The News Rundown

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rebukes Mark Carney over Gaza comment at rally

This week the Liberal party under Mark Carney drew a connection that had been in the background for a while in Canada: that of those who support Hamas.
At an event on Tuesday in Calgary a heckler interrupted Carney’s speech by saying “There is a genocide happening in Palestine!” And Carney’s response: “I’m aware, which is why we have an arms embargo.”
Carney tried to walk things back on Wednesday but the damage was done.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a retraction saying, “Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney. But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the only Jewish state.”
This outburst and subsequent statement by the Israeli Prime Minister garnered little coverage compared to the deluge of questions and articles that have been asked of the Conservatives this week on Indian foreign influence or abortion.
It’s worth noting that former blogger turned journalist Althia Raj played the same card on Andrew Scheer in 2019 and was successful.
What’s also very insidious is that pro-palestinian protestors have disrupted each of Carney’s public events this week before he suspended his campaign on Friday.
In January 2024 the federal government brought in said arms embargo that stopped approving new permits for the export of military goods shipped to Israel. And in September 2024 foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said the government suspended 30 permits that had been issued.
The reporting on this story primarily came from the Globe and Mail this week but the media’s lack of coverage should alarm everyone because also this week Hamas supporters occupied Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly’s campaign office.
The numbers of casualties that come out of the Gaza strip are informed by the Hamas health ministry. Which of course means we should take them with a grain of salt.
Hamas also uses Gazan civilians as human shields by embedding military assets in civilian areas and constructing their infrastructure under public buildings such as hospitals.
When Israel goes in to dismantle the infrastructure they will often text warnings or drop leaflets to those who are in targeted areas but unfortunately civilian casualties have still resulted.
This is what the pro-palestinian groups refer to as genocide.
Hamas is perhaps the genocidal group since their doctrine states that all Jews must be destroyed and the land taken over by Muslims. The Canadian government has classed Hamas as a terrorist organization.
A pro-palestinian protest also took over Parliament Hill today on recording day, Saturday.
Of these 3 incidents this week you’ve likely if only heard of the first regarding the protestor interrupting Mark Carney.
We also of course discussed the presence of former Alberta NDP MLA Rod Loyola on the Liberal ticket in Edmonton Gateway.
Rod Loyola was dropped as a candidate after video was re-surfaced of Loyola at a 2009 anti-NATO rally where he said organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas were trying to stand up for their people.
Carney wouldn’t say anything about Loyola except that he was no longer a candidate. Carney and the Liberals received criticism for not dropping Paul Chiang for suggesting an opponent be turned in for a bounty but no one wanted to talk about Loyola.
The wider silence in the media and questions of Hamas raise many questions.
First, why all of a sudden during the campaign is this flaring up? What third party actors are at play?
Second, why is the media silent in most of the coverage? Again, compare this if a pro-life organization was having the annual march for life and what the coverage of that would look like.
Finally, with no comment we’re left to assume that the status quo is what Mark Carney’s Israel policy will be. This has caused friction in the relationship and has enabled Hamas sympathizers to get closer to the Liberal party.
Supplementals:

