Finally, A Modicum Of Integrity

The images of the carnage in Gaza are hard to look at. Innocent men, women and children maimed and dead are scenes only the deeply depraved could welcome. And the destruction continues apace, with The Guardian reporting this morning that 14,000 babies could die in the next 24 hours of starvation.

In the midst of this darkness has come a small ray of light. Canada, the UK and France are saying enough is enough. The three countries

threatened action against Israel if it does not stop a renewed military offensive in Gaza and lift aid restrictions, piling further pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli military announced the start of a new operation on Friday, and Mr. Netanyahu said earlier on Monday that Israel would take control of the whole of Gaza. International experts have already warned of looming famine.

“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law,” said a joint statement released by Prime Minister Mark Carney, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank,” the statement said, adding later: “We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”

They have every reason to act. 

Earlier that day, Israel’s military declared an entire city a combat zone, airstrikes killed more than 60 people, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said Israel’s army would “wipe out” what remains of Palestinian Gaza.

Has there ever been a more bald statement of genocidal intent? 

Bowing a little to international pressure, Netanyahu is allowing a trickle of aid:

.... the UN said nine trucks of aid had been cleared to enter. This is less than 2% of daily shipments before the war, when Palestinians in Gaza were well fed and the strip had its own agricultural sector, and will make no meaningful difference to the crisis now gripping most of its 2.3 million population.

Even that miniscule amount was too much for some. 

Netanyahu’s decision to allow even a trickle of food in to Gaza had been attacked by far-right critics including members of his own cabinet. On Monday he shared a video on social media explaining his hand had been forced by close allies.

Back here at home, 

Fen Hampson, chancellor‘s professor and professor of international affairs at Carleton University, said Monday’s trilateral statement still represents a “shot across the bow” of Israel from three nations driven by profound humanitarian concern for those in Gaza. It also underscores Mr. Carney’s desire to rebuild transatlantic ties in a meaningful way at a time when Canada is facing challenges from its closest ally, the U.S.

Whether any of this will make a difference, given that Israel seems only concerned about U.S. support, remains to be seen. The trilateral statement, however, is a welcome voice of sanity and morality puncturing what has been, up to now, the West's deafening silence amidst the genocidal war Israel has been waging since October 7, 2023.

 

 

A Brave Young Man

I sometimes wonder, had social media existed in its present form when I was teaching, would I have posted as I do today? Would I have been willing to risk my career in order to address issues of importance and controversy? While it's true I used to be a prolific letter-to-the-editor devotee and had many articles published, receiving the imprimatur of a newspaper, with its specific guidelines and restrictions, is far different from publishing one's thoughts in a blog or any other social media forum.

Would you jeopardize your career and your future to stay true to your principles? One young man, Logan Rozos, has made that brave, principled and dangerous choice. Please watch the following video of his valedictory address at his NYU graduation ceremony. Listen carefully to his words. I will discuss the immediate consequences afterward.

We live in a time when any criticism of Israel is conflated with raging anti-semitism. We live in an age when groupthink demands that the carnage, the eradication of innocent Palestinian lives, be interpreted simply as acts of self-defence. However, to deviate from the official narrative, to address the monstrously malignant actions of Israel today, can only be seen by fair-minded people as a singular act of courage.

But there are consequences for rectitude. The backlash from the university was almost immediate.

New York University said it is withholding the diploma of a student who used his commencement speech to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza and what he referred to as the United States’ “complicity in this genocide.”

 Pro-Israeli groups demanded that NYU take action after footage of the speech was shared online. The university issued an apology the same day and announced it would withhold the student’s diploma while it pursues disciplinary action against him.

NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a Wednesday statement that the student “lied about the speech he was going to deliver” and misused his role “to express his personal and one-sided political views.”

“NYU is deeply sorry that the audience was subjected to these remarks and that this moment was stolen by someone who abused a privilege that was conferred upon him,” Beckman said. 

Perhaps that craven response is to be expected. After all, universities are under assault from the Trump regime, and many seem willing to abandon their traditional positions as bastions of free thought and expression.

When it comes to facts that portray the truth about Israel's genocide in Gaza, it would seem that American First Amendment rights protecting free speech are quickly jettisoned.

The New York and New Jersey branch of the Anti Defamation League wrote on X that it was “appalled” by the speech, adding: “We are thankful to the NYU administration for their strong condemnation and their pursuit of disciplinary action.”

