"I believe that in the geopolitical circumstances I was taking office ... the threats to the North were actually quite serious."

"I think I've been borne out in that regard, I didn't anticipate that being our southern neighbour."

"I think the reality is, the federal government manages this country right, puts the stress on unity and not on ideological tangents, and there's no reason why we can't pull the country together at this moment."

Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper 

 

"During his tenure as prime minister, Mr. Harper emphasized the importance of Arctic sovereignty to Canada, foreshadowing recent geopolitical developments in that region."

"His government oversaw the creation of Canada's first urban national park in the Rouge Valley, protected Sable Island as a national park reserve, expanded Nahanni National Park and created Naats'ihch'oh National Park in the Northwest Territories."

Royal Canadian Geographic Society press release 

Former prime ministers Jean Chrétien, left, and Stephen Harper, centre, take part in a discussion of Canadian unity moderated by RCGS CEO John Geiger. (Photo: Charlie Woolf/Can Geo)

 

When Stephen Harper was Canada's Conservative prime minister in three governments; a minority and two majorities, he focused on the Canadian Arctic and the need to protect it. At that time it was primarily Russia (and China) who contested Canada's boundaries in the Canadian Arctic. Russia began the militarization of the Russian Arctic, restoring old Siberian military bases, expanding and stationing Russian military operatives there. It claims the Lomonosov Ridge gives Russia entitlement over areas of the seabed allocated to Canada and Denmark.

 

Suddenly, it appears that although Russian claims while not diminished, have been pushed back somewhat in light of the Trump administration's claims that for security purposes against the malign intentions of Russia and China make it imperative for the United States to claim Denmark's Greenland as a protectorate of the U.S., to give it sole authority over the island, while casting the same type of ownership claims over the Canadian Arctic.

 

Mr. Harper, speaking on a panel at the Royal Canadian Geographic Society described his concerns over the necessity to reinforce Canada's Northern sovereignty. At the time he could never have envisioned that a threat to Canada's sovereignty in the North would emanate from the United States. Yet, there it is: U.S. President Trump argues for greater U.S. military presence in the Arctic, and where Greenland was involved, went so far as to suggest military action to achieve his goal. That threat of expansionism is interpreted by many,  to include Canada's northern territories.

 

As sea ice recedes, routes through the North West Passage presage a new era of shipping in routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Mercantile trade worldwide will be affected, and Northern nations stand to benefit from the potential easing of maritime routes in trade opportunities, which is precisely what has lured China to stake its own claim as a 'near-Arctic' (laughable as it is) stakeholder. Russia is prepared to begin mining for the natural resources known to entice interests from natural gas to minerals.

 

A view of Canadian-owned Helsinki Shipyard in Helsinki, Finland, on Jan. 28, 2026. Photo by Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images

 

Canada now is alert to a changing world order, and Mr. Harper exhorted the need to defend the nation's land, airspace and waterways, on its own, no longer depending on its neighbour to the south to respect its territorial integrity. He had ordered Arctic icebreakers to be built for Canada. The occasion of Mr. Harper's speech was linked to the Geographical Society's honouring the former prime minister with a gold medal to celebrate his outstanding public service on the 20-year anniversary of his first of three election wins that brought him to the prime ministership.

 

A few days later another event took place on Parliament Hill, the hanging of the former prime minister's official portrait. At that event he urged political parties to recognize the need for unity at this critical time in Canada's history; to work against "external forces that threaten our independence and against domestic policies that threaten our unity. We must preserve Canada, this country handed down to us by providence, preserved by our ancestors, and held in trust for our descendants." 

"He served as prime minister of Canada for nearly a decade -- the sixth-longest tenure in our history -- leaving an extensive record of policy and legislative accomplishments."

"In a political climate increasingly buffeted by noise, he brought composure, intellect and decisiveness to public life."

Liberal Prime Minister Marc Carney 

Former prime minister Stephen Harper, right, at the unveiling of his official portrait during a ceremony in Ottawa, on Tuesday, Feb 3, 2026. Photo by HYUNGCHEOL PARK/Postmedia

"What they're doing is setting the theatre to provide an expanded set of offensive options should the president direct military strikes."