Every major province in Canada has important export industries that are critical to the economy of that province. For example Alberta, it's oil and energy, Saskatchewan is agriculture and potash, Ontario has the automotive industry, and Quebec has steel. For BC, energy is a big one, similar to Alberta, but in different ways. But our secondary big export industry is forestry, and it may be facing another big challenge very soon.
The U.S. is set to more than double the duty it charges on softwood lumber imports from Canada, with the planned new rate set at 34.45%, up from the previous 14.54% that was raised from 8.05% under the Biden administration in August 2024.
While the preliminary determination was not immediately posted to the U.S. Federal Register, it was confirmed in statements from the B.C. premier's office and the U.S. Lumber Coalition, a trade industry body.
New softwood lumber duties were long-feared amid the growing trade war between Canada and the U.S., and would be the latest blow to B.C.'s beleaguered forestry industry, which has seen thousands of workers laid off over the last few years.
B.C. Premier David Eby condemned the planned duty hike as an "attack on forest workers and British Columbians" in a statement last Saturday, and said that "both Canadians and Americans need an end to this trade dispute".
Under the U.S. Tariff Act, the Department of Commerce determines whether goods are being sold at less than fair value or if they're benefiting from subsidies provided by foreign governments.
In Canada, lumber-producing provinces set so-called stumpage fees for timber harvested from Crown land, a system that U.S. producers — forced to pay market rates — consider an unfair subsidy.
The United States has long been the single largest market for B.C. lumber exports, representing over half the market for the approximately $10-billion/year industry.
Eby met with Liberal leader Mark Carney in Victoria this past Monday to talk about strategies to protect B.C.'s softwood lumber industry.
Eby said: "we hope to see the same Team Canada approach to protecting [forestry jobs], just like with the automotive and steel industry jobs in Ontario and Quebec."
Forestry has had a rough time in the past few decades with Statistics Canada showing that almost half of forestry jobs, about 40,000 in total, have been lost since the 1990s.
Carney said that "This is another unjustified tariff. You can expect us to fight against it," but didn't offer much concrete in the way of solutions. It seems that Forests Minister Ravi Parmar was more direct in his criticism of the federal government, saying it has been "absent" in its support for B.C.'s softwood lumber industry. Parmar said: "What I understand was raised between the premier and the prime minister today is, if this was the auto sector, there would be more on the table. We need the federal government and the prime minister to take this seriously. We need to ensure this is being given the same priority they're giving the steel industry or the auto industry."
Since Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015, he's had 3 different presidents over parts of 4 different terms to try and figure out the softwood lumber dispute with the US, but clearly did not consider it a priority, as the Liberals always tend to prefer the industries and votes from Central Canada, as even the BC NDP allude to in their statements.
The issue of softwood lumber dominated question period on Monday after Carney's meeting, with the Official Opposition BC Conservatives accusing the NDP of failing to protect jobs while offering nothing more than Liberal talking points. Conservative leader John Rustad quipped: "Will the premier please tell the people of B.C. what his new Liberal puppet master told him to say about this file?"
He said 30 sawmills have closed under the NDP's watch, and businesses are moving to provinces where it's less expensive to operate, saying there's been no action from the BC NDP or the federal Liberals in 8 years.
A few days later, Eby continued his strong anti-American stance, rivalling Ontario's Doug Ford. On Thursday, he announced a range of measures aimed at cutting all possible U.S. contracts held by the provincial government, including its ministries, health authorities and Crown corporations, with the goal of eliminating any non-essential purchases of American goods or contracts with American companies, "where viable."
His directive also says the government should pause participation in U.S. industry associations, cancel subscriptions to American publications and non-essential software, and avoid non-essential travel to the United States.
And yet he's surprised when softwood lumber isn't exempt from tariffs, and in fact sees much higher tariffs as a result. Eby said the president has taken direct aim at British Columbia by increasing levies on softwood lumber, but why wouldn't he when Eby has drunk the federal Liberal kool-aid on keeping his elbows up and has taken such an antagonistic stance?
In the end, David Eby will continue to raise the stakes with the US, meanwhile forestry jobs will continue to be on the line. At any time before this week, the BC NDP could have helped by reducing government-imposed policies and regulations that might have stopped mill closures and business fleeing south.
The media will misconstrue this issue as just a trade dispute decades long that's been escalated by the current US administration, but one thing still remains clear after this week: the federal Liberals and the BC NDP do not really care about the BC forestry industry.
Supplementals:

Alberta revamping health-care grants to ‘activity-based’ hospital funding system

Alberta this week announced a move to an activity based funding model for some surgeries starting as early in 2026.
What this means is that money will follow the patient and hospitals that perform more procedures will receive more money.
The goal is to increase efficiency, improve transparency, and ultimately increase the number of surgeries done.
Premier Danielle Smith described the situation as the following, “The current global budgeting model has no incentives to increase volume, no accountability and no cost predictability for taxpayers. By switching to an activity-based funding model, our health care system will have built-in incentives to increase volume with high quality, cost predictability for taxpayers and accountability for all providers.”
NDP opposition health critic Sarah Hoffman led the opposition's critique of the announcement saying, “it feels a lot like further steps to create more opportunities for the government to privatize health care. They are more focused on what they like to call competition than they are on actually making sure people get good health care."
The union that represents health care workers said the model will create incentives for private companies to cherry pick low complexity surgeries that maximize profits.
The money given to Alberta Health Services grew by $3.4b since 2019 and while surgeries did increase, there’s still a substantial backlog and waitlist.
The opposition NDP and media will have Albertans believe this is a step towards American style privatized healthcare.
That could not be further from the truth.
Australia, Norway, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Estonia, Poland, and Hungary all have implemented activity based funding.
The general trend is that once activity based funding was brought in the wait times dropped.
In the UK prior to activity based funding wait times for some non-emergency surgeries were 12-18 months and in some cases after the reforms fell to just 18 weeks tops. The number of people waiting beyond 6 months fell to near-zero.
Wait times also dropped after Norway’s 1997 reforms.
In Sweden the number of people waiting more than 90 days for treatment dropped dramatically.
The trend is similar across all countries that have implemented activity based funding.
This leads to better outcomes for patients and higher patient satisfaction with the system.
In 2014 a study was done at UBC that produced a White paper that suggested that activity based funding could be effective in Canada for improving access to services which in 2014 the report classes Canada as already being poorly ranked compared to other OECD countries.
The report also highlighted that issues can crop up with regards to up-coding where hospitals book cases as more complex to earn more money - this has also been seen in countries like Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands.
The biggest caveat though is that the health system must already have sufficient capacity and if not, investment in that capacity is warranted.
With this announcement this week it’s clear that the UCP government under Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adrianna LaGrange are looking to fundamentally and hopefully, meaningfully, change health care in Alberta.
This also speaks to why there has been such a push back from the establishment that has been in place for decades.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

