Border-Crossing Drugs -- Transnational Criminal Operations

"There's a lot of frustration and it, in and of itself, lends itself to facile responses that look good, but in the end don't really do anything."

"Blowing up drug boats ... is a perfect example of a facile response that does absolutely nothing."

"We often think of [fentanyl] as just a border issue, and it's not just a border issue. These are transnational criminal operations."

Regina LaBelle, professor of addiction policy Georgetown University 

 

"The biggest concern we see is what's happening on our southern border being pushed up to our northern border."

"Over the last year, we've apprehended enough fentanyl that would kill 17 million Americans on our northern border." 

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said this week that more fentanyl is coming into the U.S. from Canada, which is not reflected in the latest data from U.S. border officials (Manuel Balce Ceneta/The Associated Press)

 

"I mean, it just really isn't happening."

"It's way too much trouble to ship [fentanyl] around and put it through Canada and then take it into the United States."

Mark Tyndall, public health scientist, professor of medicine University of British Columbia

 

"The flows that we know of across the U.S.-Canada border are token and trivial compared to the flows into the U.S., primarily across the southwest border or the flows into Canada of the precursors, not through the U.S."

"The fentanyl killing Canadians is mostly made in Canada with precursors that came from China."

"The U.S. supply chain is independent of the Canadian supply chain once the precursors leave China, but the manufacturing for U.S. markets mostly happens in Mexico." 

Jonathan Caulkins, drug policy researcher, Carnegie Mellon University

A bag filled with drug paraphernalia  (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

 

There has been a realization of a drop in overdose deaths in both Canada and the United States. Drug policy experts can only theorize what the cause might be. The recently identified decline may be attributable to supply shifts alongside public health measures, eliminating tariffs or border crackdowns as part of the cause. The fearful public menace of overdose deaths has strike across all measures of society in both countries; everyone knows someone who knows someone who died of a drug overdose caused by synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

 

While Canada has developed no system of gathering statistics, the worst-hit province of British Columbia can boast that one in five residents knew someone who died from an overdose, in 2023. In 2024, close to half of Americans knew of someone who died from an overdose. Those who study the societal impacts of the drug trade tend to differ in their understanding of the situation, its impact and its victims and the possible causes, from politicians who view the subject from the perspective of ... politics.

 

And while Homeland Security Secretary Mullin claims pressure on the southern border drives cartel actions northward, including toward Canada, citing a surge in fentanyl moving across the northern border, he is contradicted by his Canadian counterpart who states data "really haven't borne that [Mullin's contention] out". 

Kevin Brosseau, Canada's fentanyl czar, says his goal is to eliminate all fentanyl in the country. 'It's killing kids every day and destroying families,' he said. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

 

Canadian fentanyl czar Kevin Brousseau cited U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures indicating some three kilograms of fentanyl seized at the northern order since October 2025. Which makes quite a comparison with over 3,000 kilograms seized at the southern, Mexican border. Nor are epidemiologists other than skeptical of charges that fentanyl trafficking has been shifting north.  

"We're talking about an illicit supply market that is entirely in the hands of illicit production traffickers, criminal organizations, and there's no regulation."

"[Supply conditions] can change very quickly again."

"A little change or an added highly toxic component to the drugs distributed could drive that toward an uptick."

Regina LaBelle

 

"From all I can gather, it's a mix of things, but the most likely driver of the drop in overdose deaths, at least on the Canadian side, has been changes in the fentanyl or in the synthetic opioid supply."

"[That could be construed as lower purity or products mixed with less lethal substances]."

Benedikt Fischer, professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University  

Precursor chemicals, usually shipped in from China, are generally available widely, enabling local production of fentanyl. The potency of the opioid calculates to a tiny amount able to supply the U.S. market. According to Professor Caulkins, trafficking capacity  and the criminal organizations that are involved are logically the most effective target by law agencies. 

