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Trudeau Must Resign From Board Overseeing Leadership Race and Call for Investigation Into Foreign Interference

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The Bureau

Calls for Trudeau’s Recusal From LPC Board, Citing Bias Toward Mark Carney

By Elbert K. Paul, CPA – CA

I am a registered Liberal and former director and chair of the audit committee of the Federal Liberal Agency of Canada “(FLAC)” and have served seven leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada “(LPC)”, including four Prime Ministers. I am a former partner of a major national accounting firm.

With the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the LPC has the urgent challenge to respond creatively. That should involve an invigorated and new vision of the profound needs of Canadians and the world. We are reminded of the ancient saying:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”

The purpose of this Op Ed is twofold – to demonstrate that:

Firstly, although the Prime Minister has resigned, Registered Liberals should demand that, effective immediately, he recuse himself from the LPC board overseeing the leadership process.

Secondly, Registered Liberals should demand an investigation into foreign interference in the LPC leadership process.

As reported in The Bureau on January 7, 2025, “Trudeau Clinging Like A ‘Low-Key Autocrat,’” Jeremy Nuttall correctly asserts:

“This isn’t normal. Not even close. Even the most eccentric of Prime Ministers in any other commonwealth country would likely be licking their wounds in Ibiza by now, watching the chaos unfold from a safe distance. Not this Prime Minister… the only bar lower at this point would be if Trudeau goes back on his promise to resign. I’ll really believe he’s gone when he’s gone.”

And Bloomberg‘s December 20, 2024 report raises legitimate concerns over a conflict of interest and apprehension of bias that exists with the Prime Minister and Mark Carney. Specifically, it reported that Trudeau informed Chrystia Freeland on December 13, 2024, that she would soon be out as finance minister. She was deeply upset and felt betrayed. Mark Carney was taking over, Trudeau
told her.

This action toward Chrystia Freeland suggests that the Prime Minister may favour Mark Carney. The Prime Minister is not only the LPC leader, he is also on the board of the LPC. The LPC board will be making key decisions regarding the process for selection of a new leader. To date, the leading candidates are Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland. As a result of his conduct, the Prime Minister is in a conflict of interest and there is an apprehension of bias in favour of Mark Carney.

It is compellingly rational to demand that, effective immediately, the Prime Minister recuse himself from the Liberal Party of Canada board overseeing the Liberal Party of Canada leadership process.

I recommend in my second objective that Registered Liberals should demand an investigation into possible foreign interference in the LPC leadership process.

On the current LPC website it states that the party looks forward to running a secure, fair, and national race that will elect the next Leader of the party.

As reported by the CBC on January 10, 2025, in response to concerns about foreign interference, the Liberal leadership contest now requires voters to be Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Liberal Party national campaign co-chair Terry Duguid tells Power & Politics that the party will verify the status of registered voters.

However, my Op Ed dated March 11, 2024, based on The Bureau’s reporting, demonstrates that the Liberal government, led by the dishonorable leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has failed to address the following vital and relevant issues:

a. Expedite Revisions to Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist
Financing Act S.C. 2000, c. 17 r.
b. Immediately respond to the B.C. Cullen Commission Report,
c. Improve the capacity of The Office of the Superintendent of Financial
Institutions
d. Implement immediately a foreign registry like that of the U.S. and Great
Britain.

Also, as reported in my March 2024, Op Ed in The Bureau, an investigation should be initiated to address contributions totaling $65,000 to the Prime Minister’s Papineau Federal Liberal Association. These contributions involve possible contravention of Section 363(1) of the Election Act, being ineligible
contributions from a foreign person or entity. This reporting is detailed in Wilful Blindness Third Edition by Sam Cooper—essential reading for insights into malign foreign powers infiltrating Canada’s political systems, eroding democracy, and threatening prosperity.

To address the profound concern of Registered Liberals and the Canadian public on the issue of foreign interference I make the following recommendation to be implemented immediately:

Federal Liberal Agency of Canada, as chief agent of the Liberal Party of Canada “(LPC)” and independent from the LPC Board, should engage Price Waterhouse Coopers “(PWC)”, being the LPC external auditors, to investigate foreign interference in the current LPC leadership election process. The purpose of this
investigation is to demonstrate the efficacy and legitimacy of the LPC leadership process in addressing potential foreign interference to Registered Liberals and the Canadian public.