Beijing Intelligence Operation Promotes PM Carney’s Strength Against U.S. to Sway Chinese Canadian Voters, Election Monitor Says

There has been a growing and concerning pattern of ties between the Liberal Party and China that we at Western Context are simply baffled that the mainstream media continues to ignore. While trying to make the election all about the US and Donald Trump, many of the everyday issues in Canada are being ignored, such as cost of living, housing, healthcare, and many others. It's another thing altogether to completely bypass any talk about the pattern of China continuing to support the Liberals and conducting foreign interference in our election.
As first reported by Sam Cooper, one of the best journalists in Canada, an election security monitor from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force says it traced the operation to Youli-Youmian, the most popular news account on the social media platform WeChat and is tied to Chinese intelligence propaganda. This official has said that an information operation linked to the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party is attempting to alter the opinions of Chinese Canadian voters about Liberal candidate Mark Carney, including by promoting his strength against the United States.
The SITE Task Force representative said: “The foreign state-backed information operation was intended to influence Canadian Chinese communities and look to mold perceptions about the candidate.”
Examples in the backgrounder include a March 10 post titled “The US encounters a ‘tough guy’ Prime Minister” and describes Carney’s strong position on President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
A March 25 post, titled “Canada’s road to a ‘seeking survival’ election,” describes Carney’s political road to Liberal leader but also notes that his political career to date has “not been smooth” and he’s been criticized by Conservatives for refusing to disclose his assets.
Dennis Molinaro, a former Canadian national security analyst, suggested that Beijing’s information campaign could spread beyond the Chinese diaspora.
He wrote: “The PRC is trying to assist Carney. If you think that somehow this influencing campaign stays confined to one community—it doesn’t. The point is to mold opinions, have them spread, and be shared with others. It also doesn't mean [Carney] is complicit in it. But it does signal [the WeChat posts are] meant to influence and help his campaign. You don't run positive stuff about a candidate that you want to lose.”
According to the backgrounder, the Youli-Youmian account was also responsible for targeting Conservative politician and outspoken China critic Michael Chong two years ago and Liberal Chrystia Freeland earlier this year, who resigned from Trudeau's cabinet and opposed Carney in the Liberal leadership race.
Chong said in a statement: “Make no mistake, the Communist Party in Beijing is engaging in a sophisticated campaign to interfere in Canada’s election with the aim of re-electing Mark Carney and the Liberals to a fourth term. The next Government of Canada should be chosen by Canadians and Canadians alone.”
Federal officials have determined China sought to influence the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, but that their activities did not sway the results. Concerns about foreign interference have led to more safeguards, monitoring and efforts to keep Canadians informed about influence efforts, including weekly briefings by the SITE task force.
SITE officials have assessed that Chinese state-affiliated actors will continue to target Chinese communities in Canada, “pushing narratives favourable to the PRC’s interests on social media platforms,” Bridget Walshe, associate head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, told the Ottawa briefing.
The task force has previously assessed that foreign threat actors like China, Russia and Iran were likely to use artificial intelligence tools and AI-generated content like deepfakes to try and disrupt the federal election and influence Canadian voters.
Whether or not Carney is complicit in these foreign interference attempts or the Chinese social media glazing of his character and stance, it's clear he has made missteps along the way that have not been amplified by the media.
During the Liberal leadership race Carney met with the executives of the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC), a group that lobbies for closer ties with China and echoes Chinese government narratives. The Toronto-headquartered organization was founded in 2002 and has ties to China’s United Front Work Department. The UFWD answers to the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s central committee and oversees Beijing’s influence, propaganda and intelligence operations inside and outside of China.
According to its website, the JCCC described the former central banker’s entry into politics as “an important turning point in the upgrading of China-Canada relations.”
The Jiangsu council says on its site that “in an in-depth exchange” with two of its leaders, Mr. Carney “highly praised the pioneering role of the Chinese business community in emerging fields such as clean technology, digital trade and financial technology.”
