"[This new record being set  for hottest temperatures in the world's oceans is] very troubling." 

"An ocean this warm destabilizes weather patterns and threatens food security, economic prosperity and marine life."

"A warmer ocean is not our friend."

Jane Lubchenco, oceanographer, former chief of U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

 

"This is yet another sign of our climate system under strain and the ocean under immense pressure."

"When we have a warmer ocean such as we've had in Europe this summer, it amplifies the impact of heat waves because you don't get the cooler nighttime temperatures with the sea breeze coming off the ocean when the ocean is very warm."

"Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead, Copernicus climate service, Europe

 

"The thing that makes my heart sink is that this starts so early and it's so out-of-normal that you know when it hits its peak it's going to be unprecedented."

"The ocean is not supposed to do this. It's just that there is no normal anymore."

"[With hotter water], not everybody is hit equally, obviously, but the whole system collapses."

"It's like when you pull out the rug from underneath an economy. The whole thing collapses. Some sectors may do a little bit better but, overall, everybody suffers."

Boris Worm, biology professor, Dalhousie University, Canada 

A very strong El Niño developing in the southern Pacific Ocean will disrupt global weather patterns in the months ahead, but climate scientists say it's not something we can attribute to the heat waves and wildfires that raged across the northern hemisphere this summer, like the ones in British Columbia's interior earlier this month. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

 

This year's El Nino has already reached the peak of other recent such appearances, and it's continuing to grow and expected to reach unprecedented levels when it does eventually peak. With the current El Nino, the oceans will keep heating  up, and it is  expected to peak at some time between November and January. That's abnormal since most of the Southern Hemisphere is ocean, and the world's sea surface temperature generally peaks around March and April as the southern summer draws to its close. But not this year.

 

El Nino is nature's temporary warming of portions of the Pacific Ocean which warps weather, raising global temperatures. This is a weather phenomenon recognized as being responsible for most of the heat that develops in the world's oceans -- along with long-term warming resulting from burning coal, oil and gas. This year, ocean waters have warmed by 0.8C, seeing the world's oceans at their hottest temperatures on record last weekend. That's bad news, but even worse is that they're entirely likely to keep warming. 

 

Coral in Tubbatah Reef in the Philippines.  Adobe

 

Aquatic lifeforms are placed under stress with warming water. The supersized El Nino of this year is proving to be of greater concern than the record previously set in March of 2024. A warming ocean becomes more acidic with less oxygen, inimical to the health of its sealife. Ocean currents become altered along with changed weather patterns. Storm systems are enhanced by the warming oceans, becoming wetter and producing larger storm surges.

 

According to Dr. Bruno, heat-sensitive corals now are roughly one-fifth of the levels of 1990. Some species of coral -- not the longer-lived staghorn corals -- are adapting to the hotter water, although they're 'weedy'. The current situation of warmer oceans and even warmer yet as time moves on and the heating persists, is predictive of collapsed fisheries resulting in universal food shortages.The Peruvian anchovy fishery, considered the largest world fishery, generally collapses during El Nino.

 

Corals from the Galápagos Islands contain chemical signatures that scientists were able to use to trace a 1,000-year history of El Niño events.   Greg Asner/DivePhoto.org

 

The food web becomes altered, since larger fish are able to swim off to cooler water to escape the heat, as far as halfway across an ocean. "Anchovies can't leave so they just don't reproduce, or [they] starve", explained Dr. Worm, affecting both the humans and the seabirds who depend on them. The presence of more jellyfish is being observed off Europe, stated Dr. Bruno, believing something similar will be seen on the East Coast of the United States.

 

"Jellyfish are often opportunistic and they like warm waters. So yes, I would expect them to do a little bit better", added Dr. Worm. And when's the last time you saw jellyfish on the dinner menu? "As long as we depend on a healthy ocean for our safety, prosperity and well-being, these record-breaking sea surface temperatures portend even greater challenges for us all", added Rick Spinrad, another former NOAA chief. 

"It's frightening. We're not even in October yet."

"You know, usually the Caribbean peaks at like late September, early October."

"And I think next year in the Southern Ocean, the Great Barrier Reef, yeah I'm really worried about what's going to happen in the southern hemisphere in February, March."

