Canadian News

Rebecca Leslie is to the Ottawa Charge what Jamie Baker, Jim Kyte and Rob Murphy were to the Senators 32 years ago. Read More

Whoever forms the next Canadian government, no matter how sympathetic they may be right now to next January’s MAGA Restoration south of the Medicine Line, the next four years at least are bound to be interesting ones for Canada. 

Interesting, that is, in the sense of that famous folk curse.

This also goes for provincial governments like Alberta’s, whose leaders may think that with Donald J. Trump in the White House again it’ll be smooth sailing for oilsands bitumen all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Alas for all of us, the next president of the United States, just as when he was the next to last president of the United States, is a fellow who believes that every game must be a zero-sum game, with a clear winner and a clear loser. Every. Single. Time. 

And so Canada, and Alberta too, are sure to be cast in the role of losers, even if Trump didn’t mean that stuff he said about bitumen on Super Tuesday last spring. “I call it tar. It’s not oil. It’s terrible. … So for all of the environmentalists, you ought to look at that because all of that tar is going right up into the atmosphere!”

Yes, Alberta may finally get its Keystone XL Pipeline, but we’ll have to pay for it. Again. 

As for that billion and a half Loonies former Alberta premier Jason Kenney gave away to get it built almost five years ago, you can count on it to stay gone. Remember where you heard it first. 

Anyway, as the author of The Art of the Deal no doubt understands better than most, fanboys and girls who just can’t walk away from a deal make lousy negotiators. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party are straining like greyhounds in the slips to prove that all over again. 

We may have the longest undefended border on earth, but we can no longer assume for at least as long as Trump is president that the United States will automatically be our ally. Both our increasingly unpopular Liberal prime minister and his Conservative rival will try to persuade us that they have the secret sauce required to deal with Trump’s next administration. Neither is likely to have gotten that right. 

We can probably blame former PM Brian Mulroney for tying our economy so closely to the United States 36 years ago, and we will now have to live with the consequences of a relationship gone bad that critics of the deal warned us about. 

Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and, in truth, there might not have been much alternative even then. Why speak ill of the dead? Mulroney may have bought us some time. Too bad we didn’t use it very well. 

Trump’s planned 10-per-cent tariff may not do much good for the U.S. economy either, but it’s bound to do more harm to ours. That may just be fine with Trump’s supporters Stateside, as long as someone else is hurt even more than they are. Indeed, understanding that is the key to understanding Trump’s unlikely and undeniable success. 

Where there were once many guardrails to keep Trump from running off the road, now there will be none for the life of what numerous commentators are calling Trump 2.0.

So let’s just say Stephen Harper’s oft-reviled 2012 trade deal with China, despite the current brouhaha about foreign interference in Canadian elections and the former prime minister’s recent endorsement of Trump, may soon start to look wise and far-sighted!

I know, dear readers, that some of you don’t like it when I venture into geopolitics, but here are a few more hot-take predictions about the second Trump presidency in the aftermath of yesterday’s US presidential election.

First, there’s no need to do an Andrei Amalrik and wonder if the United States can survive another 15 years. It will certainly celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2026, despite the dire warnings made by Trump’s opponents in the leadup to Tuesday’s vote, and will likely last another half-century or so without changes to its borders. But there is no way Trump is going to make it great again. The U.S. is in an irreversible post-imperial slide, and we are living in a multi-polar world again. 

If you doubt me, watch what happens under the next Trump presidency to the carefully curated international agreements and institutions that did make America great. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, sure feels like it’s done for. Now, a great bureaucracy like NATO will never just disappear – but it may have to turn its headquarters in Brussels into a tourist attraction to justify its existence. The Wittelsbach monarchy of Bavaria is long gone, too, but you can still visit their Residenz in Munich. 

Letting the United States blow up the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022 is going to start to look like a hell of a mistake to Europe, and especially Germany, now that Old Unreliable is back in the White House. Will the Europeans take control of their own fate now that the U.S.A. is folding into itself, or will they fall to squabbling amongst one another like 1914? My crystal ball is cloudy, but change there will have to be over there if there is no change over here. 

How long will it take for the AUKUS nuclear sub scheme to fall apart, by most accounts a spectacularly terrible deal for Australia, now that the Biden Presidency is fading into history? Trump is no friend of China, but in addition to the costs and loss of Australian sovereignty, one imagines that the Aussies will realize that in a crunch it may be more dangerous to be America’s friend than it is to be its enemy, just as Henry Kissinger famously pointed out. (Or didn’t. The provenance of almost all great lines is disputed.) We’ll soon realize we were lucky not to get caught in that expensive trap. 

International courts? Currency trading deals? Your Visa card that works in Europe? All these things were designed in part to ensure the economic primacy of America and the status of the Greenback as the world’s reserve currency. Under Trump, all are likely to be at risk. 

And in what form will Trumpism survive when the undeniably charismatic Trump fails from dementia or dyspepsia before the end of his second term? In that event – quite likely, it is said here – his automatic replacement is scheduled to be the utterly uncharismatic J.D. Vance. Or will Ivanka step forward to be America’s first electable female president? 

One final prediction, hordes of disillusioned progressives are not likely to stream across the border to escape Trump, despite pre-election warnings, but enough well-heeled liberal Americans will buy a pied- à-terre in one of Canada’s nicer coastal cities to keep the housing and cost-of-living crisis here at a boil. They’ll come not just because the next president is an autocrat, or even a fascist, but because he’s an embarrassment.

The post Some post-election-night hot takes on the coming MAGA Restoration appeared first on rabble.ca.