Carney told a Thursday news conference on the campaign trail that “I’ve never heard of this group, okay, never heard of this group. Certainly didn’t have a set-up meeting with this group. Full stop.”
It was however not reported that he had a prearranged meeting, only that he met executives. Photos on the group’s website show Mr. Carney with Xu Xiaoguang, president of the JCCC, and with Jiang Rui, honorary president of the organization.
The Liberal Leader was also asked Thursday about Peter Yuen, the party’s candidate for the Ontario riding of Markham-Unionville. Yuen was appointed to replace Paul Chiang, who stepped down after facing intense criticism for suggesting people turn Conservative candidate and human rights advocate Joe Tay into the Chinese consulate and receive a bounty of about $180,000 offered by Hong Kong police for his arrest. Chiang later apologized for the remarks, and was defended by Liberal Leader Mark Carney. Only when the RCMP started investigating did Chiang resign.
As it turns out, Chiang's replacement candidate Yuen is actually an honorary director of the JCCC.
Yuen has also given talks at events honouring a Toronto group that advocates for the annexation of Taiwan by China. In 2014, the consulate held an event to mark his promotion to Toronto police superintendent. He has attended consulate celebrations, including one in January, 2020, that included a photo display on Xinjiang province that did not acknowledge Beijing’s brutal treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority there. Canada’s Parliament adopted a motion in 2021 that declared China’s treatment of its Uyghurs a genocide.
The former police officer has also spoken at and attended events of the Toronto branch of Chinese Freemasons, which has advocated for what it calls the “peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan,” a phrase rejected by the Taiwanese government, which contends that only the self-governing island can decide its own future.
Yuen also attended a massive military parade and show of martial strength in Beijing in Tiananmen Square a decade ago at the invitation of the Chinese agency that ended up becoming the United Front Work Department, that also paid for Yuen's accommodation and food, and maybe even more.
Yuen said in a statement Wednesday that his role with the JCCC ended a decade ago. He declined to answer e-mailed questions from The Globe on whether he supports Taiwan’s self-determination, condemns China’s crimes against its Uyghur minority or disapproves of UFWD activities. Instead, he pointed to his career with the Toronto Police Service as his qualification to seek election to Parliament.
After retiring from the Toronto Police Service, he served until recently on the board of the NOIC Academy, a school that caters partly to international students from China. Some of those students were bused to a nomination election in 2019 where MP Han Dong was chosen as the Liberals’ nominee for the Don Valley North riding.
The nomination meeting was cited by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue in her report on the federal foreign-interference inquiry as a possible example of meddling by the Chinese government.
Hogue’s 2024 public inquiry into foreign meddling identified China as the “most active perpetrator of foreign interference” – one that uses “proxies, individuals or organizations, taking explicit or implicit directions” from Beijing. She said the Chinese Communist Party “supports those it believes helpful to its interests at the time, and those it believes are likely to have power, no matter their political party.”
It appears that Mark Carney is favoured by China, and at least a few of his candidates are too. The foreign interference mistakes that happened under Justin Trudeau are continuing under Carney as well. We have to ask why the media is trying to portray a reality that anything would be different?
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“The PRC is trying to assist Carney. If you think that somehow this influencing campaign stays confined to one community—it doesn’t. The point is to mold opinions, have them spread, and be shared with others. It also doesn't mean [Carney] is complicit in it. But it does signal [the WeChat posts are] meant to influence and help his campaign. You don't run positive stuff about a candidate that you want to lose.” - Dennis Molinaro, a former Canadian national security analyst, suggesting that Beijing’s information campaign could spread beyond the Chinese diaspora.

Word of the Week

Sway - to control or influence a person or course of action.

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Show Data

Episode Title: The Long Game
Teaser: Mark Carney makes a confusing statement about Israel and Hamas, the US is going to hike softwood lumber duties again, and Alberta wants to change healthcare to an activity-based model. Also, the Liberals’ ties to China are growing more concerning.
Production Code: WC-413-2025-04-12
Recorded Date: April 12, 2025
Release Date: April 13, 2025
Duration: 1:04:02
Edit Notes: None

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX