Normally, someone trying to lead a country would never sit down with a someone as toxic as Jordan Peterson — unless you’re Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre was quick to agree with Peterson’s claim that racism was imported to Canada.

Historically illiterate statements ought to be as disqualifying as committing to an interview with a psychologist who makes his living hating people for who they are.

But hate is Poilievre’s currency. From the Fuck Trudeau troglodytes at the Freedumb Convoy to antisemitic conspiracy theories, Poilievre has never been shy to capitalize on hate to advance his career.

That his interview with Peterson was treated as newsworthy in and of itself (rather than the mutual self-gratification that it was) is more evidence that Poilievre benefits immensely from establishment media’s inability to challenge conservative bullies. Poilievre traffics in anti-fourth estate hysteria with asinine and obnoxious behaviour unbecoming of most teenagers, let alone presumptive prime ministers.

But this attitude reveals more about Poilievre than he realizes: the man is an empty suit, devoid of meaningful ideas for the future of this country.

Now that Trudeau is resigning, Poilievre has nothing to oppose. His supporters have no one left to blame. There is no anti-Trudeau wave left to ride.

And the election is a long way away.

For our latest in news, please visit the News section.

The post Jordan Peterson showed us who Pierre Poilievre really is: an angry, empty suit appeared first on Cult MTL.

With winds clipping 120 kilometers per hour, driving tides high and triggering coastal flood warnings, the weekend storm surge has the province in day two of a collective clean up. NTV’s Ryan Harding has more on the fallout from the storm.

Braya Renewable Fuels announced is temporarily shutting down Come by Chance as of Wednesday, leaving many out of jobs. But as NTV’s Becky Daley reports, the union representative says it’s news to them. 

The Flames said in a news release Monday that Al MacNeil died Sunday in Calgary. No cause of death was provided.

Skiers and snowboarders anxious to get in their first runs of the season at Marble Mountain will have to wait a little while longer. Mild temperatures and limited snow have forced the west-coast ski resort to remain closed for the foreseeable future. NTV’s Don Bradshaw has that story.

There was a devastating house fire in Ste. Agathe Monday morning.

Few details have been released but what we do know is that St. Pierre RCMP was called to the blaze at 4:10 am. The home is located along Pembina Trail.

According to police, the property owners were able to exit the home.

RCMP say the fire does not appear to be criminal in nature.

The house was destroyed by fire.

Reaction was swift to today’s announcement that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will step down. Federal cabinet minister Gudie Hutchings and opposition House leader Andrew Scheer discussed the Liberal leadership race to come.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s capital is often not a place that handles winter weather well. Cold-weather transplants complain about the inability of local drivers to navigate snowy roads and the tendency of the school systems to shut down at the first sign of falling flakes.

Now the ceremonial pomp of Washington is colliding with the circumstance of a major snow storm, forecast to dump up to a foot in some places by Monday night. The weather adds an unexpected layer of complexity to what was already a challenging two-week stretch for local officials.

For the first time, the District of Columbia is hosting three designated National Special Security Events in a two-week span: Monday’s congressional certification of President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral win, this week’s state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter and then Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

“This has never happened before,” said Matt McCool of the Secret Service’s Washington field office.

The special security event designation is reserved for events that draw large crowds and potential mass protests. It calls for an enhanced degree of high-level coordination among D.C. officials, the FBI, Secret Service, Capitol Police and Washington’s National Guard contingent.

The certification, which has historically been a low-profile ministerial proceeding, was elevated to National Special Security Event after the chaotic riot of Jan. 6, 2021. This time, that process progressed smoothly Monday afternoon, amid security restrictions that, according to McCool, mimicked those of a presidential State of the Union address.

“The Washington, D.C., area is well-versed in these high-profile events,” McCool told reporters last week. “Still back-to-back NSSEs are a unique situation.”

With the certification out of the way, officials now turn to this week’s elaborate multi-day state funeral proceedings for Carter. That rolls straight into preparations for the Jan. 20 inauguration with officials on alert for potential clashes between Trump’s supporters and opponents; there’s an anti-Trump People’s March scheduled for Saturday the 18th and a pro-Trump rally planned for Sunday the 19th.

