Canada

Danielle Smith has long promised to be the most combative of Premiers. She has lived up to those words, perhaps especially so in legislation introduced this month, the Provincial Priorities Act (Bill 18), which would allow her government to say a pre-emptive yea or nay to every funding deal Ottawa makes in Alberta.

There is a long list of downsides for the academics and cities caught in the crossfire. But given the angry national mood – including frustration with the federal Liberal government’s reach into realms that are mostly provincial, such as housing, electricity, dentistry or school lunch programs, for all the good and the bad – the bill could be a win for Ms. Smith and her unabashed main cause: autonomy from Ottawa.

I was born an Indian Muslim. Today, I’m a Canadian atheist. I have lived and worked in some of the most war-torn regions of the world. I know what repressive cultures look like, which is why I’m troubled by the political shifts of the past decade. The Canada I grew to love in my youth is regressing into something eerily reminiscent of the cultural climate my parents fled from — one that shuns skepticism, enforces orthodoxy, and imposes rigidly hierarchical thinking.

My family moved from India to Canada in 1975 when I was a small boy. Shortly after we settled in, representatives from the local mosque showed up at our home. They came to tell my father how to be a “good” Muslim, explaining exactly how he was to worship and conduct himself as a member of their community. After a few minutes, I watched in shock as my father unceremoniously showed these religious leaders the door. Once they were gone, he told us no one could dictate what we were supposed to believe — that this was a country where people were free to go their own way. That lesson stuck with me.

h/t DS

An unprecedented streak of pre-budget announcements focused on housing and youth may have dominated headlines, but they did little to move the needle for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, polling suggests.

Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have their highest-ever lead over the Liberals, with 37 per cent of survey respondents choosing the Tories, compared to 19 per cent who say they’ll vote for Trudeau’s Liberals. But it remains to be seen how last week’s budget will impact the horse-race, as Trudeau and his cabinet pitch their plan to Canadians.