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Canada’s ambassador to the United States said her team in Washington has continued to communicate with American officials since U.S. President Donald Trump said he was terminating trade talks. “I have had exchanges here with a number of my contacts in the administration. My team has also been having contacts,” said Kirsten Hillman, who appeared by video in front of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa Wednesday.Hillman, who also serves as Canada’s top negotiator with the U.S., said over the past five days her people have been in touch with officials in the White House, the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Energy.The conversations are not expressly on the trade negotiations, she added, because peop...

The head of Stellantis told MPs Wednesday the automaker is committed to maintaining production in Canada and supporting Canadian autoworkers, but that expanding investment will require more trade “certainty.” Stellantis president Jeff Hines told the House of Commons industry committee the decision to move planned production from Brampton, Ont., to the U.S. announced this month was “not taken lightly,” but acknowledged U.S. tariffs had upended its business strategy.He said laid-off Brampton workers are getting priority placement at Stellantis’ new battery production plant in Windsor — a project supported by nearly $15 billion in federal subsidies — and transfer opportunities to other Stellantis plants “wherever possible.”Workers will also see extended benefits as the company works on provid...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders in Congress said it’s all or nothing on Wednesday as they rejected a Democratic push to carve out funding to continue food aid for more than 40 million Americans who stand to lose it as part of the government shutdown. Democrats have repeatedly voted against reopening the government as they demand that Republicans negotiate with them to extend expiring health care subsidies. But they pushed for expedited approval of legislation to continue funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in the meantime.“It’s simple, it’s moral, it’s urgent,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said as he called for passage of the SNAP funding Wednesday.Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., angrily objected to the Democratic request, calling i...

A coalition of Alberta unions is set to announce steps to fight the use of the notwithstanding clause in Alberta. On Wednesday, Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan will speak on behalf of the Alberta labour movement in response to Bill 2, the Back to School Act, and the invocation of the notwithstanding clause by the provincial government this week.Global News will livestream that 1:30 p.m. MT presser at the top of this story.The notwithstanding clause — or Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — gives provincial legislatures or Parliament the ability, through the passage of a law, to override certain portions of the Charter for up to five years.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the strike — the largest in Alberta history — was causing irreparable harm and the g...

ATLANTA (AP) — There may be no rank-and-file Democratic senator with more at stake from the federal government shutdown than Georgia’s Jon Ossoff. He is the party’s only senator who is seeking reelection next year in a state that Republican Donald Trump won in 2024, and any chance that Democrats may have in regaining Senate control depends on Ossoff holding the seat. As the second-longest shutdown in history drags on and Democrats insist on extending expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies beyond year’s end, more people in Georgia than most other states are likely to lose health insurance if the tax credits go away.Ossoff, like other Democrats, is betting that stand is sound policy and good politics, too.“Georgians don’t want their health insurance premiums to skyrocket, and they want the f...