The average Canadian family last year spent more on paying taxes than for the basic necessities of shelter, food and clothing combined, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
A family with an average income of $112,111, the report by the fiscally conservative think tank says, spent $50,721 or 41.9% of its income on taxes in 2025 compared to $43,657, or 36%, for shelter ($27,686), food ($13,249) and clothing ($2,722).
Fifty members of the Democratic Socialists of America flew from New York to Michigan before the primaries. They came to support DSA candidates, but they also canvassed for a Senate candidate their own organization had never endorsed. Abdul el Sayed doesn’t call himself a socialist, and the DSA never put its name behind him. Its members showed up anyway.
Ontario is enacting new rules for social assistance payments so people without legal immigration status in Canada cannot receive the benefits.
Premier Doug Ford first vowed to make the change following media reports about a tribunal ruling that awarded Ontario Works payments to a man who came to Canada decades ago on a temporary work permit that has since expired.
Ford wrote in a social media post last month his government would always support people who have fallen on hard times, but “that doesn’t include people living in Canada illegally.”
It’s a start. But Ford is well aware of the demographic that wins him election.
After eight years of development and more than $8 million spent by the city of Madison, Wisconsin, Maurer’s Urban Market will open in the Bay Creek neighborhood later this month. Local officials have pitched the store as a measure to prevent a “food desert” in that part of town.
The truth: Maurer’s is right across the street from another grocery store. And within a mile of three others. How this glut came to be is a good illustration of why the government is not cut out for the grocery business.
Finally, a crackdown on unsafe trucking firms that continue to allow dangerously fatigued drivers on the road.
LD Trans Line Ltd., a Brampton-based carrier described as the “worst of the worst,” has been stripped of its Ontario operating licence after countless safety violations, including falsifying the number of hours on the road — that continued even after one of its drivers caused a fatal January 2025 multi-vehicle pileup.
h/t Mauser
The bodies of two World War Two German soldiers have been found in Budapest’s Danube river, due to record-low water levels after an intense drought.
Found alongside their remains were the identification tags of the two soldiers, a largely intact German army Wehrmacht motorcycle, a wedding ring and a Kuban shield – a combat badge of the Wehrmacht, the German War Graves Commission said.
The remarkable finds have sparked hope that some families could finally discover the fates of their ancestors, more than 80 years on from the war.
OTTAWA — A new report from a prominent Ottawa attorney has concluded that Luc Sabourin — the Canadian border intelligence whistleblower who says he was threatened at his Gatineau home by a Sinaloa cartel-linked gangster and later pressured out of his career after refusing an order to destroy roughly 1,000 foreign passports — faced “a pattern of workplace conflict and retaliation.” And his case remains unresolved, the report finds, for a reason that should alarm every Canadian: the independent oversight body Parliament created in 2024 to investigate exactly such allegations has still not been brought into force.
Related …
Canadian Border officers storm international student hunger strike, checking papers … wagging fingers, going home
‼️MAJOR BREAKING
Huge immigration crackdown in Calgary yesterday as CBSA RAIDS international student protest
Punjabi media is FREAKIN’ out!
This is why we LOVE Alberta! pic.twitter.com/0ssje0RW1C
— Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@Tablesalt13) August 13, 2026
h/t handy n handsome
North Korea is preparing a massive troop surge to help its ally Moscow in its war on Ukraine, with up to 50,000 North Koreans to be deployed in Russia, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In late July, the Ukrainian leader said Russia wanted to bring in another 30,000 North Korean troops, before adding this weekend that Pyongyang decided to have between 30,000 and 50,000 North Koreans deployed on Russian territory. He did not specify if this number included the North Korean troops already taking part in the conflict.
Canada’s chicken market is sending a signal that Ottawa can no longer afford to ignore: supply is not keeping pace with demand.
Chicken Farmers of Canada reported this week that production during the first four months of 2026 was 5.6 per cent higher than during the same period last year. That sounds reassuring. But the same organization also acknowledged that underproduction remained a challenge, while wholesale prices for whole birds and legs reached record levels.
In our intensely divided moment, there’s one thing that the right and left seem to agree on: they hate Flock cameras.
The cameras are installed in most urban areas across the country and record the license plate number of every car that drives past them, storing information about people’s movement in a database, for use by local governments and police departments.
According to the company, Flock has 120,000 active cameras across the United States. Many police departments and investigators claim they make solving crimes and locating individuals easier than ever.
WOW 🚨 There is now a ‘Flock Safe City designations”
This happens when a city uses the integrated system of Flock license plate readers, drones, gunshot detectors and live cameras monitoring the city that track people that blanket the city and monitor at all times
“Harvey,… pic.twitter.com/XmUYMp7bKx
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 13, 2026
Canadian officials are weighing a proposal that would see Ottawa accept U.S. auto tariffs in exchange for a reduction on levies for vehicles compliant with USMCA, according to three sources on both sides of the border.
The proposal would also maintain an exemption for the value of American content in cars exported from Canada.
The German government has approved a draft law aimed at lifting many of the restraints on its spy agencies imposed during the postwar period as the country reels from two attacks in a month that have exposed serious security gaps.
The controversial changes, which must still pass parliament, largely comply with a wishlist pulled together by the foreign and domestic intelligence services, which have long complained Germany lags behind its allies and enemies.
“We are turning our intelligence services into genuine secret services,” the interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, told Bild newspaper, which called it a security “revolution” and “historic”.
On the prairies, progress is measured by simple, tangible work: whether the fence got mended, whether the crop came in and whether the next generation is better off than the last.
From that vantage point, watching Ottawa feels like looking into an ecosystem entirely obsessed with its own reflection. Pundits track every minor polling shift, dissecting Liberal policy moves, endlessly speculating about Conservative infighting and seem to care more about Washington than our own challenges. It makes for lively political theater in the capital, but it misses the fundamental question Canadians across the country are asking: Is Canada actually in better shape?
The justice department on Wednesday arrested a leading expert on far-right extremism, charging her with financial crimes as part of the government’s ongoing case against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Federal prosecutors charged Heidi Beirich, who formerly served as the group’s chief financial officer, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
“White supremacy is one of the worst things ever created by man” — Heidi Beirich, CFO SPLC
She just got arrested for funding the KKK pic.twitter.com/8wBuwt6csI
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 12, 2026
More …
Canada’s lead trade negotiator with the U.S. Janice Charette has warned her American counterparts that if the White House imposes new 50 per cent tariffs on Aug. 19, it could put further trade talks at risk.
Industry sources tell CTV News there was no ultimatum given to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, but that he does understand the reality of the situation.
Charette’s comments were first reported by The Globe and Mail on Wednesday.
