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National Post
42 minutes ago
- National Post
Letters: Decoding Mark Carney. Wink wink, nudge nudge
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Readers comment on the PM's penchant for winking, the demise of the Digital Services Tax, milking the government for support, and more in the letters to the editor Mark Carney winks during a press conference in Ottawa in a file photo from Jan. 23, 2013. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events. Unlimited online access to National Post. National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE ARTICLES Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events. Unlimited online access to National Post. National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Justin Trudeau was a master at not answering even the most direct of questions. Mark Carney, on the other hand, appears to answer questions put to him, but always with subtle qualifications that border on disingenuity. For instance, Carney says he will make Canada an energy super power but without committing to building the pipelines or lifting emission caps that have frustrated this ambition for the past 10 years. Now, Canadians have to decode the meaning behind the prime minister's apparent fondness for winking, rather than saying what he really means, believes or thinks. Monty Python's 'Candid Photography' sketch (perhaps better known as the 'Nudge Nudge' sketch) only too well demonstrates the miscommunication that happens when gestures and innuendo replace saying what you really mean. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean? This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays) By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again Paul Clarry, Aurora, Ont. So the prime minister is a winker. This unfortunate habit has been on display frequently, according to reporter Joseph Brean. But this is not the only ocular problem Mark Carney has. There is of course the myopic capitulation he immediately reverts to if any policy offends Donald Trump. The tough guy 'tariff-matching-tariff' position meekly dissolves to secretly removing most of these tariffs. Our winking wonder was elected on the basis that he would stand up for Canada against Trump. There is precious little evidence of this. Marty Burke, Guelph, Ont. So much for 'elbows up.' Faced with pushback from President Donald Trump on the Digital Services Tax, Prime Minister Mark Carney folded like a cheap beach chair. Next on Trump's agenda will be getting Carney to remove preferential treatment to the dairy industry, which is especially beneficial to that industry in Quebec. Canada's protective supply management system always proves a stumbling block in any trade negotiations with America. Having Carney, a former banker, dealing with Trump, who perfected 'The Art of the Deal,' definitely puts Canada at a serious disadvantage in any trade negotiations. To think that Carney portrayed himself as the best person to negotiate with Trump during the election campaign. Trump is now in complete control, extracting whatever he wants from the prime minister, whose elbows are definitely down now. It would seem to me that the U.S. is being hypocritical in its complaints about Canada's supply management of dairy products. This advertisement has not loaded yet. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Canada does interfere with a full free market in dairy by limiting supply in order to support a healthy indigenous food supply chain. However the U.S. government uses other means to support its dairy industry. It sets minimum prices, it insures farmers from rising feed prices, and it buys surplus dairy products and gives them to institutions or warehouses them. This contributes to oversupply and what is in essence income supports for farmers. American farmers therefore have surplus production with which they want to flood the Canadian market. Is it not hypocritical for the U.S. to claim it must keep out certain imports to protect essential industries but not to recognize its trading partner's reciprocal rights? Isn't having domestic production of food the most essential of industries? Morris Sosnovitch, Toronto It is well-known that Prime Minister Carney has a remarkable resumé of career achievement, but one wonders if he has ever had a negotiating experience like the one he is currently facing with President Donald Trump. Giving in on the Digital Services Tax so that negotiations may proceed is like handing over your gambling chips to the casino without even getting a chance to put them on the roulette wheel. One wonders, then, why Tasha Kheiriddin suggests a further concession on supply management is inevitable and even desirable. One can only hope that nothing will be given up until every last cow has been milked. Sometimes the best negotiating tactic is not to negotiate at all. Patrick McKitrick, Burnaby, B.C. I am a retired member of the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) and read Emma Jarratt and Robert Cribb's article with great interest. In my day (I was called to the bar in 1986), lawyers in Ontario were trained by the LSO (then the Law Society of Upper Canada) to the highest ethical standards — i.e. full, true and open disclosure. To learn that the LSO no longer applies that standard to itself, vis-à-vis inquiries by the public of its own members, is totally appalling. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves.' Beverley A. Batten Simpson, Aurora, Ont. Jamie Sarkonak argues that Canadians are right to embrace a melting-pot immigration model because we're losing a shared sense of what it means to be Canadian. It's an understandable impulse — we all feel safer among the familiar. But that kind of thinking applies a double standard. Most people want to stay true to themselves — yet the melting pot metaphor implies others should give that up and conform. That's a contradiction: I get to be me, but you have to be more like me? That's not unity — it's the erasure of the identity of the other. Actually this tension between individual rights and collective identity has shaped Canada since Confederation. Quebec prioritizes collective values; the rest of Canada leans toward individual rights in the British tradition. That clash plays out in debates over private versus public — health care, education and religious freedom. And over safe injection sites, hate speech, MAID, and more. Canada thrives not when we all blend into sameness, but when we make space for difference. A shared identity doesn't mean uniformity — it means embracing diversity without demanding assimilation. Unity through individuality is what makes us strong. Desiring conformity is a tempting illusion — but realizing it undermines the very public good it claims to protect. Individuality is not the enemy of community; it's its foundation. Beware what you wish for. You might get it — and lose yourself. Being true to yourself is the best thing you can do for Canada. If Canadian gas exports do 'supplant other sources of gas from Russia, Eurasia and the Middle East' that would be an ethical win, even if it isn't an emissions win. When purchasers buy from Canada instead of Russia, they get the added benefit of not funding the invasion of Ukraine. The BBC recently reported that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it has made three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid from its allies. Scott Newson, Nanaimo, B.C. It's true, I guess, Canadians got a tax break thanks to Mark Carney fulfilling an election promise, but it doesn't really feel like Ottawa is giving Canadians much of anything. It reminds me of the feeble GST holiday the Liberals gave us last Christmas. While any break is appreciated, Carney's largesse was actually predated by the tax break Donald Trump provided Canadians several days earlier. At the president's insistence and with no hint of disappointment, or winks, Carney axed another Trudeau misnomer by dicing the digital sales tax. To be fair, Ottawa had no choice but to sacrifice the tax if it had any hope of rejuvenating trade talks with the U.S. Now, if Donald Trump could only use his strong-arm tactics as the impetus to start dismantling Canada's supply management cartels. If successful, he will have done more to reduce Canadian taxes since being elected six months ago than two Liberal governments have done since 2015. Paul Baumberg, Dead Man's Flats, Alta. Re: New Ranger rifles bleed red dye in the rain — David Pugliese, July 3 (print) Defence officials say it will be up to taxpayers to cover the cost of replacing the stocks on the 6,800 new rifles for the Canadian Rangers, which are dripping red dye in the rain. It's estimated that could cost as much as $10 million. A coat of varnish would likely be cheaper. Charles Hooker, East Garafraxa, Ont. With the collapse of the postwar global order, Canada scrambles to redefine itself on the world stage. Mostly this is about trade and military buildup. But there's a critical factor that's been absent from news cycles, and that's our role to fill the chasm left by the abandonment of the U.S. in the arena of global development. Too often foreign assistance is met with platitudes about spending the money here, and our needs come first. But this simplistic notion is blind to the fact, as we've seen all too clearly in the past few years, that Canada doesn't exist in a self-sufficient vacuum. What happens around the world has a direct impact on our economy and indeed our very health. Helping the development of emerging countries into robust trading parters, with stable democratic leadership and the capacity to fight emerging diseases, is to our own benefit. The alternative is to push these states into the arms of hostile regimes. Along with a greater military presence in the world, it's critical that Canada also adopts a greater humanitarian stance through foreign assistance. Nathaniel Poole, Victoria, B.C. I was a young woman on the streets of Tehran on Sept. 8, 1978 — the day of the Jaleh Square massacre, known in Iran as 'Black Friday.' Thousands of peaceful demonstrators, many of them students, had gathered to protest the Shah's brutal rule, not knowing that martial law had been declared the day before. They were chanting for freedom, demanding the end of a dictatorship. I was on my way to join them. Before I could reach the square, a close friend of mine stopped me. He had just witnessed the carnage. 'They're killing everyone,' he said, his voice shaking. 'Bodies are piled up. There's blood everywhere.' The military had opened fire on unarmed civilians. As many as 100 were slaughtered that day, and more than 200 injured. I was devastated — not just by the scale of the bloodshed, but by the cold command with which it was carried out. That moment was a turning point for millions of Iranians. It was part of what led to the fall of the Shah's dictatorship. We rose up and succeeded in removing a tyrant. Yet now, Reza Pahlavi — the son of that same dictator — appears determined to betray the aspirations of the very people who ended his father's reign. By refusing to denounce his father's crimes and positioning himself as a leader-in-waiting, Reza Pahlavi is not merely out of step with Iran's democratic aspirations, he is actively working to undercut them, promoting another version of authoritarianism — dressed up in royalist nostalgia. There is a clear alternative. Millions of Iranians support the vision of a secular, democratic, non-nuclear republic as laid out in the Ten-Point Plan proposed by Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It calls for gender equality, religious freedom, the abolition of the death penalty, and a future without dictatorship — whether monarchical or theocratic. We must stand unequivocally with the Iranian people — not with those who would resurrect past tyrannies. Sara Fallah, International Coalition of Women against Fundamentalism, Toronto National Post and Financial Post welcome letters to the editor (250 words or fewer). Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. Email letters@ Letters may be edited for length or clarity.
