The Globe and Mail - 03.11.2026 — 2026-11-05

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OTTAWA/QUEBEC EDITION ■ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2026 ■ GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

Trump faces potential reckoning as U.S. votes in midterm elections

Gerrymandering efforts, tight margins in key states mean a Democratic wave is far from certain

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U.S. President Donald Trump, in remarks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington on Monday, called Democratic midterm candidates 'communists' and 'jihadists,' but also devoted much of his speech to his renovations of the White House. EVAN VUCCI/REUTERS

ADRIAN MORROW

U.S. CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON

U.S. President Donald Trump is facing a voter reckoning amid anger over gas and grocery prices, his war on Iran and his tariffs on Canadian goods in Tuesday's midterm congressional elections.

Most polling shows the Democrats poised to take control of the House of Representatives from Mr. Trump's Republicans - and possibly the Senate, too - as they look to curb the President's power during his final two years in office.

But a sweeping campaign of gerrymandering, combined with tight margins in key states, means a blue tidal wave is far from certain. And the plethora of voting and counting systems across different states means the final results may not be known for days.

Two years ago, Mr. Trump returned to office promising to lower the cost of living and put an end to U.S. involvement in foreign quagmires, which he called “forever wars.”

Instead, both his war on Iran, which has now dragged on for eight months and caused Tehran to throttle petroleum and fertilizer supplies travelling through the Strait of Hormuz, and his global trade protectionism have pushed prices of key goods even higher.

Canada, one of the main targets of Mr. Trump's tariffs, has played an unusually central role in midterm campaigns. Democrats have slammed the President for launching a trade war against a close ally, and Mr. Trump has tried in recent days to reassure voters that a deal is imminent.

In a speech reopening the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall on Monday, Mr. Trump warned that Democratic midterm candidates are “communists” and “jihadists.” But he spent as much time touting his renovations to the White House, including the ballroom currently under construction, as he did discussing the elections.

For Mr. Trump, maintaining control of Congress is key to avoiding a raft of investigations into accusations that he has used the presidency to enrich himself and his family, which Democrats have signalled they will pursue if they take control of either chamber.

ELECTION, A10

FOLIO Affordability is top of mind for Americans. These seven charts explain why ■ A8

Who is stealing the ashes of Hong Kong celebrities?

JAMES GRIFFITHS

ASIA CORRESPONDENT

HONG KONG

Before sealing her husband's cremated remains behind a large black marble slab, Mary Jean Reimer wrote a note advising any potential grave robbers that there was nothing of value inside.

Her late spouse, Lau Kar-leung, was a renowned Hong Kong martial artist and filmmaker, and Ms. Reimer was worried someone might try to break into the grave for a memento. It never occurred to her that anyone would try to steal the ashes themselves.

"I got a call from the cemetery. They said the police told them Master Lau's ashes had been stolen," she recalled. "At first, I thought it was a joke, because why would anyone want to do that?"

The theft of Mr. Lau's ashes was not an isolated incident, however. According to police and local media reports, the remains of multiple prominent Hong Kongers appear to have been stolen from cemeteries across the city last year, with many thefts only just coming to light, both as a result of ransom demands and mourners noticing evidence of grave tampering.

In October, the family of Cantopop star Anita Mui revealed that her ashes had been missing for at least three months but that police investigations had gone nowhere.

"This incident has caused great distress and mental anguish to Anita Mui's family," they said in a statement, calling on anyone with information to help police "find her ashes as soon as possible so that she can rest in peace."

Amid public outrage, police said they were escalating the case to a dedicated unit, including officers from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau.

■ ASHES, A7

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Former Air Force pilot with ALS urges Ottawa to fund disease research ■ A5

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New Alberta electoral map proposes vast changes to urban ridings

MATTHEW SCACE CALGARY

Alberta's proposed new provincial electoral boundaries would result in major changes to ridings in Calgary and Lethbridge, expanding their footprints into more rural areas, a prospect that drew accusations of gerrymandering when the map was released publicly on Monday.

The chair of the independent panel that created the map dismissed concerns that the proposed boundaries would violate the Constitution. But Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi promised to file a legal challenge if Premier Danielle Smith's government adopts the map, saying the new boundaries would hand an electoral edge to Ms. Smith's United Conservative Party.

Shortly after exiting Question Period, Mr. Nenshi pointed to the U.S.-style practice of manipulating electoral maps to create unfair advantages for a party.

"If the UCP has the nerve to pass this Trump-style, MAGA gerrymandered map, if they have the nerve to cheat to win ... we'll see them in court," Mr. Nenshi said at a news conference after the report containing the map was tabled in the legislature.

A redrawn electoral map has been the subject of intense debate and scrutiny since April when Ms. Smith rejected the proposed boundaries of a first independent commission.

ALBERTA, A17

Toronto police chief defends letting Bridle Path suspect leave hospital

COLIN FREEZE

Toronto's police chief says there was "no failure" when officers did not detain a man in hospital with a gunshot wound who was later identified as a suspect in a violent home invasion that injured a family of four.

The man, who left the hospital, is now the subject of a Canada-wide warrant in connection with the early-morning robbery last Thursday in Toronto's Bridle Path neighbourhood, one of the city's wealthiest areas. Police say masked assailants shot three members of the family and attacked another with a hammer.

Police revealed over the weekend that the suspect ended up in hospital just hours after the attack. Officers confronted the man in hospital but did not detain or arrest him. Investigators say they now believe he was accidentally shot by one of the other home invasion suspects.

Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said the officers could not have detained the man because they lacked evidence and did not know at the time that any of the suspects in the home invasion had a gunshot wound. The man was in the hospital for just a few hours before he was discharged.

TORONTO, A17

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[ COLUMNISTS ]

A Monday news article about reports that Canada and the U.S. are expected to continue trade talks included an incorrect quote from U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking about his recent discussion with Prime Minister Mark Carney. Mr. Trump said: "...we have the concept of a deal that's going to be great for our farmers, great for our country, and it'll be fine for Canada too."

Canada needs to move faster to meet growing global standards on crypto regulation ■ B4

CORRECTIONS

A Monday Opinion article about the coming U.S. midterm elections incorrectly stated that the Republican Party has held majorities in both the House and Senate since January, 2024. The party has held those majorities since January, 2025.

A Saturday Pursuits article about why we feel fear misstated the name of Fredericton's Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital.

The Globe wins four Websters for coverage on Tumbler Ridge shooting, bail reform

TEMUR DURRANI

The Globe and Mail has won four prestigious Jack Webster Awards for work on topics that include extensive coverage of the Tumbler Ridge school shooting, the complexity of bail reform in Canada and the necessity of protecting wilderness in British Columbia.

The accolades, which honour excellence in journalism across B.C., were announced at the ceremony's 40th annual iteration in downtown Vancouver on Monday. Globe journalists were nominated in eight categories and won in four of them, making the publication the leading news outlet at the event two years in a row.

Justine Hunter, The Globe's Victoria-based legislative reporter, received three awards – one as part of a team, and two for her feature stories on environmental protection.

This past February, Ms. Hunter worked alongside a substantial number of Globe staff who mobilized immediately in the aftermath of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

Canadian news outlets have significantly less experience covering deadly gun attacks in schools than their U.S. counterparts. But when violence erupted in the small town tucked in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, The Globe drew on the entirety of its reporters in the B.C. bureau, as well as journalists in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto.

The Tumbler Ridge coverage included exclusive stories with vivid language and meticulous reporting, much of which was published just hours after the shooting – such as a piece on a 12-year-old student who hid in a closet with classmates; how the shooter suffered from crucial mental-health challenges and had a history with psychedelic mushrooms; and details about the disturbing social-media messages that foreshadowed the violence.

The Tumbler Ridge coverage included exclusive stories with vivid language and meticulous reporting, much of which was published just hours after the shooting – such as a piece on a 12-year-old student who hid in a closet with classmates.

For their work on the tragedy, Ms. Hunter and the Globe team of Nathan VanderKlippe, Mike Hager, Andrea Woo, Jana G. Pruden, Tu Thanh Ha and Patrick White took home the prize of Best News Reporting of the Year.

“Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. What is particularly validating is the jurors recognized brave, independent work,” Globe and Mail editor-in-chief David Walmsley said.

Ms. Hunter also won a Webster for her interactive story with visual journalist Jeremy Agius about how a moratorium has mostly kept tankers out of B.C.'s Hecate Strait, though Canada's ambitions to ship oil to new markets could be perilous in what's been called the fourth-most-dangerous body of water in the world.

Additionally, Ms. Hunter's personal expedition retracing the steps of an adventurous 20-year-old woman who helped map the protected Strathcona Provincial Park in the summer of 1910 won for excellence in feature reporting.

Vancouver-based Globe justice reporter David Ebner was awarded the top prize in the legal category for his piece examining Prime Minister Mark Carney's promises toward stricter bail rules.

Despite the apparent political consensus that bail in Canada is too lenient, data show that a record number of people are not being released through that system, Mr. Ebner reported.

Monday's ceremony was co-hosted by CBC journalists Dan Burritt and Jason D'Souza.

Environment-focused publication: The Narwhal received three top honours, one of which was a partnership with the non-profit Investigative Journalism Foundation; while the CBC and IndigiNews, the Indigenous-led online outlet, each won in two categories.

The awards are handed out by the Jack Webster Foundation, named after the influential late reporter from Western Canada. The foundation says its annual celebration is meant to create a community where B.C. journalism thrives.

First Nations court challenges pile up against Carney's Pacific Link pipeline

A pumpjack draws oil from a well head near Longview, Alta. The federal Liberals want the Pacific Link pipeline from the Edmonton area to a port in the Vancouver region built and moving oil by 2032. JEFF McINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Leaders argue Ottawa's plan for the project is unconstitutional after national-interest designation

DAVID EBNER

Indigenous leaders have launched a new volley of court challenges against Prime Minister Mark Carney's push to rapidly approve the Pacific Link oil pipeline, arguing Ottawa failed to adequately consult an array of First Nations.

Two new applications for judicial review, representing nine First Nations, call on the Federal Court to quash Ottawa's declaration of the proposed oil pipeline as a project of national interest.

At a Monday news conference in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, Indigenous leaders asserted that Ottawa's plan is unconstitutional and effectively preapproved the pipeline after cursory talks with some First Nations over three months through the summer.

"It bypasses the meaning of what consultation is," said Terry Teegee, regional chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations. "Other First Nations should all be concerned across this country."

The federal government, at the start of October, announced the national-interest designation for the Pacific Link oil pipeline, from the Edmonton area to a port in the Vancouver region. This plan provides Ottawa's backing at the start of the process and will enable it to grant many necessary and varied permits much more quickly than in the past. It also marked the first such move under the Building Canada Act, a centrepiece of Mr. Carney's work to shift Canada's economy away from the capricious whims of the United States.

The latest court challenges up the stakes against the national-interest designation. In October, Cold Lake First Nations in Alberta filed the first case in Federal Court, focused on inadequate consultation and the related Pathways carbon capture project in the oil sands that Mr. Carney has tied to the Pacific Link pipeline.

The federal Liberals want the Pacific Link review process done by September and the pipeline built and moving oil by

2032, at an estimated cost of about \$40-billion. This is an unprecedented timetable for such major infrastructure work in recent decades and more so echoes pipeline building in the 1950s.

While Mr. Carney aims to transform the Canadian economy in a handful of years, the risk looming over these ambitions has always been legal challenges against the fast-track pipeline review process.

In the 2010s, before the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion was eventually built, setbacks in court because of inadequate Indigenous consultations delayed the plan for years. The legal losses followed former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper's legislative changes to speed pipeline approvals.

As of last year, Canada produced 5.4 million barrels of oil a day – double the output of the mid-2000s when the oil sands boom began. The country is the world's fourth-largest oil producer, with 3.9 million barrels a day going to the United States.

In the federal government's official order on Oct. 1 declaring the Pacific Link pipeline in the national interest, it stated it had "taken into account the concerns" identified in consultations with Indigenous people. It also described "meaningful dialogue" and concluded "Canada has fulfilled the duty to consult, consistent with the honour of the Crown," invoking key pillars of constitutional obligations affirmed in several Supreme Court of Canada rulings.

As Ottawa prioritized Pacific Link, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson acknowledged legal challenges were coming. “Whether they’ll be successful or not is a very different question,” he said on Oct. 1.

Pacific Link would carry a million barrels a day, on the same terrain and with about the same capacity as Trans Mountain.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Le-Blanc said Ottawa had “conducted rigorous consultations” with more than 110 Indigenous communities near or along the potential pipeline route.

"Canada will continue to uphold its duty to meaningfully consult with Indigenous peoples," spokeswoman Eve Loignon-Gi-roux said in a statement.

In the new Federal Court challenges, the Cheam First Nation alleged that “Cabinet erred in law by proceeding without adequate consultation.” The Cheam – located on the Fraser River east of Vancouver near the Trans Mountain pipeline and proposed Pacific Link – filed as an applicant on behalf of itself and seven other First Nations.

"We stand up to hold the Federal Crown accountable," Cheam Chief Michael Victor said. "Our Nation believes in Nation-building but it must treat First Nations as equal constitutional partners."

The Tsartlip First Nation, near Victoria, also announced on Monday that it had filed a Federal Court challenge, stating that Ottawa's Major Projects Office only provided "very general information" about the proposed pipeline and calling the consultation process "defective."

Experts have forecast details of the legal challenges the federal government would face.

In early October before the first legal challenge, University of Calgary law professor David Wright described the Building Canada Act as “experimental deregulation,” a law that had come into force in June “after a virtually unprecedented expedited legislative process.”

The key question is whether Ottawa fulfilled its duty to consult and accommodate each First Nation involved. Prof. Wright cited a 2020 Federal Court of Appeal decision, which Ottawa won, after the Trans Mountain project had been challenged a second time over inadequate Indigenous consultation. The ruling, in its look at meaningful consultation, spoke of “two-way dialogue” that leads to “demonstrably serious consideration of accommodation.”

"How the government will try to achieve this in such an extremely compressed timeframe remains to be seen," Prof. Wright said in his analysis of the goal to complete the Pacific Link review by September. "The term 'mission impossible' comes to mind."

Last week, Dawn Farrell, chief executive officer of Ottawa's Major Projects Office, told MPs on Parliament Hill that her team compiled the concerns of affected First Nations this summer and is still consulting with them. She said she understands some First Nations are critical of the accelerated approval process.

"We haven't been able to show them what our intentions are and we haven't been able to follow through and make sure that the work that we do is as we say it's going to be," Ms. Farrell told a meeting of the standing committee on environment and sustainable development.

With reports from Jeffrey Jones

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA

CELEBRATION OF EXCELLENCE & ENGAGEMENT

NOVEMBER 12-15, 2026

Navigating Doubt: Research in Service of Democracy

NOV 12 | HEIDI TWOREK (KEYNOTE), RSC COLLEGE

The Military Turn in Canada: A Roundtable Discussion

NOV 12 | CYNTHIA MILTON (MODERATOR), FRSC

Second N.S. teen pleads guilty in hazing case

Families of hockey sexual assault victims call pleas an important recognition of the harm experienced by their children

LINDSAY JONES

A second teenaged boy pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon in a Nova Scotia youth court Monday in relation to a violent hockey hazing incident at a team gathering last fall. The boy, now 15, also pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault.

In the Truro courtroom, the teen stood squeezing his eyes open and shut as he leaned down into the microphone and said "guilty" to the three charges read out by Justice Jennifer MacLellan. Family members of the victims listened intently on the opposite side of the courtroom as the details of the violent sexual assault at a team sleepover party were read aloud from the agreed statement of facts.

The identities of the victims and accused cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

In September, the other accused teen, also 15, pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon.

News of the assault struck a chord nationwide as hockey and the sports bodies that regulate it have faced a reckoning in recent years for a culture of silence and toxic masculinity. Hockey Canada, which governs amateur hockey, opened an investigation into the Nova Scotia incident, but the sports body said it is confidential.

The court heard that on the evening of Oct. 3, 2025, the under-15 triple 'A' boys' hockey team gathered at a teammate's house for a team-building and social event in Colchester County, N.S. The gathering had been organized so the more senior players could get to know the rookies.

According to the agreed statement of facts read in court by senior Crown attorney Patrick Young on Monday, the players' parents gathered downstairs, while the boys socialized upstairs in two bedrooms. During the evening, a 13-year-old rookie player was lying on a bed face down on his stomach, scrolling on his phone when two older players, who were 14 at the time, pinned him down and immobilized him. They pulled down his pants and underwear and exposed his buttocks. The co-accused approached the rookie with the view of "initiating" him as a "full-fledged member of the hockey team by inserting a mini stick in his buttocks."

One of the co-accused inserted a mini stick in the boy's buttocks while he was pinned down. The rookie shouted for them to stop and started crying, later telling authorities that the assault lasted 15 to 20 seconds, but it "felt like forever."

After the assault, two older boys ushered two other rookies into the same room, pinned them down and pulled down their pants, partially removing their underwear. But the younger boys kicked themselves free of their attackers.

The court heard that the first victim always planned to tell his parents but didn't know how to raise the subject and he didn't want to get anyone in trouble. The first victim's father eventually heard about the incident, went to the RCMP on Jan. 30 and filed a complaint, according to the statement of facts.

A sentencing hearing for the teenage assailant who pleaded guilty Monday is scheduled for February, 2027. The defence and the Crown attorney told the court they would be recommending a joint sentencing submission for the boy's three charges. A fourth charge was dismissed as part of a plea negotiation process, Mr. Young said. In court, it was agreed that a psychological assessment of the assailant would be presented to the court prior to sentencing.

Mr. Young told reporters a sentence for sexual assault with a weapon can range from three years in custody and a supervision order, to a reprimand or period of probation, but it all hinges on the accused's personal circumstances.

In a statement issued through their lawyer Tara Miller, the victims' families said: "While nothing can undo what happened or the impact it has had on our children, the guilty pleas mean they will not have to endure the additional stress and trauma of a trial. There is also real significance in having a public acknowledgment of responsibility and accountability for the harm caused. Our children have been heard, and the guilty pleas represent an important recognition of their experiences."

The families added that they hope the outcome allows them and their children to move forward, knowing that accountability has been accepted.

Hockey Canada has been embroiled in controversy over its handling of sexual assault allegations made against five members of the 2018 national junior team (they were found not guilty in a criminal court last year), and for quietly using registration fees from players across the country to settle such cases.

In response to that scandal, Hockey Canada launched a new independent third-party (ITP) process in 2022 for confidentially handling hockey-related maltreatment complaints, and to ensure possible Criminal Code offences are reported to law enforcement and child protection services.

Hockey Nova Scotia, a branch of Hockey Canada and the organization that governs the sport in the province, initially suspended and later disbanded the team involved in last year's hazing incident. The Globe and Mail is not naming the team to protect the identities of the victims and accused.

The incidents of sexual violence involving the team were reported to Hockey Canada's ITP and an investigation into allegations of maltreatment was launched earlier this year, Hockey Canada chief of staff Jeremy Knight said.

These resulted in adjudication processes in accordance with Hockey Canada's Maltreatment Complaint Management Policy, which are now fully concluded, said Jahmiah Ferdinand-Hodkin of Sport Dispute Management, the organization that runs the ITP, in a statement.

An adjudicator can issue sanctions against players, ranging from warnings to permanent lifetime bans from Hockey Canada activities.

"These complaints resulted in multiple decisions pertaining to multiple participants, some of whom are minors. Some were sanctioned and some were fully exonerated," said Ms. Ferdinand-Hodkin.

The adjudicator in this case decided to not to make the decisions related to Truro incident public, but they were shared with the people involved and Hockey Nova Scotia.

Strategic autonomy is the new Carney foreign policy

STEVEN CHASE

Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, walks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he arrives at the Bestepe Presidential complex in Ankara, Turkey, last month. ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS

SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER

ANALYSIS

Prime Minister Mark Carney's push to reduce Canada's reliance on the United States is driving him to build new and deeper relationships around the world – not only with Europe but with autocrats, single-party states and countries where democracy is in decline.

As he deepens ties with countries such as China, India, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Mr. Carney, who calls himself “most useful in a crisis,” has said his approach to human rights and trade means “no more lecturing from afar.”

He describes this as “values-based realism,” though University of Ottawa professor Thomas Juneau has suggested it simply be called realism, saying he’s “not sure where the values fit in.”

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul last month, Mr. Carney framed safeguarding human rights as a domestic duty to be undertaken inside Canada's borders. Outside the country, the Prime Minister said his primary job is expanding export markets and attracting more investment: tasks that serve the overarching goal of strengthening Canadian sovereignty in the face of forces such as U.S. protectionism.

The Prime Minister was defending deepening ties with Turkey despite its recent raid of LGBTQ groups in the country and the fact a Turkish court had convicted a comedian of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr. Carney answered by drawing a distinction between his domestic and international obligations, saying he is strongly committed to defending LGBTQ rights inside Canada.

"Our first and foremost job is protecting, not just protecting LGBTQI rights and two-spirited rights in Canada, but promoting those rights and ensuring that all Canadians can live their full selves in Canada. So first and foremost, that's our responsibility," he said.

He said Canadians must deal with a world where others may not share their conviction.

"There are very few countries in this world that have the standards of Canada, the rights of Canada, the conviction of Canada, the constant reinforcement of those rights, so that all Canadians can live their lives as they choose," he said.

Mr. Carney then drew a link between human rights and sovereignty, saying protecting and safeguarding LGBTQ rights at home requires strengthening this country's independence and autonomy to act on its own.

“Part of the way we discharge that is to be a truly sovereign nation. Part of the way we become a truly sovereign nation and reinforce our sovereignty is to have a broad range of partnerships around the world,” he said.

This new course in Ottawa is a pivot from even four years ago when the Canadian government – and ministers such as François-Philippe Champagne and Chrystia Freeland – championed “friend-shoring” with like-minded democracies, an approach that would have curbed ties with illiberal regimes.

Is Mr. Carney saying human rights promotion for Canada ends at the country's borders?

Vina Nadjibulla, chief executive officer of the Centre for Strategic Statecraft, a foreign policy think tank, thinks not.

She believes Mr. Carney is saying a pressing new priority now ranks ahead of international human-rights promotion.

Canada is facing serious challenges to its sovereignty from the United States and the erosion of a rules-based order where great powers such as Washington used to abide by norms.

"When Canada sovereignty and security were assumed, then Canada could spend all of its energy on the international stage, promoting international human rights and talking about values, democracy, and so forth," Ms. Nadjibulla said. "Now, we're in a different environment and job number one, according to Carney, has to be dealing with sovereignty and independence and immediate economic security concerns here at home, which requires a lot more complexity and trade-off in foreign policy."

Mr. Carney has devoted political capital to foreign human rights crises such as Gaza and the plight of the Palestinians, and continues to back Ukraine against Moscow's assault in what is not only a humanitarian catastrophe but a geopolitical priority for NATO countries trying to contain Russia.

But he's refrained from targeting many countries beyond Israel or Russia with sustained public criticism.

Back in 2018, for instance, former prime minister Justin Trudeau's government triggered a serious diplomatic conflict with Saudi Arabia by making statements calling on the Saudis to release arrested civil-rights activists and signalling concern about a crackdown in the Mideast country.

In response, Riyadh expelled Canada's ambassador, and froze new trade and investment dealings with the country in retaliation for what it called "blatant interference" in its domestic affairs.

In 2020 and 2021, Canada also joined other Western governments in publicly criticizing China's crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong and imposed sanctions on Chinese officials, citing the repression of Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. This kept Ottawa-Beijing relations – already chilled over the jailing of two Canadians – even more distant.

Mr. Carney's new national security strategy released last week announced the primary goal of Canada's foreign policy will be "to support Canadian strategic autonomy and resilience, by building pragmatic relations across an increasingly diverse web of partners, to advance trade, attract investment, and strengthen economic security." This document sets out a framework for more detailed policies on foreign policy, defence and other matters.

The only substantive reference to values in the strategy is a commitment to defend them at home, noted Roland Paris, a professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa who once served as a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trudeau.

"The implication is that Canada's commitment to uphold important values ends at the border. I cannot recall another Canadian foreign policy strategy in the past 80 years that has so thoroughly sidelined the promotion of values and principles abroad," he said.

He said public opinion polls still show Canadians want Ottawa to uphold human rights, even as it expands trade and economic benefits.

"We've been living through an extraordinary time in Canadian history, as Trump's threats have naturally created a sense of crisis for many Canadians," Prof. Paris said. "What will happen if and when this sense of acute crisis fades? I think Canadians will continue to expect a foreign policy that advances their interests while remaining faithful to their principles."

Fen Hampson, a Carleton professor of international affairs, said if human rights abuses were a barrier to doing business, Canada wouldn't even be trading with the United States given the Trump administration's treatment of migrants.

“Blunting the effects of Trump’s tariffs mean we’re going to be trading and doing investment deals with countries that do not share our values, because democracy and human rights are on decline around the world,” Prof. Hampson said.

ONE CANADIAN AMONG THE 69 DEAD IN SPANISH HIGH-SPEED TRAIN COLLISION

MADRID Global Affairs Canada has confirmed one Canadian is among those killed in last week's high-speed rail collision in Spain.

Sixty-nine people died when one train slammed into another train parked on the tracks on Oct. 28.

Spanish authorities issued a statement Sunday listing a Canadian among the 66 victims who have been identified, and Global Affairs Canada on Monday confirmed the report.

Global Affairs Canada last week said six Canadians were injured in the crash but did not provide an update on their status Monday.

"Canadian officials are providing consular assistance and are in contact with local authorities to gather more information. Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed," Global Affairs Canada said in a statement.

Spanish officials say 54 of those killed were Spanish nationals, four were Americans and one victim each came from France, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Portugal, Tunisia and the Czech Republic.

Authorities are working to identify three other bodies and three people are still reported missing – two Australians and one from Japan.

More than 100 people were treated for injuries.