Another group, #EndJewHatred, suggested the speech would violate the university’s student-conduct guidelines, which were updated last year in response to a lawsuit over three Jewish students’ allegations of antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Criticism now must be very qualified and limited.

In April, the former head of medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) alleged that there was a “climate of fear” among major universities after NYU canceled a lecture she was due to give. Officials at the NYU’s medical center told her references to the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid in her planned presentation could be seen as “anti-government” and “antisemitic,” she said.

I don't want to end this post leaving you with the impression that Rozos has no support.

In a statement Thursday, Afaf Nasher, the executive director of the New York branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations praised the student “for using this opportunity to demand an end to the bloodshed in Gaza” and demanded NYU end its disciplinary process against him.

In closing, there is a line from King Lear that I have been thinking a lot about in recent weeks.  Albany rebukes his wicked wife Goneril for her terrible mistreatment of her father, the king:

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile. 

That's all I have to say.

The Fallout Continues

I admit to taking a certain pleasure in reporting bad news about the U.S. That it is being sanctioned by Canadians for its abysmal treatment of such a reliable trading partner seems only right and just.

Although it is not just Canada boycotting travel to the U.S., we are a sizable source of their tourism woes.

International visitor spending in the U.S. is expected to drop by $12.5 billion (U.S.), falling to $169 billion by the end of 2025, down from $181 billion last year, according to new data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). This marks a 7-per-cent decline from 2024 and a 22 per cent drop compared to the last peak of American tourism in 2019.

The U.S., home to the world’s largest travel and tourism sector, is the only country among 184 economies analyzed by WTTC and Oxford Economics that is projected to see a decline in international visitor spending this year.

The U.S., in my view, has been a dangerous place to visit for many years, its love of guns and violence and a deeply rooted suspicion of "the other" overshadowing its many attractions. The realization of that danger has become more pronounced since Don Trump began his second term as president.

 ... hundreds of thousands of Canadians are deciding not to vacation or take day trips to the U.S. Incidents like the detention of European tourists at U.S. borders and a new policy requiring foreign nationals staying over 30 days to register have further discouraged international travel to America.

”(The decline) is not related to the economy in general,” said Frédéric Dimanche, director of Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. “It’s really more a question of attitudes towards the U.S. and Trump, whether (travellers) are against the policies, against the politics, whether they’re concerned about the security issues when crossing the border.” 

It would seem that this decline will take a long time, if ever, to reverse.

The WTTC  [World Travel and Tourism Council] forecasts it will take until at least 2030 for the U.S. tourism industry, worth nearly $2.6 trillion, to recover to pre-COVID levels.

Dimanche said consumer perceptions of the Trump administration won’t change over time, and it will take years for the tourism industry to rebuild tourist confidence.

Being a relatively safe country, one hopes that Canada will position itself to be an attractive travel alternative. There is much to be said for a holidaying in a locale where every second thought isn't for the personal safety of oneself and one's family.

 

A Demonic Presence

Although I don't believe in him, there are times when I think the devil is alive and well,  wielding his chicanery from the White House. While I realize such hyperbolic assertions are probably unworthy of this blog, consider the 'evidence'.

The devil is traditionally depicted as the sower of discord. Disunity, division, suspicion, hatred and chaos are his main calling cards, withs goodness equated with weakness. As Shakespeare said, "...goodness to the vile seem[s] vile". There are countless examples to demonstrate this dominant ethos in Donald Trump's Amerika, but the following encapsulates it nicely:

At the end of the report, Andrea Mitchell speculates that Elon Musk might have influenced the decision to 'rescue' these Afrikaners. Given that Trump is shunning all other such attempts at assuaging the suffering of others (mainly non-whites, by the way), I think the explanation is simpler: he is appealing to his racist base and sending the powerful, malignant message that people of colour have little value. Again, what better way is there to sow discord than that?

How are churches feeling about the Afrikaners? Well, Episcopalians want no part of them.

The Episcopal Church has severed a four-decade-old relationship with the federal government, citing its moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa the Trump administration had declared refugees.

The hearty ‘nee’ (‘no’ in Afrikaans) from the religious denomination marks an extraordinary act of protest. The Episcopal Church long had participated in resettling refugees fleeing persecution and war in their home countries, Religion News Service reported. 

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Sean More, said this:

Rowe told his fellow believers that it had been “painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years.”

“I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country,” he continued. 

And, of course, as the NBC report makes clear, Trump is bringing down the hammer on most other groups.

The order comes even as the White House has executed sweeping actions to remove undocumented immigrants from the global south, sometimes scooping up permanent U.S. citizens in its net.

