Canada
Mark Carney says he’s started at the top ‘many’ times before
Carney promised to present a plan to address climate change 'that works for everyone'
Indigenous MP from Nova Scotia submits application for Liberal leadership race
Nova Scotia MP Jaime Battiste has joined the Liberal leadership race, confirming today that he has submitted the required documents and a $50,000 deposit to the federal party. Battiste is almost certainly the only Indigenous candidate in the race.
Freeland to put in place mechanism to turf unpopular leaders
Arguing that the decision for a leader to remain “is not theirs alone,” Freeland said in a press release that she would immediately convene the Liberal caucus and the membership to develop and institute a new process to force a leadership review.
Poilievre visits Fredericton with focus on working class, doesn’t meet with premier
Federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre was in Fredericton on Thursday, with his focus being the working class. However as Anna Mandin reports, the Conservative Leader of Canada did not meet with newly elected premier, Susan Holt.
Fredericton Liberal member of Parliament Jenica Atwin not running for re-election
Atwin was first elected in 2019 as a Green Party member before crossing the aisle to join the Liberals in 2021. Highly unlikely Atwin would have won Fredericton in any event. The Harper Conservatives won this riding in 2008 and 2011 and the Poilievre Conservatives had had their candidate, Brian Macdonald, in place since March of last year. Macdonald is a former PC MLA, an army veteran, and once was an advisor to former Defence Min Peter MacKay. Seems a lock to me. And, given current polling averages in Atlantic Canada, Macdonald likely beats whatever Liberal follows Atwin by 20 points.
Menace de tarifs douaniers | Yves-François Blanchet se rendra à Washington en mars
Le chef du Bloc québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, espère faire entendre « la voix de la raison » aux Américains. Il compte se rendre à Washington en mars en compagnie du député Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, porte-parole du parti en matière de commerce international, pour faire valoir les intérêts du Québec.
Chamber's top economist says tax reform, not retaliatory tariffs, is the answer to Trump
Stephen Tapp, chief economist for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, was in Guelph Thursday to talk trade.
Ottawa’s immigration cuts will chop 1.7% off GDP in 3 years: PBO
Canada’s plan to reduce the number of immigrants will result in a 1.7 per cent drop in the country's GDP by 2027, according to the federal fiscal watchdog.
Canadian military ready to deploy at border if needed: top soldier
General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff, said in an interview Wednesday that the Canadian Forces are available if needed. “We could do helicopters. We could do surveillance – that’s about what we could bring to it,” she said.
Jaczek to come out of retirement after Trudeau’s exit
Helena Jaczek also announced that she supports Mark Carney’s bid for Liberal leadership. The only other MP I'm aware of who is 'unretiring" after announcing they would not seek re-election is the BQ MP for Mirabel, Jean-Denis Garon. I've been covering federal general elections since 2004 I cannot recall one, let alone two, MPs un-retiring.
Le Bloc québécois d’Yves-François Blanchet peaufine sa prochaine stratégie électorale
« Il n’y a aucune entente possible avec les libéraux pour prolonger [le mandat] ne serait-ce que d’une seconde », a lâché Yves-François Blanchet, mercredi matin, sous les applaudissements des 32 autres députés bloquistes réunis dans un hôtel de Laval.
Le déclin des libéraux en Estrie
Aux dernières élections fédérales, en 2021, l’Estrie était partagée entre les conservateurs au nord-est, les libéraux au sud et les bloquistes au nord-ouest. Si la tendance se maintient, non seulement aucune députée libérale ne sera réélue, mais le Parti libéral du Canada (PLC) terminerait souvent troisième.
Les candidats libéraux fédéraux ne se bousculent pas en Atlantique
Les conservateurs de Pierre Poilievre mènent dans les sondages depuis près de deux ans. Cette avance est un avantage dans le recrutement, souligne Natalie Jameson, qui a quitté son poste de ministre de l’Éducation de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard cet automne afin de solliciter l’investiture conservatrice dans la circonscription de Charlottetown.
Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson announces run at Conservative nomination
With his wife and one of his sons on stage next to him, Paterson told about 150 people that he would build broad support locally under a “big blue tent.” Three are now running for this nomination. CPC HQ won't admit it but it seems pretty obvious that they often have a hand in who wins these contested nominations and it seems unlikely a sitting mayor would quit without getting a wink or a nod from Poilievre's team. Kingston's last small-c conservative MP was a pretty good one: Flora MacDonald. She won the seat in the 1988 general election for Mulroney. But the Liberals have held it ever since. The current incumbent is another former Kingston mayor: Mark Gerretsen. Gerretsen won by 11 points plus (transposed vote) in 2021 but, in my model, he might lose in a toss-up to the CPC. Gerretsen, in some recent local media interviews, disputes what us seat modellers have been saying and says his own internal polls show him in a position to hold on. Gerretsen, incidentally just endorsed Mark Carney for LPC leader.