Spain's rail system operator, ADIF, said the crash occurred in the province of Toledo. It involved two high-speed trains carrying more than 500 passengers and heading in the same direction from the capital Madrid to Seville in southwestern Spain.

A train operated by the stateowned RENFE company struck the rear of another train operated by private company IRYO that was stopped. The collision derailed two carriages on the tail of the IRYO train and the front of the RENFE train.

Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente said the crash was caused by what he called an “inexplicable” order from a central command centre for Spain’s trains after a security system had failed. He said the train engineers were not to blame.

Mr. Puente said the train never should have been told to start moving again, since there was still a "stop signal" active on that line, and that it should at least have been told to go at a reduced speed.

Until this year, there had been no fatal crash on Spain's dedicated high-speed lines since the network opened in 1992. Now there have been two in just 10 months.

In January, a high-speed train derailed, and a second train crashed into it, killing 46 people, and injuring 292 others.

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Former Air Force pilot pushes for ALS research funds

Bob Gibson is working with the ALS Society of Canada to try to secure \$50-million in research funding from Ottawa in Thursday's budget to better understand the disease. DAVE CHAN/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Studies have found a potential link between diagnoses and military service

KRISTY KIRKUP

NATIONAL HEALTH REPORTER

Bob Gibson flew all over the world during his 12 years as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, but when he travelled to Ottawa from Guelph, Ont., last week, he was on a different mission.

Mr. Gibson was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, in December, 2023, years after he started to have trouble moving his right foot, an issue medical providers initially attributed to back issues. He has since learned about several studies from multiple countries that found veterans appear to be diagnosed with ALS at rates higher than the general population.

The reason for the association remains a mystery.

In a 2013 policy document, Veterans Affairs Canada noted while the cause of ALS is largely unknown in the majority of cases, some scientific theories exist about potential triggers, including, but not limited to, exposure to neurotoxic substances, viral infections, dietary deficiencies, heavy labour and physical trauma.

Mr. Gibson is working with the ALS Society of Canada to try and secure \$50-million in research funding from the federal government in Thursday's budget to better understand the disease, including its potential link to military service.

He said in an interview that Canada needs to support further research on ALS, similar to other countries. In February, the U.S. Congress approved new federal funding for ALS research totalling US\$315-million. ALS Canada says Australia and Britain also recognize the need for research spending.

The advocacy organization says the federal government has never offered specific funding for ALS research in past budgets.

"We've got a good group of people here," Mr. Gibson said, referring to Canadian researchers. "Use them and get going."

Mr. Gibson, 69, knows future research efforts won't change the fact that ALS, which affects muscles involved in key functions such as breathing, will eventually take his life.

But the grandfather, known by his family for his stubborn streak, is determined to push ahead while he can.

After being diagnosed with ALS, Mr. Gibson said he had a choice to make: He could either feel bad about his situation or he could do whatever he could with his "last bit of time."

Tammy Moore, chief executive officer of ALS Canada, is urging the government to fund research that could be used to evaluate the demographics of patients across the country and ensure they have access to clinical trials. Additionally, new funding would offer a chance to examine differences in outcomes, such as patients who live months compared with years.

Defence Minister David McGuinty has expressed concern about the potential link between disease and military service, and pledged last week that Ottawa would look into the matter in relation to ALS.

Ms. Moore added that Canadian research could help answer outstanding questions about findings that veterans seem more likely to develop ALS. "We need to understand why," she said.

ALS Canada said the first major signal of a pattern between ALS diagnoses and military service was found in 2003. Researchers had examined approximately 2.5 million U.S. military personnel who served worldwide during the Gulf War. Veterans who had deployed to the region were found to have nearly twice the risk, 92 per cent higher, of developing ALS compared with those who had not.

This summer, a study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health was published in Neurology, a peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It looked at nearly 9.2 million male veterans who received care through the U.S. Veterans Health Administration from 2000 to 2024 and found ALS diagnosis rates varied based on which branch of the military a patient had served in, suggesting a potential link to environmental exposures.

Among the U.S. veterans, the study found 13,935 developed ALS. Compared with army veterans, those who served in the air force had a 29 per cent higher rate of the disease, coast guard veterans had a 26 per cent higher rate and navy veterans had a 15 per cent higher rate. Marine veterans had a 22 per cent lower rate, the study found.

"Officers and those serving in the Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard may incur exposure to military environments that increase risk of ALS," it said. "It is imperative to identify relevant exposures to reduce harm to service members and, potentially, civilians with similar exposures," the study said.

Defence Minister David McGuinty has expressed concern about the potential link between disease and military service, and pledged last week that Ottawa would look into the matter in relation to ALS.

In the House of Commons last week, Conservative MP Michael Barrett raised Mr. Gibson's case and said he supports the ALS community's call for \$50-million in federal spending on research.

Amid their push for research funding, Mr. Gibson and his wife Charmaine Gibson worry the same diagnosis will land on their son, Kyle, a 39-year-old who spent 17 years as a pilot in the Air Force.

Veterans deserve to know about the risk of developing the disease, Ms. Gibson said, adding it is not sufficient to compensate former service members who develop ALS. There must be answers, she said.

Before he learned his father had ALS, Kyle Gibson said that he never thought his time in the military could be linked to a heightened risk for the disease.

Kyle said it has been a shock to see how debilitating ALS is for his dad and the thought of developing the condition himself lives in the back of his mind.

He applauds his father for pushing the federal government to fund scientific research that could help other patients.

"I think it's kind of shameful that he has to fight that hard for it, though."

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Synagogue urges countermeasures to hate

A shooter arrived at the Sons of Jacob synagogue on Sept. 20 and opened fire outside the building. DAVID LeCLAIR/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Belleville, Ont., survivors of September shooting say antisemitic incidents have continued apace

STEPHANIE LEVITZ

SENIOR REPORTER

OTTAWA

Members of a Belleville, Ont., synagogue are urging the federal government to escalate counter-radicalization efforts, pointing to antisemitic incidents continuing in their community more than a month after a shooter attacked their congregation on the holiest day in the Jewish year.

Two members of the Sons of Jacob congregation were in Ottawa on Monday raising concerns that rising levels of hate in the country are going unchecked. In September, a shooter attacked the synagogue as members were gathering to worship in what police called a targeted act of antisemitism.

“What the attack on Sons of Jacob demonstrated is that acts of violence and hatred caused by extremism and radicalization have a profound and far-reaching impact, not only on us, but on those who protect and serve, on our neighbours, communities and Canadian society at large," said Shima Vigoda, the vice-president of the synagogue, who was present the night of the shooting.

"It is imperative that we address not only the immediate threats to our collective safety but also the extremist ideologies and radicalization that lead to such violence," he told an Ottawa news conference.

The Globe and Mail reported last week that security officials are growing increasingly concerned about the speed and pace of radicalization, saying that the threats faced by the Jewish community in Canada have reached unprecedented levels.

The officials cited a range of sources for the threats: white nationalists, people inspired by Islamic terrorist groups, threats from Iran and online communities that specifically target young people to persuade them to carry out violent acts.

Some media outlets have reported the Belleville shooter, identified as Sean Ward, was active in online forums that trafficked in conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues.

Police have yet to release specific details on his history or motivations. The shooter arrived at the Sons of Jacob synagogue as community members were gathering on Sept. 20 to pray at the start of Yom Kippur.

He opened fire on a police officer stationed outside the building, yelling, "You are going to die for the Jews," and a gun battle followed.

Constable Jeff Smith was wounded in the incident. The shooter died the next day. No one inside the building was hurt by the gunfire.

Douglas Lobel, who was inside the synagogue that evening, said in the weeks after, antisemitic flyers appeared in the community blaming Jews for various conspiracies, and antisemitic slurs were yelled at people standing outside the synagogue.

“What makes this more painful is that the warning signs were already there, even in our own community,” he said.

"Long before Sept. 20, we witnessed Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control, and hateful images, and centuries-old stereotypes designed to dehumanize the Jewish people, circulating openly in local social-media groups."

Mr. Lobel said the government must move swiftly because the next incident could be much worse.

The government released a strategy on countering radicalization to violence in 2018.

The implementation of it falls to the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. The Canada Centre, as it is known, has distributed millions in grants for counter-radicalization programming in the last eight years.

But the funding streams for the programs appear scheduled to soon dry up.

The Public Safety Department's 2026-27 departmental plan, for example, notes the "maturation" of funding for the Canada Centre as being linked to the loss of 17 full-time equivalent positions.

Noah Shack, the chief executive officer of the advocacy group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said at the news conference that he hopes Thursday's federal budget renews and increases the funding.

He said those who work in counter-radicalization efforts say a common thread among those susceptible to violent extremism is hatred of Jews.

"So we know that in confronting antisemitism, we are getting at the root of a larger problem," he said.

Ontarians look to social media for medical specialists because of long waits, association says

TU THANH HA HEALTH REPORTER

Getting a timely referral to a medical specialist now takes so long in Ontario that patients are reduced to scouring Facebook and WhatsApp groups to find where help is available, the association representing the province's physicians says.

In a media briefing Monday, the Ontario Medical Association said that access to specialists has worsened, as patients with chronic conditions wait months to see a specialist while their family doctors resort to making multiple referrals in an attempt to cut through the delays.

"These delays have real consequences, and people are growing frustrated," said OMA president Rebecca Hicks, a family physician.

She presented the results of a poll where one in five respondents reported waiting six months or longer to see a specialist, and another 8 per cent were still waiting for an appointment. The Ipsos poll was conducted for the OMA and questioned 1,156 people between Oct. 13 and 19. It is considered accurate to within 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

About 14 per cent of respondents said their households considered seeking specialist care outside Canada.

The medical association called on the Ontario government to create a centralized referral program that would enable patients and doctors to be informed of the best options possible when seeking specialists, such as cardiologists, oncologists or orthopedic surgeons.

The OMA also said the province should expand its team-based model to include independent, community-based specialists, who often struggle with overhead, paperwork and staffing issues.

(Since 2024, Ontario has expanded access to primary care through a team-based approach that partners family doctors, nurse practitioners and other health care professionals to reduce administrative burdens and widen geographic coverage.)

The previous OMA president, Zainab Abdurrahman, is a pediatric allergy specialist based in Mississauga, but she told the media briefing that her patients come from as far away as Thunder Bay because they had trouble finding specialist care.

One family from Peterborough came to her because there was a year-long wait in their community to see a specialist for their child, who had a life-threatening allergy. They had heard of Dr. Abdurrahman's availability through word-of-mouth and afterward told her that they would add her name to a Facebook page for Peterborough families seeking specialists.

"Our patients and our physicians are using Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups to find community-based specialists to connect patients to care," Dr. Abdurrahman said. "We need a centralized system that's going to allow for patients to be able to, if they can go further, get faster care."

Jane Purvis, a rheumatologist from Peterborough, said referrals are currently made in an ad hoc, inefficient manner.

"The family physician or other specialist who wants to make a referral refers into a black box of unknowns," she said at the briefing. "Nobody knows what the waiting lists are like. You might get referred to somebody whose waiting list is a year longer than a similar physician just down the street."

As a result, physicians often send out four or five different referrals for the same patient for the same problem, "hoping that one of them will stick," Dr. Purvis added.

Finding a specialist is particularly challenging for mental-health patients, who have trouble managing phone calls and e-mails.

Tania Tajirian, chief health information officer at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, spoke at the briefing about a female patient living with schizophrenia who needed to see a cancer specialist. "Unfortunately her phone has been disconnected. After a few missed calls ... no one in the system is responsible for following up, and her family doctor was never told."

Questioned by reporters about the OMA's concerns, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones noted that the province already has a referral system for family doctors. "The next step, of course, is making sure that on the specialist side, we do the same thing."

She would not say when a specialists' referral system would be in place. "I'm not going to give you a timeline because it is something that physicians have to make the decision if they want to participate."

Quebec doesn't have a central referral system either, but there are dispatch centres in each health region, where requests for 26 main specialties are received, prioritized and directed to where service is available.

With reports from Jeff Gray and Laura Stone

Firefighters work next to CFB Wainwright, south of the town of Wainwright, Alta., last month. Of 39 soldiers injured at a military base on Oct. 17, more than half still remain in hospital. CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV/CP

Deadly Alberta blaze draws attention to highly specialized ‘art’ of burn care

ALANNA SMITH

HEALTH REPORTER

It can take hours for a nurse specialized in burn care to change the dressing on severe wounds, carefully removing layers of bandages before cleaning the damaged area, applying necessary anti-infection treatments and covering with a new wrapping.

Ashley Callahan, who has been involved in burn care for nearly two decades and now manages a team of specialized nurses at Ontario's Ross Tilley Burn Centre, describes the process as "a bit of an art as well as a science." She said the job of a burn nurse is not just physically demanding but also mentally challenging as they often treat patients during the worst days of their lives.

"A burn nurse is not just an expert in wounds; they're an expert in everything that is involved in that very long journey of recovery," Ms. Callahan said. "For most of us, it really is a calling. You do not move into this work without loving it and feeling like you have purpose."

The fast-moving fire that killed four and injured dozens at a military base in Wainwright, Alta., on Oct. 17 has drawn attention to the specialized field of burn care, which blends emergency and critical medicine, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation as well as supports for nutrition and mental health. Of the 39 soldiers who were injured, more than half still remain in hospital.

The extent of the injuries varies among the military members, but the majority suffered severe burns. Those with skin so scorched that it cannot heal on its own have required skin grafts, which is a procedure where donated skin or a patch of healthy skin from another part of the patient's body is transplanted to the area needing repair.

Because of the expertise required for burn care, 28 health care professionals, mostly nurses, arrived in Alberta last month from Ontario to help treat the fire victims. This includes specialists from Toronto's Ross Tilley Burn Centre at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and Hamilton Health Sciences.

Requests to Ontario's Ministry of Health and Alberta Health Services to interview these burn specialists have been denied.

Alan Rogers, a burn surgeon at Ross Tilley since 2014, said he is in touch with 10 of his nursing colleagues and another surgeon who quickly raised their hands to travel to Alberta to help treat the Wainwright patients. He said they are managing a large number of dressings daily and have been warmly received by hospital staff.

Ross Tilley is Canada's largest burn centre with a 14-bed intensive care unit, two operating rooms and an outpatient service. Yearly, between 350 and 450 patients are treated and upward of 700 surgeries are performed - a substantial increase since 2014, Dr. Rogers said.

Patients are admitted to the unit when they have suffered severe, acute burn injuries or complex soft tissue wounds that require critical care. Dr. Rogers said admission is not just based on the degree of burn, its depth and extent, but whether the injury involves sensitive areas of the body, such as the face, hands or genitalia.

The Alberta victims, he said, fit these criteria.

"We often admit some of the worst, most extensive and most challenging wound cases at the burn centre," he said, related to such causes as fire, frostbite and flesh-eating diseases.

Infection is the leading cause of death for burn victims because the body no longer has its natural armour.

Inside the operating room for a skin graft, surgeons meticulously remove damaged skin to reveal a healthy wound bed where a thin layer taken from another part of the body is then placed. This skin can be stretched to cover bigger surfaces.

If successful, it will bind to the body and acquire its own blood supply.

Should cryopreserved cadaver skin need to be used, it will be thawed and placed on the damaged area. The body will eventually reject this skin, but it can help to prevent infection while a patient heals and acts as a bridge until a permanent graft can be placed.

Dr. Rogers said specialized nurses are the backbone of burn care, spending nearly every moment at the bedside of the wounded.

Severe burn victims are not able to regulate their own temperature, so nurses must work in rooms that "feel like a sauna" while wearing head-to-toe personal protective equipment to shield their patients from outside hazards, Ms. Callahan explained.

These nurses are responsible for pain and fluid management, changing dressings, infection control, co-ordinating therapy and, more generally, helping comfort and educate patients and their families on the long road ahead. Multiple surgeries are often required, in addition to daily physical and occupational therapy.

Some patients are in such critical condition that they are hooked up to a ventilator or on dialysis while burn care is performed, sometimes completely sedated.

For every 1 per cent of total body surface area burned, Ms. Callahan said a patient should expect to spend one to two days in hospital. Some of the injured soldiers in Alberta will likely require months of care.

“So, you can imagine the relationship we develop with our patients and families,” she said. “Burn nurses and burn centres save lives and ensure people can return to their highest quality of life.”

Ashes: Cemetery didn't realize anything was missing until it received ransom demand

For decades, Po Fook Hill has been a resting place of choice for Hong Kong's elite. The cemetery features a series of escalators and lifts to take mourners up to a central plaza. JAMES GRIFFITHS/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

FROM A1

In a statement to The Globe and Mail, police said there was “currently no evidence to suggest any connection to other incidents.”

The alarm was raised over Ms. Mui's ashes when a fan noticed the screws sealing her columbarium niche were loose. A crowd-sourced investigation by fans compared photos dating back more than a year and found the screws visibly changed some time in July, 2025, around the same time police say Mr. Lau's ashes were stolen from Po Fook Hill Cemetery.

A short walk from a bustling train station in the northern Hong Kong district of Sha Tin, Po Fook Hill feels a world apart from the rest of the city. Quiet and serene, lined with carefully manicured bushes and trees, the cemetery features a series of escalators and lifts to take mourners up to a central plaza topped by a red and white, Tang Dynasty-style pagoda, built in 1990.

For decades, Po Fook Hill has been a resting place of choice for Hong Kong's rich and famous. As well as the remains of Mr. Lau, it also houses the ashes of actor and Cantopop star Leslie Cheung, whose death in 2003 continues to resonate in Hong Kong today.

The theft of Mr. Lau's ashes was no smash-and-grab job: The marble covering his niche was carefully removed and then replaced, and the area was cleaned up.

Either on the same night or consecutive nights, the thieves repeated this on at least two more graves. A security camera that should have captured the thefts was disabled or not working. The cemetery did not realize anything was missing until the alleged culprits demanded a ransom.

An actor turned anti-corruption campaigner, Ms. Reimer initially thought the theft of her husband's ashes might have been revenge for one of her exposés. Both the police and Po Fook Hill were keen to keep the matter quiet while investigations were under way.

"There are 96,000 urns in that cemetery. Many people have valuables inside – they didn't want to spark a panic," Ms. Reimer said.

But after HKo1, a local investigative publication, contacted her about the case late last year, Ms. Reimer decided to go public, revealing what had happened and her suspicions as to who was to blame in a series of videos on her YouTube channel.

She said the criminals had demanded US\$1-million for the return of the various ashes they had stolen, which she claimed included those of Fung Shing, the founder of Po Fook Hill Cemetery.

The cemetery's caretakers did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Hong Kong media previously reported the alleged culprits were believed to be linked to a transnational organized crime group with a presence in Cambodia and other parts of Southeast Asia, where Chinese gangs have expanded massively in recent years, operating sprawling scam call centres and illegal casinos.

Nor is Hong Kong the first place to experience a rash of such thefts. Last year, police in South Korea issued an Interpol red notice for two Chinese men suspected of stealing ashes for ransom from a columbarium on the southern island of Jeju. The men ultimately fled to Cambodia via Hong Kong, police said, and the ashes were ultimately discovered cached on a nearby hill after an extensive search.

"If you kidnap dead people, you don't need to feed them, they won't escape, they won't scream, and the families will still pay," Ms. Reimer said.

But after she refused to pay and advised other families to do the same, Mr. Lau's ashes were returned, though police did not say whether any arrests had been made in that case.

The location of Ms. Mui's ashes, and just how many others are missing, remains a mystery.

FRANCE'S SCHOOL PROTESTS RESUME ON SMALLER SCALE AS STUDENTS RETURN FROM BREAK

PARIS French high school student protests resumed on Monday on a much smaller scale than in past weeks as pupils returned from a two-week break, with youngsters trying to blockade a few high schools in Paris, Marseille and Rennes, French media reported.

By 8:30 a.m. local time, some 41 high schools – about 1 per cent nationwide – were blockaded, the Education Ministry said.

Hundreds of France's more than 3,000 high schools were blockaded in the weeks prior to the break. The protests, which began in the Paris suburbs in September, have spread across France and broadened beyond education to focus on the cost of living, drawing in trade unionists and activists and sometimes turning violent.

A wave of so-called "Gen Z" protests has swept across

European countries including Germany, Italy, Belgium and Albania, driven by grievances including the cost of living, the poor state of schools and perceived corruption.

Last month, French protests degenerated into violent clashes with the police and outright riots in several cities, with shops looted, in a test for President Emmanuel Macron's minority government.

"In terms of blockades – or rather, attempted blockades – the phenomenon is very marginal. We're talking about just a handful of units, a few individual schools," Education Minister Édouard Geffray said Monday morning. He said protests are allowed but preventing access to schools is illegal.

Students want the renovation of aging schools, more teachers, more university places and the end of a university admissions system they see as socially unfair.

Mr. Geffray offered last week to cap class sizes at 28, dedicate €4-billion (about \$6.2-billion) to renovating schools, create 15,000 new places for students in higher education and a new admission system by 2028. High school student representatives said the offers were not enough and they would keep protesting. REUTERS

Mortgage rates have jumped higher 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average in U.S. 10%

Why the U.S. can't get inflation under control, explained in seven charts

With midterms coming on Tuesday, here's how grim the landscape is for gas prices, groceries, housing and more

JOY SPEARCHIEF-MORRIS

With inflation, interest rates and gas prices putting continuous pressure on the cost of living, affordability has become the top issue for many American voters as they head to the polls on Nov. 3 for the 2026 midterm elections.

Just two years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump capitalized on voters' frustrations with steep inflation during the Biden administration, securing the presidency for a second time with promises of lowering prices for Americans.

But in many ways, life hasn't gotten cheaper. Inflation is still far higher than monetary policy makers aim for, and general prices have recently grown at faster rates than wages. For some products such as new vehicles, prices have stabilized but remain far higher than just a few years ago.

Much like the Democrats in 2024, the Republican Party – which holds slim majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate – is vulnerable to backlash as voters become fed up with Mr. Trump's handling of the economy, according to many polls. And while the presidential office is not on the ballot, the outcome of the midterm elections will largely indicate how Americans feel about his second administration.

Americans increasingly say they're worse off financially

Responses to: "Would you say that you are better off or worse off financially than you were a year ago?"

Note: Six-month moving average of responses. "Don't know" and "N/A" responses are not included. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

The University of Michigan's most recent Survey of Consumers found about 55 per cent of respondents said they were worse off financially than a year ago – results mirroring those of the 2007-09 recession and the inflation spike in 2022. Another survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed 65 per cent of respondents blamed Mr. Trump's policies for the rise in prices, while 44 per cent continue to blame former president Joe Biden.

With the Republicans fighting to hold onto their House and Senate majorities, here's a look at where inflation is hitting Americans the hardest.

Note: Using seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index data for all items. U.S. data was not produced for October, 2025, because of a federal government shutdown.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GLOBE CALCULATIONS FROM U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, STATISTICS CANADA

INFLATION HITS U.S. HARDER THAN CANADA

Since inflation began to run wild in 2021, the U.S. has never truly got it back under control.

The Federal Reserve, like the Bank of Canada, targets a 2-per-cent inflation rate and uses interest rates to guide inflation toward that goal.

But unlike Canada's central bank, which has brought inflation close to target for much of the past two years, the Fed has struggled to deliver on its price stability mandate.

After consumer price index inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1 per cent in the summer of 2022, it has gradually eased and hit an annual rate of 2.4 per cent in February.

Then, it took off again. Mr. Trump's tariffs have put upward pressure on inflation, but it's the U.S.'s months-long war with Iran – resulting in much higher gas prices – that's played an outsized role in the upswing. In September, the most recent month of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, annual CPI growth hit 3.7 per cent.

In response, the Fed raised benchmark interest rates in September for the first time since 2023 to a range of 3.75 to 4 per cent, despite Mr. Trump's demands to slash borrowing costs. Economists widely expect more rate hikes in the coming months.

For many years before the pandemic, inflation in Canada and the U.S. was largely around 2 per cent.

But a combination of factors - such as fiscal stimulus and supply shortages during the pandemic - contributed to the biggest inflationary wave in decades. The Bank of Canada's rate-hike cycle over 2022 and 2023 helped to cool the economy and bring inflation to heel, in part because indebted Canadian households were especially sensitive to higher interest rates.

Note: Not seasonally adjusted.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: FEDERAL HOME LOAN MORTGAGE CORPORATION

FINANCING A HOME PURCHASE IS MORE EXPENSIVE

Homeowners in the U.S. and prospective buyers are feeling the financial pressure. Not only are prices lofty in many markets, but mortgage rates are on the upswing. In October, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped to 7.36 per cent from 6.86 per cent the month before. Rates are currently the highest since October, 2023, which was itself a 20-year high.

Mortgage rates are influenced by the bond market, where yields have been rising in recent months for many reasons, including concerns over profligate U.S. government deficit spending.

The Federal Reserve also hiked benchmark interest rates in September in a bid to cool inflation, and additional tightening is widely expected.

Republican lawmakers have pushed to make housing more affordable, with legislators on both sides of the aisle passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in June. The legislation is designed to increase housing supply and limits the number of single-family homes that large corporate investors, such as private equity firms, can purchase.

Wages have struggled to keep up with inflation

Year-over-year percentage change for general inflation and average hourly wages

Note: Prices are based on Consumer Price Index for all items. Wages are based on average hourly wages for all employees in the private sector.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

FINANCING A HOME PURCHASE IS MORE EXPENSIVE

Homeowners in the U.S. and prospective buyers are feeling the financial pressure. Not only are prices lofty in many markets, but mortgage rates are on the upswing. In October, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped to 7.36 per cent from 6.86 per cent the month before. Rates are currently the highest since October, 2023, which was itself a 20-year high.

Mortgage rates are influenced by the bond market, where yields have been rising in recent months for many reasons, including concerns over profligate U.S. government deficit spending.

The Federal Reserve also hiked benchmark interest rates in September in a bid to cool inflation, and additional tightening is widely expected.

Republican lawmakers have pushed to make housing more affordable, with legislators on both sides of the aisle passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in June. The legislation is designed to increase housing supply and limits the number of single-family homes that large corporate investors, such as private equity firms, can purchase.