There is a precedent for this proposed action. I, in my capacity of chair of the FLAC audit committee, along with others, on March 25, 2013, engaged PWC to perform certain procedures to ensure the efficacy and effectiveness of the voting system. PWC reported the results of their investigation to the LPC National Meeting.

Conclusion

The Canadian liberal democracy is a safeguard against autocracy and includes many benefits, including individual rights, universal suffrage and participation, separation of powers, peaceful conflict resolution, economic opportunity and equality, government transparency and accountability, rule of law and judicial
independence, and self-critique.

We are profoundly blessed in Canada with abundant natural resources and a gifted ethnic mosaic from around the world. However, there are malign foreign powers infiltrating our political systems and eroding the extraordinary benefits of Canadian liberal democracy. We are reminded of our call to vigilance in our National Anthem:

O Canada!

Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all of us command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee

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A new federal bureaucracy will not deliver the affordable housing Canadians need

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Governments are not real estate developers, and Canada should take note of the failure of New Zealand’s cancelled program, highlights a new MEI publication.

“The prospect of new homes is great, but execution is what matters,” says Renaud Brossard, vice president of Communications at the MEI and contributor to the report. “New Zealand’s government also thought more government intervention was the solution, but after seven years, its project had little to show for it.”

During the federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to establish a new Crown corporation, Build Canada Homes, to act as a developer of affordable housing. His plan includes $25 billion to finance prefabricated homes and an additional $10 billion in low-cost financing for developers building affordable homes.

This idea is not novel. In 2018, the New Zealand government launched the KiwiBuild program to address a lack of affordable housing. Starting with a budget of $1.7 billion, the project aimed to build 100,000 affordable homes by 2028.

In its first year, KiwiBuild successfully completed 49 units, a far cry from the 1,000-home target for that year. Experts estimated that at its initial rate, it would take the government 436 years to reach the 100,000-home target.

By the end of 2024, just 2,389 homes had been built. The program, which was abandoned in October 2024, has achieved barely 3 per cent of its goal, when including units still under construction.

One obstacle for KiwiBuild was how its target was set. The 100,000-home objective was developed with no rigorous process and no consideration for the availability of construction labour, leading to an overestimation of the program’s capabilities.

“What New Zealand’s government-backed home-building program shows is that building homes simply isn’t the government’s expertise,” said Mr. Brossard. “Once again, the source of the problem isn’t too little government intervention; it’s too much.”

According to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada needs an additional 4.8 million homes to restore affordability levels. This would entail building between 430,000 to 480,000 new units annually. Figures on Canada’s housing starts show that we are currently not on track to meet this goal.

The MEI points to high development charges and long permitting delays as key impediments to accelerating the pace of construction.

Between 2020 and 2022 alone, development charges rose by 33 per cent across Canada. In Toronto, these charges now account for more than 25 per cent of the total cost of a home.

Canada also ranks well behind most OECD countries on the time it takes to obtain a construction permit.

“KiwiBuild shows us the limitations of a government-led approach,” said Mr. Brossard. “Instead of creating a whole new bureaucracy, the government should focus on creating a regulatory environment that allows developers to build the housing Canadians need.”

The MEI viewpoint is 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.

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Ottawa Funded the China Ferry Deal—Then Pretended to Oppose It

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The Opposition with Dan Knight

While Beijing-backed hackers infiltrated Canadian telecoms, federal and B.C. leaders quietly financed a billion-dollar shipbuilding deal with a Chinese state firm—then tried to pass the buck.

So just to recap—because this one’s almost too absurd to believe: BC Ferries cuts a billion-dollar deal with a Chinese state-owned shipyard to build four new ferries. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland—always quick to perform outrage when the cameras are on—writes a stern letter saying how “dismayed” she is. She scolds British Columbia for daring to do business with a hostile foreign regime that’s literally attacking our critical infrastructure in real time.

And then—wait for it—it turns out her own federal government quietly financed the whole thing.

Yes, really.

According to an explosive report from The Globe and Mail, the Canada Infrastructure Bank—a federal Crown corporation—provided $1 billion in low-interest financing for the very same China shipbuilding deal Freeland claimed to oppose. The contract was signed in March 2025. The outrage? That only came later, when the public found out about it in June.