John Bruno, marine ecologist, University of North Carolina 

A satellite map from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows sea surface temperature anomalies recorded on Aug. 20, with hotter than average temperatures stretching across the El Niño region toward the west coast of South America. (NOAA)

Photo taken on September 11, 2001 shows the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center burning after two planes crashed into each building in New York. The buildings collapsed on that day claiming 2,753 lives. September 11, 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of this event. Photo by STAN HONDA /AFP/Getty Images

 

"Do not refer to the Sept.11 attacks as terrorist attacks. [Refer to the] longstanding language guidance [on the Sept.11, 2001 al-Qaida attacks]."

"The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington D.C. Pennsylvania and Manhattan."

"The World Trade Center was destroyed [CBC internal language guide]."

Basem Boshra, senior director, journalistic standards and public trust, CBC News

 

"Refusing to call it an act of terrorism dishonours the victims, their families, the survivors, and the first responders who witnessed the horrors of that day."

"Trying to sanitize or rewrite that history is deeply offensive and does a disservice to everyone who was affected by the attacks."

"[The CBC is redefining] terrorism in a way that downplays the atrocity [of the terrorist attacks]." 

Conservative Member of Parliament Rachel Thomas

 

"It is wholly inaccurate to state our journalists have been urged to declare that this was not a terrorist act."

"[The memo represents a reminder to adhere to the CBC's language guide for] the terms 'terrorist' and 'terrorism'."

"CBC preferences use of these words with attribution to credible sources, a practice shared by many of the world's top journalistic organizations."

Kerry Kelly, CBC public affairs spokesperson 

 

"[Staff will use the terms but they will always be] attributed to government officials, authorities, experts and politicians." 

"But CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism." 

Brodie Fenlon, CBC News editor in chief, general manager

 

"[Employees are urged to] exercise extreme caution before using the words terrorist or terrorism [because they can be] highly contested [in some instances and potentially raise questions about the CBC's] consistency and impartiality [in covering other attacks]."

"Terrorism generally implies attacks against unarmed civilians for political religious or some other ideological reason But it's a highly controversial term that can leave journalists taking sides in a conflict."

CBC Language Guide 

Confusion has been swirling about how CBC News journalists use the words 'terrorist' and 'terrorism,' particularly in connection with the al-Qaeda attacks on New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

 

Al-Qaida, the Islamist fundamentalist terrorist group operating under the late Osama bin Laden, is listed as such under Canada's terrorist list. The United Nations lists the group as terrorists. There is little doubt that  al-Qaida is acknowledged as a terrorist group almost universally, many of the Arab countries of the Middle East as well, including Saudi Arabia where it was formed, with 'radicalized' Saudi Arabians their operatives in the suicide mission that killed almost three thousand people in the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

 

Canada's once-respected public broadcaster, under its current administration -- well infiltrated by noxious Islamist figures that also occupy positions of trust and authority in many other Canadian institutions under the Liberal government that has seen fit to transition Canada from a nation wedded to social justice through democratic order and Western values to one that accommodates itself to the transformative presence of Muslim Brotherhood adherents -- now carefully sidesteps naming terrorism for what it is, implying in the manner of its coverage that there is room to excuse the excesses of baleful violence against the West in sympathy with the 'oppressed' of the world.

 

In that atmosphere of submission to an alternative view of Islamist jihadists where to name them as such is to burden Canada's Muslim population with institutional 'Islamophobia' which must at all costs be avoided, the CBC's operational chiefs see the value of soft-peddling Islamist extremism expressed in terrorism's slaughter of those opposing Islamic conquest, including innocent civilians who are used as proxies-for-slaughter in lieu of more prized goals such as Western officials viewed as Islam's enemies, even those who compromise themselves by their eagerness to cull favour with their growing Muslim populations.

 

The despicable position taken by the mealy-mouthed expositors of journalistic 'balance' and 'neutrality' in the face of the evil represented by barbarian hordes of Islamist jihadists whose mission is to kill, to instill fear and apprehension in the minds of those they terrify tests our civilizational mores and certainties. Prostrating themselves before the alter of accommodation, they have lost the confidence of the public who judge the public broadcaster on the quality of the journalism they place on display and find it wanting. Those same Canadians would be satisfied to see the CBC defunded by taxpayers and for it to become as totally defunct as it is morally.

 

That the CBC, under pressure applied to Prime Minister Mark Carney by Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, by a threat made by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation over the outrage expressed by its director Kash Patel, and by the reaction of ordinary Canadians, offended and horrified that their public broadcaster is loathe to name the obvious for what it is, reflected on its original decision-making and recanted this latest order, is telling. Telling also that its withdrawal of the order not to name the 9/11 horror as a terrorist attack, and that this rescinding of the memo is to apply only to 9/11.

