Latest news with #TristinHopper
National Post
03-07-2025
- Business
- National Post
FIRST READING: Despite cash influx, military says it won't be functional until 2032
Article content First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post's own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Article content With the federal government announcing new plans to triple Canadian defence spending, the military itself is saying the organization is so overwhelmed and dysfunctional that they won't be able to meet even their current duties for at least another seven years. Article content This time last year, the Department of National Defence was estimating that by March 31, 2025, it would have 90 per cent of its forces 'ready for operations in accordance with established targets.' Article content Article content Now, a new internal report is estimating that they won't be able to meet this benchmark until the more 'realistic and achievable' date of 2032. Article content Part of the delay is due to the sudden influx of new defence spending, with the report stating that it will take time to manage the 'significant improvements' now being ordered by Ottawa. Article content But DND also details how it continues to be burdened by personnel shortages, degraded equipment and a chronic inability to obtain new kit. Article content 'There is a risk that DND/CAF will not have the right military personnel, in the right numbers, with the right competencies at the right place, and the right time,' reads a section outlining how the military may even fail to meet its new 2032 targets. Article content The shortages are most apparent when it comes to equipment. Right now, more than half of the military's aircraft, ships and army vehicles are effectively out of commission. Article content The Canadian Armed Forces maintains annual statistics on what percentage of its various vehicle fleets are considered adequate to meet 'training, readiness and operational requirements.' In the navy, air force and army, these figures are all at historic lows of 45.7 per cent, 48.9 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively. Article content Article content The new report estimates that it will be years until this can be turned around. In the air force and army, it won't be until 2032 that fleets will be 'at least 70 per cent' functional. In the Royal Canadian Navy, meanwhile, the 2032 target is set slightly lower 'at least 60 per cent.' Article content Although the navy is waiting on a 'future fleet' of new destroyers, the first vessels aren't scheduled to be completed until 'the early 2030.' In the meantime, the navy will largely remain dependent on a fleet of aging frigates that have been described as 'rapidly becoming combat ineffective.' Article content 'The degradation in materiel readiness of the aging platforms within the existing fleet will present a significant challenge to maintaining … operational readiness,' reads the report.
National Post
28-06-2025
- Automotive
- National Post
'What if we just forced people to buy stuff?': The imagined thoughts of the Canadian EV mandate
Article content The Carney government is under growing pressure to drop what is known as the 'EV mandate.' This is a policy first introduced in 2022 wherein Canadian auto manufacturers will be mandated to sell a minimum quantity of EVs each year until 2035, when the sale of new gas-powered cars will be banned entirely. Article content The singular problem with the mandate is that nobody wants to buy EVs. Even with Canada having the highest fuel prices in the hemisphere, sales of EVs have only ever peaked at about 20 per cent of new vehicle sales. And even that has been in freefall in recent months. Article content In Dear Diary, the National Post satirically re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes a journey inside the thoughts of the EV mandate. Article content Monday Article content One of the most pressing challenges of modern governance is how to compel ones' citizenry to meet a rote, inconsistent and often contradictory picture of ideal behaviour. We have identified the perfect Canadian life: The specific pattern of development milestones, core values and consumer choices that will yield a citizen best attuned to the interests of the collective. Article content The only problem is to how to take this average Canadian — a scared, superstitious and mostly obese bipedal primate — and mould them into the rational, inclusive, evidence-based form that we have decreed for them. Article content Because it is here where we are weakest. I need not remind you that China is nipping at our heels. If we are to stay competitive, I'm afraid that we risk too much by sticking to archaic models of 'letting people buy the vehicles they would like to buy.' Article content I admit the EV mandate may look draconian in isolation. If presented as a stark dichotomy of 'freedom' versus 'compulsion,' a sentimental public will naturally favour the former. Article content But if we start from the premise that the Canadian public must obviously be compelled to cease purchasing internal combustion engines within 10 years, then the only question is how to go about it. Article content My sober and reasonable offer is that private businesses be obliged to meet an objective, and the details are left to them … as would be expected of any free society. Article content Would a better solution be to incarcerate the owners of gas-powered cars? To mandate gasoline additives that prematurely wear the engines of ICE vehicles? To make highways more dangerous to facilitate higher attrition of the existing vehicle fleet? I think you'll agree that mine is the most humane and inobtrusive option. Article content Wednesday Article content In this line of work, one quickly grows weary of the bottomless mendacity of the auto sector. Their chief criticism of the EV mandate, to my read, is that it stands in defiance of 'consumer preferences.' They say the Canadian auto buyer does not want to purchase EVs at the 'arbitrary' rates we are setting, and thus the program is unworkable. Article content I find their lack of imagination insulting, if not traitorous. These are companies that routinely convince chartered accountants that their daily driver needs to be a Ford F-350. Or that a 700-horsepower sedan is an appropriate vehicle to pick up their kids from school. There are people out there driving Cybertrucks, Pontiac Azteks and Hummer H2s, all of them brainwashed by clever marketing into thinking that they made a smart decision. Article content Tell the public that the gas cars cause impotence. Shoot a couple commercials with Jason Statham. Offer the cars with a free Spotify subscription. It's not my fault you're not trying hard enough to sell EVs. Article content The public has an unfortunate habit of obsessing over the alleged downsides of green policy. This came up often in regards to carbon pricing. Joe and Sally Taxpayer would complain endlessly about the extra $10 or $20 at their fill-up, without a