‘Every single person has been a victim' : Governors update on Texas floods that killed 32 people
U.S. governors update the latest development of Texas floods that killed at least 32 people, President Trump's response and rescue plan.
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National Post
33 minutes ago
- National Post
After six decades, USAID closes its doors
After six-decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development has been ended by the Trump administration.
National Post
an hour ago
- National Post
Letters: Decoding Mark Carney. Wink wink, nudge nudge
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Readers comment on the PM's penchant for winking, the demise of the Digital Services Tax, milking the government for support, and more in the letters to the editor Mark Carney winks during a press conference in Ottawa in a file photo from Jan. 23, 2013. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events. Unlimited online access to National Post. National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE ARTICLES Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events. Unlimited online access to National Post. National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Justin Trudeau was a master at not answering even the most direct of questions. Mark Carney, on the other hand, appears to answer questions put to him, but always with subtle qualifications that border on disingenuity. For instance, Carney says he will make Canada an energy super power but without committing to building the pipelines or lifting emission caps that have frustrated this ambition for the past 10 years. Now, Canadians have to decode the meaning behind the prime minister's apparent fondness for winking, rather than saying what he really means, believes or thinks. Monty Python's 'Candid Photography' sketch (perhaps better known as the 'Nudge Nudge' sketch) only too well demonstrates the miscommunication that happens when gestures and innuendo replace saying what you really mean. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean? This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays) By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again Paul Clarry, Aurora, Ont. So the prime minister is a winker. This unfortunate habit has been on display frequently, according to reporter Joseph Brean. But this is not the only ocular problem Mark Carney has. There is of course the myopic capitulation he immediately reverts to if any policy offends Donald Trump. The tough guy 'tariff-matching-tariff' position meekly dissolves to secretly removing most of these tariffs. Our winking wonder was elected on the basis that he would stand up for Canada against Trump. There is precious little evidence of this. Marty Burke, Guelph, Ont. So much for 'elbows up.' Faced with pushback from President Donald Trump on the Digital Services Tax, Prime Minister Mark Carney folded like a cheap beach chair. Next on Trump's agenda will be getting Carney to remove preferential treatment to the dairy industry, which is especially beneficial to that industry in Quebec. Canada's protective supply management system always proves a stumbling block in any trade negotiations with America. Having Carney, a former banker, dealing with Trump, who perfected 'The Art of the Deal,' definitely puts Canada at a serious disadvantage in any trade negotiations. To think that Carney portrayed himself as the best person to negotiate with Trump during the election campaign. Trump is now in complete control, extracting whatever he wants from the prime minister, whose elbows are definitely down now. It would seem to me that the U.S. is being hypocritical in its complaints about Canada's supply management of dairy products. This advertisement has not loaded yet. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Canada does interfere with a full free market in dairy by limiting supply in order to support a healthy indigenous food supply chain. However the U.S. government uses other means to support its dairy industry. It sets minimum prices, it insures farmers from rising feed prices, and it buys surplus dairy products and gives them to institutions or warehouses them. This contributes to oversupply and what is in essence income supports for farmers. American farmers therefore have surplus production with which they want to flood the Canadian market. Is it not hypocritical for the U.S. to claim it must keep out certain imports to protect essential industries but not to recognize its trading partner's reciprocal rights? Isn't having domestic production of food the most essential of industries? Morris Sosnovitch, Toronto It is well-known that Prime Minister Carney has a remarkable resumé of career achievement, but one wonders if he has ever had a negotiating experience like the one he is currently facing with President Donald Trump. Giving in on the Digital Services Tax so that negotiations may proceed is like handing over your gambling chips to the casino without even getting a chance to put them on the roulette wheel. One wonders, then, why Tasha Kheiriddin suggests a further concession on supply management is inevitable and even desirable. One can only hope that nothing will be given up until every last cow has been milked. Sometimes the best negotiating tactic is not to negotiate at all. Patrick McKitrick, Burnaby, B.C. I am a retired member of the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) and read Emma Jarratt and Robert Cribb's article with great interest. In my day (I was called to the bar in 1986), lawyers in Ontario were trained by the LSO (then the Law Society of Upper Canada) to the highest ethical standards — i.e. full, true and open disclosure. To learn that the LSO no longer applies that standard to itself, vis-à-vis inquiries by the public of its own members, is totally appalling. