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

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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Business
Most Canadians say retaliatory tariffs on American goods contribute to raising the price of essential goods at home

- 77 per cent say Canada’s tariffs on U.S. products increase the price of consumer goods
- 72 per cent say that their current tax bill hurts their standard of living
A new MEI-Ipsos poll published this morning reveals a clear disconnect between Ottawa’s high-tax, high-spending approach and Canadians’ level of satisfaction.
“Canadians are not on board with Ottawa’s fiscal path,” says Samantha Dagres, communications manager at the MEI. “From housing to trade policy, Canadians feel they’re being squeezed by a government that is increasingly an impediment to their standard of living.”
More than half of Canadians (54 per cent) say Ottawa is spending too much, while only six per cent think it is spending too little.
A majority (54 per cent) also do not believe federal dollars are being effectively allocated to address Canada’s most important issues, and a similar proportion (55 per cent) are dissatisfied with the transparency and accountability in the government’s spending practices.
As for their own tax bills, Canadians are equally skeptical. Two-thirds (67 per cent) say they pay too much income tax, and about half say they do not receive good value in return.
Provincial governments fared even worse. A majority of Canadians say they receive poor value for the taxes they pay provincially. In Quebec, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of respondents say they are not getting their money’s worth from the provincial government.
Not coincidentally, Quebecers face the highest marginal tax rates in North America.
On the question of Canada’s response to the U.S. trade dispute, nearly eight in 10 Canadians (77 per cent) agree that Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs on American products are driving up the cost of everyday goods.
“Canadians understand that tariffs are just another form of taxation, and that they are the ones footing the bill for any political posturing,” adds Ms. Dagres. “Ottawa should favour unilateral tariff reduction and increased trade with other nations, as opposed to retaliatory tariffs that heap more costs onto Canadian consumers and businesses.”
On the issue of housing, 74 per cent of respondents believe that taxes on new construction contribute directly to unaffordability.
All of this dissatisfaction culminates in 72 per cent of Canadians saying their overall tax burden is reducing their standard of living.
“Taxpayers are not just ATMs for government – and if they are going to pay such exorbitant taxes, you’d think the least they could expect is good service in return,” says Ms. Dagres. “Canadians are increasingly distrustful of a government that believes every problem can be solved with higher taxes.”
A sample of 1,020 Canadians 18 years of age and older was polled between June 17 and 23, 2025. The results are accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The results of the MEI-Ipsos poll are available here.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
Business
B.C. premier wants a private pipeline—here’s how you make that happen

From the Fraser Institute
By Julio Mejía and Elmira Aliakbari
At the federal level, the Carney government should scrap several Trudeau-era policies including Bill C-69 (which introduced vague criteria into energy project assessments including the effects on the “intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors”)
The Eby government has left the door (slightly) open to Alberta’s proposed pipeline to the British Columbia’s northern coast. Premier David Eby said he isn’t opposed to a new pipeline that would expand access to Asian markets—but he does not want government to pay for it. That’s a fair condition. But to attract private investment for pipelines and other projects, both the Eby government and the Carney government must reform the regulatory environment.
First, some background.
Trump’s tariffs against Canadian products underscore the risks of heavily relying on the United States as the primary destination for our oil and gas—Canada’s main exports. In 2024, nearly 96 per cent of oil exports and virtually all natural gas exports went to our southern neighbour. Clearly, Canada must diversify our energy export markets. Expanded pipelines to transport oil and gas, mostly produced in the Prairies, to coastal terminals would allow Canada’s energy sector to find new customers in Asia and Europe and become less reliant on the U.S. In fact, following the completion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion between Alberta and B.C. in May 2024, exports to non-U.S. destinations increased by almost 60 per cent.
However, Canada’s uncompetitive regulatory environment continues to create uncertainty and deter investment in the energy sector. According to a 2023 survey of oil and gas investors, 68 per cent of respondents said uncertainty over environmental regulations deters investment in Canada compared to only 41 per cent of respondents for the U.S. And 59 per cent said the cost of regulatory compliance deters investment compared to 42 per cent in the U.S.
When looking at B.C. specifically, investor perceptions are even worse. Nearly 93 per cent of respondents for the province said uncertainty over environmental regulations deters investment while 92 per cent of respondents said uncertainty over protected lands deters investment. Among all Canadian jurisdictions included in the survey, investors said B.C. has the greatest barriers to investment.
How can policymakers help make B.C. more attractive to investment?
At the federal level, the Carney government should scrap several Trudeau-era policies including Bill C-69 (which introduced vague criteria into energy project assessments including the effects on the “intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors”), Bill C-48 (which effectively banned large oil tankers off B.C.’s northern coast, limiting access to Asian markets), and the proposed cap on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the oil and gas sector (which will likely lead to a reduction in oil and gas production, decreasing the need for new infrastructure and, in turn, deterring investment in the energy sector).
At the provincial level, the Eby government should abandon its latest GHG reduction targets, which discourage investment in the energy sector. Indeed, in 2023 provincial regulators rejected a proposal from FortisBC, the province’s main natural gas provider, because it did not align with the Eby government’s emission-reduction targets.
Premier Eby is right—private investment should develop energy infrastructure. But to attract that investment, the province must have clear, predictable and competitive regulations, which balance environmental protection with the need for investment, jobs and widespread prosperity. To make B.C. and Canada a more appealing destination for investment, both federal and provincial governments must remove the regulatory barriers that keep capital away.
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