On the sprawling stage of Toronto’s Prayer Palace mega-church, Doug Ford stood solemnly as Pastor Paul Melnichuk blessed him and his bid to be Ontario Progressive Conservative leader.

“I’m sensing a deep and profound anointing,” Melnichuk told his flock in the dramatic cadence of the evangelical preacher. Behind them, the scene was broadcast on a towering video screen.

“Because of your prayer and your light, God’s hand will rest upon Mr. Ford.”

As the anointing ceremony ended, the giant screen filled with the words FordforLeader.com, the website where the former city councilor had earlier urged the congregation to sign up as Tory members.

“Go online … register, register your family and friends, because that’s the only way we can make a change in this province,” Ford told them. “And we will make sure — I can guarantee you we’ll make sure — the church has a voice. All the time.”

The event four weeks ago underlined Ford’s determined outreach to social conservatives — and success at doing so — despite a controversy in this case with echoes of the #MeToo movement.

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Melnichuk was found not guilty late last year of sexually assaulting a mother and her daughter who were members of his congregation.

The Prayer Palace — a massive spaceship-like presence near one of Toronto’s busiest freeways — has faced controversy before, too.

The Toronto Star alleged a decade ago that little of the $3 million it raises yearly goes to charitable work, while Melnichuk and his twin pastor sons, Tom and Tim, live in lavish homes and drive luxury cars.

The church sued the Star for libel and Tom Melnichuk noted Wednesday that it remains a charity in good standing with the Canada Revenue Agency.

He dismissed the sexual assault charges as “bogus and flamboyant,” lambasting local media for failing to report on his father’s total acquittal after covering the 2016 trial. (The National Post did not report on the case.)

As for Ford, he has been critical of the Liberal government’s controversial sex-education curriculum, the younger pastor noted, and also seems willing to change Bill 89, a law passed last year that requires the child-welfare system to respect children’s gender identity.

Some conservative groups have charged that the bill would let authorities seize children from homes where parents stymied their offspring’s chosen gender identities, though the government has said that would never happen.

“I believe that Doug Ford’s standpoint would be to amend if not revoke such a biased (law),” said Tom Melnichuk. “It’s a travesty and the government (is) reaching too far into the home.”

Ford, whose campaign team did not respond to a request for comment on the church’s endorsement, has also recently mused that it might make sense to require parental consent for minors to have abortions.

Those kind of stances have won him the support of Charles McVety, an evangelical leader who shared the stage with Ford at the Prayer Palace.

But his outreach to the community stands in stark contrast to former leader Patrick Brown, who insisted the party should avoid so-con issues if it wanted to beat the Liberals.

A poll released by the Angus Reid Institute Wednesday suggests Ford may not, in fact, have the winning formula for Ontario’s June 7 election. The PCs would keep their healthy advantage over the Liberals under leadership candidates Christine Elliott or Caroline Mulroney, but could slip significantly with Ford as leader, it concluded.

The front gates of Toronto’s Prayer Palace.

Paul Melnichuk, in his mid-80s, was tried in 2016 on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman and her college-aged daughter. The mother claimed he had grabbed her and rubbed his groin against her buttocks, the daughter that he had kissed and groped her without consent.

Defence lawyer Nathan Gorham suggested during the trial the pair concocted the allegations because of a dispute with the Melnichuks.

The Prayer Palace founder was found not guilty in an oral decision about three months ago, Gorham said Wednesday.

Paul Melnichuk made legal headlines of a different kind 35 years ago.

Jewish organizations called on authorities in 1982 to lay hate-crime charges after videotape emerged of a sermon in which he talked about “the old crooked Jew, as soon as he sees you he’s wondering how much money he can make on you, and how he can gyp you.”

No charges were laid and Melnichuk later apologized publicly, saying he was not “against anyone,” according to media reports at the time.

• Email: tblackwell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: TomblackwellNP

TORONTO — The lead detective in the Bruce McArthur case says he triggered an internal police probe of the investigation into the alleged serial killer after becoming aware of an incident that may have been mishandled.

In an interview with the National Post Wednesday, Det-Sgt. Hank Idsinga refused to say more about the incident but said he learned of it after reviewing two previous police investigations into five missing men from Toronto’s gay village.

“When I was reviewing some of the files, I came across something and said I don’t think this has been handled properly,” Idsinga said. “If something comes to my attention where I think things could have been done better — I’ll do my best to correct it.”

Police spokesman Meaghan Gray said the force’s professional standards unit launched the internal investigation on Monday, but she also declined to discuss the nature of the information that prompted the probe.

Accused Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur.

Two sources with knowledge of the case, but who did not want their names used because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told The Canadian Press that the “concerning” information was linked to a police interview with McArthur years ago for an unrelated incident.

The sources stressed it had nothing to do with the missing men, but they said Idsinga and his team didn’t know about the McArthur interview until some time after they arrested him on Jan. 18, 2018 when they charged him with two counts of first-degree murder.

McArthur, 66, has since been charged with four more counts of first-degree murder and on Monday, police released a photo of an unidentified man who they believe is a seventh victim. 

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Idsinga joined Project Houston — which was created to investigate the disappearances of three South Asian men from Toronto’s gay village neighbourhood between 2010 and 2012 — in its early stages in 2012. Idsinga said the homicide department joined the investigation because it received evidence that the disappearance of one of the missing men — Skandaraj Navaratnam — involved foul play. At the time, Navaratnam’s disappearance was linked to the missing persons cases of Majeed Kayhan and Abdulbasir Faizi.

For six months, the team investigated links between Navaratnam’s death and a worldwide cannibalism ring linked to cases in Germany, Slovakia and the U.S. At some point, a suspect was identified. But after six months of investigating cannibal-inspired erotica and related websites, they determined the suspect was not linked to Navaratnam. Idsinga wouldn’t say whether Navaratnam was the subject of the online erotica.

“We essentially investigated that to determine if it was reality or fantasy — we determined it was fantasy,” he said.

Police said Skanda Navaratnam is the sixth victim of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur.

McArthur was not a suspect in the Project Houston investigation, Idsinga said, clarifying that when police are investigating missing persons cases the people they interview are called witnesses. 

Idsinga took issue with reports in the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail Wednesday about the interviews police reportedly conducted with McArthur. 

“What I’ve taken some exception to this morning is their erroneous branding to someone who’s a witness in a missing persons case,” he said. “They’re almost alluding to the fact that we’d haul someone into a police station to interrogate or interview them and then release them as if they’re in custody.”

Responding to fears expressed by the city’s LGBTQ community that police knew of McArthur early on and let him slip away, Idsinga said police need to meet a high threshold of evidence in order to reach reasonable and probable grounds to make an arrest.

“In 2012, we have some evidence that (the suspect) murdered Navaratnam. If we had gone out and arrested that person, we would’ve been wrong,” said Idsinga, noting it took six months just to eliminate the possibility. 

Alleged McArthur victims Andrew Kinsman, left, and Selim Esen.

Without a suspect or any other evidence, Project Houston shut down. But when Andrew Kinsman and Selim Esen went missing in quick succession between April and June, 2017, Project Prism was created. In November, police found evidence that suggested Kinsman’s disappearance involved foul play and McArthur became a suspect. Though as Idsinga pointed out, he wasn’t a “strong suspect” yet. 

On Jan. 17, police say they found evidence that strongly suggested Esen and Kinsman were murdered. Idsinga wouldn’t reveal what the evidence was — but said it strongly suggested McArthur was responsible. A day later, McArthur was arrested. He has since also been charged with the murders of Kayhan, Dean Lisowick and Soroush Mahmudi. 

The length of time McArthur has allegedly been operating in Toronto — the earliest murder linked to him allegedly took place in 2010 — concerns Idsinga as it does the LGBTQ community. Despite the internal investigation, the blame should be targeted in one direction, he said. 

“Ultimately the person to blame is Bruce McArthur,” he said. “It’s not the community, it’s not the Toronto Police Service. It’s Bruce McArthur.”

Toronto Mayor John Tory said he’ll support a motion at the next Toronto Police Services Board meeting for an independent external review of how the police handle missing persons cases. In a statement, Tory also said he’ll be asking the province to hold a public inquiry “at the close of any criminal proceedings.”

If you knew Bruce McArthur or any of the alleged victims, please email Victor Ferreira: vferreira@postmedia.com | Twitter: VicF77

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum announced Wednesday that it is rescinding the Elie Wiesel Award – its highest honor – it gave in 2012 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar political leader and Nobel laureate, saying military crimes against the Muslim Rohingya minority “demand that you use your moral authority to address this situation.”

The announcement, posted on the museum’s website, comes as calls are becoming louder and louder for Suu Kyi, once a towering human rights hero, to speak out. She is seen as the power behind President Htin Kyaw, a close friend and ally. Prevented by Myanmarese law from running for political office, she holds the title of state counselor and foreign minister.

The museum posted its March 6 letter to Suu Kyi, sent via Aung Lynn, Myanmar’s ambassador to the United States.

“In recent years, the Museum has been closely monitoring the military’s campaign against the Rohingya and your response to it,” the letter reads. “. . . As the military’s attacks against the Rohingya unfolded in 2016 and 2017, we had hoped that you – as someone we and many others have celebrated for your commitment to human dignity and universal human rights – would have done something to condemn and stop the military’s brutal campaign and to express solidarity with the targeted Rohingya population.”

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Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi

The letter continues, urging her to use her position to cooperate with international efforts “to establish the truth about the atrocities committed in Rakhine State and secure accountability for perpetrators” and to lead changes to Myanmarese law that leave most Rohingya stateless.

“You can expand access for both local and international aid workers to administer life-saving assistance,” the letter states. “Finally, we urge you to condemn the hateful, dehumanizing language directed toward the Rohingya.”

The letter was first reported by the New York Times.

Suu Kyi, who endured 15 years of house arrest for taking on the military dictatorship in Myanmar, also known as Burma, was given the award in 2012 – a year after it was created to honor famed-Holocaust survivor Wiesel. who was the first recipient.

The award is given annually to “internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum’s vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity,” the museum site says.