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
What's new vehicle protection insurance and do I need it for five years if I have a two-year lease?
Our car insurance is getting more expensive and we are looking to cut costs. We have a two-year lease on a car but see in our policy that we are paying for new vehicle protection for five years. What does that mean and is that necessary with such a short lease? Could we opt out or choose a shorter timeline? – Jessica, Toronto Depreciation protection from your insurance company can keep you from owing money if your leased car is written off in a crash – but check that your lease doesn't already include coverage, an expert said. 'Lease agreements normally [already] come with gap insurance, which protects the purchaser in the event of a serious collision when the vehicle is written off by the insurance company,' said Shari Prymak, a senior consultant with Car Help Canada, a Toronto-based not-for-profit that helps drivers find cars and negotiate purchase agreements. 'If the value of the vehicle happens to be lower than the balance of the lease, then the gap insurance is there to make up the difference, so the vehicle owner is not on the hook for it.' At the risk of over-simplifying, you can buy gap insurance from the manufacturer or dealer, and you buy depreciation protection, also known as new vehicle protection – in Ontario, it's called OPCF 43, but there are versions in all provinces – from your insurance company. They both are designed to protect you from depreciation if your car is totalled in a crash or stolen. Without them, your insurance company will pay out what your car is worth at the time of the crash or theft – and typically, that's a lot less than what you paid for it originally, Prymak said. So, if you lease or have a car loan, for instance, that means you could owe the finance company the difference. But gap insurance and depreciation protection guarantee that the payoff will be the amount you paid for your vehicle. 'So, [for a financed vehicle, for example] if the vehicle's market value is now $25,000, but the owner still owes $30,000 on the loan, it's on them to pay off the lien to make up that difference if they don't have gap coverage,' he said. Mind the gap? Typically, gap insurance costs around $1,000 and you must buy it when the car is new, Prymak said. 'I've seen dealers charge up to $3,000,' he said, adding that financed vehicles don't automatically come with gap insurance, although you can choose to buy it. 'I don't know if it's a requirement of leases to have gap, but I don't believe I've seen a lease agreement that doesn't have it. It's just common practice.' We asked a few car companies about whether they include gap insurance in their leases and what it covers. We didn't get immediate answers. Depreciation protection through an insurance company is an endorsement you add on to your insurance policy when you buy or lease a brand new vehicle or a demo with less than 5,000 kilometres on it. Like gap insurance, you can't add it later. It's available for between two and five years and typically costs roughly $100 a year, or often less, said Traci Boland, a London, Ont.-based insurance broker and chair of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada. 'Everybody who buys or leases a new vehicle should have OPCF 43,' she said. 'I have it for five years on my Jeep Wrangler and I'm in year three. If my vehicle is stolen, I get the bill of sale price for it.' Generally, the length of the coverage depends on your insurance company – some companies only offer two-year OPCF 43 coverage, for instance, and others only offer five-year coverage. So, to change from five-year coverage to two-year coverage, for instance, you may have to change insurance companies. The annual cost for OPCF 43 would probably still be similar, she said. While you can cancel OPCF 43 entirely to save a little money, Boland and other brokers we spoke to don't recommend it. Instead, they suggest doing the math to see how much you're saving by skipping it. 'On a brand new vehicle, it's $100 a year,' said Debbie Arnold, a Toronto-based insurance broker. 'I would make a client sign in blood if they don't want to take [OPCF 43] because when there's a claim settlement, the client is not going to be happy if they don't get at least the bill of sale value.' It's important to understand that OPCF 43 doesn't pay you the cost to replace your vehicle with a brand new one – it just gives you the amount on the original bill of sale, Arnold said. But at least one company sells replacement cost coverage, separate from OPCF 43, that will give you the price of a brand new car. 'So if you purchase a 2024 [Hyundai] Tucson and you paid $50,000 for it in 2024,' Arnold said, 'if you have replacement cost coverage, then when there's a total loss in 2026, it's putting you into a 2026 vehicle [which might cost significantly more].' While Prymak said you shouldn't need OPCF 43 if your lease includes gap coverage, Boland recommends checking the wording of the dealer's gap insurance policy carefully. But there are also benefits to having both gap insurance and OPCF 43. For instance, if you decide to buy your car at the end of your two-year lease but have OPCF 43 for five years, you would still be covered against depreciation for three more years, the Insurance Bureau of Canada said in an e-mail. Crash course? If your lease includes gap insurance or if you have OPCF 43, you walk away from the lease if your car is totalled or stolen, Prymak said. 