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Ottawa is reviewing its defence spending plans “from top to bottom,” Defence Minister David McGuinty said Thursday, as Canada comes under pressure from allies to ramp up spending to levels not seen since the height of the Cold War. McGuinty said the federal government will have more to say “very soon” about its alliance spending commitments and will be “making announcements in this regard.”“Canada is revisiting all of its expenditures presently, from top to bottom,” he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.“Just recently, our prime minister announced a $6 billion new effort to secure our Arctic, Canada’s Arctic. So we’re working very hard now with colleagues to implement a series of changes. We’ll have much more to say about that financially in very short order.”McGuinty is in Be...

Canada has introduced legislation that would expand on who can become a Canadian citizen on the basis of descent, saying holding citizenship “lies at the heart of what it means to be Canadian.” The federal government introduced Bill C-3 on Thursday, which it says will extend citizenship by descent beyond the first generation.The new bill tackles issues that surrounds Canada’s current first-generation limit.Under that limit, a child born outside the country to a parent also born or adopted by a Canadian citizen while not in Canada does not receive citizenship upon birth, even though the grandparent was from Canada. While the parent could receive citizenship, their child could not.Bill C-3 would change that, the government says, by automatically giving Canadian citizenship to anyone who woul...

Darren Robinson had some very important news to tell U.S. president George Bush and José María Aznar, the prime minister of Spain: the pro shop was open. Aznar had told Robinson, general manager of the Kananaskis Country Golf Club in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, that he wanted to visit it.True to his word, Robinson walked over to the two world leaders on a patio and interrupted their conversation.“What was probably only 10 seconds felt like 10 minutes,” Robinson recalled of the G8 leaders’ summit in 2002 in Kananaskis.He said the pair paused their discussion, and Bush waved over British prime minister Tony Blair. The four then talked about golf, running, the mountains, as the other leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, chatted ahead of a dinner at the golf club. Story ...

As wildfires continue to devour buildings and force thousands from their homes in Saskatchewan, the Opposition NDP is calling on Premier Scott Moe to ask for help from the military. NDP Leader Carla Beck, in a letter to Moe Thursday, questioned what the premier was waiting for.“Every available resource in our country must be deployed to fight these fires. We cannot afford to leave help on the table,” Beck wrote.“I still remember the wildfires of 2015 and then-premier Brad Wall’s decision to bring in the military and call for a co-ordinated national response.”Moe has not ruled out asking for federal aid but has said Saskatchewan does not need Ottawa’s assistance.Provincial fire officials say the abilities of federal firefighters are limited and usually only brought in to battle blazes that ...

Descrease article font size Increase article font size The Canadian Steel Producers Association and union group leaders are visiting Ottawa on Thursday to “urge” the federal government to respond to higher steel and aluminum tariffs from the U.S. with “immediate action.” This comes just after U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on his tariff policy by increasing levies from 25 per cent to 50 per cent on Wednesday, specifically targeting imports of steel and aluminum products.Prime Minister Mark Carney called the escalation “illegal.” 2:00 How will Carney respond to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariff hike? ...