Rohingya refugees who were stranded walk near the no man’s land area between Bangladesh and Myanmar in October 2017.

Some 700,000 Rohingya have been driven across the border into Bangladesh, bringing with them scant possessions and countless tales of atrocities, including gang rapes, the murder of children and the destruction of entire villages, The Post reported recently. What makes the survivors’ accounts even more disturbing is the realization that many of the horrors they describe were coolly planned and premeditated, as documented in a recent report by Human Rights Watch.

The museum does on-the-ground research into alleged genocide around the world. In its statement Wednesday, officials noted the museum has been focused in recent years on the military’s campaign against the Rohingya, an ethnic group that is mostly Muslim. It held a public event – called “Our Walls Bear Witness” – in 2013, made numerous visits to Myanmar and Bangladesh to get evidence and do interviews, and published in 2015 a report “which documented the early warning signs of genocide.”

Last fall, the museum released more findings “documenting crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and what we termed ‘mounting evidence of genocide’ committed by the Myanmar military against Rohingya civilians since October 2016. Regrettably over the last five years the situation has become progressively worse and today seems untenable for the Rohingya population,” the museum’s site says.

The Washington Post editorial board in January made a call for Suu Kyi to “find her moral voice.”

“Aung San Suu Kyi came to power as a voice of the oppressed, having spent years as a democracy champion, kept under house arrest by Burma’s repressive generals. But she has not acted with the same eloquence and alacrity to the deepening crisis in Rakhine state,” The Post editorial stated. “. . . It is true that Aung San Suu Kyi lacks real power over the military, which retains a quarter of seats in parliament and runs other institutions. But that is no excuse for her failure to wield her substantial moral authority to attempt to halt the assaults and seek reconciliation.”

Rohingya Muslim women refugees wait to receive aid at the Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh, Jan. 27, 2018.

Amelia Earhart’s story is revolutionary: She was the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean, and might have been the first to fly around the world had her plane not vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

After decades of mystery surrounding her disappearance, her story might come to a close.

A new scientific study claims that bones found in 1940 on the Pacific Island of Nikumaroro belong to Earhart, despite a forensic analysis of the remains conducted in 1941 that linked the bones to a male. The bones, revisited in the study “Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones” by University of Tennessee professor Richard Jantz, were discarded. For decades they have remained an enigma, as some have speculated that Earhart died a castaway on the island after her plane crashed.

The bones were uncovered by a British expedition exploring the island for settlement after they came upon a human skull, according to the study. The expedition’s officer ordered a more thorough search of the area, which resulted in the discovery of several other bones and part of what appeared to be a woman’s shoe. Other items found included a box made to hold a Brandis Navy Surveying Sextant that had been manufactured around 1918 and a bottle of Benedictine, an herbal liqueur.

This photo released by the U.S. National Archives and received by AFP on July 6, 2017, shows a group of people standing on a dock in the 1930s, one of whom has been alleged to be Amelia Earhart, on the Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands. 

“There was suspicion at the time that the bones could be the remains of Amelia Earhart,” Jantaz wrote in the study.

When the 13 bones were shipped to Fiji and studied by Dr. D. W. Hoodless of the Central Medical School the following year, Jantz argues that it is likely that forensic osteology – the study of bones – was still in its early stages, which therefore affected his assessment of which sex the remains belonged to. Jantz, in attempting to compare the lost bones with Earhart’s bones, co-developed a computer program that estimated sex and ancestry using skeletal measurements. The program, Fordisc, is commonly used by forensic anthropologists across the globe.

Jantz compared the lengths of the bones to Earhart’s measurements, using her height, weight, body build, limb lengths and proportions, based on photographs and information found on her pilot’s and driver’s licenses. His findings revealed that Earhart’s bones were “more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99 [percent] of individuals in a large reference sample.”

“In the case of the Nikumaroro bones, the only documented person to whom they may belong is Amelia Earhart,” Jantz wrote in the study.

Earhart’s disappearance has long captivated the public, and theories involving her landing on Nikumaroro have emerged in recent years. Retired journalist Mike Campbell, who authored “Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last,” has maintained with others that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were captured in the Marshall Islands by the Japanese, who thought they were American spies. He believes they were tortured and died in custody.

But Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) spoke to The Washington Post’s Cleve R. Wootson Jr. in 2016 about how he too believes the bones found on Nikumaroro belong to Earhart.

This May 20, 1937 photo, provided by The Paragon Agency, shows aviator Amelia Earhart with her Electra plane’s propeller, taken by Albert Bresnik at Burbank Airport in Burbank, Calif.

In 1998, the group took Hoodless’ measurements of the Nikumaroro bones and analyzed them through a robust anthropological database. They determined the bones belonged to a taller-than-average woman of European descent – perhaps Earhart, who at 5 feet 7 to 5 feet 8, was several inches taller than the average woman.

In 2016, the group brought the measurements to Jeff Glickman, a forensic examiner, who located a photo of Earhart from Lockheed Aircraft Corp. that showed her with her arms exposed. It appeared, based on educated guesses, that Earhart’s upper arm bone corresponded with one of the Nikumaroro bones.

Glickman, who is now a member of TIGHAR, told The Washington Post at the time that he understands some might be skeptical about his findings, as they were based 76-year-old medical notes. But the research made clear, he said, that Earhart died on Nikumaroro.

Both Gillespie and Glickman could not be immediately reached by The Post for comment on Jantz’s findings.

In June 2017, researchers traveled to Nikumaroro with dogs who had been specially trained to sniff the chemicals left behind by decaying human remains. They thought they might discover a bone, and were especially hopeful when the dogs seemed to detect the scent of human remains beneath a ren tree. But there were no bones.

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A week later, the History Channel published a photo suggesting Earhart died in Japan. Based on a photograph unearthed from the National Archives, researchers said Earhart may have been captured by the Japanese after all, as the photo showed Earhart and Noonan, in Jaluit Harbor in the Marshall Islands after their disappearance.

In the photo, according to The Post’s Amy B Wang, “a figure with Earhart’s haircut and approximate body type sits on the dock, facing away from the camera … Toward the left of the dock is a man they believe is Noonan. On the far right of the photo is a barge with an airplane on it, supposedly Earhart’s.”

This May 20, 1937 photo, provided by The Paragon Agency, shows aviator Amelia Earhart at her Electra plane cabin, taken by Albert Bresnik at Burbank Airport in Burbank, Calif.

After the History Channel program aired, a Japanese-military-history blogger matched the photo to one first published in a 1935 Japanese travelogue, two years before Earhart and Noonan disappeared.

The History Channel released a statement addressing the discrepancy.

“HISTORY has a team of investigators exploring the latest developments about Amelia Earhart and we will be transparent in our findings,” the statement read. “Ultimately, historical accuracy is most important to us and our viewers.”

Gillespie still stands by his theory, he told Wootson in 2017 after the photograph’s discovery. His group, TIGHAR, has tried to debunk thephoto, and Gillespie still thinks the “overwhelming weight of the evidence” points to Nikumororo.

The Supreme Court of Canada has decided that it will hear the appeal of an Ontario truck driver who was acquitted in the death of an Indigenous woman in Edmonton.

Bradley Barton was found not guilty in March 2015 by a jury in the death of 36-year-old Cindy Gladue, a sex-trade worker.

Gladue, who was a mother of three, was found in a bathtub where she bled to death after a night of what Barton called “consensual rough sex.” 

Barton testified that he picked up Gladue for two nights of sex in June 2011 and described her death as an accident. 

During the trial, Barton said that on both nights he put his fist in Gladue’s vagina, and on the second night she started bleeding. A medical examiner testified that an 11-centimetre cut in Gladue’s vaginal wall was caused by a sharp object.

When he woke the next morning, Barton said he found her dead in the motel room bathtub and called 911.

Barton was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter.

After the verdict, rallies across the country called for an appeal.

Cindy Gladue’s mother, Donna McLeod, breaks down during a rally for her daughter.

Several people, including Fawn Lamouche, demonstrated at the courthouse during the trial in support of the family. After the verdict was announced, Lamouche organized a rally in Edmonton where supporters could sign letters calling for an appeal.

Soon after, people in other cities joined Lamouche’s call for support and organized rallies of their own. Through social media, the rallies were planned on the same day.

A supporters hold a signs outside city hall during a Justice for Cindy rally on Thursday April 2, 2015.

The Alberta Court of Appeal ordered a second trial in 2017, ruling serious errors were made during the first trial that compromised the jury’s ability to properly examine the evidence and apply the correct law.

The errors by Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Graesser included incorrect instructions on what use the jury could make of Barton’s conduct after the fact, and failing to instruct the jury properly on the law of sexual assault relating to consent.

Canada’s Criminal Code states there is no consent when someone is incapable of consenting to the activity. The Crown believes that Gladue was incapacitated by alcohol during the time that Barton used a sharp object to penetrate her vaginal wall.

Gladue’s vagina was preserved and presented to the jury during the trial as an exhibit, which was criticized by advocacy groups who submitted a brief during the appeal arguing that Gladue was consistently dehumanized and stereotyped throughout the trial.  

Gladue was referred to as a prostitute by the Crown, defence and judge in front of the jury.

The appeal court said jurors were also told several times that Gladue was a “native woman.” She was referred to as “native” approximately 26 times throughout the trial by witnesses, defence counsel and Crown counsel, the appeal court said.

“Despite our society’s recognition of individual autonomy and equality, there still remains an undeniable need for judges to ensure that the criminal law is not tainted by pernicious and unfair assumptions, whether about women, Aboriginal people, or sex-trade workers,” said the written ruling from three judges, including Chief Justice Catherine Fraser.

A second trial was never held and in September of 2017, Barton decided to appeal the order to conduct one to the Supreme Court of Canada 

The Supreme Court gave no reasons for deciding to hear the case.

This is a re-post of an article published in 2016. We will continue to post it every clock change until Canadians are finally liberated from this government-imposed temporal scourge.

Daylight saving time starts on Sunday, Mar 11, and clocks will spring forward one hour at 2 a.m. Once again, approximately 34 million Canadians will lose an hour of sleep in the service of the grand national experiment.