 

And not to CBC's regular 'neutral', non-subjective reports on the terrorist attack by Hamas on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, and the resulting invasion of Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces, in a defensive move to destroy the terrorist group controlling Gaza once and for all for which it is universally condemned by its erstwhile allies. The CBC reportage on a tiny nation fighting back against Islamist jihadists whose terrorist death-cult agenda cannot rationally be denied, is shameful, and it will continue; no slack given to public outrage over that since it is too controversial in and of itself, impacting for the present time, only Canadian Jews, not the overwhelming presence of Muslims now living in Canada. 

 

 

 

Basem Boshra, CBC

 

"...To be clear, CBC News has never said what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was not terrorism, as some commentators have stated in recent days. We have reported fully and accurately on the reasons and motivations for those attacks as determined by police, governments and an independent commission. We've just made sure to do it with attribution."

"Clarity and understanding are at the heart of our journalism. The leaked excerpt without context or explanation has raised more questions for the public that we must now answer."

"After reviewing our current language guidance, we have decided to adjust it to clarify that direct attribution is not required for describing the historic events of 9/11 as terrorism." 

"We are doing so to remove what has unfortunately (and unintentionally) become an impediment to clarity and public understanding."

"At the same time, as new acts of politically or ideologically motivated violence occur in our world, we will continue to follow the journalistically sound practice of attributing causes and motivations to officials and experts."

Basem Boshra, Senior director of journalistic standards and public trust

 

"America has been carrying Canada for decades, but no longer!"

"The U.S.A. will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada. Without the United States, Canada couldn’t survive — It’s where they get all of their money and, because of their current bad leadership, primarily Governor Carney, and his Flunky, Ford, they will not be allowed to keep taking advantage of the United States — Their key to survival."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"Canada is a country that has under-invested in its military that quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the U.S." 

"We have to remember Canada is a state. Sorry, Freudian slip."

"That was actually an accident."

U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance 

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance delivers remarks in Brewer, Maine, on Aug. 24, 2026.  Anna Moneymaker—POOL/AFP/Getty Images

 

"Fact: Canada has a brave and professional military. It has deployed into combat with us many times, including D-Day."

"Canadian troops, under my NATO command, faced intense fire in Afghanistan where many were killed in action."

"I honour their memory and salute them."

James Stavridis, retired U.S. admiral 

 

"Mr. Secretary [U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy: Canada is 'a country that doesn't have a military'] please stop embarrassing us."

"I served in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2009-2010 alongside Canadian soldiers."

"They were skilled, courageous and effective."

"We were lucky to be on the same side with them."

Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe 

Corporal Brandon Bourdon, 1RCR B COY 4 Platoon, fires an M72 rocket launcher at insurgents that set up an offensive in a grape hut, Kandahar, Afghanistan. Photo: DND AR2010-0320-78

 

Post-U.S./Canada trade negotiations called off a week earlier has brought sarcastically undiplomatic recriminations and insults from both countries, in verbal attacks against one another. New tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods was slapped by Washington on its erstwhile trading partner in a show of strength and bad faith. The trade war has now morphed into a strident war of words, with few holds barred. 

 

President Trump has once again reverted to speaking of the Canadian prime minister as 'governor', presumably of another de facto U.S. state, the 51st such state that Mr. Trump has been dangling before Canada for over a year, mocking Canada's sovereignty and endearing himself in the process to patriotic Canadians. President Trump stated on Monday his intention to increase levies on Canadian cars and automotive parts to 50 percent. Canada's response on retaliatory tariffs arrived a day later, despite U.S. threats not to advance toward retaliation of the punishingly steep U.S. tariff escalation.

 

President Trump is fond of declaring his contempt for Canada's trade offerings, sneering time and again that Canada has nothing that the United States needs or wants. The reality is, the American farming community would be lost without the potash fertilizer it obtains from the world's largest producer of potash -- Saskatchewan -- which provides the U.S. with over 90% of its needed potash. Although few countries produce potash, it is fungible, since Belarus and Russia also produce it, but given relations between the U.S. and those two countries they would be an unlikely alternate source. 

 

The exterior of PotashCorp's (now Nutrien's) Rocanville potash plant near Rocanville, Sask. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Troy Fleece)

 

Canadian gas and crude oil are also exports to the United States that contribute to serving the needs of America. In this new conflict expressed in insults and innuendo, the U.S. vice-president has added his voice to describing Canada as the 51st state. Battleground states for Republicans see themselves struggling in the  upcoming mid-term elections with resentment fuelled by the escalating tariff war. Tariffs are a form of punitive taxation that U.S. citizens recognize is impacting their own costs of living. Border state governors who do ample business with cross-border Canadian provinces are anything but pleased over the impact the tariffs have inflicted them with. 