 

Sharp declines in overdose deaths seen in both Canada and the U.S., since late 2023 where in the U.S. deaths involving synthetic opioids fell from 74,702 in 2023 to 48,422 in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while positive in outlook, remain a puzzle in understanding why. The Canadian Public Health Agency data reflect 7,146 opioid-related drug toxicity deaths in 2024, 17 percent fewer than 2023, followed by another 2025 decline to 5,630.

The factors that may be assigned to these drops in fatal overdose occurrences range widely; expanded naloxone access, supervised consumption sites, drug supply prevention efforts, and increased public awareness among them. A 2026 study in Science magazine revealing a shock to the fentanyl supply having occurred in 2023 attributed to Chinese regulatory changes affecting access to precursor chemicals, another possible reason. 

 

In late 2023, deaths suddenly decreased in both countries, making it unlikely to point to one of the countries' policy changes, as a causative. Making it more likely that it is the supply that likely had an effect on the death rate. If so, this is a condition that may not continue. Academics now appear to favour the opinion that the fentanyl crisis is not vulnerable to border crackdowns, but more likely reacting to illicit market shifts and the capacity of public health systems to react accordingly. 

"If vigilance at any border drops, traffickers could use it as a transshipment route."

"Things that disturb the ability of the two countries on either side of the border to partner effectively are counterproductive."

"[Canada and the U.S. should refrain from allowing trade tensions to impair working in tandem at the border]." 

Jonathan Caulkins, Carnegie Mellon University 

A man sits on a sidewalk along East Hastings Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

 

Virtue-Signalling Window Dressing Optics in the Corporate World

Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy

 

"It's very much purely words and no actions. They can talk all they like, but do they actually deliver on things? And the answer is no, not really. So they're not really being especially discriminatory when it comes down to it."

"It's just saying one thing and doing another. So corporations are particularly good at that. It's very much window dressing. It's virtue signalling. [They do it] because they know that it's good for reputation if they say these things."

"Canadian firms are heavily engaged in social engineering. [The practise] extends well beyond the office. [Companies fund groups that] advocate controversial issues." 

Leigh Reveres, report lead author. University of Toronto professor emeritus  

"[DEI  began with good intentions but became] an ideology that has gone much too far. [Corporations now] prefer equality of outcomes [over equality of opportunity]."

"Tech [on the other hand] stands out in a good way."

"[Explicit bias rarely surfaces in job postings.] But that does not mean that discrimination and preferential hiring is not happening. Because the fact that almost everyone has to go through this DEI training, and we see that DEI is completely ubiquitous throughout corporate Canada."

"It's extremely unlikely that that's not affecting decision-making in the job hiring process." 

David Hunt, research director, Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy 

According to a recently released study that the Aristotle Foundation published as a report titled Corporate Discrimination Index, where for 25 of the largest Canadian-owned companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange, merit-based hiring remains the standard, despite Diversity, Equity and Inclusion being widespread. Most of the companies were studied for the report to determine their hiring practices and how frequently language in sync with DEI appears in corporate reports. The study drew on 500 job postings and a 42-term 'woke lexicon' in annual and ESG reports.

 

The study led the foundation to conclude that 96 percent of companies provide DEI training; 88 percent declare demographic hiring or promotion targets, while 80 percent promote DEI in job postings. As well, 88 percent declare demographic hiring or promotion targets,while 80 percent promote DEI in job postings, What is described as ideological or political groups was deemed to be funded by 88 percent. And although Mr. Hunt claimed unwillingness to 'pass judgment' on the funding, a bank, in his opinion, 'should be a neutral actor'.

 

Intact, on the foundation's Corporate Discrimination Index, ranks number one, with a score of 67 of 100, while Shopify scored zero in the index that assigns 60 percent of its weight to preferential and restrictive hiring, with preference --  found in under five percent of postings, and restrictions in two of 500. Shopify scored zero based on the fact that it "exclusively hires based on merit". Intact's score, on the other hand, was based largely on postings encouraging applications from "equity-deserving groups". 