First introduced to Canada 100 years ago as a way to save coal, the project is now an annual eight-month ritual tolerated purely due to the belief that it’s good for us. In March, we skip our clocks ahead one hour to inject more sunlight into the evenings. Then, in November, we switch them back to “standard time.”

But if government-mandated clock shifts annoy you, you’re not alone. A hefty body of scientific research is backing up the theory that this whole clock-switching thing might be a literal waste of time.

It’s probably not saving any energy
You might recognize this as the entire reason Canada jumped on the daylight saving time train in the first place. But no less than the National Research Council of Canada did a comprehensive review of the scientific literature in 2008 to find out if daylight saving time really was saving energy for Canadians. Their conclusion was that we don’t really know. “There is general consensus that DST does contribute to an evening reduction in peak demand for electricity, though this may be offset by an increase in the morning,” read the report. And the NRC is pretty charitable on this point. The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, by contrast, also released a study on daylight saving in 2008. After analyzing the energy consumption habits of seven million households in Indiana, the bureau stoically concluded that despite its intended purpose, daylight saving time was actually wasting energy. Lights were indeed being turned on later — but heaters and air conditioners were also kept on longer.

A clock on a city block in Montreal, Que.

It makes us less productive
Most studies on daylight saving time merely crunch the raw numbers: How much fuel saved, etc. But it was a 2015 paper out of Germany’s University of Erlangen-Nuremberg that delved into German and British data to measure daylight saving time’s effect on “life satisfaction.” One thing that popped out to researchers was that both Germans and Brits experienced “non-negligible losses of utility” after losing an hour of sleep for the spring changeover. Worse still, productivity was unaffected when workers are given an extra hour of sleep eight months later. Or, as researchers wrote, “we do not find evidence of utility gains when the clocks move back in autumn.”

It makes us putz around on the Internet
Humans aren’t good with impulse control when they’re tired. It’s why a 2012 study out of Penn State found a daylight saving time increase in “cyberloafing” (screwing around with personal things on the Internet instead of working) after people are forced to wake up an hour earlier for the “spring ahead” change to daylight saving time in March. By analyzing Google data and experimenting on sleep-deprived volunteers, researchers found that for every lost hour of sleep, U.S. workers were inclined to spend an extra 8.4 minutes cyberloafing. As a news site that sees much of its traffic occurring during working hours, however, the National Post can’t necessarily condemn this behaviour.

A post clock at Electric Time Company, Inc. in Medfield, Mass., March 7, 2014.

It depresses us
The cold and darkness of a Canadian winter is depressing in any case. But the effect of daylight saving time is to take a slow darkening process and transform it into a violent one-day plunge. A Danish-American research team published a study showing that the rate of diagnosed depression cases shows a marked uptick in the weeks after the “fall back” clock change. The data, obtained by analyzing 185,419 depression diagnoses in Denmark’s Central Psychiatric Research Register, found that depression cases spiked by as much as eight per cent in early November. “We are relatively certain that it is the transition from daylight saving time to standard time that causes the increase in the number of depression diagnoses and not, for example, the change in the length of the day or bad weather,” said researcher Søren D. Østergaard.

It kills us
Scientists have long suspected that the “spring forward” changeover resulted in more fatal road crashes. Basically, if you force the entire country to lose an hour of sleep, it follows that more cars than usual are going to be skidding into highway barriers. But oddly, the fall changeover also manages to kill people. In a 2001 paper in the Journal of Sleep Medicine, researchers analyzed 21 years of U.S. collision data and found a 10-per cent-increase in fatal crashes around the “fall back” change. Researchers chalked this up to “behavioural responses to forced circadian changes.” Basically, scientists theorized that people are staying out extra late on the night before the clock change, resulting in highways full of extra-tired drivers.

It maims us
While their cubicle-dwelling equivalents cyberloaf every spring, blue-collar workers need to deal with mines and construction sites jammed with ill-rested labourers. The inevitable result is a temporary rash of workplace injuries that wouldn’t have otherwise happened. A 2009 paper in the Journal of the American Psychological Association found that, in the United States, an average of 2,649 days of work were lost every year due to injuries sustained because of daylight saving time-induced fatigue. Just as with workplace productivity, however, the reverse is not true. The same study found that the “number and severity of workplace injuries” was virtually untouched by giving workers an extra hour of sleep in November.

It may be the one thing where Saskatchewan is right
Canada’s strength as a nation comes from a general willingness to steer clear of whatever sick, twisted pursuits Saskatchewan is up to. But with daylight saving time, it is the one issue in which we are forced to bow our heads to the wisdom of the Wheat Province. Since 1966, Saskatchewan has effectively lived in a perpetual state of daylight saving time. Despite the province being in the Mountain Time Zone, 1.1 million Saskatchewanians synchronize their clocks with Central Standard Time, the time zone located just to the east. Doctors are generally in agreement that it’s good to give people extra sunlight in the summer: more exercising, more socializing. But it’s the clock changes of daylight saving time that screw everyone up. Those canny Saskatchewanians, however, get the best of both worlds: More daylight in the summer, no depression-inducing time change in the fall. This strategy has also been taken up by a chunk of Northern B.C. that simply stays on Alberta time all year. 

Dave Olecko/ Bloomberg News.

Most of the world doesn’t do it
Daylight saving time applies to only about 1.6 billion people worldwide, which means that 79 per cent of the world’s population is spared the annoyance of synchronizing their watches twice a year. Of course, part of this is due to most of humanity concentrating near the equator, where daylight shifts aren’t nearly as dramatic. Tellingly, many countries — India, South Africa and the Philippines among them — used to practice daylight saving time before determining that it wasn’t worth the trouble. China, for one, ditched daylight saving time in 1992. Now, to keep everything simple, the whole country (which would normally span three to four time zones) simply sets its watch to Beijing time. 

It was invented by our enemies
Just like income tax, daylight saving time was originally introduced as a temporary measure during the First World War. In 1915, Imperial Germany began jimmying its clocks around in order to better fit the working day within available daylight hours — and presumably save the energy that would otherwise be used to light factories at night. Once word of the measure got out, Britain and its empire quickly followed suit just in case daylight saving was giving their Teutonic enemies a strategic advantage. Daylight saving time, thus, is a lot like poison gas and aerial bombardment of cities: An ante-upping escalation introduced only because the Germans did it first.

Bundesarchive

Where the time change doesn’t apply: Saskatchewan (except Denare Beach and Creighton), the northeastern corner of B.C., the town of Creston in B.C.’s East Kootenays, three northwestern Ontario communities (Pickle Lake, New Osnaburgh and Atikokan), the eastern reaches of Quebec’s North Shore, and Southampton Island in Nunavut.

• Email: thopper@nationalpost.com | Twitter: TristinHopper

Two Canadian educational institutions this week faced blowback for campaigns intended to highlight the racial “privilege” of students.

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) put up posters encouraging students to “check their privilege” using a list of privileges such as “Christian,” “White,” “Heterosexual” and “Male.”

Meanwhile, B.C.’s School District 74 put up posters featuring school administration officials highlighting their own encounters with racism and privilege. 

In one, district superintendent Teresa Downs stands next to a quote reading, “I have unfairly benefitted from the colour of my skin. White privilege is not acceptable.”

In another, district principal of Aboriginal education Tammy Mountain appears next to the quote, “I have felt racism. Have you?”

In the case of UOIT, the posters appear to have been quickly taken down after attracting online scorn.

“I fit the bill for almost every single category yet the promoters have no idea whether or not I’ve had ‘unearned access to social power’ because of this,” wrote one critic on the Facebook page of UOIT Student Life, the department that created the posters.

Still, administrators defended the posters, saying they were not intended to shame people who fell into one of the indicated privilege categories.

“Becoming aware of privilege should not be seen as a burden or source of guilt, but rather, an opportunity,” read a poster accompanying the checklist.

In B.C., meanwhile, a local CBC report quoted Kansas Field Allen, a parent who had taken to Facebook to complain that by encouraging students to be extra cognizant of racial identity, the School District 74 posters were sowing racial division.

“I’d say 95 per cent of the people are in favour of having the posters taken down, and that’s from all races,” she said.

Online discussions of the posters quickly descended into ugliness. One pro-poster commenter was targeted by private messages reading “it’s hilarious when you talk about white privilege when you walk around with a status card.”

Field Allen, in turn, reported being berated for raising “white racist children.”

The School District 74 posters were based on a City of Saskatoon billboard campaign that had faced similar criticism for allegedly tarring all whites as racists.

One billboard in particular featured a white man alongside the quote: “I have to acknowledge my own privilege and racist attitudes.”

“Some of the chatter on social media presume that the city has scripted this statement and that it is intended to make the assumption that all people are racist — It’s not at all. This was an individual who lives in Saskatoon and has seen the ill effects of racism,” Lynne Lacroix, the city’s director of recreation and community development, told Postmedia in defence of the campaign.

• Twitter: TristinHopper | Email: thopper@nationalpost.com

Sitting in his lawyer’s office in Vancouver Thursday, Jaspal Atwal renounced his Sikh extremist past and instead cast himself as a reformed man who is trying to address the needs of the Indo-Canadian community by hobnobbing with politicians of all stripes.

Never, he insisted, did he expect that his recent appearance at a reception in Mumbai, India, where he was photographed next to Justin Trudeau’s wife, would cause such an uproar.

“I was completely shocked and devastated,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.

“I am sorry for any embarrassment this matter has caused.”

After that photograph with Sophie Gregoire Trudeau was widely circulated, Atwal, who was convicted in the 1980s of attempting to assassinate a visiting Punjab cabinet minister in B.C., was promptly disinvited to a dinner at the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi featuring the prime minister — one episode in a gaffe-filled trip that raised questions about why Atwal’s name wasn’t flagged sooner.

Trudeau later told reporters that Atwal “never should have received an invitation” to attend the reception. And Randeep Sarai, Liberal MP for Surrey Centre, also acknowledged that he should’ve “exercised better judgment” when he initially passed along Atwal’s name for consideration to be on the guest list.