Fair-minded people worldwide are not fooled by Trump and his divisive, diabolical tactics. The Evil One (if I may be permitted a bit of literary licence), however, must be laughing with delight.

UPDATE: I came across a paragraph in an article by Bruce Arthur about the reinstatement of the late Pete Rose to the MLB, thereby rescinding a 'permanent' ban and making him eligible to be considered for Hall of Fame induction. The following, I think, captures the morally tortured tenor of the times:

This is a time of vice and wickedness, however, and a time of freedom from consequences for bad behaviour. It’s also a time of compliance, for some. The American government is making flying more dangerous, education more stupid, health more precarious, scams more rewarding and corruption more common. [MLB commissioner Rob]Manfred, notably, met with U.S. President Donald Trump on April 17. After Rose’s death, Trump brayed that Rose should get a complete pardon. Trump’s brain is stuck in the 1980s in many respects, but he also is attracted to anti-virtue like a fly to feces. 

Keeping Up The Pressure

Despite their president's avowals that Canada has nothing the U.S. needs,  many Americans are discovering (much to their shock, I'm sure) otherwise. As I have written before, Trump's threats to our sovereignty, his open contempt for our country, his extortionate, Mafia-like tariffs have all stiffened Canadians' resolve to assert their national pride and show their anger toward the U.S.

In addition to widespread boycotts of American products, perhaps the most obvious and stinging rebuke is Canadians' ongoing refusal to travel to that country.

Travel by Canadians coming back from trips to the U.S. dropped sharply in April, according to preliminary data from Statistics Canada.

Return trips by Canadians coming back from the U.S. by air dropped by 19.9 per cent, and return via land borders dropped by a whopping 35.2 per cent compared to April of last year.

Canadian return trips by air from the U.S. in March were down 13.5 per cent compared to March 2024, and return trips by car for that month were down 31.9 per cent.

That decline has led to airlines making big schedule changes.

WestJet is pausing nine routes between the U.S. and Canada as demand dampens for travel between the two countries.

A spokesperson for the airline confirmed the following suspensions in an email to CBC News:

• Vancouver-Austin (May through October)
• Calgary-Fort Lauderdale; Edmonton-Chicago; St. John's-Orlando; and Winnipeg-Orlando (June)
• Kelowna-Seattle-Tacoma; and Winnipeg-Los Angeles (June through August)
• Edmonton-Atlanta; and Winnipeg-Las Vegas (July through August)

Westjet is not the only airline making adjustments. 

Toronto-based Porter Airlines ...  told CTVNews.ca that 80 per cent of total network capacity during the summer peak period is now dedicated to domestic flights. The figure is up from a previously planned 75 per cent.

Westjet is also scheduling more domestic flights, as we opt to patronize our own country. 

Air Canada is a bit more circumspect in discussing its changes.

When asked whether it was changing its routes or flights, Air Canada told CTVNews.ca in an email Friday that it is “adjusting capacity” to U.S. sun destinations, using smaller aircraft and reducing routes in response to the changing market demand.

“We continue to monitor demand and will make adjustments accordingly,” wrote the country’s biggest air carrier. It also said it adjusted its non-stop Vancouver-Washington Dulles flights to connect in Toronto.

It said it has experienced “some softening in the transborder market,” with bookings on the cross-border market overall down about 10 per cent from April to September.

The Montreal-based airline reduced capacity for routes to U.S. leisure destinations such as Florida, Las Vegas and Arizona, Bloomberg reported March 28.

Our product and travel boycotts, by all reports, are having tangible effects. We should take satisfaction in inflicting economic pain on the giant to the south.  The bully may be much bigger than us, but our solid, principled ways of standing up to it should gladden the patriotic hearts of all Canadians.

 

  

 

 

 

A Chill Comes To The Neigbourhood

That chill would be the one brought by ICE agents, who descended upon a Worcester Massachusetts neighbourhood to arrest an 'undesirable'.

Police say two people were arrested when a crowd of people tried to interfere with an ICE operation in Worcester on Thursday. The incident has generated a lot of anger in the city.

Crowds swarmed around federal agents on Eureka Street as they took a woman into custody. 

A witness describes what she saw. "The mom as she was being detained too, she was screaming, I don't know if she was being hurt as she was handcuffed, but she was truly screaming," Dali RaRocha said. "Those are the screams I have truly engrained in my ears right now." 