 

The frequency with which DEI terms appear in corporate documents is counted in a separate language index. Built by the foundation in view of the fact that explicit bias rarely surfaces in job postings, which did not disqualify the ideological wording from influencing  hiring. Another takeaway from the report was sectors making use of greater amounts of ideological language tend to discriminate more frequently in hiring. Technology was a sole standout with a low score in that metric. 

 

This, according to the foundation is a "DEI Paradox" where companies promote DEI publicly yet continue hiring largely on the base of merit; frequent use of the specific language reflects a workplace culture that veers toward discrimination. What DEI "really means is setting quotas", stated Professor Revers; setting demographic targets in advance signals "you're kind of prejudging the candidate pool. But what you're really doing is pre-emptively setting the playing field.That's what we consider to be discrimination." 

 

The report found that 96% of the companies that were studied provide DEI training, 88% declare demographic hiring or promotion targets and 80% promote DEI in job postings. Photo by Adobe Stock

 

"[Corporations] were sold down the river on this [by] the academics in the universities [though some companies are now retreating]."

"[DEI is] kind of in hiding now. The word has been toxified. Canada's not crazy."

Leigh Revers, professor emeritus, Master of Biotechnology, University of Toronto 

 

 

Home-Grown Ideological Terrorism

Montreal police take cover during the shooting. Photograph: Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press/AP

 

"Behind the uniform was an exceptional and a dedicated police officer, a loyal friend, a loving partner, and an extraordinary father. Today, he leaves behind a pregnant partner who was preparing to build a future with him, and a young child of only 3 years old who will grow up without his father."

"[...While no amount of money can fill this immense void [it hopes to] ease the burden now on [Benredouane's] family and offer some support during this heartbreaking ordeal."

"It is with immense sadness and heavy hearts that we launch this fundraising campaign to support the family of our friend, colleague, and brother-in-arms who tragically died in the line of duty."

Montreal Police Brotherhood, GoFundMe campaign 

Residents of the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood are mourning the death of 34-year-old Montreal police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane who was killed in a shooting Monday. A civilian and the suspect also died that day.  CBC

 

"Born in Lebanon, Michel eventually made his home in Israel before settling in Montreal. He remained deeply devoted to Israel throughout his life, maintaining close ties to his children and family there. Almost every year on the anniversary of his father's death he travelled to Israel."

"It is therefore especially heartbreaking that violence would ultimately claim Michel's own life here in Montreal. Having already borne the pain of losing loved ones to conflict overseas, he himself became the victim of senseless violence in the city he called home. His passing is a reminder that hatred, wherever it appears, knows no borders and spares no innocent."

Beryl P. Wajsman, president, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal

Sixty-eight-year-old Michel Mizrahi is being remembered as a generous and committed community member, especially at his synagogue in a Montreal suburb. Mizrahi was killed Monday in the shooting that also took the life of a Montreal police officer.  CBC

 

Michel Mizrahi, 68, a Montreal businessman, was the lone civilian killed by a gunman who suddenly appeared Monday morning in a newly developed commercial hub in Cote-des-Neiges, central Montreal, an area known as a Jewish district. The shooter, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a long gun, opened fire, shooting in all directions, while the busy thoroughfare quickly relinquished its many passerby to a desperate rush to shelter from the gunfire. A 911 call to police saw a response within minutes, police squads on the scene swiftly become the target of the shooter.

 

As a passerby, Mr. Mizrahi was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Born in Lebanon, he was remembered by those who knew him well, as a kind and gentle man. A man who had suffered his own losses in the near past, when his father was killed in a missile attack during the Gulf War, in 1991, in Israel. Another staggering blow arrived on the news that one of his siblings' child had been slaughtered on October 7, 2023 at the Nova music festival during the Palestinian invasion comprised of thousands of terrorists, led by Hamas.