“We are committed to upholding the right to peacefully assemble and protest in our city,” Metropolitan Police Department chief Pamela Smith said. “However … we will not tolerate any violence, rioting, destruction of property or any behavior that threatens the safety and security of our city.”

Smith said she has placed her department “on full activation” starting Sunday, Jan. 5, positioning “additional officers with specialized training that can be deployed anywhere in the District at a moment’s notice.”

McCool also warned D.C. residents to get used to the sight of numerous security and surveillance drones in the next two weeks. The entire District of Columbia is normally a no-fly zone for drones.

The most immediate question is whether the snowfall will prevent visitors from coming to town to pay their respects to Carter. According to tracking platform FlightAware.com, nearly 900 flights were canceled or delayed Monday in and out of Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. More than 300 flights were delayed or cancelled at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

After the completion of memorial services in his native Georgia, Carter’s casket will arrive in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Ceremonies, which continue through Thursday, will include a horse-drawn funeral procession Tuesday afternoon that may echo images from the chilly Nov. 22, 1963 procession for John F. Kennedy.

The snowfall already has prompted changes in standard White House operating procedure; instead of flying aboard the Marine One helicopter on Monday, President Joe Biden was forced to drive to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to board Air Force One. In a move reminiscent of secret presidential trips to war zones, Biden’s trip to New Orleans and Los Angeles began inside a hangar, rather than on the tarmac as is customary, due to the inclement weather. Air Force One was sheltered from the snow inside a secure hangar and Biden departed during an early afternoon lull in the snowfall.

___

Associated Press writers Colleen Long, Fatima Hussein and Darlene Superville in Washington, and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

Ashraf Khalil, The Associated Press

L’article Brome County News, January 7, 2025 est apparu en premier sur Sherbrooke Record.

What is it with these big breaking stories at the start of the week?

Just like when Chrystia Freeland knifed Justin Trudeau last month, setting all of this in motion, we don’t want to keep you waiting for this week’s episode of The Line Podcast (which will come out as always on Friday, so like and subscribe!). To tide all you wonderful people over once again, we’re doing a special The Line Live tonight. Eight o’clock Eastern, Six o’clock Mountain. Only on YouTube.

We will send the link out here and on social media shortly before we go live, but you can and should go to our YouTube page and subscribe to us right now, in case of any technical issues.

We are going to handle questions the same way we did last time, and with our year-end Q&A on The Line Podcast. Paid subscribers only! And the only way we can verify your paid-up status is by you leaving the questions here. Friend of The Line Phil is once again going to moderate your questions and feed them to Matt and Jen.

Also in this episode: guests! We’ll have some other Friends of The Line on to talk about everything wild about today.

Lots of good stuff planned for tonight, friends. Put a drink on ice. Order some food. You can start leaving your questions in the comment thread below (only paying subscribers). We’ll respond to whichever ones we can live this evening once we’re underway as we eat, drink and dissect all that happened today.

Stay tuned. And what a way to start 2025, eh?

Subscribe now

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded — no federal subsidy for us! If you value our work, have already subscribed, and still worry about what will happen when the conventional media finishes collapsing, please make a donation today.

The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Fight with us on Facebook. Pitch us something: [email protected]

Colchester County District RCMP went to a home on Bomber Drive on Friday morning for a well-being check and found the body of a 42-year-old woman and an unconscious man.

New Brunswick RCMP have released the names of a man and woman, whose bodies were discovered in a burnt-out SUV in Chipman in November.

Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas MP Filomena Tassi previously expressed her support for the prime minister, saying, "I believed in him in 2015 and I believe in him now."

The Halifax RCMP is asking for the municipality to pay for 14 new officers, saying the positions are needed in growing suburban areas and a historic Black community.

"I intend to resign. As party leader, as Prime Minister after the party elects its next leader through a robust nation-wide competitive process. Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal party to begin that process, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election."

That's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who gave his resignation speech today in Ottawa.

Leslie's Reaction

The Conservative Member of Parliament for Portage-Lisgar, Branden Leslie, says the Prime Minister's resignation is a combination of good news and bad news.

