🔒 Donald Trump thought he had a trade deal with Canada. Here’s how it all fell apart
So, what does the breakdown mean?
The Globe’s Lawrence Martin is a veteran correspondent with decades of experience, especially on the Canada/US file. Here’s his take:
🔒 Opinion | Canada’s response to Donald Trump is a nation-defining moment
A few weeks ago, here in The Buzz, I highlighted a piece from Conrad Black.
I included it because it wasn’t Conrad’s normal anti-Carney, anti-Liberal column. It was decidedly different from what we’ve come to expect. So where does my old friend find himself on the latest twists and turns in the Carney vs. Trump story? Try this from the National Post:
🔒 Conrad Black: This is an opportunity Carney, don't squander it
Donald Trump used to say every foreign leader he visits showers him with praise, saying among other things, “the United States is back!”
Really? Maybe one day, but not these days, unless you mean foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un?
If anything, these days, the opposite view of Trump is held by most of what were formerly his allies:
At Home and Abroad, Deference to Trump Turns Increasingly to Defiance
If you’re like me, you’re still trying to figure out how Donald Trump and his coterie of misfits who surround him at the decision table could have agreed to invade Iran.
I grab any piece that tries to answer that question, looking for the key to the riddle. the Wall Street Journal, a traditionally conservative news organization, is these days taking an increasingly critical look at the Trump administration. It offered this bit of investigative journalism this week:
🔒 The Warnings That Came Before a War Now Reaching the Six-Month Mark
If you are wondering about my podcast, The Bridge, which has been on summer hiatus, it’s back on Labour Day with a much-anticipated show with Dr. Janice Stein. However, we do have, as promised, a summer special Good Talk with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson, which aired on SiriusXM, on our podcast and on YouTube just yesterday. You can find it here.
Michael Ignatieff is out with a new Substack and it’s, not surprisingly, another good one.
Looking at the big picture the way only Ignatieff can, he sees how the world has changed:
Tariff Wars and the End of the Free World
The unfolding Nepal tragedy seems worse every hour.
The images and videos are so gripping, so horrendous, so emotional. While we are naturally caught up with the terrible toll the catastrophe has taken, there's also some great reporting on the "why?" Like this piece from the NY Times:
🔒 Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods
Fifteen years ago, I stood in a Boston University lab looking at a human brain.
It wasn’t a picture; it wasn’t behind glass; it was right there, barely a few centimetres from my face. It had just arrived at the lab by FedEx, quickly unpacked and unwrapped. It came from the family of a boxer, a boxer who had died the previous week. One of his last wishes was that his brain be examined in that Boston lab to see whether he had died at a relatively young age because of complications from CTE – chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a degenerative brain disease believed by researchers back then to be caused by repeated blows and impacts to the head. The kind of blows suffered by boxers, football players, and, yes, hockey players.
Today, all these years later, these suspicions and lab results are accepted as fact, but questions remain about whether sports organizations are taking this issue seriously enough.
The New York Times did a major piece on where things stand this week, and it's worth the read:
🔒 Many N.F.L. Players Get Brain Disease. Why Hasn’t OSHA Intervened?
A lot has changed in the fifteen years since producer Stephanie Jenzer and I spent the day with Dr. Ann McKee, who, by the way, worked on this latest research too.
For those interested, especially in the hockey connection, here’s a link to our piece from 2011. Keep in mind things have progressed a long way since then, but it's still a fascinating watch. (Warning: it’s long!)
Inside the brain lab
Back to our top story for an interesting angle.
A small but very successful Canadian business that’s found a way to get by without American input it's relied on for decades. The CBC has the details:
Chapman’s Ice Cream pledges no price increase as Ontario company shifts away from U.S. suppliers
There were a lot of tributes to the one and only Dolly Parton this week — and deservedly so.
But for me, none so much as this one – delivered in front of Buckingham Palace in London. Here’s how CTV told the story:
