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National

Did the Liberals Backdoor Ruby Dhalla to Hand Mark Carney the Crown?

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13 minute read

The Opposition with Dan Knight

She was surging in the polls—so why was she secretly disqualified? Was this a race or a coronation?

She Wasn’t Supposed to Win

Ruby Dhalla wasn’t supposed to be a problem. When she entered the Liberal leadership race, she was treated as an afterthought, an outsider with no chance of breaking through. Mark Carney was the clear favorite—not because he had some overwhelming grassroots movement behind him, but because the Liberal swamp had already crowned him as Trudeau’s successor. The decision had been made long before the race even began. But then, something happened that the elites didn’t see coming: Dhalla started gaining traction. She started signing up thousands of new members. She started climbing in the polls. And that’s when the Liberal machine kicked into overdrive to shut her down.

If you’ve been paying attention to Canadian politics, none of this should be surprising. This is how the Liberal Party operates. The leadership race was never about choosing the best candidate; it was about making sure their pre-selected golden boy, Mark Carney, strolled into power without opposition. Dhalla’s rise threatened that plan, and as we’ve seen time and time again, the Liberal establishment has no patience for democracy when it gets in the way of their backroom deals.

Who Is Ruby Dhalla?

Unlike Carney, who spent his career bouncing between bureaucratic positions and the boardrooms of global financial institutions, Ruby Dhalla actually had experience winning elections. She wasn’t a puppet installed by the elites—she had built her own career in politics. Born in Winnipeg to Punjabi immigrant parents, Dhalla had been politically active from a young age. At just 14, she made international headlines for standing up to India’s Prime Minister over Sikh violence, proving early on that she wasn’t afraid to challenge powerful figures.

In 2004, she was elected as Member of Parliament for Brampton—Springdale, becoming one of the first Sikh women in Canada’s Parliament. For seven years, she fought for causes that mattered to working-class Canadians—pushing for foreign credential recognition, better healthcare access, and policies that helped immigrants integrate and succeed instead of being stuck in low-wage jobs.

But the Liberal Party, especially under Trudeau, doesn’t like independent thinkers. Dhalla lost her seat in 2011, took a step back from politics, and then, in 2025, decided to make a comeback. This time, she wasn’t just running on her record—she was running to take back the Liberal Party from the corporate elites, career bureaucrats, and political insiders who had hijacked it. And for a brief moment, it looked like she might actually succeed.

Dhalla’s Platform Was A Direct Threat to the Liberal Swamp

Let’s get one thing straight: Dhalla wasn’t just another Liberal politician running on empty platitudes. She was actually taking on the biggest failures of the Trudeau era—the very policies that have driven the country into the ground.

She was the only candidate willing to take a hard stance on illegal immigration, promising to deport those who entered Canada illegally and crack down on human trafficking networks that had turned Canadian cities into a magnet for asylum scams. This was a direct rebuke of Trudeau’s open-border policies, which flooded major urban centers with asylum seekers while leaving legal immigrants—the ones who actually followed the rules—waiting years in bureaucratic limbo.

She also had the guts to address Canada’s crime wave—something the Liberal establishment refuses to even acknowledge. Under Trudeau, violent crime, carjackings, and organized theft rings have exploded across the country, while the justice system has been hijacked by radical left-wing activists who care more about “rehabilitating” criminals than protecting innocent people. Dhalla called for stronger sentencing laws, increased funding for law enforcement, and an end to the revolving-door justice system that lets repeat offenders walk free. This was a direct challenge to the Liberal Party’s activist wing, which has spent years prioritizing criminals over victims.

Economically, she focused on the cost-of-living crisis that Trudeau’s reckless spending had fueled. While Mark Carney was busy rubbing elbows with globalist elites, Dhalla was actually talking to working-class Canadians who were struggling to afford basic necessities, being crushed by inflation, and priced out of homeownership. She proposed tax relief for small businesses, homeownership incentives, and policies to lower the cost of essential goods. Most importantly, she vowed to end corporate influence over government policy—something that would have put her in direct conflict with the very donors bankrolling Carney’s campaign.

The Fix Was In—And the Liberal Establishment Didn’t Even Try to Hide It

While Dhalla was out winning over actual voters, Carney didn’t have to lift a finger—at least, that’s how she sees it. According to Dhalla, the Bay Street donors, the Liberal bureaucrats, and Trudeau’s inner circle had already decided he would be their next puppet. But her unexpected momentum was throwing a wrench into their plans.

She claims her campaign signed up over 100,000 new members—a surge that, in her view, proved just how many Canadians wanted an alternative to the establishment. Internal polling allegedly showed that she was running neck and neck with Carney, challenging the idea that he was the inevitable frontrunner. Most importantly, she says she was calling out corruption within the party—something the Liberal insiders simply couldn’t tolerate.

That, she argues, is when the knives came out.

According to Dhalla, her campaign faced deliberate obstruction at every turn. She says she was denied access to crucial party membership lists, while Carney’s team faced no such restrictions. She also claims the party handed exclusive control of voter data to Data Sciences, a company with deep ties to both Trudeau and Carney—giving the establishment free rein over the internal mechanics of the race.

