Canada

Canada will focus on securing supplies of critical minerals when it hosts its Group of Seven partners this week at a meeting of energy and environment ministers in Toronto, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said in an interview on Tuesday.

G7 countries, except Japan, are heavily or exclusively reliant on China for a range of materials from rare earth magnets to battery metals.

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"We will see this week many examples of us moving beyond talks to firm commitments to fund several types of tools (to secure critical minerals)," Hodgson said. The G7 meeting will be held from October 30 to October 31.

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He said Canada intended to be a leader in securing supply chains for all of its key allies, to reduce reliance on China. Canada produces several critical metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt.

Some of the announcements expected this week from the G7 meeting will be on stockpiling of critical minerals and investments in new mining and processing operations, Hodgson said.

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Archive: [ https://archive.ph/d6KIV ]

Only the conservatives want an election.

These changes are a continuation of our corporate-wide restructuring efforts to better align our management team with the future needs of the organization.

Sounds like middle management took a haircut.

He won't like David Eby's upcoming ads.

CTV video on Youtube where Thomas Lukaszuk announces the count of collected signatures to be sent to Elections Alberta for verification for a referendum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7szMqzGWGDI

They needed 296,000 and got over 456,000 signatures.

The referendum question is:

“Do you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?”

Don't remember ever being excited about watching baseball before, let alone doggedly staying up way too late to finish a game. Any other bandwagoners feeling a little tuckered today?

Archived link

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ongoing Asian tour signals a welcome shift in Canada’s regional engagement. After six months in office, Carney appears to understand what his predecessors missed: Asian leaders value consistency and realism over grand gestures and progressive rhetoric.

The Indonesian free trade agreement and pursuit of an ASEAN-wide free trade agreement demonstrate concrete progress. Canada’s participation in sanctions invasion exercises and provision of dark vessel tracking technology to the Philippines shows we’re serious about regional security. Our Taiwan Strait transits and intelligence cooperation send the right signals about upholding the rules-based order.

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The elephant in the room remains China. From Seoul to Manila, our partners watch nervously as Ottawa signals renewed engagement with Beijing. They understand engagement is necessary, but worry Canada hasn’t internalized the hard lessons about Xi’s China—a regime that weaponizes economic ties and views compromise as weakness. Using China to hedge against Trump’s America is less clever realpolitik than it is dangerous naivety.

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Our Asian allies know the scorpion and frog fable well. They’ve felt China’s sting through economic coercion, territorial aggression, and broken promises. They want Canada as a serious Indo-Pacific partner, but one that approaches Beijing with clear-eyed realism about its authoritarian ambitions.

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To be taken seriously in Asia, Canada needs sustained cabinet-level visits, deeper security partnerships, and patient relationship-building. Most critically, we must demonstrate we understand that Xi’s China is not a benign alternative to American unpredictability—it’s an authoritarian power seeking regional dominance.

The region is watching. They want more Canada, but a Canada that deals with Asia as it is, not as progressive idealists wish it were. Carney has made a decent start. Now he needs to show up regularly, engage consistently, and above all, approach China with the hard-headed realism our partners expect.

British Columbia's government said Monday that it is opening a "forest trade office" in London, U.K., in an effort to boost exports to Europe.

The announcement comes as U.S. fees, including duties and tariffs, on Canadian forest products reached 45 per cent earlier this month.

"I never want workers to be put in this position ever again. We can no longer trust the United States," Forests Minister Ravi Parmar told CBC's On The Coast. "And in the case of forestry, we are too reliant on the United States."

Crown Corporation Forestry Innovation Investment will open an office in the U.K. which will provide a stronger foothold for sales into Europe and eventually the Middle East and North Africa, according to the province.

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The impact of a Chinese invasion — or even blockade — of Taiwan would be felt around the world by governments, citizens, companies, and industries. Experts estimate an attempted invasion would decrease global GDP by 10 per cent, with a blockade having a significant but lesser impact. (For comparison, COVID-19’s impact reached just over three per cent of global GDP).

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It’s anticipated that sanctions would be applied against China, halting the supply of “made-in-China” products to Canada.

Estimates vary, but this could affect 20 to 40 per cent of all consumer goods in Canada, significantly disrupting life, slowing activity and crippling the consumer economy.

America would likely be drawn in to a cross-straits conflict, and western democratic nations would muster to aid the U.S. and Taiwan. Economies would shift to wartime profiles, freezing development and other objectives.

The situation would worsen beyond description if regional conflict spiralled into global war — on the one side Russia and China allied with nondemocratic states, and the democracies on the other.

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Canadians are not passive passengers on the planet. What happens in Taiwan will severely impact them. Canadians must take responsibility for our collective futures, and demand government action.

Canada is dealing with several security-related challenges — including North American continental defences that need modernizing and allies in Europe attempting to deter a combative Russia.

But it’s imperative that Canadians and their government also recognize the dangers of a conflict across the straits of Taiwan, and that Ottawa acts by rapidly providing capabilities and resources to deter China from escalating.

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The Doug Ford government wants to give itself the power to dictate more of the rules around how Ontario protects its drinking water.

The Ministry of Red Tape Reduction said the process in place to change the rules around drinking water is “overly complex and slow.” It said reforming that process will support housing construction and development, while keeping water safeguards in place.

But one expert said the move will take away power from local committees tasked with protecting their region’s water supply, centralizing it in the hands of the government.