"[This time the administration does not appear to have such a] discrete objective [as was witnessed before strikes against the nuclear program in Iran last year]." 

Dana Stroul, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East 

 

"[While Iran has the right to] operate professionally in international airspace and waters ... any unsafe and unprofessional behaviour near U.S. forces, regional partners or commercial vessels increases risks of collision, escalation, and destabilization."

U.S. Central Command

 

"[If the U.S. brings in more F-35s, that would suggest that it plans on] operating inside Iranian airspace in a more considerable way."

"[These movements -- of the U.S. fleet in the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean -- indicate that] both the U.S. and Israel are very concerned about an Iranian retaliation against Israel, even if Israel is not directly involved."

Gregory Brew, senior Iran analyst, Eurasia Group

    The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG 80) transits the Arabian Gulf while operating in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Indra Beaufort

 

Dozens of aircraft have been deployed by the U.S. military to bases near Iran, while some dozen warships have been assembled in or near the Middle East in the past month, according to satellite imagery, tracking data and U.S. defence officials. The stage certainly appears to be set for a potential U.S. strike against the Islamic Republic of Iran within a few weeks, as tensions continue to rise. Prior to strikes last year against the Iranian nuclear program, there was an even greater buildup of military might than on this occasion, lending an air of real uncertainty as to the outcome of what is currently a standoff between the abrasively defiant regime and the challenge of the powerful United States.

 

Not all experts on the Middle East and Iran are convinced that this show of force will culminate in an actual invasion to remove the Ayatollah-led, IRGC-fortified regime. The death toll from Iran's violent crackdown on protests is still rising, with activists and human rights groups claiming over 6,000 Iranians have been killed through the government crackdown, though some insist the death toll reaches even higher -- in the tens of thousands.  

 

President Trump speaks of his 'armada' whose purpose he hints, is to place pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. Iran, he stated, is "talking to us, and we'll see if we can do something, otherwise, we'll see what happens".  For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has stated "Just as (Iran) is ready for negotiations, it is also ready for war."  While "Structural arrangements for #negotiations are progressing", senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani stated on social media. 

 

The USS Roosevelt (DDG-80) is armed with powerful Aegis systems, featuring Mk 41 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS) for Standard missiles, Tomahawks, and ASROC; a 5-inch Mk 45 gun; Phalanx CIWS/SeaRAM; 25mm machine guns; and Mk 32 torpedo tubes for lightweight torpedoes

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Indra Beaufort

 

Accompanied by three guided missile destroyers, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln entered Central Command's area of responsibility and is now in the north Arabian Sea. Air defences and dozens of missiles are carried by each destroyer, including Tomahawks, a type of munition U.S. forces used back in June when they struck Iranian nuclear targets. While historically the U.S. has maintained an aircraft carrier in the Middle East there had been none in the region, when the Lincoln was redirected from the South China Sea.

 

According to defence officials, at least eight other warships are now positioned in the area, including at least two guided-missile destroyers, the USS McFaul and USS Mitscher, near the Strait of Hormuz. In this same area in recent days, Iran deployed drones. Analysts identified an Iranian drone carrier from satellite imagery, the Shahid Bagheri. Over three dozen U.S. aircraft, among them fighter jets, drones and planes used for refuelling reconnaissance  and transport have been forwarded to U.S. bases.

 

F-15 aircraft from the squadron that fought the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June have been deployed now, along with nine A-10C Thunderbolt IIs, used to protect groups on the ground from enemy forces, stationed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. America's ME allies like Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia and Qatar have alerted Washington that they will not allow the U.S. to use the bases on their soil to attack Iran. Which is where the USS Lincoln steps into the picture since assaults can be launched directly from its position at sea.