 

The police officer victimized by the gunman was 34 years of age, Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, a member of the Montreal Police Force since 2021. Not scheduled to work on Monday, he had decided to take an overtime shift. Benredouane went to school in the neighbourhood where he was killed. "You have someone that grew up in the neighbourhood and decided to serve his community in the way that he did, by ultimately losing his life. It was an act of heroism that I can't highlight further",  said Notre-Dame-deGrae borough Mayor Stephanie Valenzuela.

 

Montreal shooting leaves three dead including a police officer – video

Eyewitness videos posted to social media showed one police officer shot, as another, female officer crouched behind a waist-level concrete planter, exchanging fire with a man in camouflage. Another video showed the downed officer rolling on his back, then his stomach, in an effort to crawl away from the direct fire, where at least 30 shots were later documented. That officer in the end, died of his wounds; Mohamed Lamine Benredouane. And with him, Michel Mizrahi who had been standing beside the female officer who was also shot in the exchange, but survived her wounds in hospital.

 

The attack had taken place at the Hilton Hotel on the corner of De Courtrai and Trans Island avenues. On the arrival of police a lockdown was ordered, people warned to remain in their apartments, doors locked, nearby stores with shoppers the same. Police were uncertain whether there was a lone shooter, or another with him close by. The lockdown with people sheltering in place lasted in fear and confusion for hours before it was lifted with the assurance that one shooter only was involved, and he had been lethally shot by police at the scene.

 

Seth Hatfield, 25 years of age, from Alberta who had attended Lethbridge University, recognized as an outstanding student, who had set out to put into action a plan of vengeance against capitalists, the elite, and Zionists and Jews who were behind all manner of nefarious social constructs he set out in a lengthy manifesto which also extolled the virtues of communism and the evils of "high capitalist" societies, urging readers of his screed who shared his grievances to "Be unflinching, go forth, and KILL THEM ALL!"

 

The document this class-action terrorist left behind listed "valid potential class A targets", that included international real-estate brokerages, private equity firms, elite bankers and politicians, influential Zionists, private health and oil CEOs, plastic surgeons, cryptocurrency leaders, the headquarters of all corporations with ties to Zionism (IBM, Microsoft, Boeing) and "pick-up artists", as well as pornographers. Among other targets: "the headquarters of international pornography companies", and those who "actively promote pornography to the public".

 

Montreal police work the scene of a shooting, June 22, 2026. CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV / CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV/THE CANADIAN PRESS VIA AP

  

Adolescent Gender Identity/Dysphoria

"These findings support that within a clinical context involving comprehensive psychosocial assessment and support, gender identity among adolescents is highly stable, and rates of reidentification with birth-assigned gender and cessation of [gender-affirming hormones] are low."

"Despite there being broad consensus among major medical organizations about the necessity of gender-affirming care, some government bodies continue to raise questions a bout access to gender-affirming care."

Recently-published Canadian study    Journal of Adolescent Health

 

"The study also found that no one who initially identified as non-binary returned to a binary gender aligned with their birth sex."

"For many youth, access to appropriate care is associated with improved well-being and mental-health outcomes."

"Other research has also reported low rates of detransition and treatment discontinuation, although findings vary depending on the population studied."

Daniel Metzger, paediatric endocrinologist, B.C. Children's Hospital, report first-author

 

"It's an open question whether the detransition rate of someone who started their transition in 2012 is going to be the same rate as someone who started their transition in 2020 or 2022."

"[The paper suggests that appropriately selected youth who undergo comprehensive holistic assessments] are likely to at least be persistent in the short- to medium-term."

"It could be that many of them are continuing to do great and if we reached out to them today, in 2025, they'd say; 'Hey, I'm doing great. Leave me alone'."

"Or we could reach out and they say, 'I desisted when I was 22'. We don't know. And we can't tell from this data." 

