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Or sign-in if you have an account.SpaceX employees celebrate the market close of the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) at the Nasdaq Marketsite on June 12, 2026, in New York City. Photo by Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorIn one of the more notable ironies of SpaceX’s multi-trillion dollar initial public offering, one of Canada’s greatest beneficiaries of the launch is a demographic ideologically opposed to a lot of what CEO Elon Musk stands for.A major early investor in SpaceX was the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan (OTPP). In 2019, the plan announced it had purchased a stake in the company via its new Teachers’ Innovation Platform, an initiative to make equity investments in promising tech firms.This newsletter from NP Comment tackles the topics you care about. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again“SpaceX is the world’s leading private space launch provider, and we are excited to work with the company in the next phase of its growth as it rolls out its Starlink satellite network,” said OTPP representative Olivia Steedman in a statement at the time.The size of the stake has not been publicly disclosed by the OTPP, but according to sources quoted last week by The Globe and Mail, it was US$220 million — about $300 million in Canadian dollars.At the time, SpaceX was worth about US$33 billion. Meaning that the OTPP’s stake was equivalent to about 0.6 per cent of the company.Applying that same percentage to SpaceX’s post-IPO valuation of US$1.75 trillion, it’s equivalent to about US$11 billion, or $15.5 billion.At the time of publication, SpaceX’s value has since increased to US$2.6 trillion, meaning the book value of the stake could be as high as US$16 billion, or $22.5 billion.The OTPP is a defined benefit pension fund, so the windfall doesn’t necessarily increase the retirement benefits of its members. Members of the OTPP are paid from the plan via a formula that tallies up their years as a teacher, their age at retirement and the top salary they earned while employed.Nevertheless, the SpaceX value surge works out to the equivalent of an investment return of between $50,000 and $73,000 for each of the plan’s 310,000 members.Last week’s SpaceX IPO notably transformed Musk into history’s first trillionaire, with his own stake in the company now valued at more than $700 billion.This fact garnered more than a little public resentment in Canada, a country where Musk holds citizenship via his Saskatchewan-born mother Maye.“SpaceX IPO makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire. Here’s how to properly hate him,” reads a headline from The Globe and Mail that was changed after attracting international criticism.“Billionaires shouldn’t exist. Trillionaires should be in jail. Time to stop the parasitic elites enriching themselves at everyone else’s expense!” reads a Monday social media post by NDP MP Heather McPherson. It was posted on X, a platform that Musk happens to also own.With both Musk and Ontario teachers ranking as the largest Canadian beneficiaries of the SpaceX IPO, it’s notable that both are firmly entrenched on opposite sides of the political spectrum.Musk is a former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, and has taken strong stands on a range of “anti-woke” causes including immigration and gender identity skepticism.His most recent weigh-in on Canadian politics was a social media post slamming Ottawa’s proposed “under-16” social media ban, which he framed as a back door towards mandating digital ID and increased online surveillance. “They always use defensible excuses for the indefensible,” wrote Musk.Ontario’s various teachers’ federations, by contrast, are historic supporters of critical race theory, child gender transitions and, lately, various anti-Israel causes.In 2023, an Ontario teachers’ organization known as the Ontario Mathematics Coordinators Association held a workshop declaring that the equation “2+2=4” was evidence of covert white supremacy in mathematics.Last March, the Ontario Teachers’ Federation endorsed a report referring to the province’s educational sector as a hub of “systemic discrimination and injustice” and calling for race-centric policies to “address historical disadvantage.”And just in February, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario was criticized for hiring an explicitly anti-Zionist organization to oversee mandatory antisemitism trainingThe OTPP has long been renowned as an icon of savvy capitalism, even as it represents a profession known for its left-leaning and sometimes anti-capitalist political stances.The OTPP is one of the Maple 8, a group of eight Canadian pension funds renowned for their high returns and direct ownership of assets. Perhaps most famously, the OTPP spent years as the sole owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, before selling the team in 2012 for a profit of more than $1 billion.As far back as 2004, CBC presenter Rick Mercer broadcast a segment mocking large OTPP stakes in tobacco companies and shopping malls, in the latter case suggesting that it was motivating strike action.“When teachers work to rule, the kids don’t suffer, the kids go to the mall,” he said. There’s yet another poll charting a pretty dramatic turnaround in B.C. political sentiment. After members of the B.C. Conservative Party selected the most hardline candidate in their recent leadership race, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, subsequent polls have shown that British Columbians seem willing to make her premier. A new Angus Reid Institute poll found that most British Columbians couldn’t actually name the first thing about Findlay, but that they would vote for her over the BC NDP anyway.Canada appears to have finally found a MAID threshold it is not prepared to cross.Among the dozen or so countries that have some form of legalized assisted suicide, Canada is an outlier in terms of both the rate and quantity of citizens dying by the practice, as well as the checks required to qualify. In one particularly notable recent example, an Ontarian was approved for assisted suicide after a meeting convened at a Tim Hortons.Despite all this, 10 years after Canada first legalized MAID for the terminally ill, the general trend has been towards easier access to MAID, and lower barriers. Ever since 2021, for instance, it’s been legal to euthanize Canadians for a “grievous and irremediable” condition even if it’s not terminal.But the issue of administering MAID to Canadians whose only condition is mental illness has consistently prompted hesitation from federal authorities.Although MAID for the mentally ill was supposed to become legal in 2023, the Liberals have repeatedly pushed back the deadline, most recently bumping it back to March 17, 2027.And then, this week, a special parliamentary committee recommended they just not do it all. The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, comprised of both MPs and Senators, summed up their conclusion rather succinctly: “That the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying.” After a Liberal MP tabled a bill to recognize July as Somali Heritage Month, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani sponsored the above petition in reply. It calls on the federal government to never designate another heritage month again for any reason.First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Get the latest from Tristin Hopper straight to your inbox Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. 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