 

EA-19G Growlers, electronic warfare aircraft that jam radars and disrupt communications which are on board the USS Lincoln, would be useful should the U.S. intend to enter Iranian airspace to hit targets in the interior. The USS Delbert D. Black visited Israel and left port from there on Sunday, moving further into the Red Sea. Additionally, two more destroyers are in the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Bulkeley and the USS Roosevelt, according to American defence officials. 

 

USS Abraham Lincoln, The War Zone

  

Recognizing Iran for Its Terrorist Credentials

"We need to name and shame the perpetrators."

"It stands out that the architect of all of this repression, Ayatollah Khamenei, is not on Canada's sanctions list."

Brandon Silver, director, policy and projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights 

 

"It is very frustrating for Iranians to be walking the streets [of Canada] and [to] see our oppressors alongside with us and having no real tools to put them behind bars, even though we've reported many of them."

"We see them at our local gyms, we see their sons and daughters spending millions of dollars in expensive  houses, cars, living lavish life-styles, while our people back home can't afford even a loaf of bread."

Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay

 

"This is a moment, perhaps as significant as the Berlin Wall falling itself."

"Can you imagine for a moment what a world of peace might look like if we listen to the call of the Iranian people, of whom tens of thousands have now been brutally massacred?"

Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar 

Protesters burn pictures of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as they march in support of regime change in Iran during a protest in Toronto, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Photo by Sammy Kogan /THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

In 2012, the-then Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the step of responding to the Islamic Republic of Iran's interference in Canadian affairs, its operatives' presence in Canada and the harassment of Iranian-Canadians, by closing the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa and obliging Iranian diplomats to leave. Some Iranian government assets were frozen. And Iran took steps to counter the situation by expelling Canada's diplomatic staff and closing the Canadian mission in Tehran.

 

When Justin Trudeau took over the helm of Canada's government in 2015 he mused for a while about restoring diplomatic relations with Iran. It became impossible to overlook the Iranian government's support of terrorism, the implications of its interference in Canada, including money laundering, so the diplomatic fissure remained. Eventually Canada outlawed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, placing them alongside Hezbollah and Hamas, its proxies, on Canada's terror list.

 

That occurred in the wake of the 2020 targeting of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 where 55 Canadian citizens were killed as the plane exploded in mid-air. The IRGC shot missiles at the airliner as it left the Iranian capital during a period of high tension, but Tehran denied the event until it no longer could, given the damning evidence. The al Quds branch of the IRGC has been involved in terrorist plots abroad targeting enemies of the regime, most notably from among the Jewish and Israeli eeecommunity.

 

Demonstrators in Iran (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The regime is known to have tasked Canadian expatriate Iranians to launch assassinations in the United States. Similarly assassination plots meant to take place in Canada were foiled by the RCMP; former federal Solicitor General Irwin Cotler was one of those on the Iranian assassination list, as a high-profile human rights campaigner. After the October 7 Iran-inspired-and-enabled Hamas atrocity in southern Israel, pro-Hamas protests on Canadian university campuses were promoted by Iran.

 

Iranian government agents as well as those belonging to the IRGC have notoriously moved about freely in Canada, both for personal relaxation in a country where their presence is not opposed by the government, and to pursue the Iranian objective of money laundering through Canadian real estate. Some 20 senior members of the regime have bypassed Canada's immigration system while others are under active investigation.  

 

Having done so, the government took no action on removing IRGC operatives from Canadian soil. Now, members of Parliament and human rights activists have joined in a move to press Canada's Liberal government to place pressure on Iran; the official sanctioning of its supreme leader and and focusing on an increased criminal investigation into regime perpetrators, would represent a good start for a government that has scarcely moved itself to mobilize condemnation against the regime that has been using military means to stifle a popular uprising demanding the end of the Iranian Republic dominating their lives.

 

Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar, Liberal MP Miville-Dechene and Iranian Canadian human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay joined other morally-principled activists in calling on Canada to make overtures to allies to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the terrorist entity it is. An energetic commitment to advance investigation  into human rights violations perpetrators and crimes committed in Iran in response to mass protests that struck against the regime across the country is called for.

