Let’s get real about what’s going on in Canada right now. In the Meeting No. 130 PROC – Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on Bill C-65, Justin Trudeau and his Liberal minions, backed by their trusty NDP sidekicks, are pushing forward a so-called “reform” to delay Canada’s next election. Their excuse? They’re “making voting more inclusive.” But the real reason? To buy themselves a cushy retirement at your expense.
Here’s the scheme: Trudeau and his Liberal-NDP alliance want to push the election back by a week. Not to secure democracy, not to make voting accessible, but to guarantee that MPs who were elected in 2019 get their golden parachute—hitting that magic six-year mark to cash in on their pensions. They’re wrapping it all up in talk about “accessibility” and “inclusivity,” but the facts laid out in committee make it clear—this is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded jackpot for Trudeau’s coalition. It’s like watching a heist in slow motion, and the people pulling it off are your elected officials.
Let’s break down the facts: Bill C-65 is presented as a way to make voting “inclusive” by moving the election from October 20 to October 27 to avoid overlapping with Diwali. Really? Suddenly the Trudeau government is all about Diwali? When did Justin Trudeau become the defender of every cultural holiday? If that were true, they’d be calling a snap election to get back to Canadians sooner, not later. But this isn’t about inclusivity; it’s about squeezing the system dry for every penny they can get.
Conservative MP Eric Duncan and Bloc MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau saw right through it. They grilled Trudeau’s Privy Council Office (PCO) witnesses, who came armed with vague talking points but no real answers. The obvious question: Why push the election back when we already have advance polling? The answer? Crickets. The PCO’s representatives mumbled about “scheduling challenges” and “inclusivity,” but never explained why delaying the election is somehow the only solution.
And who’s standing right next to Trudeau in this scheme? The NDP. Trudeau’s favorite backup team, once again signing onto a shady deal to keep their coalition afloat. The NDP’s MP Daniel Blaikie was all in, rubber-stamping the date change. The reason? This move locks in the pensions not just for Liberals, but for their NDP buddies too. The whole thing reeks of backroom deals and mutual back-scratching. It’s a classic case of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”—and Canadian taxpayers are left footing the bill.
In committee, Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen tried to play damage control, dismissing the pension concern as “Conservative scandal-mongering.” That’s right, folks: If you’re upset that your tax dollars are funding a Liberal-NDP pension scheme, Gerretsen says you’re the problem. He and his Liberal colleagues want you to believe that this bill is about “democracy.” But tell me, how democratic is it to change election dates so politicians can milk the system?
The Damning Parts of Bill C-65
So what are the most damning parts of Bill C-65? It’s a textbook case of self-serving political maneuvering. First, there’s the election date change itself—a convenient one-week delay that coincides perfectly with the deadline for MPs elected in 2019 to secure their pensions. This timing isn’t just suspicious; it’s blatant. With no other compelling reason, Trudeau’s Liberals are trying to sell the public on a delay that just happens to benefit their own pocketbooks. What’s even more shocking is that they’re hiding behind Diwali, as if Canadians can’t see right through it.
And the privacy implications? Almost completely glossed over. Bill C-65 falls flat on providing robust privacy protections. Instead, it opens the door for political parties to access voters’ sensitive data under a weak framework that offers minimal oversight. This is more than a missed opportunity; it’s an intentional sidestep to ensure politicians retain easy access to personal information for campaigning purposes.
Then there’s the lack of genuine accountability for foreign interference. Sure, they included some anti-interference provisions, but glaring loopholes remain. Leadership races and nomination contests are still fair game for foreign influence. The Liberals tout this bill as election protection, but when it comes to securing the integrity of the entire process, they’ve left the doors wide open.
Trudeau’s Swamp: When “Inclusivity” Is Just a Cover for Corruption
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. Justin Trudeau’s government isn’t interested in protecting democracy; they’re interested in protecting their own pockets and political power. Bill C-65 is the latest swamp maneuver by a Liberal-NDP alliance that wants you to believe their motives are pure, cloaking a blatant cash grab under the guise of “inclusivity” and “accessibility.” But real inclusivity doesn’t need backroom deals or sudden election delays. Real inclusivity doesn’t make a mockery of Canadians’ intelligence by pretending a pension-padding scheme is about respecting religious holidays.