Wages have struggled to keep up with inflation

Year-over-year percentage change for general inflation and average hourly wages

Note: Prices are based on Consumer Price Index for all items. Wages are based on average hourly wages for all employees in the private sector.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

INFLATION IS (ONCE AGAIN) OUTPACING WAGES

For six consecutive months, growth in average hourly wages has not kept up with rising prices. Americans' purchasing power is on the decline, much like during the inflationary wave of a few years ago.

In September, the average hourly wage grew 3 per cent year-over-year, below the rate of inflation at 3.7 per cent.

Leading into the last presidential election in 2024 and during the early months of Mr. Trump's second term, average wages were growing at a comfortably quicker pace than consumer prices.

However, the sudden spike in inflation in March after the start of the U.S.-Iran war has quickly flipped the switch. Crude oil benchmarks remain at, or in excess of, US\$100 a barrel, putting upward pressure on inflation. Meanwhile, wage growth has cooled from rates above 4 per cent.

Note: Seasonally adjusted data, U.S. city average.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

CAR PRICES SHOW THE LINGERING PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT OF THE INFLATION CRISIS

Many Americans who hoped to see vehicle prices come down since they spiked in 2022 will be sorely disappointed. A new vehicle is costing Americans 22 per cent more in 2026 on average than it did six years ago.

After supply shortages caused by the pandemic, the price of a new vehicle spiked by about 12 per cent in 2021. Prices reached their peak in 2023 and have levelled off, according to CPI data, but have not returned to their prepandemic pricing.

One saving grace for prospective car buyers is that prices have not been drastically affected by Mr. Trump's tariff war with Canada, which has directly targeted the auto and steel industries. While automakers have said the White House's tariffs have added billions in costs, the impact is not apparent in inflation data. From the time Mr. Trump brought in auto tariffs in April, 2025, the average price of a new vehicle has risen by only 0.5 per cent.

Note: Coffee is ground and roasted; white and red table wine. Data missing for October, 2025, because of federal government shutdown. Prices are averages across U.S. cities on a monthly basis, unadjusted for seasonality. There are some data gaps where insufficient figures were collected.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

GROCERIES

In the past year, 44 per cent of Americans said they had trouble paying for at least one basic necessity, with 20 per cent stating they needed a food bank or food pantry, according to a study conducted this fall by the Pew Research Center.

The most recent data from Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the U.S., show about 48 million people lived in food insecure households in 2024, the highest number since 2014, affecting every county and congressional district across the country.

While grocery prices have only increased by about 3 per cent since the beginning of Mr. Trump's second term in January, 2025, the average price of groceries has increased 33 per cent since the end of 2019 – becoming a major pain in the wallets of many Americans. Feeding America's report found nearly half of those experiencing food insecurity had incomes too high to qualify for social support programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Price increases for ground beef, chicken, coffee and milk have been among the highest since 2019. Ground beef was US\$6.79 a pound on average in September, an increase of 76 per cent in seven years. Chicken per pound has increased by 42 per cent, milk per gallon increased by about 29 per cent and coffee increased by more than 130 per cent over the same period.

Note: Average price in U.S. cities and on monthly basis.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

GAS PRICES ARE NEAR ALL-TIME HIGHS

Rising fuel and gasoline prices have been the biggest contributor to accelerating inflation. In September, more than half of the monthly increase in CPI was owing to gas prices, which rose 9.1 per cent.

A voter survey by The New York Times reported that more than 40 per cent of Republicans disapprove of how Mr. Trump has handled gas prices.

Mr. Trump had promised to lower gas prices for American households in 2024, but military action in Iran is achieving just the opposite, leading to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz through which one-quarter of global crude usually travelled.

Since the beginning of the conflict in February, gas prices have increased by more than 45 per cent, from a national average of US\$3.1 a gallon in February to US\$4.5 a gallon in September. Diesel prices in the U.S. have increased by more than 71 per cent, averaging over US\$6 a gallon.

Historically, high gas prices have not boded well for incumbent governments during elections. Former president Jimmy Carter's 1980 election loss has often been partly attributed to high gas prices caused by supply chain shortages and the Iranian hostage crisis.

The metrics that matter in U.S. midterms

Even a single Democratic victory in Kansas, Nebraska or Texas would be an embarrassment to Republicans

DAVID SHRIBMAN PITTSBURGH

ANALYSIS

Finally, the voters speak. After months of campaigning, billions in expenditures, a flood of negative advertisements and thousands of commentaries, Election Day 2026 has arrived.

Taken individually, the 435 congressional contests, 33 Senate races and 39 gubernatorial elections of these midterms are just a whisper in a continent-wide country with multiple ethnicities, diverse economies, countless local peculiarities and myriad special interests. But taken together, Tuesday's election results will be a shout about the country's direction at a time when, more than usual, the world will be watching.

So with especially high stakes – the future of the country's economy, the nature of American diplomacy, the tone of domestic politics, the content of U.S. trade policy and the welcome offered to immigrants as well as to landed citizens with minority viewpoints, religions and identities – here is a viewer's guide to election night.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Early returns, particularly in the South and Midwest. The plot line of the entire evening likely will be set by the first few hours. First, after polls close at 7 p.m. ET, will come South Carolina (where appointed GOP Senator Darline Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham, faces a stiff challenge) and Florida (where Democrat Angie Dixon is coming on strong in a Senate race, and David Jolly is doing the same in the gubernatorial contest). In each case, the Republican candidate has a strong endorsement from Mr. Trump, and a loss in any of those three contests would suggest trouble later in the evening for the President's party – and his movement.

"These races are close, and Florida has been at the forefront of the new movement of conservative policies," said Liv Coleman, a University of Tampa political scientist. "These local results will say something about the future national MAGA movement."

Next, an hour later, will come Maine (where Republican Senator Susan Collins is seeking to preserve a rare moderate voice in her party); Ohio (where the GOP gubernatorial and Senate candidates are struggling to buttress the state, always considered a bellwether, as a redoubt of the party); and Michigan (where Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed is seeking to become the first Muslim senator and the chamber's new vanguard of progressivism).

Other contests testing the national mood. Focus on Senate races in Kansas, Nebraska and Texas, which have strong Republican recent histories. None of them has elected a Democratic senator since 2000. Even a single Democratic victory in these states would be an embarrassment to Republicans.

Watch Iowa, too. It now has a clean sweep of Republicans – governor, two senators, all four of its members of the House of Representatives. A single crack in that wall would be significant. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand is a likely winner. Three of the other five Democratic candidates have plausible chances of prevailing.

Consider the Trump factor. Fearing the loss of majorities on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump has campaigned vigorously on behalf of Republican candidates – perhaps more so than any president since Richard Nixon in 1970. Days before the election, he e-mailed supporters saying he could be in “my final week as President” (a reflection of his exaggerated view that he could be impeached and removed from office), adding, “From our cities to the countryside, dangerous socialists and communists are preparing to destroy our Republican Majorities in the House and the Senate.”

He has campaigned heavily in Nebraska, Alaska, South Carolina, Mississippi, Iowa and Ohio. All were won by Mr. Trump all three times he ran for president. All have Republican governors. All have two Republican senators. A loss in any of them would be interpreted as a blow to Mr. Trump. A loss in a majority of them would be a debacle. A loss in all six would be a calamity.

WHAT TO IGNORE

Reports about turnout. Discussions about long lines at polling places are the last refuge of the political correspondent who has no real Election Day news to report. Besides, the significance of the size of voter crowds at polling places is a remnant of a distant past, when, two-thirds of a century ago, it was possible to speak of “Kennedy Weather” – which meant clear skies across much of the country – that presumably favoured the Democratic candidate in the 1960 election.

This doesn't matter now. Roughly 40 million Americans voted long before the sun will have risen Tuesday over West Quoddy Head, the Maine peninsula not far from Campobello, N.B., where the solar rays first hit the American mainland. Some three-quarters of Texas voters already have cast their ballots. A record more than 2.3 million already have voted in Georgia, where there isn't a really competitive race. Mr. Trump once called early voting "stupid." He voted in Palm Beach County, Fla., 10 days before the election and this fall urged Republicans to "vote early." (I voted weeks ago.)

Commentary about the power of money. Sure, billions sloshed around the country, fuelling about US\$4-billion in advertisements, according to AdImpact calculations. But much of it was wasted on negative ads that, with apologies to Mad Magazine and its fabled Spy vs. Spy feature, likely cancelled each other out. As the Beatles taught in 1964 – the year GOP nominee Barry Goldwater was the beneficiary of an astonishing 300,000 direct-mail contributions, a transformative effort in American campaign finance that boosted Republicans for a decade or more – money can't buy a candidate love, or votes. Mr. Goldwater lost 44 states. The winner or loser this week won't be able to blame money.

THE LONG VIEW, PERHAPS NOT VISIBLE WHILE THE RESULTS POUR IN

The Trump administration has warned Gulf States, and suggested as much to the American domestic audience, that a huge offensive against Iran may come shortly after Tuesday's election. It may have been forestalled by concerns that resuming the war before the election would further undermine Republican candidates. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows that Americans, by almost exactly a 2-to-1 margin, disapprove of the Trump administration's Iran policy. Tuesday's results, perhaps shaped by opposition to the war, could shout: Proceed with caution.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Washington's Capitol Hill is seen on Monday, the day before the U.S. midterm elections that will determine political control of Congress. J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Election: American Senate results less predictable than House races with several close contests

vens, whom Mr. El-Sayed defeated in the Democratic primary.

who have been here for years."

FROM A1

Republicans in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee have redrawn congressional districts over the past year-and-a-half in a bid to give their party an advantage. California did the same for Democrats, but it was not enough to neutralize the GOP gerrymandering advantage, so Democrats will have to turn out their voters decisively to win the House.

The Senate is even less predictable, with several tight races.

In Texas, where Democrats haven't won a Senate seat since 1988, seminarian and state legislator James Talarico is hoping voters will choose him over scandal-plagued Republican state Attorney-General Ken Paxton. In Ohio, former senator Sherrod Brown is looking to get his old job back by knocking off incumbent Republican Jon Husted.

The Democrats are also hoping to take Senate seats in North Carolina, Maine, Alaska and Iowa away from the GOP and hold onto a seat in the key swing state of Georgia. In the dying days of the campaign, the Republicans even moved cash to shore up incumbent senators in Kansas, South Carolina and Mississippi, three red states not initially thought to be competitive.

One rare bright spot for Republicans is Michigan. GOP nominee Mike Rogers is hoping to peel away Jewish voters from the Democrats and pick up the seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Gary Peters. Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed favours cutting U.S. military aid to Israel. On Sunday, Mr. Rogers received a surprise endorsement from Democratic Representative Haley Ste

Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, are banking on Mr. El-Sayed, who is running on a platform of single-payer health care, to show that such policies can appeal in a competitive, swing-state race.

In the dying days of the campaign, the Republicans even moved cash to shore up incumbent senators in Kansas, South Carolina and Mississippi, three red states not initially thought to be competitive.

"This is important to the greater project of making sure that we can get through big ideas in the Democratic Party," Florida Representative Maxwell Frost, one of the leaders of the party's congressional left, told The Globe and Mail at a campaign event in Flint, Mich.

Another major factor is expected to be backlash from Latino voters. While Mr. Trump made inroads with that demographic in 2024, his mass roundup and deportation campaign, which has often turned violent and deadly, has pushed many Latinos to the Democrats.

"They're attacking Latinos across the United States and treating us like animals," said Arturo Colunga, 49, a mobile phone store owner who recently moved to Michigan from Memphis, Tenn. "He's not just locking up criminals. He's taking regular people

Mr. Colunga said he was voting for the first time ever in this election. When he lived in Memphis, the site of one of Mr. Trump's roving immigration crackdowns, he said he was routinely racially profiled. Police would pull him over while driving, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers close behind, and demand that he prove his citizenship.

The outcome of some hotly contested races may not be clear until later in the week. That's because some states, such as Maine and Alaska, use ranked-choice voting.

In Alaska, where former Democratic representative Mary Peltola hopes to take down Senator Dan Sullivan in a four-way race, the state's system has come under scrutiny. A New York Times report found that a second man named Dan Sullivan who is also on the ballot was recruited to run by a Democratic operative.

Some MAGA faithful, for their part, acknowledge the tough row their party has to hoe. But they see inflation as short-term pain for long-term gain.

Over lunch at a café in Eldrige, Iowa, Chuck Brockmann, chair of the Scott County Republican Party, said high prices for diesel have been hurting his farm operations. "What's the choice? You pretty much have to buy, it's a fixed cost."

Attacking Iran, however, was necessary to stop the country from developing a nuclear weapon, said Mr. Brockmann, 84. And he said he has faith prices will eventually come down.

"It's had a temporary effect," he said. "I have an awful lot of confidence in what Trump is doing, in his endgame."

U.S. TOP COURT REJECTS TRUMP'S EFFORTS TO SIDELINE 20,000 CALIFORNIA MAIL BALLOTS

WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push for California to set aside thousands of mail ballots from people U.S. President Donald Trump's administration claims are non-citizens, a decision that comes on the eve of the final day of voting in the pivotal midterm elections.

The high court refused to intervene in a case involving 20,000 people the Republican administration flagged as likely non-citizens on the largely Democratic state's voter rolls.

The swift rejection was the latest in a flurry of election-related litigation the day before the elections, which will decide control of Congress for the last two years of Mr. Trump's second term. No justices publicly dissented.

In California, the Trump administration had asked the high court to set aside the challenged ballots until the voters' citizenship status could be verified. But officials there said that the list appeared to be filled with errors and that setting the ballots aside could effectively disenfranchise legal voters.

The high court did not detail its reasoning, as is common in emergency decisions. The justices previously rejected Mr. Trump's push to restrict mail ballots around the country in September, even though the justices have sided with his administration in a series of other emergency docket appeals.

The Republican Trump administration has prioritized identifying non-citizen voters this year, despite them being rare.

A district court judge previously denied the Justice Department's request and warned that the demand could disenfranchise citizens.

Also on Monday in Washington, another federal judge ruled against the administration's efforts to make last-minute demands of California election officials, finding they violated the U.S. Constitution.

"The Executive Branch has likely violated the Constitution's Elections Clause, which commits authority over election rules to the states and Congress alone," wrote Chief Judge James Boasberg.

The administration, for its part, said segregating the ballots was a modest request that would eventually allow legal votes to still be counted.

The administration has faced a remarkable string of losses in court in its push, as well as criticism for waiting until a few weeks before the election to make its demands of California election officials with a list that even the Department of Justice admits is not entirely reliable.

During a hearing over whether to lift her own order forbidding the administration from threatening to prosecute election workers who let potentially illegal voters cast ballots, District Court Judge Trina Thompson drilled down on reports of widespread inaccuracies in the Justice Department's data.

"Would you agree there's a high error rate?" Justice Thompson asked Kenneth Kao, a Justice Department attorney.

"That's a fair statement," Mr. Kao said. "That's why we ask for the registrars' aid in verifying these are all valid voters."

At the same time, Bill Essayli, the federal prosecutor running the Justice Department's Los Angeles office, said at a news conference he was highly confident the people on the list were not entitled to vote.

"This isn't speculation. This isn't a theory," Mr. Essayli said, later conceding there may be errors on the list.

Voting has been under way in California, a largely Democratic state, since early October. All of the state's roughly 23 million registered voters are mailed a ballot. Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed. California election officials have said that finding and setting aside the challenged ballots now would be logistically impossible.

California Attorney-General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said the appeal “reeks of desperation and is another attempt to undermine our elections and trample on the rule of law.”

Lower courts have sided with the state, with a district judge warning that segregating ballots would “wreak havoc” on the midterm elections and erode trust in the democratic process.

"If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger," wrote U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who was nominated by president Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

It's in our nature to play.

Cooler days invite fresh ways to play. It's a beautiful time to get outside with your child or grandchild, exploring the mysteries and magic of autumn. Use this scavenger hunt as your guide and see what other discoveries you can make.

Fall Activities Scavenger Hunt | run around a tree | dance with your shadow | roll like a pumpkin | jump into a pile of leaves | pick a favourite stick | pretend to be a snail | draw in the mud | swing from a tree branch | hop like a rabbit | stomp on dry leaves | gather four acorns | splash in a puddle | stand like a scarecrow | play simon says | find a mushroom | find a tickly feather | spin in the wind | skitter like a mouse | follow animal tracks | balance on one leg like a tree | find three colourful leaves | toss leaves in the air | search for a spider web | flap like a bird | crawl like a bear | What other activities are possible this autumn? Visit activeforlife.com for more ideas for everyone in the family.

The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures - Junius

Fall Activities Scavenger Hunt | run around a tree | dance with your shadow | roll like a pumpkin | jump into a pile of leaves | pick a favourite stick | pretend to be a snail | draw in the mud | swing from a tree branch | hop like a rabbit | stomp on dry leaves | gather four acorns | splash in a puddle | stand like a scarecrow | play simon says | find a mushroom | find a tickly feather | spin in the wind | skitter like a mouse | follow animal tracks | balance on one leg like a tree | find three colourful leaves | toss leaves in the air | search for a spider web | flap like a bird | crawl like a bear | What other activities are possible this autumn? Visit activeforlife.com for more ideas for everyone in the family.

The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures - Junius

The price paid for not taking war seriously

Eighty-five years ago this month, 2,000 Canadian soldiers were dispatched to Hong Kong to bulk up British defences in the colony as a deterrent to Imperial Japan. Ill-trained and poorly equipped, the two infantry regiments found themselves on the front lines of a global war less than a month after arriving as Japan launched a broad offensive. Seventeen days later, Allied forces in Hong Kong capitulated, with the survivors entering a four-year captivity.

That was the price paid in 1941 for not taking the prospect of war seriously.

This November, around the same number of Canadian military personnel are stationed in Latvia, in what would be the front line of a conflict between NATO and Russia. Those soldiers are much better trained than their 1941 counterparts and better equipped, though there are notable vulnerabilities that have taken far too long to address.

But if deterrence failed, if the Russians marched west, those soldiers would face a brutal technology-driven onslaught that would result in casualties on a scale that Canada has not experienced since the closing days of the Second World War. That is not a tabletop exercise: Germany has said it needs to be ready to fight a war by 2029, for instance.

The idea that the Canadian Armed Forces could be soon embroiled in a full-blown conventional war – not peacekeeping, not an Afghanistan-type counterterrorism operation – is undoubtedly shocking to many Canadians. But that is the reality of this perilous moment, a reality acknowledged (however fleetingly) in the federal government's national security strategy released last week.

In that document, Ottawa states that it will “prepare for all contingencies up to and including war and other worst-case scenarios.”

There is a lot to prepare for. Take, for instance, the emergence of drone warfare. As of September, the Canadian Armed Forces had around 2,000 drones of all types. That month, the Carney government said it had awarded contracts to increase that number tenfold, notionally around 20,000 drones.

A tenfold increase might sound impressive, until one considers that Ukraine will produce something on the order of 10 million drones this year. Just under two hours of Ukrainian output would match the CAF's current drone numbers. Once the expansion is complete, it would take Ukraine longer to match – a titch over 17 hours.

Ah, but Canada is not at war. Why would this country need to contemplate matching the output levels of Ukraine? The answer is simple enough: by the time we need the drones, and manufacturing capacity, it will be too late.

The Defence Department's official plan for the current fiscal year illustrates the complacency at work. The operational readiness for maritime, land and air key fleets (a term referring to ships, armoured vehicles and aircraft) are all far below target. For maritime key fleets, that metric was just 59.6 per cent in 2024-25, the latest year for which data are available, markedly short of the 75-per-cent target.

And that was the best of three scores. Just 51 per cent of land key fleets were ready for training and operations versus a goal of 80 per cent. For marine key fleets, the readiness percentage was a dismal 42.3 per cent, less than half of the 85-per-cent target. In fairness, the department did boost those targets last year, although the CAF's actual performance would still have fallen short.

Even more worrying is the deadline that DND has set for closing those gaps: March 31, 2036. That deadline was pushed back four years from 2032 to reflect the higher targets.

The Germans are preparing to fight within three years, but Canada will take the better part of a decade to bring its armed forces to a baseline level of readiness. Hopefully, the Russians will be considerate enough to delay any incursion until then.

None of this is inevitable, of course. Changing it starts with an act of imagination. If Canada were at war by the end of the decade, what would we wish we had done years earlier – otherwise known as now? An expansion of trauma centres to deal with mass casualties, radical acceleration in procurement and production, a ready-to-fight drone capacity: That would be just the start of the if-only wish list of 2030.

Ottawa's national security strategy states that it needs to "engage Canadians on the seriousness of the threats and the need for effective responses." The government should start that tutelage within its own ranks.

SINCLAIR STEWART

DEPUTY EDITOR

ANGELA PACIENZA

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

JAMES KELLER

NATIONAL EDITOR

CHRISTINE BROUSSEAU

MANAGING EDITOR, PRIORITIES

WHAT WILL IT BE?...

David Parkin 2016

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

LOSE-LOSE

ians choosing their voters.

■ Sheri Oberman Winnipeg

Re “Canada, U.S. expected to resume formal trade talks, source says” (Nov. 2): If Canada somehow signed a new trade agreement with the United States before the midterm elections, we would have been blamed for election interference.

But since Canada hasn't sign a new trade agreement with the U.S. before midterms, we will likely still be blamed for election interference.

Gordon Ramer Kingston

BIGGER PICTURE

Re "The BoC's rate hike is totally unnecessary and premature" (Report on Business, Oct. 29): The Bank of Canada seems single-minded.

Before the pandemic, globalization and offshoring production to China kept inflation low. So the bank kept interest rates low, enticing Canadians to spend wildly and resulting in soaring real estate prices and consumer debt.

Today it's the opposite. Global factors are driving up energy costs and increasing inflation. Somehow, by suppressing an already weak economy, the bank thinks it can force businesses to absorb elevated costs and reduce inflation to target levels.

Perhaps the bank's thought process might be better described as tunnel vision.

Tony Hooper Toronto

LINES DRAWN

Re “Alberta NDP accuses Smith of gerrymandering as province prepares to unveil new electoral map” (Oct. 29): The issue of map manipulation is framed as partisan dispute through phrases such as “Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi ... calling it ‘illegal’ and accusing Premier Danielle Smith of gerrymandering.”

Minimizing potential gerrymandering as mere political bickering obscures any attempted systemic assault on voter supremacy. Other provinces may copy Alberta's example. Canadian voters would become even more irrelevant.

Cross-country normalization of gerrymandering would break the promise of representation by population, even more than our present system with its safe seats, regional divisions, low voter turnout, strategic voting, vote-splitting and “majority” governments. If ruling parties are engineering electoral maps, we would go down the same road as the United States, where Americans in gerrymandered districts often feel helpless and hopeless.

Until there is proportional representation and a party's share of seats comes from its share of the popular vote, Canadian democracy remains vulnerable to politic-

WHO PAYS?

Re “Making temporary residents pay for health care isn’t unusual” (Oct. 31): I am not convinced by these arguments in support of Danielle Smith’s proposal to essentially tax immigrants for health care.

The first argument: Other jurisdictions have similar policies. The second: Immigrants in general pay less in taxes than the cost of government services they receive.

With respect to the first argument, doing something because others do it is generally regarded as a low level of moral reasoning. The second argument applies a broad general principle selectively to a small group of people.

If the principle is valid, then health care charges should also be imposed on most students, first-job holders and low-income Albertans. The argument is another example of the opposition of some hard-line conservatives to programs that involve even a modest transfer of society's wealth to those who are less well-off.

Alan MacFadyen Canmore, Alta.

MEDICINE WOMEN

Re “Female hospital doctors linked to better outcomes for patients, study says” (Oct. 31): Although I have not reviewed all the data, it is unlikely the difference between male and female doctors is significant. Similarly, the readmission rate does not seem significant.

To quote from the study: "Additionally, 30-day mortality rates were the lowest among female patients treated by a female physician. This numerical trend persisted at 90 days and 1 year, but the interaction did not reach statistical significance at those time points. No significant interactions were observed for hospital readmission."

This study is interesting, but I do not see the data supporting the headline. Conflict declared: I am a male doctor.

Clinical professor emeritus, department of psychiatry, University of British Columbia; Vancouver

BAD SPORT

Re "Russia's return from the cold will force sporting rivals to make a choice" (Sports, Oct. 31): Make a choice? This should outrage us.

Russia continues to bomb Ukrainian cities and kill civilians. What has changed since its 2022 suspension?

The International Ice Hockey Federation opposed reinstatement, but was overruled by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The argument that young players should not answer for their government misses the point: A national team confers legitimacy and prestige.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians fled to safety in Alberta. Must they now watch Russia represented on Canadian ice?

Vladimir Putin must be clapping his blood-soaked hands in glee as international sporting authorities help normalize his regime. Canada is right to resist. Russia has done nothing to earn its return.

Peter Rozanec Toronto

TIME AFTER TIME

Re “If I could turn back time: B.C. is making a mistake by not changing the clocks” (Opinion, Oct. 31): When our elected officials are finished, we will have vastly different time zones between and within provinces. Confusion will be rife. How about some co-ordination?

The best quote came from Quebec when the province's new leader said that children take "weeks" to recover from the one-hour time change. I hope they never suffer from jet lag – it would last months.

David Chalmers Toronto

Not sure what I'm missing here, but we're talking about one hour. Most of us living above the 49th parallel are used to winter being dark.

The litany of reported problems with the sun not rising in some locations until 9:30 a.m. does not negate the same problems an hour earlier. Kids would still be getting up in the dark and waiting for school buses in the dark, and we would still be going to work in the dark.

In some parts of the planet, including Canada, 24-hour darkness (or daylight) lasts anywhere from several weeks to several months. Somehow they adapt and survive.

I'm personally in the permanent daylight saving time camp. I'd rather have the sun set at 9:30 p.m. than having it come up at 4:00 a.m in warmer months.