The scene was captured on video: 

Scenes like this are becoming commonplace in Amerika, and no one seems to be immune, as New Jersey's mayor found out recently, arrested for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility:

Newark, New Jersey mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Elizabeth on Friday as the mayor and members of Congress joined demonstrations demanding answers from Donald Trump’s administration about the conditions inside, marking a major escalation of immigration protests surrounding the facility.

Videos from outside the facility shows a chaotic scene with masked federal officers pushing against a crowd in the detention center’s parking lot as Baraka is shoved towards the building and then placed in handcuffs.

New Jersey’s interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba — Trump’s personal attorney — accused the mayor of trespassing and ignoring warnings from federal law enforcement agents to leave.

Alina Habba,  a former Trump attorney and devout loyalist who is doing very well for herself (currently the interim State Attorney for New Jersey), issued a statement dripping with both irony and hypocrisy. She sanctimoniously intoned,

“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW”

Except her boss, of course. I'll leave it at that, as words often fail me when I try to describe the rapid and seemingly irrevocable devolution of the 'United' States into fear, suspicion, and anarchy. 

 

They Just Don't Get It

Maybe it's because they are the 'greatest' nation on earth, if not in the entire history of the world (he said sardonically). Perhaps  they are eternal optimists, or, more possibly, incredibly stupid (my pick). Whatever the explanation, the citizens of the United States of Amerika do not understand why the number of tourists visiting their country is plummeting.

Canadian travel to the U.S. has cratered after Trump took office. In March, trips made from Canada into the U.S. plummeted by nearly a million compared to the same time last year, comprising the second consecutive month of year-over-year decreases.

The real reason for that decline will be discussed a bit later, but the Americans are doing everything they can to reverse what for them is a disastrous economic trend. Despite Trump's recent and repeated declarations that the U.S. doesn't need anything from Canada, there are many who know otherwise.

For example, New York Congresswoman Elise Stephaniuk thinks that maybe Canadians are put off by the fact that they can't stay longer while visiting her land of milk and honey. She has a remedy, having introduced

the Canadian Snowbird Visa Act, a bipartisan bill to extend the duration Canadian citizens who own or lease a residence in the United States may stay—from 182 days to 240 days annually.

“Our neighbors to the north provide more visits to the United States than any other country, and they are critically important to North Country tourism and industry,” said Congresswoman Stefanik. “Providing Canadians who own homes and property in the United States with extra time to visit and boost our economy will help revive Canadian tourism to the United States.”

Under current U.S. immigration law, Canadian citizens can only stay in the United States for up to 182 days per year without a visa. The Canadian Snowbird Visa Act would allow eligible Canadians—aged 50 and over who either own or lease a U.S. residence—to extend their stay to up to 240 days annually.

Perhaps a little more grounded in reality is California Governor Gavin Newsom's appeal to Canadians: 

Speaking of California, Palm Springs is trying to entice Canadiana back:

Earlier this month, the city of Palm Springs, Calif., put up dozens of red banners that feature a heart with a Canadian flag nestled between the words “Palm Springs” and “Canada.”

“It was a way for us to say to the Canadians that are part of our community for so many months out of the year that we appreciate them, and in light of all the unrest and emotional up-and-down, that we’re standing by their side,” Palm Springs Mayor Ron deHarte told CTVNews.ca. “We will continue to support one another and welcome them back next season, or whenever the dust settles, and everybody feels comfortable to come back.”

All of these efforts miss a central point about a major factor, in addition to Canadian nationalistic fervour, inducing people to avoid travel to the U.S. THEY DON'T FEEL SAFE!

A Leger Marketing poll, conducted on behalf of the Association for Canadian Studies, made some interesting discoveries:

The survey of 1,626 Canadians found 52 per cent of people feel “it is no longer safe for all Canadians travelling to the United States.” Twenty-nine per cent disagreed with the sentiment and 19 per cent were unsure.

This belief was felt most strongly among respondents over 55 and in residents of Atlantic Canada, British Columbia and Ontario. People aged 18 to 54 and people in Alberta were less inclined to agree.

The dangers posed to Canadians by the U.S. has been well-known for many years, unless one has been living in a media vacuum. Finally, thanks to the hostile actions of our American 'neighbours', more and more of our people are recognizing the country for what it is: an incubator of anger, instability, violence  and death, the repercussions of which we can no longer turn a blind eye to.

UPDATE: This just in, apropos to everything.

 

His Genius For All To See

 I'm talking about Theo Moudakis here.

From The Big Leagues

 I think Theo Moudakis captures the Canadian zeitgeist here, don't you think?

