2025 Federal Election
Canada is squandering the greatest oil opportunity on Earth
Canada has 3X US oil reserves but less than 40% the production. Why? Anti-oil politicians like Mark Carney who say they’re protecting Earth’s coldest country from global warming.
- Canada has 170 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—by far the largest of any free country. And its producers can profit at $44 oil, vs. >$57 for US shale.
- Canadian oil production is also continuing to get cheaper. Oil sands operating costs have dropped 19% over the past five years, and the industry—which is still fine-tuning how to coax oil-like bitumen out of oil sands—has substantial room for further cost reductions.
- In addition to its massive proven oil reserves, Canada also has massive unexplored oil resources. Canada’s Northwest Territories may contain up to 37% of Canada’s total oil reserves, much of it light crude, which is even cheaper to extract and transport than bitumen from oil sands.
Canada is squandering this opportunity, with < 40% of US production and much slower growth
- Given Canada’s massive oil reserves and lower production costs, Canadian oil should have been growing far faster than US oil—on a path to producing even more oil than the US does.
Instead, Canada is totally squandering its oil opportunity, with less than 40% of US production and slower growth since 2010.
The lost opportunity is costing Canadians 100s of billions of dollars a year—and undermining global security
- In 2023, oil sands directly contributed C$38 billion to GDP—while total economic impact was 100s of billions of dollars. It could have been far, far greater.
- Canada’s oil underproduction is undermining both Canadian prosperity and global security. E.g., Europe’s dependence on Russian oil triggered an energy crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine. By doubling its oil production, Canada could make oil dictators weaker, the free world stronger—and Canada more powerful.
The cause: False climate ideas have led Canada to senselessly strangle its oil industry
Canada is squandering its oil opportunity by preventing its abundant oil from being transported to world markets
- With 3X US oil reserves but 1/8 the people, Canada can produce far more oil than it can use. So it needs a lot of transportation. Yet it wages war on pipelines, which are the cheapest, fastest, safest way to transport oil.
- In 2016, the Canadian government rejected the Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to B.C. after nearly a decade of review, citing insufficient Indigenous consultation. The pipeline would have carried 535K barrels of oil per day to Asia-Pacific markets, generating ~C$300B in GDP over 30 years.
- To make matters worse, several years after the cancellation of the Northern Gateway pipeline, Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-48 (the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act), banning large oil tankers from calling at northern B.C. ports and effectively shutting the door on any future pipeline to that region.
- In 2017, TC Energy canceled their Energy East pipeline project after the Canadian government demanded they calculate all of its indirect GHG emissions. The pipeline would have carried 1.1M barrels per day of Albertan and Saskatchewan oil to Eastern Canada, generating ~C$55B in GDP over 20 years.
- The Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX), operational in 2024, is Canada’s only new major pipeline in over a decade. Proposed in 2012, it barely survived years of political hurdles, progressing only after the federal government bought it in 2018. By completion, its costs had ballooned from the projected C$7.4B to C$34B.
- The main government-created obstacle for pipelines in Canada is the onerous federal “environmental review” process called the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), and before that, its precursor, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA).
- Under the Impact Assessment Act, the Canadian government can effectively veto a pipeline project by deeming it not in the “public interest,” as determined by factors including “sustainability,” alignment with climate goals, and impacts on Indigenous groups—but not economic benefits (!)
- Before the Impact Assessment Act was instituted in 2019, pipelines faced similarly onerous environmental reviews under its precursor, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). Under CEAA, government could veto projects it judged to cause “significant adverse environmental effects,” a vague and open-ended criteria.
- Even if a pipeline project isn’t formally rejected by the Canadian government, the environmental review process can stretch on for years—often causing projects to collapse from escalating costs or investors withdrawing amid uncertainty. This is exactly what happened with the Energy East pipeline in 2017.
