Canada

Satire

IN JULY OF 1979, Ronald Reagan, then eighteen months from the presidency, was taken to see the North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known as NORAD. The underground facility, jointly run by the United States and Canada, is carved inside Cheyenne Mountain, near Colorado Springs. In one widely cited account of the visit, many on the tour were visibly awed by the scale and seriousness of the operation. But when Reagan asked what the US could do to stop a nuclear missile, the answer shocked him: nothing.

As the story goes, Reagan was told that all NORAD could do was track incoming warheads and provide information for retaliation. During the flight home, one aide remembered, Reagan “couldn’t believe the United States had no defense against Soviet attack. He slowly shook his head and said, ‘We have spent all that money and have all that equipment, and there is nothing we can do to prevent a nuclear missile from hitting us.’”

Reagan agonized over the idea of the US being vulnerable. “We should have some way of defending ourselves,” he concluded. His vision eventually took the form of the Strategic Defense Initiative: a plan for futuristic weapons in space—lasers, interceptors, armed satellites—that would render nuclear missiles “impotent and obsolete.” SDI was a promise as sweeping as it was speculative, and it ultimately petered out under the weight of its technical limits and astronomical costs.

After Reagan left office, his successors, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, quietly but significantly pared back SDI, largely shelving the space-based part and concentrating on land-based interceptor missiles that could meet a much more limited threat. About two decades later, George W. Bush went forward with this version of the idea. His system was designed to defeat not thousands or even hundreds of weapons launched by a peer adversary but to stop a handful of missiles from a so-called rogue state. Though something workable was produced, it, too, fell short of ambitions (only about half of its highly scripted test interceptions have worked).

Now Donald Trump has unveiled his own iteration of Reagan’s old aspiration: the Golden Dome. He claims it will cost $175 billion (US), be completed by the end of his term, be 100 percent successful, and thus be capable of “forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.” The plan has notable supporters, mainly Republicans, defence hawks, and industry players. Few credible experts believe the hype. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, estimates the cost could rise to more than $3 trillion (US) and the system could take decades to build—if it can ever succeed.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed a bid by U.S. facial recognition firm Clearview AI to overturn findings that the company is subject to Canadian privacy laws, despite no longer doing business in the country.

The ruling released this week says Clearview AI was investigated by the information and privacy commissioners of B.C., Alberta, Québec and Canada after it began marketing its facial recognition services to Canadian clients in 2020.

It said the investigation found the company had violated provincial and federal privacy laws, but Clearview withdrew from the Canadian market during the probe.

B.C.'s privacy commissioner ordered the company to stop offering its facial recognition services in 2021 and delete the information because it used images collected from residents without their consent.

It’s September, and Stacey Hume is next to her dad’s hospital bed in the palliative ward of Edmonton’s Grey Nuns Community Hospital. She, along with her mom and sister, are told by staff that they need to make a choice about her dad.

Either contend with him possibly dying at a red light, alone in the ambulance, or remain in the hospital, where "it could be three, four or five more days of him hanging on like this," recalled Hume.

Her dad, William Hume, was dying. He had been diagnosed with late-stage gastroesophageal cancer just a few months earlier. William wanted MAID, and was assessed and approved soon after he was diagnosed.

But the procedure is prohibited at Grey Nuns, where William was admitted, as it was the only Edmonton hospital with an ER bed available. The hospital is operated by Covenant Health — a publicly funded, Catholic health-care provider in Alberta — which does not allow MAID to be administered at any of its sites. William would have to be transferred to another facility.

Zoe Lorenz-Boser of Edmonton says she got the phone call in October 2024 — and still hasn’t forgotten it.

The 23-year-old mechanical engineer was at work at a construction company. The caller was from a collections agency and told her she owed thousands of dollars on a credit card opened under her name. He said he knew where she lived and worked, she says, and threatened to garnish her wages, seize her car and ruin her life if she didn’t pay immediately.

"I argued to the point of frustrated crying,” said Lorenz-Boser. "Stating repeatedly that this wasn't my debt. I've never opened these accounts.”

Lorenz-Boser was the victim of fraud. Someone — possibly more than one person — had taken out credit in her name at Telus, Shaw and PC Financial and racked up $20,000 in debt.

It was the beginning of an "extremely frustrating" 18-month fight to repair her credit record with Canada’s two dominant credit rating agencies, Equifax and TransUnion.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says Canada will not re-establish ties with Iran until “regime change” takes place in Tehran.

