Stephen Harper says Canada must urgently reduce its dependence on the U.S.
A picture, as they say, says a thousand words. This one sure seemed to.
Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre sitting across from each other at a table in the prime minister’s office. Not just sitting, but talking, maybe even bouncing ideas off each other about how to successfully navigate the path ahead for the country. No pointed fingers. Canadians have said for years they want moments like this instead of the way MPs usually just shout insults at each other. Now let’s not be naïve, there’s no sense that this meeting actually accomplished anything momentous, but hey, it’s a start. Here’s how CTV played it:
Carney, Poilievre say they want to work together after one-on-one meeting
The country’s auto industry saw a shakeup this past week.
Some plans were thrown out, and new ones were put in place. It’s all about EVs and how best they can fit in an ever-changing industry.
The CBC broke this story this week and has remained on top of it ever since:
Goodbye EV sales mandate, hello purchase rebates. Carney shakes up Canada's auto industry
Meanwhile, rumblings continue in Alberta, suggesting that we may need to reconsider the potential for a referendum on secession, which many Canadians may underestimate.
Just what role the Alberta premier is playing in all this may be misunderstood as well. The National Observer’s Max Fawcett doesn’t hold back in his assessment of what’s going on:
Opinion | Yes, Danielle Smith is a separatist
Lots more on the country’s political story on our two podcasts this week.
Yesterday’s YouTube version of Good Talk with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson can be found here.
Our very popular Moore-Butts Conversation podcast is also now on YouTube. You can find Tuesday’s episode with James Moore and Gerald Butts right here.
There are those who believe that Donald Trump spends every day finding issues and topics with the sole purpose of deflection.
Trying, sometimes frantically, to move the media’s attention, and hopefully through the media, the public’s attention away from an issue that’s damaging him. It’s the old “look over here, don’t look over there” strategy, and it’s surprising just how often it works.
For the last two months, what he doesn’t want Americans to look at is the Epstein affair. The dirty, disgusting, horrifying really, case of the old, or is it “former” close friend of Donald Trump. Epstein killed himself (so they say) while awaiting trial in a New York City jail. He had already been convicted of sex offenses including abusing young girls, and that might be the nicest way of saying what he had been doing. Epstein was connected to some of America’s most elite figures, in politics, business, entertainment, academia, and the list goes on. Many of them, including Trump, claim they had no idea what Epstein’s real life included. This despite the murals and photos decorating his home of naked young girls, or the scantily clad teens at his Caribbean island, which many visited, or the massage tables assembled in his various homes.
This affair, scandal if you prefer, has been talked about and investigated for years. Millions of documents tying Epstein to well-known people, raising questions about just what some of them were doing with him, keep coming out. But, and here’s what’s hard to understand, why are so many of the most well-known who are losing their jobs, their reputations, and in some cases their freedom, not Americans but foreigners?
Think about it: the woman who recruited many of the young girls for Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in jail and deservedly so. She’s British, but she also happens to hold both American and French citizenship. The man formerly known as Prince Andrew loses his royal title, much of his royal salary, and now tossed out of his royal home. A British Lord, London’s ambassador to the U.S., dismissed and humiliated. A top security adviser to the Slovakian prime minister equally gone from his post.
The BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason, looks at the story of one of those on that list:
Chris Mason: Mandelson revelations a scandal on another level
But this is an American scandal involving literally scores of well-known American figures, some of whom are benefitting from the deflection strategy being orchestrated by one Donald Trump.
The New York Times on Thursday asked one of its top journalists some basic questions, based on his study over a number of years of this case, about what we have really learned:
🔒 The Epstein Files
This story isn’t new, but it had somehow escaped my attention.
It’s about the Trump family and the North American origins of an empire that grew from nothing to what it is now. It includes the pivotal role that Canada has played in that growth.
Most of us know that the current Trump patriarch has not had a glowing Canadian business history – both of the hotels he was associated with, one in Toronto and one in Vancouver, were unsuccessful ventures. (Some conclude that’s why Trump is always taking shots at Canada). But the Trump family’s Canadian history goes back much further than Donald – here’s the story you, like me, may have missed:
The Trump family fortune sprang from this Canadian hotel-brothel
Change of topic now.
Some interesting points in this next piece by National Observer opinion columnist Supriya Dwivedi. The wider topic is how to regulate social media, while the narrow focus is on whether to copy the Australian ban on social media for kids under 16.
