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Campaign notebook: A big day out west, plus Ezra and the debates

Can Ezra Levant cover an election campaign he’s also participating in?

By: Ethan Cox

Yesterday started in Montreal, and 12 hours later I was sitting by a fire on Salt Spring Island. Today I’ll be meeting up with Elizabeth May and attending an all-candidates meeting in her riding of Saanich and Gulf Islands, and in the evening I’ll catch up with Jagmeet Singh while he campaigns with incumbent MP Laurel Collins in Victoria. 

On Thursday night there was a national leader’s debate, and as you may have heard, there were some issues. I was there, and I’ve got my own strongly held feelings. As you may have heard, I gave Ezra Levant a real piece of my mind. And I stand by those comments.

But if there’s one thing that’s stuck with me as the aftermath unfolded, it is the importance of holding the line for facts, in the face of those who would manufacture their own. 

Amidst a First Nations suicide crisis, federal leaders only see gold

With an election focus on Trump’s trade war and the rush for resources, no party is offering northern Indigenous communities a choice

By: Jon Thompson & Karyn Pugliese

The ice is breaking up slowly on the lakes that surround Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation, 110 kilometres south of Kenora, Ontario. The snow’s receding, and mining prospectors are eager to get back into the field. Thousands of kilometres away, leaders in Canada’s federal election are promising to confront a trade war with the U.S. by unearthing critical minerals at volumes and speeds that would transform the entire national economy. 

But if a gold rush is coming like the one that took place in the 1880s and 1890s on Treaty #3 lands here in northwestern Ontario, the vote-rich cities where Canada’s political titans vie for power won’t bear a fraction of its impact compared to the First Nations people and fishing camp outfitters who live along this remote, secondary highway.

Onigaming is 11 years into a mental-health state of emergency, and the crisis comes in cyclical blows — addictions, suicides, funerals. Promises of trade routes and global markets don’t resonate for those who have been coping with frequent sudden death for a generation.

As Canadian leaders promise wealth from the ground, Ojibwa leaders are still managing their community’s recovery from a resource promise that’s long gone and that left them behind. They’re resolved that their community’s health will come from solutions in the culture and on the land, not from the minerals beneath it.

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Brookfield’s tax avoidance and corporate practices dog Carney campaign

The prime minister’s connection to the megacorporation has become his largest political liability — especially as questions swirl over his potential financial stake in Brookfield’s future.

By: Rob Jowett

Liberal leader Mark Carney is perhaps best known for his time as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and as Governor of the Bank of England during Brexit. But one of the federal election frontrunner’s most prominent roles was at Brookfield, the giant Canadian global investment firm that’s come under fire in recent years for avoiding taxes and profiting off deforestation while “seeking to evict Indigenous Peoples from the heart of the Amazon to make way for cattle and mining opportunities.”

Carney’s connection to Brookfield has received close scrutiny since the election campaign began in March. Yet questions remain about whether he has a lingering financial stake in the company.

Campaign notebook: NDP, Greens defy national poll numbers in west coast strongholds

Could a red wave split the vote between Elizabeth May and Liberal David Beckham in Saanich-Gulf Islands to hand victory to the Conservatives?

By: Ethan Cox

Elizabeth May is sitting in the front passenger seat, eating a tuna sandwich into which she periodically stuffs a potato chip, when I make the mistake of suggesting that reasonable people could disagree about the decision to exclude the Greens from the debates.

She does not think so, and leans into a treatise on the specifics of the rules and how the debate commission had misunderstood them — but most of all she’s annoyed with herself for not knowing that the position of commissioner had been vacant since 2023. That has left an employee in charge, and, well, that hasn’t gone well. 

It’s a sunny spring Saturday in Saanich, on Vancouver Island, and I’m in the backseat of a compact SUV being driven by a retired schoolteacher with a disarming smile. My phone is perched on the centre console while I ask May questions about the riding, and her fight to retain it. 

Standing between humanity and catastrophe: Indigenous people meet at the UN to demand the right to refuse resource extraction

While governments push for electric vehicles, they remain silent about the devastating impacts.

By: Brandi Morin

This week at the United Nations in New York City, the air is thick with urgency as Indigenous leaders from around the world gather for the 24th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). Behind the diplomatic language and formal proceedings lies a stark reality: the so-called “green transition” is rapidly becoming a new frontier of colonial exploitation.

As the largest global gathering of Indigenous Peoples, this 10-day Forum provides a critical platform for advocates to address pressing concerns ranging from climate disasters to the devastating effects of critical mineral mining in Indigenous communities. The Forum’s 16 appointed expert members will compile these concerns into a comprehensive report to be transmitted to UN agencies and member states.

As a journalist who has documented countless stories of environmental injustice across Canada and the Americas, I’ve seen firsthand how the rush for critical minerals — lithium, cobalt, copper, and others essential for renewable energy technologies — is repeating the violent patterns of resource extraction that have devastated Indigenous communities for centuries.

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