Carney's Promise

Mark Carney has raised people's expectations of what is possible when it comes to nation-building. One of his preeminent promises is the rapid building of much-needed housing. Possibilities abound, and the following brief video from Portland, Oregon, suggests densification and building duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes on land formerly zoned for single family dwellings can form part of the answer.

While there is no suggestion of nimbyism in the report, it can be a formidable challenge to rapidly increasing housing stock. Ontario premier Doug Ford refuses to force municipalities to allow fourplexes. Not using provincial power to change the housing dynamics has wide ranging implications, not the least of which is local opposition to anything that changes the landscape of residential neighbourhoods, opposition that feckless municipal politicians often succumb to.

Edward Keenan writes:

On Thursday, as the press and some assembled politicians looked on, construction cranes lifted a rectangular box into the Willowdale air and manoeuvred it into place on the ground at a lot on Cummer Avenue. It was among the first pieces of what will become, by early next year, a rent-geared-to-income housing development for formerly homeless senior citizens. Construction is underway.

The key here is modular construction, with the parts being made in a factory and then assembled Lego-like at the building site.

 It’s a method that allows for faster and cheaper mass production of homes — a success story in countries such as Sweden and Japan — and combined with using government-owned land and having the government oversee the project, it promises a way through part of the logjam that constricts our housing supply.

 

The problem, however, is that the above is a project much delayed by local opposition, delayed so long that the original costs rose dramatically.

It wasn’t any problem with the construction method that caused the problems. It was politics. Local luxury home developers and NIMBY neighbours banded together to oppose the project. Cynically spineless local and provincial politicians joined them. Together they used the SNAFU of regulatory and appeals processes to keep pushing construction further and further down the line. 

And while they did that, the already-completed pieces of that project sat rotting, first on a holding lot and then in a warehouse, causing the cost to go from $14.6 million to $36.3 million.

One can see that the challenges Carney faces are formidable ones. And while I understand how hard it must be for some to see the nature and character of their neighbourhoods altered, there seems to be no alternative if we are truly intent on addressing one of our most pressing national crises. 

A Saturday Evening Reflection

 Spoiler Alert: It doesn't reflect well on Don T.

Another Warning

Canadians have traditionally found it difficult to answer the question, "What defines a Canadian?" The default answer has always been, "Well, we aren't Americans." That answer speaks volumes; however, in light of American threats against our country, coupled with the ongoing breakdown of their societal norms, we have been thinking lately much more about what makes our country special and almost unique.

One of its defining characteristics is that Canada cares about its people. While I know there are many things that might illustrate otherwise, we do take real pride in trying to help those who need help, both individually and through government supports.

I'm never sure how much interest there is amongst readers when I post stories about what is happening in Amerika. However, part of my motivation in addressing such stories is that they remind us of the things we Canadians value and the things we must strive to protect. The following story falls under that rubric.

The Trump administration plans to terminate federal workers focused on preventing and responding to work-related illnesses, including "black lung" disease in coal miners, according to an internal government memo obtained by NBC News, despite in recent days reinstating some who had been let go. 

Those terminations could threaten critical programs used to screen for health issues in workers with toxic exposures, including 9/11 first responders, according to people who work on or benefit from the programs. Some workers who benefit from those programs have expressed fears that conditions such as cancer or lung disease could go undetected as a result.  

Concerns about the future of those programs began earlier this month when the Department of Health and Human Services effectively gutted the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), drastically cutting the headcount of an agency that has been around for 55 years. The move was part of a broader plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce, including a massive restructuring of federal health agencies that called for the termination of roughly 20,000 full-time employees. 

In Appalachia, the consequences of such cuts will be dire. 

Donald Trump was elected on the promise of making life better for Americans. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Americans he had in mind excludes a wide swath of the people. May that mentality never infect us.

When The Emperor Is Angered

The imperium formerly known as the United States of America does not take kindly to contradiction. Its emperor, Don Trump, displays this facet of authoritarian rule in the following interview, in which a dauntless ABC interviewer, Terry Moran, refuses to accept his mandated 'reality'.

The 40-minute interview in the Oval Office veered off course when Moran pressed Trump on the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian man living in Maryland who was deported despite a protective court order. 

The exchange deteriorated further when Trump insisted García had MS-13 tattoos on his knuckles, while Moran – after several times gently disagreeing and trying to move to a new topic – eventually pointed out that the image Trump was referring to had obviously been digitally altered.

“Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does’ [have a gang tattoo] and, you know, go on to something else,” Trump said.

