Nancy's Notes

August 1st is coming and its tense. Canadians, and Canadian businesses are nervous. That’s understandable. But nervous doesn’t mean panicked, and it certainly doesn’t mean acting stupidly. What we need now is belief. Belief in what we have. Belief in who we are. Belief in the strength that has always shown up when we’ve needed it most.

That’s a quote, or at least the spirit of one, from Arlene Dickinson. And when she speaks, a lot of us in this country listen. She’s not just a Dragon’s Den celebrity, she’s a business leader who understands Canada, and the mindset of people trying to make a living through ups and downs, pressure and politics.

I share that perspective. And as we stare down the barrel of Trump’s tariff threat deadline, we need to remember who we are, and who we’re not. Because here’s what we are not: We’re not weak. We’re not reckless. And we’re not going to be bullied into bad deals just because someone else signed a press release and called it a win.

Before we get into the weeds, let’s consider this. What happens if the outcome isn’t what we like? What if the announcement is performative or one-sided or vague? Because here’s what people forget. The vast majority of what we’ll hear will be unilateral impositions by Donald Trump. They’re not “deals.” They’re dictates. They’re done to appear like diplomacy. And that distinction matters.

Now, I’m not a global economist or a geopolitical strategist. I’m not inside Mark Carney’s brain. But I do trust one thing and that’s his focus. Every time he speaks about these talks, it’s clear: he’s focused on getting the best deal for Canada. Not a deal for a photo op. Not a deal to please a TV audience. A deal that benefits us and holds up over time.

I’ve spent the last few days digging into the so-called “agreements” Trump has touted with Japan, the EU, and the UK. And let me be blunt: I’m not impressed. Let’s start with Japan. It is vague at best. It reads more like a framework than an actual agreement. There are few hard targets, no enforcement mechanism, and no timeline. So how do you even know if it’s real? You don’t. It’s Trump-style diplomacy: big on bluster, short on detail, and designed for the optics. The EU? Even more complicated. Yes, it’s a bloc, but every single one of its 27 member countries must ratify any final agreement. I can’t imagine France’s François Bayrou agreeing to anything without climate considerations or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán deciding to be compliant. They can block it. And if just one country doesn’t sign off? It collapses. So let’s not pretend this is a done deal.

And Ursula von der Leyen. Sitting there while Trump ranted about windmills and not a word. Just a polite nod. That told me all I needed to know. That moment wasn’t about policy it was about playing the game to keep Trump happy.

Now back to Canada, because that’s what really matters here. Mark Carney is not going to walk into a room and agree to something he knows we can’t deliver on. That’s not the kind of leadership we need, and thankfully, it’s not the kind we have. But that won’t stop the critics. They’ll say, “Why can’t we do what Japan did?” or “Why didn’t we sign like the EU?” Well because those weren’t real deals. And this isn’t pretend.

So while Trump stands on podiums making grand declarations, Carney is working behind the scenes on trade corridors, supply chains, and logistics frameworks that will make Canada stronger, not just now, but for generations. That’s not part of Trump’s thought process. That’s not even on his radar. For him, it’s all about spectacle. It agitates me, genuinely, that we’re even comparing a thoughtful, long-term economic strategy to this showboating nonsense. We need to stop pretending these things are equal.

We don’t know what the outcome will be on August 1st. But I do know this: whatever gets announced, read it twice. Because the truth is usually hiding behind the fireworks. And if it costs me a little more, in the short term, to support a process that protects my kids’ future and Canada’s long-term interests, then I’m okay with that.

Because belief isn’t just a feeling. It’s a choice. And today, I choose to believe in Canada. And maybe it’s fitting that the image here is the Peace Arch, that quiet border crossing between British Columbia, and Washington. The monument itself was built in 1921 to celebrate the longest undefended border in the world, a symbol of friendship and cooperation between two nations who have stood side by side in war, trade, and peace. Etched into that arch is the inscription: “Children of a common mother.” and on one of the gates the powerful words, “May these gates never be closed.” You can’t look at those words today without feeling a knot in your throat. Because while the border may still be open, the spirit behind those words feels fragile. Strained. At risk. And that, right there, is the tragedy.