I'm also with Shakespeare: This is much ado about nothing. Art Dewan Kentville, N.S.

Many who support keeping day-light saving time in British Columbia likely chose it so they wouldn't have to set their clocks.

Well, thanks. I had to tell my computer, thermostats and Tesla not to fall back. That's far tougher.

Jon Preston Victoria

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Arab parties' inclusion could change Israel

Neither leader locked in a stalemate is inclined to extend a hand

MIRA SUCHAROV

OPINION

Professor of political science at Carleton University

The long-awaited Israeli elections of last week delivered a stalemate outcome. Neither of the two competing blocs – one led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the other by Gadi Eisenkot – garnered a majority of seats in Israel's Knesset, or parliament. But the stalemate could be ended tomorrow if either leader were willing to extend a hand to the Arab parties.

Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing government is unsurprisingly repelled by the notion of allowing Arab parties into his coalition, but Mr. Eisenkot could conceivably do so. Some Israelis have protested outside of his residence, demanding as much.

The Israeli elections had already been marred by a series of inciting statements by Mr. Netanyahu against the Palestinian citizens of Israel. A month earlier, Israel's High Court overturned the ban attempted by Israel's Central Elections Committee on the Arab parties. This was after Palestinian parliamentarian Sami Abu Shehadeh stepped away from his party list before the Court was able to bar him from running. He had written an op-ed the day after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, calling it "a major historical event in military, political, and strategic terms" but not denouncing the massacres. He later apologized for the essay. (I have personally met with Mr. Abu Shehadeh – albeit before October, 2023 – and, having heard him discuss his values and political world view, believe his apology to be sincere.)

As for Mr. Eisenkot, he would be the first Mizrahi, or non-European, prime minister in Israel's history. But one can be Mizrahi and still harbour anti-Palestinian racism. As for his refusal, there certainly may be racism involved, as many commentators, even some left-wing Israeli ones, have asserted, but the issues run deeper.

Mr. Eisenkot has now made his demands for prospective coalition partners explicit: recognizing Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; committing to Israel's Declaration of Independence; agreeing to some form of national service, whether military or civilian; recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization, and committing to help destroy both its military and civilian wing in Gaza.

Some of these are easy: Instituting a national-civilian service component would be a fair way to include Palestinian citizens who do not typically receive draft notices. As for the Declaration of Independence, the document is quite democratic in its goals: developing “the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,” one “based on freedom, justice and peace,” along with “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,” while adhering to “the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

But demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state has long been a way of skirting fundamental questions of equality and international law. To declare Israel a Jewish state while 20 per cent of its population is Palestinian (and therefore not Jewish) forecloses important questions of inequality. Equality in Israel had already been eroded by the 2018 Nation-State Law, which demoted Arabic from an official language and declared, among other things, that “The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”

Demanding the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state also makes an end run around the question of Palestinian refugee return, something that Arab lawmakers are understandably loath to concede prior to any serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In their demand for the right of return to be honoured, advocates are supported by international law.

As for Hamas, while Oct. 7 entailed horrific war crimes, actors in protracted conflict don't have the luxury of choosing their enemies. It's one thing to demand that Hamas demilitarize. But the civilian wing of the movement is part of the Palestinian governance landscape, and will have to be contended with as such.

Rather than being seen as a tough pill to swallow, including the Arab parties might actually pave the way toward concluding Israel's forever wars and ending Israel's international isolation. The platforms of the two Arab parties are hardly extreme. The United Arab List, the smaller of the two parties, supports a two-state solution while focusing more on the improvement of living standards within the Arab sector. (A 2021 Israeli government actually included that party.) And the platform of the Joint List demands an end to the Gaza genocide, along with various other things Canadians will recognize in their own government's long-standing approach to the region: an end to occupation, a just solution to the refugee issue, and a Palestinian State alongside Israel.

If Mr. Eisenkot is serious about pursuing a government of change, the answer is right there, waiting.

Why protests in France were caused, in part, by an app

JULIE BARLOW

JEAN-BENOÎT NADEAU

Students hold a banner reading 'Down with Parcoursup' during a protest against the cost of living last month in Bordeaux, southwestern France. CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

OPINION

Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau are the authors of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: The je ne sais quoi of being French.

After pausing their country-wide protests for school holidays, French students resumed them on Saturday and have announced a "day of action" on Nov. 5. France's government, widely criticized for failing to take the students seriously, is looking for an off-ramp.

One of its first promises is to remove - or improve - an app. Yes, you read correctly. Among students' 20-odd demands, one is to eliminate a web application that the French government introduced in 2018, called Parcour-sup.

The student protests began with legitimate and long-standing complaints over inequalities in infrastructure and resources. In the outcry over decaying schools and teacher shortages, one could easily think an app is just a detail. But Parcoursup actually represents something even more vital: access to universities. Students complain that the app, which the government uses to manage students' applications to postsecondary institutions, is "discriminatory." They are not wrong: the app does discriminate. But that was intentional, as a way of combatting inequality of access.

Diplomas are everything in France. They are the key to getting the best jobs in any sector and follow French citizens most of their lives. So there is a lot at stake when students apply to a program or institution.

Parcoursup – a contraction of parcours, “path”, and supérieur, the French term for “higher learning” – is a national, universal student-to-program matchmaking application the French government created to tackle two problems in higher education: the system is decentralized (problematic in France), and it is extremely elitist.

Higher education in France is organized as a two-tier system: there are about 75 large public universities and 3,000 écoles, small, specialized educational establishments in almost every sector (these include the prestigious grandes écoles).

Entry to the écoles is highly competitive, but not so for universities. Before 2018, theoretically, any lycée (high school) graduate could be admitted to any university they wanted in their first year: students are weeded out through exams at the end of the first year.

At the undergraduate level, universities have been long regarded as second-best choices, except in medicine and law. Most ambitious students in France aim to get into an école. To do that, they must attend a two-year preparatory school (called prépas) where they have 35 hours of classes a week and nearly as many hours of studying.

Theoretically, every high-school graduate in France has the option of going into either of these post-secondary streams, but in reality, there have always been huge barriers to both.

Entry to prépas is brutally competitive and not everyone has an equal shot. The most prestigious prépas have always been in and around Paris, which favours applicants from Paris, particularly those who went to the best high schools there. For students outside the capital, the bar to entry is very high.

Traditionally, students aiming for university faced another barrier: they had to physically show up at the door of their school of choice on admissions day. Again, this gave a huge advantage to students from Paris to get into the most prestigious universities, such as La Sorbonne.

The Parcoursup app aimed to change that. It is a mandatory, national matchmaking system that allows students from across the country to submit an application file to any of the 25,000 programs offered in French universities (and prépas) across the country.

At the same time, the French government introduced admissions quotas that force prépas and universities to accept students from outside of their geographic area and from lower income brackets.

So when French students criticized the application as “discriminatory,” what no doubt irks them is that, for the first time, universities have selection processes at all.

For the larger student population, then, this type of discrimination is beneficial. The loudest protesters don't see it that way, however, and so what was a useful tool for equality may soon be altered, or ended.

The French government has announced that it will reform the Parcoursup app, without giving details. The result might be nothing more than a name change, but of all the student demands, it's certainly the easiest to tackle: Parcoursup is entirely electronic and has no material existence, so changes can be made quickly and inexpensively.

Revamping the app will be much easier than hiring thousands of teachers and patching up classrooms across the country - a job that will cost tens of billions of euros at a time when France's finances are at their worst in decades.

Being connected to primary care is not care – but it's a start

ANDRÉ

PICARD

OPINION

Fourteen million two hundred and fifty-nine thousand Ontarians are now connected to a primary care provider.

That's 511,000 people more than in January, 2025, when the government launched its Primary Care Action Plan with much fanfare, vowing that everyone would have a primary care provider by 2029.

This is progress. The provincial government is putting money into this effort, \$3.4-billion and counting so far. The efforts of Jane Philpott, chair of the action team, seem to be paying off.

But. There's always a "but" or two.

First, there is the practical mathematical challenge.

There are still roughly 1.8 million Ontarians without a healthcare provider, and that number will continue to grow.

The province's population is increasing, and aging, burned out family doctors and nurse practitioners are retiring, or planning to, in droves. Practitioners are leaving in such large numbers, we are struggling to replace them, and newer recruits practise differently.

Hundreds of multidisciplinary health teams called Family Health Organizations (FHOs) are being formed, creating a robust "medical home" model. But the average doctor has a panel of 1,350 patients, respectively, and FHOs have panels of 2,400 to 4,000 patients cared for by three to five family physicians. Many more teams are needed.

The larger, more important issue is that “attachment” is the easy part of the process. Signing up a patient and opening a file for them doesn’t take much effort at all.

Providing access to care is quite another matter.

Dr. Philpott's mandate is to ensure that "100% of people in Ontario are attached to a family doctor or a primary care nurse practitioner working in a publicly funded team, where they receive ongoing, comprehensive, and convenient care," and to do so by 2029.

Let's start with "convenient." Practically, that means being able to book an appointment the same day or the next day when you're sick, as well as evenings and weekends.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, only 30.4 per cent of Ontario adults are able to do so. While that's better than the Canadian average, 26.3 per cent, it is still a poor showing.

In comparative studies of wealthy countries done by the Commonwealth Fund, Canada consistently ranks last in measures of access, including same-day or next-day appointments.

So, what do patients do when they are told – if someone actually answers the phone – that the first available appointment is in a week or a month? They go to their local hospital emergency department, where waits are often punishing, with one in 10 patients waiting more than 14 hours for care and those requiring admission to hospital sometimes waiting more than three times longer.

Then there's comprehensiveness, which is hard to deliver with 10-to-15-minute visits. Many physicians and clinics also have strict "one issue per visit" policies and refuse to do some standard procedures like gynecological exams.

Comprehensive care doesn't end with the family doc or NP either. Continuity and timeliness of care matter.

Yet, primary care providers often struggle to make referrals to specialists. Wait times for specialist appointments are often measured in weeks and months, and the subsequent waits for surgery can stretch out for more months, or even years.

Many family physicians are reluctant to take on complex patients, such as elderly people with multiple chronic conditions, because they take a lot of extra time, which is poorly remunerated.

While the Ontario government was quick to highlight that the number of unattached patients in the province is coming down, we have very little information about which patients are being added to rosters.

The priority needs to be complex patients, not young healthy ones.

That there are at least 24,000 registrants on Ontario's HealthCare Connect list who have been waiting more than six months for a referral suggests that there is some cherry-picking going on.

One can't overstate the importance of a robust primary care system, one where every single citizen has a primary care practitioner who delivers comprehensive care. A health system needs a solid foundation.

A spot on a roster is not care, it's the promise of care. There needs to be performance indicators to ensure care – quality care – is being delivered. Ontario has promised standards and measures but has not yet delivered.

The good intentions seem to be there.

But, after decades of neglect, actually delivering on primary care for all remains a Sisyphean task, and one that needs to be matched by similar efforts in other parts of the system, including hospitals, long-term care, and home care.

LIFE & ARTS

OPINION | PUZZLES | WEATHER

Canadian musicians rethink touring the U.S.

Daniel Monkman, a musician from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation who performs as Zoon, cancelled a string of U.S. shows after considering the recent behaviour of ICE officers.

DANIEL MONKMAN

Some artists are cancelling shows south of the border over surging costs or in response to ICE activity

JOSH O'KANE

From Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to Drake and Carly Rae Jepsen, the United States has had Canada to thank for decades of songs.

A powerful mix of factors, including soaring travel costs, political tensions and corporate conglomeration, however, threatens to curb Canada's outsized impact on the world's biggest music market.

The war in Iran has added surging fuel prices to the already high cost of touring, and beyond that, U.S. visa applications for musicians and their crews can now cost upward of \$10,000, whether they're for bar-bound folk singers or stadium fillers. Other musicians are avoiding the country entirely, fearful for their safety or trying to take a stand.

And while the streaming era has been heralded as a chance for musicians to build borderless fanbases, the world's network of record labels is increasingly concentrated in the U.S. Major labels are centralizing more power there, and even the less risk-averse indie-label world is beginning to consolidate. The U.S. company Create Music Group alone has hoovered up the Vancouver electronic label Monstercat and taken a stake in the revenues of the four-decade-old Nettwerk Music Group.

"People in the business are very freaked out" about U.S.-led consolidation, said Jonathan Simkin, president of Vancouver's 604 Records – which he co-founded with Nickelback's Chad Kroeger, and which has helped launch the careers of Jepsen and Marianas Trench. Simkin said 604 had also received a couple of acquisition offers from the U.S.

It's common for companies in any sector to sell to bigger players when their owners want to cash out. The concern here, Simkin said, is that there aren't many Canadian companies in the financial position to become buyers. The U.S. acquisition of Canadian labels would hand off both decision-making and profit to people in another country who may have less interest in backing Canadian talent.

"Canadian culture resides largely in the independent scene," Simkin said.

Major labels are also reducing their Canadian footprints, shifting decision-making power to American headquarters: Warner Music Canada is now run by executive Eric Wong from New York, and Billboard has reported that both that label and Universal Music Canada have laid off dozens of people between them over the past year.

While the tariff-for-tariff trade war between Canada and the U.S. has disrupted some cultural industries – particularly the visual-arts world – the effects of President Donald Trump's policies on musicians touring the world's largest music market are often less direct.

Some artists are being cautious about routing tours through the country during moments of potential, and in some cases actual, unrest. Others fear discrimination or actual harm. And after U.S. immigration officials said last year that it would only recognize a person's sex at birth, the trans Montreal musician Bells Larsen wound up cancelling American shows.

Last winter, Toronto band the Rural Alberta Advantage cancelled a show in Minneapolis as immigration crackdowns prompted a wave of protests, violence and several deaths. And two months ago, Daniel Monkman, a musician from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation who lives between Winnipeg and Toronto and performs as Zoon, said they would cancel a string of

U.S. shows after considering the recent behaviour of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Monkman said they had already been detained twice crossing back into Canada in recent years, and did not want to take further risks at the border. They'd hoped to find a U.S. label and booking agent while touring through the country to help release and promote a new record they'd made with collaborators from bands such as Sonic Youth, Broken Social Scene and Yo La Tengo.

"A lot was riding on this tour," Monkman said. They noted that they've seen primarily white bands have few issues when touring the U.S., but people of colour, including fellow Indigenous artists, are more afraid of entering the country. "It's affecting me so much mentally."

The Canadian Independent Music Association was one of the first organizations to pull back from the U.S., announcing soon after Trump's inauguration that it would cancel an official event at the massive SXSW conference in Austin, Tex. Though it has brought contingents of musicians to other U.S. events, Andrew Cash, the musician and former MP who runs the association, stands by the decision. "It was the right thing to do then and it's the right thing to still do," he said.

In general, Canadian musicians are performing in the U.S. less than before Trump's re-election. The Canadian Federation of Musicians, which helps artists process visa applications, says that between Trump's return to office, in January, 2025, and June, 2026, there's been a 26-percent decrease in applications to enter the country versus comparable periods.

Its executive director, Liana White, said it's likely that only part of this decrease is directly attributable to Trump and his policies. The ever-increasing expense and inconvenience of obtaining visas was of greater concern. Standard visa processing times can now take six months or more. So many elect to spend extra to fast-track the process, which can cost an additional \$2,695 a petition. Some Canadians in the music industry have described five-figure costs to get over the border to perform on short notice.

There's many quieter costs to touring – and while they can pop up in many countries, the sheer size and proximity of the U.S. can make them feel weightier. Promoters usually charge a withholding tax that is frustrating to recoup for foreign artists. New tariffs on “articles of apparel” might affect merch sales if they're brought over from Canada. This only adds more uncertainty, said Ryan Gullen, bassist and manager for the Sheepdogs, since “merchandise is such a big part of how you offset costs.”

And the last time the band hit the road, the price of diesel went up a dollar mid-tour, eating into the band's income even further.

For many middle-class artists, this is prompting an existential crisis. "How much more can we extract at our shows?" asks Grant Paley, president and co-founder of Midnight Agency, an independent booking agency. He's not sure musicians can extract more money from a cash-strapped public. "Are our shows essential enough to people to be okay paying this amount of money?"

André Guérette, vice-president and agent at Paquin Entertainment Group, says Canadian music fans, at least, could perhaps benefit from American uncertainty. He said he's seen artists from outside North America start adding small and medium markets to their Canadian tours as they skirt around the U.S. "It's a way to balance things out with respect to the uncertainty they might face in America, which historically was such a strong and stable market," he said. "I think there is a great opportunity for the Canadian live music industry, and Canadian promoters."

What's your 'red flag'? I found mine in a parking lot

JANE MACDOUGALL

OPINION

Writer based in Vancouver

Extra wide and right next to the theatre entrance, it was the best spot in the parking lot. Heaven sent, given that it was getting close to when the movie was to start. There was only one thing wrong: It was clearly marked for someone with a disability.

From the back seat I stated the obvious.

No problem, the husband said, as he reached over to the glove compartment and took out an accessible parking tag. As he hung it on the rear-view mirror, I spluttered an objection but his wife - my friend - had already unhitched her seat belt and was on the pavement.

Neither of them had mobility issues. My friend's father-in-law did. I don't recall what he struggled with but I know he was easily winded; parking proximity would have been important. He didn't go out often so the parking tag was kept, conveniently, in his son's car.

The only thing I remember about the rest of the evening is silently wondering whether selfishness qualifies as a handicap. Well, that and the giant red flag erected in my mind. These people, I told myself, are not to be trusted. In the fullness of time I would be proven correct.

In romance, there's something called "the ick" - a moment when attraction suddenly curdles into something repellent. All it takes is one transgression and - ick! - that's it. Taxi! What is and isn't ick is entirely subjective. It could be an overreaction to a peccadillo. Other times it's serious data worth acting on.

Humans are always looking for clues to someone's true self, that tiny shred of evidence that proves we're a "good judge of character." And once we've got our proof, the die is cast. The curious thing is how small the proof can be. You don't have to be Churchill, who, long before he became prime minister, distrusted Hitler's political ambitions. The truth can be as laid bare by the choices made in a parking lot.

If you want to get to know someone well, take them to Home Depot or Costco, load up a shopping cart and see what happens. One school of thought says the ultimate test of a person's moral character is revealed by whether they return the cart after their purchases are unloaded.

Do they run it back to the cart corral? Or does the scofflaw simply push it up onto the curb or - even worse - leave it in the adjacent parking spot? Do they do the right thing even though there's no one forcing them to do it? This is considered an apex example of character. Maybe not as cinematic as Rambo rescuing prisoners of war but a useful indicator just the same.

I wonder whether allowances are made for bad weather? Do you get extra points for gathering up another shopping cart and returning it along with the one you're supposedly responsible for? Does the complicating presence of preschoolers count as a mitigating factor?

If I see a man pushing two or three carts back can I presume that he's not an axe murderer and will make an excellent father/employee/neighbour? If a woman elects to nicely nestle her returned cart, is that a sign of trustworthiness?

Does the lesson here also apply to hotel towels and whether they're rehung or thrown on the bathroom floor? And is it a red flag if someone's towels are all emblazoned with hotel names? Red flag? Even if she claims her maiden name was Ramada Fairmont? Red flag?

■ MACDOUGALL, A15

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Why is there so much pressure in children's sports?

FIRST PERSON

Whatever happened to after-school activities with no end game? Those days are gone, Janna Harowitz writes

W

here is the beer league for the kids?

I am a geriatric parent. I had kids "late." I was 39 years old when I had my first child and 41 with my second. The doctors, seemingly fresh out of puberty, called my twilight pregnancy "high risk."

There are a few of us older moms in the school yard. We reminisce about the days when after-school activities were meant for filling our free time with no end game. We'd make up games from discarded juice boxes, toss hockey cards down the hallway and create loud sounds with our armpits. All healthy alternatives to prank calling.

There was competitive play and there were year-end dance shows when I was growing up, but no one thought we would amount to anything in our respective activity. We were there for the fun, the connection and the park nights with kids from next door. Tap dancing one month and soccer the next. Each activity – one afternoon a week. A select few danced or played “competitively” – but they were in a separate stream. There were no after-school play dates for them.

These days are over. I have found no true “recreational stream” for kids. Rec leagues exist in name only. Competitive serious tendencies have invaded what I thought was the spirit of rec leagues. The days of healthy exploration and dabbling are gone. Kids must commit and do so early. With dedication. Rec hockey? Three times a week. Missing dance? Verbal reprimand from the teacher. Soccer is tiered into divisions. League-facilitated video calls are permeated by parent hopefuls desperate for tips to secure spots in coveted tiers. Me? I asked about how I could ensure my kid entered the lowest-division one-day-a-week team. I made no friends on the call.

The issue came to a head in our house in spring 2025. My then-eight-year-old's little league baseball practice (three hours!) conflicted with his hip-hop class. It was a "crisis." I had been confident that this would not be a problem. We'll just switch teams. Nope. I pleaded my case to the league. Surely, in the days of celebrating diversity, we would accommodate a boy who wants to go to dance class? Again, no. My boy is sweet, curious and hilarious. Top athlete? No. He prefers the locker-room banter to the field.

In the serious iron-man-recreational-sport world we were living in, I was told that moving him would disrupt the delicate balance of the league teams. There is no way that such a move was going to disrupt anything. He's not that bad and he's definitely not that good. No amount of convincing could change the decision. This really was the Big Leagues.

The kids had been drafted by coaches based on 45-minute assessments that had occurred in the months prior to equalize the teams. Each group needed just the right amount of “apples” and “oranges” (my code names for athletic aptitude or lack thereof). Team rosters were locked in and we had to make a choice. There was no moving or trading. We said goodbye to hip hop. My son took the news well – not quite appreciating the absurdity of the situation. After all, he's grown up observing parents who think their children are being scouted on the playground.

And for what? My son, like the other oranges, was relegated to what some parents might consider inconsequential positions on the field. I get it, him playing first base all the time would not have helped the final score. Yes, we all want our kids to experience the jubilation in winning. But are we capital "W" winning if we are taking this too seriously? In a time when we see mental-health issues rising in our kids, and difficulties with retention rates in sport, isn't decreasing the intensity in favour of playing just for fun, in fact, winning?

Last spring, my son, again, went through the league's assessment. At this stage, he was now eligible for two different levels - I'll call it the "A" and "B" grade. About a month later we received an e-mail from the league. It read like a sympathy card or my doctor e-mailing to tell me I was dying. A league representative was reaching out "personally" to inform us of the terrible news - our child was a B.

We were elated. I don't criticize the representative. She was being kind and I'm sure there were other parents that were distraught when they received the death notice. Therein lies the problem. Why should it matter?

Let's reclaim the beer league spirit for our kids. No tequila shooters though, let's just let them play. And have fun. So that they keep playing. And stay happy.

Janna Harowitz lives in Vancouver.

Macdougall

FROM A14

Break a written rule and get away with it, you're a maverick. Break an unwritten rule, you're a pariah. Written rules are underpinned by authority; unwritten rules are grounded in community standards. We fear the proverbial slippery slope. In September, Finnish President Alexander Stubb quoted Mahatma Gandhi at the United Nations General Assembly: "The breach of one rule inevitably leads to the breach of other rules."

If you like reality shows, the vetting process for American Supreme Court judges is must-see TV. Unlike in Canada, where the process is non-partisan and based on merit, the American version is a showdown at the judicial O.K. Corral. The candidate is held accountable for a lifetime of transgressions, both real and manufactured.

What qualifies as a disqualifier is of perennial interest to the public. Wendy Wasserstein's 1990s play An American Daughter recently concluded another run on Broadway. In it, a female candidate for U.S. surgeon-general botches her nomination based on her admission that she ignored jury duty summons and that her mom was "the kind of ordinary Indiana housewife who took pride in her icebox cakes and cheese pimento canapés." Kaboom! Next!

The rear-view mirror of my life is a Flanders Fields of red flags - warnings that I chose to, or pretended to, ignore. Years bring wisdom. Sit in judgment, I say. Parking in a spot designated as an aid for someone like your very own dad is a huge indicator of character. A giant red flag snapping in the breeze if ever there was one.

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SOLUTIONS

EDITED BY DAVID STEINBERG

ACROSS

1 Navajo County tableland

5 Initialism meaning

"... is awesome!"

8 Monaco's Monte \_

13 Brand found in "animal-powered"

14 Fruit whose name

sounds sluggish

15 How to read to kids

16 Offend one's olfaction

17 "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad,

Mad World"

19 TV comedic staple with

a new U.K. version

20 Dominican daddy

21 Corp. shake-ups

22 "It Came From Outer Space"

25 Itsy- \_

26 Bygone Russian space station

whose name meant "peace"

27 Dude

30 Took without asking

32 Outlaw

33 Body part you can furrow

34 "It Happened One Night"

38 Complexion affliction

39 Fix, in a way

40 They ebb and flow

41 Subreddit manager, briefly

42 TV franchise featuring forensics

43 Getting older

45 "It's Complicated"

49 Invite on a date

52 Elevator company

53 Hundred Acre Wood hopper

54 "It Ends With Us"

56 Command before

"classy" or "calm"

57 Set of ships

58 Pot starter

59 Collared top

BRIDGE

BY STEVE BECKER

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2026

East dealer.

North-South vulnerable.

The bidding:

East South West North Pass 1 NT Pass 3 NT Opening Lead – four of spades.