- If Canada built ample transportation, it would have the potential to produce even more oil than the US does and sell it around the world. Instead, its production is < 40% of the US’s, and 97% of its exports are to the US—at below-market prices.
Canada is also strangling oil investment, production, and refining
- Canada isn’t just strangling oil transport, it’s sabotaging oil at every stage—from Mark Carney’s proposed emissions cap to “Clean Fuel Regulations” to EV mandates to drilling bans to refinery restrictions.
- Investment in Canadian oil plunged over 50% (C$76B to C$35B) between 2014-2023—with investors pointing to regulatory uncertainty, inconsistencies, and compliance costs as major barriers to investments.
- A further looming threat to oil investment is the proposed cap on oil and gas sector GHG emissions. If implemented, as promised by Mark Carney’s government, this proposal will require the oil industry to reduce its GHG emissions to 35% of the 2019 level, which would significantly discourage investment and production.
- The Clean Fuel Regulations (CFRs), which mandate that Canadian fossil fuel producers reduce the emissions from fuels to 15% lower than 2016 levels by 2030, harms Canadian oil production by significantly increasing the cost of production and thus decreasing the domestic demand for gasoline and diesel.
- Canada’s EV mandate, which requires that 20% of vehicles sold in 2026, at least 60% of vehicles sold in 2030, and all new vehicles sold in 2035 are electric, harms Canadian oil production by greatly reducing the demand for gasoline and diesel.
- Canada’s consumer carbon tax, which until earlier this month imposed a fee of C$80 per ton of CO2, harmed Canadian oil production by raising gasoline prices by 17.6 cents per litre, thereby decreasing demand. Though this tax has been repealed, gasoline and diesel remain subject to the industrial carbon tax.
- In addition to measures that heavily disincentivize oil production, the federal government also directly limits production through moratoria on oil development on Canada’s Pacific and Arctic coasts, blocking access to hundreds of billions of barrels of oil.
- On top of Canada’s oil underinvestment and underproduction, Canadian oil refining has stagnated, with Canada’s refineries able to process less than half of the oil it produces and only one new refinery built since the 1980s.
The leading stranglers of Canadian oil, such as Trudeau and Carney, say they are protecting Canada and the world from a climate crisis
- The root cause of Canada’s squandered oil opportunity is leaders’ belief that world’s coldest country must stop global warming at all costs.
That’s why they advocate pursuing “net zero” by 2050—which necessarily means destroying Canada’s domestic oil industry.
- Canada has embraced climate catastrophism for over 3 decades now. For example, it was one of the original signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. The UNFCCC has been the driving force behind “net zero” policies.
- Justin Trudeau took Canadian anti-oil policy to a new level, making the destruction of Canada’s oil opportunity a central focus: “We need to phase [oil sands] out,” he said in 2017, “We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.”
- While Trudeau’s opposition to Canadian oil and therefore its economy is well-known, most Canadians do not know that Mark Carney is a far more committed opponent of Canadian oil than Justin Trudeau ever was. Indeed, Carney is one of the world’s leading “net zero” advocates.
- The last several decades of Mark Carney’s career have been focused on pressuring countries like Canada to adopt “net zero” policies that have proved ruinous. He did this as the head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action.
- Mark Carney’s past statements on climate include:
“investing for a net-zero world must go mainstream” (2019)
“those that fail to adapt [to net-zero] will cease to exist” (2019)
“build a financial system in which every decision takes climate change into account” (2021)
- Myth: Mark Carney used to be for carbon taxes but has changed his mind, as shown by his elimination of Canada’s carbon tax.
Truth: Carney is still for carbon taxes—because he is still for the net-zero agenda that requires taxing CO2 along with all other means to eliminate fossil fuels.
But while climate change is real, it is not a crisis—thanks to increasing resilience—nor is it addressed by unilateral Canadian sacrifice
- Far from facing a catastrophic climate crisis, Canada and the world are safer than ever from climate.