So no, this isn’t just about economics. It’s about sovereignty. It’s about decency. It’s about the kind of country we want to be, and the kind of country we want to leave for those coming after us. So while connection between our countries may never be the same economically, I will hold on to the hope that those gates never close.

Trump’s suddenly a compassion filled humanitarian? Please pass the barf bag. I am disgusted.

What better way to dodge the Epstein spotlight than to suddenly slap on a halo and pretend you’re a saint? Give me a break. In the past 24 hours, Donald Trump has magically rebranded himself from chaos agent to humanitarian-in-chief. We’re now meant to believe he’s deeply concerned about starving children in Gaza. Please don’t forget that this is the same man who dismantled U.S. contributions to global food aid and let warehouses full of emergency supplies rot under his watch. He undermined international relief systems, and we’re expected to buy his wide-eyed concern for the suffering?

He says he’s sent $60 million in food support last week, but of course, adds that it’s “being stolen.” Yes Trump. Leave a backdoor out.

Then there’s his whiplash-inducing shift on Russia. Suddenly, if Putin doesn’t shape up, he says he’ll impose tariffs and sanctions in 10 to 12 days. Why not 14? That’s usually his favourite magical time frame to kick the can. But no, this one’s “10 or 12,” because well there’s reasons. Because vague is the game when you have no plan.

And now this morning, he’s sitting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer like some elder statesman of peace and compassion. A man who once said he’d bomb civilians, now wants credit for caring? The same man who tried to shake down Ukraine for dirt, now cloaks himself in concern for their suffering?

And then, surprise surprise, out comes what I’ll refer to as the ‘God card.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if next week we get a carefully staged photo of him clutching a Bible, again, upside down, standing outside a burned-out aid truck.

You can almost picture this scene: Trump, pacing, saying to his loyal contingent as they brief him that the Epstein files case is heating up further, “My best shot is if they think I am concerned about starving children. People will forgive when they see me stepping up.”

That’s what this is. Not a change of heart. A change of strategy. An image rehab tour disguised as moral awakening. Because here’s the truth: the Epstein case isn’t going away. His name is being whispered in the halls of Congress, screamed on podcasts, and sprayed across conspiracy-laden timelines. Trump’s proximity to that fire is real. And like any cornered animal, he’s doing what he does best distracting, deflecting, and inventing a new storyline to survive the moment.

So no, I’m not saying don’t welcome food aid or pressure on Russia. By all means, let the man throw us a bone if it gets results. But let’s not pretend we’re watching a redemption arc. This isn’t rebirth. It’s repackaging.

The core of the man hasn’t changed. He’s not Moses parting the Red Sea. He’s just trying to drain the swamp of headlines with his own crocodile tears.

Today’s soft-focus messiah routine is just the latest act in the show. Because if the press and the public start to believe he’s suddenly found empathy, maybe, just maybe, they’ll forget that his name keeps surfacing in one of the darkest scandals of the century.

Don’t be fooled by this charlatan. This isn’t compassion, it’s camouflage. A man doesn’t grow a heart overnight. He just grows more desperate. I am definitely not fooled but am grateful for aid that will come from the American people. Today’s tearful saviour is tomorrow’s tantrum thrower. And he knows that if he doesn’t sell this “Compassion Trump” character well enough? Epstein stays on the menu.

People sometimes ask if I have a direction with what I write. Fair question. I cover local, provincial, national, international, whatever’s rattling around in my brain that day. And today it’s climate. It’s chaos. It’s leadership failure. And it’s Alberta, where the Premier’s hatred of the federal government now outweighs her responsibility to govern.