 

Brandon Silver of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre urged that such an "structural investigation" is required, to have the RCMP launch a thorough investigation for the purpose of assembling evidence implicating Canadian residents who have been involved in war crimes and atrocities. "We must go beyond issuing statements, we must act. This means supporting independent international investigations and treating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in practice, not just in name", stated Afshin-Jam MacKay.

 

A timely call to action in the wake of thousands of Iranians killed by the Iranian regime's crackdown against widespread anti-government protests in January. While the European Union foreign ministers agreed to list the IRGC as a terrorist group last week, the United Kingdom has made no such commitment. 210 Iranian individuals and 254 Iranian entities have been sanctioned by Canada under the criminal code. Yet only one such IRGC designation has resulted in deportation. 

 

The IRGC is a major military, political and economic force in Iran   EPA

 

"Norway now finds itself in the most serious security situation since 1945."

"[Svalbard has for too long been seen by nations as a place where] everyone who wants to can come up and do almost whatever they want."

"That's not the fact. This is Norwegian sovereign territory. So we're making that a bit clearer."

Eivind Vad Petersson State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway 

The Svalbard Archipelago   Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

 

Following World War 1, Norway's claim to the Arctic archipelago and its islands was officially recognized. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 banned the presence of activity linked to the military while granting all other nations choosing to sign on to the agreed-upon treaty access to hunting, fishing, mining and land ownership. Over the years, close to fifty countries added their names to the treaty which allowed them access.

 

Of late, studies of the geology of Svalbard and the ocean floor surrounding it have identified vast amounts of copper, zinc, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements buried in the ocean floor. These are eagerly-sought-after minerals that power electric car battery technologies and wind turbines. It was  generally taken that the Svalbard Treaty granted signatories rights to its surrounding seas and seabed. Until January 2024 when Norway's governing party announced it would pursue deep-sea mineral exploration in an enormous sweep of its seabed.

 

The remote, frigid island, viewed as hostile to human life on a prolonged basis where minus 34 Celsius temperatures were not unknown, were initially home to Norwegian miners and Russian fur trappers. Longyearbyen, Svalbard's largest town, these days boasts candlelit restaurants, hotels, daily flights to the mainland, and is home to 2,500 people from 50 countries. According to the town's mayor, a surge in investment, official visits and strategic attention has recently focused on Svalbard.

 

 

Recently, the Energy Ministry of Norway publicly declared that Norway's goal in exploiting the natural geology of the area had a defined purpose; the goal of "profitable and sustainable" pursuit of seabed minerals, including the seabed around Svalbard. As Norway moves toward consolidating its sovereign rule over the island, its attitude toward foreigners and civil rights has hardened. Foreigners since 2021 were able to cast a vote in the political arena. 

 

That changed when authorities declared that voting in local elections would be off limits to foreigners living on Svalbard if they had not lived on Norway's mainland for the previous three years. "Should have been done a long time ago", said Mr. Petersson. The Svalbard Treaty guaranteed "equal access, not equal rights", he said, pointing out that in other countries foreigners are not given the right to vote. 

 

Svalbard is located about 800 kilometers from the North Pole, one of the only places on Earth where instant connection is possible with polar-orbiting satellites, leading to uninterrupted, clearer feeds and faster downloading speeds; more advantageous than anywhere else on the planet. In fact SvalSat, the world's largest satellite downloading station is based on Svalbard. 

 

Telecommunications domes of KSAT, Kongsberg Satellite Services, on a mountain near Longyearbyen. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images 

Fur traders from the Pomor region in northwestern Russia arrived at Svalbard some 300 years ago. The Soviets established several coal mining towns in Svalbard a century ago and had signed the Treaty. Of the mining towns, only one, Barentsburg, remains and still operates minimally. Once there was a population of 1,000, now reduced to around 300. One Russian official claimed the archipelago should be renamed the "Pomor Islands".

