Politics

John Davidson has difficulty remembering the last time Wayne Gretzky visited his childhood home across the street in this small city a couple hours’ drive southwest of Toronto. The modest home with a one-car garage in a quiet residential neighborhood remains in the family, but the Great One’s visits have been fewer and farther between, especially since his beloved father Walter died in 2021. The backyard ice rink where Gretzky developed his generational talent has since been replaced by a pool.Now 85, Davidson still chases away the occasional curiosity seeker, a far cry from the days when busloads of children would pull up, or the time Wayne and his wife Janet showed up with an entourage, three limousines strong. The retired steelworker then lowered his hand to his knee to indicate how lon...

Markham-Unionville Liberal candidate Paul Chiang says he’s stepping aside in the federal election following his comments that a political opponent should be turned over to Chinese officials in return for a bounty, as the RCMP confirmed Monday evening they’re looking into the matter. Chiang announced his exit late Monday night on social platform X, saying as the prime minister and Team Canada work to stand up to U.S. President Donald Trump and protect the economy, “he doesn’t want there to be distractions.”Please see my statement below. pic.twitter.com/12P50tir4X— Paul Chiang (@PaulChiangMU) April 1, 2025 Story continues below advertisement The Liberal incumbent made the remarks about Conservative candidate Joe Tay three months ago at a press conference with Ch...

By Staff The Associated Press Posted April 1, 2025 7:50 am 2 min read Descrease article font size Increase article font size A top European Union official warned the U.S. on Tuesday that the world’s biggest trade bloc “holds a lot of cards” when it comes to dealing with the Trump administration’s new tariffs and has a good plan to retaliate if forced to. U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to roll out taxes on imports from other countries on Wednesday. He says they will free the U.S. from reliance on foreign goods.He’s vowed to impose “reciprocal” tariffs to match the duties that other countries charge on U.S. products, d...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-promised “reciprocal” tariffs are set to be unveiled Wednesday, adding further uncertainty to the Canadian economy and global trade with the U.S. Many unknowns remain on the new policy, which Trump has taken to calling “Liberation Day” for the U.S., including what rates the tariffs will be at and whether Canada could see some relief.Trump and his administration also appear to have different views on how broad the policy will be. He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that “all countries” will face the new tariffs — at least at first — after his top economic adviser Kevin Hassett suggested earlier this month they would focus on 10 to 15 countries with the worst trade imbalances.A new set of tariffs would further rattle Canadian industries that re...

Former Liberal MP Han Dong will not seek re-election after he says the party told him that they’d be running another candidate. Dong, the independent member for Don Valley North, says he’s “disappointed” that he won’t be running in the upcoming contest, but said he didn’t want to split the vote in the safely Liberal riding to give the party its best shot at winning.Dong stepped away from the Liberal caucus on March 22, 2023, after Global News, citing unnamed national security sources, published alleged details about his interactions with the Chinese consulate in Toronto. Dong reportedly had discussions with his party about returning to caucus since June 2023.“As many of you know, I had no choice but to leave the Liberal caucus about two years ago to try and clear my name in response to fal...

A world-renowned Canadian doctor says her talk at New York University (NYU) was cancelled for being anti-government. Dr. Joanne Liu, an associate professor at McGill and the Université de Montréal, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Sainte-Justine hospital and who formerly served as the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), told Global News she was left stunned after her scheduled lecture at NYU was abruptly cancelled by the university last week.She said her lecture was going to discuss humanitarian aid in a time of crises as well as the challenges aid workers have faced in Gaza and other war zones.Her presentation was also going to address the recent cuts to foreign aid, notably USAID, by President Trump‘s administration.“[I was told] that...

As the second week of the federal campaign gets underway, the Liberals and NDP were touting housing promises from the campaign trail while Conservatives focused on plans for an energy corridor. Liberal Leader Mark Carney says his government would double Canada’s rate of residential construction housing over the next decade to nearly 500,000 new homes per year.The plan announced Monday would create a new federal housing entity that the Liberals say would oversee affordable housing construction, speed up construction and provide financing to homebuilders.Carney said the new agency, Build Canada Homes, would act as a developer to build affordable housing at scale, including housing on public lands, and would develop and manage projects.He said the “lean, mission-driven organization” would pro...

Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney is facing growing calls to remove an Ontario candidate from running in the federal election after he told people at a news conference they could claim a foreign bounty on another candidate by bringing the individual “to Toronto’s Chinese consulate.” Paul Chiang, who is seeking re-election as the candidate for the Markham-Unionville riding, apologized last week for comments he made in January about Joe Tay, a Conservative candidate for Don Valley North, who had a bounty placed on him by Hong Kong police last December.The Toronto Association for Democracy in China said in a news release that Chiang told Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao at a news conference three months ago that everyone at the event could claim the bounty “if you bring him to Toronto’s Chi...

A French court on Monday barred Marine Le Pen from seeking public office for five years, with immediate effect, for embezzlement — a hammer blow to the far-right leader’s presidential hopes and an earthquake for French politics. Although Le Pen can appeal the verdict, such a move won’t suspend her ineligibility, which could rule her out of the 2027 presidential race.The court ruling was a political as well as a judicial temblor for France, hobbling one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and final term, scheduled to last into 2027.Le Pen herself wasn’t around to hear the chief judge pronounce the sentence that threw her career into a tailspin. By then, she’d already strode out of the courtroom, when the judge first indicated that Le Pen w...

By Jim Bronskill The Canadian Press Posted March 31, 2025 8:18 am 1 min read Descrease article font size Increase article font size The second week of the federal election campaign is underway, with a fresh round of U.S. tariffs expected to soon reverberate on the hustings. Eyes are turning to Wednesday when U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to slap “reciprocal tariffs” on countries including Canada over various alleged trade practices.Liberal Leader Mark Carney has stressed the need for Canada to fundamentally reimagine its economy in response to Trump’s steady stream of levies and threats of annexation.Speaking as prime ...