• Terry Glavin: The Atwal affair is personal. People I've known have been killed
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At one point, the scandal took a conspiratorial turn when a senior federal government source floated a theory to reporters that Indian government officials might’ve attempted to sabotage the trip by orchestrating Atwal’s appearance — claims that the Indian government flatly denied.

Asked about that theory on Thursday, Atwal’s lawyer, Rishi Gill, said his client was never approached by Indian officials to act as an agent and that the only interaction Atwal has had with Indian diplomats is to arrange interviews with them for a Surrey, B.C.-based internet radio station.

“If anybody has a specific accusation that they can point to, I’d like to hear it,” Gill said.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said in a Facebook post Thursday that the theory that Atwal was a plant has been thoroughly refuted and that “Justin Trudeau is failing to be honest with Canadians about the Atwal affair.”

Jaspal Atwal reads his statement to media in Vancouver on March 8, 2018.

Atwal, 62, who did not make any remarks beyond his prepared statement, told reporters that before he left for India earlier this winter, he reached out to Sarai “to see whether there was any possibility of attending the reception for the prime minister. … I was eventually provided an invitation by the Canadian Ambassador.”

“(Atwal) reached out to Mr. Sarai very casually and said, ‘If there’s a possibility of me going I would like to go.’ That was the end of it,” Gill added. “It was no more controversial than that.”

Gill said his client was never approached by Canadian security officials for any sort of vetting prior to his arrival to the event.

Court records show that Atwal received a 20-year prison sentence in 1987 after a jury found him and three others guilty of the attempted murder of Malkiat Singh Sidhu, a Punjab cabinet minister. Sidhu and his wife were in B.C. to attend a relative’s wedding.

On May 25, 1986, Atwal and his cohorts had cut in front of a vehicle that Sidhu was travelling in and fired several shots. Sidhu was struck by two bullets.

“They tracked and (stalked) Mr. Sidhu as a hunter would (stalk) his quarry,” the judge said at their sentencing. “It was a cowardly and heinous attack on a man they did not personally know, not for personal gain, but as a result of some belief or impression that by so doing they were advancing a political cause deemed important to these four individuals.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, was photographed with convicted would-be assassin Jaspal Singh Atwal at a function in India on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2018.

Atwal said Thursday, “like many other Sikhs, (he) became caught up in a movement supporting an independent Sikh nation.”

“While nothing can excuse my conduct, I can only say that during that time in the early 1980s, I reacted to the Indian Army storming the Golden Temple in Amritsar in a way that has caused much pain to many individuals.”

Atwal said he had “nothing but regret and remorse” for what the judge deemed to be an “act of terror.”

“I again renounce any form of terrorism. I do not advocate in any sense for an independent Sikh nation. I, like the vast majority of Sikhs who once advocated for this cause, have reconciled with the nation of India.”

Gill released a copy of Atwal’s 1993 parole report, which stated that he had shown “exemplary” behaviour and that Atwal acknowledged what he had done was “totally unacceptable” and constituted an act of “political terrorism.”

Gill also released copies of his client’s passport pages, which show that India had granted Atwal three travel visas in 2017 — lasting one month, three months and one year.

“The one country that was directly affected by the (assassination attempt) that occurred was India. … India has let him back in the country to visit,” Gill said.

Gill characterized Atwal’s relationship with Trudeau as friendly and Atwal said he has interacted and been photographed with politicians from the NDP, Liberals and Conservatives as part of his efforts to connect those politicians with the Indo-Canadian community. Gill released images of three House of Commons passes Atwal received in 2013 and 2014.

Gill said his client recognizes how his appearance in India had caused “discomfort” but dismissed any suggestion that Atwal should hold back from engaging public officials.

“He’d like to stay involved with his community in politics as best he can.”

When the history of this Liberal government is written, among its major achievements will be the bad things it prevented from happening.

When Finance Minister Bill Morneau negotiated the renewed health accord with the provinces, Ottawa secured deals limiting funding increases to growth in the size of the economy, rather than the 5.2 per cent escalator demanded by the premiers. The cumulative savings to the federal government amount to $50-70 billion over a decade.

On Donald Trump’s threatened steel and aluminum tariffs, the Trudeau government has skillfully leveraged the network of contacts and allies built up over the past 18 months to secure Canada an exemption.

Last week, Trump suggested the 25 per cent tariff on steel and 10 per cent levy on aluminum would apply to all countries in order to protect national security. He was apparently convinced by Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross and Trade Director Peter Navarro that U.S. industry could only be protected by building a fortress around America to block trans-shipped Chinese metals.

• Canada, Mexico get indefinite relief from Trump's steel, aluminum tariffs
• Canada’s exclusion from Trump tariffs has NAFTA strings attached
• Trump's tariffs would hit Canada nearly five times harder than China

Over the weekend, Trudeau and his ministers set out to counter that message. The prime minister called close Trump ally, Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwartzman, while Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan held conversations with his American counterpart James Mattis, pointing out that far from being a national security threat, Canada supplies the U.S. with much of the aluminum used in its fighter jets.

That call is said to have been important because, while national security was viewed as a bargaining chip by Navarro and Ross, it is taken far more seriously by veterans like Mattis, who appreciate the military supply chain links with Canada.

The case for Canada was also made by former prime minister Brian Mulroney to his friend Ross, while Trudeau reached out to opponents of tariffs like Tom Donohue, the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, and Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

However, the pivotal intervention seems to have been Trudeau’s call to Trump on Monday night. Trudeau told the president that he is planning to visit every steel town in Canada in the coming week, where he will reinforce the message that Canadian steel is made in Canada by Canadians.

For whatever reasons, Trump listens to Trudeau and the two have an easy-going, unthreatening relationship reminiscent of the school bully and class dweeb. The prime minister has shown admirable self-restraint in his exchanges with the mercurial Trump and Thursday was the pay-off for abasing himself before the alpha dog president at the White House last October.

Perhaps as important as Trudeau’s argument that Canada is a steadfast ally, integrated tightly into civilian and military supply chains, were American concerns about the impact of tariffs and the breakdown of NAFTA on the Mexican economy. Mexico may not be a national security threat now but it could well become one if its economy collapses.

The temporary exemptions for Canada and Mexico are renewable after 30 days and contingent on progress on NAFTA. But it seems hard to envisage national security provisions being enacted, after they have been waived.

In his press conference, Trump said he has “a feeling we’re going to make a deal on NAFTA”.

Still, this will all prove a pyrrhic victory if a global trade war ensues.

Trump lauded the protective tariff policies of previous Republican presidents, quoting William McKinley (president from 1897-1901) as saying tariffs have “made the lives of the masses of our countrymen sweeter and brighter”.

Trump believes in protectionism from the tips of his polished oxfords to the top of his unique combover – and he made clear that the steel and aluminum levies are just the “first stop”.

That is in stark contrast with the move toward freer trade spreading elsewhere around the world. Trump was speaking just hours after 11 countries, including Canada, signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in Chile.

Trudeau spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday and also talked with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The leaders agreed on the importance of the rules-based multi-lateral trading system that Trump is now threatening to blow up.

The problem is particularly acute for Canada because the venue at which the whole global trading edifice might crumble could be the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Que., in early June.

After three disastrous forays onto the world stage in Vietnam, China and India, it would not be good news for Trudeau if Charlevoix became synonymous with an economic crash.

The success of his diplomatic efforts in gaining Canada an exemption suggests he has Trump’s ear.

The stage is now set for him play the role of interlocutor in Charlevoix – a pivotal role in the bid to prevent the biggest bad thing of all from happening.

• Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter: IvisonJ

TOKYO – North Korea’s belligerent leader, Kim Jong Un, has asked President Donald Trump for talks and Trump has agreed to meet him “by May,” South Korea’s national security adviser said at the White House Thursday after delivering the invitation to the American president.

Kim has also committed to stopping nuclear and missile testing, even during joint military drills in South Korea last month, Chung Eui-yong told reporters in Washington.

After a year in which North Korea fired inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of reaching all of the United States and tested what is widely thought to have been a hydrogen bomb, such a moratorium would be welcomed by the U.S. and the world.

Kim Jong Un “expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible,” Chung said. “President Trump said he would meet Kim Jong Un by May.” Chung did not provide any information on where the meeting would be.

Chung led the South Korean delegation to North Korea earlier this week, where he had a cordial four-hour dinner with the reclusive Kim. During the meetings in Pyongyang, Kim and his senior cadres expressed a willingness to hold talks with the U.S. and was prepared to discuss denuclearization and normalizing relations.

During the meetings, Kim “made it clear” that it would not resume provocations while engaged in those talks, Chung said Tuesday upon returning to Seoul.

Chung and Suh Hoon, the head of South Korea’s intelligence agency who was also at the dinner in Pyongyang, arrived in Washington Thursday to brief Trump and his senior officials on the meetings.

• North Korea's Kim Jong Un says he will call a halt to nuclear tests if the U.S. holds talks
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• U.S. top general says military is able to destroy 'most' of North Korea's nuclear missile infrastructure

In front of the White House Thursday night, Chung credited Trump for bringing the North Korean leader to the table, continuing Seoul’s deliberate efforts to flatter the American president.

“I explained to President Trump that his leadership and his maximum pressure strategy… brought us to this juncture,” Chung said.

It was an extraordinary scene – a foreign official, unaccompanied by U.S. leaders, briefing the press at the White House.

Kim sent his sister, Kim Yo Jong, to South Korea at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang last month to deliver an invitation to South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, to hold a summit. Preparations are now underway for that meeting, scheduled to take place at the end of April, even as the American and South Korean militaries prepare to begin drills that anger North Korea every year.

After Chung returned from Pyongyang earlier this week with news that Kim Jong Un was amenable to talks, Trump said that North Korea was responding to the “maximum pressure” his administration was applying. In addition to threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea if it did not give up its nuclear weapons program, the Trump administration has been leading the efforts to impose increasingly tough sanctions through the United Nations, as well as the U.S. applying its own bilateral sanctions.