The global rate of climate disaster-related deaths has fallen 98% in the last 100 years—thanks to increasing climate resilience from reliable, affordable energy, including oil.
- Myth: Even if climate-related disaster deaths are down, climate-related damages are way up, pointing to a bankrupting climate future.
Truth: Even though there are many incentives for climate damages to go up—preferences for riskier areas, government bailouts—GDP-adjusted damages are flat.
- Sacrificing Canadian oil won’t make the coldest country in an increasingly climate-resilient world safer from global warming—since countries like China and India will never follow suit. What it will do is leave Canada far poorer, weaker, and more endangered from lack of energy.
The solution: Unleashing responsible oil development will make Canada rich, resilient, and secure
The rational path forward on climate is to embrace prosperity, which drives resilience and energy innovation
- Canada is safer than ever from climate, and other countries won’t cut emissions until it’s truly cost-effective to do so. The path forward is to embrace prosperity.
- The more prosperous Canada is, the more it can make itself more and more resilient to all manner of climate dangers. And the more prosperous Canada is, the more it can innovate new forms of energy that have the long-term prospect of outcompeting fossil fuels.
The number one path to Canadian prosperity is unleashing responsible development in the oil industry and other energy industries
- Canada must finally seize its enormous oil opportunity, unleashing investment, production, refining, and transport from irrational restrictions. Only then can Canada can deliver oil to eager markets worldwide.
- Canada should renounce its pledge to achieve “net zero by 2050” by repealing the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act where it is enshrined and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. This will massively increase investor certainty about the future viability of the oil industry.
- Canada should reject the proposed GHG emissions cap for the oil industry. Canadian provinces that have their own carbon taxes and emission credit trading schemes should eliminate them too. This will improve investor expectations about the oil industry’s future viability.
- Canada should repeal the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) and replace it with a framework that minimizes the cost and duration of reviews and enshrines clear and narrow criteria for rejecting projects. This will help build more oil pipelines and reduce investor uncertainty about environmental regulations.
- Canada should revise the Canadian Energy Regulator Act (CERA) by limiting the certification review of the covered oil pipeline projects to the question of whether there is sufficient proven demand for the oil they are planning to transport. This will expedite pipeline approval.
- Canada should repeal the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48), which bans large oil tankers off the northern and central coast of British Columbia. This will open the door to building pipelines to B.C. that can transfer oil to crucial Asian markets.
- Canada should repeal the Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR) and the EV mandate. This will boost investor confidence in oil by increasing both current and anticipated domestic demand for oil-derived fuels.
- Canada should repeal the federal moratoria on offshore oil drilling on the Pacific Coast and in the Canadian Arctic. This will unlock up to hundreds of billions of barrels of Canadian oil.
- To stop squandering the world’s greatest energy opportunity, Canada must start electing leaders who value Canadian energy, and stop electing leaders with a proven track record of destroying it.
Daniil Gorbatenko, Steffen Henne, and Michelle Hung contributed to this piece.
“Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein” is my free Substack newsletter designed to give as many people as possible access to concise, powerful, well-referenced talking points on the latest energy, environmental, and climate issues from a pro-human, pro-energy perspective.
2025 Federal Election
Too Close for Comfort: Carney Floor Crosser Comes From a Riding Tainted by PRC Interference
After the Chiang–Tay controversy in Markham-Unionville, and unresolved 2021 vote suppression claims, Michael Ma’s defection turns a fraught riding into a lever for near-majority power.
Mark Carney’s minority government is now one seat shy of a House of Commons majority—not because Canadians changed their minds in an election, but because a newly elected Conservative member of Parliament, Michael Ma, has crossed the floor to join the Liberal caucus.
Floor crossing is legal. It is also one of those Westminster quirks that can be permissible while still corroding public trust—especially when it is used to rewire the meaning of an election after the ballots are counted.