Then came what Dhalla describes as a financial ambush. Leadership candidates were required to submit a $350,000 deposit to stay in the race. Her campaign, backed by thousands of small-dollar donors, met that requirement in full. But just days later, she says, the party suddenly hit her with a six-page letter listing 27 allegations—none of which had been raised before she made her final payment. Despite fully cooperating, answering every question, and providing every requested document, Dhalla was disqualified behind closed doors.

But were these serious concerns about party rules and ethics? Or were they just serious concerns for Mark Carney’s leadership bid?

They didn’t even bother waiting for a debate. They removed her just before the first leadership debate in Montreal, ensuring that Carney wouldn’t have to answer a single tough question. The only real challenger was gone. And just like that, the “race” was over.

A Staged Leadership Race

With Dhalla and Chandra Arya—the only two South Asian candidates—mysteriously vanished from the race, the Liberal Party has officially dropped the mask. This is not a party of “inclusion” or “diversity” or whatever meaningless buzzword they trot out when the cameras are rolling. This is a party of insiders, where Trudeau’s handpicked elites play musical chairs with Canada’s future while pretending to hold a fair contest. And now, with the competition conveniently wiped off the board, Mark Carney—the globalist banker with a resume straight out of the Davos job fair—is all but guaranteed his coronation.

And let’s take a moment to acknowledge who’s left. Chrystia Freeland—who doesn’t even bother hiding her ties to Carney (he’s literally her children’s godfather)—isn’t running against him, she’s running as his insurance policy. If, for some reason, Carney stumbles, Freeland will be right there to catch the baton and carry on the exact same elite-driven, Canada-last agenda. And then there’s Karina Gould, a candidate so irrelevant to this race that her sole purpose seems to be testing the waters for the Liberals’ shiny new Marxist project: Universal Basic Income. Because if there’s one thing Trudeau’s Liberals love more than taxing Canadians into the ground, it’s making them dependent on government handouts.

This was never a leadership race. It was a staged coronation, a laughable farce cooked up by the same Liberal swamp who have spent the last decade running Canada into the ground. If this had happened in another country, Canadian politicians would be tripping over themselves to condemn it, talking about how democracy is under attack. But because it happened inside the Liberal Party, the media just shrugs and moves on, pretending this is all perfectly normal. Because, in their world, it is.

And that’s the real story here. If this is how the Liberals run their own leadership race, what do you think they’ll do in the next federal election? If they’re willing to purge their own candidates, rig their own nomination process, and outright silence anyone who dares to challenge their elite-controlled puppet show, then what chance does the average Canadian voter have?

This isn’t just corrupt. It’s disgusting. It’s a slap in the face to every Canadian who still believes in fair elections, free debate, and the basic idea that leaders should be chosen by the people—not installed behind closed doors by Trudeau’s golfing buddies and Bay Street billionaires.

The Liberal Party isn’t a political party anymore. It’s a gated country club for the ruling class, where power is passed around like a family heirloom. And if no one stands up to stop it, they’ll keep getting away with it. The fix is in, the swamp is deeper than ever, and the only question left is: Are Canadians going to do anything about it?

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Alberta

Punishing Alberta Oil Production: The Divisive Effect of Policies For Carney’s “Decarbonized Oil”

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From Energy Now

By Ron Wallace

The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate.

Following meetings in Saskatoon in early June between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canadian provincial and territorial leaders, the federal government expressed renewed interest in the completion of new oil pipelines to reduce reliance on oil exports to the USA while providing better access to foreign markets.  However Carney, while suggesting that there is “real potential” for such projects nonetheless qualified that support as being limited to projects that would “decarbonize” Canadian oil, apparently those that would employ carbon capture technologies.  While the meeting did not result in a final list of potential projects, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that this approach would constitute a “grand bargain” whereby new pipelines to increase oil exports could help fund decarbonization efforts. But is that true and what are the implications for the Albertan and Canadian economies?


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The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate. Many would consider that Canadians, especially Albertans, should be wary of these largely undefined announcements in which Ottawa proposes solely to determine projects that are “in the national interest.”

The federal government has tabled legislation designed to address these challenges with Bill C-5: An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility Act and the Building Canada Act (the One Canadian Economy Act).  Rather than replacing controversial, and challenged, legislation like the Impact Assessment Act, the Carney government proposes to add more legislation designed to accelerate and streamline regulatory approvals for energy and infrastructure projects. However, only those projects that Ottawa designates as being in the national interest would be approved. While clearer, shorter regulatory timelines and the restoration of the Major Projects Office are also proposed, Bill C-5 is to be superimposed over a crippling regulatory base.

It remains to be seen if this attempt will restore a much-diminished Canadian Can-Do spirit for economic development by encouraging much-needed, indeed essential interprovincial teamwork across shared jurisdictions.  While the Act’s proposed single approval process could provide for expedited review timelines, a complex web of regulatory processes will remain in place requiring much enhanced interagency and interprovincial coordination. Given Canada’s much-diminished record for regulatory and policy clarity will this legislation be enough to persuade the corporate and international capital community to consider Canada as a prime investment destination?

