In the news today: Poilievre and the Alberta byelection debate, B.C. tsunami advisory
Candidates in Alberta byelection gather for debate
Pierre Poilievre was greeted with cheers and applause by the hundreds of Albertans who showed up to watch a two-and-a-half-hour political debate on a sunny Tuesday evening in July.
The Camrose and District Chamber of Commerce hosted a candidates' forum featuring 10 of the people who are vying to represent Battle River—Crowfoot in the Aug. 18 byelection.
"My mission here is to give national leadership to the issues that are of local importance," Poilievre told the sold-out crowd.
The Conservative leader is widely expected to win the sprawling eastern Alberta riding, which is considered one of the safest Tory seats in the country.
Tsunami advisory, some beaches shut in B.C.
British Columbians are being urged to stay away from coastal areas that remain under a tsunami advisory, after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded triggered warnings and alerts around the Pacific.
The District of Tofino says beaches are closed, while the province's emergency information agency says people in areas covered by the advisory should stay away from shorelines, with strong waves and currents possible.
Emergency Info BC had said tsunami waves of less than 30 centimetres were expected to hit Tofino, B.C., around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, but there was no immediate confirmation of their arrival that coincided with a low tide.
The quake that hit off the coast of southeastern Russia on Tuesday had a preliminary magnitude of 8.8, which would make it the world's strongest quake since 2011.
Carney to meet cabinet to talk U.S., Middle East
Prime Minister Mark Carney is meeting virtually with his cabinet today to discuss the state of trade negotiations with the U.S. and the situation in the Middle East.
The meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.
Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade Dominic LeBlanc is in Washington today meeting with U.S. officials.
Carney said Monday that Canada's negotiations with the United States are in an "intense phase" after President Donald Trump clinched a critical agreement with the European Union.
Trump told reporters last week that Canada wasn't a priority ahead of his Aug. 1 deadline to make trade deals.
Feds could boost housing fees for migrant workers
An Ontario migrant farm worker says there is "wickedness" in a federal government proposal that could allow employers to charge workers upwards of 30 per cent of their income for housing.
The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change shared with The Canadian Press a discussion paper from Employment and Social Development Canada. The document outlines possible regulations for a new temporary worker stream for agricultural and fish processing workers.
The planned stream would include sector-specific work permits. That would allow temporary workers to work for any qualified employer in a specific field, instead of having their work permit tied to a specific job.
This new stream isn't expected to be active until 2027 at the earliest, according to the discussion paper.
Bank of Canada set for interest rate decision
The Bank of Canada is expected to make an interest rate decision this morning.
Economists and financial markets widely expect the central bank will keep its policy rate steady at 2.75 per cent.
A surprisingly strong June jobs report and signs of stubbornness in core inflation convinced many economists the bank would remain on hold.
The Bank of Canada left its key rate unchanged at its two most recent decisions as it waits for more clarity on how Canada's tariff dispute with the United States will affect inflation and the economy.
Watching kids swim? Put down your phone: experts
As Canada heads into a long weekend, the Lifesaving Society is urging parents and caregivers not to have their phones in hand while watching children playing near water or swimming.
The society says there has been a spike in drowning deaths this year, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.
Last week alone, three people — including two young children and a 24-year-old male kayaker — died in three separate drownings in Ontario.
