Canada
Trump’s Threats Against Canada Upend Conservative’s Playbook
... when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who is leading an aggressive campaign against the U.S. federal bureaucracy on behalf of Mr. Trump, recently endorsed Mr. Poilievre as Canada’s next leader, Mr. Poilievre found himself in an uncomfortable situation. (🎁 link)
Liberal leadership candidates set to clear final hurdle to stay in race
Elections Canada is also expected to soon reveal the first batch of fundraising numbers from all the Liberal leadership candidates.
Trade risks add ‘uncertainty’ even as Canada’s housing starts rise: CMHC
The national housing agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 239,739 units in January, up from 232,492 in December.
La ministre Pascale St-Onge ne sera pas candidate aux prochaines élections
La ministre du Patrimoine canadien, qui doit en faire l'annonce cette semaine, doit présenter sa proposition pour moderniser le mandat de CBC/Radio-Canada. St.-Onge was only elected in 2021. Yet another cabinet minister who will not seek re-election. From Québec alone, Pablo Rodriguez, Marie-Claude Bibeau,Soraya Martinez Ferrada -- and the Prime Minister himself -- have all said they will not run again. While the CPC has, at times, believed the riding St-Onge holds, Brome-Missisquoi might elect a Conservative, my model has this trending towards the Bloc Québecois.
Population in Canada: A Monthly Snapshot
Scotia Economics: Highlighting the estimates of the national population and components of growth, with a focus on the levels and flows of permanent and temporary residents. This report tracks admissions and issuances of individuals granted permission to permanently and temporarily reside in Canada, and whether these figures are aligning with federal government immigration targets.
The Provinces
Other party leaders attack Ford on affordability, health in Ontario election debate
Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is leading in the polls and the three other party leaders largely kept their attacks focused on him. One of the most pointed moments of the debate came when Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner put Ford on the spot, directly addressing him about the rates for Ontario Disability Support Program payments.
[Political ad] Working For Workers
Heading into the 2022 campaign, the Ontario PC party made a sustained effort to build bridges with private sector unions, some of which actively campaigned against the PCs in other elections. That bridge-building effort, largely led by Monte McNaughton, not only convinced private sector unions not to attack the Ford PCs but many actually endorsed the PCs. That effort has continued into this election cycle with multiple endorsements by the likes of the Ontario General Contractors Association, some Unifor locals, and the International Union of Operating Engineers . This new television spot from the Ontario PCs builds on that work. And, if you've paid much attention to the tour of Pierre Poilievre, the federal Conservatives have taken a page out of Ford's playbook and have also been building support among working men and union who are often members of private sector unions. This group used to be called "blue collar workers" but the Ontario PCs have used the phrase: "People who shower at the end of the day." Whatever you call them, they are now an important part of the voter coalition for both the Ontario and federal conservative parties.-DA
Liberal candidate under fire for social media post
The post is the latest in a string of social media comments made by Liberal candidates that the Progressive Conservative campaign has unearthed and shared. PC Oppo research team has the best game going so far in this campaign. Lots of dirt on Liberal opponents but Lib and NDP war rooms have not unearthed a pile of dirt on PC candidates.
Nova Scotia to introduce budget today as potential trade war looms with U.S.
The budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year comes after Premier Tim Houston's party won an expanded majority on Nov. 26, campaigning on promises to cut taxes and limit electricity rate hikes. But that was before Trump threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods in March — a move that will likely lead to Canadian retaliatory tariffs — and the budget is being watched to see how the province will respond.
Trump threat looms over MLAs’ return to B.C. legislature
When B.C.'s legislature returns Tuesday, the driving force behind the province's politics and the government's upended agenda will be thousands of kilometres away.
Elsewhere
Russian and US diplomats in Riyadh to pave way for Putin-Trump meeting
The meeting between the two countries' top diplomats in Riyadh is the most significant since Russia invaded its neighbor almost three years ago.
This Year in Munich: The World-Stage Debut of Autocratic America
Senator Peter Boehm: This year is, and was, different. The new Trump administration’s “shock and awe” show came to town. In terms of the shock, it did not disappoint. Vice President JD Vance delivered what CNN described as “a bombastic rejection of liberal orthodoxies that have prevailed in Western Europe since the Second World War, in a speech that downplayed the threats to the continent posed by Russia and China.” Indeed, it was a hectoring lecture seemingly designed to belittle his hosts, suggesting that the Europeans had somehow lost their way since the fall of the Berlin Wall, had stifled free speech and assembly, not allowing other voices to speak up.
Uganda drops military trial as opposition leader’s health falters
Kizza Besigye has grown ‘critically ill’ during hunger strike against imprisonment, his lawyer says. My first-ever Commonwealth Heads of Government summit was the one in Kampala in 2007. Yoweri Museveni was Uganda's president -- as he is now -- and was the host. One morning while we were there, we were invited to a soccer field near the summit site to meet Uganda's opposition leader: Kizza Besigye (you pronounce it kee-za Bee-see-gee). Now I have met a lot of politicians but there was an intensity to Besigye -- an x-factor, a magnetism -- I've rarely encountered in any politician I've ever met. The hour or so we spent listening to him field questions from Canadian reporters is an experience that still seems quite vivid. He has tried to defeat Mouseveni four times and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizza_Besigye. One thing I remember Besigye telling us on that soccer field in 2007: "There has never been a chance of government in this country that did not involve bombs."
Media
New York Times goes all-in on internal AI tools
The company said it was approving a number of AI programs for editorial and product staff, including GitHub Copilot programming assistant for coding, Google’s Vertex AI for product development, NotebookLM, the NYT’s ChatExplorer, some Amazon AI products, and OpenAI’s non-ChatGPT API through the New York Times’ business account.
BBC News finds that AI tools “distort” its journalism into “a confused cocktail” with many errors
The BBC gave four AI assistants — OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity — “access to our website for the duration of the research1 and asked them questions about the news, prompting them to use BBC News articles as sources where possible. AAI answers were reviewed by BBC journalists, all experts in the question topics, on criteria including accuracy, impartiality, and how they represented BBC content,” Pete Archer, the BBC’s program director for Generative AI, wrote. The AI assistants’ answers contained “significant inaccuracies and distorted content from the BBC,” the company said.
Science and tech
Zypher's speech model can clone your voice with 5s of audio
Palo Alto-based AI startup Zyphra unveiled a pair of open text-to-speech (TTS) models this week said to be capable of cloning your voice with as little as five seconds of sample audio. In our testing, we generated realistic results with less than half a minute of recorded speech.
The Calendar
- 0800 ET: Matane, QC - Innovation Min François-Philippe Champagne and Fisheries Min Diane Lebouthillier speak to the chamber of commerce.
- 0830 ET: Brussels, Belgium - Foreign Affairs Min Melanie Joly speaks to reporters.
- 1000 ET: 135B West Block - GPC MP Elizabeth May and Mike Morrice speak to reporters.
- 1000 ET: Hamilton, ON - NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh meets with United Steelworkers
- 1000 ET: La Patrie, QC - LPC MP Marie-Claude Bibeau makes a funding announcement
- 1100 ET: Hamilton, ON - NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaks to reporters
- 1300 ET: Port Coquitlam, BC - LPC MP Ron McKinnon makes an infrastructure funding announcement.
- 1430 ET: Winnipeg, MB - Families and Social Development Min Jenna Sudds and PrairiesCAN Min Terry Duguid make a funding announcement
- 1800 ET: Edmonton - LPC MP Karina Gould makes Liberal leadership policy announcement.