Anand made the comment to The Globe and Mail Saturday, and her office and department would not repeat that phrasing but has not disputed it.

“We will not open diplomatic relationships with Iran unless there is a regime change. Period,” the newspaper quoted Anand as saying.

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Global Affairs Canada would not provide the context of those remarks, instead writing that Ottawa will not restore diplomatic ties it severed in 2012 “so long as the Iranian government continues to brutalize its people and deny their legitimate aspirations.”

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Since late December, a violent crackdown in Iran has killed thousands of protesters across the country. That has prompted large demonstrations in Toronto and for Ottawa to unveil yet another round of sanctions against Iranian officials, marking the 23rd round of Canadian sanctions against Iran since 2022.

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The Canada–U.S. trade relationship isn’t going anywhere, nor should it. But the mental model that has governed Canadian trade policy has to change.

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For decades, Canada’s trade strategy could be summarized in one word: convenient.

This country sits next to the world’s largest consumer market, shares a language, a border, and enough cultural overlap that most Canadian exporters never had to learn a second one (besides French, if they also want to do business in Quebec). Three-quarters of Canada’s exports go south. It has been, by any measure, a comfortable arrangement—rather like living next door to a very large, very wealthy relative who buys everything you produce, and never quibbles about the price.

Until, of course, they do.

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Canada has perfectly good trade agreements—CETA with Europe, CPTPP across the Indo-Pacific—that remain dramatically underutilized. The reason isn’t indifference; it’s economics. Shipping to Hamburg or Yokohama costs more, takes longer, and requires market knowledge that most small and mid-sized Canadian firms simply don’t have. The U.S. market remains the path of least resistance, and paths of least resistance have a way of staying well-worn. And American companies and consumers have always liked Canadian products. Tell a CEO in Austin, Texas, she can buy a Canadian product or a European one, and the choice is an easy one.

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But, there’s also the uncomfortable truth about what Canada actually sells. Its export profile skews heavily toward commodities: oil, minerals, grains, lumber. These are things the world needs, but they’re not what advanced Asian or European markets are clamouring for. If Canada wants to compete seriously in those markets, it needs to show up with more than raw materials. That means investing in value-added processing, clean technology, agri-food innovation, and the kind of digital and professional services that travel well across time zones. Diversification and industrial strategy are the same conversation, not two different ones.

And then there’s China—the elephant in every trade diversification room. Canada can’t simply replace U.S. dependence with Chinese dependence. The political, security, and human rights considerations are real, and the coercive trade tactics Canada has already experienced make “more China” a complicated answer at best. Diversification has to mean a genuine portfolio of partners, not a different single bet.

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Europe wants reliable, low-carbon energy, and responsibly sourced critical minerals. The Indo-Pacific wants safe food, quality education, and infrastructure expertise. Southeast Asia is building out—cities, grids, supply chains—and Canadian engineering, finance, and professional services have strong reputations there. These aren’t marginal opportunities; they’re significant ones that Canada has been slow to pursue at scale. I have been in countless meetings in Europe where the executive told me “we need to focus more on Canada”.

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The world is reorganizing its supply chains around trusted partners. Canada—stable, rule-of-law, democratic, with the natural resources the energy transition requires—is exactly the kind of country that middle powers and major economies want to do business with right now. That’s a window. But windows don’t stay open indefinitely.

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What’s needed now is a government and a business community willing to think in decade-long horizons: investing in trade infrastructure, export financing, diplomatic capacity, and the market intelligence that helps Canadian firms walk into a room in Hanoi or Frankfurt and actually close a deal.

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[Edit to add 'Opinion' to the headline.]

Global Affairs Canada warns of shootouts, explosions as Sheinbaum calls for calm

• Global Affairs Canada has warned that criminal groups have set up roadblocks in several cities across southwestern Mexico as violence escalates.
• There is a shelter in place order in Puerto Vallarta, where Canadians are advised to keep a low profile, monitor media reports, and follow orders from local authorities.
• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is urging people to remain calm and says the federal and state governments are in full co-operation.
• The violence was triggered after 'El Mencho,' the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was killed during a clash with military special forces today.
• The federal government is 'closely monitoring' the situation, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in a statement.
• Several Puerto Vallarta-bound flights from Canada have turned around mid-journey, an online flight tracker shows.

The federal government says there may not be enough room in some offices for all workers as the public service prepares to return to the office four days a week starting July 6.