60 Goes downhill quickly?

61 Collarless top

62 "No ifs, \_\_\_\_ or buts"

DOWN

1 Grassy wetland

2 2026 Australian Open champ Rybakina

3 Rapt

4 Approval that NASA popularized

5 Sister of 20-Down

6 Mixer for gin

7 "With this ring, I thee \_

8 Jobs of a lifetime?

9 Portion out

10 Bellow

11 Respiration organ

12 "Never tell me the \_

" (Han Solo)

14 Convinces

18 White-coated stoat

20 Rabbit of kiddie lit

23 French city near Belgium

24 Ilhan who's the first Somali American in Congress

27 Shondaland alternative history set in England

28 Traveled by Onewheel

29 Has to pay

30 Canned meat used in musubi

31 Tuesday fare, perhaps

32 Plead

33 " \_ Him Home"

("Les Miz" highlight)

35 Synonym of "phony"

that ended my daughter's spelling bee dreams

36 X minus two

37 Starts to wake

42 Oil and vinegar holders

43 Savvy

NORTH

♠ 10 7

♥ K 7 2

♦ Q 5 4 2

♣ K Q 8 4

WEST

♠ Q 8 6 4 2

♥ J 4

♦ K 8

♣ A 10 9 3

EAST

♠ J 9 5 3

♥ Q 10 9 6 3

♦ J 10 9 7

♣—

SOUTH

♠ A K

♥ A 8 5

♦ A 6 3

♣ J 7 6 5 2

44 Semblance

45 Portended

46 Zero people

47 Dahl who created Grandpa Joe

48 They come with strings attached

Establishing a long suit at either notrump or a suit contract is one of the most common procedures. Before attempting to set up a suit, declarer should consider whether one approach to the suit's establishment offers an advantage over another.

Take this deal where West led a spade against three notrump. South took East's nine with the king and, needing four club tricks to make the contract, led the deuce to dummy's queen as West followed suit with the three.

When East showed out, there was no longer a to produce four tricks from the club suit. West's

49 Shih tzu sounds

50 Unload, as stock

51 Patella's place

55 Private part?

56 Place to wear a robe

remaining holding of the A-10-9 made that task impossible. Regardless of how declarer continued, he could not score nine tricks before the opponents took five, so he finished down one.

Before attacking the clubs, South should have scrutinized the combined club holding to see whether it mattered how he initiated the suit. If the missing clubs are divided 2-2 or 3-1, it makes no difference how he begins. But if one opponent holds all the missing clubs, the contract is in danger, so he should address that possibility.

If East has four clubs, South cannot score more than three club tricks. But if West has A-10-9-3, declarer can make four tricks in the suit if he leads the jack from his hand.

Let's say West takes the jack with the ace and returns a spade. South wins and leads a club toward the K-Q-8. When West plays the nine, declarer takes the queen, returns to his hand with a heart and traps West's 10-3 of clubs by leading toward dummy's K-8. A diamond to the ace allows South to score his fifth club, and the contract is home.

©2026 King Features Syndicate Inc.

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

© News Licensing/Times Media Limited

ACROSS

1 New performer's impression, involving tuba playing (8)

5 Conserve black doorpost (4)

8 Verse originally heard about in Kyoto University (5)

9 What correspondent may be doing — a job overseas? (7)

11 Composer OK with Sky TV broadcast about tea (11)

13 Opportunity to succeed and do well at first (6)

14 More than ever conceals this hydrocarbon (6)

17 No ketchup is distributed in poor eatery? (4,7)

20 Investigate popular religious group, limiting power (7)

21 Dior's refusal to entertain latest items in completely artificial synthetic material (5)

22 Achieved nothing as popular destination (2-2)

23 Introduces our group to woman's crime (6,2)

DOWN

1 End of novel possessed rising children's author (4)

2 Composer initially ready to enter piece with half a score (7)

3 Hard luck over code on website, one difficult to deal with (5,6)

4 Cloth on table mostly helpful after pot overturned (6)

6 French friends start to swear in an inappropriate manner (5)

7 Threatening figures beg money freely (8)

10 Queen involved in attempt to reform cheat (5-6)

12 Writhing idiot finally ignored sharp pain (8)

15 Ring to cancel American (7)

16 Representative figures dismissing European position (6)

18 University favoured suppressing second disruption (5)

19 Privy to round inside pub (2,2)

© 2026 Andrews McMeel Syndication

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill in the grid so that each row of nine squares, each column of nine and each section of nine (three squares by three) contains the numbers 1 through 9 in any order. There is only one solution to each puzzle.

KENKEN

©2026 KENKEN Puzzle LLC. KENKEN is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Dist. by Andrews McMeel www.kenken.com

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1 through 6 without repeating.

2. The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners.

3. Freebies: Fill in single-box cages with the numbers in the top-left corner.

Solutions to today's Sudoku and Kenken can be found in the Life & Arts content area of the A section. Crossword solutions will be with tomorrow's puzzles.

Moscow bombs Ukraine aid centre: officials

Ukrainian servicemen open fire to shoot down a Russian drone at the site of an underground shelter in Komyshuvakha, Ukraine, on Monday. REUTERS

Authorities reported multiple Russian drone attacks that injured at least 17 people in other areas of the country

DEREK GATOPOULOS

SUSIE BLANN KYIV

Russia bombed an aid distribution centre and neighbouring shelter in southern Ukraine on Monday, killing 26 people, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that strikes first targeted a school building used to distribute humanitarian aid and then took aim at a nearby shelter.

"This is further proof that Russia wants no de-escalation," Mr. Zelensky said.

The attacks in the village of Komyshuvakha, in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, occurred as a limited ceasefire expired Monday in Kherson, a different region in the country's south. The limited ceasefire agreement had allowed humanitarian aid and evacuation missions into front-line areas in Russian-occupied territory.

"There was a moment when the next steps could have shown that progress toward peace was possible," Mr. Zelensky said. "With these killings, Russia is sending an entirely opposite signal: Russia is counting on more killings."

Mr. Zelensky later said in an address to the nation that Ukraine was expecting Russia to escalate its attacks at a time when the country is facing a shortage of missiles needed to defend itself.

As night fell in Komyshuvakha, emergency responders used flashlights to search through the rubble of collapsed buildings, according to photos and video posted online by local officials. About 20 people are considered missing and the death toll could rise, these officials say.

Efforts to rescue people Monday evening were hindered as Russian drones launched additional attacks in the area that had been bombed, according to Mykhailo Semikin, a military official in Zaporizhzhia.

In other areas of Ukraine, authorities reported multiple Russian drone attacks that injured at least 17 people.

Earlier, residents of Ukraine and Russia had received phony emergency alerts from government-run mobile apps that were hacked, authorities in both countries said. The phony alerts in Ukraine included a warning about an imminent nuclear threat.

It was not clear if the cyberattacks late Sunday in Ukraine and early Monday in Russia were related. Ukraine said its mobile app, which residents rely on to seek safety from Russian missile and drone strikes, was up and running again after being temporarily suspended. Russian authorities said efforts to restore its emergency alert mobile app were continuing.

A Russian Telegram channel with links to the country's security services said Monday that a hacking group, Hitcore, claimed responsibility for the breach of the Ukrainian emergency alert system. The Associated Press did not independently verify the claim, and the identities, affiliations or motivations of the purported hackers remained unclear.

The alerts received by Ukrainians – making false claims of high radiation levels, a chemical threat and public disturbances in Kyiv – were written in English, Russian and Ukrainian. The English language alerts contained spelling and grammatical errors.

One of the messages, written in Russian, said: "Hi! There will be a nuclear threat across Ukraine. Do not worry, the Oreshnik is incoming," a reference to a Russian ballistic missile.

There was little indication the fake alerts caused panic in Ukraine. Instead, there was a flood of humorous posts online, with social-media users sharing photos of their pets relaxing and apocalypse-themed images generated by artificial intelligence.

A spokesman for Ukraine's air force command, Yurii Ihnat, said in a television interview that the cyberattack had no impact on Ukraine's security and defence operations. The government urged people to monitor other emergency channels on social media while the cyberattack was being addressed.

In Russia, the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement that hackers sent a false alert through its app at approximately 2:45 a.m. Moscow time on Monday across 33 of Russia's 89 regions. It did not say who it believed carried out the attack.

The ministry sought to reassure Russians by noting that the wider public alert system was working normally through SMS messages, media broadcasts and municipal sirens and loudspeakers.

"All government bodies must take steps to improve the cybersecurity of our digital resources," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

As the ceasefire in Ukraine's Kherson region came to an end on Monday, Ukraine's general staff said that Russia's military had used the pause in fighting to bolster its drone defences and replenish ammunition supplies.

The brief pause in fighting, which began on Oct. 27, was part of a humanitarian aid and evacuation mission in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, and marked the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia's full-scale invasion began nearly five years ago.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Alberta: If adopted, the map would most dramatically change the boundaries of Lethbridge

FROM A1

Alberta's political boundaries are revised every eight to 10 years by an independent panel, a process designed to foster compromise and limit political influence. For decades, provincial legislatures have routinely adopted the recommendations without question.

Ms. Smith's decision to upend tradition, however, has fuelled accusations of gerrymandering.

After rejecting the first panel's proposed map, Ms. Smith's government formed a UCP-dominated committee that created a new independent panel charged with making a second attempt at drawing the electoral map. It was chaired by retired Alberta judge Brian O'Ferrall, selected by the UCP, and included two members tapped by the NDP and two by the UCP.

The new report shows the five-person panel was sharply divided on how to proceed with the map, mirroring tensions among the previous group tasked with the redrawing.

The proposed map was drawn by Mr. O'Ferrall and the two members selected by the UCP: Monte Solberg, a former cabinet minister under prime minister Stephen Harper, and Darwin Durnie, who previously co-authored a submission recommending map changes that would see several ridings in Calgary blend with neighbouring rural communities.

In the report, the three jointly write that the panel's “time and energy were taken up with responding to the indictments of the panel's minority who suggest that the process of the advisory panel was constitutionally reckless, an abuse of process, and that the panel's proposals infringed the Charter.”

The two remaining committee members named by the NDP - University of Alberta law professor Gerard Kennedy and former Okotoks, Alta., town councillor Brent Robinson - wrote in a separate report that some of the new recommended ridings would be "constitutionally fraught" and will likely be challenged in court.

It is unclear how long it will take for the government to pass the new map if it decides to adopt it, but it's expected to be approved before the fall session ends on Dec. 3.

If adopted, the map would most dramatically change the boundaries of Lethbridge, which is currently split into two ridings mostly contained within the city's borders. One is represented by the NDP, the other by the UCP.

The new map would split Lethbridge into four, with one urban riding encompassing a chunk of the city and three massive urban-rural hybrids surrounding it.

In the report, the three authors in the majority reason that hybrid ridings can “help cities receive the representation they need” and “help rural electoral divisions obtain the population they need to be relatively compact and manageable.”

Prof. Kennedy and Mr. Robinson, meanwhile, charged the other commissioners with packing voters into the highly condensed Lethbridge riding while diluting the city's remaining residents in rural areas that extend hundreds of kilometres beyond city limits.

"This makes it easier for the party who drew the boundaries to win additional seats," the two wrote, adding that while they accept the panelists believe they're improving effective representation, they are concerned the public won't believe them.

In Calgary, the three-person majority recommended creating new boundaries that amalgamate three urban ridings in west Calgary with neighbouring rural constituencies.

Ridings outlined in red extend beyond Calgary's city limits. Riding boundaries inside the city have also been redrawn. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: ELECTIONS ALBERTA

Lethbridge's proposed ridings

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: ELECTIONS ALBERTA; GLOBE AND MAIL ANALYSIS

Much of the UCP's political support is based in rural Alberta, while the NDP's strength lies in Calgary and Edmonton.

The panelists also disagreed on how much they should edit the proposed map recommended by the chair of the previous panel, Court of King's Bench judge Dallas K. Miller.

The majority authors wrote that Mr. Miller's recommendation "does not deserve deification," while Prof. Kennedy and Mr. Robinson argued the panel didn't have a mandate to overhaul parts of Alberta's boundaries.

The new map is expected to be the subject of debate in the Alberta Legislature on Tuesday. So far, Ms. Smith's government has rejected calls to reverse course.

On Sunday, Alberta's Justice Minister batted away Elections Alberta's request for the government to either not approve the new electoral maps or postpone next year's provincial election to give the agency sufficient time to prepare.

The government "has no intention" of shifting next year's Oct. 18 fixed election date, Justice Minister Mickey Amery wrote in

a statement.

Mr. Amery was responding to a letter from provincial chief electoral officer Gordon McClure, who on Friday circulated a letter to MLAs imploring them to reconsider implementing the new electoral boundaries.

Mr. McClure said Elections Alberta's resources are strained and that the agency would need 12 to 18 months to implement the new map with 91 ridings, up from 87.

Toronto: Police say man who was in hospital should be considered armed, dangerous

FROM A1

"From my perspective, there has been no failure," Chief Demkiw told reporters at a news conference on Monday. "There has been nothing but exceptional policework."

Police now say the man who was in hospital, identified as 23-year-old Daijohn Richards, is wanted and should be considered armed and dangerous. He has a gunshot wound to the right shoulder, police said.

Chief Demkiw said there was no information in the hours after the attack that any of the suspects had been shot.

"The home invasion happens in the middle of the night and a short time - a very short time - later an individual shows up in the hospital with a gunshot wound," the chief said.

"What's important to note is that in the home invasion investigation there is no information that suggested to investigators an assailant had been shot."

The home invasion robbery has drawn attention to an increase in such crimes in Toronto. Shootings and homicides have dramatically declined in the city in 2025 and 2026. But police say Toronto has had 119 home invasions in 2026, up 35 per cent from the same time last year.

The victims are real estate executive David Morton, 75; his wife Doriana Zohil-Morton, 64; and the couple's two adult daughters in their 20s, Cristina and Maggie.

Police were called to the hospital because that is the standard protocol when someone is treated for gunshot wounds.

In Ontario, such ground rules are spelled out in the 2005 Mandatory Gunshot Wounds Reporting Act. But one legal expert said the law only gives police notifications about hospitalized people, and no heightened ability to detain or interview anyone.

"It doesn't give police new powers - it doesn't say that if someone is reported, police can arrest them on reasonable suspicion," said Andrew Flavelle Martin, a law professor at Dalhousie University's Schulich School of Law.

Police previously said they were looking for three suspects. Investigators have said the assailants entered the house through its back entrance while the family was sleeping. The masked men attacked the family as they demanded valuables, police said.

Chief Demkiw said the investigation remains “very active” and is being handled by the force’s best investigators.

"We are following the evidence as it becomes available," he said. "Had there been evidence to allow us to do something different, that's what would have happened."

Police were called to the family's home on Hyde Park Circle shortly before 4 a.m. on Thursday.

Investigators have said they did not develop grounds for an arrest warrant until Friday evening. On Saturday morning, police publicly identified Mr. Richards as a suspect. He is now wanted for four counts of discharging a firearm with intent to wound, four counts of robbery with a firearm and three counts of aggravated assault.

Menopause Care in Canada

Advancing access, equity and support

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Menopause can significantly affect women's physical, emotional and mental wellbeing, yet many continue to face barriers to timely, effective, and equitable care. According to the Menopause Foundation of Canada, menopause-related symptoms cost the Canadian economy an estimated \$3.5 billion and contribute to 540,000 lost workdays each year.

As women aged 40 and older now represent one-quarter of Canada's population and workforce, addressing these challenges has become an economic, healthcare, and workplace imperative. Join The Globe and Mail for a half-day event for policymakers, employers and healthcare leaders to explore policies, workplace strategies and partnerships for better menopause care in Canada.

SPEAKER

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and Information Services,

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SPEAKER

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Daniel

Founder and Executive

Director,

The Black Women's

Institute for Health

SPEAKER

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Debow

Founder,

Menovate

SPEAKER

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Gundu

Head, Canadian Benefits & Enterprise Recognition,

BMO

SPEAKER

The Honourable

Danièle Henkel

Senator

SPEAKER

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Ko

President and Co-Founder,

Menopause Foundation

of Canada

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Nathan

Member of Parliament,

Pickering—Brooklin

SPEAKER

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Government of Nova Scotia

SPEAKER

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Best-Selling Author,

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Leader, Speaker,

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SPEAKER

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Co-Lead Mature Women's Health Education, Department of Family and Community Medicine University of Toronto, Family Physician, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto

SPEAKER

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Wolfman

Director, Weston and O'Born

Centre for Mature Women's Health;

Carol Mitchell Chair in Menopause,

Sinai Health

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Health Editor,

The Globe and Mail

MODERATOR

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Kirkup

Health Reporter, Ottawa,

The Globe and Mail

In Person Ticket:

\$129+HST & fees

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REGISTER TODAY AT TGAM.CA/MENOPAUSECARE OR SCAN HERE

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Menopause Care in Canada

Advancing access, equity and support

PRESENTING SPONSORS

Menopause Foundation of Canada

Sun Life

IN PERSON AND VIRTUAL EVENT: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2026

ATTEND IN PERSON: 12:00 P.M. – 5:00 P.M. ET

IN-PERSON NETWORKING: 12:00 P.M. – 1:00 P.M ET AND 4:00 P.M. – 5:00 P.M. ET

THE GLOBE AND MAIL CENTRE, 351 KING STREET EAST, 17TH FLOOR, TORONTO

ATTEND VIRTUALLY: 1:00 P.M. – 4:00 P.M. ET

Menopause can significantly affect women's physical, emotional and mental wellbeing, yet many continue to face barriers to timely, effective, and equitable care. According to the Menopause Foundation of Canada, menopause-related symptoms cost the Canadian economy an estimated \$3.5 billion and contribute to 540,000 lost workdays each year.

As women aged 40 and older now represent one-quarter of Canada's population and workforce, addressing these challenges has become an economic, healthcare, and workplace imperative. Join The Globe and Mail for a half-day event for policymakers, employers and healthcare leaders to explore policies, workplace strategies and partnerships for better menopause care in Canada.

SPEAKER

Sarah Armstrong

Executive Vice President,

Procurement, Insurance

and Information Services,

Metrolinx

SPEAKER

Kearie

Daniel

Founder and Executive

Director,

The Black Women's

Institute for Health

SPEAKER

Aimee

Debow

Founder,

Menovate

SPEAKER

Sarika

Gundu

Head, Canadian Benefits & Enterprise Recognition,

BMO

SPEAKER

The Honourable

Danièle Henkel

Senator

SPEAKER

Janet

Ko

President and Co-Founder,

Menopause Foundation

of Canada

SPEAKER

Juanita

Nathan

Member of Parliament,

Pickering—Brooklin

SPEAKER

Sophie Ouellet

Vice-President,

Business Development,

Group Benefits,

Sun Life

SPEAKER

Joy

SpearChief-Morris

CJF Business Fellow,

The Globe and Mail

SPEAKER

The Honourable

Michelle Thompson

Minister of Health and Wellness,

Nova Scotia House of Assembly,

Government of Nova Scotia

SPEAKER

Sophie Grégoire

Trudeau

Best-Selling Author,

Mental Health Thought

Leader, Speaker,

Yoga Teacher

SPEAKER

Dr. Sheila

Wijayasinghe

Co-Lead Mature Women's Health Education, Department of Family and Community Medicine University of Toronto, Family Physician, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto

SPEAKER

Dr. Wendy

Wolfman

Director, Weston and O'Born

Centre for Mature Women's Health;

Carol Mitchell Chair in Menopause,

Sinai Health

MODERATOR

Caroline Alphonso

Health Editor,

The Globe and Mail

MODERATOR

Kristy

Kirkup

Health Reporter, Ottawa,

The Globe and Mail

In Person Ticket:

\$129+HST & fees

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Ottawa eyes budget measures to boost smaller businesses

Finance Minister suggests a simpler approach to taxation would benefit entrepreneurs, innovators

BILL CURRY

DEPUTY OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF

OTTAWA

Thursday's federal budget will include new measures to support small and medium-sized businesses, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told a business audience in Toronto, suggesting the budget could involve efforts to simplify some tax matters.

Canada, with its triple-A credit rating, has the fiscal room to make investments that support long-term economic growth, Mr. Champagne told the Canadian Club in a budget overview speech on Monday morning.

But when pressed for more specifics during a brief question-and-answer session, Mr. Champagne said the budget will be "going further" on the small-business front.

It's for entrepreneurs, innovators and creators, he said.

"I think you will see in this budget a journey to fixing a number of things, to make things more simple. To simplify the life of small and medium-sized businesses. And I think that on Thursday, those who represent small businesses will see themselves in that budget," he said.

The Globe and Mail reported last week that expectations were mounting that this year's budget would include new measures for small businesses.

Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association chief executive Benjamin Bergin told The Globe last week that his members are cautiously optimistic the budget will include further tax measures, including capital-gains incentives for start-ups and tax changes aimed at retaining entrepreneurs.

Bank of Nova Scotia economist Rebekah Young, a former Finance Department official, released a detailed report on Oct. 29 that said the budget could include a targeted tax review.

She said the government could announce plans to study the various breaks known as tax expenditures, which are also referred to as boutique tax cuts.

Such a review would fall short of the broad-based tax reform many business groups and economists have long called for.

BUDGET, B5

TECHNOLOGY

Freezers are emptied at ICA Kvantum in Sjobo, Sweden, on Monday after a cyberattack raised the temperature inside them. JOHAN NILSSON/TT NEWS AGENCY/VIA REUTERS

GROCERS HIT BY SECOND FREEZER HACK

Cyberattack on European supermarkets spread on Monday, forcing stores to throw away food in an incident that echoed similar strike last month ■ B2

The only thing preventing a big majority for the Democrats is ... the Democrats

TONY KELLER

OPINION

The Ham Sandwich of Truth is a test from the sport of rowing. It can be used to decide whether a member of the crew is pulling their weight, or is dead weight.

To perform the experiment, remove one athlete from the boat. On their empty seat, place two slices of bread filled with processed luncheon meat (mustard optional). Does an eight-person shell become faster with seven rowers? Then the missing body wasn't an engine powering the vessel forward – they were ballast, holding it back.

They were literally slower than a ham sandwich.

The U.S. midterms are Tuesday, and the result should be the Democratic Party taking comfortable control of both houses of Congress. Midterm elections tend to feature swings against an incumbent president, and this year Americans are particularly unhappy with the incumbent.

President Donald Trump's approval rating is far underwater. High gas and diesel prices are a particular sore point, since these are entirely a result of Mr. Trump's

SPORTS

B13-B17

decision to go to war against Iran. His trade war against Canada has been so poorly received that some GOP candidates have aired ads trying to disassociate themselves from Dear Leader's policy.

Democrats should be cruising to victory on Tuesday, but they've got problems of their own. According to poll aggregations from Real Clear Politics, the Republican Party's net favourability among voters is minus 19 per cent. Democratic Party favourability? Minus 15.6 per cent.

There are a lot of former Trump voters who regret the choice they made in 2024. To win, Democrats have to get enough of them comfortable with switching their vote.

The best election result for Canadians would be a massive Democratic victory. That would also be the best result for Americans. Mr. Trump has broken all legal and democratic norms at home, while overseas he's been trying to trigger superpower suicide. A rubber-stamp Republican Congress has enabled a corrupt, unstable and delusional man to operate without checks or balances.

The stronger the counterweight of Congress against this White House, the better for America and the world.

KELLER, B4

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

Proxy firm Glass Lewis

urges shareholders

to reject H&R REIT

takeover deal ■ B2

ECONOMY

As Canada, U.S. prepare to renew trade talks yet again, several sticking points remain ■ B3

PERSONAL FINANCE

OAS benefits represent a shrinking share of retirees' income, report says ■ B10

COMPANIES

AECON GROUP ....B11

APPLE ....B3

CANADIAN TIRE ....B11

LUMENTUM HOLDINGS ....B3

MAGNA INTERNATIONAL ....B11

PET VALU HOLDINGS ....B11

Pension plans among buyers of Mitsubishi's LNG Canada minority stake

JAMES BRADSHAW

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTING

REPORTER

Blackstone Inc. and four major Canadian pension funds are paying US\$1.6-billion to buy a minority stake in a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary that owns a share of LNG Canada's liquefaction business, and investing a further US\$1.5-billion to help fund expansion plans as part of the deal.

HOCKEY Maple Leafs say they're tuning out the noise around their goaltending situation ■ B13

TENNIS Félix Auger-Aliassime falls out of the top 10 in the ATP's latest rankings ■ B17

Mitsubishi owns a 15-per-cent stake in LNG Canada through a subsidiary and will stay the controlling partner of that entity. The investor group is acquiring a 49.9-per-cent interest in the Mitsubishi subsidiary, and committing to \$3.1-billion in total investment.

Blackstone is leading the investor group, which includes Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Investment Management Corp. of Ontario and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board.

LNG Canada operates the country's first natural-gas export terminal, an \$18-billion facility in Kitimat, B.C., that opened in June, 2025. Under the deal announced Monday, Mitsubishi will continue its agreement to offtake 2.1 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually from LNG Canada.

Earlier this year, both Mitsubishi and LNG Canada's largest shareholder, Shell PLC, considered reducing their stakes to raise funds for expansion plans.

MITSUBISHI, B5

Andrew Willis Why Canada's LNG is a good bet for global investors ■ B4

U.S. expelling South Africa, Rwanda from duty-free trade program

GEOFFREY YORK

AFRICA BUREAU CHIEF

JOHANNESBURG

The Trump administration says it will eject South Africa and Rwanda from a long-standing U.S. trade preference program, signalling that it will continue to use its trade policies as a weapon against politically recalcitrant countries.

The two African countries have annoyed President Donald Trump by defying his pressure on some of their key national policies. Rwanda has refused to withdraw thousands of its troops from lucrative mining zones in eastern Congo, while South Africa has declined to abandon its land expropriation and affirmative action programs.

The U.S. decision is expected to trigger the loss of thousands of jobs, especially in South Africa, where the agricultural and automotive sectors will be hurt.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer made the announcement Monday, saying Mr. Trump had notified Congress that the two countries will be terminated from the African Growth and Opportunity Act on Jan. 1.

The AGOA trade deal has been the central U.S. economic policy in Africa for 26 years, supporting about US\$10-billion in annual trade in thousands of products and sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs in 32 African countries. After an annual review, Mr. Trump found that the governments of Rwanda and South Africa were “engaging in practices that are inconsistent with AGOA’s eligibility criteria,” Mr. Greer said in a statement.