"Obviously, the good news is that Trudeau's time of recklessly destroying Canada is nearly done," said Leslie. "But the bad news is that keyword of 'nearly.' He's cynically putting his Liberal party's interests above the interests of our country at a time when we have tremendous instability incoming; the United States' threatening tariffs, and frankly, today's announcement really changes nothing."

Parliamentary Prorogation

Leslie explains the executive of our government consists of the Prime Minister and his cabinet, who he says will continue to function without any parliamentary scrutiny for the next two and a half months by his decision to prorogue Parliament until March 24th.

"It really removes the ability of us as the Opposition to draw any attention to the failures of this government, while at the same time, they try to figure out who the next Liberal leader is going to be, while the Prime Minister continues to cling to power. So, it's a bit of a good-news scenario for a lot of people. They're just happy to see the Prime Minister go, but he's not really going. He's really just putting the interest of the Liberals above that of our country."

In light of the recent four-month paralysis of Parliament, in what Leslie says is due to the refusal of the Liberal party to come forward with documents that are known to contain legally damaging information about contracts with various companies, the MP outlines the future of its possible resolution.

"I don't expect that they are going to hand over any documents during this time. The Motion of Privilege is still able to come back. However, as far as I can tell, the first thing that will need to happen after March 24th will be some sort of budgetary vote. The Liberals will need to pass a Money Bill for the government to simply function, as they're basically only currently allocated until the end of March. My expectation, my hope, is that that vote will fail with the support of the Conservatives, NDP, and Bloq Quebecois. That's relying on, of course, the NDP, who have famously said that they are no longer in agreement with the Liberals, but yet propped them up just before the end of the year."

Leslie's Frustration

Leslie says it is incredibly frustrating to see that the Trudeau government, and Trudeau himself, is only quitting because he knows that he can't win.

"The problem is I don't think that any of the Liberal MPs and NDP MPs who have supported him through this time really should be off the hook, either. They have been supporting this Liberal leader that has implemented a Carbon Tax that's on pace to quadruple by 2030. They've supported this out-of-control spending. They've supported this catch-and-release bail system, soft-on-crime policies, and frankly, every other policy failure."

Political Implications

"The idea of putting politics above country at such a tumultuous time of our nation with out-of-control spending, with out-of-control migratory issues, with impending President Trump, it's incredibly frustrating to know that, at the end of the day, it's all the Liberal politics and making sure they have the best chance to try to hold on to power a little bit longer instead of actually doing what's right for our country, (and that is) calling an election, letting Canadians decide what the future of our country looks like and who they want to see. In my view, it's a very clear choice. It's going to be a costly NDP/Liberal coalition that's going to continue up to the cost of living with carbon taxes and soft-on-crime policies, or a common-sense government that's going to bring home powerful pay cheques for people, trying to lower the cost of living for Canadians and get this country back on track."

Election Prospects

In light of all of these events, Leslie explains how this is related to the chance of an actual election for a new prime minister and government and whether or not there will be a new government.

"My best guess, at this point, is we'd be looking at an early May election date with the prorogation of Parliament until March 24th. There simply has to be a vote on a money matter, which is spending a government which is always a confidence vote. That is going to have to take place pretty much within the first week of the House of Commons being recalled on March 24th. So, that'll be the first opportunity for Parliament to vote to bring down the government and force an election."

NDP's Role

Leslie says it is his hope is that the NDP will stay true to their word and not support the Liberals at that time, or at any other time going forward. Leslie says it's the only Parliamentary perspective way in which an election can be forced.

"Now the Prime Minister, while Parliament is prorogued, could technically go to the Governor General, or if an interim leader is chosen for the Liberal Party, could technically go to the Governor General, ask for a dissolution of Parliament, and ask for an election to be called. I just don't see that based on today's announcement. It's clear the Prime Minister feels his fingernails, if they have a little bit left in them, to hang on to power just a little bit longer. So, I don't see that happening. My best-case scenario, in my view, is an early May election."