Dr. Laura Targownik, physician-scientist, professor of medicine, University of Toronto 

New Study Shows Trans Youth Are Extremely Unlikely to Detransition   them.us

 

Only 2.9 percent of teens -- in a social period of rapid gender-affirming medical interventions -- referred to one of four specialized pediatric gender clinics, changed back to their original gender identity; detransitioned, over a median followup study of 2.4 years. The study authors felt the findings suggest stability in teen gender identity where their study appears to prove that actual detransitioning is 'uncommon'. The results of their study, they wrote "may offer reassurance to those concerned that adolescents are too  young to understand their gender identity or make decisions about medical transition".

 

As with any scientific study addressing controversial issues, critics find the study has the effect of inflating persistence while presenting a skewed picture, taking into regard the short followup window to detect a verifiable transition rate. Moreover, the study's structure leaves the authors incapable of asserting with any certainty what occurred when youth moved from adolescence into adulthood, and how that maturation affects their identity perception at that juncture.

 

The study encompassed children between between the years 2012 and 2017 prior to the more recent spike in gender dysphoria cases, alongside changing demographics. At the present time, predominantly biological females, many with accompanying complex mental health problems, many identifying as non-binary, are being seen by doctors. "Considerable uncertainty" remains of benefits of gender treatment for children, two recent Canadian studies concluded. 

 

The number of children and teens seeking gender-affirming care almost tripled in Canada and the U.S. between 2017 and 2020, the study's authors note. Photo by Adobe Stock

 

The latest study research team involved reviewing 445 teens diagnosed with gender dysphoria and seen at gender clinics in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Halifax -- of which 74 percent were born female, most between the ages of 13 and 18 at time of referral, while the mean age of beginning gender-affirming hormone treatment was just over 16 years of age. At each visit, every six months, the teens were questioned about their gender identity and whether hormone use was being continued. 

 

Researchers looked at data in the youths' medical records between 2018 and 2020. There ensued at least one year of followup after each gender clinic visit. 95 percent -- 421 of the 445 -- continued with their presenting gender identity or re-identified as nonbinary: "from initial referral to end of the observation period". Of the 353 adolescents who began gender-affirming hormones, only one percent stopped taking them. Of the 24 that changed gender identity, 13 "returned to gender identity typically aligned with sex at birth".

 

Doctors have been sued by some detransitioners with the allegation that their wish for extreme interventions had never been challenged, nor were alternative treatments properly discussed. Detransitioners, surveys have found, may sometimes feel reluctant to inform their doctors, concerned they would waste people's time, even knowing that something was not quite right. Detransition "is very unlikely to occur even after 10 or more years identifying with [a] gender identity different than the identity aligned with birth sex", pointed out Dr. Lawson. 

 

Parents of transgender children and other supporters of transgender rights gather in an outdoor rotunda in Austin, Texas, to speak about transgender legislation being considered in the state House and Senate, on April 14, 2021.   Eric Gay / AP file

 

"I don't expect the detransition rate at a median two years to be terribly high, but if you follow these patients for five years, or 10 years, you might have a clearer picture."

"[The finding that most youth prescribed hormones] does provide some reassurance that they're not just starting patients on hormones and they're desisting right away."

"But [the researchers] don't talk about, were these patients seeing psychiatrists? Were they seen for other problems? Were they getting admitted to hospital for mental-health decompensation?"

"They're basically using persistence as a proxy for, 'Well, they're doing OK enough that they didn't have to abandon their transition or that their clinicians didn't feel that they were suffering from such a grievous harm that it had to be stopped."

Dr. Laura Targownik, transgender woman 

 

"Individuals who do not support gender-affirming medical care for adolescents are likely to look for reasons that might discount the findings of our study and publication."

"However, as principal investigator of this study, I can assure you that our study's methodology is extremely sound."

Senior study author Dr. Margaret Lawson, scientist emeritus, CHEO Research Institute 

 

World War I With Drones

"Four years since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia still occupies roughly 20 percent of the country after gaining almost five thousand square kilometers of territory in 2025." 

"Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities, while Ukraine maintains drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and military sites."