Let me start with something I’ve said before: I support Mark Carney. That’s not new. And one reason I do is because he talks about the systems we need, not just slogans. And one of the things I am hoping he will initiate is a National Emergency Response system. Every week, we get another reminder why we need one.

Wildfires are getting more frequent, more dangerous, and more expensive. That’s just fact. Add in hail the size of baseballs, tornadoes that used to be unheard of here, and floodwaters that sweep in without warning, and the reality is: this isn’t “extreme weather.” It’s just “the weather” now. Our new normal.

Last night was another hailstorm in the “Hail Core Corridor.” That’s my new term for what used to be Alberta suburbia and is increasingly more often an uninsurable zone. People can’t get home insurance anymore, or they’re paying premiums that would make a mortgage broker cry. And we pretend this is normal.

It’s not. We need a national climate emergency strategy. Fires, floods, hail, tornadoes, and drought. We need coordinated disaster planning across the country. Maybe it’s FEMA-style, maybe something new, but pretending it’s someone else’s problem has run its course.

Which brings us to Jasper. The Town of Jasper is a municipality, run by local council, governed under the Muncipal Government Act and responsible to the people of the town. It sits geographically inside Jasper National Park. That overlapping setup means both federal and provincial authorities are involved in emergencies. And that’s exactly where things collapsed last year.

Jasper’s independent wildfire review of the 2024 fire found that Alberta’s government hindered the response. Provincial fire crews were told by the province not to assist initially, leaving Jasper’s tiny local team to deal with a growing wildfire. In a normal year, provincial support, especially air tankers, would’ve been automatic. But not under this government.

Why? Because Danielle Smith saw federal land and picked a jurisdictional fight. Instead of working together, Alberta tried to seize control of the fire response, causing confusion and delays. The Premier’s reaction? “This report comes as a shot out of the blue. It’s unfair, it’s untrue, and I would like them to withdraw it.”
Danielle Smith

It wasn’t a partisan document. It was a third-party review meant to learn lessons. But Smith took it personally, because she always does. I guess the significant loss of property and potential loss of life were not more important than challenging the Federal Government.

Now here is where my concern about local governments deepens. Smith’s government has been centralizing power in ways that should concern everyone, not just progressives. We’ve seen municipal authority stripped or overridden in Edmonton, Calgary, and rural areas. Jasper is just the latest example of a Premier who wants control without responsibility.

We’re watching creeping authoritarianism.

I write about a lot of things but this one touches on everything I care about. My fear for what’s happening to municipal leadership. My heartbreak at what Alberta could be and what it’s becoming. The dangerous, archaic way our provincial government is treating climate change. The pressure on a new federal government to lead while being stonewalled by provinces like ours. And the fact that the news cycle, here and across Canada, and in fact around world is so consumed by the daily meltdown of American politics that climate disasters get buried.

But the smoke isn’t going away. Neither is the hail. Or the floods. Or the fire bans. Or the evacuation alerts. And neither is Danielle Smith, unless people start realizing what’s actually burning.

And so back to wondering who I write these for? I write for those of us who refuse to look away. Who still believe we deserve a province, and a country that leads with honesty, protects with purpose, and plans for a future beyond the next news cycle.

Because climate doesn’t care about jurisdiction. And smoke doesn’t check who’s in charge before it rolls in. Danielle Smith can scream “federal overreach” all she wants, just like Trump screams “fake news”, but neither one of them can gaslight the weather.

Note: This piece was written just before this morning’s U.S. decision to claw back funding from public broadcasting. While that move directly impacts Americans, it’s a flashing warning light for Canadians too. Much of our media is already U.S.-owned or heavily influenced, and public broadcasting, here and there, is one of the last remaining tools for independent journalism and cultural integrity.

Walter Cronkite once said, “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.” Let those words sink in. Not “a part of.” Not “nice to have.” It is democracy. And right now, that democracy is on life support.