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves.' Beverley A. Batten Simpson, Aurora, Ont. Jamie Sarkonak argues that Canadians are right to embrace a melting-pot immigration model because we're losing a shared sense of what it means to be Canadian. It's an understandable impulse — we all feel safer among the familiar. But that kind of thinking applies a double standard. Most people want to stay true to themselves — yet the melting pot metaphor implies others should give that up and conform. That's a contradiction: I get to be me, but you have to be more like me? That's not unity — it's the erasure of the identity of the other. Actually this tension between individual rights and collective identity has shaped Canada since Confederation. Quebec prioritizes collective values; the rest of Canada leans toward individual rights in the British tradition. That clash plays out in debates over private versus public — health care, education and religious freedom. And over safe injection sites, hate speech, MAID, and more. Canada thrives not when we all blend into sameness, but when we make space for difference. A shared identity doesn't mean uniformity — it means embracing diversity without demanding assimilation. Unity through individuality is what makes us strong. Desiring conformity is a tempting illusion — but realizing it undermines the very public good it claims to protect. Individuality is not the enemy of community; it's its foundation. Beware what you wish for. You might get it — and lose yourself. Being true to yourself is the best thing you can do for Canada. If Canadian gas exports do 'supplant other sources of gas from Russia, Eurasia and the Middle East' that would be an ethical win, even if it isn't an emissions win. When purchasers buy from Canada instead of Russia, they get the added benefit of not funding the invasion of Ukraine. The BBC recently reported that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it has made three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid from its allies. Scott Newson, Nanaimo, B.C. It's true, I guess, Canadians got a tax break thanks to Mark Carney fulfilling an election promise, but it doesn't really feel like Ottawa is giving Canadians much of anything. It reminds me of the feeble GST holiday the Liberals gave us last Christmas. While any break is appreciated, Carney's largesse was actually predated by the tax break Donald Trump provided Canadians several days earlier. At the president's insistence and with no hint of disappointment, or winks, Carney axed another Trudeau misnomer by dicing the digital sales tax. To be fair, Ottawa had no choice but to sacrifice the tax if it had any hope of rejuvenating trade talks with the U.S. Now, if Donald Trump could only use his strong-arm tactics as the impetus to start dismantling Canada's supply management cartels. If successful, he will have done more to reduce Canadian taxes since being elected six months ago than two Liberal governments have done since 2015. Paul Baumberg, Dead Man's Flats, Alta. Re: New Ranger rifles bleed red dye in the rain — David Pugliese, July 3 (print) Defence officials say it will be up to taxpayers to cover the cost of replacing the stocks on the 6,800 new rifles for the Canadian Rangers, which are dripping red dye in the rain. It's estimated that could cost as much as $10 million. A coat of varnish would likely be cheaper. Charles Hooker, East Garafraxa, Ont. With the collapse of the postwar global order, Canada scrambles to redefine itself on the world stage. Mostly this is about trade and military buildup. But there's a critical factor that's been absent from news cycles, and that's our role to fill the chasm left by the abandonment of the U.S. in the arena of global development. Too often foreign assistance is met with platitudes about spending the money here, and our needs come first. But this simplistic notion is blind to the fact, as we've seen all too clearly in the past few years, that Canada doesn't exist in a self-sufficient vacuum. What happens around the world has a direct impact on our economy and indeed our very health. Helping the development of emerging countries into robust trading parters, with stable democratic leadership and the capacity to fight emerging diseases, is to our own benefit. The alternative is to push these states into the arms of hostile regimes. Along with a greater military presence in the world, it's critical that Canada also adopts a greater humanitarian stance through foreign assistance. Nathaniel Poole, Victoria, B.C. I was a young woman on the streets of Tehran on Sept. 8, 1978 — the day of the Jaleh Square massacre, known in Iran as 'Black Friday.' Thousands of peaceful demonstrators, many of them students, had gathered to protest the Shah's brutal rule, not knowing that martial law had been declared the day before. They were chanting for freedom, demanding the end of a dictatorship. I was on my way to join them. Before I could reach the square, a close friend of mine stopped me. He had just witnessed the carnage. 'They're killing everyone,' he said, his voice shaking. 'Bodies are piled up. There's blood everywhere.' The military had opened fire on unarmed civilians. As many as 100 were slaughtered that day, and more than 200 injured. I was devastated — not just by the scale of the bloodshed, but by the cold command with which it was carried out. That moment was a turning point for millions of Iranians. It was part of what led to the fall of the Shah's dictatorship. We rose up and succeeded in removing a tyrant. Yet now, Reza Pahlavi — the son of that same dictator — appears determined to betray the aspirations of the very people who ended his father's reign. By refusing to denounce his father's crimes and positioning himself as a leader-in-waiting, Reza Pahlavi is not merely out of step with Iran's democratic aspirations, he is actively working to undercut them, promoting another version of authoritarianism — dressed up in royalist nostalgia. There is a clear alternative. Millions of Iranians support the vision of a secular, democratic, non-nuclear republic as laid out in the Ten-Point Plan proposed by Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It calls for gender equality, religious freedom, the abolition of the death penalty, and a future without dictatorship — whether monarchical or theocratic. We must stand unequivocally with the Iranian people — not with those who would resurrect past tyrannies. Sara Fallah, International Coalition of Women against Fundamentalism, Toronto National Post and Financial Post welcome letters to the editor (250 words or fewer). Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. Email letters@ Letters may be edited for length or clarity.
