Canada

Prime Minister Mark Carney backed U.S. air strikes on Iran, saying Tehran is the main source of instability in the Middle East and must never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

“Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” the Prime Minister said in a joint statement with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand Saturday from Canada’s trade mission to India.

The cost of a Canadian passport is about to rise and plans by Prime Minister Mark Carney's government to overhaul the way it sets prices could result in them being even more expensive in the future.

An order-in-council adopted in late January calls for the government to begin tying passport prices to the consumer price index (CPI). On March 31, the cost of a Canadian passport will rise by 2.7 percent, the CPI increase in April 2024.

For example, the price of a five-year passport applied for in Canada would rise to $123.24 while a 10-year passport applied for outside of Canada would cost $267.02.

However, in an impact statement accompanying the move, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says that's just the first step.

Carl and Olliver Henry nearly lost their home over a single cent. Their story highlights how racism is shaping Toronto’s financialized housing crisis

“This is just business as usual, despite the international geopolitical arrangement seemingly dismantling in front of us.”

Canadian aerospace company NordSpace announced today the launch of NordSpace Ventures, a newly established division focused on investing in the space, defence, and dual-use technology sector. Its first portfolio member is an Edmonton space data company with one of the world’s most powerful satellite imaging arrays.

NordSpace announced its investment in Wyvern on Thursday, calling it an act of sovereignty-building between the two industry-aligned companies.

“The investment aligns two deeply complementary Canadian companies,” a release issued by NordSpace reads. “NordSpace is building the sovereign launch infrastructure and satellite systems to place and operate assets in orbit, while Wyvern is developing the sensing capabilities that give those assets purpose.”

Go Home Ya Bum.

An $8.7 million annual salary from a team repping a country you want to disparage.

FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF.

See your sorry ass on the trading block, ingrate.

Enjoy your concentration camp in the U S of ICE.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11709704/brady-tkachuk-white-house-video/

OpenAI’s decision not to alert law enforcement of its concerns about a user who went on to commit a mass murder has raised thorny questions about how to balance individual privacy from corporate and government surveillance when protecting public safety.

The US AI company confirmed a Wall Street Journal report to BetaKit this week that it had banned Tumbler Ridge, BC mass shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account eight months before the Feb. 10 shooting. Van Rootselaar was kicked off the platform for misusing OpenAI’s models “in furtherance of violent activities,” but the company did not inform police of its concerns about her messages.

After learning of the decision, Canadian AI Minister Evan Solomon summoned senior OpenAI leaders to Ottawa Tuesday night to walk government officials through the American company’s safety protocols and escalation process. Solomon said he and other officials left that meeting disappointed; Justice Minister Sean Fraser has threatened to introduce new legislation unless OpenAI changes its approach.

Wyloo's proposed underground copper, nickel and platinum mine in the Ring of Fire will not be subject to a federal impact assessment, despite the unified calls of more than half a dozen First Nations.

The Perth-based company wants to build the Eagle’s Nest mine about 540 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont. in the mineral- and carbon-rich Ring of Fire region. Premier Doug Ford paved the way last spring with the passage of the controversial Bill 5 and removed the requirement for a provincial environmental assessment of the mine.

Neskantaga First Nation submitted a formal designation request under the Impact Assessment Act in late October. Six neighbouring First Nations supported this request: Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Ginoogaming, Moose Cree, Nibinamik and Peawanuck.

But on Feb. 20, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada decided the project does not warrant a federal impact assessment because the project still “must be carried out in compliance with applicable federal and provincial legislative mechanisms” and the company has been “actively consulting” with Indigenous groups. Agency president Terence Hubbard acknowledged the project will cause adverse effects, but said there are ways to address this other than through an impact assessment, including federal and provincial legislation like the Species at Risk Act, Fisheries Act and Mining Act.

The decision was a disappointment for the First Nations.