A minority is supposed to be a forcing mechanism. It compels compromise, checks government overreach and corruption, and makes Parliament matter. A majority for Mark Carney—whose government hasn’t put to rest serious ethical concerns carried over from the Trudeau era—does the opposite. It concentrates power, streamlines the machinery, and reduces the opposition’s ability to constrain the executive.
Canadians understand the rules. What they reject is the idea that rules are the same thing as legitimacy, especially at a time when Canada’s own security agencies have repeatedly warned that hostile states are probing and exploiting weak points that fall outside of election periods—such as candidate nominations or leadership races—and when the government itself publicly confirmed an active transnational operation targeting a Conservative federal candidate during the 2025 campaign.
Michael Ma says he crossed because he wants practical governance, and because he believes Carney is offering a steady approach on the economy. It is entirely possible that this decision is purely personal and political. There is no evidence Ma was under any external influence.
But the seat Ma represents, Markham–Unionville, sat at the center of the 2025 campaign’s most explosive foreign-interference controversy, after Liberal incumbent Paul Chiang mused to Chinese-language press that his Conservative rival, Joe Tay, could be turned over to Chinese diplomats to collect the Hong Kong bounty placed on him.
In that context, Carney’s decision to welcome a floor crossing from Chiang’s former riding demands deep scrutiny.
Conservative MP Michael Ma, center, meets with controversial Chinese community leaders who have also been linked to travel to Beijing with the Liberal candidate Ma defeated, Peter Yuen. The photos from CC News are reproduced for news reporting and in the public interest, in reliance on Canada’s fair dealing exception under the Copyright Act.
The broader point of this editorial will be reiterated. Canadian voters can no longer casually accept floor crossings. An MP that decides to change sides must trigger a by-election.
But first, to understand why Ma’s floor crossing is too close for comfort, you have to recall the chain of events that runs from the 2021 election to the 2025 campaign—and now, to Carney’s near-majority.
In September 2021, Markham–Unionville flipped.
Conservative incumbent Bob Saroya, first elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2019, was defeated by Liberal candidate Paul Chiang. Chiang—an ex-police officer—won the seat for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
In the years that followed, The Bureau obtained allegations from senior Conservative sources that this was not merely a routine political turnover.
According to multiple senior figures from Erin O’Toole’s 2021 Conservative campaign, O’Toole’s team was briefed by Canadian intelligence that Chinese officials were actively surveilling Saroya during the election—activities that one source described as “coordinated and alarming.”
One source recalled being told, bluntly, that “there were Chinese officials following Bob Saroya around,” and that “CSIS literally said repeatedly that this was ‘coordinated and alarming.’”
The allegation was not simply that Saroya felt watched.
It was that suspected Chinese security personnel were shadowing Saroya’s canvassing team and then visiting the same homes after campaign stops—an intimidation pattern consistent with voter suppression tactics.
Next, Paul Chiang’s controversy.
Early in 2025, Joe Tay began organizing to run in Markham–Unionville.
Tay, a former Hong Kong broadcaster and outspoken critic of Beijing’s repression in Hong Kong, had been placed under a Hong Kong National Security Law bounty—a fact that turned his candidacy into a test of whether Canada can protect citizens targeted by foreign states for their speech.
The Bureau reported that Tay and his team did substantial groundwork in Markham–Unionville, and that he intended to seek the Conservative nomination there.
But for reasons that have never been fully explained, Tay’s trajectory changed at roughly the same time of Chiang’s remarks.
Instead of running in Markham–Unionville, the Conservative Party ultimately assigned him to Don Valley North, a neighboring Toronto riding with a large Chinese diaspora.
“Joe Tay put so much effort into Markham–Unionville,” said a Tay campaign staffer who asked not to be identified.
Tay’s campaign in Don Valley North became one of the most closely scrutinized races in the country.
Alarmingly, he faced the same general pattern of pressure that Saroya’s team and Conservative sources claim shadowed Markham–Unionville in 2021.
