Free Republic

WASHINGTON—High-stakes trade negotiations between Canada and the U.S. were dramatically upended on Friday morning by inflammatory secret remarks from President Donald Trump, after the remarks were obtained by the Toronto Star. In remarks Trump wanted to be “off the record,” Trump told Bloomberg News reporters on Thursday, according to a source, that he is not making any compromises at all in the talks with Canada — but that he cannot say this publicly because “it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal.” In a remark he did not want published, U.S. President...

Toronto Police Superintendant Rob Johnson said there was an altercation between groups of men in Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall and one of them fired a handgun at least twice. “Nobody was hit,” he said. Johnson said two people suffered minor injuries while trying to flee the mall. Police said they were looking for multiple suspects, including two men in their 20s, and said one had a handgun. The mall was on lockdown and nobody was being let in. Police said the incident happened in the east side of the mall and were looking for witnesses and video. Hundreds of people milled...

A former private security guard sentenced Wednesday to four years in jail for manslaughter claims that years of involuntary celibacy left him so frustrated he stomped a man to death two summers ago. Sheldon Bentley was employed as a security guard at the Lucky 97 grocery store in central Edmonton on July 31, 2016, when he and his partner encountered a man sleeping in an alcove off the alley behind the store at 107th Avenue and 97th Street. Bentley stomped on Donald Doucette, 51, who died within minutes from massive internal bleeding. At the sentencing hearing, a forensic psychiatrist and...

After days of speculation that a bilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been reached between the United States and Mexico, the Mexican president-elect insisted on bringing Canada into the deal. On Monday, Mexico and the U.S. announced a deal to change the 25-year old trade pact, with Canada pressured to sign on by Friday. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will take office on Dec. 1, made the comments during his speech before an event in the Mexican state of Chiapas. He said it was important that Canada was part of the deal.

VANCOUVER - Claire Dooley was 13 when climate change first hit home. It was 2015, and the first year she saw the wildfire smoke blanketing her Vancouver neighbourhood. “It was scary to look outside and see the smoke invading my childhood memories,” she said. “It’s everywhere in my hometown and the place I grew up, where all my childhood memories are - it’s almost claustrophobic.” Now 16, Dooley has been increasingly worried about the changing climate, fearing the world may be completely different only a few years from now when she embarks upon adulthood. “I think in today’s world of...

OTTAWA - Provinces that don't get on board with the federal Liberals' plan to deal with climate change, including putting a price on pollution, will forfeit their share of a $2-billion federal fund, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says. The Liberals find themselves with multiple provinces opposing aspects of the plan, from new clean fuel standards to carbon pricing through a tax or cap and trade. McKenna said no one should question the government's commitment to combating climate change and the pan-Canadian plan it unveiled shortly after taking office in late 2015. "There's no backing away from climate change," McKenna said...

... Turning to labor standards, I find nothing in the TPP that comes close to the 75 percent regional auto content, including parts, up from about 62.5 percent under NAFTA. TPP’s auto content rules were set at 45 percent, meaning most of the value of a vehicle could be sourced from China and still have obtained TPP treatment. An even greater standards improvement is the requirement in the U.S.-Mexico deal for $16 an hour pay for 45 percent of auto-production content and 40 percent of auto parts content; that’s about four times what Mexican auto parts workers currently make and...

OTTAWA — Shortly after his election in late 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared “Canada is back,” promising a renewed Canadian presence on the world stage. Trudeau has taken political hits since then for minor lapses, such as a luxury family holiday visit to a Caribbean island and an ill-fated trip to India, but his biggest challenge, just a year before Canadians go to the polls, has come from the leader of Canada’s longtime military ally and economic partner. Now, Canadians worried that their government has been sidelined in crucial trade talks and may be forced to back down on...

Trudeau asks Canadian government to study full ban on handguns and assault weapons © Getty Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ordered a study of a potential full handgun and assault weapons ban in his country. Trudeau ordered Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair to conduct the study with Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale in a mandate letter, according to CBC News. “You should lead an examination of a full ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada, while not impeding the lawful use of firearms by Canadians,” the letter stated. The letter also outlines other new...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada’s top trade negotiator joins her Mexican and U.S. counterparts in Washington on Tuesday in a bid to remain part of a trilateral North American trade pact, as U.S. officials expressed optimism a deal could be reached this week. Ottawa is under pressure to accept new terms on auto trade and dispute settlement rules after the United States and Mexico agreed on Monday to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland rejoins the year-long talks following a hiatus of several weeks as the United States and Mexico ironed out outstanding bilateral...