“I think they are sincere, but I think they are sincere also because of the sanctions and what we’re doing in respect to North Korea,” Trump said Tuesday, describing the measures as “very strong and very biting.”

South Korean national security director Chung Eui-yong, centre, speaks to reporters at the White House on Thursday, as intelligence chief Suh Hoon, left and Cho Yoon-je, the South Korea ambassador to U.S., listen.

He also said that “the great help we’ve been given from China” has played a role, although there are repeated reports of both Chinese and Russian assistance in helping North Korea evade sanctions.

Some analysts say that Kim is suddenly interested in talks because the sanctions are beginning to hurt and because he is genuinely afraid of American military strikes.

But others say that he’s feeling more confident than ever. In November, Kim declared that he had “completed” his missile program and is now ready to deal with the United States – on an equal footing, as nuclear state to nuclear state.

A meeting would be a huge step between the two countries, avowed enemies for 70 years, and particularly between two leaders who have taken delight in insulting each other over the past year. Trump has mocked Kim as “little rocket man” while the North Korean leader has called the American president a “dotard” and a “lunatic.”

However, Trump has also repeatedly said he would be willing to talk to Kim. While running for president in 2016, Trump said he wouldn’t host Kim for a state visit but would be happy to sit down for hamburgers at a boardroom table with the North Korean leader.

The North Koreans have been confused by Trump’s unorthodox leadership style, making contact with analysts in Washington with Republican ties. Senior North Korean officials have even read “Fire and Fury,” the explosive book

Since he took over the leadership of North Korea from his father at the end of 2011, Kim has not met any other head of state. Discussions are now underway to hold a summit with Moon in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas at the end of next month.

This would be the third inter-Korean summit but there has never been a face-to-face meeting, or even a phone call, between the sitting leaders of North Korea and the United States. Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton met the then-leaders – Carter met Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung and Clinton met his father, Kim Jong Il – during visits to Pyongyang after they had left office.

Both Carter and Clinton went to Pyongyang to collect Americans who had been imprisoned by the regime.

There has been no word on the three American men who have been detained in North Korea, one for two-and-a-half years. North Korea has been treating them as prisoners of war and has denied Swedish diplomats, representing the United States in North Korea, consular access to them since June last year.

Full text of South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong’s announcement (via AP):

Good evening.

Today I had the privilege of briefing President Trump on my recent visit to Pyongyang, North Korea.

I’d like to thank President Trump, the Vice-President and his wonderful national security team, including my close friend, Gen. McMaster.

I explained to President Trump that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy, together with international solidarity, brought us to this juncture. I expressed President Moon Jae-in’s personal gratitude for President Trump’s leadership.

I told President Trump that in our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is committed to denuclearization. He pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests. He understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue.

And he expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible.

President Trump appreciated the briefing and said he would meet Kim Jong Un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization. The Republic of Korea, along with the United States, Japan and our many partners around the world, remain fully and resolutely committed to the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Along with President Trump, we are optimistic of our continuing a diplomatic process to test the possibility of a peaceful resolution.

The Republic of Korea, the United States and our partners stand together in insisting that we not repeat the mistakes of the past and that the pressure will continue until North Korea matches its words with concrete action.

Thank you.

An art piece that sparked controversy and debate at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto and was taken down Monday night amid the brouhaha has been re-installed.

The piece is a green Islamic prayer mat with a female nude in black outlined over it and was in an annual juried student show called Festival of the Body.

The controversial piece.

The school’s Muslim Student Association had complained about the piece, but it went back up Thursday.

“While the piece may be offensive to some, the curators and jury of the exhibition support artistic freedom…,” a notice from OCADU vice-provost Deanne Fisher and Vlad Spicanovic, the faculty of art dean, said.

Now that the artist, who remains anonymous, has written an “artist’s statement” about the work, there is “further context” to the work.

In her statement, the artist, who is a Muslim woman, says in part that she wanted viewers to remove their preconceived notions and look at the piece by asking, “If the body was created halal (permissible) when did we make it haram (forbidden)?”

The show runs until March 14.

• Email: cblatchford@postmedia.com | Twitter: blatchkiki

• Christie Blatchford: Depiction of nude on a prayer mat too provocative for Ontario art school

What was only muttered about a couple of days ago in the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race emerged Thursday as an open, angry accusation: the party has all but rigged the vote in favour of one candidate.

Toronto businessman Doug Ford suggested Tory officials had sided with rival Christine Elliott in refusing to extend the election, a decision he said would deny “thousands” of PCs the right to vote.

He also called the process “corrupt,” and went so far as to suggest – though without offering any corroborating evidence – that the party had favoured a select group of “VIP insiders” when it mailed out the secret codes needed to register for the election.

Ford himself stressed that Elliott is the only one of the four candidates for leader who has not echoed his call to extend balloting by a week because of various glitches.

“What would you call an election where only 1 out of 3 members can vote? I call it a scandal,” he said on Facebook. ”All the candidates are united, except one: Christine Elliott. It’s unbelievable. But the Party sided with her … This is just another in a long line of scandals coming out of Party HQ. What games are being played here?”

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• Ontario Tories extending voting deadlines twice in one week, amidst candidate criticism of system complexity

In a Tweet to Ottawa Citizen columnist David Reevely, Ford’s official Twitter account said the process had been “corrupted,” employing a two-tier system of registering voters that favours “their hand-picked elites over regular party members.”

Online, the many Ford supporters and other members who did not receive their registration package in time, and so couldn’t vote, talked of class-action lawsuits, fraud and scams.

“Deep down I truly believe the party has somebody in mind that they want to be the leader, and they’re not trying hard enough to let the people have a vote,” said Tory Jason Lowry in an interview with the National Post.

Despite multiple calls and emails to the party, the delivery driver never received his package in the mail.

“I feel cheated, I feel slighted. I feel like I should get my money back,” echoed Toronto’s Stephanie Attard, 34, also unable to vote. “I feel like no matter who won right now, it would not be justified because of the outrage I see online from people like me.”

About 190,000 people had paid-up memberships by the time the leadership sign-up period ended Feb. 16. More than 70,000 had registered to vote by early Thursday, the deadline being 8 p.m.

Just over 52,000 had actually voted by 2 p.m. – already the biggest turnout ever for any Ontario party’s leadership election, Tory officials said. Balloting ends Friday at noon.

The party insists extending the voting would violate the PC constitution, which states the cut-off for signing up new members can be no earlier than half-way through the leadership race.

Ford and his campaign team did not respond when asked Thursday whether the former city councilor would honour the results of the election, set to be announced Saturday afternoon. Voting is scheduled to end Friday at noon.

Regardless, the snafus have become one more source of bitter division in a party already wracked by infighting over the fall of former leader Patrick Brown.

Ontario PC leadership candidates Tanya Granic Allen, Caroline Mulroney, Christine Elliott and Doug Ford.

Hartley Lefton, chair of the leadership organizing committee and the unfortunate brunt of much of the complaining, vigorously denied that any one group of Conservatives received their voting package before others.

“We are totally neutral,” said Lefton. “There is nothing that any one campaign knows about this process that another one doesn’t … If you have more support, then more supporters will get ballots.”

The only attempt at polling of the race made public since the campaign began 42 days ago – by Mainstreet Research – suggested that Elliott, a former Tory member of the legislature, had a slight lead over Ford.

Lefton did not deny that many people who bought Conservative memberships would be unable to participate but said that “every process is imperfect,” especially when conducted so rapidly.

The other two candidates, lawyer Caroline Mulroney and self-described social conservative Tanya Granic Allen, have also urged the party to extend the voting.

Granic Allen did not reply when asked if she would respect the results. Mulroney’s campaign said that, despite her concerns, “she believes that this process will produce a fair result on Saturday.”

• Email: tblackwell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: tomblackwellNP

The Tory gong show is to close March 10, as planned. After a conference call with candidate representatives on Wednesday night, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives’ leadership organizing committee decided to stand pat and announce Patrick Brown’s successor on Saturday in Markham. Members have until Friday to vote, assuming they have successfully navigated the verification process.

It’s a defensible decision, as sticking with the plan often is. But as with many other decisions the party has faced since Brown’s career exploded, it’s impossible to say for certain it’s the right one.

The Caroline Mulroney and Doug Ford camps complain that a significant chunk of the electorate hasn’t received their verification PINs in the mail, and they seem to be correct about that. Their proposed remedy was to extend voting and delay the convention by a week, and it made a good deal of sense on its face — though it arguably violated the party constitution, which says the registration cutoff can’t be earlier than midway through the campaign, and the process of amending it could have set the gongs a-ringing again.

Party officials effuse at the huge turnout thus far, but if a significant chunk of the membership ends up disenfranchised, it’s going to leave a mark. If Ford loses, he won’t necessarily go quietly — especially if he decides not to run in Etobicoke North after all. His Thursday email to supporters described the situation a “just another in a long line of scandals coming out of Party HQ.”

• ‘Corrupt’ Ontario PC leadership vote rigged in favour of Christine Elliott, Doug Ford charges
• Kelly McParland: Ontario Liberals believe voters can be bought again — with their own money

Basically, on the night of Jan. 24, the Tories removed a giant rock under which they had been operating. And ever since, Ontarians have watched with emotions ranging from astonishment to disgust to disbelief as the various creepy-crawlies have scrambled for shelter. It’s been ugly. And if thousands of members are left in the cold, it would be uglier still. It’s some miracle, surely, that polls suggest voters have either not noticed or not cared, or even become more likely to vote PC.

Mind you, voting hiccups were inevitable. When party officials explained the voting procedures to reporters in a Feb. 7 conference call, I was quite sure things would go much worse than they have. This was a process that relied heavily on elderly Ontarians’ facility with computers, scanners, smartphones and spam filters. Far worse, it relied on Canada Post. That’s not to say it was badly designed: on balance it made sense, considering the time constraints involved. But unlike so much that has occurred since Brown’s departure, these problems were understandable.