Only this time, Canadian election-threat monitors publicly confirmed that a transnational repression operation was targeting Tay. More on that later.
In early 2025, Michael Ma was chosen by the Conservatives to run in Markham–Unionville, a seat with a credible path back for the party.
The scandal erupted on March 28th.
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Paul Chiang—by that point the Liberal member of Parliament for Markham–Unionville and running again—acknowledged making remarks to Chinese-language media suggesting Tay could be taken to the Chinese consulate in Toronto to collect a Hong Kong bounty.
Chiang said he was only joking and apologized.
Tay rejected the apology and called the remarks “the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party.” He added: “They are not just aimed at me; they are intended to send a chilling signal to the entire community to force compliance with Beijing’s political goals.”
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole used his X account to publicize a broad version of the allegations The Bureau was already aware of in the Saroya defeat of 2021.
“This riding [Markham-Unionville] was one of the worst for Foreign Interference (FI) in 2021,” O’Toole wrote on X. “Comments from the MP/Candidate confirm longstanding concerns about the result. PM Trudeau ignored FI concerns. I hope PM Carney is more serious. He cannot allow this candidate to stand.”
Carney, it is now important to note, refused to replace Paul Chiang, saying the MP had his confidence.
Concurrently, Canada’s election-threat monitors reported that Chinese propaganda messages had attacked Carney’s rival for the Liberal leadership, Chrystia Freeland, while Chinese intelligence’s messages about Carney were positive or ambiguous.
It was only after international Hong Kong diaspora groups mounted a letter-writing campaign to the RCMP, decrying what they called potentially criminal repression activities in Canada’s election, that the RCMP announced a review of the matter, and Chiang stepped down himself.
Carney was spared from taking direct action. There is still no word from the RCMP on what it has found in the case.
O’Toole, when asked to comment about Saroya’s Markham riding experience in 2021, told The Bureau:
‘“Our candidate Bob Saroya was a hardworking MP who won against the Liberal wave in 2015.
He won in 2019 as well, but thousands of votes from the Chinese Canadian community stayed home in 2021.
We heard reports of intimidation of voters. We also know the Consul General from China took particular interest in the riding and made strange comments to Mr. Saroya ahead of the election.
It was always in the top three of the eight or nine ridings that I believe were flipped due to foreign interference. The conduct of Mr. Chiang suggests our serious concerns were warranted.”’
Even if you treat every one of O’Toole’s statements, and the related claims from senior Conservative Party sources with caution—and you should, as CSIS will not confirm or deny these claims—the theme is unmistakable.
Senior political actors were receiving intelligence briefings that they believed described aggressive, targeted pressure in Markham–Unionville.
Next, in the wake of Chiang’s withdrawal, the Liberals replaced him with Peter Yuen.
During the election,The Bureau reported that Yuen, a retired Toronto Police deputy chief, had joined the board of a Chinese international school in Markham that surfaced in testimony related to foreign interference concerns in Don Valley North.
The Globe and Mail also reported new questions about Yuen’s relations with Beijing-friendly community leaders closely connected to the Chinese Consulate.
The Bureau and The Globe also reported on the controversy surrounding Yuen’s trip with some of these Markham-area community leaders—among a small delegation of Ontario politicians invited to Tiananmen Square in September 2015—to attend a military parade hosted by President Xi Jinping.
At a major October 2025 Chinese-Canadian community banquet attended by China’s Toronto consulate officials—including acting consul general Cheng Hongbo—Michael Ma is shown toasting wine with the same prominent Fujian-linked community leader who reportedly traveled with Yuen to the 2015 People’s Liberation Army parade.
At that banquet a few months ago in Markham, Canadian politicians and community leaders stood with Chinese consular officials as the Canadian and Chinese anthems were sung by a woman performing in front of a large screen showing uniformed Chinese military personnel in Tiananmen Square standing at attention.
