Canada

Canada plans to open two new consulates in Greenland and Anchorage, Alaska, as part of efforts to reinforce its presence in the Arctic, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand said on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to boost Canada's military and security presence in the Arctic, a frozen and mineral-rich expanse that is of increasing interest to U.S. President Donald Trump as well as superpower rivals Russia and China.

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"The region is so, so important now as we see Russian infrastructure moving further and further north and as we see the Northwest Passage becoming easier to traverse because of melting polar ice caps," [Anand] said.

Canada had planned to open a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, in November but had to postpone because of bad weather. Anand said there was no date yet for when a Canadian consulate in Anchorage might open.

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Asked how Canada was responding to Trump's desire to annex Greenland, Anand said she has been pressing her counterparts in the Nordic countries "to ensure there's no mistake about the importance of the Arctic and certainly Canada's sovereignty."

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In a related op-ed, senior research fellow and board member of the NATO Association of Canada Marcus Wong urged Ottawa to "urgently take steps to strengthen its territorial and maritime sovereignty and security in the Arctic."

"Russia is rapidly rebuilding its Arctic defense and security capabilities while seeking to expand its claims over underwater territory, some of which overlaps with Canada’s own claims. At the same time, China has been working hard to lay the foundation for its “Polar Silk Road” and ensure that it can maximize the Arctic’s economic opportunities, going so far as conducting hydrographic charting of the Northwest Passage before Canada," Wong writes.

"Even the U.S., Canada’s closest ally and trading partner, disputes Canada’s jurisdiction over the NWP, and has proposed annexing Canada. Thus, critical concerns are being raised about Canada’s ability to safeguard its national interests and maintain territorial and maritime security."

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When we crunch the numbers, we don’t see a system bloated by high costs. And when we look at comparison countries, we see that budget cuts and falling revenue go hand-in-hand

British Columbia’s shortfalls in its response to the unregulated toxic drug crisis were strongly criticized during the first three weeks of the Drug User Liberation Front’s constitutional challenge.

Compassion club co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx are in court arguing the criminalization of their club violated members’ Charter rights.

Some of the sharpest criticism came from B.C.’s former chief coroner Lisa Lapointe, who held her position for 13 years before retiring last year.

Lapointe told the court that the province has taken an “issue management approach” to “give the impression positive matters were being taken,” without ever meaningfully evaluating if the money it was spending on the crisis was actually reducing overdoses or overdose fatalities.

B.C. Premier David Eby defended his right to criticize court decisions despite organizations that represent lawyers calling his recent comments unfair and irresponsible.

“The idea that the premier should not comment, should not indicate any position on the court decisions, is patently absurd,” Eby said in an interview in his office. “I will continue to point out that I think the decisions are unhelpful.”

The Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia said Eby was “undermining public confidence in the justice system” and his comments “reflect a troubling national trend in which politicians use the courts as punching bags to score political points.”

It quoted association president Rebecca McConchie reminding politicians that the courts are part of a system of checks and balances. “The job of the court is not to be helpful to the government. It is to interpret and apply the law without fear or favour.”

Shauna MacKinnon, the chair of Urban and Inner-City Studies at the University of Winnipeg published an article last February calling Canada's 30-plus year experiment of trusting the private sector to provide housing "a failure."

Despite a repeated push from advocates to create more non-market housing options, the province of Ontario still relies on the private sector to reach its housing targets. Unfortunately, Ontario has also repeatedly failed to reach its own housing targets.

Ricardo Tranjan, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives with a focus on housing, said for-profit development follows a market logic, and these delayed housing projects shouldn't come as a surprise given Ontario's reliance on for-profit developers to build housing.

"It's cyclical, we only build when we can make a lot of money out of it

or good money out of it," Tranjan told PressProgress.

Tranjan said that housing prices are currently falling in Ontario, which means housing starts will slow down, which will limit supply and drive up prices. Once prices go up again, supply will begin to increase.

Canada's non-market housing programs were gutted in the 90s by the Mulroney and Chrétien governments.

Since then, responsibility for housing has been downloaded to provinces

and certain responsibilities have since been passed down to municipalities. Meanwhile, housing affordability has continued to decrease.

The monument was unveiled in December 2024 after a more than one year-long postponement.

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Michael Ma, the Conservative MP who crossed the floor last week to bring Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals one seat short of a majority, was part of a controversial diaspora organization that urged former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole to resign after the 2021 election over what it described as his “anti-China” stance, told Chinese Canadians to “vote carefully” ahead of the 2025 election, and later called for Pierre Poilievre to step down, according to Chinese-language records reviewed by The Bureau.

The records link Ma — who defeated a Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville after the party replaced incumbent Liberal Paul Chiang — to a politically active network of community leaders that has repeatedly intervened in Conservative leadership politics while echoing Beijing-aligned talking points on Canada–China relations.

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Chinese-language outlets including EasyCA show Ma listed as a director of the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association in 2019, with additional Chinese-language coverage later describing him as a leader. Two years later, the group held a widely covered October 2021 press conference accusing O’Toole’s “anti-China” stance of costing the Conservatives the election and demanding his resignation.

The National Post reported that the CCCA’s spokesman at the event asserted that China’s arrest of the “Two Michaels” occurred only after “Canada started the war,” that China had a right to fly military aircraft into Taiwan’s air-defence zone, and that Canada should not publicly criticize Beijing’s human-rights abuses.

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In the run-up to the 2025 vote — and shortly after Chiang was forced to step down after acknowledging he had suggested his Conservative rival, Joe Tay, could be turned over to Chinese diplomats in connection with a Hong Kong bounty — the same organization emerged again.

WeChat posts show the group’s leaders meeting with Ma in March 2025 and publicly promoting their endorsement of Ma.

In April 2025, during the final stretch of the federal campaign, the group convened another media event urging Chinese Canadians to “vote carefully,” stressing that voters should support “the candidate they approve of — rather than the party.”

Shortly after the Conservative defeat, it again surfaced in Toronto calling for Poilievre to “actively resign,” echoing its 2021 message that Conservative leaders who antagonize Beijing cannot win.

Bring it on

drill baby drill

Alberta Mounties say a delivery man who was simply trying to drop off a fridge, a washer and a dryer ended up getting punched and threatened with a rifle over the appliances.

The confrontation happened on Dec. 4 at a rural residence near Sundre in central Alberta.

The delivery driver had gone to the wrong address then parked his truck on the side of a road and called the customer, said Cpl. Gina Slaney.

Soon after, the customer drove up and gave the driver a new address but he was told that was impossible.

"You can't just change the delivery address," Slaney said Tuesday.

Slaney said the customer allegedly opened the truck door, punched the driver two or three times, then went back to his vehicle and returned with a long gun, threatening to kill the driver if the appliances didn't go where he wanted.