Political news and analysis for Canadians
Canada’s chief trade negotiator to the U.S. Janice Charette sits down with CBC The House podcast host Catherine Cullen to lift the curtain on last week’s abrupt end to the talks and what it will take for both sides to return to the table.
Listen to Canada’s chief negotiator reveals why U.S. talks failed
The annual Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defence conference begins Monday at the Victoria Conference Centre and will focus on strengthening collective security.
Gen. Jennie Carignan, Canada’s chief of the defence staff, and Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, are co-hosting the three-day conference, which was first held in 1998.
The conference typically includes military leaders from countries such as Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Colin Chia, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Victoria, said he’s not expecting policy announcements to come out of the conference, as attendees are “not really decision-makers themselves, but really the ones who execute them.”
Speaking to CBC, the shift in priorities by the U.S. Trump has startled the country’s allies and trading partners around the world.
International relations analyst, Rector and President of Central European University, and former Liberal Party of Canada leader, Michael Ignatieff says Europe is watching closely how Canada reacts to the trade war launched by the Americans.
The ABUS (Anything but US) or ABUSA (Anywhere but USA) acronyms and “Elbows Up!” slogan – a hockey term for offering a stiff defence – began appearing in Canada last year, writes Jane Clinton at The Guardian.
“I think you need to be in Canada to understand how deep the animosity to the US is … even across the political spectrum,” said Denise from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“‘Elbows up’ is a real thing. We don’t fly US airlines, we stay in locally owned hotels, we won’t even connect in a US airport … we’ve moved investments to Canadian companies, and we actively avoid USA products, produce and groceries. It can be pretty inconvenient to do the research and read signs and labels, and often more costly, but BDS [boycott, divestment, sanction] is the only tool ordinary people have to stand up for our values.”
Arwa Mahdawi: Don’t mention the war! Or the economy, for that matter. Or the Epstein files. Or Natalie Harp. Or “affordability”, which, as Donald Trump recently said at a rally, is a word that was “never used” by the media before he took office. Best not to talk about anything that affects ordinary people or embarrasses the president, really. Instead, let’s all rejoice in Trump’s latest triumph: renaming Lake Ontario, which is shared by Canada and the US, as Lake America.
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Stephen Marche: Canada is not, by its nature, a revolutionary country. A series of crises have forced our evolution, from colonies to Confederation to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, we’ve become a little more Canadian over time. Now, the global position we used to hold – sidekick to America in the liberal world order – has fallen apart.
Canada is changing, fundamentally and permanently – partly because of outside events, but also because of choices we are making in how we react to those events. Canada’s refusal last week to be vassalized by the United States is one such small, vital choice.
It is not Canada who has turned away from America. It is America that has become less like us. […] Crisis shapes people and countries, and Canada has been in crisis since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
Read the whole opinion at The Globe and Mail
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is preparing to blame Russia for the attempted drone attack in Leipzig and announce “extensive” sanctions, in what would mark a further hardening of Berlin’s posture toward Moscow.
The German government’s plan is set to involve direct measures against Russian entities, while the EU moves forward with punishing new sanctions that are being prepared in parallel in Brussels, Politico reports.
The announcement is scheduled for early next week, coinciding with an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Ireland on Tuesday — but could also be made earlier.
“That’s just me reading the room,” said Stephen Fuhr, secretary of state for defence procurement. “I think that would be a very difficult thing to do, especially after this last week. I think that people would not be happy about that.”
Canada’s retaliatory tariff response announced this week did not directly target the defence sector. However, Fuhr’s comments suggest a growing reluctance toward potential acquisitions of U.S. military hardware, reports Daniel Leblanc at CBC News.
He added that Canada must not act as though relations will simply return to normal after Trump leaves office in January 2029.
By 10 p.m. on Wednesday in Washington, the warning signs were clear.
Janice Charette called the prime minister and Dominic LeBlanc to say, “We have a problem.”
As wording of text was being sent back and forth, the Canadian side says the Americans were narrowing the scope of what Ottawa thought was agreed to, particularly on autos, reports Tonda MacCharles at The Toronto Star.
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