Liberal Leadership

He adds the Prime Minister's replacement hopefuls in the Liberal government are all MPs and are the same people who have been supporting the policies Trudeau has promoted.

"I don't think that they should be able to get away with putting a new face on this. The Liberal brand is forever tarnished by this Prime Minister and his many, many policy failures."

In conclusion, Leslie says he hopes Canadians can take solace in the fact that the Trudeau-era of government is coming to an end soon.

"But at the end of the day, this man is refusing to give up his grip on power and putting politics above country. I find it disturbing. It is time for a Carbon Tax election, time for Canadians to head to the polls, and start the future of our country."
 

The Louisiana Department of Health said on Monday that a U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu has died.

Red River College Polytechnic has set up a shop in Peguis First Nation to help teach others how to build and rebuild their community. CBC visited the mobile carpentry program to see how it's impacting the community.

The embattled Golden Globes have been on an extended effort to change their ceremony from an out-of-touch awards show into an industry tastemaker. The changes behind the scenes could be what’s behind the upsets already seen — and could lead to a drastically different awards season as a whole.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, first elected more than nine years ago, announced his resignation on Monday, January 6.

Speaking from the front steps of his official residence at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, the PM said he had asked Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue Parliament, a request she accepted. 

Parliament will return for a new session on March 24, at which time the Liberal party will almost certainly have a new leader. Trudeau will remain at the head of the Liberals, and Prime Minister, until the party chooses that new leader.

And so, there will be a full-fledged competitive leadership race over the next two to three months. The Liberal caucus will not choose a new leader. Nor will they select an interim leader.

Prorogation is questionable 

Some question the propriety of ending the parliamentary session, and thus killing all government legislation still pending, for no better purpose than avoiding a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons – a vote the government would likely lose.

When asked about this, Trudeau alluded to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s prorogation in 2008, in a similar circumstance.

Late in 2008, mere weeks after an election in which Harper’s Conservatives had been returned to power with more seats than they had won in the previous vote (but still a minority), the three opposition parties indicated their intention to vote down the Conservatives’ Fall Fiscal Update. 

Such a vote would mean the Harper government had lost the confidence of the House of Commons, a situation which usually triggers an election.

Rather than have a vote mere months after the previous one, the three opposition parties wrote then Governor General Michaëlle Jean to propose they would form a Liberal-NDP coalition government, supported by the Bloc Québécois.

But Jean rejected that request, because Harper had just won a confidence vote in the House on his new government’s Throne Speech. On Monday, Trudeau pointed out that his Liberals have survived three House confidence votes in recent months. 

What was good for a re-elected Conservative PM almost 16 years ago is, it appears, good for the outgoing Liberal leader and Prime Minister today. 

An inexperienced leader who won big

Justin Trudeau was an unlikely saviour when he snared the Liberal leadership in April 2013. 

He had won a seat in Parliament four years earlier, and had held several opposition critic portfolios. But he had scant managerial or political experience.

At the time, at least one other potential leadership candidate, former astronaut Marc Garneau, publicly worried Trudeau was too much of a lightweight for the role of party leader.

The Party emphatically disagreed. 

In the 2011 election, under the uninspiring leadership of Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals had been reduced to a rump of 34 seats, and third place in the House of Commons. 

Ignatieff was an aloof and condescending intellectual, who had spent most of his career outside of Canada. While in the US he had publicly supported President George W. Bush’s 2002 invasion of Iraq.

Trudeau seemed like a just-folks, grassroots leader by comparison – even if he was the son of a long-serving prime minister.

Indeed, the royal jelly of his family name was a big factor in Trudeau’s early success, as were his boyish good looks and equally photogenic wife and kids.

READ MORE: How Justin Trudeau went from Golden Boy to whipping boy 

Old Liberal hands and party insiders rubbed their hands with glee  when they saw something of the late Pierre Trudeau’s charismatic magic come back to life, in the form of a new and fresh avatar.

Trudeau won the Liberal leadership with a massive majority, over 80 per cent of the votes. In the aftermath of that triumph, the new Liberal leader quickly eclipsed the Official Opposition leader, the NDP’s Tom Mulcair, in national media attention.