 

Now, to add to the voices critical of the Trump government's fixation on punishing tariffs imposed on global allies and foes alike, former U.S. national security officials and some Republications are expressing their impressions of embarrassment they feel over the verbal demeaning of an ally and neighbour. The more recent barbs in description of the Canadian military have not sat well in the  regard of high-placed U.S. military members.

 

After musing over renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, The U.S. president proceeded to do just that formally, expunging the Iroquois name of the lake that has long been globally respected and accepted, in exchange for his personal preference. Even conjecturing that he might feel persuaded at a later date to rename both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Clearly, this is a governing administration that has got out of hand. The formal signed-into-law transitioning of Lake Ontario to Lake America was occasioned, stated the president because "we don't expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer". How the two issues are related is beyond comprehension.

 

Donald Trump signs the executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC on Thursday. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

 

Canada, as it happens, deployed some 40,000 troops to Afghanistan over a period of twelve long years, and continues long afterward to mourn the death of 158 of its servicemen and women on the Afghanistan battlefield. As a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, Canada is the closest geographic military partner with the United States. In addition, both share the North American Aerospace Defence Command, a mutual defence organization.  

"I still think imposing new tariffs on Canada is a mistake [that will increase costs for Mainers]."

"We produce a lot in Maine -- our blueberries, our potatoes, our lobster,r our lumber -- that is processed across the border."

"If it comes back with a huge tariff on it ... that increases the cost of eating, building homes, and our best known products."

Republican U.S. senator Susan Collins, Maine 

Hatred and Incitement Target Toronto's Jewish Community

"This kook sounds like a Sacha Baron Cohen parody. But sadly, he is all too real. An avatar of the Islamist-left coalition that is fuelling out-of-control antisemitism, particularly at our universities and colleges."

"Cut funding for these colleges if he is not fired immediately. Charge him with inciting hatred under the Criminal Code. Revoke his visa if he is not a citizen. And hold the college administrators who hired this lunatic to account."

"No more BS from politicians that 'antisemitism has no place in Canada'. It has a large and dangerous place, including in many of our public institutions."

Jason Kennedy, former premier of Alberta 

 

"The British colonizers have planted this cancerous, false Zionist state of Israel in the Palestine and right in the heart of the Muslim countries and right in the heart of Islam."

"This is not coincidence. These Zionists have never had a country of their own, because of their mischief. They are the most kicked-out people in the world, for making black magic and horrible things."

"We can see the corruption crystal-clear in the Epstein island, where they have seduced leaders from all around the world, including Trump. They have raped and killed and ate children at the same time. They have done the unimaginable to blackmail them and control them." 

"That's why you can see now a guy like Trump, who causes genocide in Gaza, kidnaps the president of Venezuela, kills the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may God sanctify his soul, and stays on the throne. It is because of them, the terrorist Zionists."

Abbas Hamze, Pro-Hamas Antisemite extraordinaire  

University instructor “Dr.” Abbas Hamze decided to take time from his busy schedule to make a speech at the Jewish neighborhood of Bathurst & Sheppard where he talked about Jews being kicked out of every country, their “black magic”, and how they rape, kill & eat children. Leviathan

 

This illiterate man with a known hate profile for Jews describes his professional credits on Linked In as: I  have five years of conscientious studies in Electrical Engineering, Master 2 research, and links himself to Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario, an hour's drive from Toronto. With the use of a bullhorn this past weekend he stood prominently with a keffiyeh wrapped around his neck, to promote the good work done by Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shia terrorist group, in opposing Israel's right of existence. 

 

He spouted  his racist slander in a carefully chosen location, the very heart of Toronto's North York Jewish neighbourhood. He was not the only one to do so; many previous Jew-hating groups also chose that location at Bathurst and Sheppard. That location is one that is commercially zoned. Others in the recent past have gone past that location to enter streets of mostly Jewish homes, to march through the streets shouting invective at the home-owners in the community. Activities that are clearly meant to be stopped in their promotion of hate and violence.

