Free Republic

Former Quebec tourism minister Caroline Proulx has been ordered to personally pay more than $60,000 in damages after a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled she unlawfully cancelled a Christian conference because of its pro-life message. In a decision released Friday, Justice Alain Trudel found Proulx acted "in an arbitrary and abusive manner" when she ordered Quebec City's convention centre to cancel a rental agreement for Harvest Ministries International's "Faith, Fire, and Freedom" conference just 10 days before it was scheduled to begin. The British Columbia-based Christian ministry had booked the Quebec City Convention Centre for a 10-day event in June...

A 23-year-old man from Aurora has been charged after allegedly driving through a playground and walking paths that were packed with children at a park in Ajax earlier this month. Durham Regional Police said a call came in shortly before 6:30 p.m. on July 18 for a white Toyota sedan that was driving dangerously through Rotary Park on Lake Driveway West. “The suspect vehicle drove through the playground, splash pad, and walking paths, which were filled with pedestrians, including young children,” police allege in a news release on Monday. No injuries were reported. Officers later found the vehicle three kilometres...

A man has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison after authorities say he pleaded guilty to sneaking into Canada with a loaded, prohibited handgun. Federal RCMP officers were notified by U.S. authorities on Sept. 11, 2025, about a man illegally crossing the border crossing near 183 Street and 0 Avenue in Surrey, B.C. Canadian border enforcement officers responded and arrested the man. Investigators identified him as Jaskaran Banth, who was carrying a loaded handgun later determined to have been stolen in Nevada, the federal RCMP said in a statement Thursday. Banth pleaded guilty this past May...

It's not just Canada, of course. Fewer and fewer countries are safe havens for Jews anymore. The Jewish exodus from European countries to Israel or, in some cases, to the United States seems to be accelerating as Muslim migration has been picking up for years in the same countries. More Muslims, fewer Jews can feel comfortable. A shooting at a Jewish bakery is only the latest in a wave of antisemitic attacks causing a growing number of Canada’s Jews to flee, @DrCaseyBabb writes.“They are a warning sign,” he argues.Read the full analysis here: https://t.co/nUJnRjOx5Bpic.twitter.com/SGQQzsOy2G— The Free Press (@TheFP) July 28,...

Alberta & Saskatchewan have chosen the United States as their most important partner in trade negotiations, as Mark Carney's government seeks to draw Canada closer to China.

Quebec's provincial election will take place in early October, but what could be a pivotal influence on Quebecers' vote, namely the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on Bill 21's legitimacy may not be handed down before that date, according to Chief Justice Richard Wagner. At his annual press conference in June, he told reporters, "Honestly, I don't know when the verdict will be delivered. [...] it could be delivered in several months," setting Nov 30 as a deadline, seven weeks after the Quebec election Oct 5. Bill 21 has been officially before the Supreme Court of Canada since the court...

A planned joint U.S.-Canada ceremony Friday celebrating the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, is no longer expected to take place after President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on most Canadian goods. In announcing the tariffs, Trump accused Canada of unfairly discriminating against U.S. automobiles, alcohol and dairy products, escalating tensions with one of the United States’ closest allies. “In light of trade action threatened by the United States earlier this week, it would be inappropriate to proceed with a celebratory event between the two countries,” said Jenna Ghassabeh, a spokesperson for Canadian...

As Estonia's Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur prepared to fly to the NATO summit in Ankara this month, he revealed to local journalists that several hundred U.S. troops deployed to his Baltic nation in the winter had quietly been withdrawn – with no clear sign of when or whether they might return. At the Ankara gathering itself, delegates from the Baltic states and Poland proudly wore badges proclaiming themselves members of the "five percent club", the only nations in the NATO alliance to have already reached the spending ​target set at last year's meeting in The Hague – a status they...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Friday that he is “very concerned” Canada’s expanding censorship and surveillance laws could erode the free-speech and privacy rights of Americans. Jordan made the comments in a sit-down with Elie Cantin-Nantel of EMCN Media, an independent Canadian digital media venture. The interview came weeks after he and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) sent a letter to Canada’s public safety minister raising the same concerns. The Ohio Republican said Canada’s Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, would reach beyond Canadian borders because Americans routinely communicate with and travel to the...

Firefighting efforts can help protect communities but can't tackle Canada's vast fire landscapeIt's another smoky summer in southern Ontario, and people breathing poor air in and around Toronto are once again asking what governments can do about wildfire smoke. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has defended the province's wildfire budget and has asked Ottawa for extra help. Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have also demanded Canada do more to stop smoke from drifting across the border. But experts say the politics can obscure a harder reality: fire is a natural part of Canada's forests, and a warming climate is making...