 

A powerful radar system monitoring space weather and the atmosphere is at the service of Chinese scientists. Data gathered from this equipment have been shared with the China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation, a Chinese defense organization. Members of the U.S. House Select Commission on the Chinese Communist Party are convinced China is performing military research on Svalbard in defiance of the Treaty proscription. 

 

Outside the Yellow River Station where the Chinese scientists live a pair of granite lions stands guard.  

Norway ordered the Chinese to remove the lions, each of which weighs 900 kilograms, installed 20 years ago when the Chinese government agents arrived on Svalbard. For the first time last summer, the archipelago's sole university,   the University Center, operated by the Norwegian government, barred entry to Chinese students, identified by Norwegian intelligence agencies as a potential security risk. 

 

Criticisms of China's activities represent "nothing but distortion of facts and groundless speculation", according to officials at the the Chinese Embassy in Norway. As for the lions standing guard, they continue to remain where they were placed two decades earlier. 

"While the Russian geopolitical threat remains paramount, Chinese encroachments facilitated by an isolated Russia may complicate the Arctic security landscape in the longer term. The coast guard agencies of Russia and China recently signed a cooperation agreement on strengthening maritime law enforcement to great fanfare in Murmansk, a city on Russia’s western flank close to Norway."

"Moreover, when all other Arctic coast guard agencies suspended their participation in the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, Russia invited China to join the forum—clear signs of China’s expanding presence in the High North."

"As Iris A. Ferguson, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for arctic and global resilience, has put it, Chinese efforts aim “to normalize its presence and pursue a larger role in shaping Arctic regional governance and security affairs.”"

Center for Strategic and International Studies  

The world’s northernmost Lenin statue looks over the abandoned Russian city of Pyramiden on Svalbard, summer 2018. Photo: Alina Bykova

 

"[Havana] aligns itself -- and provides support to numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups and malign actors adverse to the United States [including Russia, China and Iran]."

"[The communist government provides] defense, intelligence and security assistance to adversaries in the Western Hemisphere [while violating the human rights of its citizens]."

"[Cuba] will be failing pretty soon. They got their oil from Venezuela. They're not getting that anymore."

"[I will impose tariffs on any country that] directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba."  

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"We did not touch on the topic of Cuba [during their 40-minute telephone conversation], and in the evening then this [executive order] came out."

"The imposition of tariffs on countries that provide oil to Cuba could create a far-reaching humanitarian crisis [severely impacting the operations of hospitals, the electrical grid and the food supply]." 

"[Cuba is currently] going through a difficult moment [but Mexico cannot be put] at risk in terms of the tariffs."  

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum  

A drone view shows the Pajaritos terminal of Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex, in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state. (Angel Hernandez/Reuters)

 

An executive order was signed on Thursday by U.S. President Donald Trump when he declared Cuba represented an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security for which tariffs would be imposed on all U.S. imports from any country supplying Cuba with oil. In the wake of the lightning military raid on Caracas in mid-January that took Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro into U.S. custody for trucking with drug cartels, Mr. Trump turned his attention directly on Cuba.

 

Subsequent to the raid, the Trump administration now controls Venezuela's oil exports and took the occasion to block deliveries of oil to Cuba, long reliant on its regional ally in Venezuela to supply it with petroleum. Mexico, under critical trade duress found it necessary to cancel its latest scheduled delivery for the month to Cuba, taking into account the looming renegotiation of Mexico's free-trade pact with the United States and Canada.

 

Under these constraining issues, the sobering 'sovereign decision' was made to temporarily halt Mexican oil shipments to Cuba. Earlier in the day following the Trump order appearing on the White House website, the Cuban government attempted to rally Latin American and Caribbean neighbours to its rescue. "The peace, security and stability of Our America are in danger", Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez stated in a social media post, denouncing the U.S. for imposing "peace through force".

 

In an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day before, Secretary of State Marco Rubio -- of Cuban descent -- was asked whether he would rule out forcing "regime change" in Cuba. "I think we would like to see that regime change", responded Mr. Rubio. "That doesn't mean that we're going to make a change, but we would love to see a change. There's no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime". 