 

Eruptions of this nature, particularly targeting university campuses organized by Palestinian groups have been common in Ontario and Quebec and British Columbia since the slaughter of 7 October 2023 in southern Israel by Gaza's Hamas group, sworn to the eradication of Israel. A 'little brother' of the Muslim Brotherhood that has its tentacles world-wide in a vast caliphate scheme to delegitimize and destroy Israel through innuendo, slander, blood libel and threats, Hamas is the violent arm along with Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, while the Brotherhood acts the 'diplomatic' role, subtly instigating virulent antisemitism in a multi-faceted infiltration/disarming role.

 

The past decade has seen Canada swamped with Muslim extremists through immigration, migration intake and refugee claims that the governing Liberal party has seen fit to encourage. The verbal assaults, threats and disorderly conduct exhibited by these Islamists contravene Canadian civil law, but an attitude of care not to contribute to 'Islamophobia' has stifled any governmental or security responses to restore order and civil respect to a country that has allowed itself to fall into a moral swamp of Islamist entitlement; their sheer numbers within the general population convincing politicians of their vote potential. 

 

The Toronto Police Service made it known that it would no longer tolerate the kind of action that allowed this unregenerated Islamist racist to spout his vitriolic fantasies. That they would take immediate action to head off or intercede when such public outrages occur in vulnerable neighbourhoods. After an initial show of doing just that a year ago, the Service appears to have slumped back to their holding position that pairs nicely with Toronto's municipal government's own lethargic-to-absent responses to such events where a deranged mind cab spout utterly incomprehensible absurdities. "Those Israelis on the other side of the street. Your mischief will cause your annihilation, and it is coming soon and as it is prophesied it will be from the north, from the resistance in Lebanon."  

"An individual who is reportedly a university instructor stood in a Jewish neighbourhood and repeated some of the oldest and most vile lies and conspiracy theories about Jews ... These are antisemitic blood libels that have been used for centuries to justify hatred and violence against Jews."

"There must be consequences for those who repeatedly use public demonstrations as cover to spread hatred, incitement and target Toronto's Jewish community."

"Allowing this behaviour to go unchecked is to normalize antisemitism as an everyday feature of life in this city."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs/B'nai Brith Canada/Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre 

Pro-Palestinian protestors gather across from a Hanukkah event on the corner of Bathurst and Sheppard in an earlier event. Photo by Getty Images

 

"The Hate Crime Unit is investigating comments made by a demonstrator in the Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West area over the weekend."

"We are asking anyone who witnessed the incident or has additional information to contact police."

Toronto Police Service 

Friendly Fire Between Neighbours

"On Trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with."

"They feel entitled, and  yet, WE DON'T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!" 

"[Canada is one of the most] entitled [countries to deal with in terms of trade]."

"[Canada] wants the benefits of being a State, without being one." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

 

"As we drilled down, what we discovered was that what our understanding of what had been agreed to was quite different from what was showing up in the documents. When that kind of happens once or twice, it's kind of understandable, but when it happens consistently, and every interpretation is the most negative interpretation [then it] got to a point [where they walked away]."

"That's just something we could not accept [dispute over tariff of medium and heavy vehicles] because we want to protect the existence of an automotive assembly industry in Canada for cars, light trucks, you know, medium trucks and heavy duty trucks."

"We're disappointed. We worked hard, but at the end of the day, the terms that were put forward on a deadline -- that was created by the United States -- it didn't work for us."

"[The U.S.]  has changed its view of economic partnership [and] in the face of that, Canada, among other things, has said that we will look to diversify. So we have to ensure that any agreement we would come to with the United States does not constrain our ability to create trading relationships, open and free trading relationships with other jurisdictions."

"We're just not willing, at the end of the day, to accept terms that were unfair, uneconomic and actually, you know, called into question the reliability of the deal."

"Because you know one of the things that you'd hate to see happen is you agree on something and then, after agreeing to it, it gets undermined."

Mark Wiseman, Canadian ambassador to the United States 

President Trump's notional 'next up'

 

A range of issues contributed to the collapse of the trade talks between the U.S. and Canada. The written text of a potential deal failed to match what the Canadian side believed it had agreed to. Following the collapsed talks when the Canadian delegation walked away from a deal both sides felt would finally be the solution to the awkward, prolonged trade talks between the two neighbours, political and security allies and for the most part, longstanding friendly relationships, the U.S. took steps to apply a punishing 50 percent tariff on some $20 billion in Canadian goods.

 

Canada was faced with little option but to respond in kind, a retaliation that the U.S. warned would cost Canada even more once Canada's move takes effect on September 8. Further escalation of U.S. tariffs is now a certainty, although it remains unclear whether there will be a resumption of negotiations between    the present and the September 8 date. 