AFRICA, B5

Glass Lewis joins ISS in urging rejection of H&R REIT deal

H&R initially launched a strategic review in 2025 after receiving an unsolicited takeover offer from an unidentified potential buyer, but the process ended in failure later that year. FRED LUM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

GO REIT-led acquisition should be considered 'firm non-starter for unaffiliated H&R investors,' proxy adviser says

JAMESON BERKOW

CAPITAL MARKETS REPORTER

The multi-billion-dollar deal to sell one of Canada's largest property portfolios was dealt another blow on Monday as proxy adviser Glass, Lewis & Co. urged H&R Real Estate Investment Trust unitholders to oppose a planned sale.

Glass Lewis joined its chief rival, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., in recommending H&R investors vote against the \$3.4-billion acquisition led by GO Residential Real Estate Investment Trust. ISS issued its own recommendation last week. The two firms advise institutional investors on voting and hold tremendous sway over whether corporate takeovers ultimately succeed or fail.

"The GO transaction should be seen as a firm non-starter for unaffiliated H&R investors," Glass Lewis said in its report. "The overriding impression here is negative."

Glass Lewis pointedly criticized H&R's sale process for having "scuppered basic guardrails, with a largely passive board effectively permitting an interested party to govern critical procedural elements without any effort to sense check then-current interest among other credible and capable counterparties."

"Unaffiliated investors have thus been offered exceptionally limited cause to conclude the current terms clearly and convincingly approximate the greatest value and most attractive alternative available to H&R investors at this juncture," the proxy adviser said.

H&R did not respond to a request for comment on the Glass Lewis and ISS recommendations. At least two-thirds of votes cast at a special shareholder meeting scheduled for Nov. 13 must be in favour of the proposal in order for the deal to proceed.

The company had been up for sale for the better part of two years before the proposed transaction was announced in August, almost exactly three decades after Tom Hofstedter founded H&R in 1996. Reaction to the deal was immediately negative, with Bank of Nova Scotia analyst Mario Saric describing the terms as “underwhelming” and multiple institutional investors criticizing its complex structure.

H&R initially launched a strategic review in February, 2025, after receiving an unsolicited takeover offer from an unidentified potential buyer, but the process ended in failure later that year. The company instead pledged to sell \$2.6-billion worth of its assets.

REITs generally focus on owning a single type of property. H&R, however, holds assets spanning residential, industrial, of

fice and retail, making a sale of the entire portfolio to a single buyer more complicated.

GO, which mostly owns luxury residential properties in New York, has agreed to buy the largest piece of H&R's portfolio. That includes 23 properties held by Lantower Residential - H&R's Dallas-based U.S. multi-family division - as well as two premier assets in Queens, New York: the Gotham Center office building and a 50-per-cent interest in the Jackson Park high-rise apartment complex.

U.S. private equity giant Blackstone Inc., one of the world's largest real estate investors, has agreed to buy some of H&R's industrial properties. Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd. and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board will buy out H&R's 50-per-cent stake in other industrial assets as part of the deal, based on a partnership that was first struck between all three parties in 2014.

That leaves H&R's office properties, which account for roughly 11 per cent of its

At least two-thirds of

votes cast at a special shareholder meeting scheduled for Nov. 13 must be

in favour of the proposal in order for the deal to proceed.

total portfolio. The Hofstedter family will buy most of those, including Bell Canada's office in Dorval, Que., and a 50-per-cent stake in the nearly one-million-square-foot TC Energy Tower in downtown Calgary.

According to the H&R takeover circular, the Hofstedter family is acquiring assets

worth roughly \$2-billion for \$1.56-billion.

Those seemingly preferential terms have led several of H&R's institutional investors to publicly oppose the transaction. Mill Pond Capital LLC, RBC Global Asset Management, Sandpiper Group and Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd. have all said they intend to vote against the deal.

"The headline optics here are evidently poor, though they are notably worsened with further context," Glass Lewis said, adding that part of the Hofstedter family's purchase will be based on valuing their H&R units at \$12.01 each, "significantly exceeding the value H&R investors are slated to receive."

When the deal was first announced, it was also valued at roughly \$12 per H&R unit. But Glass Lewis said the roughly 24-per-cent decline in the value of GO's units between Aug. 10 and Oct. 30 have dragged the implied value down to \$10.19 per H&R unit. The offer is \$4.28 in cash and 0.5688 GO units for each H&R unit.

Manufacturing sector contracts for first time this year

FERGAL SMITH

Canada's manufacturing sector contracted in October for the first time this year as tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty weighed on activity, and after inflation pressures intensified.

The S&P Global Canada Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 49.6 last month from 51.5 in September, marking the first move below the 50 threshold since December. A reading below 50 indicates contraction in the sector.

“Having enjoyed an uninterrupted run of solid growth throughout 2026 so far, Canada's manufacturing sector ran out of steam in October,” Paul Smith, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a statement.

“Against a backdrop of tariffs and ongoing supply-side disruption, firms reported concurrent drops in both output and new orders over the month.”

A trade rift between the United States and Canada widened in August as the U.S. imposed 50-per-cent tariffs on a wide range of imports from Canada and Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs.

The output index fell to 48.4 from 50.8 in September, while the new orders measure was at 46.5, down from 49.3 and the lowest reading since September, 2025.

Average lead times for the delivery of inputs lengthened to the greatest degree since August, 2022, as tariffs and global conflicts contributed to product shortages and supply chain disruption during the month.

"To add to the broad deterioration in operating conditions, there was also an intensification of price pressures," Dr. Smith said.

Measures of input costs and output prices rose to the highest levels in more than four years, hitting 71.7 and 62.3 respectively.

Last Wednesday, the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.50 per cent and said further increases might be needed.

REUTERS

European supermarket fridges hit by second cyberattack

Employees throw away bags of spoiled refrigerated food outside an ICA supermarket in Stockholm on Monday. Freezers from Sweden to Belgium were hit by a hacking attack. FREDRIK SANDBERG/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

MARIE MANNES STOCKHOLM

HELEN REID BRUSSELS

LOUISE RASMUSSEN LONDON

A hacking attack on European supermarkets spread across the continent on Monday, hitting fridges and freezers from Sweden to Belgium and forcing stores to throw away food in an incident that echoed a similar attack in France last month.

The attack, which raised temperatures in refrigerator and freezer units at dozens of stores, hit supermarket groups Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt in Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Swedish grocers ICA and Coop. Furniture-to-meatballs retailer IKEA also saw at least one store affected.

"Everything is destroyed," Engla Ingwall, sales manager at an ICA franchise store in Stockholm, told Reuters during a visit to the store on Monday, adding the attack occurred at 2 a.m. but was only noticed hours later.

A spokesperson for privately held ICA said the company was aware that a “limited number of stores were affected by an incident overnight, which impacted their refrigeration and freezer systems.”

The latest incidents follow an attack in France last month when police said hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, causing fires and food losses. Ahold also reported a cybersecurity incident to police last month.

While no one has claimed responsibility for either attack, the incidents have heightened concerns among European authorities about hybrid threats to infrastructure amid growing security tensions since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in sabotage or hybrid warfare operations. Reuters could not establish who was behind Monday's attacks or whether they were linked to the incidents in France.

"It is not known who is behind this attack, and it may never be determined," said Katrien Eggers, spokesperson for Belgium's Centre for Cybersecurity, adding she was concerned about the growing number of incidents, in part because of AI.

"All IT systems are potentially vulnerable, and AI can now be used to successfully exploit these weaknesses - especially by sophisticated actors," she said.

From refrigerators and heating systems to security cameras and alarms, an expanding range of devices once largely mechanical can now be monitored and controlled remotely, creating new opportunities for cybercriminals.

At least some of the refrigerator units affected on Monday used temperature-control technology from Danish firm Danfoss that was also targeted in the French attack. The firm said it had been working with customers to implement fixes.

The European Commission said the latest incidents highlighted how digital threats are becoming increasingly disruptive.

"They are a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers' confidence in it - a warning that we must take seriously," said EU commissioner for agriculture Christophe Hansen. "The repeated occurrence of these cyberattacks is deeply concerning."

A spokesperson for Colruyt Group, which operates Spar stores in Belgium under a franchise system, said five shops had their fridge systems attacked.

In Ireland, wholesaler Musgrave said the incident affected systems in 13 of its SuperValu stores, forcing it to remove some chilled and frozen products from sale.

"Our monitoring systems alerted us to the issue and we took immediate action," it said in a statement. "Our investigation is ongoing."

Tom Hegel, a researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, said such attacks were typically linked to extortion, political motives or nation-state operations, with the absence of financial demands in recent cases pointing instead to sabotage.

“Retail is an easy target because retail chains run enormous estates of refrigeration controllers, building management systems, door access panels and point-of-sale gear,” he said, adding it was hard to trace hackers targeting such systems.

"An attacker who logs into an exposed control panel leaves almost nothing behind. ... A teenager and an intelligence service would look much the same from the defender's side."

Carrefour, which was badly hit in last month's French attack, said 15 of its 700 stores in Belgium were affected. IKEA said one store in Belgium had been affected and that it could not rule out disruptions at other locations.

Privately held Swedish grocery chain Coop said that seven of its 800 stores were affected by a cyberincident involving unauthorized tampering with its refrigeration systems. It said Danfoss was among its suppliers.

REUTERS

ANTHROPIC REVENUE GROWTH SLOWS, COMPUTE FINANCING RISKS MOUNT AHEAD OF IPO

Anthropic's revenue growth slowed sharply in the third quarter and the AI startup flagged new risks to the computing capacity underpinning its rapid expansion, adding to the concerns investors may need to weigh ahead of its blockbuster IPO.

The disclosure came in an amended S-1 filing on Monday that showed Anthropic's net loss narrowed as revenue surged 47 per cent from a quarter earlier to US\$16.96-billion, though the pace of growth slowed. Revenue had risen 144 per cent in the second quarter.

Anthropic had nearly US\$900-billion in computing commitments with partners including Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, underscoring how its rapid growth depends on vast amounts of future capacity, some of it reliant on financing beyond the company's control.

"Certain of our compute providers and infrastructure partners depend on third-party financing or credit support to acquire chips and develop capacity, and if such financing or support becomes unavailable or more costly, contracted capacity may be delayed, repriced, reduced, or not delivered," Anthropic said in the filing.

Wall Street has become increasingly uneasy about the debt-fuelled AI build-out, as record borrowing for data centres, chips and other infrastructure has widened technology bond spreads and forced issuers to offer higher premiums to attract investors.

Anthropic is preparing to begin formally marketing shares to prospective investors next week. Some current and prospective investors are weighing a US\$1.5-trillion valuation, down from roughly US\$2-trillion, after the startup disclosed financial details at a recent investor event, Reuters has reported.

"We will be looking at when that capacity becomes available, when payments begin and how revenue grows against those obligations," said Evan Schlossman and Willy Lee, principals at VC firm Neostellar, referring to

Anthropic's future purchase and lease commitments.

Anthropic's filing landed as an early rebound on Wall Street petered out, with renewed selling in technology stocks highlighting investor anxiety over the AI boom. Amazon shares, however, closed higher, while Alphabet ended the session flat.

Anthropic said it was considering tighter human oversight of some research and development decisions as its AI models perform an increasing share of that work. REUTERS

Apple results beat forecasts in part from iPhone sales

STEPHEN NELLIS SAN FRANCISCO

Apple Inc. on Monday reported results that beat Wall Street expectations, driven by early demand for its iPhone 18 Pro lineup and price increases that helped offset the blow of rising memory-chip costs.

Apple said fiscal fourth-quarter sales were US\$114.48-billion, above analyst estimates of US\$113.39-billion, according to LSEG data. Profit for the fourth quarter was US\$2.10 a share, above analyst estimates of US\$1.99 a share even when excluding 5 cents a share from tariff refunds. Apple shares were up 0.8 per cent in after-hours trading.

The results come as Apple experiments with a string of firsts under new CEO John Ternus, who took over in September. After nearly two decades of launching most of its new iPhones each autumn, Apple this year is spacing those out, with iPhone Pro and Duo models shipping this year and other iPhone models expected next year.

Apple also released a bevy of new non-iPhone products in the current holiday shopping quarter, including its first touchscreen laptops and its first smart-home hub. The steady drumbeat of releases, analysts said, is meant to smooth out Apple's yearly revenue cycle, which for decades showed a huge boom in holiday-quarter sales of new iPhones that petered out by late summer as consumers came to anticipate new models.

Apple in recent weeks has grappled with customer reports of cracked screens on the iPhone Duo, the company's first foldable phone, which sold out within hours online and spurred lines at Apple's stores last month.

In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Ternus said that “a very small percentage” of iPhone Duo units had been returned for display issues and that Apple is replacing them. He said the company is over all unable to meet demand for the devices, with no timeline for when Apple will catch up.

“Duo is constrained as of today,” Mr. Ternus said. “The ramp is going well, and we’re working hard to get it to as many customers as quickly as possible, but at this point, we’re not able to predict when supply and demand will be in balance.”

Apple said that fourth-quarter iPhone sales, which included iPhone 18 Pro models but not Duo sales, were US\$57.58-billion, above analyst estimates of US\$56.54-billion, according to LSEG data. The strategy change comes as Apple faces headwinds from an AI-driven memory-chip price spike that previous CEO Tim Cook likened to a 100-year flood that could dampen the margin boost that Apple derives from selling storage upgrades.

As it launched its new iPhone 18 Pro models, Apple also increased the price of iPhone 17 models by US\$100 and increased some MacBook prices, helping soften the blow of memory-chip prices that continued to rise.

Apple said that gross margins were 47.9 per cent, above analyst estimates of 47.5 per cent, according to LSEG data.

Another key question for Apple's margins is the cost of its new AI-infused Siri, which Mr. Ternus said is now fielding 2.5 billion requests per day.

Apple said that sales of its Mac computers, which have gained popularity among tech enthusiasts as a platform for hosting AI agents, were US\$10.79-billion, above estimates of US\$9.61-billion.

REUTERS

Trucks stop near the Peace Bridge U.S.-Canada border crossing in March in Buffalo. Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a social-media post on Sunday that trade talks have resumed with the United States. YUKI IWAMURA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Resumption of Canada-U.S. trade talks rewinds the clock

The trade teams appeared close to an agreement in August, until Mark Carney pulled out at the 11th hour

MARK RENDELL ECONOMICS REPORTER

Ottawa and Washington are heading back to the bargaining table for the third time in just over a year in the hope of securing an elusive deal to stabilize the economic relationship between the countries.

The U.S. and Canadian trade teams appeared close to an agreement in August, until Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled out at the 11th hour. An earlier round of negotiations last October collapsed when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew in fury over a Government of Ontario anti-tariff TV advertisement featuring Ronald Reagan.

Trade talks are now back on, Mr. Carney said in a social media post on Sunday. He said he'd spoken with Mr. Trump about "the outlines of a mutually beneficial trade deal" and that "our teams will now be working in the coming weeks to deliver that outcome."

In some ways this rewinds the clock to August, when trade negotiators spent weeks holed up in Washington trying to reach a compromise that would have lowered - but not removed - tariffs on key Canadian industries in return for a series of concessions from Ottawa.

It's unclear whether the issues that sank the deal in August have been resolved. But having ratcheted up the trade war with another round of tit-for-tat tariffs, both sides have reason to seek an off-ramp.

WHAT HAPPENED IN AUGUST?

Trade talks between Ottawa and Washington had effectively stalled heading into the summer. The two sides were meant to be discussing an overhaul of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USM-CA) but had run into a bind. Washington refused to enter into formal negotiations unless Ottawa removed some of its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, but Ottawa was unwilling to give up more leverage without getting something in return.

The Trump administration grew increasingly frustrated by the impasse, and in July it decided to increase pressure by threatening additional 50-per-cent tariffs on around \$28-billion worth of Canadian exports. The threat appeared to work, and the Canadian and U.S. negotiating teams entered into an intense round of trade talks through the first three weeks of August.

On Aug. 18, Mr. Trump announced that the two countries had reached a deal “subject to the finalization of documents.” But three days later, with less than 30 minutes to go until the tariff deadline, Mr. Carney announced he was pulling his negotiating team back from Washington and withdrawing from the talks.

WHAT DID EACH SIDE WANT?

The goal in August wasn't to settle trade issues between the two countries once and for all, but to reach some kind of interim deal that would have removed the biggest irritants on both sides and cleared a path to discussions about the future of the USMCA.

The Trump administration wanted Canada to remove various retaliatory measures it had taken in response to U.S. tariffs, including countertariffs on U.S. automobiles and metals, provincial bans on U.S. liquor and procurement restrictions that disadvantage American companies. Washington also wanted Ottawa to change how dairy quotas are allocated under the country's supply management system.

Ottawa's core goal was, and remains, relief from the sectoral tariffs – known as Section 232 tariffs – that the U.S. has applied to automobiles, steel, aluminum and wood products. Canadian officials have acknowledged that Mr. Trump is not going to remove the Section 232 tariffs entirely, but they are angling for lower tariffs that would give Canadian exporters a competitive advantage over other U.S. trading partners.

WHAT DID EACH SIDE WANT?

The goal in August wasn't to settle trade issues between the two countries once and for all, but to reach some kind of interim deal that would have removed the biggest irritants on both sides and cleared a path to discussions about the future of the USMCA.

The Trump administration wanted Canada to remove various retaliatory measures it had taken in response to U.S. tariffs, including countertariffs on U.S. automobiles and metals, provincial bans on U.S. liquor and procurement restrictions that disadvantage American companies. Washington also wanted Ottawa to change how dairy quotas are allocated under the country's supply management system.

Ottawa's core goal was, and remains, relief from the sectoral tariffs – known as Section 232 tariffs – that the U.S. has applied to automobiles, steel, aluminum and wood products. Canadian officials have acknowledged that Mr. Trump is not going to remove the Section 232 tariffs entirely, but they are angling for lower tariffs that would give Canadian exporters a competitive advantage over other U.S. trading partners.

WHAT WAS ON THE TABLE?

The text of the proposed deal has not been made public, but The Globe and Mail reported the broad strokes of the agreement in August. Under the proposal, U.S. tariffs on Canadian cars would have dropped to 15 per cent from 25 per cent, while maintaining a carve-out for U.S. parts that would have lowered the effective tariff rate on autos into the single digits. Steel and aluminum tariffs would have been reduced to 25 per cent from 50 per cent, although there would have been a four-million-tonne quota for steel, above which the tariff would have risen back to 50 per cent.

In return, Canada would have restocked U.S. alcohol, removed procurement restrictions, withdrawn retaliatory tariffs and accepted the U.S. interpretation of how dairy import licenses should be allocated.

The trade talks extended to national and economic security issues, including closer alignment between the two countries on metal tariffs to prevent Chinese steel from entering North American supply chains, as well as co-operation on Mr. Trump's Golden Dome missile defence system. The President suggested publicly that reviving the Keystone XL pipeline would be an important part of the deal.

WHY DID CANADA WALK AWAY?

At a high level, Mr. Carney said the U.S.

was asking for too much and offering too little. The day after walking away from the bargaining table, he pointed to several major sticking points.

Trucks: He said the U.S. refused to lower tariffs on medium- and heavy-duty trucks, which could call into question the viability of Ford and General Motors' plants in Ontario. He said U.S. negotiators changed their minds on the issue at the last minute, although U.S. officials claimed tariff relief for trucks was never on the table.

French content online: Mr. Carney said Washington pushed for changes to online streaming rules that require U.S. platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to promote Canadian content – including French-language content – to users in Canada.

Trade alignment: He said Washington suggested language that Ottawa believed would have restricted its ability to make trade deals with other countries. Janice Charette, Canada's chief trade negotiator, said her team never saw the actual text of a proposal, however. "The details on future free-trade agreements came up quite late in the discussions, and because we never got to a full draft on it, it was never entirely clear whether the Americans wanted consultation on future agreements, or a sign-off before we could pursue them," she said in a CBC interview in September.

The U.S. has inserted language into most of the trade deals it has signed over the past year, including with Indonesia, Malaysia and Guatemala, that requires the trade partner to mirror tariffs and export controls that Washington imposes for economic security reasons. These measures are broadly understood to be aimed at China.

Ottawa was also disappointed by U.S. intransigence on metal tariffs, particularly for “derivative products” that contain metal. In August, The Globe reported that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick played a role in derailing the talks by pushing a hard line on metal tariffs.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THEN?

After the talks collapsed, Washington's tariffs on \$28-billion worth of Canadian goods came into force. A few weeks later, Ottawa responded with its own counter-tariffs on a similar dollar value of U.S. products.

Both countries have adjusted their tariff lists several times in response to concerns from domestic industry and consumers.

Ottawa dropped its initial tariffs on U.S. seafood, while Washington removed tariffs on Canadian cement, toilet paper and a range of food packaging.

However, both countries have added new products to their tariff lists to replace the ones they removed, so the value of goods subject to levies has remained the same.

Marvell to buy Lumentum in \$115-billion deal in AI data-centre bet

ANHATA ROOPRAI

ADITYA SONI

Marvell Technology Inc. is buying optical components maker Lumentum Holdings Inc. in a US\$115-billion all-stock deal, including debt, as the custom chipmaker takes on larger rival Broadcom in a race to cash in on the AI spending boom.

The deal, announced on Mon-day, is one of the biggest in 2026 and among the boldest bets yet on the AI build-out that chip executives expect to underpin industry demand for years.

The heavy spending, however, is also facing a major reality check as investors begin to doubt its sustainability in the face of tightening margins and slowing cash flow, triggering a sell-off in chip stocks.

“AI infrastructure is undergoing a fundamental architectural shift toward optical connectivity, creating an opportunity that comes along once in a generation,” said Marvell CEO Matt Murphy, who will remain chairman and CEO of the combined company.

"We intend to help shape the next era of AI connectivity and create exceptional stockholder value."

Lumentum shares fell more than 10 per cent, while Marvell was down over 5 per cent in early trading.

Both stocks have fallen sharply since deal talks were first reported late last month owing to the AI bubble concerns.

By buying Lumentum - a company roughly half its size - Marvell is betting that Big Tech's AI spending boom is here to stay and would keep demand for optical components used to move data at high speeds outstripping supply.

Lumentum makes photonic products, including high-performance lasers and optical components used in AI, cloud computing and communications networks.

It could also give Big Tech firms building custom chips with Marvell more firepower against Nvidia, which invested US\$2-billion each in Marvell and Lumentum earlier this year.

Nvidia, one of the biggest backers of optical connectivity technologies as data centres grow bigger and more complex, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the deal.

Just three years ago, Marvell was a relatively little-known chip-maker.

But its market value has since surged to more than US\$170-billion.

REUTERS

Global investors step up for Canadian infrastructure because it's predictable

LNG Canada's new backers see facility as a reliable, cash-spinning business despite its risks

ANDREW WILLIS

OPINION

Back in June, the head of Korea Gas Corp. travelled to the port city of Incheon to make the case for a massive investment in another port: LNG Canada's planned \$33-billion terminal expansion in Kitimat, B.C.

Choi Yeon-hye, then the company's chief executive, stood in front of a tanker from Canada as it fed natural gas into the main pipelines that fuel Seoul and praised the reliability of a “strategic energy asset we can control ourselves.”

Korea Gas, a 5-per-cent stakeholder, and its partners lived through 13 years of cost overruns and delays before the \$18-billion LNG Canada facility began shipping. The experience didn't stop Ms. Choi from making an upbeat pitch for her company to invest in a build-out that will

double capacity.

Duplicating equipment and suppliers from the first phase of the project is expected to shorten the construction schedule and cut costs, said Ms. Choi, who retired in July.

Some of the largest asset managers in the world are buying into the argument that Korea Gas is making.

On Monday, New York-based Blackstone Inc. teamed up with four major Canadian pension funds to purchase a minority stake in LNG Canada from Mitsubishi Corp. for US\$3.1-billion. The investment means the asset managers are on the hook for the cost of expanding the terminal.

Mitsubishi owns a 15-per-cent stake in LNG Canada, and is selling half the holding to both raise money from a long-held project and offset part of the expansion costs.

State-controlled Korea Gas backs LNG Canada for strategic reasons. The utility wants to diversify away from Middle East producers such as Qatar, which historically supplied 15 per cent of South Korea's natural gas.

Prime Minister Mark Carney gave the Major Projects Office responsibility for speeding up the LNG Canada expansion on economic grounds. The facility is part of a strategy to realize the country's potential as an energy superpower.

Less than two months after asset managers, including Blackstone, spent a day listening to Mr. Carney pitch opportunities at the Canada Investment Summit, the deals are coming.

Patriotism and geopolitics have nothing to do with the LNG Canada investment from Blackstone and some of the largest domestic funds: the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Investment Management Corp. of Ontario and Public Sector Pension Investment Board.

The money managers are investing because they regard LNG Canada as a reliable, cash-spinning business, despite the risks that come with the facility's aggressive growth plans. The Blackstone consortium view this infrastructure asset as a substitute for bonds and other fixed-income investments in credit portfolios they run for insurers and pensioners.

LNG Canada is a source of predictable double-digit returns in a world where returns on credit and equity investments are increasingly unpredictable.

The largest shareholder in LNG Canada, Shell PLC, is also showing increased faith in the project's prospects.

Earlier this year, London-based Shell signalled that the Canadian natural gas industry is central to its future growth by dropping US\$16.4-billion to acquire Calgary-based ARC Resources Ltd.

Like Mitsubishi, Shell considered selling down its 40-per-cent stake in LNG Canada over the past year. The energy company hired an investment bank and ran an auction that lasted several months.

Shell recently shut down that process, according to sources familiar with the company's strategy. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they are not authorized to speak for the company.

The spike in oil prices in the wake of the conflict in Iran is boosting Shell's balance sheet and making it easier to pay for projects such as the Kitimat facility. Analysts estimate over the next 18 months, Shell will spend at least US\$10-billion buying back its own stock.

Less than two months after asset managers, including Blackstone, spent a day listening to Mr. Carney pitch opportunities at the Canada Investment Summit, the deals are coming.

Kitimat joins Manitoba's Port of Churchill as a target for global capital. In October, Dubai-based port operator DP World Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding with the port's owner to expand the northern shipping corridor, potentially adding container terminals to a facility that only ships commodities such as grain and potash.