This is Trudeau’s swamp at its finest—sneaking in self-serving perks under the cover of high-minded ideals. By claiming they’re moving the election for “cultural sensitivity,” they’re hoping Canadians will overlook what’s really going on: a calculated effort to stretch their time in office just long enough to qualify for generous pensions. And Jagmeet Singh? He’s right there beside Trudeau in this scheme, securing his own taxpayer-funded future, while selling out the values he claims to stand for. This is a backroom deal that pays off for everyone except Canadian taxpayers, who get nothing but excuses and empty rhetoric.
And when opposition MPs raised these glaring issues—why Canadians are seeing no real electoral reforms or accountability—Trudeau’s team sidestepped, evaded, and downplayed. Even the so-called “anti-interference” measures fall flat, with loopholes so wide you could drive a truck through them. Foreign interference protections that ignore internal nomination contests? Privacy policies that allow political parties to dip into Canadians’ data with next to no oversight? It’s government overreach at best, outright negligence at worst, and yet they insist this is all about “democracy.”
If Trudeau’s government truly cared about protecting democracy, they wouldn’t be delaying elections to suit their pension schedules. They’d be calling an election to let Canadians decide who deserves to lead, right now. But they won’t do that because they know they’re losing the trust of Canadians, who are waking up to these games. They’d rather delay, manipulate, and cash in, hoping that enough time will make people forget this little “adjustment” to the election date.
This isn’t just political maneuvering; it’s a power grab. Trudeau and Singh are the faces of a swamp that puts self-interest before public service, personal gain before genuine leadership. They’re bending the rules to keep themselves and their allies comfortable, all while counting on Canadians to stay distracted. But Canadians are smarter than that, and they’re watching as this government dips into their wallets, lines their own pockets, and calls it “inclusivity.”
This is government corruption disguised as progressivism. This is your leadership in Canada today—when the very people elected to serve Canadians are the ones robbing them blind, hiding behind “woke” language to pull off their heist. Trudeau’s swamp doesn’t just run deep; it’s becoming the whole system. And every day they stay in power, they’re counting on Canadians to look the other way.
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Following an alarming rise in fentanyl deaths in recent years, President Donald Trump is taking another step in cracking down on the deadly drug seeping its way onto American streets by designating it a weapon of mass destruction.
The president signed the executive order Monday during an event in the Oval Office, saying the illicit drug “is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic.”
The designation comes on the heels of the administration’s increasing military presence in the Caribbean, targeting narco-terrorists and “successful” meetings with Chinese leaders, who have vowed to crack down on the production of precursors of the drug.
Critics of Trump’s move want to address the fentanyl crisis through a different way. For example, a 2024 bill from attorneys general asking former President Joe Biden to do the same thing expressed concerns about political optics and the language akin to military. Overreach and blurred lines in domestic actions, such as rounding up users.
The order would provide the secretaries of the Department of War and Department of Homeland Security to “update all directives regarding the armed forces’ response to chemical incidents in the homeland to include the threat of illicit fentanyl.”
Trump said the fentanyl drug trade “threatens” national security by fueling “lawlessness” in the Western Hemisphere. This is the area of North America and South America, and the islands near each.
“The production and sale of fentanyl by foreign terrorist organizations and cartels fund these entities’ operations – which include assassinations, terrorist acts, and insurgencies around the world – and allow these entities to erode our domestic security and the well-being of our nation,” the order says in part.
Trump said two cartels are predominantly responsible. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known also as CJNG, are based in Mexico.
The Drug Enforcement Agency said last December that in 2023, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdoses, with nearly 70% attributed to opioids, like fentanyl.
In late February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via its National Vital Statistics System predicted a 24% decline in drug overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in September. The finding was based on 87,000 drug overdose deaths from October 2023 to September 2024, down from 114,000 the year prior.
Trump declared opioid overdose a public health emergency in 2017 during his first term.
If we force a transition that increases the cost of living, threatens grid reliability, and denies developing nations the dense energy they need to rise out of poverty, what have we actually achieved?
Finance expert warns that political timelines for transition defy the laws of physics and economics while threatening living standards.
In the polarized world of energy policy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find conversations that prioritize practical reality over political idealism. We are often presented with a binary choice: either you are for the planet, or you are against it. But as I often find when digging deeper into these issues on the Power Struggle podcast, the real world is far too complex for such simple narratives.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jerome Gessaroli to strip away the rhetoric and look at the hard numbers. For those who don’t know him, Gessaroli is a finance professor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a valued member of the Resource Works Advisory Council. He is a thinker who deals in data, not daydreams.
Stewart Muir with Jerome Gesaroli on Power Struggle Podcast
Our conversation focused on a topic that makes many policymakers uncomfortable: the widening gap between our energy transition targets and the physical capacity to meet them.