There were a few hiccups on the way to victory in the general election of 2015. Trudeau had the unnerving habit of saying things that did not always make sense, and that hurt his poll numbers in the run-up to the vote. 

But the Liberals ran a disciplined and effective campaign in 2015. In some respects, they leaped to the left of the NDP. 

While Mulcair promised balanced budgets, an unusual stance for the New Democrats, Trudeau, heeding the advice of his closest adviser, Gerald Butts, said Canada’s need for investment outweighed concerns with fiscal discipline.  

In the end, the Liberals’ gamble on youth and a famous name paid off. They won a comfortable, if not overwhelming, majority in 2015.

Lots of successes for Trudeau Liberals

In power, Trudeau and his Liberal team could boast of some genuine accomplishments.

Perhaps the greatest of those was the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) which raised hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty. The CCB pays families up to $7,778 annually for children under six and a bit more than a thousand dollars less per year for children between six and eighteen.

Then there is the Trudeau government’s early decision to raise the level of taxation on taxable incomes over $200,000. 

That was coupled with a cut to what the government called middle class taxes, which, in fact, disproportionately benefited the very upper portion of the middle class. But no government had even considered raising an extra penny from the richest Canadians for many decades.

When the previous Jean Chrétien Liberal government decided to slash the federal deficit in 1995 it did so entirely through cuts, especially to federal transfers to the provinces for health, social services, and higher education. 

The finance minister of the time, Paul Martin, was adamant that neither wealthy individuals nor well-heeled corporations would be required to do their part to combat the pending fiscal crisis.

Famously, the Trudeau government did not only decriminalize, it legalized marijuana. This measure finally took the marketing and distribution of a widely used, but relatively innocuous, drug out of the hands of organized crime.

Three of the Liberals’ accomplishments involved rolling back regressive Harper government measures.

The first involved the rights of charities. In an effort to squelch the movements for environmental and social justice, Harper severely limited charities’ right to engage in policy advocacy. Harper’s measures threatened the charitable tax benefit of organizations which used any of their donors’ money to educate the public.

Trudeau changed that, and did the same for many of the anti-democratic measures of the Conservatives’ oxymoronically-named Fair Elections Act. That legislation was spearheaded by none other than now Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre’s Act weakened the power of the Commissioner of Elections to investigate abuses, imposed ID requirements that made it harder for many people to vote, and limited the capacity of the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate with Canadians. 

And those were only three of its noxious provisions.

The Trudeau government rolled most of them back – and it acted similarly on Harper’s new rules for refugees.

Harper’s immigration minister Jason Kenney had brought in a series of notional reforms to the refugee process, which discriminated against certain classes of asylum seekers, and made the appeal process more arduous and arbitrary.

The Trudeau government changed most of those.

On climate change, the Trudeau government’s record has been mixed. Its main weapon has been a carbon tax, which is, by design, a free-market-based method. 

Economists with a favourable bias toward unfettered capitalism tend to view carbon taxes as preferable to what they see as the heavy hand of government regulation. 

Don’t try telling that to Pierre Poilievre, though. 

Nor should you waste your breath explaining to Poilievre, and other carbon tax detractors, how most taxpayers come out ahead under Trudeau’s carbon tax regime – as a result of the carbon rebate payments the government sends them each quarter.

The Trudeau government’s performance at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was also, as a whole, salutary, especially when contrasted with that of other countries, such as the US led by Donald Trump and Boris Johnson’s UK.

The Trudeau government showed respect for scientific and medical expertise and acted quickly to counter the economic hardships engendered by COVID, through such measures as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

More recently, there have been the progressive measures championed by the Liberals’ erstwhile partners, the New Democrats, most notably: pharmacare, dental care, federal anti-scab legislation, and a hike to the federal minimum wage. 

Trudeau’s biggest failure

Then there is the thorny area of democratic reform. Trudeau made two big promises on that front, but only kept one. 

He reformed the process for naming members to the federal upper house, the Senate. We now have a non-partisan system, based on merit. All of Trudeau’s many appointments to the Senate have been in the independent or non-affiliated category. None are bagmen, rewarded for service to the Party.