In the organizers’ published guest list, Michael Ma appears to have been the only Conservative member of Parliament named among the federal representatives, alongside several Liberal MPs and other provincial and municipal officials.
Back to the last federal election.
On April 21, 2025—one week before election day—the Privy Council Office issued a news release describing what the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force had observed: a “transnational repression operation” targeting the election, taking place on Chinese-language platforms and featuring a mock “wanted poster” and disparaging content about Joe Tay, the Conservative candidate for Don Valley North.
This was Canada, in public, acknowledging a core authoritarian tactic—digital harassment and intimidation aimed at suppressing political participation—playing out in a Canadian federal election.
The Bureau later reported that federal police advised Tay to suspend door-to-door canvassing, citing safety concerns, and that police reviewed complaints alleging Tay’s campaign team was shadowed in an intimidating manner while canvassing in the final days.
Tay ultimately lost in Don Valley North to Liberal candidate Maggie Chi, but with a higher Conservative vote share than in 2021.
And then came the twist that would matter months later.
Back in Markham, Peter Yuen—the Liberal replacement for Chiang—was defeated on April 28, 2025 by Conservative candidate Michael Ma.
For Canadians trying to follow the larger interference story, the result is confusing. The riding that had become synonymous with the Chiang controversy and the Saroya allegations flipped back to the Conservatives, even as the dissident candidate at the center of the intimidation debate, Joe Tay, was moved next door and lost in a race the federal government said had been targeted by a transnational repression operation.
This brings us to December 2025.
Ma is now a Liberal. His defection is the second Conservative floor crossing to Carney’s Liberals in just over a month, and it leaves Carney one seat short of majority rule. Reuters notes the broader strategic environment in which this is unfolding.
Canada is grappling with a strained trade relationship with the United States under President Donald Trump, and domestic politics are increasingly volatile. Prime Minister Mark Carney met on October 31st with President Xi Jinping, signaling an intent to renew relations with Beijing and expand strategic engagement.
In China’s diplomatic telling: “President Xi noted that this year marks the 55th anniversary of China-Canada diplomatic relations and the 20th anniversary of the China-Canada strategic partnership. Through the joint efforts of both sides, the China-Canada relationship is beginning to recover and improve.”
Here is the democratic problem, stated plainly.
A riding that has been repeatedly flagged—through intelligence briefings described by senior political actors, through public controversy involving foreign-bounty rhetoric, and through government-confirmed warnings about transnational repression tactics in adjacent diaspora ridings—has now produced a member of Parliament whose post-election decision helps move Canada to the brink of majority government without an election.
That is why this moment should prompt action—not hand-wringing.
If Canada is serious about protecting democratic legitimacy, Parliament should adopt a simple rule: if a member of Parliament crosses the floor to join another party—especially if the move materially alters governing power—there should be a by-election. Not because voters “own” an MP. Because voters own Canada’s democracy.
Carney, if he wants to govern as a majority prime minister, should ask Canadians for a majority. He should not accept it—or engineer it—through a quiet accumulation of defectors, least of all at a moment when Ottawa has publicly confirmed that transnational repression tactics have already been deployed against candidates.
2025 Federal Election
Protestor Behind ‘Longest Ballot’ Chaos targeting Poilievre pontificates to Commons Committee
Lawmakers confront organizer Tomas Szuchewycz for flooding ridings with placeholder candidates, targeting Pierre Poilievre’s seat, and wasting public resources.
Szuchewycz’s most notorious move came in Carleton — the riding of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, where the ballot swelled to 91 names, stretching nearly a metre and forcing Elections Canada to redesign how it printed and handled the vote. The LBC framed the stunt as a protest against Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system. But to most voters, it looked nothing like a principled reform campaign. What they saw was an effort aimed squarely at Poilievre, meant to bury his name among a wall of nobodies and turn the vote into a farce.