"We called the White House and they acted swiftly on the Friday event, which has since been postponed," said a staff member for Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who complained that the event would have openly undermined President Donald Trump’s agenda on Cuba."The event in question has been postponed," a State Department official confirmed."This (event) was designed to embarrass the president and Pompeo—somebody needs to be held to account," one source said. "The fact that State Department officials were advancing a program that is so slanted and completely at odds with the president's directive on Cuba, I am concerned what...

May 28, 2014 - 06:02 PMInvestment_U Back in January, I wrote a column explaining the supply-demand squeeze in nickel. One way I suggested to play the nickel squeeze, the iPath Dow Jones-AIG Nickel Total Return Sub-Index ETN (NYSE: JJN), is up 38% from my recommendation. Did you buy that fund? Well, if you didn't, there's no need to kick yourself. The nickel run isn't over. In fact, if anything, the supply/demand squeeze powering nickel's surge is likely to get stronger. The biggest user of nickel is China. Nickel is used to make stainless steel, and China makes a lot of...

Thank you, President Trump! The stock market is soaring, thanks to Trump’s announcement that the U.S. and Mexico have reached a trade deal! CNBC Stocks jumped on Monday as the United States and Mexico closed a new trade deal. Investors also digested reassuring comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on the central bank's policy-tightening path. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 260 points as Caterpillar outperformed. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1 percent to an all-time high, breaking above 8,000 for the first time, as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet rose. The S&P 500 gained 0.8 percent to hit a...

The United States and Mexico are expected on Monday to announce that they have reached a preliminary deal on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). U.S. and Mexican trade negotiators worked through the weekend and were meeting again on Monday morning at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to complete the deal on key provisions of the agreement. The next step is bringing Canada back into the talks to complete the modernization of the 24-year-old three-nation pact. President Trump has called NAFTA "the worst trade deal ever made" and said he would fix it so the United States...

Delegates from the Conservative party of Canada, the country’s opposition party, approved during its policy convention over the weekend a resolution recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel. The resolution, which received overwhelming support, endorses the moving of Canada’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if the Conservative party wins the general elections in 2019 and heads the next government. Earlier this year, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said his party would follow the U.S. lead and recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. …

... One of the occupational hazards of this line of work is that at a certain point you've seen it all before. For example, not many people outside the United Kingdom retain any memory of Gordon Brown, Tony Blair's woeful and short-lived successor as prime minister. Mr Brown led the Labour Party to defeat in the 2010 election. Here's what I had to say about it at the time: The official "defining moment" of the campaign was Gordon Brown's unguarded post-photo-op dismissal of Gillian Duffy as a "bigoted woman." Mrs. Duffy, a plain-spoken working-class granny and lifelong Labour voter, had...

President Donald Trump says the United States is close to a “big Trade Agreement” with Mexico and he’s citing improving ties between the two countries. […] He’s spoken of better relations with America’s neighbor following the rise of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The U.S. and Mexico have been discussing a trade deal as part of negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Trump administration is seeking a revised version of that trade deal with Mexico and Canada. …

When birds sing outside your window at dawn, they’re responding to internal clocks set to daily and annual rhythms. But what happens when climate change interferes with these clocks, putting the survival of species, potentially even humans, at risk? “Biological clocks — daily and annual timing — is found in every organism, from gut bacteria to worms, algae, plants, and all of the animals,” Vincent Cassone, a professor and chair of the department of biology at the University of Kentucky, said. “There’ll be winners and losers,” said Cassone, noting this is also a cautionary tale for human survival. “Climatic changes...

OTTAWA — A new holiday is coming to your calendar, one that will mark the dark legacy of Canada’s residential school system. In its ongoing pursuit of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, the Trudeau government is consulting First Nations, Métis and Inuit groups to create a new “national day” to honour those who attended the infamous church-run schools, where tens of thousands of children were indoctrinated into the languages and religions of Canadian settler society after being taken from their families. Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said his organization has pushed for a national holiday to...

766 babies were born alive after late-term abortions in Canada between 2013 and 2018 and presumably left to die. But data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) on what exactly happened to these infants, or why there are so many born-alive late-term abortions, is not available, pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney reported Friday on Run With Life. “All information regarding the reasons they happen, and what happens to the child after they are born alive, is anecdotal,” Maloney said. The numbers are likely higher than CIHI reported because the statistics exclude Quebec, Maloney wrote. Maloney released the statistics as...