The Fundamental Equation
We began with a premise that should be obvious but is frequently forgotten in the halls of government in Ottawa or Brussels. Gessaroli laid it out as a fundamental fact that underscores every economic decision a nation makes.
“There is a direct link, a direct correlation, between energy consumption and living standards,” Gessaroli told me. “And so if we expect to improve our living standards in the future, then we will likely be expending more energy.”
This is the inescapable equation of modern life. In the West, where we have enjoyed stable grids and abundant fuel for a century, we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking we can maintain our prosperity while shrinking our energy footprint. But globally, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.
Gessaroli pointed out that while we debate carbon taxes and caps here, the majority of the planet is focused on survival and advancement.
“A lot of the growth in energy consumption will be through the Third World,” he explained. “They’ve just got a huge population, and they want to pursue economic growth, have a better standard of living, and that will require a lot more energy.”
The View from the Developing World
To illustrate this, Gessaroli drew on his observations from India. He described seeing farmers burning dung to create heat and energy—a practice born of necessity, but one that traps populations in poverty and creates localized health hazards. The path out of that poverty isn’t found in wishful thinking; it’s found in density.
“Now, if they expect to have a better standard of living in the future . . . they’re going to be looking at more intensive sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, nuclear, whatever,” Gessaroli said. “They need to use more energy in order to raise their living standards.”
This brings us to one of the most contentious points in the global climate dialogue. We often hear Western politicians ask, with a mix of confusion and frustration, why nations like China and India are still building new coal-power plants. If the technology for wind and solar exists, why aren’t they leaping straight to it?
I found Gessaroli’s answer to be a necessary dose of realism. It isn’t that these nations hate the environment; it’s that they love stability.
“They know how to do it extremely efficiently. They have the local domestic sources,” Gessaroli noted, referring to coal reserves. “There’s a source of energy security in that they don’t have to import the product.”
In an era of geopolitical instability, energy security is national security. Relying on domestic coal provides a safety net that imported fuels or intermittent renewables cannot yet match. As Gessaroli put it: “The type of power that is generated by a coal plant, for instance, is stable, reliable power.”
The Timeline Mismatch
This doesn’t mean the world isn’t changing. It is. Gessaroli was quick to acknowledge that the green energy sector is booming. Innovation is happening. But there is a massive disconnect between the pace of engineering and the pace of political promises.
“There is a lot of growth in terms of other types of energy production. They’re growing quite rapidly and they’re improving over time,” Gessaroli said. “But it’s just not in line with the time frames that our politicians and policymakers are telling us that the targets have to be met by.”
This is the crux of the “power struggle.” We are being sold a vision of the future with a delivery date that defies the laws of physics and economics.
The EV Challenge and the Scale of Site C
Perhaps nowhere is this disconnect more visible than in the push for electric vehicles (EVs). Governments are setting aggressive target dates to ban the sale of internal combustion engines. On paper, it looks like a victory for the climate. But as a finance professor, Gessaroli looks at the balance sheet of power generation.
“What they don’t realize is the activity, the investment, required to actually make that happen,” he said. “Where is all that extra power going to come from?”
This is not a rhetorical question. It is a logistical nightmare. To put it in a local context, we looked at British Columbia. We have just spent years and billions of dollars completing the Site C hydro dam, a massive engineering project designed to secure our grid for the future.
However, Gessaroli’s calculations suggest that the new power demand from a full EV transition alone means we would need two times the amount of power currently generated by the new Site C hydro dam.
Let that sink in. It took us decades of planning, regulatory hurdles, and construction to build one Site C. To meet the government’s EV mandates, we effectively need to build two more, immediately. And that doesn’t even account for the rest of the economy.
“If we want to decarbonize mines and other industrial projects as well, then we’re going to have to find the extra power,” Gessaroli added.
If we cannot build the generation capacity in time, the demand will simply outstrip supply. Prices will skyrocket, and reliability will plummet.
The Unintended Consequences
Towards the end of our discussion, Gessaroli posed a question that has stuck with me. It challenges the moral high ground often claimed by the most aggressive climate activists.
If we force a transition that increases the cost of living, threatens grid reliability, and denies developing nations the dense energy they need to rise out of poverty, what have we actually achieved?
It all leads to his key question: What if the green revolution is hurting the people it aims to protect?
It is a question that deserves an honest answer, not more slogans. As we look toward a future of increased energy demand, we need to listen to experts like Gessaroli who understand that you cannot legislate your way around the laws of thermodynamics.
