Who speaks for Canada?

Ontario’s Doug Ford does. Manitoba’s Wab Kinew does. B.C.’s David Eby does. So do many of the other provincial Premiers.

Prime Minister Mark Carney? Well, let’s ponder that.

If there is one essential job requirement for Canadian Prime Ministers, it is to fearlessly advocate for the country, and for the people who make it up.

Mark Carney repeatedly promised he would do that.

Remember the election? The Liberal leader clearly doesn’t. Here are some of the things he said back then, about Donald Trump and about tariffs.

April 2, 2025: “We are going to fight these tariffs with countermeasures….In a crisis, it’s important to come together and it’s essential to work with purpose and force.”

April 17, 2025: “The biggest risk we have to this economy is Donald Trump…what he’s trying to do to Canada — he’s trying to break us, so the U.S. can own us. They want our land, they want our resources, they want our water, they want our country…We’re all going to stand up against Donald Trump. I’m ready.”

April 29, 2025: “We are over the shock of the American betrayal but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves.”

Ah, the heady days of Springtime. That was then, this is now, etc. Those “countermeasures?” Carney swiftly killed them, because they made Donald Trump cross. Using “force?” And: “standing up against Donald Trump” for his “betrayal?”

Well, our Prime Minister sure doesn’t say things like that anymore. Instead, he laughs at all of Trump’s (bad) jokes. He claps his hands in delight at whatever lunacy issues from Trump’s mouth. He and Trump “have a very good relationship,” he beams.

As a writer at the Daily Mail famously observed, Carney is reduced to “a shrieking teen at a Taylor Swift concert” when in the presence of the U.S. President.

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This is an opinion column about baseball and politics, which are two very different things.

For starters, baseball has one moral dimension. Politics, too often, has no morality at all.

So what’s the connection, you ask? It’s this: the Blue Jays – based in Toronto, of all places – were sent by a sympathetic God to heal us. To act as a balm for our psychic wounds. Specifically, those caused by Donald Trump.

When the Mango Mussolini got started with the 51st state garbage, Canadians thought it was a (bad) joke. After a while, literally nobody was laughing anymore. Trump’s ravings and rantings left us feeling angry, shocked – and, if the election results meant anything – looking for someone, anyone, to make the Cheeto Benito go away.

Canadians know that we lack the diplomatic or military clout to lash out at Trump. But we needed, and need, someone to defend our honour. To step up to the plate for us.

The jury’s still out on Mark Carney’s batting average, in that regard. Next week, his capable finance minister will table the most serious budget in decades. We should all hope that it provides a map out of the Trump-induced chaos.

But the Blue Jays? They stepped up. Big time.

It’s improbable verging on impossible: a bunch of men – mainly Yanks playing a kids game, ie., chasing a ball around a field with bits of rawhide and some wooden sticks – who have given a sad and anxious country a lift when it really, really needed it. They raised us up.

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“An explosive inside look into the highly-planned and well-funded global propaganda campaign to delegitimize Israel and sow the seeds of antisemitism in the aftermath of October 7th.

October 7th, 2023 was a truly horrific day—a day in which Israeli men, women, and children were slaughtered or kidnapped, in the most barbaric fashion possible by the Iran-backed, Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas. The attack set off a bloody war, with profound consequences for both Israelis and Palestinians. That much is well known.

Less known is the propaganda campaign—the narrative war—that also began on that day. Like Hamas’ war on Israel, the narrative war had been in the works for a long time. It took, and continutes to take, planning, organization, and lots of money. Paid protestors. Professional organizers. Top-notch lobby efforts. NGOs, unions, and associations working together like a well-oiled machine. And, of course, messages designed to capture the support of legislators, voters, and the media.

There is little, if anything, organic about this campaign, even if some of its own participants aren’t quite aware of it.

Interestingly, Canada has become ground zero for this international effort, a result of shifting demographics, porous online and physical borders when it comes to foreign interference, lack of political will, and failure to enforce laws that could help prevent the spread of this type of hate. The numbers themselves are astounding, reflecting a growing tide of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and general intolerance with a brazenness that has not been witnessed before. A country known for its historic support for the Jewish homeland and for Jews in general has become, since October 7th, a place where Jews live in fear, with skyrocketing incidents of vandalism, violence, threats, and intimidation.

A highly successful political strategist, and legal advocate for victims of hate, Warren Kinsella deconstructs the inner workings of this campaign of hate, and pulls no punches as to what is at stake here: the further spread of antisemitism within society—especially amongst the younger generations but certainly not limited to that demographic—and how to offset it.”

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Doug Ford clearly subscribes to Adlai Stevenson’s maxim: “If they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.”

It’s unlikely Ontario’s Premier and one-time U.S. Presidential nominee ever met: Stevenson slipped the mortal coil when Ford was still in nappies, somewhere in deepest Etobicoke. But has Ford ever had a late-night encounter with the waifish ghost of Stevenson in the stately halls of Queen’s Park? Likely. Almost certain.

Ford’s ad featuring Ronald Reagan tilting against tariffs, in his modulated, resonate baritone, is straight out of the Adlai Stevenson ad playbook: it tells the truth, and nothing but the truth, and it works.

