National
Justin Trudeau Resigns as Prime Minister

Amid scandals, internal dissent, and economic mismanagement, Trudeau steps down after nearly a decade in power, triggering a leadership race and questions about his legacy
Justin Trudeau has finally called it quits, but let’s not pretend it was on his terms. After nearly a decade of virtue-signaling, reckless spending, and scandals so frequent they could be a Netflix series, Trudeau announced his resignation in a press conference dripping with self-pity and self-praise. But let’s cut through the melodrama: Trudeau isn’t resigning out of some noble desire to “reset” Canadian politics. He’s running for the hills, leaving behind a Liberal Party in chaos, a country divided, and a fiscal crisis that would make any economist break into a cold sweat.
To make his exit smoother—and less humiliating—Trudeau has cooked up one final trick to save his party from immediate disaster. He’s proroguing Parliament until March 24th, giving the Liberals time to select a new leader while avoiding a vote of no confidence that every opposition leader is salivating over. The Conservatives, NDP, and Bloc are all chomping at the bit to hold Trudeau’s government accountable for its incompetence, scandals, and economic mismanagement. And who can blame them? The Liberal government has been teetering on the edge of collapse for months, paralyzed not by opposition obstruction, as Trudeau claims, but by its own refusal to release critical documents on multiple corruption scandals. Trudeau’s prorogation stunt isn’t about giving Canada a “fresh start”—it’s about running out the clock to save his party from political obliteration.
According to Trudeau, he’s stepping down because Parliament has been “paralyzed” by polarization. That’s rich. The truth is, Parliament hasn’t been paralyzed by some abstract cultural divide. It’s been paralyzed by Trudeau’s government refusing to release critical documents about scandal after scandal. Whether it’s the “Green Slush Fund,” where taxpayer dollars were funneled to companies tied to Liberal insiders, or the endless dodging around the Auditor General’s damning reports, Trudeau’s government has been allergic to accountability. Opposition parties haven’t obstructed Parliament—they’ve been doing their job, demanding transparency. But Trudeau, ever the master deflector, wants you to believe it’s all just partisan bickering.
And let’s not forget the real catalyst for this resignation: Chrystia Freeland’s departure. Trudeau would have you think they parted on amicable terms, with him heaping praise on her as a “political partner.” The reality? Freeland’s resignation letter all but called him out for fiscal irresponsibility. She didn’t leave because of some grand philosophical difference with Trudeau. She bailed because she was left holding the bag for his government’s staggering $64 billion overspending scandal.
Freeland, as Finance Minister, was supposed to break the bad news to Canadians, delivering the grim truth about how the Trudeau government had torched billions on pet projects, virtue-signaling initiatives, and bloated programs under the guise of “building back better.” But when she got wind that Mark Carney—the darling of the globalist elite—was being tapped as her eventual replacement, her calculus shifted. Why should she be Trudeau’s scapegoat, taking the fall for his disastrous economic management, when she could jump ship and salvage her political reputation?
So, she bolted, leaving Trudeau scrambling to spin her departure as amicable, even noble. The truth is far less flattering. Freeland wasn’t some hero standing up to Trudeau’s fiscal insanity; she was an opportunist who saw the writing on the wall and decided to save herself. Her timing says it all. Trudeau was ready to throw her under the bus, make her the face of his government’s economic collapse, and Freeland, ever the political survivor, wasn’t about to go down with the ship.
In the end, Trudeau and Freeland are two sides of the same coin. One ran Canada’s economy into the ground while insisting it was all for the greater good, and the other bailed the moment she saw an opportunity to escape the consequences. Trudeau’s resignation and Freeland’s exit don’t mark the end of an era—they mark the unraveling of a failed administration that has left Canada worse off than it was a decade ago.
But it doesn’t end there because Justin Trudeau’s resignation wasn’t just an end to his tenure—it was a ghost story. Lurking in the background of his carefully choreographed farewell was the unmistakable shadow of Stephen Harper, the former Conservative Prime Minister Trudeau loved to blame for just about everything. Even as he stepped down, Trudeau couldn’t resist invoking the specter of his political nemesis, indirectly justifying his decision to prorogue Parliament by comparing it to Harper’s 2008 decision to do the same.
Trudeau attempted to spin his prorogation as necessary, claiming Parliament had been paralyzed by obstruction and filibustering. But anyone paying attention knows that Trudeau’s move was about avoiding immediate accountability. Facing confidence votes in a chaotic minority government, with scandals piling up and his party splintering, Trudeau needed an out. And who better to use as cover than Harper, the so-called architect of prorogation?