 

There was a dispute over tariff treatment of medium and heavy vehicles with the U.S. resisting cutting tariffs, despite Canadian negotiators explaining that they are produced by both General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., automakers with operations in Canada. That balking on reduced tariffs for those vehicles fits right into President Trump's oft-repeated urging for American manufacturing integrated with Canadian counterparts in shared production, be put to a stop, for U.S. companies to withdraw their Canadian presence and return to full manufacturing in the United States.

 

Richmond Plywood Corporation in Richmond, B.C., says it has paused its U.S. sales because importers won't pay the 50 per cent tariffs and the company can't absorb the cost. (Bhavjit Thandi)

 

Another contentious issue for Canada is the heavy tariffs on Canadian steel exports aluminum  and lumber. President Trump is fond of repeating that Canada has nothing that the U.S. needs or wants, but the United States has everything that Canada desires. Canadian electrical energy, oil and liquid natural gas exported to the United States is critical to American energy needs. Without Canadian steel and aluminum and lumber the costs of domestic architecture in the U.S. will deal a blow to U.S. consumers in higher construction costs for houses.

 

U.S. trade negotiators introduced another unexpected item when the demand was made that Canada pedal back on its search for alternative trade and export routes to other countries. Separate trade agreements with other nations to swerve away from total dependence of exporting Canadian goods and services to the United States did not sit well with the Trump administration. Other U.S. trade irritants are issues such as American spirits that are currently black-listed from entry to Canada in a retaliatory move against unfair trade practices that include new and growing tariff inclusions on goods meant to be protected under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement (CUSMA).

 

The federal government is laying out its plan to hit the U.S. with dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs that will impact around 700 different American products.  CTV

 

New issues brought to the negotiating table such as bilingual French-English signage on U.S. exports to Canada have surprisingly cropped up, when for as long as trade has existed between the two countries the two official language requirements for export to Canada have been routine. "It is non-negotiable, in terms of our ability to protect - and to not just protect, but to be able to enhance and grow the French language in Canada, in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. Those that want to do business in Canada, be it digital or anything else, must respect that fundamental reality", observed Ambassador Wiseman. 

 

President Trump's constant goading of Canada, referring to the nation as the 51st State, calling its prime ministers 'governors', his AI-assisted videos with the U.S. flag superimposed over the northern half of North America, his complaints that Canadians for some unknown reason don't care for his style, have not endeared him to the Canadian public. As a result of the new U.S. tariffs imposed on Canada, 87,000 Canadian jobs have been placed at risk and the Canadian unemployment rate bloat to 6.8.

 

Canada is prepared to respond with counter tariffs on U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, electronics and other products. Canada's economy will be hurt, and it won't take very much longer before the American economy too will feel the pain. Canada exported $454 billion in goods and services to the U.S. last year, much of it in energy, while importing $426 billion, according to U.S. Commerce Department data. 

 

"We're going to need a suite of programs, probably not unlike we did through the COVID era, to support working people and the industries that they depend on", observed Lana Payne, national president of Unifor, representing workers in the automotive as well as other sectors in Canada. 

 

"The last thing we need right now, as our economy is getting back on its feet, is a trade war with Canada". opined former Trump earlier administration vice-president Mike Pence. 

 

Ottawa announced new support support for workers and businesses facing U.S. tariffs. CTV

 

"[Some universities] failed to do the proper due diligence."

"We see now that he was not completely honest and he clearly did have frailties and failings. But he was teed up by a number of academic institutions because they desperately wanted a wunderkind."

"They desperately wanted to play on the fact he was young and Black and good-looking, and they wanted him to be their poster child."

James Cleverly, Black member of Parliament 

 

"[Rather than trumpeting Arday's position as the university's youngest-ever Black professor Cambridge] could quietly have nurtured his talents and sorted out his problems, which were surely those of a young man out of his depth rather than a brazen impostor."

"It was the university, not the press, which was obsessed [with the colour of Arday's skin."

Charles Moore, former editor, Daily Telegraph

 

"Academic plagiarists don't usually make headlines, but Arday was not any old academic."

"He was publishing a high-profile memoir with celebrity blurbs ... He had chosen the spotlight."

Sarah Ditum, Times of London

Superstar academic Jason Arday, Guardian

 In 2023 Cambridge University announced they had hired their youngest Black professor in the history of that grandest of academic institutions in Britain. Glowing with pride that they weren't too grand to welcome aboard a prodigy who just happened to be a young Black man with a self-confessed misfortune of ill health as a child, yet managed to overcome all odds to become what he presented himself as more latterly, an over-achiever whose accomplishments in sports and cerebral functioning were truly heroic.