 

Long dependent on Venezuelan supplies of oil which it trades for security and medical personnel with Venezuela under Maduro and previously Hugh Chavez, Cuba produces little oil of its own. Imports averaged 37,000 barrels daily, the bulk of which arrived from Venezuela in 2025. Cuba is now left with a mere 15 to 20 days of oil, according to the Financial Times. Island-wide blackouts are common and frequent, impacting basic human services like drinking water.

 

Preparing dinner during a blackout in Havana on Wednesday, as Cubans from all walks of life hunker into survival mode, navigating seemingly interminable blackouts and soaring prices for food, fuel and transport as the U.S. increases pressure on the communist‑run nation. (Reuters)

 

Signing a new defence co-operation pact with Havana last fall, Moscow pledged $1 billion in investment over the next five years in efforts to retain a hemispheric foothold. Diplomatic support has emanated to Cuba by both China and Russia. The determination of the U.S. to direct oil supplies away from Cuba along with a fleet of navy and coast guard ships in the Caribbean for operations against Venezuela tasked to stop drug smuggling, the oil blockade of Cuba was next on the agenda.

 

Seven sanctioned oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude have been seized by the U.S. to date -- blockading legitimate shipments to Cuba risks global criticism of violating international law, according to maritime experts. In response to questions in the immediate aftermath of the Caracas raid, the U.S. president responded that he felt no additional actions were required against Cuba, since lacking oil from Venezuela, "Cuba looks like it's ready to fall". 

 

 

In Hindsight : Losing Canada

"Unfortunately, literally everything I said would  happen in 2015 has now come to pass."

"Trudeau's deficits will not be small. Mr. Trudeau has made tens of billions of dollars of spending promises; he said the budget will balance itself, he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to these things." 2015

"These guys [2015 leadership opponents] would have had, in the last two weeks, us throwing open our borders and literally hundreds of thousands of people coming in without any kind of security checks or documentation."

"That would have been an enormous mistake."

Former (2006-2015) Prime Minister Stephen Harper 

Stephen Joseph Harper, who led the Conservatives for 13 years, saw his party win the first majority government in over a decade in the May 2, 2011, election, with 166 seats, representing an increase of 23 seats from the October 2008 election, in which Harper won a strong minority. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty)

 

He was one of the most effectively reliable prime ministers Canada has had; principled, intelligent, informed, a man of earnest integrity and love of country. Some of those who voted him into office -- one minority and two majority governments -- missed him from the moment the Conservative Party of Canada lost the 2015 election and the Liberal Party of Canada became the governing body under the most unsuitable, unprepared and unprincipled prime minister Canada has ever had; Justin Trudeau. 

 

Now, the current Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney promises to be the second-most unsuitable, out-of-his-depth prime minister of Canada.

 

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was an economist before he became prime minister and his administration bears no resemblance whatever to the current office-holder, a central banker, whose grasp of economics seems fairly incompetent. Perhaps not so much as his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who felt the economy would look after itself:  "The commitment needs to be a commitment to grow the economy, and the budget will balance itself".

 

To that end, after inheriting a balanced budget, the Liberals claimed they would run a $10B deficit for three years to 'build infrastructure' after which a balanced budget would be produced by 2019. The first three years of Liberal mismanagement of the economy saw the deficit come in at $19 billion for starters. By 2025, when Trudeau left the prime ministership the national debt was $1.2 trillion, somewhat higher than the $612 billion he had inherited a decade earlier.

 

While in office, when the opposition Liberals and NDP insisted the government bring Syrian refugees into Canada en masse, PM Harper responded: "We do not want to pick up our entire communities ... and move them out of the region where they have lived for as long as history has been written. They do not want that. They want us to help them. That is why we provide refugee placements, friends. That is why we provide humanitarian aid." 

