OTTAWA – Canada is sending $8 million in food aid to people in Cuba, where a U.S. oil blockade has triggered a humanitarian crisis.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and MP Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international development, say the funding is aimed at addressing urgent needs.
The funding will be delivered through United Nations agencies instead of the Cuban government.
When Lena Diab was appointed head of Canada’s Immigration Department, community expectations were high.
The new minister is the daughter of immigrants, is trilingual and spent part of her childhood in Lebanon. Diab had also previously served in cabinet in her home province of Nova Scotia.
“It seemed like the perfect plan,” said Stephan Reichhold, executive director of the Quebec-based Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes.
Knives out. Someone wants a place at the trough.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney promised another $2 billion in military aid and more sanctions on Moscow on Tuesday, as Ukraine marked four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion
“Four years on, Russia is failing militarily, strategically and economically, and we are in it for the long term,” Carney told reporters before the weekly cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill.
“Russia is failing. The sooner they come to the table and actually participate in peace negotiations, the better it will be.”
🚨BREAKING — Prime Minister Mark Carney announces an additional $2 BILLION in aid to Ukraine.
Canada will also be sending another 400 armoured vehicles. pic.twitter.com/B2XIqHHGTP
— Jasmin Laine (@JasminLaine_) February 24, 2026
h/t Mauser
OTTAWA — In the wake of a groundbreaking Jamestown Foundation study mapping 2,294 CCP-linked organizations across four Western democracies — and finding that Canada, with 575 such groups, has nearly five times the per-capita penetration rate of the United States — experts including a former Chinese spy who defected to Australia are warning that Canada has become Beijing’s prototype for the kind of subversion that, in CCP doctrine, precedes kinetic warfare.
The focus in Alberta, less so in the country, has been on the forthcoming referendum regarding independence. But Premier Smith recently called for a different referendum, one that follows the Alberta Next Review Panel. Led by Smith, it toured the province, eliciting views about the role of the province and how to strengthen autonomy within the federation.
Eleven panellists were plucked from the UCP, business, academia, the judiciary (retired), and others from the community with experience regarding a range of social issues.
At many levels, this is brilliant.
(Incognito)
German politicians like to talk about Zeitenwende – the country’s great turning point in its defence policy since the invasion of Ukraine. And it has certainly turned: towards spending billions of taxpayer euros on drones that cannot fly in frontline situations, seemingly cannot hit their targets, and whose largest investors sit not in Berlin or Brussels, but in Silicon Valley boardrooms with direct lines to the White House and CIA. If this is European defence sovereignty, one could wonder what this dependency actually looks like. And if Europe really is serious about this change.
Seems there’s a lesson for Carney in this. But I’m sure his China pivot will smooth things out.
The federal government is going to slash its immigrant settlement funding by $98.1 million this year, including a 17.3 per cent reduction for organizations that support newcomers in Ontario, the Star has learned.
The across-the-board funding reductions outside Quebec are expected to affect all services, including employment counselling, information and orientation, translation help for appointments and other supports to assist newcomer integration. Newcomer women and caregivers, survivors of trauma, people with disabilities and others who are likely to delay language and other programs are feared to be disproportionately affected, though refugee services won’t be affected by the cuts.
We should be demanding a higher standard of resourcefulness from those accepted into Canada or better yet close the border.
Let me introduce to you…Our Health Minister
MARJORIE MICHEL
She thinks that Asylum Seekers deserve better Healthcare than Canadian citizens pic.twitter.com/aorFh6QLsF
— Ivano Defazio 🇨🇦🇮🇹🇺🇸 (@DefazioIvano) February 24, 2026
Conservative MP and public safety critic Frank Caputo says he will keep asking the federal government to release its agreement with China on law enforcement cooperation until it discloses the document that so far has been kept confidential to the public.