The US president added: “You do such a disservice … This is why people no longer believe the news, because it’s fake news.”

 

Given the vengeful nature of the imperium, Terry Moran's future is likely in jeopardy, especially during a time when many media outlets are bending their knee to the emperor.  It began with Trump calling ABC one of the worst of the media outlets, and was followed up by an immediate right-wing backlash:

Many on social media criticized Moran for not being respectful enough to Trump.

"The interview in the Oval Office with President Trump by Terry Moran is a disgrace to our country and to our President. ABC and Moran should be ashamed! They want nothing but to argue with the President. He's not conducting an interview, he's trying to embarrass the President," said one critic.

"Watching Trump torch ABC News on their own turf is like watching a lion maul a pack of sick hyenas," replied advocate Jane Adams. "These people humiliated the country for years propping up a dementia patient, and now they’re being publicly gutted by a president who actually knows what he's doing."

"ABC once again proves that it is nothing more than a Marxist propaganda outlet controlled by the Democrats," said a Second Amendment rights account.

"His bias was blatant, disrespectful and rude," read another message.

At least one viewer accused ABC of using trick photo angles to make Moran appear taller than Trump.

None of this is the least surprising for a nation in moral, ideological and political freefall. We can only recognize and state it when we see it, and, as Canadians, take their devolution as a sobering object lesson on all the things to guard against in our own country. 

UPDATE Snopes has a lengthy discussion of this photo-shopped picture of Garcia's tattoo:

Trump's picture had been edited to add the text "MS-13" above the tattoos, but there was no actual evidence demonstrating a link between the tattoos and the El Salvadoran gang. 

Sore Losers

Having stayed up late last night watching the election returns, I really hadn't intended to post anything today, but comments by a Conservative MP altered my intent, so a few short observations follow.

Now I am no fan of Doug Ford; I see him as a largely incompetent man but a very successful politician, and it is that success which is engendering envy and anger at the federal level - to the point he is being blamed for PP's loss last night.

“He couldn’t stay out of our business, always getting his criticisms and all his opinions out, distracting our campaign, trying to make it about him, trying to position himself as some kind of political genius that we needed to be taking cues from,” a furious Tory MP Jamil Jivani (Bowmanville-Oshawa North) told CBC’s David Common in a candid interview.

“I see Doug Ford as a problem for Ontario and for Canada,” said Jivani, who once worked as an aide in the premier’s office at Queen’s Park.

“He’s not doing a great job in running this province, and now he’s trying to exercise his influence over other levels of government and it’s not like this guy is doing anything particularly well,” he said after telling supporters in Durham that Ford “sabotaged” the federal party.

Apparently, part of Ford's perfidy was making nice with Liberals.

“He has taken the provincial Conservative party and turned it into something hollow, unprincipled, something that doesn’t solve problems. He’s gladhanding with (Transport Minister) Chrystia Freeland, having coffees and lattes with Mark Carney.”

Obviously a clone of his take-no-prisoners boss, who rarely has met a bipartisan gesture he doesn't like, grace notes are not part of Jivani's makeup.

His apoplexy was probably worsened by Ford's post election congratulations.

“I want to congratulate Prime Minister Mark Carney on his election victory. I also want to thank Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh and every candidate who put their name on a ballot for their service to our democracy,” the premier said.

“This election comes at a crucial time for Ontario and for Canada. Workers, families and businesses are navigating the economic uncertainty caused by President Trump’s tariffs and they are counting on all levels of government to work together to protect Canada,” he said.

“As premier of Ontario, I look forward to working with Prime Minister Carney to protect the workers, businesses and communities of Ontario and Canada.”

Unlike those who adhere to PP's philosophy, poisonous partisanship is not part of Ford's makeup.

In an interview published Sunday with Politico, he was asked why Poilievre hadn’t made an effort to call him earlier.

... I think it’s common sense when you’re in an election, you reach across to as many people as you can,” said the premier, pointing out the federal Tory leader also has no relationship with Nova Scotia PC Premier Tim Houston.

“Not at all. Or local mayors. Or anyone. I don’t understand it,” said Ford, adding Poilievre had to be forced to phone him on the eve of the federal election call.

PP's party is down but hardly out. Even though the leader himself lost his seat, that will no doubt be remedied by a Conservative giving up their own win. However, he and his party need to ask themselves whether it was simply an unfortunate confluence of Trump tariffs and annexation threats that explain the results of an election that was theirs to lose. And part of that soul-searching must begin with the man at the top.