But here’s the irony Trudeau can’t escape: while he used to condemn Harper’s leadership style as cynical and divisive, his own legacy isn’t much different. Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid a confidence vote he was likely to lose, a move that Trudeau’s Liberals once decried as undemocratic. Yet here we are, with Trudeau proroguing Parliament not to “reset” anything, but to buy his party time to regroup while avoiding a vote that could collapse his government.
Trudeau’s comparisons to Harper don’t stop there. Harper governed during a time of economic challenge and left behind a reputation for fiscal conservatism. Trudeau, on the other hand, presided over the largest spending spree in Canadian history, resulting in ballooning deficits and rising inflation. But as Trudeau exits, what’s striking isn’t how different he is from Harper—it’s how much he’s been defined by him. Harper’s economic competence looms large over Trudeau’s fiscal recklessness. The ghost of Harper isn’t just haunting Trudeau’s resignation—it’s casting a long shadow over his legacy.
Even in his final moments as Prime Minister, Trudeau’s insecurities about Harper were on full display. By proroguing Parliament and framing his exit as a principled move to “cool tensions,” Trudeau essentially admitted he couldn’t handle the same parliamentary pressures Harper navigated with ease. In the end, Trudeau wasn’t escaping Harper’s legacy; he was living in it. His inability to outrun that ghost may be one of the most revealing aspects of his resignation.
The sad part here folks is that Trudeau’s press conference wasn’t just self-serving—it was a masterpiece of revisionist history. He bragged about reducing poverty and helping families, but here’s what he left out: food bank visits in Canada hit over 2 million in March 2024, a 90% increase since 2019. Housing costs are through the roof, inflation is crushing families, and his beloved carbon tax has made basic necessities even more expensive. Sure, he’ll point to child poverty stats that improved thanks to government handouts, but the broader picture shows a nation where economic insecurity is the new normal. That’s not a success story—it’s a disaster.
And then there was the inevitable swipe at Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader who’s been eating Trudeau’s lunch on the political stage. Trudeau called Poilievre’s vision “wrongheaded” and accused him of wanting to abandon climate change initiatives and attack journalists. Translation: Poilievre has been relentless in exposing Trudeau’s failures, and Trudeau doesn’t like it. Canadians don’t care about your climate summits and woke talking points, Justin—they care about being able to afford groceries and pay their rent. That’s why Poilievre is surging, and why Trudeau is getting out before he faces electoral humiliation.
Of course, Trudeau tried to paint his departure as some grand act of self-awareness. He claimed, “If I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in the next election.” How noble! Except those “internal battles” are the direct result of his own arrogance and incompetence. His party is in shambles, his government is mired in scandal, and he knows he can’t beat Poilievre. This isn’t a gracious exit—it’s a calculated retreat.
So what’s next for Canada? Justin Trudeau’s resignation sets the stage for a Liberal leadership race that will be as chaotic and cynical as his entire tenure. Whoever steps up will inherit not just a fractured party, but a country battered by division, corruption, and fiscal mismanagement. The swamp Trudeau cultivated—the elites, insiders, and bureaucrats who thrived under his reckless governance—will scramble to maintain control, ensuring their grip on power even as Canadians demand real change. But this time, the people might not be so easily fooled.
Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives are ready to step in with a message that cuts through the noise: affordability, accountability, and putting Canadians first. They’re tapping into the frustration of a country that’s tired of being lectured by a Prime Minister who spent more time virtue-signaling on the world stage than solving the real issues facing Canadians at home. Families struggling to pay for groceries, veterans waiting for basic services, and Indigenous communities still boiling water don’t want more of the same—they want a government that works for them. Trudeau saw the writing on the wall, and he ran.
Justin Trudeau leaves office cloaked in the same smug self-congratulation that defined his years in power. He’ll undoubtedly retreat to cozy speaking circuits and elite gatherings, spinning his tenure as a tale of progress and leadership. But Canadians won’t forget. They won’t forget the skyrocketing cost of living, the erosion of free speech, the scandals swept under the rug, or the divide-and-conquer tactics he used to cling to power. Trudeau governed not for the people, but for the swamp—a cadre of insiders, globalists, and bureaucratic elites who put their interests above those of ordinary Canadians.
This resignation isn’t a reset—it’s a retreat. Trudeau knows the Liberals can’t win under his leadership, so he’s abandoning ship, leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. But the Canadian people are waking up. They see through the empty promises and self-serving platitudes. They’re ready to drain the swamp and restore a government that respects their values, their freedom, and their future.