 

August 2015 long weekend, Harper stood outside Rideau Hall — dressed in Conservative blue — after asking Gov. Gen. David Johnston to dissolve Parliament, launching his fifth federal election campaign as party leader. He appealed to Canadians to consider leadership (and his experience) as the central issue at play. (Blair Gable/Reuters)

 

Fast forward ten years and "hundreds of thousands of people" entered Canada with scant security checks as the Liberal government ignored entire categories of quotas and checks on temporary immigration  (many dating from the Harper government); in the process seeing an unprecedented surge of temporary migrants entering Canada The number of 'non-permanent' residents soared by 1.7 million in three years, overwhelming the capacity to screen them. Leading to a 'standard' of foreign nationals claiming refugee status through an ever-so-convenient app. 

 

The Harper-era government brought in a measure to prevent corruption in awarding of contracts by government, leading to the Public Prosecutions Act, designed to prevent political interference in criminal prosecutions. The law enacted by the Harper government placed the situation in control of a politically independent 'director of public prosecutions'. It was this act that succeeded in revealing the 2019 episode when Trudeau pressed his then-justice minister to forgo a bribery case against a Quebec engineering company with close ties to the Liberals.

 

During his administration, PM Harper removed home delivery at the request of Canada Post management, reflecting the downward spiral of mail volumes making it too costly for letter-carriers to continue door-to-door daily deliveries. At that juncture, the national mail corporation still turned a profit and closing down home delivery meant the spigot of losing money was turned off. The Liberals campaigned on a promise to restore home delivery. Almost immediately it was restored hundreds of billions annually began hemorrhaging for Canada Post, leading it to the door of bankruptcy. 

 

In 2010 the Harper government suspended Canada's contributions to the UNRWA agency, a central provider of aid ad-infinitum to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Accusations the agency was intermingled with Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas led to that cancellation. The Liberals restored funding to UNRWA in 2015. By 2023 following the October 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel, hard evidence emerged of UNRWA employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; including a top Hamas commander.

 

When the Liberals took the reins of power in Canada they spoke of an intention to 'modernize' the criminal justice system with the introduction of 'restorative justice' to reduce the number of Indigenous offenders in prison. Bill C-75, a crime bill, was made law in 2018 to simplify bail for accused criminals and codifying treating offenders more leniently based on race. Stemming from a 'vulnerable population', criminals received bail faster and were released earlier from prison. 

 

Since then, Statistics Canada's crime severity stats reflect that when Mr. Harper left office, homicides and violent crime were at lows never before seen in the history of Canada. Since his departure from office as prime minister, however, crime began trending uphill steadily, sitting now at the point where  homicides have hit 30-year highs. This represents the Liberal version of progress.

 

Mr. Harper and his wife, Laureen, visit the Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem in 2014. The Mideast featured throughout Harper's tenure, including most recently the exodus of refugees from the war in Syria. Harper pointed to ISIS as the root cause of the refugee crisis in Europe and reiterated Canada's military commitment to combating the extremist group. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

 

"One could argue that we've lost that unifying sense of right and wrong."

"The very sense of [the] liberal, permissive, non-judgmentally embracing society that our countries were fundamentally founded on is now being openly exploited for the purpose  of reshifting the balance." 

Former Vice-Chief of the Canadian Defence Staff, Mark Norman

 

"Symbolic politics has never been sufficient, it is a sign of weak leadership. Condemnations without enforcement, statements without consequences and gestures without policy are not leadership."

"Canadians do not need additional legislation layered over existing statutes. We need the consistent application of the laws already in force.e"

"Canada is lost and no longer immune. A nation cannot remain open if it forgets how to be a nation. The choice is not between tolerance and cohesion. It is between a confident pluralism anchored in shared civic norms, and a politics of endless accommodation that dissolves the very framework that makes diversity possible."

Larry Maher, CEO, Exigent Foundation

Anti-Israel protesters block a downtown Toronto street to pray as police watch. Photo by Caryma Sa’d/X

 

It took no more than a  decade to fundamentally alter Canada, reverse many of its values, not the least the outstanding human right assurance of equality and rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With that assurance came the expected responsibility of each member of society to respect the social contract that ensured equal opportunities (if not equal outcomes) to succeed and prosper for Canadian citizens who obeyed Canadian laws and whose experience in the general education system helped them to understand their citizen obligations to the country. 