Most wildfires in Canada are impossible to fight. As smoke from forest fires in Canada have darkened skies south of the border, lawmakers in Michigan, Ohio and other U.S. states have accused the Canadian authorities of inaction and poor forest management. But most wildfires in Canada spread in such remote, vast areas that they cannot be fought effectively — and are often left to burn. Half of Canada’s wildfires, like the ones now burning in northern Ontario, burn in such areas — either unpopulated or dotted with small Indigenous communities, said Michael Flannigan, an expert on fire management at Thompson...

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada on Thursday noted the widespread disruption caused by wildfires in Ontario that have spewed smoke across parts of Canada and the United States. “Thousands of Canadians’ lives have been upended, are being upended, by the wildfires across this country,” Mr. Carney told reporters during an appearance at an armored vehicle factory in London, Ontario. But the division of powers in Canada means that Mr. Carney is unable to oversee the response to the wildfires that are raging throughout remote, forested areas. Like all natural resources, forests fall mostly under the jurisdiction and care of...

President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to confront Canada over the North American wildfires that have enveloped swaths of the United States in a smoky haze. Calling the situation "totally unacceptable," Trump accused Ottawa of failing to adequately address the situation, which has sent air quality to dangerous levels in major U.S. cities for multiple days. The costs inflicted on the U.S. "must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. Trump added that he plans to call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney later Friday "to find out what they...

Some of Michigan's lawmakers have sent letters demanding answers on the rash of wildfires in Canada, where the smoke has drifted into the United States. Michigan has been dealing with hazy skies and poor air quality because of drifting wildfire smoke since Wednesday. The smoke is expected to continue to linger into Friday over the state. This drifting smoke is a repeat of scenarios that happened in 2023 and again in 2025. Detroit had the worst air quality in the world on Thursday because of the fine particulate matter in the atmosphere. In a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark...

Heavy smoke from several large wildfires blazing in Canada and Minnesota is expected to engulf large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast U.S. this week, exposing millions of people to dangerous air pollution. Minnesota officials issued an air quality alert from Tuesday through Friday for areas including the Twin Cities metro area, Alexandria and Two Harbors, with very heavy smoke expected across the state's northeastern corner as large wildfires spread. Air quality levels in Two Harbors, the Tribal Nation of Grand Portage and other regions in northeast Minnesota were expected to reach hazardous levels, making it unsafe for everyone. The...

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is the most violent and dangerous nation in the developed world. This dark view is frequently invoked by conservatives to demand stronger penalties for crimes and by progressives to argue for stronger gun laws. At the same time, other nations point to crime as an Achilles heel of the American system. These include two peer nations with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world – Australia and Canada. In 2025, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that “the U.S. generally sees higher violent crime rates than many other countries.” Last year,...

SAWYER, Mich. (AP) — A completed bridge linking Detroit and Canada is expected to open by the end of the month after U.S. and Canadian officials reached an agreement to resolve the dispute that delayed its debut, according to two people directly involved in the negotiations.The sources were not authorized to publicly disclose the deal before a formal announcement.A ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for early June was postponed after the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority said the two countries needed more time to resolve “outstanding issues.” The delay followed President Donald Trump’s earlier threats to block the bridge’s opening.Commercial traffic is now expected...

I admit that this surprised me too. No matter how much one distrusts media narratives, they shape our perceptions until something breaks the bubble and makes you question the basic assumptions that inform your worldview. What choice do we have? We can't go down every rabbit hole to ferret out the truth. We have to pick and choose our battles, after all. So it's good to have a reminder to remain skeptical in all things, especially when some interest or political agenda is involved. A case in point: the story we are told about crime rates in the United States...

Mark Carney swept to power on a backlash to President Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state, which many Americans took for mere shtick. But for the new prime minister, reading intelligence reports detailing the gravity of the crisis, it was a breaking point. In private phone conversations with Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, Trump had threatened to scrap the 1908 agreement delineating their shared border. “I tear that up and your whole country unravels,” Trump told Trudeau in one call, according to two people familiar with the matter. Over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trudeau’s envoys tried to dissuade Trump from...

Federal agents crushed the California arm of a vicious transnational organized crime syndicate in series of stunning raids Tuesday that saw the arrest of at least 11 accused criminals in the Golden State — and over a dozen more in the US, Canada and Europe. Los Angeles federal agents led the global takedown of the India-based Bishnoi Gang, a fearsome global mob blamed for extortion, drug dealing and the assassination of political figures, industrialists, actors and musicians in North America and India.