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Archpriest Cornell Zubritsky sometimes hears the loud wailing of air raids thousands of kilometres away in Ukraine. The sirens screech from the cellphones of congregants at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Edmonton.“A lot of them have the air raid siren app on their phones here in Canada, and it will go off. They do that so that if it’s their city, they get on the phone immediately to see if their relatives are OK,” Zubritsky said in a recent interview.“For them, this is real. And then it makes it real for me because they’re connected. They are fighting the war every day.”Zubritsky said most of his 150-person congregation are immigrants from Ukraine. The church’s membership declined during the COVID-19 pandemic but has grown again with families from Ukraine. ...

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday he would be ready to give up the presidency if doing so would achieve a lasting peace for his country under the security umbrella of the NATO military alliance. Speaking at a forum of government officials in Kyiv marking the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said, “If to achieve peace, you really need me to give up my post, I’m ready.”Responding to a journalist’s question on whether he’d trade his office for peace, Zelenskyy said, “I can trade it for NATO.”His comment appeared to be aimed at recent suggestions by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that elections should be held in Ukraine despite Ukrainian legislation prohibiting them during martial law.Earlier on Sun...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for Canada to become the 51st state aren’t being echoed by other Republicans in Washington, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. says, though Trump’s allies aren’t disavowing the president’s rhetoric either. Ambassador Kirsten Hillman says her private conversations with members of the Trump administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill remain focused on building the Canada-U.S. relationship under Trump and showing progress on border security in order to avoid looming tariffs.“For me here in Washington, (Canada’s sovereignty) almost never comes up in the substantive conversations that I’m having with the White House,” Hillman told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.“People aren’t going to be contradicting their pres...

Presumed Liberal leadership front-runner Mark Carney faces a major test Monday in Montreal, when he and his rivals square off in person for the first time in a French-language debate. Carney is new to federal politics and his performance will be under the microscope. He’ll have to prove to Liberals that he can think on his feet in French — and since he has the most to lose, he’s expected to spend most of his time on defence.“Especially after his inaugural speech in Edmonton, some people criticized his French, saying it was not that good. He does speak French, there is no question about it, but I think it will be a test for him,” said Daniel Béland, political science professor and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.“People will be listening very carefully, especially p...

With Canadians – and even Quebecers – rallying around the flag in the face of threats from the Trump administration, the sovereigntist Parti Québécois is struggling to find its footing. The Quebec opposition party has been leading in the polls for more than a year, and leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to hold a third referendum by 2030 if his party forms government in next year’s election.But U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs and annexation have shaken up the political landscape in Quebec. Support for independence is suddenly lower than it has been in years, raising questions about whether the PQ needs to pivot away from sovereignty.For now, the party insists it’s staying the course. “We believe it’s something that inspires Quebecers to have people who are faithf...

Alternative for Germany appears to be headed for the strongest showing by a far-right party since World War II in Sunday’s national election and is fielding its first candidate to lead the country. Other parties say they won’t work with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, and co-leader Alice Weidel has no realistic chance of taking the country’s top job. But AfD has become a factor other politicians can’t ignore and has helped shape Germany’s debate on migration.It has also become prominent outside Germany. The party has won enthusiastic support from Elon Musk, as well as attention from U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.AfD first entered Germany’s national parliament eight years ago on the back of discontent with the arrival of large n...