 

Unfortunately his tenure at Cambridge came to an embarrassingly abrupt cessation. After three years of adulation as a Black Cambridge professor, hired as such at age 37, scandalous charges began to erupt, thanks to the efforts of a former Cambridge researcher who had balked with rage over the diversity agenda that had overtaken Cambridge. From his new perch in the Australian halls of academia, Nathan Cofnas announced evidence of plagiarism in Professor Arday's PhD thesis.

 

Cambridge's vaunted "respected scholar" who focused on developing representation of Black, Asian and other minorities in higher education had stumbled and toppled off his pedestal. The young man who asserted having been born with a form of autism spectrum disorder, affecting him with an inability to vocalize until he reached 11 years of age, speedily obtaining reading and writing skills several years later, stewed for weeks in media reports that claimed all of this to be fiction.

 

The focus of British universities on the hiring of academics representing racial and ethnic minority groups in a virtuous dedication to seeing their faculties reflect the characteristics of their greater presence in the evolved Britain that immigration, refugee and migrant intake had resulted in, arrived at a thudding obstacle. A setback for their program of hiring academics from racial and ethnic minorities in a Britain sensitive to the new faces stippling its population.

 

The feeding frenzy of the news media in analyzing Professor Arday's thesis, questioning his claims of having run 30 marathons in 35 days and raising $5.5 million pounds for charity all came under deep scrutiny. Professor Arday's memoir, "Great and Unfortunate Things" published only two weeks earlier, fed the race to debase the claims made by this man caught up in a maelstrom of defamation.

 

While Cambridge initially supported their Black prodigy, the scorn was just too much to bear for that august institution. If they melted under the heat of media publishing hundreds of debunking stories, it can only be imagined the desolation and despair that overtook young Jason Arday, helplessly seeing his world crumble at his feet. He resigned the very day that Cambridge stated it would open an investigaton in view of "new information" received about their young professor's "qualifications".

 

Simon Baron-Cohen, director of Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre warned that the focus of the media on a "vulnerable autistic man" rasied "safeguarding issues", which resonated with large segments of the population, who signed an open letter for the government to commission a public enquiry into the role the media played in dismissing and denigrating a socially and psychologically vulnerable man.

 

Social activist Patrick Vernon wrote that people should remember Jason Arday as a husband and father and not how the headlines portrayed him. I was his initiative that created a GoFundMe campaign to assist Arday's family after he committed suicide in a state of despair and humiliation. Dead at age 41, his life story, his dignity, his accomplishments reduced to lies that led others to believe he was what he imagined himself to be, not as he truly was. He has paid the ultimate price from an unforgiving public. 

 

Alamy

 

"He's not the prime minister of this country. He's not a current secretary of the civil service or local government or the [National Health Service]."

"But he was treated at the same standard, which is outrageous."

This [GoFundMe campaign] tells you that Britain still cares about justice, they care about inequalities."

"And more importantly, they really want to support Jason and his family in their hour of need."

Sir Patrick Vernon, British social commentator, social activist

"The consequences of this conflict are already being felt here."

"In 2025, Jewish people were the target of approximately 72 percent of police-reported hate crimes in Canada motivated by religion."

"Jewish schools in Montreal have been shot at, Jewish people have been assaulted, synagogues have been attacked, and antisemitism has manifested itself in academic and professional settings through intimidation, threats and exclusion."

Open letter to Montreal city council

 

"[It] is appalling to see the official opposition at city council, for the second time in a few months, try to preserve political capital by calling on Montreal to cut ties with Israel."

"The motion is perplexing as it offers no solutions and fails to advance any debate."

"Worse, it adds fuel to the fire and risks jeopardizing the safety of the Jewish community. And thousands of Montrealers spoke out against this motion in June."

Op-ed, Montreal Gazette 

The motion, proposed by Projet Montréal in June, has been pushed back to the city council meeting on August 24. Photo Samuel Kayll

 

On June 4, the Montreal municipal council's opposition Projet Montreal called on the city to suspend institutional ties with the government of Israel, its institutions and municipalities. That would result in Israeli state representatives not being invited to official city hall events "until Israel returns to its internationally recognized borders, ceases its violations of the rights of Palestinian people and ends its violations of international law", according to the motion. The motion calls on the city to "recognize and denounce the apartheid regime in Palestine and the genocide being perpetrated there", urging the city to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians along with other civilian victims in Southwest Asia and North Africa.