Although the specific circumstances of the deaths aren't known, senior communications officer Stephanie Bakalar says absent or distracted caregivers are a factor in more than 90 per cent of drownings among children under five in Canada.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2025
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42 minutes ago
- Fox News
WATCH: Dem senator agrees with GOP that Trump's making progress on trade war
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman admitted that his party had gotten it wrong about President Donald Trump's tariffs, saying that, so far, the U.S. trade war is "going well." Asked by Fox News Digital whether he thought the Trump administration was winning the trade war, Fetterman responded, "Absolutely." "I'm a huge fan of Bill Maher, and I mean, I think he's really one of the oracles for my party, and he acknowledged it, it's like, hey, he thought that the tariffs were going to tank the economy, and then he acknowledged that it didn't," said Fetterman. "So, for me," he went on, "it seems like the E.U. thing has been going well, and I guess we'll see how it happens with China." This comes as Trump is increasing the tariff on Canada from 25% to 35% beginning on Friday, after the U.S. neighbor to the north failed to help curb the imports of fentanyl and other illicit drugs. The White House noted that Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to increase the tariff in an effort to hold Canada accountable for its role in the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S. Additionally, Trump signed another executive order on Thursday to modify the reciprocal tariff rates for some countries to further address the United States' trade deficits. The action reflects Trump's efforts to protect the U.S. from foreign threats to national security and the economy by securing "fair, balanced and reciprocal trade relationships," the White House said. Earlier this year, Trump announced an additional 10% tariff on all countries as well as higher tariffs for countries the U.S. has large trade deficits with. The tariffs became effective on April 9. Since then, Trump and his team have since made several trade deals with several countries. The U.S. struck a deal with the European Union in which the EU agreed to purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and make new investments of $600 billion by 2028. The EU also agreed to accept a 15% tariff rate. The U.S. also made a deal with Japan, which agreed to invest $550 billion in the U.S. to rebuild and expand core American industries. Japan also agreed to further its own market to U.S. exports, and like the EU, Japan agreed to a baseline 15% tariff rate. However, many Democrats are digging in their heels against Trump's tariffs strategy, saying the negative effects are still on the horizon. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., forecast that, despite the increased revenue, "within a few weeks or months, you'll start seeing significant increases in most things you buy. And also, you will see disruption in terms of a lot of our industries, because they're not able to access product or supply." "When you have across-the-board tariffs, it does operate like a national sales tax, and I think people are going to be more and more hurt," predicted Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. "This is the president who said he was going to come in and reduce prices. Prices are going to rise, and they're going to rise more over time," said Van Hollen. Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that "Donald Trump may beat his chest and say, 'Man, I made him take a 15% tariff or 25% tariff,' but also understand that every one of those trading partners is now looking hard all around the rest of the world to find other customers, because Donald Trump is signaling loud and clear that the United States under Donald Trump is not a reliable trading partner. And that's not good for any of us." Warren also claimed that Trump's tariffs are the reason the Federal Reserve has not lowered U.S. interest rates. "Jerome Powell said last month that he would have lowered interest rates back in February if it hadn't been for the chaos that Donald Trump was creating over trade. And the consequence has been that American families have, for six months now, been paying more on credit cards, more on car loans, more home mortgages, all because Donald Trump has created chaos," she said. Meanwhile, Republicans whom Fox News Digital spoke with urged the president to double down on his tariff strategy. "I think it's exactly the right approach. It's what I have been urging the president to do, and I think the successes he's winning are big wins for America," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In response to Democrats still predicting economic fallout because of the tariffs, Cruz sarcastically remarked, "I'm shocked, shocked that Democrats are rooting for the economy to do badly under President Trump." "It'd be nice if some Democrats would put their partisan hatred for Trump aside and actually start working together for American workers and American jobs. Unfortunately, I don't see a whole lot of Democrats interested in doing that right now," said Cruz. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., while agreeing that the tariffs have been successful, voiced that he hopes the goal is to ultimately achieve reciprocal zero percent tariffs between the U.S. and its trade partners. "Clearly, the president got a good deal from one perspective. The Europeans just caved, they did. Fifteen percent tariffs on them, zero on us, commitment to invest in our country. But the part of the deal I like the most, the E.U. and the president agreed that a whole bunch of goods would be tariff-free. That is, no American tariffs and no E.U. tariffs. It's called reciprocity, and ideal reciprocity is zero on both sides," he explained. "That's what I would like us to achieve in all the trade deals," Kennedy explained. 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Yahoo
4 hours ago
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Trump didn't chicken out. So what's Canada's next move?