Elections Canada had to scramble to manage the chaos: printing extra‑long ballots, re‑training workers, and creating a last‑minute write‑in workaround in Battle River–Crowfoot to keep ballots usable. Seniors and disabled voters complained about the physical size and complexity of the ballot; poll workers faced new logistical headaches; public money was wasted.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Szuchewycz showed no contrition and offered no practical alternative to the system he had tried to upend. Instead, he accused MPs of having a “conflict of interest” in writing election law and demanded that power be handed to an undefined “permanent, non‑partisan body” — without explaining who would select it, how it would operate, or how it would be accountable to Canadians.
The LBC, whose actions led to metre-long ballots in ridings like Carleton (91 candidates) and Battle River–Crowfoot (86), claims to oppose Canada’s first-past-the-post system. But when asked how his proposed independent reform body would be formed, selected, or held accountable, Szuchewycz had no answers.
Conservative MP Michael Cooper led the charge, accusing Szuchewycz of overseeing a signature-harvesting scheme that involved electors signing blank nomination forms—potentially in violation of the Canada Elections Act. He tabled a January 2024 tweet and an August 2024 YouTube video showing organizers gathering signatures under the claim that candidate names would be “filled in later.”
Szuchewycz denied the accusation, claiming nomination papers had either candidate names or the phrase “all candidates” filled in. But when he tried to discredit Cooper’s evidence by calling it “AI-generated,” the committee chair issued a warning for casting doubt on the authenticity of a Member’s documents without basis. The comment was withdrawn under pressure.
Still, Cooper was unsatisfied, warning Szuchewycz that misleading Parliament could amount to contempt.
Other witnesses—experts and former elected officials—were equally critical of the LBC’s tactics. Dr. Lori Turnbull, a professor at Dalhousie University, called the stunt “undesirable” and a “waste of resources,” though she praised Elections Canada for adapting quickly by allowing a write-in workaround in Battle River–Crowfoot to avoid printing a literal wall of names.
Professor Peter Loewen of Cornell University added that the LBC’s ballot-stuffing “violates the spirit” of competitive democracy and burdens front-line elections staff with unnecessary logistical chaos. He warned that a third-party group acting like a political party without oversight was a loophole that needed closing.
Meanwhile, former Liberal MP Louis-Philippe Sauvé described the real-world toll of the stunt: longer lineups, stressed poll workers, and accessibility hurdles for elderly and visually impaired voters.
In stark contrast to these grounded critiques, Szuchewycz’s testimony revolved around vague accusations of “conflict of interest” by MPs and a call to remove Parliament from electoral reform altogether. No constitutional roadmap. No governance model. No practical enforcement mechanism.
At the end of the day, what Tomas Szuchewycz has done isn’t just a stunt, it’s an insult. He claims Canadians “know what he’s protesting,” but let’s be honest: most voters had no clue this was about electoral reform. What they saw was a campaign to flood ballots with nonsense names in key ridings, especially against the Leader of the Opposition, and create chaos for chaos’s sake.
The takeaway wasn’t a conversation about democracy. It was a spectacle, and one that mocked the very voters he pretends to represent. Lets be clear, This wasn’t activism, it was ego masquerading as principle. And it reeked of entitlement.
Tomas Szuchewycz is the embodiment of unchecked privilege: a man who hijacked our electoral process, wasted taxpayer dollars, and offered nothing in return but smug contempt for the very democracy that gave him the space to pull his stunt.
He claims Canadians understood his message. They didn’t. Most people saw a confusing mess, an attack on the Opposition Leader, and a joke made at the expense of voters, poll workers, and the electoral system itself.
So yes — reform is coming. And it can’t come soon enough.
Parliament must not just close the loopholes it should make sure that when someone deliberately sabotages the integrity of an election, they are held accountable, including being forced to repay the public for the cost of their chaos.
Because in a democracy, you have the right to protest.
But not the right to turn an election into a farce on the public’s dime.
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