Freeland’s letter to BC’s Transportation Minister was loaded with warnings. She talked about China’s “unjustified tariffs” and “cybersecurity threats.” She demanded assurances that “no federal funding” would support the purchase. But what she didn’t mention—what she conveniently left out—was that Ottawa had already cut the cheque. The financing was already in place. The loan had been approved. Freeland just didn’t say a word.

And when reporters asked for clarification, what did her office say? Nothing. They passed the buck to another minister. The new Infrastructure Minister, Gregor Robertson, now claims the government had “no influence” in the procurement decision. No influence? You loan a billion dollars to a company and have no opinion on where it goes?

Let’s be clear: This wasn’t some harmless miscommunication. If it wasn’t a cover-up, then it was sheer incompetence—the same brand of incompetence that’s driven our shipyards into obsolescence, our economy into dependence, and our country into managed decline. An entire federal cabinet stood by, watched this unfold, signed the cheque—and then pretended they had nothing to do with it.

And British Columbia’s government? Just as bad. Premier David Eby, the man who pretends to champion “BC First,” claims he was “not happy” with the China deal but says it’s “too late” to change course. Too late? This isn’t an asteroid heading for Earth. It’s a contract. And contracts can be rewritten, canceled, renegotiated—if anyone in charge had the political will to stand up and say, “No, we don’t hand billion-dollar infrastructure projects to hostile regimes.”

But instead, we get excuse after excuse. They say BC Ferries is independent. They say there was no capacity in Canada. They say we had no choice. All the while, Canadian shipyards sit idle, unionized workers are frozen out, and the Canadian taxpayer is stuck subsidizing Chinese shipbuilding—and Chinese espionage.

Because while all of this was happening, we now know that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called Salt Typhoon was actively breaching Canadian telecommunications networks. That’s not speculation—it’s confirmed in a federal cyber security bulletin dated June 19, 2025.

Chinese actors exploited a vulnerability in Cisco equipment and infiltrated the networks of at least one major Canadian telecom provider. They pulled config files, rerouted traffic through GRE tunnels, and monitored call metadata and SMS communications. Translation: They were spying. On us. On officials. On infrastructure.

So let’s break this down. In February, China hacked Canadian telecoms. In March, Canada quietly finances a massive shipbuilding contract with China. In June, Freeland pretends to be outraged—while hiding the fact that her own government bankrolled it.

And now we’re told, “There’s nothing to see here. No jurisdiction.”

Really?

Freeland has jurisdiction when it comes to issuing carbon taxes, banning handguns, and lecturing citizens about disinformation—but somehow has no jurisdiction when her own Infrastructure Bank gives a billion dollars to build ships in a country that’s attacking our networks and undermining our democracy?

And it gets worse. The interest rate on the loan? Just 1.8%. That’s below market. That’s a subsidy, plain and simple. The financial gap will be recorded as government funding. So even if the Liberals want to play word games about “no direct funding,” that distinction is meaningless. The money came from taxpayers. It went to BC Ferries. It ended up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

So what do we call this? It’s not economic strategy. It’s not climate policy. It’s not forward-looking infrastructure planning.

It’s decline. Managed decline.

It’s a government that tells Canadians we’re too broke, too slow, too divided to build our own ships. So we’ll just outsource it. To the same regime our intelligence services say is spying on us and interfering in our elections.

This was a test. A big one. And the people who told you they were going to put “Canada First”—people like David Eby and Mark Carney—failed that test spectacularly. When it came time to make a real choice—stand with Canadian workers, Canadian industry, and Canadian sovereignty—or cave to foreign pressure and cheap outsourcing, they chose China.

And then they lied about it.

But Canadians aren’t stupid. We know what leadership looks like—and this isn’t it. We don’t need more slogans. We need action. We need courage. We need people in government who actually believe in this country and the people who built it.

Because Canada can build ships. Canada can defend its infrastructure. And Canada should never hand over critical national projects to a regime that’s actively working against our interests.

If this is what “Canada First” looks like under the Liberals and the BC NDP, then we need something better. It’s time to stop managing decline and start building again.

Call the election. Let Canadians choose a path forward—one rooted in strength, in sovereignty, and in pride. Let us choose leaders who put Canada first—for real.


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