NightOwl

The Canadian military leadership is close to their U.S. counterparts and is reluctant to shift its focus from America. Some retired Canadian Forces senior officers, such as former chief of the defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier, have voiced support for a Canada that is integrated more closely with the U.S. On Feb. 15, Hillier went on the social media website X to express his support for Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary's proposal for a common dollar, integrated border and immigration requirements with the U.S.

But retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman has warned that Canada is under attack from the Americans.

Norman argued in a Feb. 14 National Post column that Canada should not sit back and let the U.S. destroy the country. "This may need to include otherwise previously unthinkable actions such as shutting off our oil and gas, electrical power and critical supplies, as well as the abandonment of historic diplomatic and military relationships and commitments," Norman pointed out.

Félix Trudeau, member of Workers' Alliance and president of the STTAL--CSN, the first Amazon union in Canada, spoke to The North Star outside an Intelcom warehouse in the Saint-Laurent neighbourhood of Montreal.

"We came here to take action to denounce Amazon's subcontracting of jobs to Intelcom, to other subcontractors like it. It's a scam aimed at continuing the exploitation of workers in Quebec," he explained. Workers' Alliance is calling for sanctions against Amazon, compensation for laid-off workers, and for the Quebec parliament to pass a special law to seize assets and ban the multinational's activities from its territory.

We cannot overlook the likelihood that these Palestinian solidarity encampments were labelled security threats because of the relentless pressures on university administrators exerted by Zionist politicians and pro-Zionist government officials to characterize any criticism of Israel as threatening to the "safety" of Jewish students and faculty. Such pressures have been well-documented in the cases of the Universities of Alberta and Calgary, and are exhibited in many of the submissions to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights' investigation of "antisemitism" on Canadian campuses (May 2024). Notably, the committee's December 2024 report recommended, among other measures, that universities adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism which encompasses anti-Zionism or criticism of the state of Israel.

Across the country over the same period, the RCMP stopped 15 people trying to cross illegally from the U.S. in three separate operations. In only one case was a Black Hawk involved.

According to the RCMP, leasing the Black Hawks from Ottawa's Helicopter Transport Services cost taxpayers $5.3 million — part of an effort to mollify Trump and avert the tariffs.

It has been, to a degree, "border security theatre" said Wesley Wark, senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a think-tank in Waterloo, Ont.

"We're putting up hardware into the skies, Black Hawk helicopters, we're putting up 24/7 surveillance on the border," he said. "It's designed to appease the United States."

Aly Hyder Ali, oil and gas program manager at Environmental Defence, says the Impact Assessment Act (which was brought in through Bill C-69 in 2019) is one of Canada’s most essential environmental laws. It ensures thorough project evaluations before major infrastructure, like pipelines, LNG projects and mines, move forward. Repealing the act would gut federal oversight, allowing fossil fuel companies to push projects through without proper scrutiny, he warns.

“Of course, oil and gas companies would rather see their projects get rubber-stamped, than have them be properly passed,” Ali said. “It is an extremely short-sighted move that prioritizes the profits of wealthy fossil fuel and resource extraction corporations over Canada's economic and environmental stability.”

Canadians are being gouged at the supermarket cash register by a handful of corporations that act like a cartel, jacking up prices and using "shrinkflation" to sell less for more.

They've also been caught in a series of scandals, from "Tatergate"---a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. against Canadian potato corporations for price-fixing---to Loblaws and others charging for the packaging on meat, for years.

The simple answer is price caps on food staples, an NDP policy that was successfully implemented in France just last year. With the cost of living about to shoot up again, we must prevent price gouging by Canada's corporate grocery magnates.

Supporters of Canada’s F-35 purchase point to the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts that Canadian companies have earned by supplying parts for the U.S. aircraft. That, in turn, has sustained or created Canadian aerospace jobs. But on Feb. 28, the National Post reported that Trump has told Lockheed Martin he wants those jobs back in the U.S. when the Canadian contracts come up for renewal.

During the 2015 election campaign, Justin Trudeau vowed his government would never purchase the F-35.

As prime minister, Trudeau continued to point out the Canadian military had no need for the F-35 and he blamed the Conservatives for agreeing to purchase a problem-plagued fighter jet. But, with the 2023 announcement, the Liberals not only committed to the acquisition, but also increased the number of jets to be bought to 88 from the 65 the Conservatives had wanted.