"Since January 2022, Ukraine has received about $188 billion in aid from the United States and $197 billion from the European Union."

"Fighting and air strikes have inflicted nearly 56,000 civilian casualties, while 3.7 million people are internally displaced, and 5.9 million are registered as refugees. 10.8 million people need humanitarian assistance."

Global Conflict Tracker 

 

"In many respects, this war in Ukraine is the one that most closely resembles World War I."

"[In both wars it was the intensity of firepower that forced armies to turn to trenches]: You bury yourself to protect yourself."
Michel Goya, former French colonel, historian 

People visit the graves of their relatives, who were killed during Russia's attack on Ukraine, as a large-scale light installation illuminates the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 23, 2026, marking the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. (Roman Baluk/Reuters)

 

The heavy casualty counts and brutal infantry assaults of the ongoing war in Ukraine strikes some war historian as comparable to conflict conditions experienced during World War I. By June 11, the war in Ukraine -- Vladimir Putin's 'special military operation' -- saw a point in time where it has been prolonged for four years and three months, its duration outlasting World War I's epic conflict. 

 

Mr. Putin's expectation that his large operational full-on incursion of February 2022 would swiftly see Ukraine surrendering, his goal accomplished in a mere matter of months if not weeks. The Ukrainian counter offensive which saw Russia effectively opposed and the conflict became a war of attrition, it would have seemed inconceivable to any strategists, much less servicemen fighting for their lives on either side of the hostilities that the war would drag on for so many weeks, months and years. 

 

Yet the war has a life of its own, reflecting the level of determination on both sides; Moscow's to achieve its objective; Kyiv to sustain its sovereign rights and push its aggressor entirely out of its geography, including from Crimea and Donetsk, both of which fell to Russia in 2014. 

 

Ukrainian servicemen of the 33rd separate assault regiment participate in a training at an undisclosed location in Zaporizhzhia region on Jan. 30, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP via Getty Images

 

Recent polls indicate that almost fifty percent of Ukrainians feel the war will not end before 2027. Among Ukrainians many are prepared to argue that the war's beginning in reality was 2014 when Russian troops with the assistance of Russian-Ukrainian rebels swept Crimea to seize it for Greater Russia, complementing Vladimir Putin's yearning for the days of firm control of eastern Europe during the Soviet Union, and he a modern-day Czar. 

 

According to Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak, the conflict that Russia imposed upon Ukraine will rank in historical accounts as among the most consequential in modern European history. Alluding to both wars, having altered geopolitics in Europe through the reshaping of military alliances, driving a feverish defense buildup through NATO, unseen since the end of the Cold War. 

 

The war in Ukraine has now exceeded the first world war in duration. And while the comparison between these two conflicts is imperfect, it is becoming difficult to ignore.

 

 A century earlier, point out military analysts, it was the new technologies of warplanes and tanks that drove the fighting antagonists, while today advances in unmanned aerial war machines have taken centre stage in an increasingly brutal onslaught against humans more attuned to conventional warfare. As in 1914, so too in 2024, where a frozen front line maintains a status quo and where neither attacker nor defender can claim the upper hand. 

 

Historians see World War I trench warfare repeated in the trenches and bunkers that Ukrainian soldiers have been using where assaults with artillery barrages followed by storming enemy trenches by infantry squads were the elemental formulaic schemes brought to play in the early years of the current war, echoing what had been current a hundred years earlier. 

 

Once drones were brought into play, trench-like networks became outdated as unsafe, where drones monitored the battlefield, striking with precision greater than that of artillery shells. Survival now depends on smaller, more discreet and deeper trenches to outfox the drones; shelters now house a handful of soldiers in dugouts. As for the fearsome tanks of WWI, they have become targets for drones, and have been largely retired. 

