Canada is walking down a dangerous path. In a recent episode of “The Winston Marshall Show,” Steve Bannon has warned that “Canada could become ‘the next Ukraine’ if Russia or China presses territorial claims in the Arctic. “There’s no money there to defend anybody,” Bannon said, arguing that the United Kingdom, Canada’s historic security partner, “can’t defend itself.” Bannon suggested that Ottawa has only “two, maybe three years to act before external pressures harden.”
h/t PA Cat
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith isn’t “stoking the fire of Alberta separation” by warning that unless the federal Liberal government changes its approach to Alberta, a separatist movement is bound to grow in the province.
Smith has repeatedly claimed she is not a separatist. Personally she sees many benefits to Alberta remaining in a united Canada. She said so again on Monday in a 19-minute, online address to Albertans.
Howard Lutnick made headlines this week, ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, by calling Canada “a socialist regime” that feeds off of America.
He has said, as a result, that he is skeptical a trade deal can be made with America’s northern neighbour.
Gone, it seems, are the days when the phrase “going nuclear” was meant figuratively.
Since the beginning of the year and the inauguration of the second Trump administration, an increasing number of Washington’s closest allies have begun to throw quiet — and sometimes not so quiet — fits about whether they can still count on the decades-old nuclear deterrent capability of the United States.
Few places feel that uncertainty more keenly than South Korea.
It’s bad to have nuclear weapons. The US has nuclear weapons so the US is bad.
It’s OK if the US promises to defend us with them but we’re just too pure to ever acquire them in Canada’s defense.
Ottawa looking for ways to mend tears in Canada’s social fabric, document shows
OTTAWA — Senior federal officials have been looking quietly for ways to bring together Canadians who don’t see eye to eye on the economy, immigration and social issues.
With a general election looming, officials prepared to meet last November to brainstorm solutions to the problem of social fragmentation, according to an internal presentation drafted by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The presentation called on session participants to come up with ideas to make Canadian society more cohesive by reversing the trend toward polarization, building trust in government agencies and fighting the swelling tide of misinformation and disinformation.
Here in the west, many don’t want a trade war with the United States. They want in.
I was born in Saskatchewan and have no intention of returning. It’s the Siberia of Canada, an area bigger than France – where I now live – with the population of Buffalo, New York. It’s sucked dry by Ottawa. Elon Musk was here, and left. And it has winter temperatures of -40 degrees.
Alberta has slightly more going for it: skiing, bears. But Albertans aren’t gruntled, either. The last time I was in Calgary I had lunch at the elite Ranchmen’s Club and the chatter was seditious. The talk was of Wexit – the separation of western Canada from the bloodsucking east.
My brother, his son and wife have set in motion a plan to relocate to Alberta.
All of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s big talk about standing up to Donald Trump was exposed Tuesday as a bombastic sham.
At a meeting in the White House with the president, Carney smiled happily when Trump talked about winning the election for him. When the topic of Canada becoming the 51st state was raised, Carney declared that would never happen (would any prime minister of Canada have said any less?)
But when the president talked about shutting down the Canadian car industry and refusing to buy our steel and aluminum, the prime minister was silent. No push back. No standing up for Canadian interests.
This was down right embarrassing.
Anyone who elected Carney because he was the person to deal with Trump should be hanging their heads in shame about now.
Elbows up
pic.twitter.com/NtbFoymmN9— Kevin Pacitti (@kpac_15) May 6, 2025
Premier Danielle Smith says her focus will be on repairing the destruction she says Ottawa has caused to Alberta over the past decade as the idea of separation from Canada gains greater public attention.
During a news conference Tuesday, Smith reiterated that she would hold a referendum on provincial separation in 2026 if citizens gather the required signatures on a petition.
Smith said she didn’t want to presume a referendum will happen, but said she will honour the voting process.
Now what? The dust-up has settled, the votes are in, democracy and decency have triumphed, or disaster has struck. But either way, it’s time to put politics aside and start governing. Which is hard.
I mean in both senses. It’s hard for politicians to turn to governing because, famously, they’re in a very strange profession where the qualifications for getting the job are totally different from the qualifications for doing it. So there’s a very real trap for winners of elections in particular, namely to keep campaigning even after you win.
The White House press conference between President Trump and newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shows that every generation gets the summit it deserves. World War Two had Yalta, the 1970s the Camp David Accords. Barack Obama had a beer with the cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates, Jr. And Trump bragged about the new 24-karat White House gold décor and said, about Canada, “I think we have a lot of things in common.”
Ethan Elharrar remembers having a single month of normal college life at Toronto Metropolitan University. He was anxious about leaving Montreal for Toronto, living on his own for the first time in a new city, beginning a new program. He was nervous but excited.
There are many reasons why Mark Carney became the prime minister of Canada — and one of the biggest is Mark Carney himself.
While perhaps initially more a consequence of luck than talent, Donald Trump’s threats towards Canada changed the terms of the election.
Canadians were looking for a leader who could chart the waters of international turmoil and uncertainty. Carney’s skills at managing global crisis, his proven track record of running large organizations and a calm and calculating demeanour could not have been a better fit for the time and circumstances.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump opened their first in‑person meeting Tuesday with a brisk handshake outside the Oval Office, then shifted to a lively joint press conference that set the tone for a new chapter in Canada-US relations.
Moments earlier, Trump had used Truth Social to accuse Ottawa of taking “$200 billion” a year in US subsidies and enjoying “FREE Military Protection,” adding that America needs “NONE” of Canada’s cars, energy, or lumber.
If @realDonaldTrump were to say, Canada you’re on your own, what cards does Canada have militarily and economically? And this is the crux of the matter. pic.twitter.com/quUNi4G0BP
— Rupa Subramanya (@rupasubramanya) May 6, 2025
President Donald Trump says that nothing PM Mark Carney said today could change his mind about lifting tariffs on Canada
“No, it’s just the way it is”
pic.twitter.com/8z6XSWXNcG— 6ixBuzzTV (@6ixbuzztv) May 6, 2025
We’re Watching The Art of the Deal Play Out in Real Time
Trump pitched annexing Canada. Carney campaigned against him.
But when the cameras roll inside the Oval Office… something changed.
Trump played the long game.
And Carney? He might have unknowingly walked straight into… pic.twitter.com/qQumAkgjqg
— The Vigilant Fox (@VigilantFox) May 6, 2025
H/T XC
In what was once considered an inconceivable scenario, a London-based law firm acting on behalf of Hamas submitted a legal challenge to the U.K. Home Office demanding its removal from the British government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.
The case has a Canadian connection, too: Charlotte Kates, co-founder of the Vancouver-based terror group Samidoun, contributed an “expert report” as part of the legal challenge “against the criminalization of Palestinian resistance in Britain.”
The leader of the sovereigntist Parti Quebecois is throwing his support behind a possible referendum in Alberta, saying Premier Danielle Smith is standing up for her province.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says Smith has used the possibility of a referendum to give her province leverage as she makes demands of the federal government.