thought as to how their government had won the acclaim of closing plenary delegates at multiple U.N. climate change summits. Article content But these boors miss the opportunity inherent in the mandate. Remember when we made it unbelievably difficult to build houses, thus causing a housing shortage that caused the existing housing stock to perpetually skyrocket in value? In a world with no new gas-powered cars, your 2009 Jetta could become a luxury commodity sooner than you think. Article content The worst thing about all this current controversy is that when the policy is inevitably a smashing success, all of today's critics will pretend they supported it all along. But any cursory reading of history reveals that true progress comes only from government telling private firms the precise share of their sales that should be filled by a politically desirable consumer product. Article content Did the fisherman not swap out row boats for motor vessels because a government told him to? Did we not transition from VHS to DVDs based on the sage yet mandatory advice of a centralized bureaucracy? Forcing people to purchase things is the Canadian way. Article content
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
FIRST READING: B.C. politician pushes bill to force schools to say drugs are bad
First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post's own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. The B.C. Conservatives are calling for measures to keep 'radical drug lobbyists' out of schools after a school event that featured info cards on how to do drugs such as cocaine, meth and GHB. 'This isn't education. It is grooming kids into drug culture,' said B.C. Conservative MLA Steve Kooner in a Tuesday statement endorsing his private member's bill that, if passed, would compel schools to 'explicitly discourage drug use.' The event in question was a Pride festival sanctioned by the Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools District. After accompanying her 10-year-old to the event, Nanaimo, B.C. mother Ruth Taylor alerted local media to the presence of postcard-sized leaflets that local media described as 'drug use information cards.' A card labelled 'meth,' for instance, details the drug's euphoric effects, its reported ability to increase libido and even includes recommended dosages. 'A light dose is around 5-10 mg, a common dose is around 10-30 mg, and a strong dose is 30-40 mg,' it reads. A card for GHB, a common date-rape drug, reads that the substance can 'make the user feel more relaxed and more sociable.' It adds, 'G can also increase libido.' The cards were among the literature offered at a booth run by AIDS Vancouver Island, a harm reduction non-profit funded in part by government bodies such as Island Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Taylor told Chek News that she confronted AIDS Vancouver Island about the materials being inappropriate for schoolchildren, but that 'they were not receptive to what I was saying' and 'the cards stayed for the remainder of the event.' AIDS Vancouver Island didn't respond to a National Post query before press time. In a statement provided to Global News on Monday, the group said it was told the event was for older children and that they stood by 'the fundamental importance of youth receiving honest, factual and appropriate substance use and sexual health materials.' The Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District, in turn, said they took responsibility for 'the lack of oversight' regarding the cards, and said they would be keeping a closer eye on the materials handed out by 'external organizations' at events where students are in attendance. The cards were manufactured by DanceSafe, a California-based non-profit that specializes in providing drug-checking materials to raves, music festivals and other events likely to feature illicit drug use. The group produces 'drug info cards' for 14 distinct drugs, ranging from nicotine to mushrooms to the synthetic psychedelic 2C-B. The cards only cover 'party' drugs, so there's no card for heroin or fentanyl. DanceSafe stresses that its role is as a 'nonjudgmental first point of contact.' As such, the cards warn of the drugs' various side-effects, but they do not suggest that the drug might be best avoided. The cocaine card, for instance, suggests using the drug 'in moderation' in order to avoid developing a 'problematic relationship with it.' 'Cocaine is very short-acting, and the after-effects (the 'comedown') can be quite unpleasant,' it reads, warning that the comedown can prompt 'compulsive redosing.' Each card is also decorated with stylized imagery inspired by the drugs' effects. The meth card is adorned with lightning bolts, while the cocaine card has a 1970s aesthetic, complete with disco ball. Taylor referenced the cards' 'bright' and 'attractive' appearance in her comments to Chek News. Kooner called them 'colourful flashcards.' Kooner's Tuesday statement said the apology from the Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District was 'not enough,' and that 'we must stop sending mixed messages on drugs to children.' Earlier this year, Kooner tabled a private member's bill that would require 'mandatory anti‑drug messaging' in schools, that would include 'stigma against drug use as a deterrent.' The DanceSafe cards are far from the first time that a Canadian school event has run into controversy for making materials available to minor that either facilitated drug use or encouraged risky behaviour. Two years ago, a B.C. high school just north of Nanaimo came under fire after a drug awareness presentation concluded with the session leader distributing 'safer snorting' kits. The kit, manufactured by the publicly funded Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange, included plastic straws and cards to cut powdered drugs into lines that could then be snorted. 'Have condoms and lube with you. You may want to have sex while high,' read an accompanying booklet. That same year, a Canadian chapter of Planned Parenthood was barred from presenting in Saskatchewan schools after a sex education programmer distributed graphic cards describing fringe sex acts involving defecation and urine. With Canada still ostensibly planning to fix housing unaffordability by scattering the country with millions of government-built homes, a new Montreal Economic Institute report is urging Ottawa to take heed of a similar New Zealand program that failed miserably. KiwiBuild, much like the Carney government's proposed Build Canada Homes, set out to build 100,000 affordable homes within a decade. It only managed 2,389. And this is not the first time that New Zealand has provided Canada a tidy example of what not to do. Like the Liberal government is doing right now, New Zealand tried to combat gun crime by pursuing a massive gun 'buy back.' It went way over budget, and ended up coinciding with gun crime going up. Get all of these insights and more into your inbox by signing up for the First Reading newsletter.