Civil servants currently only have to come into the office three days a week — a rule that was put in place in September 2024 as government employees were for the most part working remotely in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this month, the federal government announced it expects employees who haven't done so already to return to in-office work for a minimum of four days a week starting this July. Government executives will be expected in the office five days.

In a French-language statement emailed this week to Radio-Canada, the Treasury Board of Canada said that Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) will work closely with organizations to ensure "adequate office space" is available for staff.

Raising awareness about what constitutes human trafficking and signs that could save someone from being exploited is important work in Thunder Bay, Ont. — which federal data suggests is an especially problematic hub for trafficking in Canada.

“It’s happening here in Thunder Bay. A lot of people don't think it is, but it is,” Cindy Paypompee, co-chair of the Thunder Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, said Friday.

Paypompee was interviewed by CBC News ahead of National Human Trafficking Awareness Day on Sunday. The coalition — formed in 2018, and consisting of law enforcement, health, education and social service providers — held an awareness event at the Intercity Shopping Centre on Friday.

According to Statistics Canada, over 5,000 human trafficking incidents overall were reported to police between 2014 and 2024. Thunder Bay, with a population of about 118,000, saw the highest average annual rates in the country during that decade.

Thunder Bay’s average annual rate was 8.0 per 100,000 population, compared to the national average of 1.5 per 100,000 population, according to the data agency's latest report, released in December.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/worldnews@lemmy.ml/t/2426121

In their own words
“Arm yourselves. Today. If you're worried about the law, you're worried about the wrong things.” - Jeremy MacKenzie, 2025
“You gotta harden your hearts. So if hearing people talk in a very aggressive and offensive way is too much for you, are you really gonna be able to stomach like men, women and children being loaded onto fucking boats at gunpoint so they can be sent back to India? Like if the word, you know, “n****r” is obviously like the most offensive one, if that is too much for you, I seriously doubt your ability to have the intestinal fortitude to stomach what needs to happen because what needs to happen is very aggressive and extreme.” - Alex Vriend, 2024
“‘Are you gonna, are you gonna suggest deporting the Jews?’ Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think we do all the time.” - Alex Vriend reading and responding to a comment on his livestream, 2024
“Give me some guys and some weapons and we'll fucking get rid of them. We'll take them up. Get in the truck, you're going to the airport. ‘Make me.’ Okay, bang. Anybody else? Anybody else not want to go to the airport? Who wants to go to the airport? Show of hands, who wants to go to the airport? I only had to shoot one, see? Easy. - Jeremy MacKenzie, 2024
“It's funny, this all started as a joke. Making YouTube videos, but then we got noticed, right? The Prime Minister had said our name in the House of Commons multiple times. So, we realized that we can move the needle in politics in Canada. So we decided to take it a little bit more seriously.” - Derek Harrison, Road Rage Terror Tour stop in Carp, Ontario, 2024

I am very anti-death penalty but I believe that humanity would be better off if anyone who is this fucking depraved was loaded into a helicopter, flown out to the 200 mile limit, thrown into the ocean, and invited to swim home.

There's a bit of Canada on Artemis II. And no, we're not only talking about Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut being part of the crew…

Canada is certainly putting its (maple) flavour on this historic mission in a few meaningful ways.

Op-ed by Vina Nadjibulla is Vice-President of Research and Strategy, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January 2026 visit to China marked a pragmatic recalibration of Canada–China relations.

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While the trip succeeded in recalibrating relations and reopening dialogue channels, the harder work begins now. Ottawa must manage three interlinked challenges that will determine whether this new approach to China will strengthen Canada’s strategic autonomy or expose it to new risks of strategic dependence.

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The first challenge is managing the risk of economic retaliation from Washington ... If Washington (and Mexico] uses the upcoming 2026 review of the Canada–US–Mexico Agreement to push for deeper economic security alignment and tighten rules around technology controls, investment screening, procurement and supply chains, Canada’s flexibility with China could narrow significantly.

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The arguably more difficult challenge lies at home. Declaring that engagement with China will be selective and subject to guardrails is straightforward. Enforcing those guardrails, especially in sensitive sectors like AI, advanced technologies or critical supply chains where economic opportunity and security concerns overlap, will be much harder.

While China accounts for only about 5 per cent of Canada’s total exports, exposure is uneven and highly sectoral. For example, more than 60 per cent of canola seed exports depend on access to the Chinese market, making the sector highly vulnerable to disruption or coercive trade measures.