Canada has now learned that the derisive acronym TACO — often slapped on U.S. President Donald Trump — is inaccurate and needs to be tweaked to something more like "Trump (Almost) Always Chickens Out." Despite putting decidedly lower tariffs than he'd threatened on dozens of countries around the globe and giving Mexico a 90-day reprieve from his threat to raise its tariff rate, Trump singled out Canada for an increase. While there's no way that Canada can characterize what happened as a win, there's plenty of evidence that it's not a reason for Prime Minister Mark Carney's government to panic and do something that jeopardizes what really matters for the Canadian economy: tariff-free access to the U.S. for the vast majority of exports. The key evidence backing this perspective comes in the economic number-crunching showing the actual impact of Trump's tariffs on the whole of Canada's exports to the U.S, what's called the effective tariff rate. Think of it as an average, weighted by the value of Canadian goods going across the border. Different economists have slightly different estimates, but even with the increase Trump announced Thursday night, there's consensus the effective tariff rate for Canada is down in the single digits, noticeably lower than the rate for any other major trading partner. That's because despite Trump's bluster, he's allowing the vast majority of Canada's exports into the country with zero tariff under the terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). WATCH | Canada's talks with Trump administration will continue, says minister of US trade: Experts and business leaders say Canada's trade negotiators and federal government need to be laser focused on maintaining that tariff-free access through CUSMA, especially since the deal is soon up for review. Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, says a bigger issue than Trump's incremental increase of the tariffs is the way Canada is struggling to "find a way forward" in its negotiations with the U.S. 'The conversation that we should be having' "I am hoping this is an opportunity to reassess and to some extent reset where we are and where we need to get to for the longer haul," Hyder told CBC's Katie Simpson in an interview Friday. While Hyder says he has empathy for Carney's government as it tries to navigate the uncharted waters of dealing with Trump 2.0 on trade, he's questioning whether its negotiating strategy has been aimed at the correct target. Canada must assess what it needs to do "to get into the conversation that we should be having, which is first and foremost: how are we going to review and renew the USMCA?" Hyder said, using the U.S. government's preferred acronym for the trade deal. The text of CUSMA calls for a formal review starting in July 2026, but consultations between the three countries are expected to begin this fall. As Trump levies blanket tariffs on nearly every other major trading partner, observers are increasingly pointing to the big tariff exemptions Canada is getting from CUSMA as a major competitive advantage. That creates a rather hefty source of motivation for the Carney government to make solidifying CUSMA the long-term goal of its talks with the Trump administration. The eternal question: Trump's real motivation for the tariffs On the other side of the border, there's a view that a significant driving force behind Trump's tariff tactics with Canada is gaining leverage in those CUSMA renewal talks. Although Department of Justice lawyers have been arguing in court that stopping the flow of fentanyl from Canada — as minimal as it is — justifies the tariffs, trade policy expert Inu Manak of the Council for Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., says she believes there's no way that's really what's motivating Trump. "I do think a lot of this has to do with some sort of renegotiation of parts of the CUSMA deal that the Trump administration is not happy with," Manak told CBC News Network on Friday. Although Trump hit Canada with a tariff increase, Manak isn't criticizing Canada's negotiating tactics. "There's no really good way to go about doing this," she said. "We've seen variation in approaches and no matter what, everyone seems to be getting hit with tariffs." WATCH | Breaking down the winners and loser in Trump's tariff gambit: CUSMA and its tariff-free access must remain the focus for Canada, says John Manley, a former Liberal deputy prime minister, now chair of chair of Jefferies Securities, a global investment banking firm. "The big game is the 93 per cent of Canadian goods that cross the border currently tariff-free under USMCA," Manley told CBC News. "That is what we need to protect." To retaliate or not? Even if the CUSMA renegotiation is what matters most in the long term for Canada, the Carney government also has to think about what its immediate next steps should be. Perhaps the most immediate question along those lines for Ottawa is whether to retaliate or not. Brian Clow, who served as former prime minister Justin Trudeau's deputy chief of staff and led his "war room" on Canada-U.S. trade relations, describes himself as a fan of retaliation, but is not advocating for Carney to fire back at Trump in this instance. "I do think [Carney and his team] need to stop and consider whether to further retaliate right now, given Canada is standing on its own, and the rest of the world is not standing with us," Clow said Friday in an interview with CBC News. WATCH | Should Carney hit back? Here's what a former PMO insider thinks: Carney's government also needs to think about what it can do about the tariffs that are actually having the biggest impact on Canada right now: the sectoral tariffs of 50 per cent on steel and aluminum and 25 per cent on the non-U.S. content of assembled automobiles. "Maybe there's one more step towards the American ask that we can take — that we can live with — that can close this deal," Clow said. The signals from Carney's team suggest the plan is to keep on keeping on. Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said Friday that he and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump's point man on tariffs, agreed to speak by phone next week and arrange for a meeting later in August. "We'll continue to talk to the Americans," LeBlanc told reporters in Washington. "The United States will continue to be our neighbour, continue to be our most important economic and security partner." Both LeBlanc in his scrum and Carney in his statement acknowledged the need for the government to help the steel, aluminum and auto sectors. Getting carve-outs or reductions of those tariffs will no doubt be an objective as the talks with Team Trump progress.
