Sam Cooper

In striking remarks delivered days after Canada’s federal election, former longtime Liberal MP John McKay suggested that threats from President Donald Trump helped propel Prime Minister Mark Carney to power—and warned that Canada is entering a period of “existential” uncertainty. He likened the threat posed by Trump’s second term to the peril Taiwan faces from China’s Xi Jinping.

“This was the most consequential election of my lifetime,” said McKay, who did not seek re-election this year after serving as a Liberal MP since 1997. “I would always say, ‘This is the most important election of your lifetime,’ and usually I was right. But this time—I was really right. This one was existential.”

Explaining his assertion, McKay added: “I was thinking of the alienating and irritating comments by a certain president that Canada should become the 51st state. We should actually send President Trump a thank-you card for his stimulus to Canadian patriotism, which has manifested itself in so many different ways. Who knew that shopping at Loblaws would become a patriotic act?”

The Toronto-area MP, who has made several visits to Taiwan over the past two decades, drew a controversial comparison between how Taiwan faces the constant threat of invasion and how Canada is now confronting an increasingly unreliable United States under the influence of Trump-era nationalism.

McKay was the first speaker at an event co-hosted by the Government of Taiwan and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, focused on the People’s Republic of China’s growing use of “lawfare”—legal and bureaucratic tactics designed to pressure Western governments into accepting Beijing’s One China Policy and denying Taiwan’s sovereignty. While China’s claims over Taiwan may appear to have gained tacit acceptance at the United Nations, U.S. expert Bonnie Glaser later clarified that Beijing’s position is far from settled law. The issue, she said, remains open to interpretation by individual governments and is shaped by evolving geopolitical interests. Glaser, a leading authority on Indo-Pacific strategy, added that subtle but meaningful shifts during both the first and second Trump administrations are signaling a quiet departure from Beijing’s legal framing.

“Our institutions are being bullied—that they will be denied involvement with the U.N. unless they accept that Taiwan is a province of China,” Glaser said.

McKay, framing most of his comments on the past election, argued Canadians now face subtle but real consequences when engaging with American products and institutions. He argued that Canada can no longer assume the United States will act as a reliable partner on defense or foreign policy. “Maybe a few weeks or months ago, we could still count on the security umbrella of the United States,” he said. “That is no longer true—and the Prime Minister has made that abundantly clear.”

Predicting that Prime Minister Mark Carney “may be a very unpopular politician within six months,” McKay warned Canadians to prepare for a period of sacrifice and difficult decisions: “We’re not used to asserting our sovereignty. Taiwan lives that reality every single day.”

Citing Canada’s pivot toward new defense arrangements—including the recent purchase of over-the-horizon radar from Australia instead of the United States—McKay said the country is entering a new era of security realignment. “New alliances, new consequences, new changes,” he said. “This will create some real disturbing issues.”

He contrasted China’s strategic approach with the erratic behavior of the United States under Trump: “President Xi conducts the trade war like a chess match—methodical, searching for new alliances. Our supposed security partner conducts it like flip-gut,” McKay said, referring to a children’s game he plays with his grandchildren. “Sometimes the piece turns over, sometimes it falls off the table. But the one guarantee is—there is no guarantee.”

Another speaker, Professor Scott Simon of the University of Ottawa, took a far sharper stance on Beijing’s role in the increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, describing China as part of a “new axis of evil” engaged in cognitive warfare targeting both Taiwan and Canada.

“We have to be part of the alliance of good,” Simon said. “China is part of that axis of evil. We have to be honest about that.”

Drawing on recent global crises—including the war in Ukraine and the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel—Simon argued that democracies like Canada have lulled themselves into a false sense of security by believing that trade and engagement would neutralize authoritarian threats.

“For the past 40 years, we’ve been very complacent,” he said.

Expanding on Beijing’s tactics, Simon said: “They’re active against the Philippines, South Korea, Japan—and Taiwan is only part of it. What they’re using now is a combination of military threats—what we often call gray zone operations—but also cognitive and psychological warfare, as well as lawfare. And they use these techniques not just in Taiwan, but in Canada. And so Canada has to be a part of countering that lawfare.”

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta’s premier said her government will be holding a special caucus meeting on Friday to discuss Alberta’s independence.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hinted her province could soon consider taking serious steps toward greater autonomy from Canada in light of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party winning yesterday’s federal election.

In a statement posted to her social media channels today, Smith, who is head of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party, warned that “In the weeks and months ahead, Albertans will have an opportunity to discuss our province’s future, assess various options for strengthening and protecting our province against future hostile acts from Ottawa, and to ultimately choose a path forward.”

“As Premier, I will facilitate and lead this discussion and process with the sincere hope of securing a prosperous future for our province within a united Canada that respects our province’s constitutional rights, facilitates rather than blocks the development and export of our abundant resources, and treats us as a valued and respected partner within confederation,” she noted.

While Smith stopped short of saying that Alberta would consider triggering a referendum on independence from Canada, she did say her government will be holding a “special caucus meeting this Friday to discuss this matter further.”

“I will have more to say after that meeting is concluded,” she noted.

Smith’s warning comes at the same time some pre-election polls have shown Alberta’s independence from Canada sentiment at just over 30 percent.

Monday’s election saw Liberal leader Mark Carney beat out Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre, who also lost his seat. The Conservatives managed to pick up over 20 new seats, however, and Poilievre has vowed to stay on as party leader, for now.

In Alberta, almost all of the seats save two at press time went to conservatives.

Carney, like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before him, said he is opposed to new pipeline projects that would allow Alberta oil and gas to be unleashed. Also, his green agenda, like Trudeau’s, is at odds with Alberta’s main economic driver, its oil and gas industry.

The federal government under Trudeau pushed since 2015 a radical environmental agenda similar to the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations “Sustainable Development Goals.”

The Carney government has also pledged to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, effectively banning the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

Smith: ‘I will not permit the status quo to continue’

In her statement, Smith noted that she invited Carney to “immediately commence working with our government to reset the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta with meaningful action rather than hollow rhetoric.”

She noted that a large majority of Albertans are “deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government.”

Smith then promised that she would “not permit the status quo to continue.”

“Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous, and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa,” she said.

Smith praised Poilievre for empowering “Albertans and our energy sector as a cornerstone of his campaign.”

Smith was against forced COVID jabs, and her United Conservative government has in recent months banned men from competing in women’s sports and passed a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.