 

According to Admiral Pierre Vandier, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in NATO, the Ukrainian front has been lethalized by drones. And the strategy that Ukraine relies upon to use drones to strike deep into Russia to hit its oil assets, strikes at its very economy which funds Putin's special military operation. The battlefield has been flooded with small attack drones of Ukrainian design and forward technology. "This is World War I, but with drones", said historian Yaroslav Hrytsak.  

 

Disregard For The Rule of Law

"It's a symbol of the short-sighted damage that this administration is doing to the world's most important bilateral trading relationship."

"Businesses in Ontario are angry. My American business friends and partners, they say the same thing. They're angry about unacceptable delays in the opening of infrastructure that is essential to their economy and to ours."

"It yet again appears the private interest is being prioritized over the public interest of both 
Americans and Canadians."

"What will be really sad here is if there is any significant delay in getting this infrastructure open at the exact time that businesses in both countries are struggling and trying to invest in their own growth." 

Daniel Tisch, president, Ontario chamber of Commerce

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is silhouetted against an orange sky over the Detroit River between Windsor and Detroit. (Pratyush Dayal/CBC)

 

Ottawa and Michigan signed an agreement in 2012 over plans to build a new bridge linking Michigan with Ontario for transport purposes. It was mutually agreed that Canada would have sole responsibility for the design, construction and financing of the project, the new international trade crossing bridge to be named in memory of storied Canadian hockey player Gordie Howe. Toll revenues from the Gordie Howe International Bridge, it was agreed, would be evenly shared between Canada and the State of Michigan, once Canada had recovered construction costs through initial revenues.

 

The bridge's time had come. The existing bridge, the almost-century-old Ambassador Bridge, no longer has the capacity to handle the volume of trade between Canada and the U.S. "If you think about all the automotive parts that come from Canadian plants, the border should not be a bottleneck in the transportation process", explained supply chain expert Professor Fraser Johnson of the Ivey Business School, Western University. 

 

The Ambassador Bridge stretches between Windsor, Ont. and Detroit. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

 

Each day, the Ambassador Bridge sees over $390 million of trade passing through between the two trading partners, which represents 26 percent of Canadian exports by road, according to Transport Canada's 2021 data. Built in 1929, the bridge lacks the handling capacity relative to the volume of trade between Canada and the United States. "Everybody gets hurt whenever there's a disruption" of the supply chain that links Windsor and Detroit, reflecting the level of integration, remarked mechanical engineering professor Peter Frise at the University of Windsor.

 

Truckers have good reason to look forward to new efficiencies with the bridge opening, alleviating congestion and diverting Ontario's Highway 401 and Interstate 75 heavy truck traffic away from city streets in Windsor. Truckers and businesses making use of the existing corridor means higher toll costs for each day of delay, time lost in congestion on the limited four-lane width of the Ambassador Bridge. Bridge crews place orange traffic cones by hand to change traffic direction before the evening traffic rush.

 

The six-lane deck of the Gordie Howe International Bridge stretches across the Detroit River between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. A federal briefing note obtained by CBC News says the crossing has been 'essentially complete' since February. (Submitted by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority)

 

A level of frustrated controversy erupted in February when Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the bridge would not be opened until the U.S. was "fully compensated". Just a week ago, Michigan Republican House Speaker Matt Hall stated that the U.S. should receive half of the new bridge's toll revenue, presumably even before Canada recouped the $6.4 billion it spend building the bridge. Leading Daniel Tisch to observe this would be a "disregard for the rule of law" to place an agreement already signed back on the table.

 

The Ambassador Bridge owners, the Moroun family, spent years through lawsuits fighting the construction of another bridge to take traffic between the two countries, which would disturb their monopoly. They had been major contributors to President Trump's election campaign, and had his ear, lobbying for some kind of intervention. And so, Mr. Trump listened, and he made his position known, evidently believing that Canada owed the U.S. something for having built a bridge with Canadian tax funding, as though this entitles him to belittle the enterprise and extract financial concessions over an imagined imbalance. 