The mindset around Canada as a place where things don't get done has shifted. If the likes of Korea Gas, Shell, Blackstone and domestic pension plans now view large domestic infrastructure projects as low risk, Mr. Carney is on his way to achieving what was initially seen as a stretch goal of attracting \$500-billion in new investment to Canada over the next five years.

Keller: Winning a seat in Michigan that they already own gains Democrats nothing

FROM B1

But the Democratic Party hasn't made it easy for itself, or for voters inclined to consider rejecting Mr. Trump.

Democrats have been locked in an ideological civil war for the past decade. If they underperform on Tuesday – that would mean claiming only the slimmest of majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, or even failing to take control of the latter body – the infighting and recriminations will reach new heights.

Are the party's most progressive and woke candidates the ham sandwich? They get outsized media attention, but are they a drag on the boat? Does the electoral power come from the Democratic Party's moderate, centrist wing?

Or are the Democratic Socialists of America and others on the left doing a disproportionate share of the rowing? Are centrist Democrats the ham sandwich?

Even if Democrats win big, arguments will erupt over who was responsible for victory, and who victory was secured in spite of.

The Senate race where the Democratic civil war is most visible is Michigan. It's a competitive swing state that helped put Mr. Trump in the White House in 2016 and 2024, but the last time it elected a Republican to the Senate was more than three decades ago. Given the other factors at play – the midterm tilt against incumbents, the President's unpopularity, economic frustrations – any Democrat would have been the prohibitive favourite.

If they'd nominated a bland nobody, Senator Whozdat would be heading to Washington.

Instead, the narrow winner of the Democratic primary was Abdul El-Sayed. His economic populism is largely shared by voters and the Democratic establish-

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after stepping off Air Force One at Dubuque Regional Airport in Iowa on Sunday. Even if Democrats win big, arguments will erupt over who was responsible for victory. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/ AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

ment: Most Michiganders want better health care and lower prices.

But he's also thumbed his nose at the mainstream of the party by consorting with loony-left podcasters such as Hasan Piker, and by maintaining an obsessive and at times conspiratorial focus on Israel as a source of America's problems.

On the weekend, Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost to Mr. El-Sayed in the Senate primary, announced that she would be taking the unprecedented step of voting Republican in the Senate election.

A Michigan Senate seat that has been reliably Democratic for a generation would normally not have earned so much media attention, particularly in a year where the story is that Democrats need to flip at least four Republican seats in order to take control of the Senate.

Winning a seat in Michigan that they already own gains Democrats nothing. And given the built-in Democratic advantages in Michigan, Mr. El-Sayed is almost certainly going to win.

But the attention he's received has cast shade on centrist candidates who have the far more difficult task of winning over voters in Republican-leaning states such as Texas and Iowa.

As I said, the best outcome on Tuesday night would be the biggest possible Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. The wider the majority, the better the opportunity to use the legislative process to put some brakes on Mr. Trump.

It would also ensure that, as the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party continues, the small number of far-left members are not empowered as swing votes that, to maintain a voting majority, their fellow Democrats must constantly appease.

Canada must stop dragging its feet on crypto regulation

ERIC RICHMOND

OPINION

Chief executive officer and country director of Coinbase Canada

The Stablecoin Act recently came into force, and proposed regulations were released on Oct. 23. The act provides a federal framework for government-backed stablecoins and recognizes them as payment instruments rather than securities. Until now, all cryptocurrencies have been regulated by securities watchdogs.

The law itself is a major achievement for financial innovation in this country. It is already having an effect on the rest of the market.

Six of Canada's largest banks recently announced a joint initiative to build shared infrastructure for tokenized deposits after a ruling by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions that such deposits – those issued on a blockchain – are legally equivalent to traditional deposits.

But for the most part, if you want to launch a digital assets-related business in Canada in 2026, you'll still run into friction and delays, owing to the amount of contradictory and cumbersome regulation involved.

It's now been six months since the act became law. Meanwhile, the consultations needed to bring the framework into force will take another two months. We're dragging our feet while the U.S., EU, and Britain press ahead with similar laws.

Canada has what is required to be a global leader in crypto, including world-class talent and one of the highest rates of crypto ownership anywhere. Still, the state of crypto regulation is fragmented across the country. Provinces and territories co-ordinate through the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), but ultimately set their own rules for crypto.

Canada is the only G7 country without a national securities regulator, which would provide a simpler foundation for businesses operating across the country. A national regulator would give financial institutions one rule book and processes for registration that apply across the country. But until that exists, we should at minimum establish a consistent, national framework for digital assets. The lack of standardized, national rules leaves digital-asset companies with limited pathways to get regulated digital financial products to consumers.

The Canadian Bitcoin Consortium, an advocacy group for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, said of Friday's regulations: "Most issuers and platforms will still need to navigate both regimes with the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Securities Commission. This will create a burden to manage extra compliance work to be compliant with the current framework."

An asset class held by one in four Canadians needs a standardized regulatory model. According to a recent Ontario Securities Commission survey, ownership has more than doubled since 2023. Demand for digital assets is quickly outgrowing the avenues we have to regulate them.

Today, digital-asset regulation in Canada remains a patchwork, with no standardized framework designed specifically for cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Instead, products and platforms are governed through “staff notices” from regulators, which provide guidance on how existing rules apply and grant exemptions to individual companies, mostly at the provincial level.

Crypto trading platforms have repeatedly received similar case-by-case exemptions to operate in Canada, but the terms are not applied uniformly. Even the “restricted dealer” classification that allows digital-asset platforms to operate was originally introduced to streamline investment dealer categories, not to regulate digital assets.

This inconsistency puts recruitment to the industry at risk at a time when the tech sector is already struggling to retain its top talent. A 2025 study found that only 32 per cent of high-potential startups launched by Canadian founders in 2024 were headquartered in Canada, down from more than 67 per cent in the late 2010s, and almost half set up in the U.S. instead.

Digital-asset founders face the same retention challenges, plus a regulatory process that adds time and legal costs. Efforts to keep technology innovators in Canada are mentioned regularly in federal statements and initiatives, but we still ask digital-asset innovators to take on undue risk and expense to stay here.

The one upside to these one-off rulings is that they give us a strong foundation for legislation. Our first step should be to standardize and codify these exemptions and staff notices into a single framework.

We should then create clearer pathways for licensing, registration and raising funds for new businesses, so crypto and other digital asset start-ups face fewer open-ended legal questions. Finally, we should codify digital assets based on what they do and regulate them accordingly.

Outside of Canada, regulators are moving quickly to give people clarity. In the EU, Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation is in force, Britain is consulting on its own digital assets framework, and the UAE has established comprehensive licensing systems for crypto businesses.

The U.S.'s Clarity Act, which establishes a framework for regulating digital assets, failed to advance in the Senate in September. Meanwhile, the SEC has moved ahead with its own crypto rule-making.

Canada will need to move faster to meet growing global standards.

Current ownership

Africa: Cancellation of AGOA benefits ‘may not mean a catastrophe,’ economist says

FROM B1

A worker carries a crate of cherries through an orchard during the harvest at Ridge Cherry Farms near Rustenburg, South Africa, in October. The country was the biggest beneficiary of AGOA, exporting US\$1.7-billion in goods to the U.S. under the program last year. SIPHIWE SIBEKO/REUTERS

"In South Africa, the Trump Administration is deeply concerned by barriers to U.S. trade and investment, corruption, and threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests," he said.

Brent Bozell, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, made clear that the U.S. decision was based on grievances Mr. Trump has repeatedly voiced since last year, including the false allegation that South Africa is arbitrarily seizing the farmland of white farmers and perpetrating “genocide” against them.

The trade decision was “a predictable and preventable outcome resulting from the rejection by South Africa’s government of real concerns raised by the U.S. government,” Mr. Bozell said in a social media post.

In a late-night response to the U.S. announcement, the South African government said it had offered fresh concessions to U.S. officials during their latest trade negotiations, but the Trump administration was now raising “new issues” that were never tabled in earlier talks. It said it will take measures to support South African companies affected by the termination of AGOA benefits.

South Africa and Rwanda have both been the target of U.S. sanctions in recent weeks. Rwanda has angered Washington by deploying thousands of its troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sabotaging a peace agreement Mr. Trump had trumpeted in December as a bonanza for U.S. mining companies.

The program has been in turmoil under Mr. Trump. It was allowed to expire last year, then was retroactively reinstated in February and was extended again in September – with the eligibility question postponed until this week.

South Africa was the biggest

beneficiary of AGOA, exporting US\$1.7-billion in goods to the United States under the program last year, and will be hurt more than Rwanda by its termination. But because of other U.S. tariffs that were imposed on South Africa last year, the loss of AGOA status will add only 3.4 per cent to the cost of goods that had entered the U.S. under the trade preference deal, analysts say.

The cancellation of the AGOA benefits “may not mean a catastrophe” because it might only slightly reduce the competitiveness of South African products in the U.S. market, according to

Wandile Sihlobo, an economist and South African presidential envoy on agriculture and land.

Trade unions, however, have warned the consequences could be significant. Estimates of the expected job losses in South Africa have ranged from 3,000 to as many as 125,000.

Mitsubishi: The transaction marks the first investment by Canadian funds in LNG Canada

LNG Canada ownership deal

Under today's deal, Mitsubishi will sell 49.9% of its 15% stake – or 7.5% of the whole project – to a group led by Blackstone Inc. that also includes Canac Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), Investment Management Corp. of Ontario (IMCC and Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP)).

FROM B1

\- Shell Canada

• Petronas

• PetroChinaCo.

• MitsubishiCorp.

• Blackstone Group

• Korea Gas Corp.

Mitsubishi hired Royal Bank of Canada's capital markets arm to pursue a deal and both shareholders were reportedly fielding bids as early as this summer from U.S.-based asset managers such as Blackstone and Apollo Global Management Inc.

However, Shell is no longer pursuing a similar transaction, at least in the near term, three sources with knowledge of the process said.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they are not authorized to discuss confidential discussions.

Shell declined to comment.

The transaction marks the first investment by Canadian funds in LNG Canada. In addition to Mitsubishi's 15-per-cent interest, Shell owns a 40-per-cent stake, Malaysia's state-owned Petronas has 25 per cent, PetroChina owns 15 per cent and the Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS) holds 5 per cent.

It is also a sign of heightened interest among Canada's largest pension funds and global investors such as Blackstone to invest in Canadian infrastructure and energy projects.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has set a target to attract \$500-billion in new private-sector investment over five years, and some of the largest Canadian pension plans have made multibillion-dollar commitments to boost their domestic investments over the next few years.

"We see this as a compelling opportunity to invest at scale here in Canada," Geoff Souter, CPPIB's head of real assets credit, said in a statement.

At the Canada Investment Summit, held in Toronto in mid-September, Blackstone president and chief operating officer Jon Gray called Canada “a bit of a sleeping giant, economically.”

An expansion plan to build a second phase of the LNG Canada terminal, confirmed in late September, would double the terminal's annual output to 28 million tonnes from 14 million, making it one of the largest LNG facilities in the world.

The second phase was one of the first five projects referred to Canada's Major Projects Office as a national priority.

LNG Canada's shareholders announced a final investment decision on the expansion plan in September, reaching a key milestone that gave investors greater confidence in the project's viability. Institutional investors have shown interest in LNG Canada because it is a large asset that can ship low-cost gas to Asia, where demand is increasing, and is capable of producing stable, long-term cash flows that produce steady returns.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: BLACKSTONE

The stake in Mitsubishi's subsidiary that Blackstone and the pension funds are acquiring is valued at US\$1.6-billion. The total \$3.1-billion investment includes the new investors' proportional share of planned capital expenditures for the phase 2 expansion project.

Though the Blackstone-led group is buying an equity stake in Mitsubishi's subsidiary, the deal is being financed by the participating investors' credit divisions.

It is an example of a type of transaction that has been gaining in popularity, often called “capital solutions” or “corporate solutions.” Using a mix of equity and debt, it provides provide large corporations a way to unlock cash from assets they own, and offers investors relatively predictable returns.

Blackstone has led similarly structured investments in Canada such as a \$7-billion deal to acquire a portion of Rogers Communications Inc.'s wireless infrastructure, and a \$2.5-billion investment in the Aeroplan loyalty program.

"This announcement builds on our deep conviction in Canada, our partnership with the country's leading institutional investors and our ability to provide large corporates with flexible solutions to unlock value from their most critical assets," said Zachary Rubenstein, managing director for Blackstone Credit & Insurance, in a statement.

Under new deal

Blackstone manages US\$1.3-trillion, while CPPIB, PSP, OMERS and IMCO collectively manage a total of more than \$1.4-trillion in pension assets for Canadian workers and retirees.

Two climate-focused advocacy groups – Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, as well as Stand.Earth – released statements on Monday opposing the Canadian pension funds' decision to invest in LNG Canada with Blackstone, citing risks to the environment and to pension savings.

"We are digging ourselves deeper into an incredibly risky project," Shift Action director Adam Scott said in a statement.

LNG Canada will remain a strategic priority for Mitsubishi, which sells gas from the project into Asia, mostly in Japan, and allows it to secure a reliable supply of a key energy source. Disruptions to global energy flows from the United States war in Iran and Russia's war in Ukraine have prompted governments and companies around the world to look to diversify their access to energy.

RBC advised Mitsubishi on the transaction, while Goldman Sachs and Scotiabank advised Blackstone. Kirkland & Ellis and Stikeman Elliott served as legal counsel to Blackstone.

With a report from Andrew Willis

Budget: Private sector economists expect document to show stronger revenue growth than projected

FROM B1

During his speech, Mr. Champagne also said the budget will include new details on some of the government's major policies, including the Canada Strong Fund investment vehicle announced in April and recent plans to "modernize" the ownership structure of the country's largest airports.

"Our pension funds – and I like to say ours, as Canadians – are managing airports abroad with the best possible expertise. Why can't they do it at home?" he said.

Mr. Champagne also spoke at a similar event Monday evening near Parliament Hill hosted by the Canadian Club of Ottawa.

The minister did not provide new details about the budget, repeating his assertion that the government has the fiscal strength to deliver on its economic plans.

"We have been very disciplined in how we have managed public finances, and I think you will see that on Thursday," he said. "This is giving us the possibility to make choices that will support Canadians at a time of need."

Private sector economists have said they expect the budget will show stronger revenue growth than previously projected, thanks in large part to higher energy prices.

However, economists also expect that most, if not all, of those gains have essentially been spent in recently announced initiatives.

The budget will be the second since Mark Carney became Prime Minister last year, replacing Justin Trudeau.

Now the government is focused on ways to accelerate its commitments to grow the economy by attracting more investment and diversifying its trading relationships.

The government's first budget, tabled last November, was primarily focused on funding various programs and initiatives Mr. Carney had promised during that year's election campaign.

Now the government is focused on ways to accelerate its commitments to grow the economy by attracting more investment and diversifying its trading relationships.

ORACLE PLANS \$20-BILLION BOND AND SHARE SALE TO FINANCE AI EXPANSION

Much of the government's agenda under Mr. Carney has been driven by trade tensions with the United States, which has included higher tariffs on a range of Canadian goods. U.S. President Donald Trump's policies have been a key campaign issue south of the border in the runup to Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections.

Mr. Carney opted to pre-announce what is likely to be the biggest item in the budget: a Productivity Mega Deduction that expands the ability to immediately write off investments in eligible capital assets.

The Prime Minister announced the plan, worth \$36-billion over five years, at an international investment summit he hosted in Toronto in September. The government's plan to attract private investment to Canada's four largest airports was also announced at the event.

On Sunday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre released an open letter to Mr. Carney, outlining the Official Opposition's proposals for the budget.

He said the government should cut wasteful spending, reduce debt and deficits, and eliminate fuel taxes.

"You should reduce the deficit until the budget is balanced. But you have made that unrealistic until there is a change in government," Mr. Poilievre wrote. "So the bare minimum is that you keep your word. Reduce the debt and the deficit as a share of our economy."

Oracle Corp. plans to raise US\$20-billion through bond and share sales, regulatory filings showed on Monday, as the software giant taps investors to fund its costly AI and cloud infrastructure build-out.

Shares of the company fell 4 per cent in premarket trading, extending a roughly 33-per-cent decline this year through Fri-day.

Oracle said the proceeds would be used for general corporate purposes, including capital spending, debt repayment, acquisitions, dividends and share buybacks.

The fundraising underscores the scale of Oracle's AI investment as it seeks to more than triple revenue by fiscal 2030. The company said last week that capital spending

would peak this fiscal year and the next, while pledging to raise no more than US\$20-billion in additional financing for AI through fiscal 2030.

REUTERS

Like all Cabot's golf resorts, Cabot Wilds will have a clubhouse, restaurant, pro shop and locker rooms. The property will also feature residential real estate offerings such as cottages, river-view and course-view lots. PHOTOS COURTESY OF CABOT

Nova Scotia to get new luxury course amid golf boom

Golf brand Cabot expands further into Atlantic Canada with third course

DAVID McPHERSON

A golf resort brand is expanding its footprint in Atlantic Canada amid a countrywide golf boom.

Scheduled to open in 2028, Cabot is expanding its portfolio with a third course in Nova Scotia, Cabot Wilds, which is 2,500 acres and located on the rolling foothills of the province's Cobe-

quid Mountains.

In addition to Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs in Cape Breton, the new course comes amid increased golf tourism in Atlantic Canada, according to Sam MacPhail, chief executive at Golf PEI, a non-profit representing tourism operators and golf course owners across that province.

“Historically, Banff and Jasper were the go-tos for golf tourism in Canada,” he said. “If you had come here 10 or 15 years ago, the golf industry was in a much different place. Now, they’re trying to make the math work – whether that’s an accommodation play or whether that’s other amenities.”

GOLF'S GROWTH IN THE MARITIMES

Recent statistics released by Golf PEI show the golf industry contributes roughly \$107-million annually to the province's GDP.

“Last year, we hit half-a-million rounds of golf played in a province of 180,000 people,” said Mr. MacPhail, who is also the Atlantic Canada regional director of the National Golf Course Owners Association Canada. “That clearly indicates there’s a lot of tourists coming here to play.”

Data from Statistics Canada supports MacPhail's hypothesis: Prince Edward Island's golf industry had the fastest-growing revenue in Canada between 2019 and 2024, rising 89 per cent over the five-year period.

The growth of Atlantic Canada's golf industry is not just taking place in the country's smallest province. Across the Confederation Bridge, developers are flocking to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to build luxury golf courses.

For example, the luxury Fox Harb'r Resort on Nova Scotia's Northumberland Shore recently debuted a redesigned 18-hole course, bringing 36 holes of golf to the property in 2027 along with new luxury oceanview accommodations.

"We're seeing a lot of people doing week-long golf trips here instead of Florida, Myrtle Beach or Arizona," said Mr. MacPhail, citing the United States' current geopolitical climate as a factor driving this decision.

Despite the sport's popularity and expansion, not all Nova Scotians have welcomed the idea of new courses being built in the province. In 2025, Premier Tim Houston declined Cabot's third proposal to build its third course in Cape Breton's West Mabou Beach Provincial Park.

blueberry capital of Canada – it's just such a stunning part of the province. Cabot Wilds offers a different face of Nova Scotia."

THE STAR OF THE SHOW

Golf architect Jeff Mingay, who is designing the Cabot Wilds course, was inspired by Nova Scotia's River Philip, which will run prominently through the site adjacent to Cumberland County's highlands and valleys.

"From my first visit to the site, I told Mr. Bragg and [Mr. Cowan-Dewar] that the River Philip needed to be the star of the show," Mr. Mingay said. "On more than half the holes, you are either looking at the river, playing next to it or hitting over it."

Scheduled to fully open in 2028, Canadian billionaire John Bragg and his family are partners with Cabot to create Cabot Wilds, a new luxury course being built a stone's throw away from Nova Scotia's Collingwood Corner, a small farming community where Mr. Bragg grew up.

The architect says he wants the golf course to feel like it's been in the area for 100 years. So far, he shares that most of the course's holes have been shaped, except for numbers four through eight, which are expected to be done by early winter.

"John [Bragg] had a desire to build a golf course in the village in which his family has been for generations," said Ben Cowan-Dewar, chief executive and co-founder of Cabot. "He had the land, and he'd been a long-time partner, mentor and friend of mine, so I said I would look at the property and recommend an architect to design his planned course."

Mr. Bragg founded Oxford Frozen Foods in Oxford, N.S., in 1968 and grew the business into a world leader in harvesting, processing and marketing wild blueberries.

Like all Cabot ventures, the newest property will feature a clubhouse with a restaurant, pro shop and locker rooms. Cabot is also planning to develop a limited selection of luxury residential properties, including two-, four- and eight-bedroom cottages, along with river-view and course-view lots.

CLUSTERS

PARTNERING WITH THE BLUEBERRY BILLIONAIRE

For Mr. MacPhail, golf courses work best in “clusters,” groups of courses in an area that are located in close proximity to one another. He points to Cabot Wilds and Fox Harb'r Resort, two different luxury golf courses in Nova Scotia as examples.

"I know that they'll work together in some capacity because if you're coming to play Cabot Wilds, chances are you are going down the road to Fox Harb'r," Mr. MacPhail said.

[COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE] TO PLACE AN AD CALL: 1-866-999-9237 EMAIL: ADVERTISING@GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

LEGALS

NOTICE TO THE CREDITORS OF GREEN IMPACT PARTNERS INC., GREEN IMPACT PARTNERS HOLDING LTD., TRANSITION ENERGY INC., 2302922 ALBERTA LTD., AKIRA INFRA I LTD., GREEN IMPACT PARTNERS U.S., INC. and AKIRA INFRASTRUCTURE LLC

"A rising tide lifts all boats. If people are coming to play one course in the area, chances are they're going to get out their phone and search for what other courses are nearby – whether that's a stay in Nova Scotia, going up to Cape Breton or coming across the Confederation Bridge to PEI."

This notice is being published pursuant to an Order of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta dated October 21, 2026 (the "Claims Process Order") which approved a claims process for the determination of certain claims against the GIP Group and/or their Directors or Officers. Any capitalized terms used but not defined herein have the meanings ascribed to them in the Claims Process Order.

AI-powered transformation

From technology adoption to better patient outcomes and improved medical training

S carborough Health Network (SHN) has provided education to health-care professionals for more than 60 years. Today it is exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can support medical training and clinical practice through new learning spaces, partnerships and platforms that allow for everything from virtual patient interactions to trainer feedback.

"Our goal is not just to prepare learners but to reimagine how education is delivered in health-care settings," says Dr. Samir Grover, a gastroenterologist who is executive vice-president of academics at SHN. He's a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and founder of Grover Lab, part of the Scarborough Health Network Research Institute, where he holds the Pialis Family Chair in Education.

Dr. Grover got involved in medical-training technology while running a lab in his area of gastroenterology that used simulators to help master the basics of endoscopic procedures. He came to SHN in 2024 to structure its medical education programs and to collaborate in a major initiative with U of T and other clinical partners called the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH).

Housed in a high-tech building that opened in September on U of T's Scarborough campus, SAMIH is focused on solutions to address workforce issues in nursing, phar-

“

The future is for AI to be able to track things, determine what's important, break it down into educational competencies and deliver it.

Samir Grover

Executive Vice-President of

Academics, Scarborough Health

Network

macy and other health professions.

Dr. Grover feels that as AI evolves, it can address deficiencies in the delivery and practice of medical education. For example, it's "nearly impossible" to give feedback to trainees in a busy emergency room. Scarborough is developing a "performance assessment system" that, with patient consent, records clinic encounters and provides advice

about students' clinical skills with patients.

Medical schools currently use actors as "standardized patients" to train and assess student doctors in their interactions with patients, which is expensive, he says. His lab has developed a "virtual standardized patient," an avatar that provides learners with "a near-accurate patient-like encounter in order to practise communication, empathy and professionalism."

In gastroenterology cases, the technology has been studied for discussing consents for colonoscopies and other procedures "where you have specialized information that needs to be conveyed," Dr. Grover explains.

SHN is targeting early learners through a research and innovation program called the Summer of Vibes, where students in disciplines from business and design to mathematics and computer science use vibe coding to create software that tackles real problems in hospitals.

Where is technology and medical education headed? Dr. Grover says AI will help deal with rapid changes in medicine, allowing for "evergreen" clinical practice guidelines. "The future is for AI to be able to track things, determine what's important, break it down into educational competencies and deliver it."

The premise that as AI evolves, it can address deficiencies in the delivery and practice of medical education inspires efforts at the Scarborough Health Network under the leadership of Dr. Samir Grover (right), pictured with Dr. Raina Fujiyoshi, resident in the Division of Gastroenterology, University of Ottawa. SUPPLIED

Meanwhile the platform used to provide training and assessment will also "be revolutionized," Dr. Grover says, so it can come in a podcast, video or whatever the learner prefers. "If you have everything inside a machine-readable format, what gets created doesn't need to be the same lecture that everybody hears."

He says SHN has been "extremely helpful" in embracing technology-enhanced learning in its strategic plan. "Our mission is to be Canada's premier community teaching hospital," he says. That vision will take shape on the Centenary Hospital site, where the new Scarborough Health Centre of Excellence is planned to house advanced simulation labs, AI-enhanced medical training and innovative research spaces, supported by donors through the Love, Scarborough campaign.

The ultimate goal is to improve clinical practice and patient outcomes, Dr. Grover adds. "We want Canada to have the best health-care workers that it can possibly have."

Learn more: shn.ca

PILOTING ADVANCES IN RURAL EMERGENCY CARE

Closing the care gap by dispatching physician-led teams to a patient's side

Members of the MRBC team, from left: Dr. Michael Christian, Kenny Doleac, Dr. Alec Ritchie, Jayleen Emery. SUPPLIED

For British Columbians who live in the province's densely populated southern regions, a hospital is usually close at hand. In rural, remote and Indigenous communities, however, seriously ill and injured patients are often not only hours from specialist care but are also up to 10 times at risk of death after injury.

