Retired Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie (US DoD photo)
By Tim Ryan
Retired Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie has a new gig….he joins the stable of “senior fellows” at the right-wing think tank, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Leslie, the former Canadian Army commander, has had quite a journey over the last decade plus.
In 2013 he was a staunch Liberal and supporter of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
“My name’s Andy and I’m a Liberal,” Leslie boasted at the time. “I wanted a leader I could follow heart and soul,” he said pointing at Trudeau during a rally.
It seemed to be love at first sight. "This is the guy I've chosen to follow in terms of a vision for Canada,” Leslie stated.
The retired lieutenant general was a loyal soldier to the Liberal government but after he was passed over for a cabinet position Leslie eventually soured on his good friend Justin Trudeau.
Since leaving politics, Leslie has repeatedly taken aim at his former party. (Some veterans, however, have criticized Leslie, questioning why he was silent when his former party screwed over military personnel and the Canadian Forces).
These days, Leslie is in good graces with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s team. Recently Conservative defence critic James Bezan promoted Leslie’s appearance before a parliamentary committee, calling it a “scathing assessment of Trudeau’s mismanagement.”
But Leslie also took a lot of flak for his Feb. 19, 2025 social media comments which were seen as supporting U.S. President Donald Trump and the American campaign against Canada. Leslie took to X to question why Canada was not fixing “the things that are causing US angst?” He included border security, defence and the trade imbalance in that list. “It’s not that hard,” Leslie claimed.
You can read about that here:
Leslie’s comments prompted Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne to question why Canada should give into Trump’s threats: “Why are ex-military guys counselling surrender?” Coyne asked on X.,
That was followed by almost 500 comments from the public about Leslie’s post, many not complimentary towards the retired lieutenant general.
It’s not surprising to some that Leslie would join the fold of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The institute has been funded by Trump allies. That includes money from the Charles Koch Foundation (Koch, a billionaire is a key Republican financier). On Jan. 27, 2025 the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that Charles Koch had put $20 million in a war chest to support Trump cutting taxes for the rich and rolling back regulations hindering Trump-aligned companies
You can read about those links here:
https://www.espritdecorps.ca/media-watch/bill-blair-caught-misleading-journalists-on-arctic-project
