OTTAWA – The Liberal government’s efforts to revise Canada’s national security strategy hit a snag when it became clear earlier this year that many of the assumptions underlying the work were “no longer valid,” a newly released memo reveals.
John Hannaford, the Privy Council clerk at the time, told Prime Minister Mark Carney in the memo that “changes to Canada’s strategic environment” meant work on a draft of the document was based on outdated premises.
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is unlikely to approve of the sight of a Canadian soldier’s authorized long hair and purple goatee.
Hegseth made it abundantly clear during a speech this week given in front of essentially all of the U.S. military’s top brass assembled in Quantico, Virginia that grooming standards in America’s military would be strict.
“No more beardos,” the former Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran told an auditorium packed with officers wearing dress uniforms with stacked decoration ribbons.
LONDON — As new details surface from MI5’s counter-intelligence probe into two men accused of gathering information on Conservative China-sceptic MPs, The Sunday Times reports that the White House has privately warned Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government that Britain’s failure to prosecute the alleged Chinese spies could jeopardize U.S.–UK intelligence sharing within the Five Eyes alliance. U.S. officials told the paper that the abrupt collapse of the high-profile espionage case — involving parliamentary researcher Chris Cash and China-based academic Christopher Berry, who was reportedly intercepted returning to Britain with encrypted communications apps used exclusively by Chinese intelligence operatives — has shaken Washington’s confidence in London’s reliability on counter-espionage cooperation.
Canada’s problems resemble those of countries such as Australia or Germany, and appear insoluble without major upheaval.
Canada should be one of the world’s best countries to live in, and for many people it once was. Possessing vast natural resources and reserves of energy (exceeding those of the U.S. on a per capita basis), endless natural space (as the world’s second-largest country), adequate infrastructure, no enemies, a parliamentary democracy, and an educated population, it should face no problems beyond the winters.
But a decade under the former Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has reduced a first-world country to the level of a failing, although not yet a failed, state. The strains of O Canada are giving way to cries of Woe Canada, while the recent book by the journalist Tristin Hopper (Don’t be Canada: How One Country Did Everything Wrong All at Once) documents the national malaise with many examples of stagnation, incompetence, and folly. Epithets such as “a woke dystopia” and “the sick man of North America” are now heard. Where did it all go so wrong?
This is so damning.
Americans are far more likely than Canadians to believe “religion has a positive influence on societal values,” according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies, found just over a third (34 per cent) of Canadians agreed with the statement, compared to 53 per cent of Americans.
It has long been acceptable to discriminate against Christians in Canada so I am not surprised.
Canada isn’t the strong democracy we like to believe. Behind the peaceful elections and parliamentary rituals lies a system where power is concentrated in the hands of one person: the prime minister.
Since Confederation, Canada has avoided coups and revolutions. Governments have changed hands through orderly elections, a record many countries envy. On the surface, it looks like a stable democracy. But look closer, and the cracks show.
WINNIPEG – Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is asking the prime minister to scrap Canada’s 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in return for China lifting its tariffs on Canadian canola and pork.
Kinew says in a letter to Mark Carney on Saturday that while he believes protecting Canada’s vehicle industry is important, he says the country’s approach “has created a two-front trade war that disproportionally affects Western Canada.”
The premier says in the letter that China’s tariffs — widely seen as a response to Canada imposing the electric vehicle levy — have already caused a sharp drop in canola prices and that one vertically integrated pork producer in Manitoba is reporting a $19 million negative impact on an annual basis.
Is Carney leaning east to China?
Taiwan worried Canada may abandon trade agreement – Carney government signals reluctance to honor economic framework deal with Taipei
American spirit exports to Canada “plummeted” 85 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, with the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States calling the situation “very troubling” as consumers in key international markets opt for alternatives to U.S.-made products amid trade tensions.
The numbers come as American alcohol largely remains off Canadian shelves and unavailable in bars and restaurants as a response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on Canadian goods in early March.
The Waterloo Region District School Board has launched a new “Islamic Apparel Store” on its staff website, promoting shirts designed to celebrate Islamic Heritage Month under the slogan “One Ummah, One Love.”
h/t Mauser
During his visit to U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney sounded exactly like he said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would sound had he won the federal election in April.
Not since Lester Pearson, still in Opposition, heaped praise on the crisis management talents of U.S. President John F. Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 has any Canadian political leader showered such a torrent of compliments upon an American president as Prime Minister Mark Carney did on U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 7. (Admittedly, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau would have been a strong contestant if he had not become almost tongue-tied in complementing U.S. President Richard Nixon on his triangulation of great power relations with his diplomatic overture to China, a field in which Trudeau fancied himself something of a pioneer.) There is nothing wrong with this, and it is almost certainly an astute diplomatic gambit as President Trump’s threshold for considering praise of himself excessive and questionably motivated is relatively high. The prime minister’s compliments were nothing but the truth: ending illegal immigration, pressuring allies to increase defence spending, generating economic growth, advancing the Middle East peace process and terminating Iran’s nuclear program. And Trump responded with gracious compliments for Carney.
I wonder where he gets his optimism from?
One of Donald Trump’s former chiefs of staff passed along a tip this week to a high-powered Canadian audience on how to deal with the president. Basically it amounted to this: Trump wants friends.
“The president’s a one-on-one guy, and he’s personable. He likes to be friends with the people that he’s talking to,” Reince Priebus, who served as Trump’s first chief of staff after his 2016 election victory, told a Canada-U.S. summit in Toronto.
How did the Star manage to get both elbows up their butt?
Is the bromance off between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford?
Carney’s soft handling of Donald Trump and concerns about the Liberals potentially abandoning the auto industry would appear to say yes.
The expectations were high for the second bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump, with Canadians seeking relief from punishing tariffs as the White House continues to wage its quixotic trade war against the world.
The love fest hit new highs as both men offered glowing compliments and bromides amid their blossoming bromance. Still, through the veil of laughter and love, deep intractable challenges that many are hoping for resolution still went unresolved.
On the world stage where tragedy is an ever-running production, hopefully the curtain is finally coming down on the war in Gaza and the remaining hostages will come home.
Israel and Hamas have accepted at least the first phase of the ceasefire deal driven by President Donald Trump. The remaining abductees, living and dead, are to be released. Rejoicing Palestinians are flooding back to the wreckage of their homes and lives.