Conversely, on Wednesday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa stood up at the Economic Club of Canada and completely changed course — at least rhetorically — on the question of balanced budgets. Ten months after trumpeting the province’s (supposed) return to the black, he inexplicably announced he would be plunging the province back into the red, by as much as one per cent of GDP or around $8 billion.

Well, I say “inexplicably.” He did try to explain. He said two per cent projected growth isn’t good enough; more “investment” is needed. But the 2017 budget assumed 2.1 per cent in 2018, 2.0 per cent in 2019 and 1.7 per cent in 2020. He cited an “aging population,” threats to NAFTA and rising interest rates among the “many questions and challenges ahead.” But the 2017 budget specifically contemplated “risks that mounting protectionism will increase trade barriers that could disrupt economic growth,” credited the province’s financial position in some part to lower-than-expected interest rates and mentioned our rapidly greying population on at least 10 separate occasions.

In one breath on Wednesday, Sousa called going back into deficit a “cautious” approach; in another, “make no mistake,” he promised, “our budget will have a clear plan to track back to balance.” Just like … er … last year’s.

Back in May, citing its reliance on one-time revenues and various accounting sleights of hand, many argued the budget wasn’t balanced in any meaningful way. But I wondered whether voters would even care. The federal Liberals promised deficits, have exceeded expectations in delivering them, and don’t seem to be suffering terribly for it. The Ontario Tories themselves have proposed to run a deficit in 2018-19. Clearly, balanced budgets don’t carry the totemic force they used to.

This makes it all the more depressingly obvious what Sousa and his Liberals are hoping to do: buy off voters with a parcel of activist policies and programs that they didn’t think necessary until 10 minutes ago, while assailing the Conservatives as heartless monsters for opposing them. It’s as pathetic as it is shameless as it is predictable. And depending on who wins on Saturday, it might well work — again. Those gongs you’re hearing aren’t just coming from Tory headquarters. They’re coming from inside the house.

An Ontario woman says her Facebook account was turned into a memorial page, leading her friends and family to panic and believe she had died because of her involvement in a discussion group devoted to the Bruce McArthur investigation. 

Shawna Lea Fraser is an administrator on the Facebook group “Serial Killer Bruce McArthur Discuss The Case,” where more than 2,000 members post media reports, discuss the latest police revelations and sometimes those who are most curious even try to make a break in the investigation. The group also serves as a platform for friends of McArthur’s alleged victims to remember their loved ones. 

Internal bickering over an unfounded rumour about one of the alleged victims, Andrew Kinsman, led Fraser, 41, to remove a handful of members from the group, she said. 

On Wednesday, Fraser was messaging a friend when she refreshed her page and saw that she was had been logged out. When she couldn’t log back in, Fraser finally noticed the word “remembering” above her name on her profile.

Accused Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur.

She was dead, according to Facebook. 

Within 20 minutes, the phone calls began. 

“My mother with a heart condition went into a panic wondering if my spouse hadn’t told her something,” she said. “It’s terrified and traumatized my family. I still have family calling me to see if I’m OK.”

On Friday, a Facebook spokesperson would not confirm whether the company received a request to have the page memorialized, only saying that it was “our mistake.”

“We mistakenly memorialized the account and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused,” a spokesperson said. 

Facebook friends have the option of requesting that profiles be turned into memorial pages when their loved ones die. If accepted by Facebook, the change locks the account and turns the page into one that can no longer be logged in to. Only those who were already listed as friends before the profile was locked can continue to post on the profile. 

To make the request, friends and family have to fill out an online form with the person’s name and date of death. A user can also assign a “legacy” contact who could make that decision for them. 

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Providing proof of death — such as an obituary or a certificate — is only optional to file the request. If the request does not have proof of death, Facebook teams will look for their own — such as friends and family making posts about it. If no proof is given or found, the request should be denied. 

“It’s very disturbing to think Facebook so easily allowed this,” Fraser said. 

Fraser runs several sleuth groups, including one focused on missing and murdered Indigenous women and men. She said they provide an avenue for her desire to do advocacy work for marginalized people. The groups can have a positive impact and that was seen when the community banded together, combing through missing persons reports to see if any matched a photo police released earlier this week of an unidentified man they say is McArthur’s seventh victim. 

But they also have an ugly side. She said she’s only had trouble moderating the one focused on McArthur, who has been charged with six first-degree murders. Fraser pointed to screenshots she took of comments from former members calling her a “skank” and “a straight Facebook Nazi” after they were removed from the group.

Citing the past harassment, she said it’s clear the request to turn her Facebook page into a memorial came from a disgruntled former member. The other administrator of the page, Patricia Roy, has had to create three different Facebook pages in three weeks because they are continuously being reported as fake.

When Roy, 35, created the McArthur group, she purposely used an account with a different name because she was concerned about her safety, she said. When two accounts were flagged by Facebook’s automated systems for being fake, Roy created one using her legal name. Roy said much of the harassment comes from childish squabbles between members looking to either take control of the groups themselves or have them shut down.

Some of the former group members said the harassment went both ways and they were kicked out of the group once the bickering about Kinsman led to further insults and name calling. 

For 20 hours, Fraser fielded calls and text messages from concerned friends and family. Her mother and father did the same. Fraser eventually had to have her daughter leave a message on her memorial page to let more than 600 of her friends know she was alive. In between, she said she suffered from anxiety attacks. 

After sending images of her birth certificate and driver’s licence to Facebook representatives, her memorial page was eventually reverted back to normal. Fraser initially planned to file a police report but because Facebook won’t tell her who was behind the request, she now feels she doesn’t have the backing to do so.  The experience, however, has convinced her to take a less active in the McArthur group. 

“It’s like my mom said: ‘People need to get off the Internet’,” Fraser agreed.

YOUNTVILLE, Calif. — A gunman took at least three people hostage at a large veterans home in California on Friday and police locked down the sprawling grounds, Napa County Fire Capt. Chase Beckman said.

Police closed access to the large veterans home in Yountville after a man with a gun was reported on the grounds.

The Napa County Sheriff’s Department issued an alert to residents at 10:30 a.m. Friday warning them to avoid the area because of “activity at the Veterans Home in Yountville.”

The Napa Valley Register reported that a man wearing body armour and armed with an automatic weapon entered the home.

Napa County Fire captain Chase Beckman says a gunman has taken hostages at the veterans home in California.

The sheriff’s department did not immediately respond to a telephone call from The Associated Press.

The state Veterans Affairs department says the home that opened in 1984 is the largest veterans’ home in the United States, with about 1,000 elderly and disabled residents. Its website says it offers residential accommodations with recreational, social, and therapeutic activities for independent living.

Veterans of World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom now live at the home, according to the website.

The grounds are also home to a 1,200-seat theatre, a 9-hole golf course, a baseball stadium, bowling lanes, a swimming pool, and a military Base Exchange branch store.

Yountville is in Napa Valley, the heart of Northern California’s wine country.

In this April 17, 2011 file photo, vineyards are shown in front of the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, Calif.

OTTAWA — The promises are enormous. In the next two years, the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women says it will hold up to 21 institutional and expert hearings to investigate issues ranging from human trafficking and sexual exploitation to health care and addiction services. It will commission external reports about the criminal justice system, colonial violence, advocacy and the media. It will conduct original research into the Indian Act and certain sections of the Constitution. It will continue to hear from the hundreds of survivors and family members who still want a chance to tell their stories.

That’s if the national inquiry is granted the two-year extension it requested on Tuesday, which would extend its mandate through to the end of 2020 — and the up to $50 million in additional funding it says it needs to pay for it, money that would nearly double its existing budget.

“Any extension of less than two years would severely limit the value of our work,” the inquiry’s four commissioners wrote in a letter to Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett earlier this week.

The tasks the commissioners hope to add to their remit would represent a significant expansion of the inquiry’s work — especially noteworthy given the slow progress the inquiry has made so far, including on its ambitious commitment to review police files. Notably, Tuesday’s letter revealed that forensic review isn’t yet underway, while the inquiry claimed last July that it already had a forensic team reviewing files.

During a teleconference on Tuesday, Commissioner Michèle Audette said the police review remains a major priority. And the inquiry has long maintained that many of its delays have been caused by logistical and bureaucratic challenges that are now being resolved.

Still, early reactions from Indigenous organizations make it clear the inquiry no longer has unconditional support from many quarters. Even those groups that support an extension are ambivalent, and say changes are needed if the long-awaited national inquiry, launched in September 2016, is to succeed at all. 

To date, the Assembly of First Nations has backed the inquiry’s request, while the Métis National Council and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents Inuit in Canada, have yet to take a position. But other groups, like Pauktuutit, an organization representing Inuit women, are already saying they can’t support the ask for more time and money.

“We’re going to wait for two more years for the recommendations to be complete and acted on, and we feel that how many more women are going to be… murdered while that’s happening?” said Pauktuutit president Rebecca Kudloo. Frustrated with the inquiry’s progress to date, Kudloo said the $50 million the inquiry is asking for would be better spent providing tangible services in remote communities, like shelters and addictions counselling.

At this point, she said, more original research is not where the inquiry should be focusing its efforts. “There’s been so much work done on violence against women and what we need as Inuit that I don’t think the inquiry should start from scratch,” she said.

Kudloo believes the inquiry should continue to gather information through the end of 2018, and should then take just six months to complete its report and make recommendations. 

Melanie Omeniho, president of the Women of the Métis Nation, said her organization has also had enough, claiming the inquiry has excluded Métis women. In their letter to Bennett, the commissioners say their current mandate limits their ability to “engage fully with the Métis.” But Omeniho disagrees.

“We think they’ve had ample opportunity and they’ve just failed to include them,” she said, pointing out that Marilyn Poitras, the lone Métis commissioner, left the inquiry last summer. “I’m not saying throw this under the bus. … I just don’t think two more years is going to help us get there.”

Even those that support the extension sound more cautious than enthusiastic.

“If we don’t support this, we are not sure that anything will happen otherwise,” said Francyne Joe, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). This inquiry was a long time coming, she said. “We don’t want to lose the momentum.”