Trudeau’s resignation isn’t the end of a chapter; it’s the start of a fight. The fight to reclaim Canada from the grasp of a corrupt and unaccountable elite. The fight to put the interests of hardworking Canadians ahead of the woke agenda. The fight to restore pride, prosperity, and unity in a country that deserves so much better than the mess Justin Trudeau is leaving behind. Canada is ready for real leadership. And the swamp should be very, very afraid.
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Aristotle Foundation
The Canadian Medical Association’s inexplicable stance on pediatric gender medicine

By Dr. J. Edward Les
The thalidomide saga is particularly instructive: Canada was the last developed country to pull thalidomide from its shelves — three months during which babies continued to be born in this country with absent or deformed limbs
Physicians have a duty to put forward the best possible evidence, not ideology, based treatments
Late last month, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) announced that it, along with three Alberta doctors, had filed a constitutional challenge to Alberta’s Bill 26 “to protect the relationship between patients, their families and doctors when it comes to making treatment decisions.”
Bill 26, which became law last December, prohibits doctors in the province from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapies for those under 16; it also bans doctors from performing gender-reassignment surgeries on minors (those under 18).
The unprecedented CMA action follows its strongly worded response in February 2024 to Alberta’s (at the time) proposed legislation:
“The CMA is deeply concerned about any government proposal that restricts access to evidence-based medical care, including the Alberta government’s proposed restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for pediatric transgender patients.”
But here’s the problem with that statement, and with the CMA’s position: the evidence supporting the “gender affirmation” model of care — which propels minors onto puberty blockers, cross-gender hormones, and in some cases, surgery — is essentially non-existent. That’s why the United Kingdom’s Conservative government, in the aftermath of the exhaustive four-year-long Cass Review, which laid bare the lack of evidence for that model, and which shone a light on the deeply troubling potential for the model’s irreversible harm to youth, initiated a temporary ban on puberty blockers — a ban made permanent last December by the subsequent Labour government. And that’s why other European jurisdictions like Finland and Sweden, after reviews of gender affirming care practices in their countries, have similarly slammed the brakes on the administration of puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to minors.
It’s not only the Europeans who have raised concerns. The alarm bells are ringing loudly within our own borders: earlier this year, a group at McMaster University, headed by none other than Dr. Gordon Guyatt, one of the founding gurus of the “evidence-based care” construct that rightfully underpins modern medical practice, issued a pair of exhaustive systematic reviews and meta analyses that cast grave doubts on the wisdom of prescribing these drugs to youth.
And yet, the CMA purports to be “deeply concerned about any government proposal that restricts access to evidence-based medical care,” which begs the obvious question: Where, exactly, is the evidence for the benefits of the “gender affirming” model of care? The answer is that it’s scant at best. Worse, the evidence that does exist, points, on balance, to infliction of harm, rather than provision of benefit.
CMA President Joss Reimer, in the group’s announcement of the organization’s legal action, said:
“Medicine is a calling. Doctors pursue it because they are compelled to care for and promote the well-being of patients. When a government bans specific treatments, it interferes with a doctor’s ability to empower patients to choose the best care possible.”
Indeed, we physicians have a sacred duty to pursue the well-being of our patients. But that means that we should be putting forward the best possible treatments based on actual evidence.
When Dr. Reimer states that a government that bans specific treatments is interfering with medical care, she displays a woeful ignorance of medical history. Because doctors don’t always get things right: look to the sad narratives of frontal lobotomies, the oxycontin crisis, thalidomide, to name a few.
The thalidomide saga is particularly instructive: it illustrates what happens when a government drags its heels on necessary action. Canada was the last developed country to pull thalidomide, given to pregnant women for morning sickness, from its shelves, three months after it had been banned everywhere else — three months during which babies continued to be born in this country with absent or deformed limbs, along with other severe anomalies. It’s a shameful chapter in our medical past, but it pales in comparison to the astonishing intransigence our medical leaders have displayed — and continue to display — on the youth gender care file.
A final note (prompted by thalidomide’s history), to speak to a significant quibble I have with Alberta’s Bill 26 legislation: as much as I admire Premier Danielle Smith’s courage in bringing it forward, the law contains a loophole allowing minors already on puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to continue to take them. Imagine if, after it was removed from the shelves in 1962, government had allowed pregnant women already on the drug to continue to take thalidomide. Would that have made any sense? Of course not. And the same applies to puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones: they should be banned outright for all youth.
That argument is the kind our medical associations should be making — and would be making, if they weren’t so firmly in the grasp, seemingly, of ideologues who have abandoned evidence-based medical care for our youth.
J. Edward Les is a Calgary pediatrician, a senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, and co-author of “Teenagers, Children, and Gender Transition Policy: A Comparison of Transgender Medical Policy for Minors in Canada, the United States, and Europe.”
Alberta
Alberta’s grand bargain with Canada includes a new pipeline to Prince Rupert

From Resource Now
Alberta renews call for West Coast oil pipeline amid shifting federal, geopolitical dynamics.
Just six months ago, talk of resurrecting some version of the Northern Gateway pipeline would have been unthinkable. But with the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and Mark Carney in Canada, it’s now thinkable.
In fact, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith seems to be making Northern Gateway 2.0 a top priority and a condition for Alberta staying within the Canadian confederation and supporting Mark Carney’s vision of making Canada an Energy superpower. Thanks to Donald Trump threatening Canadian sovereignty and its economy, there has been a noticeable zeitgeist shift in Canada. There is growing support for the idea of leveraging Canada’s natural resources and diversifying export markets to make it less vulnerable to an unpredictable southern neighbour.
“I think the world has changed dramatically since Donald Trump got elected in November,” Smith said at a keynote address Wednesday at the Global Energy Show Canada in Calgary. “I think that’s changed the national conversation.” Smith said she has been encouraged by the tack Carney has taken since being elected Prime Minister, and hopes to see real action from Ottawa in the coming months to address what Smith said is serious encumbrances to Alberta’s oil sector, including Bill C-69, an oil and gas emissions cap and a West Coast tanker oil ban. “I’m going to give him some time to work with us and I’m going to be optimistic,” Smith said. Removing the West Coast moratorium on oil tankers would be the first step needed to building a new oil pipeline line from Alberta to Prince Rupert. “We cannot build a pipeline to the west coast if there is a tanker ban,” Smith said. The next step would be getting First Nations on board. “Indigenous peoples have been shut out of the energy economy for generations, and we are now putting them at the heart of it,” Smith said.
Alberta currently produces about 4.3 million barrels of oil per day. Had the Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and Energy East pipelines been built, Alberta could now be producing and exporting an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. The original Northern Gateway Pipeline — killed outright by the Justin Trudeau government — would have terminated in Kitimat. Smith is now talking about a pipeline that would terminate in Prince Rupert. This may obviate some of the concerns that Kitimat posed with oil tankers negotiating Douglas Channel, and their potential impacts on the marine environment.
One of the biggest hurdles to a pipeline to Prince Rupert may be B.C. Premier David Eby. The B.C. NDP government has a history of opposing oil pipelines with tooth and nail. Asked in a fireside chat by Peter Mansbridge how she would get around the B.C. problem, Smith confidently said: “I’ll convince David Eby.”
“I’m sensitive to the issues that were raised before,” she added. One of those concerns was emissions. But the Alberta government and oil industry has struck a grand bargain with Ottawa: pipelines for emissions abatement through carbon capture and storage.
The industry and government propose multi-billion investments in CCUS. The Pathways Alliance project alone represents an investment of $10 to $20 billion. Smith noted that there is no economic value in pumping CO2 underground. It only becomes economically viable if the tradeoff is greater production and export capacity for Alberta oil. “If you couple it with a million-barrel-per-day pipeline, well that allows you $20 billion worth of revenue year after year,” she said. “All of a sudden a $20 billion cost to have to decarbonize, it looks a lot more attractive when you have a new source of revenue.” When asked about the Prince Rupert pipeline proposal, Eby has responded that there is currently no proponent, and that it is therefore a bridge to cross when there is actually a proposal. “I think what I’ve heard Premier Eby say is that there is no project and no proponent,” Smith said. “Well, that’s my job. There will be soon. “We’re working very hard on being able to get industry players to realize this time may be different.” “We’re working on getting a proponent and route.”
At a number of sessions during the conference, Mansbridge has repeatedly asked speakers about the Alberta secession movement, and whether it might scare off investment capital. Alberta has been using the threat of secession as a threat if Ottawa does not address some of the province’s long-standing grievances. Smith said she hopes Carney takes it seriously. “I hope the prime minister doesn’t want to test it,” Smith said during a scrum with reporters. “I take it seriously. I have never seen separatist sentiment be as high as it is now. “I’ve also seen it dissipate when Ottawa addresses the concerns Alberta has.” She added that, if Carney wants a true nation-building project to fast-track, she can’t think of a better one than a new West Coast pipeline. “I can’t imagine that there will be another project on the national list that will generate as much revenue, as much GDP, as many high paying jobs as a bitumen pipeline to the coast.”
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