I spend all of my days now trying to gather my thoughts, too many thoughts, really, all swirling around one question: how the hell did we get here? I look at the state of the media, the state of our politics, the slow-cooked erosion of journalistic freedom, and I’m trying to understand why more people aren’t sounding the alarm. Or maybe they are. Maybe we’re just not hearing them anymore over the white noise of distraction and denial.

Stephen Colbert’s show was cancelled yesterday. And sure, not everyone loves his flavor of commentary, he wasn’t for everyone. But for many, he was the voice that helped them laugh when things felt unfunny, made them think without preaching, and reminded us that satire has always been a form of protest. Satire, like journalism, only survives when the powerful allow it to. When someone at the top decides it no longer serves their interests, it disappears, presented as a programming change, but no less political in consequence.

I grew up in a household where the newspaper was sacred. I watched my father, every single day with that great big broadsheet stretched out in front of him like a shield and a sword. He didn’t just read it. He used it, to understand the world, to prepare for conversation, to teach me that knowledge was the first defense against ignorance. He believed that if I could read the stock market page, the baseball scores, the opinion section, even the classifieds (some I was definitely not interested in), then I’d be able to speak to anyone about anything, at least with some basic context. That was the point: not that I would learn everything from the paper, but that I’d be inspired to keep learning. That foundation of curiosity was the real education. If something piqued my interest, I was expected to go deeper. And I did.

And yet in another breaking news twist, the Wall Street Journal now claims to have a copy of a letter Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein, one they’ve described as salacious in tone. That letter has sparked outrage, threats of lawsuits, and a fuming Donald Trump, who reportedly demanded Rupert Murdoch suppress its release. Murdoch, apparently, didn’t listen.

So now the question becomes: who’s controlling who? We used to worry about governments controlling the press. That was the red flag, right? Censorship. State media. Propaganda. But now it’s murkier, and maybe more dangerous. Because what happens when it’s billionaires controlling the press and the government? Or worse, when the lines blur so completely that you can’t tell who’s pulling the strings? Is it Murdoch controlling governments through headlines? Or is it governments using billionaire-owned media as their megaphone? When one feels slighted, can they take the other down with a few strategic leaks or lawsuits? Where exactly is the power wielded, and more importantly, who’s protecting the public interest in that game?

And here in Canada, we’re not immune. Most of our major newspapers are owned or influenced by American corporations. The rest lean heavily to the right, propped up by some provincial flirts with censorship through court-defying legislation and thinly veiled book bans. We criticize “state media” in Russia or China while pretending that corporate media, aligned with political interests, is somehow different. It isn’t.

We have been warned by leaders and scholars. Thomas Jefferson warned us: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Benjamin Franklin said: “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” John F. Kennedy said: “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

That’s not just historical hindsight. That’s prophecy. And it’s happening now.

I’m not a journalist. What I write is opinion, informed by facts and shaped by lived experience. I try to get it right, but I’m not claiming neutrality. But I do know this: journalism used to mean something. It meant truth-seeking. It meant accountability. Now it often means survival in a market of clicks, outrage, and algorithms.

And if we’re honest, Donald Trump played a masterful role in normalizing the attack on truth. He stood at podiums and mocked reporters to their faces especially those who asked the hard questions. And we winced, or we looked away. But we didn’t stop him. And now that brazenness has metastasized. Now it’s expected. And now we are watching American democracy slide into something much darker, much faster, than any of us thought possible.

We’re not just consuming the news anymore, we’re watching the news about the news. Meta-media. Layers of spin. Stories about stories. Satirists being silenced. Journalists being discredited. And citizens being told: don’t worry, we’ll tell you what to think.

No. I want to think for myself. I want to know that the press is allowed to press. I want to know that a government afraid of free speech is still seen as a threat and not just south of the border. Because when the freedom to say it disappears, the freedom to be disappears right behind it.

Walter Cronkite’s words still echo: “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy. It is democracy.” That’s where we begin. And that’s where we end.