But the association’s support doesn’t come without strings attached. Joe said the organization wants to take a more active role going forward. Until now, NWAC has been participating in the community hearings as a volunteer organization, but Joe said the association should get part of whatever new funding the inquiry receives to help with the new hearings and research.

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“I have some reservations as to whether or not that can be done in the next two years unless it’s a collaborative effort,” she said.

The latest indication that the inquiry needs help, she said, is that it failed to ask for more money before the 2018 budget was written. “It really makes me think that the national inquiry needs to have some assistance.”

NWAC isn’t alone in looking for funding from the inquiry to get more heavily involved. Robert Bertrand, national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), said his organization is still waiting on a response to a funding application from the national inquiry.

“It seems to me that the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing,” he said. “What I’m thinking is these commissioners had all the best intentions, but I guess none of them have ever been on this type of commission, this type of inquiry, and they were just set a-sail with no rudder on their boats.”

The scope of what the national inquiry is now proposing has also raised some red flags. Conservative Indigenous affairs critic Cathy McLeod said she’s concerned about the promise to conduct original research on the Indian Act and the Constitution. “I think perhaps that’s starting to overstep their mandate,” she said.

McLeod also pointed out that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was originally given a $60-million budget and a five-year mandate, while the national inquiry is seeking a total budget of more than $100 million for a little more than four years of work.

Still, Joe said it might not have been realistic to think the inquiry could have completed its mandate in two years. Looking back, she said, the commissioners probably wish they’d asked for more time and money from the start.

“But they didn’t,” she said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen, so what can we do now to make the best of it?”

• Email: mforrest@postmedia.com | Twitter: MauraForrest

In an unprecedented move, the RCMP have charged the suspended second-in-command of the military with one count of breach of trust.

The force charged Vice-Admiral Mark Norman Friday in relation to the alleged leak of information about the government’s plan to delay Project Resolve, a program through which the Quebec firm Davie Shipbuilding was to provide the Royal Canadian Navy with a supply ship by converting a commercial vessel, the MS Asterix.

Details about the government’s autumn 2015 decision to put the project on hold leaked to the media, and the resulting embarrassment forced the government to back down on the delay. Furious about the leak, the Liberals called in the RCMP to investigate. In January 2017, after the police raided Norman’s suburban Ottawa house, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance temporarily removed him from his position as Vice-Chief and suspended him with pay. 

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance delivers a keynote presentation at the CDA Conference on Security and Defence in Ottawa on Friday, February 23, 2018.

The RCMP allege Norman “illegally disclosed government information to unauthorized parties,” charging him under Section 122 of the Criminal Code.

The case against Norman, 54, centres on a Nov. 19, 2015 meeting of cabinet ministers, who decided to delay Project Resolve after receiving a letter from Davie’s east coast rival, Irving Shipbuilding. Though it is considered to have close ties to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, Irving has consistently denied allegations it has been involved in any political interference intended to undercut a rival shipyard.

Though Norman did not attend the cabinet meeting, the RCMP’s searches of electronic devices and computers at Davie showed he had exchanged emails on the subject with one of the company’s officials.

Norman has denied any wrongdoing. In a statement Friday, Norman’s lawyer Marie Henein said the officer “remains unwavering in his commitment confident in the knowledge that he has always acted in the best interests of this country.”

She also pointed to the ongoing secrecy of the investigation. “We were advised this morning, only hours before the information was sworn, that Vice-Admiral Norman was to be charged. That lack of transparency has unfortunately been a feature of this investigation for the last year.

“We will address this allegation with the very same commitment and strength that Vice-Admiral Norman has displayed throughout his distinguished career,” she added. “We will respond to this allegation in a courtroom where evidence, objectivity and fairness matter and where politics have absolutely no place.”

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The RCMP investigation began in the fall of 2016. The raid on Norman’s house and his suspension took place in January 2017. In executing the search warrant, the RCMP seized thousands of files, including many personal papers. Police seized vacation photos as well as the pay stubs and medical records of the vice admiral’s wife, Beverley. The following month, Henein called for an “objective investigation” to be concluded quickly. According to sources close to the matter, the RCMP presented its evidence to the federal prosecutor’s office last summer. In December 2017, RCMP officers re-interviewed some federal employees involved in the alleged leak.

Last year, an Ontario Superior Court judge raised concerns about the strength of the RCMP’s evidence against Norman.

In examining a request by media outlets, including Postmedia, for the release of the documents the RCMP provided the court to secure a search warrant, Justice Kevin Phillips remarked in an April 2017 ruling that prosecutors would face a challenge proving Norman was the first in leaky official Ottawa to have shared any cabinet confidences or other sensitive information from the meeting in question.

The RCMP have also alleged they believe another federal employee was also responsible for leaking such information. It is unclear how that allegation will affect the case against Norman.

In addition, former defence lobbyist Norbert Cyr told Postmedia that details of the 2015 cabinet meeting were known by a number of individuals in official Ottawa with no connection to Norman or Davie shortly after it concluded.

Phillips also pointed out in his ruling that it was not unusual for the vice-admiral to be communicating with Davie about the shipbuilding project, and that there was no evidence those communications were motivated by financial gain, and were instead to ensure the wellbeing of the navy and his sailors by securing the delivery of a badly needed vessel.

Norman now faces a potentially lengthy and expensive legal battle. Last year he requested assistance from a government fund that covers legal fees for employees involved in legal situations related to their work. The Department of National Defence and the justice department declined that request, however, because they claimed Norman was guilty of disclosing confidential information, despite the absence of charges or a conviction and despite no internal or military investigation having been conducted.

That prompted a fundraising effort to help Norman with his legal bills which, by Friday, had raised almost $57,000.

Vice Admiral Mark Norman in 2013. Norman was removed from command on Jan. 9, 2017.

Retired army colonel Lee Hammond of Vancouver said he started the fundraiser because he believes Norman is facing an unfair battle against the full force of the federal government.

The charge comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau predicted on two different occasions in the last year that Norman would end up in court, prompting concerns about political interference in the legal system. Trudeau has not fully explained why he believed the investigation would see Norman in court but, last month, when he once again publicly predicted that the officer would be in court, Trudeau said he took Vance’s advice about Norman’s case.

Vance has declined Postmedia’s request to provide information about who in the prime minister’s office he briefed about Norman.

MV Asterisk, the Royal Canadian Navy’s new supply ship, is seen in the harbour in Halifax on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018.

But Conservative defence critic James Bezan alleges Trudeau has interfered in the process and, as a result, denied the officer his right to due process.

Earlier this month, Vance appointed the third officer in 14 months to have served as acting vice-chief of the defence staff during Norman’s suspension. Meanwhile, the Navy held a welcoming ceremony for the Asterix — the supply ship Norman worked to see delivered — on March 5. The ship will be part of naval operations for the next six months, its entry into service meaning the navy no longer needs to rely on other countries to assist with refuelling and resupplying Canadian warships at sea.

The MS Asterix is a rare example of a defence project that was delivered on time and on budget, military officers say.

• Email: dpugliese@postmedia.com | Twitter: davidpugliese

To some law enforcement observers, Brenda Lucki’s appointment Friday as RCMP commissioner — the first female Mountie to take on the role in a permanent capacity — was unquestionably historic and long overdue.

But her appointment alone, they said, is not enough to bring about lasting, meaningful change to a force that has been beleaguered by persistent accusations of a toxic work environment, lack of accountability and strained relations with Indigenous communities.

When Lucki takes the helm of the 30,000-member national police force in April, she will still be surrounded by an “old boys’ club,” many of whom are resistant to change, they said.

“To be honest, the gender of the new commissioner, although historic, will not equate to significant cultural change unless the right conditions are created,” said Angela Workman-Stark, a professor of organizational behaviour at Athabasca University and former chief superintendent at the RCMP.

“This means having the right people on her leadership team, acknowledging and taking ownership of the behaviours that need to change, and committing to put the appropriate mechanisms in place for this to occur. The government will also need to step up and provide the requisite support; she can’t do this without additional funding. Expecting her to do otherwise is only setting her and the RCMP up for failure.”

As she took the podium Friday at the RCMP training academy in Regina, where she has been commanding officer since October 2016, Lucki, an assistant commissioner, pledged to do what she could to modernize the police force and ensure that its membership reflects the diverse population.

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“I will not have all the answers, but I definitely plan on asking all the right questions and maybe some difficult ones,” she said. “I plan to challenge assumptions, seek explanations and better understand the reasons how we operate. This means no stone will be left unturned and, if what we find works, then we carry on until we unearth the issues that need addressing.”

Her appointment comes at a time when the RCMP has been facing accusations that its investigators in Saskatchewan were sloppy when they investigated the death of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man who was shot after an SUV he was riding in pulled onto a rural farm. A jury last month acquitted Gerald Stanley, 56, of second-degree murder, prompting protests across the country.

The conduct of police in the case is now the subject of an investigation by the independent Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP, which will examine whether any police actions amounted to racial discrimination.

Internally, Lucki will be pressed to deal with increasingly strained labour relations and growing complaints from officers who work in contract policing that they are being stretched thin and that their salaries pale in comparison to their municipal counterparts.

Meanwhile, more than 2,500 current and former female members of the RCMP have filed claims for compensation stemming from the historic settlement in the fall of 2016 of two proposed class-action lawsuits that alleged systemic gender-based harassment and discrimination within the force. An original deadline of Feb. 8 for women to file claims was extended to May 22 because of the sheer volume of claims. The government previously set aside $100 million for compensation.

In announcing Lucki’s appointment Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged the “deep challenges” that exist, which is why “we took our time to get this right.”

Trudeau said he was confident Lucki’s 32-year career in the RCMP — which has taken her from Alberta to Quebec and the former Yugoslavia — as well as the work she’s done to improve relations with Indigenous people in northern Manitoba, would help “restore the RCMP to the full position of trust that it really should have in the eyes of all Canadians.”

“I’m very excited about being able to appoint the absolute best person for the job to be commissioner of the RCMP — who just happens to be a woman,” Trudeau said.

To some, the choice was a surprise given that Lucki was outranked by several rumoured candidates at the deputy commissioner level.