National Post
24-06-2025
- Business
- National Post
FIRST READING: Just how far behind the world Canada has been allowed to lag on LNG
First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post's own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Article content TOP STORY Article content Article content Early on Sunday morning, word leaked out from the Pacific Coast port of Kitimat, B.C. that Canada had produced its first-ever liquid natural gas for export. Article content Unnamed sources told Reuters that at 4 a.m. local time, the $40-billion LNG Canada terminal was first able to turn Canadian natural gas into a super-chilled liquid destined for Asian buyers. It's set to be loaded into the LNG tanker Gaslog Glasgow, a ship that as of press time was just entering Canadian territorial waters. Article content Article content Although the milestone is being feted as the beginning of a new multi-billion-dollar Canadian resource sector, it also neatly illustrates how far behind Canada has been allowed to lag in an industry where it could feasibly have been a dominant power. Article content Article content In all the world's other major producers of natural gas, this moment came years if not decades ago. The United States exported its first LNG in 2016, Qatar dispatched its first LNG vessels in 1997 and Australia was pioneering LNG export technology as early as 1989. Article content All three are now raking in hundreds of billions in annual LNG money that could have been Canada's if it been able to reach the starting line earlier than Sunday morning. Article content In Australia, the LNG export sector is now bringing in the Canadian equivalent of $220 million per day. According to the most recent figures from Australian Energy Producers, annual LNG export earnings were now worth $81.5 billion CDN. Article content This kind of money added to the Canadian economy would represent a three per cent rise in overall GDP. Put another way, it would be akin to adding a Manitoba's worth of extra GDP to the economy (Manitoba's GDP was $91.9 billion in 2023). Article content Article content In the nine years since the United States' first LNG export, the country has turned into the world's largest single exporter of the fuel. Article content Article content The United States now has eight dedicated LNG export terminals, the most recent having opened in December. Article content That same month, a report by S&P Global estimated that LNG exports had added a cumulative $400 billion ($550 billion CDN) to the U.S. economy. Article content Canada could have feasibly been an early contender in the LNG trade for the simple reason that — just like the U.S., Qatar and Australia — the country has lots of natural gas as well as the technology to produce it.
National Post
20-06-2025
- Business
- National Post
FIRST READING: How Canada's dairy cartel keeps fumbling our foreign trade negotiations
First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post's own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Article content TOP STORY Article content Article content As Canada is actively trying to expand its trade with the non-U.S. world, Parliament has just entrenched the one thing that has scuppered more trade negotiations than anything else. Article content This week, the first bill passed by the 45th Parliament ended up being a Bloc Québécois-championed proposal to shield the Canadian supply management system from any foreign trade negotiations. Article content Article content Bill C-202, which passed the Senate on Wednesday, bars the Department of Foreign Affairs from negotiating any trade deal that liberalizes foreign access to Canada's heavily tariffed dairy and egg sector. Article content Article content Although the bill has been framed as a boon to the country's 9,000 dairy farms, everyone from trade analysts to other Canadian farmers have warned that it comes at the cost of kneecapping Canada's ability to grow its global trade links. Article content The Grain Growers of Canada trashed the bill, saying it scares away trade partners at the precise moment that Canada needs to find more of them. 'For grain farmers who rely on access to international markets, the result will be less ambitious trade agreements, fewer export opportunities, and slower economic growth at home,' said Kyle Larkin, the group's executive director, in a Wednesday statement. Article content The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA) similarly framed C-202 as throwing a wrench into Canada's 'accelerated trade diversification agenda.' Article content 'At a time when Canada must be demonstrating leadership and consistency in defending predictable, rules-based trade, this bill sends the wrong message,' CAFTA said, in a press release. Article content Supply management has directly led to the collapse of at least one major Canadian trade deal, and has held up negotiations on several others. Article content In January 2024, the U.K. walked away from negotiations for a bilateral trade deal with Canada over Ottawa's refusal to compromise on supply management and accept increased imports of British cheese. Article content During 2015 negotiations for the since-cancelled Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada's refusal to allow free trade access to its dairy sector wound up becoming one of the deal's most conspicuous snags. Article content As U.S. negotiator Darci Vetter said at the time, Canada was trying to close a 'market access' deal that 'doesn't include market access.' Article content A 2016 trade agreement struck with the European Union was secured only after Canada agreed to liberalized European access to the Canadian dairy market — but at the cost of billions in compensation paid to dairy farmers.