The federal government has been looking for ways to tighten its budget and curb the size of the public service, which has swelled in recent years. While the Liberal government has said it would do so through attrition and hiring freezes, cutting the jobs of permanent government employees wasn't on the table. Read More

As November 11 approaches, it can be disheartening to see the rise of militarism, war and genocide across the world. The annual White Poppy Campaign aims to recognize all of the victims of war, not just those who fought in uniform, but civilians and innocent bystanders as well.

Since 2009, Vancouver Peace Poppies have actively worked to promote the message of the white poppy in their community.

Teresa Gagné is a co-founder of Vancouver Peace Poppies. In an interview with rabble.ca, she explained that rather than being a symbol of remembrance, the white poppy symbolizes the need forpeace.

“Remembering is important, but it’s not enough,” said Gagné. “If we’re gonna stop and take a day to remember the costs and consequences of war, we gotta stop and be willing to remember all the costs and consequences, not just the ones that make us feel good about ourselves and our country.”

Remembering is not enough

After World War I, the Red Poppy Campaign was created to remember the allied soldiers who lost their lives in that conflict. The campaign was later extended to remember Canadians and their allies who fought in any conflict.

War has changed however. Gagné explained that in World War I, only about 10 per cent of the casualties in that war were civilians.

As we’re seeing in modern day conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, the number of civilian victims of war has grown significantly in the last century.

The White Poppy campaign is to remember all victims of war and to truly drive home the message of: Never Again.

“All those comfortable concepts like valor and patriotism and sacrifice, we gotta be willing to remember also the uncomfortable things, the wasted lives, excessive force, devastation, social trauma, and all those ruined lives. And we also think it’s important to look at the effect of war on the environment,” said Gagné.

The environmental cost of war

War is an environmental disaster. Not only does war destroy and scar beautiful natural landscapes, it also emits a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

According to a report by Scientists for Global Responsibility, in 2022, all of the world’s militaries combined accounted for 5.5 per cent of global emissions for that year. If the world’s militaries were a state, they would be the world’s fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) monitors the impacts that war has on the environment. It has found that the war in Ukraine has led to a toxic poisoning of the ecosystems of that country. Not only has the landscape been devastated thanks to munitions that have been expended, but also due to spilled oil from destroyed refineries as well as other toxic chemicals and radiation released into the environment thanks to damage to nuclear installations and other facilities.

“The mapping and initial screening of environmental hazards only serves to confirm that war is quite literally toxic,” said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen in a UNEP report. “The first priority is for this senseless destruction to end now. The environment is about people: it’s about livelihoods, public health, clean air and water, and basic food systems. It’s about a safe future for Ukrainians and their neighbours, and further damage must not be done.”

Peace movement continues to grow

When Vancouver Peace Poppies began in 2009, they started with distributing just 500 white poppies.

Now, 15 years later, Gagné says they are distributing an average of 5,000 white poppies every year.

“It’s made a difference. It really opened up the discussion. When we started, it was quite controversial, and I won’t say that there’s no controversy anymore, but most people are quite accepting of the idea that we need to also be willing to count the civilian costs and not just remember the military,” said Gagné.

There particularly has been a growing interest in schools, where teachers have approached Vancouver Peace Poppies about having white poppies for their students, so that they can wear a white poppy alongside their red one if they choose.

Vancouver Peace Poppies will be holding a white poppy ceremony on Monday, November 11 from 2pm to 3:30pm Pacific time at the Vancouver Unitarian Centre.

The post White poppy campaign recognizes all victims of war appeared first on rabble.ca.

A box found in a Saskatchewan attic, potentially holding millions of dollars worth of hockey cards, is going back up for auction after the original winning bidder never paid up, according to the auction company.

In June, I cautioned in The Gazette that the opening of the Maison Benoît Labre’s injection centre next to a kindergarten playground would harm children if not done properly with credentialed staff following best practices. My caveats acknowledging the fundamental rights of people to be housed and to receive quality treatment seemed insufficient for those critical that I dared to raise concerns about this organization. Unfortunately, time has borne out those worries. Read More

The Ottawa Redblacks and defensive coordinator Barron Miles have "mutually agreed" to part ways. Read More

If Beyoncé wins the album of the year, she’ll become the first Black woman to do so in the 21st century.

Allison Hadley says she has been having a hard time focusing on training for an upcoming cross-country skiing competition.

A lawyer representing Jagmeet Grewal, the truck driver who caused a crash in Laval that killed four people and seriously injured four more, argued he should have time shaved off whatever sentence he receives because his Charter rights were violated during the police investigation into what happened. Read More

The men are between the ages of 38 and 80 and were arrested between Nov. 4 and 7 in an operation led by a provincial police team that investigates child sexual exploitation.

Growing up in Montreal as the son of Jamaican immigrants, Lloyd Rose was not exposed to anything remotely vegan.  Read More

The plot reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil.

A teacher who has worked at several West Island schools has been charged with sexually assaulting a minor more than a decade ago. Read More

The death of a person whose body was found in an Orléans park Friday is not considered suspicious, Ottawa police say. Read More

Highway 1 is closed east of Chilliwack due to an early morning crash on Friday. The cause of the crash is not known at this time but traffic is heavy.

What does it all mean? From chatter in the elevator of my building to declarative statements from Parliament Hill, in voices whispered and booming, it feels everyone is trying to parse how Tuesday’s U.S. election result will affect, well, everything. Read More

 Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session. 

The federal government faces a potential loss on the sale of the Trans Mountain pipeline, Canada's parliamentary budget officer said in a new report on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024.

For the second time in less than a year, the Société des alcools du Québec will increase prices in February by raising its markup. The latest increase will not be applied to wines selling for less than $12. Read More