“Every First Nation that commented supported our request. Ottawa chose to ignore us,” Neskantaga First Nation Chief Gary Quisess said in a press release. “This decision puts our river, our homelands, and our Treaty rights at risk. We will not allow mining companies or governments to decide the future of the Ring of Fire without us.”

Neskantaga First Nation is assessing next steps in collaboration with neighbouring First Nations, legal counsel and community members, according to the press release. The mine poses a risk to the region’s carbon-rich peatlands, the Attawapiskat watershed and Neskantaga’s constitutionally protected treaty rights.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has not referred the Eagle’s Nest mine to the Major Project Office for fast-tracking, but has indicated unlocking mining projects in the Ring of Fire is a priority and previously told Canada’s National Observer that several mines and roads in the area are under consideration for fast-tracking.

Along with Bill 5, Ford moved Ring of Fire development forward by signing an agreement in October with Webequie First Nation to speed up construction of all-season access roads to unlock mining in the region.

Early this year, the former CEO of Wyloo Canada, Kristan Staub, was appointed as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation (a subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation). It manages the $10-billion federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program, which supports Indigenous groups in acquiring equity ownership in major projects.

— With files from Matin Sarfraz & John Woodside

First few paragraphs:

In December 2025, United States president Donald Trump struck a deal that—uncharacteristically for such a spectacle-driven politician—barely registered among the general public.

The agreement committed the Belarusian government to releasing 123 political prisoners, a significant concession from one of Europe’s most entrenched authoritarian regimes. In return, Washington agreed to lift sanctions on Belarus’s potash exports—sanctions it escalated after the country’s rigged 2020 election and later expanded, in 2022, when Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory to invade Ukraine.

Why potash? Blame Canada. The United States can live without many imports. It can’t farm at scale without our potash. In 2024, the US imported about 12 million tonnes of the fertilizer from Canada, all of it dug from Saskatchewan, where it enters the US tariff-free under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Cut that supply, and American agriculture could grind to a halt.

As CUSMA heads into renegotiation this summer, the mood in Washington appears confrontational. Reopening Belarusian exports would give the US access to one of the few alternative global reserves—and, with it, leverage in an area where it currently has little.

I called up Matt Simpson, chief executive officer of Brazil Potash, a Brazilian company attempting to mine and produce potash fertilizer in the Amazon basin in a bid to supply more of that country’s demand. He explained why Canada has long been the backbone of the US potash supply, how reliance on Belarus introduces serious geopolitical and pricing vulnerabilities, and what this means for global food security if trade tensions escalate.

Potash is an interesting commodity. It rarely gets talked about in public but seems just as geopolitically important as oil or microchips.

An excerpt:

The United States government recently announced it will allow companies to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuba amid a severe fuel shortage on the island. Earlier this year, the U.S. cut off oil shipments to Cuba from its main supplier, Venezuela, after American forces abducted that country’s president.

Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, recently told Canadian MPs on the House foreign affairs committee that the U.S. was “suffocating an entire people.” He was referring to the decades-long American embargo against Cuba, which has become even more severe in recent weeks.

In his remarks, Diaz also urged Canada to follow through on a promised aid package to Cuba. Canadian officials have committed to sending an additional $8 million, which will be channelled through international aid organizations operating in Cuba.

This represents a modest and indirect commitment, especially in comparison with the initiatives undertaken by other countries. Mexico has sent more than 2,000 tons of direct humanitarian aid while continuing diplomatic talks on resuming oil supplies, and other countries in the Global South are reportedly preparing similar, more tangible responses.

In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a widely praised address in Davos, Switzerland, that many saw as an apt diagnosis of the failings of the U.S.-led “rules-based international order.” In it, he urged middle powers such as Canada to act with greater honesty and consistency, applying the same standards to allies and rivals so that states can co-exist in an international order that actually functions as advertised.

The Davos speech set high expectations. These are now, however, fading as Carney’s government wavers in sending robust aid to the people of Cuba and in denouncing the most recent unlawful coercive measures imposed by the U.S.