 

In an earlier era those rights and obligations were unevenly applied and issues of discrimination against minority groups reflected a European heritage of entitlement and belittlement of the exotic 'others' who had made their way into North America, many as refugees fleeing persecution and conflict. Under moderately good governance evinced by leaders who at best understood their own guiding obligations to the people they served, laws were passed that ushered Canada into an era of fair justice and social cohesion.

 

Migrants from abroad who entered Canada in the first half of the 20th century as immigrants from impoverished backgrounds to make a home for themselves in a new country where opportunities abounded worked hard, obeyed laws, and accommodated themselves to a new culture with values that suited their own notions of being and belonging. Canadian authorities refined immigration rules to eventually reflect Canada's needs in a point system that rewarded education, professional qualifications, age suitability and an assessed philosophical fit.

 

A succession of Liberal governments in more recent times gradually morphed toward the kind of liberal progressivism that loosened qualifications and requirements of suitability to join the Canadian population. Sympathy for people searching for haven from authoritarian governments, from endemic poverty, from societal crime rates, from conflict zones opened the gates of entry to Canada wide, including the refugee class and illegal migrants who bypassed normal entrance procedures to declare themselves refugees. 

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, is greeted by Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, centre, as he arrives in Doha on Jan. 18. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

 

The intake swelled, fulfilling what government and business leaders professed to be a need to replace an aging, low-child-bearing population with new recruits to build Canada's working population. Entry to the country no longer relied on screening for adaptability and suitability for integration into the prevailing culture, its values and its laws. To the point where landed immigrants and new citizens openly declared their defiance of those values and accompanying laws, bringing havoc and division and open discrimination to the very streets of the cities throughout the country where they settled in influential numbers.

 

Newcomers to the country felt no loyalty to the country that had adopted them and there were no expectations from government that they should integrate and accept the prevailing social order as it was. Instead religious and ideological divisions erupted and with no amending reaction from government and institutions at any level, those divisions deepened, becoming more publicly expressed, including through deliberate acts of law-breaking.   

 

Canadians of long standing were treated to displays of overt challenges to the  public order in universities and cultural institutions where mass protests took to the streets, bringing foreign campaigns, conflicts, ideological convictions averse to Canada's own, to the fore, with no government intervention at any level. All the while Canada congratulated itself as a bastion of liberal democracy. Politicians rather than applying themselves to Canada's and its populations' defense, eyeing the numbers of voluble protests and the votes they represented, chose appeasement of activist groups.

 

Canadian PM Mark Carney : China's President Xi Jinping AP

 

And from the outside world, lax attention to the actions of foreign powers that invaded Canada's sovereignty through the infiltration of foreign agents acting on their behalf on the social, academic and political levels exercised the 'soft power' of authoritarian regimes and of extremist movements, effectively interfering in Canada's politics as well as the social contract unique to Canada. Russia, China, Iran, 
Qatar, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood all have made an indelible impact within Canada with their malign presence. 

 

The moral, institutional foundations of Canada's principles of equality and human rights have been assailed by Islamist, Marxist, socialist and other radical engagements in destabilizing Canada, as well as other Western nations they have entered both legally and under the radar. What all these Western nations appear to have in common is an attitude of oblivious disinterest in the interference and subtle changes being wrought in normalizing abnormal social behaviour and its effect on their institutions.

 

The exploitation of liberal societies, priding themselves on their Democratic principles of inclusion appear willing to accept the slow erosion of their adherence to the public weal rather than risk being labelled racist, exclusionary or 'Islamophobic'. Identity politics, moral relativism, and DEI guide governments content to do nothing in response to the unravelling of their nations' stability and social coherence. If there is a solution to Western democracies' inaction in the face of this dilemma, it has not yet shown its face. 

 

Canadian universities have seen a surge of pro-Palestinian protests following similar demonstrations across North America.  University Affairs