Deeper engagement in some sectors will need to proceed alongside deliberate de-risking in others. This also applies to clean energy and green technology investment, areas where Ottawa has signalled interest in deepening cooperation while remaining cautious about exposure to critical infrastructure.

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The third challenge is establishing strategic clarity with allies in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Partners like Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan will judge Canada less by the language of its partnership with Beijing than by whether Ottawa continues to deepen cooperation on maritime security, deterrence and resilience, including in the defence of international law in the South China Sea. They will also watch closely for any sign that engagement with Taiwan is being narrowed in the name of improved relations with Beijing.

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Carney’s trip to India, Australia and possibly Japan, planned for March 2026, will be an opportunity to demonstrate that stabilising relations with China is simply one track within a broader strategy centred on middle-power diplomacy and coalition-building. The visit will also offer a chance to reinforce that Canada’s engagement with Beijing sits alongside — not at the expense of — deeper partnerships with like-minded countries, shared approaches to security and resilience and wider efforts to anchor strategic autonomy in a dense network of trusted relationships.

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Nearly two years after tabling the initial legislation, the government’s belated nomination of a former British Columbia Elections head to oversee the foreign agents registry is “better late than never,” say NDP public safety critic Jenny Kwan.

Though the Foreign Influence Transparency Registry is not expected to be a “silver bullet” against election interference or transnational repression, much work remains before it is locked and loaded to address the problem, and lingering concerns remain about who will ultimately determine its aim, according to national security experts.

“I really hope Canadians don't take this as some sort of silver bullet,” national security expert Dan Stanton told The Hill Times. “I think the registry is going to be good for elections and as due diligence to buttress the Lobbying Act, but I think a lot of Canadians believe it’s going to catch spies, and it won’t.”

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Interim NDP Leader Don Davies says Boegman's appointment is a 'positive development,' but called the nearly two-year delay in setting up the foreign influence registry 'inexcusable.' The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Davies also added that, while he appreciated the heads-up, his colleague and his party’s public safety critic, Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), had not been provided the same courtesy, despite her “driving force” in pushing the government to act.

Kwan, who has been warned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that she is an “evergreen target” of interference and repression by the Chinese government due to her advocacy on human rights, told reporters she was “cautiously optimistic” and welcomed Boegman’s appointment as “better late than never,” but that the work was far from over.

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While Stanton said he is generally optimistic about the nominee selection and the independence of the eventually operational registry, one of his primary concerns is that the average Canadian may expect more from it than it can deliver.

Stanton said the registry will create the appearance of deterrence against clandestine influence operations, but the vast majority of registrants will do so for benign relationships and agreements. However, he added that malicious actors would never register in the first place, nor would any proposed financial or criminal penalty be sufficient to deter them in the most extreme cases.

“I don’t want to sound like a downer, but this registry is just ticking a box,” Stanton explained. “The government shouldn’t be let off the hook simply because we have a registry; it’s not going to make us safer on its own. That requires better counterintelligence and law enforcement.”

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archive

WHILE CANADIANS WORRY about climate risk and the political direction of the United States, their retirement savings are quietly riding a very different bet. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is financing—and profiting from—Donald Trump’s renewed push to expand fossil fuels and accelerate artificial intelligence development in the US. It has partnered with private equity firms to acquire American oil and gas producers and financed AI companies like Elon Musk’s xAI.

The CPPIB is an independent investment-management organization responsible for managing the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Canada’s largest public pension. It was created by an act of Parliament, in 1997, and is accountable to Canada’s Parliament. The CPPIB’s primary responsibility is to ensure the CPP maximizes its long-term revenues with minimal risk.

The CPPIB has a policy on sustainable investing, updated in May 2025, that recognizes climate change as a serious risk and encourages adapting its investment strategy to evolving decarbonization pathways and investing “for a whole economy transition required by climate change.” However, the same policy indicates the CPPIB’s belief “that accelerating the global energy transition requires a sophisticated, long-term approach rather than blanket divestment.”

In response to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledges to fast-track major infrastructure projects, CPPIB chief executive officer John Graham stated, in September 2025, that the CPPIB was keen to invest in major projects, particularly in the energy sector. As reported by the Financial Post, Graham singled out fossil fuel pipelines, saying, “Here in Canada, we like pipelines. We like oil and gas pipelines.”

Its recent investments in the US fossil fuel and AI sectors are a growing concern to pension fund watchdogs, which argue that, at a time when the US is actively waging a trade war against Canada and destabilizing the climate, the CPPIB is providing capital to allow it to happen.