Caputo sent a letter to Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree on Feb. 9, requesting a copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on cooperation in combating crimes between the RCMP and China’s ministry of public security, which Ottawa signed during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to China in January.
From Mark Carney’s globalist agenda to the ‘climate crisis’ charade, the West is ready to choose dignity and prosperity over the growing mess of the Canadian state.
One of the pleasures of writing columns for the Western Standard is receiving feedback. A recent email from a former law school roommate posed some interesting and relevant questions that, while unable to answer, this column can perhaps provide some perspective and context.
One addressed geography — would independence be just Alberta or also include Saskatchewan and Manitoba? To that, I would include parts of British Columbia.
(Incognito)
Canadians are showing little sympathy for employers who claim they cannot find workers and must turn to foreign labour, according to new federal research that suggests public sentiment on immigration is hardening.
A 2025 annual tracking study commissioned by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada found focus group participants were largely unconvinced by arguments that lowering immigration levels would hurt businesses dependent on migrant workers.
😳
— Duke Canuck 🤙 (@duke_canuck) February 19, 2026
(Incognito)
From crumbling healthcare to the housing crisis, Canada’s refusal to control its borders is a recipe for social collapse and the bureaucracy is to blame.
Mass immigration is threatening the social and economic well-being of the entire Western world. One needs only to look at the catastrophes in Europe, as decades of unchecked immigration have led to entire sections of cities becoming unhabitable to locally born citizens, while race riots and demonstrations choke cities regularly. Integration has become nearly impossible as migrants cluster into introverted communities of their own and refuse to adapt to cultural norms within the democracies they entered.
(Incognito)
George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future, 1984, was supposed to be a warning about the dangers of dictatorship and the loss of objective truth, not a guidebook on how to achieve it.
That said, in Canadian politics these days, one of the primary tools used by Orwell’s all-powerful government of Oceania known simply as “The Party” – “doublethink” or the ability to hold two contradictory views at the same time – is on full display.
A new age of ‘total war’ may be approaching. What would it mean for a generation of young, fighting-age Canadians to be thrust into a military conflict? For that, we look to Ukraine
Around this time of year, Grade 12 students across the country are starting to hear back about their university applications. For many, an acceptance letter represents the pinnacle of a long and arduous process – not only the countless hours of studying and prepping for exams, but also the gauntlet of sports practices, music lessons and volunteer hours that fill out the applicant’s extracurricular profile.
University admissions are but one milestone in a larger social script – one that reflects our assumptions about what it means to “make it” in contemporary society. It’s a familiar script, whose story beats are the stuff of a thousand bank advertisements: convocations, starter jobs and starter homes, painting a baby’s room, a luxury car, a long stretch of golden years, laughter on a beach.
I doubt many will sign up and Ukraine is not exactly a role model.
OTTAWA — In recent months, Canadian democracy has been shaken by events that ought to prompt serious reflection — not just from politicians, but from every voter who believes in representative government. For years, leaning on my expertise as a former RCMP Superintendent, I have warned that complacency, political expediency, and foreign influence are eroding the ethical foundations of our institutions. Today, those warnings feel more relevant than ever.
A few short years ago, before she had proposed a new set of referendum questions on Thursday aimed at curbing rapid population growth, Premier Danielle Smith was actively courting newcomers to the province. Indeed, with the private sector facing a shortage of skilled workers, the premier could hardly bring in enough people to satisfy her appetite.
Smith’s latest referendum push, then, seems like a dramatic shift in policy. Instead, the premier told reporters on Friday, her change in tone is the result of a stark mismatch between Alberta’s efforts to recruit skilled workers and changes to Canada’s immigration system made under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
CBC's Janyce McGregor admits that Alberta is using the Quebec playbook to seek similar provincial control over immigration "Yeah, it seems like that could be what they're angling for here, using tactics similar to what we've seen used in Quebec,"
But can anyone ever recall… pic.twitter.com/dYQ1pUq1QG
— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) February 20, 2026