The NDP has long argued for abolition of the Senate, which, sadly, would be a near impossible feat since it would involve amending the constitution. Trudeau focused on a feasible reform, and he seems to have succeeded.

On the other promise in this category Trudeau failed miserably. That one is electoral reform. 

During his resignation announcement Trudeau cited his failure to institute a new electoral system as a major disappointment. True to form, however, Trudeau tried to shift the blame to others.

He said opposition political parties would not agree to the option he favoured, a ranked ballot – and so he abandoned the reform process. 

In the run-up to the 2015 election, Trudeau promised (to rapturous applause) to get rid of our current first-past-the-post system. But he never said he would accept only one reform option. 

Indeed, Trudeau set up an all-party Commons committee to examine the entire range of possible replacements for our current system. 

The majority of MPs on that committee favoured a reform which would allow for a measure of proportionality, meaning parties would get representation at least partially based on their share of the popular vote.

But MPs on the committee said, at the time, they were open to what is essentially a hybrid of Trudeau’s favoured ranked ballot and the proportional vote. That system is called the single transferable vote (STV).

STV creates multi-member ridings, with voters ranking their choices (first, second, third choices, etc.). For Canada, it would have been a realistic compromise option, one that is currently used in a number of countries, and has been used, in the past, by Manitoba and Alberta.

In short, Trudeau’s claim of opposition intransigence on the electoral reform question is disingenuous. In fact, his failure to achieve electoral reform could turn out to be the low point of his nine-plus years in power. 

There will be time for a more detailed evaluation of Justin Trudeau’s record and legacy over the next few months.

Today, Canadians are likely looking with no small measure of unease toward an uncertain future, not only for the Liberal party but for their country.

The post Trudeau quits and prorogues. Canadians ask, What’s next? appeared first on rabble.ca.

Winnipeg police say a 26-year-old man has been charged with voyeurism after allegedly taking photos of a young girl in a changing room.

WPS says officers responded to a multi-use fitness facility in the Grant Park area just before 5 p.m. on Saturday after receiving a report of a sexual assault.

Police say a 10-year-old girl was in a private stall of a universal change room area, when her father noticed a phone camera taking pictures of her from the stall next to her.

The father then informed staff and police were contacted.

Police took a man into custody at the scene without incident.

Colin Gauthier, 26, has been charged with voyeurism and was released on a court order prohibiting contact with anyone under 16 years old.

The post Man charged after allegedly taking photos of girl in changing room at Winnipeg fitness facility appeared first on CityNews Winnipeg.

While Liberal supporters hope a new leader will give the party a better chance at holding onto power, some residents in urban Toronto — where the Liberals swept all 25 ridings in the 2021 election — were unsure if Justin Trudeau’s resignation would be enough to change public opinion. 

Hamilton Police didn’t have to go too far to arrest a man they say was responsible for a November shooting That occurred in the area of Jackson Street East and Bowen Street. He was already in custody on another matter.  23 year old, Cleveland Vanevery, from Six Nations faces a string of firearms offences as well as bail violation.

At the time of his arrest, Cleveland Vanevery was in custody for charges stemming from a Halton Regional Police investigation which occurred on November 30, 2024. Vanevery remains in custody at this time.

 Detectives have not been able to contact the intended target of the shooting and investigators are requesting that the persons involved to come forward and speak to Police.

The shooting occurred in the area of the Sankofa Night Club and Club 33, both of which had been the scene of numerous disturbances and both of which have been shut down by police.

Anyone with any information that may assist in this or any other shooting, are asked to contact the Shooting Response Team at 905-546-4883 or email [email protected]. For those who wish to provide information anonymously, they can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or submit  anonymous tips online at Crime Stoppers Hamilton’s Website.

When a celebrity dies, there is often an outpouring of grief from their fans. This sense of grief can often be even stronger when the person dies young. In October 2024, there was an outpouring of grief from fans when former One Direction singer Liam Payne died.