'So if the vehicle is written off, the insurance company will pay out the lease. That'll be between your insurance company and the financial company that's carrying the lease,' he said. 'Then you're essentially back to square one, and you have to purchase or lease a new vehicle.' But if you made a down payment at the start of the lease so your monthly payments would be lower, you'll lose it. 'The insurance company is not responsible for compensating you on that down payment. They're just responsible for paying off your lease,' he said. 'So it's not a good idea to make a large down payment on a lease. It doesn't benefit you financially in any way.' A better idea? Many car companies let you put down a security deposit in exchange for a lower interest rate, he said. 'So you get lower payments and then that security deposit is returned to you at the end of the lease when you bring back the vehicle,' he said. Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@ and put 'Driving Concerns' in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada's a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Colchester selects design for pedestrian bridge at Fundy Discovery Site
A historic route across the Salmon River in Colchester County is being restored with the addition of a multi-million dollar pedestrian bridge at the Fundy Discovery Site, which is part of the Cliffs of Fundy UNESCO Global Geopark. A decade ago, the Municipality of Colchester acquired the former motel property in Lower Truro. Since then, amenities such as a playground and an amphitheatre have been built. A tidal bore viewing platform is also under construction this summer. Colchester Mayor Christine Blair said there have long been plans for a bridge across the river, but two previous tenders were over the $11-million budget. The suspension bridge design yielded price tags between $17.5 million and $27 million. To lower costs, the municipality instead pursued a design-build tender and received federal approval for pier installation in the river. On June 25, council voted seven to five to pursue a $7.9-million, three-pier, wooden bridge with a curved design. The municipality will be responsible for just over a quarter of project costs with funding for the remainder secured from the federal government. "I've had people stopping me in the grocery store ... saying what a great looking bridge this will be," Blair said in an interview. "Now it'll probably take a couple of years to get it in, but you know, it's going to be there and I think it will be great for the walkers and the bikers and so on." The submission by builder WRD & TRS estimates construction will be completed as early as January 2027. When it opens, it will reinstate pedestrian crossing at the location. According to a staff report, a bridge was established in the 1850s linking Onslow to Lower Truro. The crossing was removed after the construction of Highway 102 in 1970. Even after years of consideration, not all taxpayers agree with the plan to spend millions on a pedestrian bridge. "There's people on both sides of the fence or both sides of the bridge," Coun. Laurie Sandeson, who represents Lower Truro where the Fundy Discovery Site is located, said ahead of the council decision. "And some really want it and some know that we need our roads fixed. We need housing to be a priority." Blair said the pedestrian bridge, which will be closed to motorized vehicles, will advance active transportation in the municipality by connecting Onslow to the Cobequid Trail. She said the infrastructure in view of Highway 102 will also be a valuable tourist attraction. "It's very important for our Cliffs of Fundy UNESCO Global Geopark, for tourism, for economic development," she said. WATCH | Atlantic Canada sites could lose status as UNESCO Geoparks: 2 Canadian geoparks could lose UNESCO designation 1 month ago Duration 2:13 Two of five places in Canada deemed UNESCO Global Geoparks are at risk of losing the prestigious designation if steps aren't taken to improve the sites with better signage and overall infrastructure. The bridge plans come as the UNESCO Global Geopark evaluators are expected to assess the Cliffs of Fundy sites this month. The geopark, which stretches along the coast in Cumberland and Colchester counties, was first designated in 2020, but received a yellow rating in its most recent evaluation. In response to recommendations, both county governments have committed to annual funding for the geopark through to 2028. A new website was launched last fall, promotional material was created and trilingual interpretive panels are being installed in preparation for the evaluation. "We're hoping that the improvements that we have made will be nice for them to see and to recognize that we have taken the recommendations seriously and have followed through," said Blair.