“She’s had a great career, but she hasn’t got a whole lot of experience when it comes to managing a large portion of the RCMP,” said Pierre-Yves Bourduas, a retired RCMP deputy commissioner.

“She hasn’t sat on the senior executive committee. Now, she’ll be presiding over the senior executive committee.”

Catherine Galliford, a former RCMP spokeswoman who was among the first members to speak out about a culture of bullying and harassment, said the appointment of a female commissioner “has been a long time coming.”

She said she’ll be watching closely to see if Lucki acts swiftly to deal with harassers and abusers.

“That’s what people are hoping the new commissioner will do; she’ll hold people accountable for their behaviour,” she said. “Until the membership sees that, the bullying culture will continue.”

Galliford said when Lucki arrives at headquarters, she will be surrounded by former commissioner Bob Paulson’s “old boys’ club” and will likely have to create her own inner circle of “people that have her back.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind she knows about harassment first hand.”

Galliford said the government needs to act on repeated recommendations to create some kind of civilian oversight for the force, as it has been allowed to “operate inside a bubble without accountability and transparency” for too long.

Workman-Stark agreed that a board of management or advisory group is needed, as is the engagement of outside experts in organizational culture change.

“It is unreasonable to believe that the RCMP can successfully implement change on its own, and it is equally unreasonable to place this expectation on Brenda’s shoulders, because she is a woman,” she said.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s office said in a statement the concept of civilian oversight is being carefully reviewed. Because it would be a “massive change in the way the institution has operated,” it would require “very strong support both at the political level and publicly among Canadians.”

But Linda Duxbury, a Carleton University professor specializing in organizational behaviour, cautioned that imposing civilian oversight could backfire if it’s done in a heavy-handed way.

To really fix the RCMP, Lucki will have to create a vision for change that rank-and-file members buy into. In other words, it has to come from within.

“Good luck to her,” she said.

By now it is clear the federal Liberals are in some difficulty with the public. Much excitement attended that Ipsos poll earlier this week showing them trailing the Conservatives for the first time, and by a not inconsequential margin: 38 to 33. But it’s not just Ipsos.

Forum Research, which gives the Tories a 12-point lead, may be an outlier, but Nanos’s latest four-week rolling poll shows the Liberal lead has shrunk to less than four points from eight points in December; Abacus Data, similarly, now has them just three points ahead, the narrowest margin they have found since the election.

Overall, the CBC’s Poll Tracker website now puts the two parties more or less level, based on a weighted average of the polls, at 36 per cent. Contrast that with the Liberals’ first year in office, when they maintained a lead of as much as 20 points, or even their second, when they led by eight to 10. Something is clearly up.

The reason is not hard to find, nor is it unusual: the prime minister’s personal approval rating has declined markedly. To be sure, he remains the Liberals’ chief asset: Nanos still shows 40 per cent of Canadians put Justin Trudeau as their preferred prime minister. Sixty per cent say he “has the qualities of a good political leader.”

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But the value of that asset is rapidly degrading. Abacus reports that “for the first time since before he was elected, as many people have a negative view of the Prime Minister as have a positive view.” As late as November 2016, the positives led the negatives by 33 points; two months ago he was still 16 points to the good.

It isn’t that Scheer has set the world on fire since becoming leader; still less has NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Both Nanos and Abacus show them lagging well behind Trudeau on every measure: preferred prime minister, qualities of a good leader, positive vs negative impressions.

It’s a matter of Trudeau’s decline, not his rivals’ rise.

This has to be worrying to Liberal strategists. Party leaders, especially prime ministers, are always critical to a party’s appeal. But seldom has any party or any government invested as heavily in the persona and image of the leader — all those magazine covers, all those viral videos, and yes, all those selfies — or with such outstanding returns: for two years after the election he was untouchable, as were they.

But, live by the socks, die by the socks: should the public sour on the leader, the party is in big trouble. Sure enough, polls show the decline in Trudeau’s fortunes mirrored in the party’s. Ipsos shows the government with a 46-54 per cent approve-disapprove rate (Abacus has it 42-41) which doesn’t sound too bad. But drill down into those numbers and the picture darkens alarmingly: just nine per cent now “strongly approve” of the government’s performance, versus 28 per cent who “strongly disapprove.”

All of this, with the country at peace, separatism dormant, unemployment at a 40-year low. The prime minister, moreover, has basked for two years in the approval of the world’s media, and benefits by constant comparison to the ogre to the south.

The immediate explanation for the prime minister’s cratering appeal is the recent official visit to India, conceded on all sides to have been a disaster. There’s no doubt this has taken its toll — Ipsos finds more than twice as many Canadians of the view that the visit was “negative for Canada-India relations” than the contrary.

But if the India visit accelerated the decline, it is also true that the prime minister’s appeal has been fading for some time. The India trip may have crystallized certain perceptions of him, but the ingredients have been evident for a while. People do not form impressions of a leader’s character and abilities instantaneously, but only as the result of an accumulation of incidents and impressions.

The Tories’ pre-election attempts to discredit Trudeau as “just not ready” failed in the light of a long campaign in which he persuaded increasing numbers of Canadians that he was. I don’t imagine many would have said he was much of a deep thinker — his worst moments are almost always when he tries to pretend he is — but people gave him credit for sincerity, personal decency, idealism, and a native political ability that seemed to grow throughout the campaign.

But now? Asked to name the first quality that came to mind, I suspect increasing numbers might be more inclined to mention his cynicism.

It may not be a coincidence, after all, that his support begins to erode in every poll in early 2017 — just after the decision to abandon electoral reform. Add to that the long list of other broken promises; the ethical lapses, from pay-for-play dinners with Chinese billionaires to vacations with the Aga Khan; and the bullying of Parliament, so reminiscent of the prime minister he replaced, and you have a recipe for disillusionment.

In which circumstances, the little things that seemed so charming at first, all those dashing gestures and glam photo ops, might well come to seem, at first frivolous, then irritating — an impression of unseriousness compounded by a series of bungled foreign-policy excursions of which the India trip was only the last.

Throw in, last, the government’s increasing fixation on pursuing its own ideological hobbyhorses, with ever greater fanaticism, at a time when unease over the economy is growing, of which the blind complacency of the recent budget is a vivid example. What was merely irritating now looks positively dangerous.

Can the Liberals regain the advantage? Of course: the election is still 18 months away. So long as the economy continues on its present pace, voters tend to leave governments in place. But if it should not, the Liberals might wish for their present popularity.

Voting closed at noon Friday in the Ontario Tories’ rushed and occasionally shambolic leadership campaign, with 64,053 ballots cast and an unknown but potentially significant number of would-be voters left out in the cold thanks to various technical difficulties. More than 71,000 members had verified themselves as the first step of the voting process, according to testimony delivered Friday in a Toronto courtroom, where some party members unsuccessfully sought an injunction to extend the voting — an injunction that was denied late on Friday. So barring a vote-counting meltdown, act of God, civil disobedience, Patrick Brown’s Terrible Revenge or Godzilla attack, the party will announce the results by 4 p.m. Saturday, at a hastily convened convention in Markham.

A Mainstreet Research poll of 18,308 ostensible party members, released Friday, suggested it’s too close to call between Christine Elliott and Doug Ford, with each around 35 per cent of the first-ballot vote, and Caroline Mulroney (17 per cent) and Tanya Granic Allen (12.5 per cent) a distant third and fourth. Assuming Ford and Elliott are close on the first ballot, the relative strength of Mulroney’s centrist support and Granic-Allen’s social-conservative support will be key: the vast majority of Granic-Allen’s support will likely go to Ford on subsequent ballots, and the vast majority of Mulroney’s to Elliott. (Voters voters ranked their preferences all at once, on an online ballot.)

A great deal hangs in the balance — not least the likelihood that the party’s next leader will succeed Kathleen Wynne as premier of Ontario.

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That sounds axiomatic, but voting intention has remained remarkably strong and stable for the Tories during their six-week festival of fiascos: the desire for change is strong enough, apparently, to survive the airing of some very dirty laundry. But Ford was always going to be the biggest test of that. Logic suggests he would be far more likely to put off potential centrist voters than Elliott or Mulroney, thanks to his open courting of social conservatives and bull-in-a-china-shop brand.

An Angus Reid poll released Thursday reinforced that: 52 per cent of respondents said they might or might not vote Tory; the pollster then asked whether each potential leader would make them more or less likely to vote for the party. Elliott’s net score — more likely minus less likely — was plus 27 per cent. Ford’s was minus 29 per cent.

A Ford victory would be the second in a row by a candidate with little caucus support: just two sitting members of provincial parliament have endorsed him, and three nominated candidates, while Elliott amassed by far the most support among caucus members. It would send a candidate with no experience in provincial politics out on the campaign trail against two seasoned, calm, forceful and at-least-somewhat reality-based campaigners in Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath — and then, potentially, into the premier’s office. Tories would obviously be happy to take their chances, but voters will likely start asking themselves just what that might look like.

Ontario PC leadership candidates, left to right, Tanya Granic Allen, Caroline Mulroney, Christine Elliott and Doug Ford.

There is potential risk and reward with both the apparent prohibitive favourites. A Ford victory would by no means guarantee defeat. But it would certainly be the more dangerous play — and Elliott would certainly be the safer one.

Mind you, this isn’t really the party of safe plays. The party of safe plays wouldn’t promise to extend funding to non-Catholic public schools, or muse about bringing back chain gangs, or promise to fire 100,000 civil servants. The party of safe plays might have found a way to extend the leadership voting, so as not to have an army of aggrieved members. The party of safe plays might have agreed to send voting PINs by email to those members who hadn’t received them; instead, on Friday, CBC confirmed reports that all four campaigns declined that offer.

Maybe that’s just who they are. When the party did, for once, come up with a safe play — Brown’s centrist and plausible People’s Guarantee platform — their leader was struck down by a thunderbolt. A “safe” outcome on Saturday would be downright out of character, but it might do everyone a world of good.

• Email: cselley@nationalpost.com | Twitter: cselley