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Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to his U.S. counterpart by phone Thursday — the first time the leaders have spoken since the two sides failed to reach a deal on a trade agreement earlier this month.

According to a short readout from the Prime Minister’s Office, Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump “discussed current trade challenges, opportunities and shared priorities” in what officials described as a “productive and wide-ranging conversation.”

The United States has placed sanctions on a Canadian judge and three other judges who sit on the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying they authorized ICC investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

The U.S. State Department said in an Aug. 20 statement that judge Kimberly Prost was sanctioned after authorizing an ICC investigation into potential alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan since 2003. The Appeals Chamber of the ICC decided unanimously to authorize the investigation in March 2020.

Food inflation has returned as a problem for Canadian households. According to Statistics Canada, food prices rose 3.3% in July, outpacing overall inflation by 1.6 percentage points. Unlike past cycles, this spike cannot be blamed on volatile global markets. The cause lies much closer to home — in our own policy decisions.

Coffee prices surged 28.6%, confectionery 11.8%, and fresh fruit 3.9%, with grapes alone up nearly 30%. Since March 2025 — when Ottawa ended the GST holiday that had distorted winter data — food inflation has exceeded the overall CPI by an average of 1.4 points. A large part of this gap stems from the counter-tariffs imposed on essential imports, many of which lack viable domestic substitutes.