in your thoughts and prayers.”
Months later, in August, he again asked the public for donations to help his family after his mother attempted suicide and ended up in hospital for a month.
“The unimaginable grief brought upon my mother is something that is worse than my own sadness. For she brought him into this world, only for him to leave abruptly, it is a sadness I cannot being to express,” he said. “She lost a son already and is on the verge of losing her home. This has driven her to attempt to take her own life.”
Lo had no prior criminal record, according to the online court database.
Personal property records show that both the accused killer and his mother were registered owners of a 2018 Audi Q7 SUV like the one used in the deadly rampage along East 43rd Avenue Saturday that left victims between five and 65 dead.
Sources told Postmedia that a family member had contacted a hospital psych ward hours before Saturday’s attack because of Lo’s deteriorating mental health. It’s not known what action, if any, was taken. He was believed to be suffering from delusions and paranoia.
Police said they’ve had significant interactions with Lo — as did health care professionals — due to his mental health issues. Some were recent.
Politicians of all stripes who have commented on the mass tragedy at the Lapu Lapu festival have been asked about support for people with serious mental health problems.
Premier David Eby said Sunday the attacker was obviously “profoundly ill.”
“We have a huge need in the province for interventionist mental health services,” he said, noting that the province just opened secure involuntary beds at Surrey pretrial jail.
“I was really pleased that we got those beds open in a very short period of time,” Eby said. “But it’s just the start.”
However, he also said that in terms of the Lapu Lapu killings, “it’s important for investigators or others to go into this with an open mind, to provide the answers to the public, to everybody that they find, so that we can ensure that we have the systems in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening.”
“In some cases, that may be a change in how the city does security for events. It maybe a change in health care response. We don’t know the story of why or what led up to this man taking the horrific action that he did,” Eby said.
“There are so many questions that I have. There are so many questions that British Columbians have about how that could take place, how we could get to that moment, and as we learn those answers, we’ll take the action that’s necessary to ensure that it can’t happen again.”
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@MarkJCarney Apr 27:
I am devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver earlier this evening.
I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you.
We are monitoring the situation closely, and thankful to our first responders for their swift action.
***
Trump implies Canadians vote for him on election day, Poilievre tells president to butt out, U.S. president posted about election on his Truth Social platform by Mark Gollom, CBC News, Apr 28, 2025
This is GROSS! CBC enabling of Pee Pee’s lies, the lies by Pee Pee, and Trump’s interference in our election all stink to hell of hanky panky. of course, CBC has it listed at this most popular news today and it was at the top nearly all day – which will con voters to vote Pee Pee. Looks like gross interference to me. Pee Pee is on life time contract with Elections Canada not to do dirty deeds in our elections. Looks to me like he violated it and not just via CBC
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told the U.S. president to butt out of the federal election after Donald Trump appeared to suggest Canadians vote for him when they go to the polls on Monday.
“President Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box,” Poilievre posted on social media.
Poilievre’s comments came shortly after Trump injected himself into the federal election with a post on his social media site Truth Social, which began: “Good luck to the Great people of Canada.”
“Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America.”
- AnalysisTrump blows up the notion his Canada talk was just a fleeting fancy
- Canadians vote today after fierce campaign shaped by Trump
Trump went on in his post to repeat his argument that Canada joining the U.S. would be advantageous to the country, along with the false claim that the United States subsidizes Canada with “hundreds of billions of dollars a year.”
But Poilievre said that Canada will always be proud, sovereign and independent, “and we will NEVER be the 51st state.”
“Today Canadians can vote for change so we can strengthen our country, stand on our own two feet and stand up to America from a position of strength,” Poilievre wrote.
U.S. President Donald Trump has weighed in on the federal election as Canadians head to the polls, again falsely claiming the U.S. subsidizes Canada with ‘hundreds of billions of dollars a year’ and calling the U.S.-Canada border an ‘artificially drawn line.’
Trump’s trade war with Canada and the tariffs imposed on the country, along with repeated threats about Canadian sovereignty, became key issues in the 36-day campaign.
The U.S. president became an issue again last week after it was revealed in a Radio-Canada report that Trump had raised the issue of Canada becoming the 51st state in a call he had with Liberal Leader Mark Carney on March 28.
On the campaign trail, Carney was forced to respond to questions about why, at the time, he did not mention that Trump brought up the 51st state issue, instead saying that Trump had respected Canada’s sovereignty.
When asked in a recent interview with Time magazine whether he was just trolling when talking about Canada as a 51st state, Trump responded. “Actually, no, I’m not.”
“I’m really not trolling. Canada is an interesting case.… I say the only way this thing that really works is for Canada to become a state.”
In an interview with Fox News last month, Trump, without mentioning either Carney or Poilievre by name, said he might rather deal with a Liberal over a Conservative.
“The Conservative that’s running is stupidly no friend of mine. I don’t know him, but he said negative things,” Trump said.
“I think it’s easier to deal, actually, with a Liberal. And maybe they’re gonna win, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter to me at all.”
@amirattaran.bsky.social:
Ever since the Truck Convoy, it’s been known American conservatives are meddling in our politics worse than the Chinese or Indians. President Trump must be banned from entering Canada as a threat to national security.
Even 11 years ago people knew. Repost… How this video only has 78K views after all this time is mind boggling. Be a shame if it suddenly went viral this election.