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Populist far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders plunged Dutch politics into turmoil Tuesday by withdrawing his party’s ministers from the ruling coalition in a dispute over a crackdown on migration. The remaining ministers will run a caretaker administration until new elections can be organized. The decision means the Netherlands will have a caretaker government when it hosts a summit of NATO leaders in three weeks.Prime Minister Dick Schoof held an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis and then visited King Willem-Alexander to offer him the resignations of ministers from Wilders’ Party for Freedom.Schoof, a career civil servant who was handpicked by Wilders a year ago to lead the government, said he had repeatedly told coalition leaders in recent days that bringing down the government...

The federal government introduced new legislation Tuesday that aims to both strengthen and streamline the immigration process, including new limits on asylum claims, while also cracking down on cross-border fentanyl trafficking. The proposed bill addresses not only several of the border security priorities highlighted by Prime Minister Mark Carney, but also some of the long-standing complaints voiced by U.S. lawmakers, diplomats and Canadian police organizations.“This new legislation will ensure Canada has the right tools to keep our border secure, combat transnational organized crime and fentanyl, and disrupt illicit financing,” Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree told reporters in Ottawa after tabling the legislation.The minister said he planned to brief U.S. border czar Tom Homan...

The current trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies is expected by many experts to have wide-ranging impacts across the world, including on economic growth and labour markets, and a new report has been released that further highlights this warning. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s latest outlook report outlines its dim forecast for global economies as well as key areas to help revive growth.The group of 38 countries changed its outlook to reflect a worse-than-expected path for global economies compared with a previously released report.“In this challenging and uncertain environment, we have downgraded our growth projections,” the report says. “Weakened economic prospects will be felt around the world, with almost no exception. Lower gr...

Government whip Mark Gerretsen insists nothing went wrong Monday evening when opposition parties successfully amended the throne speech to call on the government to table an economic update before Parliament breaks for the summer. The Liberals were defeated 166 to 164 after four Liberal MPs did not vote because of paired abstentions.Paired abstentions happen when parties agree to have a member sit out a vote because someone from another party is not able to attend.Gerretsen told reporters on his way into a cabinet meeting Tuesday morning that everything went according to plan.“Every single person who was supposed to vote yesterday voted,” he said.The amendment, tabled by House of Commons Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer, added a passage to the throne speech calling for a spring economic upd...

Domestic travel is increasing at Canada’s airports, new Statistics Canada travel data shows, while the number of people travelling by air to the U.S. dropped in April. The data released Monday looked at the total number of passengers who passed through pre-board security screening at Canada’s eight largest airports, finding a total of 4.5 million people made their way through those checkpoints, a 3.6 per cent overall increase from April last year.However, the number of those travelling to the U.S. dropped — again — as the U.S. trade war continues.The agency found that of these travellers, 1.1 million were those heading to the U.S., also known as “transborder” traffic.That figure was 5.8 per cent lower than the number seen in the same month last year. Story continues below advertise...