As with all complex matters the devil always lurks in the details. Notably, these federal initiatives arrive at a time when the Carney government is facing ever-more pressing geopolitical, energy security and economic concerns.  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada’s economy will grow by a dismal one per cent in 2025 and 1.1 per cent in 2026 – this at a time when the global economy is predicted to grow by 2.9 per cent.

It should come as no surprise that Carney’s recent musing about the “real potential” for decarbonized oil pipelines have sparked debate. The undefined term “decarbonized”, is clearly aimed directly at western Canadian oil production as part of Ottawa’s broader strategy to achieve national emissions commitments using costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects whose economic viability at scale has been questioned. What might this mean for western Canadian oil producers?

The Alberta Oil sands presently account for about 58% of Canada’s total oil output. Data from December 2023 show Alberta producing a record 4.53 million barrels per day (MMb/d) as major oil export pipelines including Trans Mountain, Keystone and the Enbridge Mainline operate at high levels of capacity.  Meanwhile, in 2023 eastern Canada imported on average about 490,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) at a cost estimated at CAD $19.5 billion.  These seaborne shipments to major refineries (like New Brunswick’s Irving Refinery in Saint John) rely on imported oil by tanker with crude oil deliveries to New Brunswick averaging around 263,000 barrels per day.  In 2023 the estimated total cost to Canada for imported crude oil was $19.5 billion with oil imports arriving from the United States (72.4%), Nigeria (12.9%), and Saudi Arabia (10.7%).  Since 1988, marine terminals along the St. Lawrence have seen imports of foreign oil valued at more than $228 billion while the Irving Oil refinery imported $136 billion from 1988 to 2020.

What are the policy and cost implication of Carney’s call for the “decarbonization” of western Canadian produced, oil?  It implies that western Canadian “decarbonized” oil would have to be produced and transported to competitive world markets under a material regulatory and financial burden.  Meanwhile, eastern Canadian refiners would be allowed to import oil from the USA and offshore jurisdictions free from any comparable regulatory burdens. This policy would penalize, and makes less competitive, Canadian producers while rewarding offshore sources. A federal regulatory requirement to decarbonize western Canadian crude oil production without imposing similar restrictions on imported oil would render the One Canadian Economy Act moot and create two market realities in Canada – one that favours imports and that discourages, or at very least threatens the competitiveness of, Canadian oil export production.


Ron Wallace is a former Member of the National Energy Board.

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Fraser Institute

Long waits for health care hit Canadians in their pocketbooks

Published on

From the Fraser Institute

By Mackenzie Moir

Canadians continue to endure long wait times for health care. And while waiting for care can obviously be detrimental to your health and wellbeing, it can also hurt your pocketbook.

In 2024, the latest year of available data, the median wait—from referral by a family doctor to treatment by a specialist—was 30 weeks (including 15 weeks waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist). And last year, an estimated 1.5 million Canadians were waiting for care.

It’s no wonder Canadians are frustrated with the current state of health care.

Again, long waits for care adversely impact patients in many different ways including physical pain, psychological distress and worsened treatment outcomes as lengthy waits can make the treatment of some problems more difficult. There’s also a less-talked about consequence—the impact of health-care waits on the ability of patients to participate in day-to-day life, work and earn a living.

According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, wait times for non-emergency surgery cost Canadian patients $5.2 billion in lost wages in 2024. That’s about $3,300 for each of the 1.5 million patients waiting for care. Crucially, this estimate only considers time at work. After also accounting for free time outside of work, the cost increases to $15.9 billion or more than $10,200 per person.

Of course, some advocates of the health-care status quo argue that long waits for care remain a necessary trade-off to ensure all Canadians receive universal health-care coverage. But the experience of many high-income countries with universal health care shows the opposite.

Despite Canada ranking among the highest spenders (4th of 31 countries) on health care (as a percentage of its economy) among other developed countries with universal health care, we consistently rank among the bottom for the number of doctors, hospital beds, MRIs and CT scanners. Canada also has one of the worst records on access to timely health care.

So what do these other countries do differently than Canada? In short, they embrace the private sector as a partner in providing universal care.

Australia, for instance, spends less on health care (again, as a percentage of its economy) than Canada, yet the percentage of patients in Australia (33.1 per cent) who report waiting more than two months for non-emergency surgery was much higher in Canada (58.3 per cent). Unlike in Canada, Australian patients can choose to receive non-emergency surgery in either a private or public hospital. In 2021/22, 58.6 per cent of non-emergency surgeries in Australia were performed in private hospitals.

But we don’t need to look abroad for evidence that the private sector can help reduce wait times by delivering publicly-funded care. From 2010 to 2014, the Saskatchewan government, among other policies, contracted out publicly-funded surgeries to private clinics and lowered the province’s median wait time from one of the longest in the country (26.5 weeks in 2010) to one of the shortest (14.2 weeks in 2014). The initiative also reduced the average cost of procedures by 26 per cent.

Canadians are waiting longer than ever for health care, and the economic costs of these waits have never been higher. Until policymakers have the courage to enact genuine reform, based in part on more successful universal health-care systems, this status quo will continue to cost Canadian patients.

Mackenzie Moir

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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