Ford scrummed about it the other day, and he told my colleague Brian Lilley his 60-second spot was “the most successful ad in the history of North America.” That may be a bit of an overstatement, but not by much. The resulting Lilley-Ford exchange is one for the ages, like Ali-Holmes, but with less bloodshed.

“If this is the most successful ad in North American history, what does failure look like?” a bemused Lilley hollered at Ford after Question Period.

“I’ll tell you, Brian, that we had over a billion impressions around the world, and what we did, we generated a conversation that wasn’t happening in the U.S.,” Ford said, without breaking stride.

“Now, every single local media, every large media, medium-sized media, in the U.S. is talking about it. So is every governor, senator and congressman and woman, not only nationally, but statewide. And the message was very clear, protectionism does not work.”

Not everyone agreed. Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser, now in contention for the Stupidest Political Critique of 2025, said Ford concocted the now-legendary ad to “make him look good,” and that it was “doing damage.”

But that’s the point of political advertising, Johnny: to do damage. Trust me on this – I’ve actually written a book about political advertising (The War Room, now in its third printing and helpfully available at all fine booksellers near you, etc. Remember Christmas/Hanukkah is coming, folks.).

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Mark Carney has been Prime Minister of Canada for more than seven months, now. In politics, that represents several lifetimes.

So, the past few months have given us lots of time to learn about the political strengths and weaknesses of the former banker.

His main strengths are obvious: he’s intelligent, he’s experienced, he’s calm, and he’s not Justin Trudeau or Donald Trump.

But Carney’s personal shortcomings have become evident, too. There are five. Arrogance; under-delivering; contradictions; fuzziness; Ottawa-washed. All five weaknesses were seen in his Wednesday night State of the Union-style speech to the nation (which reminded us of another failing: he has a fetish for glitzy American-style governance.)

My take, as a former speechwriter to a guy who became Prime Minister: much of the speech reads like as first-year university history lecture. But much of it tells a story – about the man.

Arrogance. Arrogance, conceit, solipsism, condescension: whatever you call it, it all represents the thing that always defeats Liberals. In his 3,000-word and too-long speech, Carney showed flashes of that: on the future, Carney actually said he and his government are “going to give it back to you.”

Really? We don’t have a future unless and until Mark Carney “gives” us one? The forthcoming budget, meanwhile, “will be about…winning.” Charlie Sheen might approve of that sort of mission statement, but history is littered with the metaphorical remains of politicians who promised “winning” – and then only delivered the opposite.

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I have to say the antisemites still have the capacity to surprise me.

I thought I could usually predict what they’d do next. But, since the ceasefire brokered by Donald Trump, they’ve surprised me.

Writing a book about their global campaign (The Hidden Hand, out in February) and being the centre of a documentary about that (The Campaign, ditto), I had studied them enough to know they didn’t love Palestine. In truth, they hated Israel.

But, I give them grudging credit: they were pretty good at disguising that. They probably seemed authentic to a lot of witless people – in the media, in government, in unions, in academia, amongst Gen Z and Millennials.

But I know what campaigns look like – and it was a campaign. And, like just about every campaign, it had a glossy and impressive exterior, designed to obscure a darker and uglier objective at the center. In their case, it was isolating, delegitimizing and then eliminating the Jewish state. Destabilizing Western democracy, too.

They’d slip, occasionally. Lying about casualties, lying about famines, lying about what Hamas and its legions really are. But, most of the time, their campaign was very effective and efficient. They didn’t make a lot of mistakes.

You can see the proof in public opinion research. Throughout the West, polls now show majorities or near-majorities believe Israel is a genocidal, fascist, white supremacist state, bent on the utter destruction of a powerless dark-skinned minority. Like apartheid South Africa.

They were greatly assisted, of course, by Israel’s total inability to tell its own story. Too many Israelis have convinced themselves that their lot in life is to be hated by everyone, so they just take it. They shouldn’t, but they do.

And, so, the global antisemitic campaign was winning – exceeding the expectations of even those who were behind it (Iran, the campaign manager; Qatar, the banker; a web of NGOs, charities and non-profits staffing it all – and Hamas and its cabal, of course, providing muscle.)

Anyway. All that changed with the (unlikely, unexpected) Trump-devised ceasefire. The curtain was pulled back on the evil Wizard of Oz. We got to see who they really are.

Around the world, however, the protests have continued – even though there was a real, actual ceasefire in place. Even though Israel did everything they demanded.

The haters didn’t celebrate that. They just kept on hating Israel.

And, of course, they said nothing – literally nothing – about the orgy of murder Hamas has unleashed on the innocent Palestinian people they had once professed to care about. They said, and did, nothing.

So, like I say: I didn’t expect to see them get sloppy. I didn’t expect a campaign as disciplined and as well-organized as theirs to stumble, and for the mask to slip. To show everyone who they really are – which is Jew-hating bastards who don’t give a sweet damn about Palestinians.

That’s who they are, that’s who they’ve always been.

But now they’ve revealed themselves, so that all can look ant them and see.

So: look.

It’s important.

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