The Provinces
Doug Ford plans to call snap Ontario election next week,
Ford will go to Lt. Gov. Edith Dumont to dissolve his government on Jan. 29, sources confirmed to Global News, which would allow for an election to take place on Feb. 27.
Ford government prepares for ‘caretaker mode’ ahead of early election call
The premier's office has instructed staff on what a slimmed-down ministry should look like when the government's decision making authority is temporarily paused during an election.
Supreme Court of Canada will hear challenge on state secularism
Premier François Legault has made affirming state secularism a central part of his Coalition Avenir Québec government. Bill 21 prohibits certain public sector workers, such as judges, police officers, teachers and prison guards, from wearing religious symbols at work and requires them to perform their duties with their faces uncovered.
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi acclaimed as party’s candidate for Edmonton-Strathcona
Nenshi didn't face any competition for the nomination and, if elected, would become the third NDP leader to represent the riding.
Elon Musk est un «multimilliardaire psychopathe», selon QS
Les députés solidaires sont de moins en moins confortables à publier sur le réseau social. «Mon plus grand souhait, c'est qu'on arrête d'être là-dessus, à cause de ce Elon Musk, multimilliardaire psychopathe», a laissé tomber jeudi la cochef Ruba Ghazal, à l’entrée de la réunion du caucus servant à préparer la rentrée parlementaire à l’Assemblée nationale.
Elsewhere
Dáil Éireann: Micheál Martin elected taoiseach after chaos subsides
The Dáil was suspended several times on Wednesday after a bitter row between government and opposition parties. Martin is one of the longest serving TDs (MPs) in the Dáil having been first elected in 1989 to the constituency of Cork south central and was previously taoiseach between 2020 and 2022.
Media
Trump taps L. Brent Bozell III for U.S. Agency for Global Media of America
President Trump plans to nominate a conservative critic of the mainstream media, L. Brent Bozell III, to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America.
CNN Cuts Jobs and Shuffles TV Lineup as It Enters New Trump Era
On Thursday, the company said that it would eliminate about 200 jobs focused on CNN’s traditional TV operations, and add about the same number for new digital roles like data scientists and product engineers. CNN is aiming to hire 100 of those people in the first half of the year, Mr. Thompson said. Mr. Thompson also announced a number of changes to CNN’s TV schedule, replacing Jim Acosta’s 10 a.m. show with “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown,” and introducing a new morning show anchored by Audie Cornish. The network is in talks with Mr. Acosta about another role. (🎁 link)
Russian Independent Media Uncover Dozens of Faked Stories by Freelance Reporter
Several independent Russian media outlets are embroiled in a scandal surrounding revelations that a freelance reporter supplemented her reporting with fabricated details in dozens of different stories they published.
Science and tech
600 kW fast-charging pitstops are coming to Formula E
The new race feature, which Formula E is calling "pit boost," is a 30-second pitstop, during which time the car receives a 600 kW fast charge—more than twice as much power as a Tesla Supercharger—that adds 10 percent (3.85 kWh) to the battery's state of charge. It's mandatory for every car in the race, but a team is only allowed to charge one of its two cars at a time, and only within a specified window of time during the race. I did not know Formula E was even a thing. Wow. And it's been around apparently for more than a decade!
Developer Creates Infinite Maze That Traps AI Training Bots
“It's less like flypaper and more an infinite maze holding a minotaur, except the crawler is the minotaur that cannot get out. The typical web crawler doesn't appear to have a lot of logic. It downloads a URL, and if it sees links to other URLs, it downloads those too. Nepenthes generates random links that always point back to itself - the crawler downloads those new links. Nepenthes happily just returns more and more lists of links pointing back to itself,” Aaron B, the creator of Nepenthes, told 404 Media.
Issued this day ...
… in 2004: Sc 2018 (BK284) pane of 6: NHL All-Stars — 5. Design: Stéphane Huot. Illustrations: Charles Vinh and Pierre Rousseau.
This series — the fifth of six to feature all-time NHL greats — has stamps honouring, clockwise from top left, Larry Robinson (D) as a Montreal Canadien; Marcel Dionne (C) as a Los Angeles King; Johnny Bower (G) as a Toronto Maple Leaf; Milt Schmidt (C) as a Boston Bruin; Brad Park (D) as a New York Ranger; Ted Lindsay (C) as a Detroit Red Wing.
Acknowledging a boo-boo: As more than one eagle-eyed subscriber noted when I published a stamp in yesterday's newsletter that I proclaimed was issued "100 years ago today", 100 years ago was 1925, not 1924. I'll try to catch up :)