This is a motion devoid of logic and purpose. The internationally recognized borders have as yet not been formally fully identified. This lopsided, one-sided motion mentions nothing of Israel's forced constant vigilance against Palestinian terrorism targeting Israeli citizens in deadly attacks. Palestinian rights to have its leaders negotiate with Israeli leaders to conditions appealing to both sides that would result in the formal recognition of a Palestinian state in exchange for a formal Palestinian recognition of the Israeli state have never been violated. Each attempt by Israel to persuade Palestinian leaders to accept Israel's sovereignty has failed.

As for the motion's confusion in denouncing 'the apartheid regime in Palestine' when it mean its target to be Israel, it was a felicitous reality reached by accident, for it is the Palestinian Territories that in effect and in real time are true apartheid regimes; no Jew would ever be able to live freely among Palestinians who have been taught to loathe their presence and react with deadly violence. Whereas in Israel, there are two million Palestinian Arabs who have Israeli citizenship, are able to vote, have representatives in the Knesset, are appointed judges, and work alongside Israeli Jews in academia, medical institutions and other key civil areas. 

 

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations at Quebec universities  universityaffairs.ca

 

"I am not going to debate a war on the other side of the world, and that is exactly the point. A municipal government has no jurisdiction over foreign policy. Cities do not end wars."

"This city has been a safe haven for my family and so many others, and it must remain one for everyone."

Shopify president Harley Finkelstein

 

"[B'nai Brith] continues to advocate against the so-called anti-Apartheid motion being proposed by Projet Montreal."

"The motion is a one-sided invective that unduly targets Israel. It is unacceptable for this unreasonable and irresponsible motion to be passed while Canada is experiencing a national crisis of antisemitism."

Paola Samuel, B'nai Brith spokesperson  

One of Montreal's most prominent and successful entrepreneurs, Harley Finkelstein, deplores the motion, writing that he is "speaking up because this motion is dangerous for Montreal, and my reason has nothing to do with which side of that w are you are on". His family, he recounts arrived in Montreal as refugees in 1956. The city, he wrote, gave them "safety dignity and the chance to build. That promise has drawn generations of immigrants here from every corner of the world".

 

Condemnation of the motion before Montreal council took the form of an open letter when Montreal's legal and medical communities stated that the motion "goes far beyond an expression of solidarity with Palestinian civilians. It asks Montreal ... to declare that a 'genocide' is underway',", while urging the city to suspend ties with the Israeli government. Lawyers point to the legality of the proposed measure falling within the powers conferred on the city by the provincial legislature; city councils do not determine international law.

 

To parallel the advocacy efforts, an opinion piece was published in the Montreal Gazette by the senior vice-president (Quebec) at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Eta Yudin, along with Yair Szlak, president and CEO at Federation CJA. Pointing out the absurdity of the motion's thesis, while its slanderous accusations pose a real risk to the security of the Montreal Jewish community which has received far more of its share of aggravated harassment and threats than rational reality can account for.  

"Montreal can acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians and Israeli civilians, call for respect for international law, and recognize Hamas's responsibility, and the realities Israel has faced since October 7."

"It does not need to enshrine legally contested allegations in a resolution or lay the groundwork for an institutional, economic or cultural boycott that exceeds its powers and threatens rights protected by our Charter."

Open letter to Montreal city council 

Council meets at city hall in Montreal on June 15. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette

  

"Since the 2023 attack on Israel, hatred and violence against the Quebec Jewish community have skyrocketed. Synagogues and schools were targeted, and citizens were insulted and dehumanized. The latest hate crime statistics from the Montreal police and across the country are damning. Jews, representing less than one per cent of the population, are the No. 1 targets of hate."

"Meanwhile, a radical fringe element is taking advantage of political laxity to impose an agenda contrary to Quebec’s shared values. Given the ties forged during the last municipal election campaign, some have seemingly succeeded in advancing an agenda that rejects living together. By giving in to these pressures, Projet Montréal and its elected officials are only undermining cohesion among our communities."

"As the Aug. 24 city council meeting approaches, Projet Montréal’s reintroduction of its divisive and incendiary anti-Israel motion, which is written in a haphazard, unnuanced and biased manner, once again appears more like a political manoeuvre than a genuine desire to serve Montrealers."

Eta Yudin and Yair Szlak, Special to Montreal Gazette