 

U.S. President Donald Trump said Canada would not be permitted to proceed with the Gordie Howe International Bridge 'unless America got a piece of it, too,' despite the bridge being financed and built by Canada. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

 

The Endless Flywheel of Nature's Designs

"[Advances made in modeling these tides over the last 15 years have enabled the study's authors to show that] the dissipation is lower than previously expected."

"A better understanding of tidal physics and the most advanced constraints we have on mass loss allow us to say that -- in the current state of knowledge -- Earth could move away from the Sun, contrary to what was predicted before."

Stephane Mathis, astrophysicist, Paris-Saclay centre, France 

 

"Earth's fate depends on a delicate balance between these two effects [increased size of sun's gravitational force pulling Earth closer to the Sun, compounded by oceanic tidal energy pushing the Moon further from Earth]."

"If tidal interactions predominate, Earth is engulfed by the sun. If the sun's mass loss predominates, Earth escapes into an orbit larger than the radius of its star." 

Mats Esseldeurs, astrophysicist, University of Leuven, Belgium 

A new lease of life: Our planet may escape a fatal spiral into the exploding fireball of the Sun. Phys.Org

 

Up to the present time, and until the publication of a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, of which Mats Esseldeurs was lead author, it was thought among astrophysicists that Earth's distant fate into the far future would be its absorption into the sun and thus complete annihilation. An almost-similar fate that has obliterated many stars in the firmament of the heavens over millions of years, as their stars became giants, then red dwarfs and then black holes vacuuming all that surrounded them into the nothingness of their depths. 

 

As huge as our sun is in comparison to the planets in its orbit, its size does not qualify it in that direction. It will ultimately, in the space of five billion years, become a white dwarf, a fireball of a dying star which it was assumed would consume Earth in its quest for energy to sustain itself before expiring. First the Sun must burn through all the hydrogen in its core, following which two immense expansion phases occur; becoming a red giant, and then an AGB star when it has spent all its helium.

 

An Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) star is a late stage in the evolution of low-to-intermediate mass stars (about 0.8 to 8 times the mass of the Sun). It represents the final bloated phase of a star's life before it sheds its outer layers and collapses into a dense white dwarf.

 

Will the Sun become a black hole? No, it's too small for that! The Sun would need to be about 20 times more massive to end its life as a black hole.   NASA

 

As the Sun expands there will be significant effects seen on Earth as the Sun's increasing gravitational forces pull the Earth toward it. This force creates the push and pull of ocean tides on the Earth, energy from which dissipates at the ocean bottoms, which in turn slows Earth's rotation, while gradually moving the Moon further from Earth.  Intense tidal waves stir within the Sun as it expands and its blistering surface moves closer to Earth. It is when those tides dissipate that Earth would be pulled into the Sun's dying embrace.  

 

On the other hand, due to stellar wind, the growing Sun will also lose much of its mass, pushing planet Earth further distant. The new calculations reached by the authors of the newly-published study, places the initial hypothesis of the Earth being swallowed by the dying Sun in question. These are calculations reliant on relatively simple descriptions of tidal dissipation within giant stars. 

 

The study's authors took advantage of advances in modelling tides over the last 15 years to demonstrate "the dissipation is lower than previously expected", as explained by Dr. Mathis of the CEA Paris-Saclay centre. Mars is also affected by escaping, like Earth a death spiral into the Sun, according to the new modelling. Mercury and Venus, closest to the Sun, are less fortunate. Their fate will be that the expanding fireball will inexorably swallow them both. 

 

Of course, nature's plans can be inscrutable, and even while scientists feel they have achieved a fuller understanding of her formulated designs and the unfolding of the universe as it continues to age into eternity, new discoveries will emerge that will add layers on to what has already been surmised, hypothesized, synthesized and 'proven'. None of us, regardless, need spend sleepless nights concerned over how our lives will change as these forces of nature unfold, other than to marvel at the wonders of a universe that is vast and for the most part unknowable. 

 

A view of the sunrise from Earth's horizon.    Zelch Csaba/Pexels