Global News
an hour ago
- Global News
How Canada's election may have left ‘gaps' in U.S. travel advice
Newly-released documents show Global Affairs Canada knew it was facing criticism from Canadians days into the federal election over a 'lack of information' on travel advice to the United States after the Trump administration launched a border crackdown, including enhanced security at ports of entry. But with Canada in a caretaker government at the time, bureaucrats weighed the potential 'sensitivities' of acting during a federal election campaign that revolved around U.S.-Canada relations. Documents obtained by Global News through access to information laws show the department was aware Canadians were concerned about visiting the U.S., but federal officials lagged non-governmental organizations in providing citizens with guidance on the risk of searches of electronics and the possibility of detention. 6:31 Canadian dies in ICE custody. What we know so far Prime Minister Mark Carney triggered a federal election on March 23. Story continues below advertisement Canada updated its travel advisory on April 4 urging Canadians to 'expect scrutiny' from U.S. border agents. The newly-released documents raise questions about whether Global Affairs should have updated that advice sooner, given concerns around U.S. travel and the high-profile detention of at least one Canadian by U.S. border agents last March. 'I think we're seeing here is that they were slow on this and you can't be slow. You have to do your job,' said immigration lawyer and founder of Jain Immigration Law in Toronto Ravi Jain. 2:05 What Canadians need to know about new U.S. travel rules Global Affairs Canada had considered how to respond, 'recognizing the requirement the department has to maintain accurate travel advice for Canadians, at the same time as any sensitivities to any communications during a writ period.' 'Canadians have been critical about the lack of information in the U.S. TAA [Travel Advice and Advisories] about the perceived risks of travelling to the U.S. at this time,' reads an email dated April 2, a week and a half after Carney triggered a federal election. Story continues below advertisement But federal officials acknowledged law firms and post-secondary institutions had already acted. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Bureaucrats noted 'leading migration lawyers and universities' had issued 'their own cautionary advice' to clients and staff by then, the documents obtained by Global News show. That advice often included warnings electronics could be searched. In a statement, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod said the department provided 'up-to-date travel information that reflected publicly available information by U.S. government agencies and officials. The intent of the updates was to ensure Canadians have accurate information about traveling to the United States.' But MacLeod did not answer questions about whether the writ period affected how and when information was shared with Canadians. 1:46 Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' set to become law after it passes in US House Back in the spring, Jain was one of the lawyers urging the federal government to update its advisory: 'I understand the political sensitivities, but our first responsibility is to our citizens.' Story continues below advertisement Federal officials discussed closing 'information gaps' and updating Canadians on what they described as four 'themes': visa applications; enhanced security at border points, including electronics; new U.S. info for stays beyond 30 days; guidance on carrying ID and evidence of status in the U.S. in light of the risk related to ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) operations. On April 4 — two days after the email was sent to staff at Global Affairs — Ottawa made its updated U.S. travel advice public, warning Canadian citizens could be detained while awaiting deportation if they fail to meet entry or exit requirements. 'Individual border agents often have significant discretion in making those determinations. U.S. authorities strictly enforce entry requirements. Expect scrutiny at ports of entry, including of electronic devices.' The internal communication highlights the 'intricacies' the department faced during the writ period, as it tried to navigate U.S. President Donald Trump's ever-evolving policies and pronouncements and when to weigh into issues potentially at play during the election. Caught between a 'rock and a hard place' 'The department was really caught between a rock and a hard place,' said former foreign affairs minister Perrin Beatty. Story continues below advertisement Beatty says the caretaker government likely did not want to find itself in the middle of a 'heated' political debate. A caretaker government operates during this transition period and is expected to limit its actions to essential and urgent matters and avoid making major policy decisions. 'The Canada U.S.-issue was the number one partisan issue in the election they were wary about doing anything… (but) we were seeing developments taking place very rapidly with stories of people being detained at the border or changes coming by the day.' 6:43 Extended: B.C. woman detained in the U.S. returns home Jasmine Mooney, originally from Vancouver, tried to enter the U.S. from Mexico at the San Diego border, and was taken into custody on March 3. She spent nearly two weeks in ICE detention. Global Affairs was following public interest in her case. Story continues below advertisement 'Since March 13… we have received 16 media calls on the detention of Canadian citizen Jasmine Mooney,' read the documents. Federal officials also received more than 5,000 comments on their social media channels related to U.S. travel advice in March, 'the highest ever' received in a single month. An internal memo contained a 'sentiment scan of the comments' and included calls for Global Affairs Canada 'to update the risk level for travel to the U.S., questions about registration and ICE/Border Patrol (fear of detainment, phone searches.)' Jain would like to see more detailed advice in the current travel advisory to the U.S. 'We shouldn't be alarmist. Many Canadians are able to travel to travel to the U.S. and face no issues.' But the immigration lawyer adds federal officials' first obligation should always be informing Canadians as quickly as possible. '(Politics) shouldn't matter. There's politics to everything.'