July, 1969 : From Launch to Legacy, Awe Then and Now

Today my post will be less politics and more on Canada Strong, Free and Proud. Thirteen years ago, I wrote the following words about the death of Neil Armstrong, and about a moment in time that still lives vividly in my memory:

“I am generally not one to put a lot of value to celebrity and generally do not find my heroes in pop culture. But today as I heard of the death of Neil Armstrong; the first man on the moon, I suddenly felt profoundly sad. But why? Certainly he had been a pilot; something always close to my heart and several years ago my Dad had shared a table with him at an aviation event. But that was not the connection I was feeling. It was much more than that. It was the knowledge that I am now a full generation away from the little girl that sat riveted in front of that TV set on July 20th, 1969 when Neil Armstrong and then Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. I had spent weeks waiting for the event. I had scrapbooks full of every article or newspaper clipping I could find. My family did not leave the room on that Monday afternoon as we waited for the landing of the module on the surface of the moon, and stayed later still as we waited the 6 hours until Neil Armstrong placed his boot on the dusty lunar surface and proclaimed ‘That is one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.’ These men were my heroes. My father kept saying that this would be remembered as an amazing moment in our lives. It was a different world. We were in an era that still had ‘awe’. We could not computer generate a trip to another planet with a resolution that looked like we were really there. But what we did have was a grainy black and white picture that told us that as a society we had gone somewhere we had previously only imagined in our dreams. My father was right. I do remember July 20th, 1969 as an amazing moment in my life; partly because of it being a great moment in history but more so because I can still sense the incredible feeling of having shared that moment with my family. So the profound sadness I feel is not about the loss of a man I do not know. It is the sadness that yet another special moment in my life is now such a distant memory.”

At the time, I suggested that we were no longer living in an era of awe. But in hindsight, I realize I was wrong. Awe returned. And for me, it came in the form of someone remarkably close to home, someone born the very same year I was, who also sat in front of a television on July 20, 1969: Commander Chris Hadfield.

Chris Hadfield didn’t just become an astronaut, he became a storyteller, a scientist, a musician, an educator, and a symbol of Canadian excellence. He reminded us that space wasn’t just about rockets and math, it was about perspective, wonder, and responsibility.

I’ve been fortunate enough to connect with him more than once. I met him at the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame when he was inducted and my father was already an inductee. We had the opportunity to speak and spend time together then, a deeply meaningful moment, given how aviation had already bound my family to these kinds of historic milestones. Later, during an aviation tour, our paths crossed again. Somewhere, I have a photo of the two of us, Chris Hadfield and me, with the world in the background.

I was also invited to the splashdown event at the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert, Quebec following his return from the International Space Station, in part because of the original piece I had written about Armstrong, and maybe also because I had tapped into something we all feel when space reminds us of our shared humanity. Chris Hadfield didn’t need a press agent or a spotlight to be extraordinary. He’s just real. And through his words, his photos, his voice, he reawakened that sense of awe in a whole new generation.

So today, on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, I want to honour the memory of that little girl in New Brunswick, eyes wide with wonder as the rocket left Earth, and I want to celebrate the fact that the awe didn’t end with Armstrong.

It continued, and in my case, it came full circle through a Canadian who still makes us look up.

This post isn’t my usual political reflection, but sometimes, we need to come back to the core of who we are. These are the moments that shaped me, and they continue to define what I believe about leadership, humility, exploration, and national pride. This is Canada Strong. This is Canada Free. This is Canada Proud.

And once again, it turns out my Dad was right, a single moment in time really can define a lifetime.

“Eye of the Storm” This photograph, taken by Commander Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station in March 2013, shows Tropical Cyclone Haruna over Madagascar, with Canadarm2, a Canadian invention, pointing directly at the eye of the storm. A powerful reminder that Canada’s presence in space is not just symbolic, but deeply integrated into international exploration and innovation.

Photo credit: Chris Hadfield, 2013