Grief is the reaction to any kind of loss. It is most often associated with bereavement (the death of a person) and mourning (the expression of grief when someone dies). However, it can be difficult to talk about grief at any age as we live in a death- and grief-denying society.

At first glance, a celebrity death may not seem to be the most helpful instance to improve our understanding of grief. Yet, for many, especially younger people, it may be their first experience with such grief. However, society often invalidates this type of grief which is commonly referred to as parasocial in nature. Some kinds of grief are more difficult to talk about than others because there are hierarchies of grief. In grief hierarchies the closer the relationship to the deceased, the worse the grief is expected to be.

Fan communities coping with a celebrity loss do several things that help their members feel supported and connected to one another, which often also disrupts society’s typical reaction to grief. So, what can we learn from fans grieving celebrity deaths?

Grief literacy

How to deal with grief is something that is rarely taught to us. Grief literacy, a concept coined by author Rachelle Bensoussan, aims to normalize grief, as it is an experience that will touch everyone at some point in life. The aim of grief literacy is to enhance our understanding and recognition of grief of all kinds in order to better support it in ourselves and others.

Relationships between celebrities and fans are often seen as one-sided parasocial relationships that fans invest energy and time into. However, social media platforms and specifically live-streaming features change the nature of parasocial relationships. These technologies grant fans access into the personal homes and lives of celebrities and allows celebrities to engage with fans in real time.

It is common for fans to gather when a celebrity dies. In our research on grief, people often talk about the isolation that comes when grieving. People often think they should not talk about someone who has died because they might upset the grieving person. We hear time and time again that grievers are thinking of the person who died and want to talk about them. So gathering, in small or large groups, and talking about grief can be beneficial.

Creating a culture of safety around grief

Fans frequently use social media platforms to connect with one another and form a community centred on their interest in the celebrity. This creates a unique community setting which can bring together people of all ages and walks of life from across the globe.

Fan culture is heavily based on prosocial behaviour, which is necessary because most fan groups are large and span multiple cultures, viewpoints and life experiences. Group rules and norms are focused on building a positive space for everyone. It is important to fans within their own communities that other members feel they belong and are valued.

The foundation of safety and belonging allows fan culture to transcend normal social scripts about grief. Fans can seek support and express their grief for the celebrity within their community in a way that is uncommon in traditional social groupings.

As seen in the many memorials for hockey player Johnny Gaudreau after his death in August 2024, public memorials create a space that is both validating and where fans can find support for their grief. The connections fans create through public celebrity memorials are genuine and combat the isolation often brought by grief.

Rituals can be helpful and creative

During memorial gatherings, fans often create and engage in rituals that are unique to that fan group. For example, when Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise, died in September 2024, she was memorialized by fans with raised wands — a mourning ritual from the series.

When actress Betty White died weeks before her 100th birthday, media outlets promoted various ways to celebrate her 100th in her honour. Her advocacy around animal welfare sparked an effort to support rescue animals.

Memorial tattoos are another means of creating ritual, designed as a way to pay tribute to someone who has died. They often help grievers capture their relationship with the deceased through significant memories and shared experiences. The feelings of continued connection with the deceased are the same for people who described getting memorial tattoos for personal or parasocial losses.

Our research found that designs for memorial tattoos are carefully chosen by the griever and, therefore, are each uniquely meaningful. Memorial tattoos that are highly visible create an opportunity to talk about the person who died. Tattoos that are less visible provide the wearer with a profound feeling of connection.

We found that memorial tattoos can be incredibly diverse and capture many types of relationships. Following the Humboldt Broncos hockey team bus crash, several people close to the players who died got memorial tattoos.

The public mourning and memorialization of celebrities who have died can be both an example and the spark for conversations about how to support one another in grief. People may struggle to find support for their grief after a celebrity’s death because the relationship between fans and the celebrity falls outside the acceptable grief hierarchy.

It can be easy to dismiss fans’ experiences of grief when a celebrity dies. However, we should engage with them instead. In the long run, this will help to shape broader conversations about loss and has the potential to improve how we respond to grief.

Susan Cadell receives funding from SSHRC and CIHR. She is affiliated with Grief Matters.

Stephanie Levac does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.