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6 hours ago
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Canadian charity close to getting aid trucks into Gaza for first time since March
OTTAWA — Two months after announcing it had truckloads of food waiting to enter Gaza, a Canadian charity says it's finally about to get its first shipment of aid to desperate Palestinians since March. Human Concern International has two trucks in place filled with bags of flour that were supposed to enter Gaza on Friday. It says it changed its plans because desperate Palestinians have been looting aid trucks. "It's beyond catastrophe, what's happening in Gaza right now," said the group's head, Mahmuda Khan. HCI used to send aid trucks into Gaza regularly before Israel blocked all outside aid in March and set up its own distribution sites. Hundreds of Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers while trying to access food at those sites. Israel recently lifted some restrictions on food deliveries and Jordanian soldiers started airdropping aid purchased by Ottawa into the enclave this week. Khan's group was given permission to enter the Gaza strip Thursday with two trucks, each carrying 1,300 25-kilogram bags of flour. She said they chose not to cross into Gaza Thursday because aid trucks have been swarmed by large groups of Palestinians, making it unsafe for locals and staff. She said three truckloads of flour and seven trucks containing 2,080 boxes of food are ready to enter the territory once the charity finds a safer route. Khan said Israel needs to vastly increase the amount of aid it's letting into Gaza, adding authorities at the border are only allowing her group to deliver food that requires cooking, such as lentils and rice. "We're not allowed to put baby formula, we're not allowed to put any meat there right now. So it's calorie-counted versus nutrition calculations," she said. The group is urging Ottawa to push Israel for more access so that canned tuna and baby formula can be allowed in the territory. Her organization has accused Israel of "deliberately limiting types and amounts of food supplies to keep Gazans within a specific malnutrition threshold." The Israeli government says it is meeting its humanitarian obligations. Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza in March, arguing that Hamas had been selling vital supplies and food to pay its fighters. UN agencies say this was not happening to any large extent. After two and a half months, Israel allowed Americans to launch the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which set up aid distribution sites. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire and American contractors while trying to access those sites. A week ago, Israel slightly loosened its restrictions. UNICEF has said it needs to undertake "therapeutic feeding" for children with severe acute malnutrition who can no longer eat normal food. That requires products such as Plumpy'Nut, a mix of peanuts and fats. Khan said her group is also purchasing local produce in Gaza at astronomical rates, with one kilogram of onions costing the equivalent of $21.60 and the same quantity of tomatoes costing $18.90. She said her group has two medical clinics that struggle to find medicines, equipment and fuel for generators. They frequently see children with infectious diseases caused by drinking contaminated water, she said, and the people of Gaza need more than just food. "They need a complete solution, a holistic approach of pure, clean water, nutritional food on an ongoing and consistent basis — and not just for a week or two," she said. Israel has repeatedly pushed back on claims that it is causing starvation in Gaza - the assessment shared by Ottawa, U.S. President Donald Trump and most major global organizations. "Israel has been an active partner in humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza consistent with its responsibilities under international law," Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed wrote in a media statement Wednesday. He said Israel has facilitated the movement of 600 aid trucks over the previous five days. The UN has said that is the number of aid trucks needed each day in order for Gaza's population to meet its basic humanitarian needs. Gaza was receiving roughly 70 truckloads of aid a day before last week - one of the lowest aid delivery rates since the war started. Israel and the UN have repeatedly blamed each other for delays in aid reaching Palestinians, with Israel saying hundreds of trucks have sat idle. The UN says that in order to retrieve aid at the border or move around most of the Gaza Strip, its trucks must enter zones controlled by the military, load the aid and get it safely to the people who need it. It says the whole trip can take 20 hours. Large crowds of desperate people, as well as criminal gangs, overwhelm the trucks as they enter Gaza and strip them of supplies, The Associated Press has reported. Witnesses tell the agency that Israeli troops regularly fire on the crowds, killing and injuring many. The military frequently assigns routes for trucks to use that are unsuitable; "impassable for long truck convoys, passing through crowded markets, or controlled by dangerous gangs," the UN humanitarian office said last month. The UN released a video Friday of what it said was one of its own convoys on Wednesday. It shows hundreds standing at a roadside as warning shots are fired. After the shooting stops, men and boys swarm the convoy. Israel said it doesn't limit the truckloads of aid coming into Gaza, and that it regularly looks for the best routes to provide access for the international community. — With files from The Associated Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2025. Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