Upstart B.C. charity Med Response BC Society (MRBC) has made closing that care gap its mission by dispatching physician-led teams to a patient's side, regardless of their location, a shift that would represent a revolution in B.C.'s approach to prehospital and retrieval medicine.

"Where you live in B.C. should not decide whether you live," says MRBC founder Dr. Michael Christian, an intensivist who began his career as a paramedic. "For the sickest and most badly injured patients in our rural, remote and Indigenous communities, survival is too often decided in the hours before they ever reach a tertiary hospital."

The concept and potential benefits of prehospital and retrieval medicine are not new. In Wales, for example, physician-led retrieval has cut trauma deaths by more than a third and inter-hospital transfers by 41 per cent. Comparable gains have been achieved by similar organizations in Scotland, Australia, Norway and Canada's Prairie provinces.

“

Where you live in B.C. should not decide whether you live. For the sickest and most badly injured patients in our rural, remote and Indigenous communities, survival is too often decided in the hours before they ever reach a tertiary hospital.

Michael Christian

Founder, Med Response BC

Society

Since incorporating as a not-for-profit last year, MRBC has made steady progress, including work on a feasibility study that will outline a phased rollout of 24/7 physician-led retrieval designed to reach up to 1.35 million rural British Columbians and every First Nations Health Authority nursing station in its footprint.

Dr. Christian says the group is also supporting a patient-led initiative calling for an amendment to B.C.'s

Emergency Health Services Act that would enable physician-initiated transport and non-profits alongside BC Emergency Health Services.

MRBC is also providing specialized training to health-care workers in rural and remote communities. Its inaugural 2026 conference drew strong ratings, with recorded talks drawing roughly 9,000 views.

MRBC's upcoming BC Prehospital & Retrieval Medicine Conference at UBC's Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre in Vancouver, February 27 to 28, 2027, aims to build on this momentum. The program pairs keynotes – including

Erik Normann of the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation, Glasgow's Dr. Ryan McHenry, Vancouver patient advocate Claire Snyman and others – with six themed sessions.

INSIDE

The conference agenda includes an interprofessional care session that draws on MRBC's Retrieval Medicine for Rural Clinicians Course. "This course covers how team-based care improves outcomes and the provider experience, while another course presents MRBC's environmental scan of rural emergency response networks," says Dr. Christian, adding that community voices from Haida Gwaii Mayor Lisa Pineault and others will help keep a focus on lived experiences.

University of Saskatchewan: Accelerating vaccine development HCI2

"This conference brings everyone who touches rural critical care into one room: patients, clinicians, paramedics, search and rescue, communities and government," says Dr. Christian.

"The solutions have to be built together."

Accelerating vaccine development

'Interactive synergy' amplifies the University of Saskatchewan's societal impact

When Canadians get their flu shot and COVID-19 booster, their desire to protect both themselves and vulnerable community members overrides concerns about adverse psychological and physical effects of the injection they may experience.

But what about those who really don't like needles? Hope is on the horizon: one of the many areas of investigation seeking to improve health outcomes for both humans and animals by researching, developing and manufacturing vaccines and therapeutics at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) looks to make such immunizations available by mucosal delivery.

Beyond avoiding the potentially painful poke and muscle soreness, administering vaccines that target respiratory pathogens via a mucosal pathway brings additional benefits: it induces immunity at the site of infection and it enables easier distribution of these vaccines.

"Our group is focused on a category of immunizations called mucosal vaccines," says Dr. Aneesh Thakur, principal scientist at VIDO. "Most vaccines are given into muscles, such as our arms, to induce immune responses through circulation in the blood, but we're looking at delivering vaccines through mucosal routes."

Intramuscular delivery, which is the standard method for administering most injectable vaccines, is known to induce "a very good response," he says, "but since respiratory pathogens enter primarily through the respiratory tract, the nose and the lungs, our aim is to deliver these vaccines at the site of infection."

The idea is that when mucosal vaccines are delivered directly into the respiratory tract, says Dr. Thakur, this can help build immunity locally, blocking pathogen replication at the point of entry and potentially preventing transmission. "COVID-19 vaccines, for example, induce productive immunity, but we need boosters because it doesn't last for very long," he says. "The challenge is that even when we are vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, we still transmit the disease, since the immunization doesn't stop the virus from multiplying."

"We are about to open our new animal housing facility," says Dr. Gerdts. "This is a \$100-million facility built for housing all the animals that are needed for infectious disease research and the development of vaccines, therapeutics or other medical countermeasures, anything from mosquitoes and ticks to larger exotic and domestic species."

Complementing this infrastructure is "an in-house vaccine manufacturing facility," he says. "Looking back to the pandemic, we didn't have enough domestic manufacturing capacity to quickly take discoveries from the university lab into manufacturing and then into clinical testing."

Currently, the only CL4 facility in Canada is the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, a government facility. For VIDO, adding the CL4 facility – which is expected to start operation in 2027 – builds on decades of developing expertise and specialized research infrastructure and gives the organization the ability to respond to any future pathogen affecting humans or animals.

From a recognition that a more robust pipeline was needed for translating research strengths into impact, government invested in facilities that fill this critical gap, says Dr. Gerdts, who notes that in

Not all vaccines are injected into muscles; some are administered in the form of oral drops or capsules, especially for pathogens that start in the gastrointestinal tract, he adds.

For VIDO director and CEO Dr. Volker Gerdts, having infrastructure that includes access to all levels of containment will enable VIDO "to respond to any future health emergency risk, whether it's from a human pathogen or an animal pathogen."

The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon is an internationally recognized, state-of-the-art centre for human and animal infectious disease research and vaccine development. UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN

What was previously often trial and error can now be more systematic with AI, where we can identify thousands or millions of compounds and then shortlist the ones that are most relevant.

"We are mainly working with CL2 and CL3 pathogens," says Dr. Thakur, adding that the new CL4 facility at VIDO "will expand our capabilities to working with CL4 pathogens, like hantavirus and Ebola virus."

Aneesh Thakur

Principal Scientist at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization

NEW FACILITIES AND TALENT AMPLIFYING VIDO'S POTENTIAL Dr. Thakur and his team work on several projects, targeting vaccines for flu, COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and tuberculosis, with efforts that include respiratory pathogens affecting both human and animal populations.

Guidelines for safely working with pathogens, for example, for vaccine development, include precautions, practices and facilities, organized by containment levels (CL) that range from one to four, based on the risks associated with the pathogens being studied.

plans and executes a response. It then evaluates how successful the response was and, if it was successful, it remembers."

From a better understanding of "the language of the immune system, we might be able to guide the immune conversation in a different direction," for example, with vaccines and therapies, says Dr. Broderick, who hopes to create "what essentially is a digital twin of the immune system."

addition to federal funding, VIDO received support from the Province of Saskatchewan, the City of Saskatoon and "more than 100 donors who have given more than \$12-million in direct investment for VIDO's research and infrastructure.

"We have also grown our scientific staff significantly over the last few years, because infrastructure alone doesn't do the trick," he adds. "You need to have the people who can do the critical research and operate these facilities."

This requires "looking not just at cells and molecules, but at how they come together and process information, how they encode and store it – and how that happens across species," he explains. One area among others where computer and mathematical modelling can add value is by "proposing pathways and relationships between molecules that haven't been documented yet, but that could make [scientific] observations more explainable."

The role of major research facilities like VIDO is to "build domestic capacity so we're able to respond to national and global threats – and to ensure that Canada as a country is better prepared for the future," he says. "But what we have built here [at USask] is also important in a global context, so at the international level, we are part of a network of North American and European high containment facilities. We also work with CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation."

The role of major research facilities like VIDO is to build domestic capacity so we're able to respond to national and global threats – and to ensure that Canada as a country is better prepared for the future.

ACCELERATING DISCOVERY

A global network of partners is working to advance CEPI's 100 Days Mission, which aims to develop safe, effective and accessible vaccines within 100 days of identifying a new pandemic threat.

Volker Gerdts

Director and CEO, the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization

Working with GPU computing platforms enables the team to "sift through a very large haystack of possibilities, for example, when we look at selecting fragments of viral or bacterial proteins that would make good components in a vaccine," he says. "We're also exploring how quantum computing can give us an advantage."

Dr. Gordon Broderick, principal scientist at VIDO, proposes that this speed of discovery requires using "computers that can bring together vast amounts of existing knowledge.

Dr. Broderick adds that "VIDO is working in lockstep" with USask's Centre for Quantum Topology and Its Applications, led by Dr. Steven Rayan, which operates the first university owned-and-operated, vendor-supported, full-stack, open-architecture quantum computer in Canada.

These efforts rely on bringing in "some of the latest technologies in AI at a very, very large scale. The human body is big and complicated system," says Dr. Broderick, "so we are pushing the limits on our distributed computing platforms."

"It's impossible for any single human to be aware of everything that's happening in relevant fields, given a publication rate of over five million papers a year in the medical sciences," he explains. "But computers can do that quite well."

Dr. Broderick's team is using large-scale semantic text mining for insights on scientific advances reported in peer-reviewed literature – and meshing this with gold standard, manually curated databases.

Research endeavours of this scope depend on close collaboration, where "the computational team is embedded with the life sciences team, including virologists, microbiologists and animal scientists," he says. "That's where I've always wanted to be: working directly with the people who know the biology rather than sitting across the table from another group of engineers."

"This gives us a good picture of what we currently know, which we understand to be only a fraction of what needs to be known," he says. "It's the tip of the iceberg, and while we don't know what's below the water, we know how we expect it to behave. So, what we can do is to ask hypothesis-generating engines like artificial intelligence [AI]."

The plan is to use generative AI "in a very focused and premeditated way to fill in gaps in knowledge," says Dr. Broderick, who is particularly interested in the immune system, "which has been compared to the body's second brain: it perceives and assesses a threat – and then it

The result is what Dr. Broderick describes as an "interactive synergy" that is unique to VIDO: "It is one of the most transdisciplinary environments I've ever seen."

FROM INSIGHT TO IMPACT

For Dr. Thakur's group, collaboration with VIDO's computational initiative looks to identify vaccine candidates through an AI-based approach.

"If you can easily transport and store these vaccines, even animal vaccines, in a powder format, and then just rehydrate and aerosolize them, this would make a big difference in many parts of the world," says Dr. Thakur, who admits that some urgency comes from a closer source, his nine-year-old daughter who recently had her flu and COVID-19 shots.

"What was previously often trial and error can now be more systematic with AI, where we can identify thousands or millions of compounds and then shortlist the ones that are most relevant," says Dr. Thakur, whose team works with two different vaccine platforms – mRNA vaccines and subunit vaccines – to explore their adaptability for mucosal delivery.

The researchers investigate the properties of different nanoparticles, such as lipid-based nanoparticles and polymer-based nanoparticles, to find suitable candidates for delivering mRNA (for mRNA vaccines) and purified proteins together with adjuvants (for subunit vaccines) to trigger an adequate immune response.

One key advantage of vaccines for mucosal delivery, which can come in powder aerosols, "is that they are more thermostable than conventional vaccines," says Dr. Thakur. "Normally, vaccines have to be stored at 4 degrees Celsius. For mRNA vaccines, it is -20 degrees Celsius. But when we can produce them in a dry powder format that can either be inhaled as powder or added to a liquid to be rehydrated and then inhaled, we can eliminate the 'cold chain.'"

The World Health Organization estimates that maintaining a strict controlled temperature (cold) chain increases overall vaccine costs by up to 20 per cent, and in many regions, a mix of infrastructure, environmental and financial constraint makes maintaining an uninterrupted cold chain challenging.

"The focus of our group is mostly on formulations for delivering these vaccines – and we make these nanoparticles in the lab," he adds.

"She is always asking me, 'When are these vaccines coming?'"

VIDO is one of the few places globally with capabilities in research, preclinical testing, clinical trial development and full biomanufacturing. UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN

DISCOVERERS BE WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS

Canadian expertise.

Canadian infrastructure. Canadian solutions.

USask's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization is strengthening Canada's sovereignty through world-class research, vaccine development and innovation in human and animal health.

Learn more at vido.org

VIDO

UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN

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Is hype around contribution limits overblown?

Billions withdrawn from TFSAs tell a story about retirement and the cost of raising a family

ROB CARRICK

OPINION

Personal finance expert and former Globe and Mail staff columnist

An odd fall phenomenon in personal finance is the hyping of news about the contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts in the year ahead.

Not even one in 10 TFSA holders contributed the maximum \$7,000 in 2024, the most recent year for which Canada Revenue Agency has data. That ceiling is expected to rise to \$7,500 in 2027 to reflect the impact of inflation. We should get confirmation of that in a few weeks.

Meantime, let's zero in on the flip side of TFSAs - withdrawals. About \$123.5-billion went into TFSAs in 2024, and close to \$70-billion came out. Nearly 175 million contributions were made, compared with almost 32 million withdrawals.

Dig further into the withdrawal data and you see two big personal finance themes of our time – the financial struggles of young households and the value of TFSAs as a source of retirement income.

The appeal of TFSAs is that taxes are a non-factor once you add money, assuming you don't overcontribute. Your gains from investments and savings are tax-free, as are withdrawals. TFSA accounts can generally be accessed via online banking or mobile apps, which means a couple of clicks or swipes is all that's required to make a withdrawal.

This ease of withdrawing money was used by young and old in 2024, but with some generational differences. Younger account holders made more withdrawals, while older ones took out the biggest amounts.

Roughly one-third of TFSA holders aged 25 through 45 made withdrawals on average in 2024, compared with the overall average of 29 per cent. An average of roughly 7.5 withdrawals were made by TFSA holders aged 25 to 35, compared with the overall average of 5.6.

Your late 20s to early 40s are a period of heavy expenses in the form of home down payments and then mortgage costs, plus daycare and other child costs. TFSAs are clearly being tapped to help with these costs, and that's fine as long as the foundational rule of saving and investing is followed.

If you need money in five years or less, keep it safely housed in a high-interest savings account. The stock market is for money you won't need for at least five and preferably 10 years. If the stock market crashes, the stocks or equity funds you bought at the age of 30 could still be underwater in three and even five years.

The overall average TFSA withdrawal amount per individual in 2024 was \$12,292, which compares with an average contribution of \$11,251. Younger TFSA holders typically have smaller accounts, which explains why their average withdrawal amounts were well below average. TFSA holders between 65 and 75 withdrew about \$14,600 on average, while those aged 75 to 79 averaged about \$16,000 and people aged 80 and up averaged \$31,000.

These withdrawal numbers confirm the extreme value of TFSAs for retirees. One of the big complaints in retirement is paying tax on withdrawals from registered retirement savings plans and registered retirement income funds. Contributions made to RRSPs in your working years are tax-deductible, but this detail is often overlooked because it happened in the distant past.

With TFSAs, every dollar withdrawn by a retiree or anyone else is a dollar of non-taxable income. You will not find many retirees saying they regret using TFSAs, whereas anti-RRSP sentiment is a thing.

Notable in the data on withdrawals by seniors is how infrequent they are. TFSA holders aged 65 and up averaged between 2.8 and four withdrawals a year, suggesting more stability in their finances than younger generations and less need to resort to TFSAs for emergencies.

Gen Z and millennials do deserve some credit for their commitment to TFSAs. They averaged 20 or so contributions in 2024, which is excellent. It's much better to make small regular contributions than sit around waiting and hoping to add a big lump sum.

As for contributing the maximum to TFSAs, just 8.9 per cent of account holders managed this in 2024. Between 14 per cent and 15 per cent of retirees maxed out, which is far from the best showing among all age groups.

That honour goes to the almost 20 per cent of TFSA holders aged 18 to 19 who contributed the maximum to their TFSAs. Kudos to them – and any parents who helped them out.

People use an active transportation path in Ottawa in August. A new C.D. Howe Institute report proposes a significant overhaul to Canada's retirement system. DAVID KAWAI/REUTERS

OAS benefits represent a shrinking share of retirees' income, report says

MEERA RAMAN

Old Age Security benefits are slowly shrinking as a share of income for Canadians entering retirement, raising concerns about the degree to which future generations of retirees will be financially supported by the government program, according to new research.

A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute estimates that if wages were to grow one percentage point faster than inflation annually, OAS's ability to replace an individual's preretirement earnings would decline by more than 22 per cent over 20 years without government intervention.

The problem is that, while OAS payments are adjusted for cost-of-living increases, they are not linked to wages, which generally rise faster than inflation. Over time, this is gradually reducing the share of preretirement income these benefits replace for new retirees. (By contrast, payments from the Canada Pension Plan, or CPP, and Quebec Pension Plan, or QPP, are designed to reflect wage growth over workers' careers.)

Researchers Pierre-Carl Michaud and David Boisclair warn that this erosion is part of a broader challenge facing Canada's retirement income system, with retirement benefits and workplace pensions today replacing 10 percentage points less of Canadians' preretirement earnings than two decades ago.

“OAS is really the backbone of the retirement income system,” said Prof. Michaud, who teaches applied economics at HEC Montréal and is the co-author of the report. “It’s eroding in terms of income replacement.”

The shrinking role of OAS as a source of income replacement is particularly concerning for lower-income Canadians, who tend to rely more heavily on government benefits in retirement, Prof. Michaud said.

The findings come amid a continuing debate over the future of OAS, including whether benefits should be clawed back for wealthier retirees.

Although Canada's retirement system has done a good job of helping Canadians preserve their lifestyle in retirement and alleviating poverty among seniors, government benefits and pensions are replacing less and less of what retirees earned while working.

A well-known contributor to that trend is the fact that fewer and fewer working

Canadians have employer pensions, particularly in the private sector. In 2023, fewer than 25 per cent of private-sector workers were covered by a registered pension plan, compared with about 35 per cent in 1980, according to the report.

The researchers analyzed Statistics Canada tax data between 2002 and 2022, comparing Canadians' incomes at the age of 70 with what they earned in their early 50s. They found that public and private pensions replaced about 48 per cent of Canadians' preretirement income in 2022, down from 58 per cent in 2002.

Despite these trends, Canadians' overall retirement incomes have remained relatively stable compared with what they earned before retiring.

After-tax family income replacement rates averaged between 80 per cent and 90 per cent over the period studied, according to the report. As well, seniors' median net worth more than doubled since 1999, as the value of their homes and retirement savings grew.

The analysis found Canadians are making up for declining pension income in other ways, including by earning more income from work later in life. Dividends from investments and RRSP withdrawals also grew as sources of income replacement.

Prof. Michaud said some Canadians may be choosing to work longer because they want to remain employed, while others may need the income to make ends meet.

But while the report found that retirees have, on average, found ways to maintain their standards of living even while relying less on pensions and retirement benefits, those figures hide a more troubling trend for lower-middle-class Canadians. A growing share of those seniors are reaching 70 with less than 60 per cent of the income they earned before retirement.

To address the gaps in retirement income, the researchers propose a significant overhaul of Canada's retirement system.

They suggest combining OAS and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which provides additional financial support to low-income seniors, into a new benefit targeted at lower-income seniors. At the same time, they recommend expanding CPP and QPP to replace more of Canadians' employment income in retirement.

Under such a system, the new OAS benefit would focus on keeping seniors out of poverty, while CPP and QPP would take on a larger role in helping Canadians maintain their standard of living.

U.S. midterms unlikely to alter outlook for bond markets

ANDREW GALBRAITH

Ahead of the U.S. midterms on Tuesday, polls favour the Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, while the fate of the U.S. Senate remains less certain. The outlook for financial markets is cloudier still.

Analysts say investors should not expect a shift in Congress to materially affect the factors that drove U.S. 10-year Treasury yields sharply higher this fall, raising costs for Canadian borrowers as well.

Bond markets are likely to remain unsettled with the potential for government conflicts to lead to debt-ceiling brinksmanship and looser fiscal policy, amid uncertainty over the U.S. war with Iran, analysts say. For many investors, the best option may be to avoid major decisions.

"I don't think having a high level of conviction or a strong view, given the heightened level of uncertainty from a macro perspective, is the right approach right now," said Lorne Gavsie, head of macro and foreign exchange at CI Global Asset Management in Toronto.

"Anyone who has a very high degree of confidence may be humbled at some point."

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes touched a 24-year high of 5.36 per cent in early October. Canadian government bonds were also caught up in a global rout, with the 10-year yield topping 4 per cent for the first time in nearly three years.

Bond yields move inversely to prices.

The run-up in U.S. bond yields in September reflected worries over the impact of higher energy prices on inflation, as well as a flood of government and corporate bond issuance, and concerns about the unsustainability of U.S. government finances.

Since then, rising investor skepticism over the outlook for artificial intelligence and technology companies has weighed on U.S. stocks, but bonds have staged a comeback. On Monday, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield stood to around 4.9 per cent, while its Canadian equivalent yielded 3.75 per cent.

Ethan Currie, a strategist at National Bank, said a “decent amount” of the recovery in bonds reflected the safe-haven aspect of fixed income being “rekindled” on worries around AI.

"The bigger item for bond

Analysts say investors should not expect a shift in Congress to materially affect the factors that drove U.S. 10-year Treasury yields sharply higher this fall, raising costs for Canadian borrowers as well.

markets is whether or not we get risk appetite on a firmer footing, or if there's more risk-off flow," he said. "I think that has maybe a little more sway in the near term, coming out of the midterms, than the immediate fiscal impact."

But given the role fiscal concerns played in September's sell-off, a Democratic sweep could still bring them back into focus.

In a recent note to clients, Thomas Ryan, senior North America economist at Capital Economics, said Democrats trying to leverage debt ceiling negotiations to achieve policy aims raised the possibility of a debt default. Even in a less extreme case, Democratic attempts to push their priorities could lead to looser fiscal policy or the risk of an extended government shutdown, he said.

On the other hand, he noted that a Democratic-controlled Senate could bring comfort to investors by blocking President Donald Trump's future nominations to the Federal Reserve, reassuring those concerned about the Fed's independence.

Mr. Currie said he expected little to change in the event of a "blue wave" of Democratic wins in the House and Senate.

"On the legislative agenda it might be a bit of a speed bump for Trump, but I think it's also important to note that this guy has worked through executive order more than any president," he said.

With the President retaining significant control over foreign and trade policy regardless of the midterm election outcome, major changes in those areas are unlikely. This will continue to make his decisions on the U.S. war with Iran consequential for investors.

Serious de-escalation combined with a sustainable peace deal could lead to oil prices continuing to fall, Mr. Currie said. Global benchmark Brent crude dropped sharply on Monday, declining 7 per cent after Iran indicated it was open to peace talks.

But a return to escalation and a fresh rise in crude prices could bring inflation worries back to the fore and prompt a sell-off in bonds “in anticipation of higher-for-longer inflation,” he said.

Mr. Gavsie, who said he focuses on identifying market signals to drive investment decisions, said he would put the U.S. midterms "more in the noise category."

"It certainly does not, at this stage, merit considerable changes from an asset allocation standpoint."

Mullen Group's stock sees surprise spike

GORDON PAPE

OPINION

Editor and publisher of the Internet Wealth Builder and Income Investor newsletters

Income stocks are usually quite sedate, which is exactly what income-oriented investors like. People whose primary goal is cash flow don't like surprises. A steady cash flow with annual increases and a stable share price keeps them happy.

But we live in the real world and surprises do happen. Sometimes they can be gut-wrenching, like Telus Corp. slashing its dividend by more than half. Occasionally, they can be enriching. That's what we've seen this year from Mullen Group Ltd.

After bumping along at about \$15 for years, the stock has taken off. It's up more than 80 per cent year-to-date and is currently trading near its all-time high.

Mullen Group is an Alberta-based transportation and logistics company, with a market cap of \$2.78-billion. It's mainly known as a trucking company, but Mullen also provides specialized services related to the energy, mining, forestry and construction industries in Western Canada. These include water management, fluid hauling and environmental reclamation.

We recommended the stock in my Income Investor newsletter in May, 2023, at \$15.46. The major attractions were a steady share price and a monthly dividend of six cents a share (72 cents a year), which at the time generated a yield of 4.7 per cent. In August, 2024, the dividend was raised to seven cents (84 cents a year), for a yield of 2.9 per cent at the recent price of \$28.76.

The rapid rise in the share price has reduced the yield, but those who bought at the time of our original recommendation have a capital gain of 86 per cent to compensate.

So, what's behind the sudden move in Mullen's stock? Several factors. The freight industry has recovered from the long slump it experienced during the pandemic, with demands on the rise. Capacity has tightened owing to a shortage of qualified drivers and tightened regulations, which has helped support pricing. Mullen is also benefiting from its strength in the energy and mining sectors and the development of major infrastructure projects in the West, such as new pipelines.

Earlier this month, the company announced it is acquiring Willson International Ltd., a highly regarded customs brokerage business. Willson is expected to contribute approximately \$80-million in annual revenue, with operating margins generally consistent with those generated by Mullen Group's Logistics and Warehousing segment.

Mullen's third-quarter report, released on Oct. 22, showed mixed results. Revenue was up 5.6 per cent to \$561.8-million, a record. But net income fell to \$33.2-million, a loss of 13.3 per cent from \$38.3-million in the same quarter last year. The company earned 36 cents per diluted share, down from 41 cents a share last year.

Mullen said the decline in net income was mainly owing to a \$3.7-million increase in finance costs, a \$3.2-million negative variance in net foreign exchange, a \$2.8-million increase in amortization of intangible assets, a \$0.3-million increase in depreciation of right of use assets and a \$0.1-million decrease in earnings from equity investments.

Nine-month results showed the same pattern. Revenue was up to \$1.6-billion from \$1.5-billion last year. But earnings were down 18.1 per cent, to \$76.5-million (85 cents a share), from \$93.4-million (\$1.02 per diluted share).

Mullen stock pays a monthly dividend of seven cents a share (84 cents a year), to yield 5 per cent. It is also buying back stock, spending \$4.8-million to buy and cancel 352,960 common shares at an average price of \$13.74.

Despite the impressive performance this year, rising interest rates may stall further growth in the share price for now. My advice is to monitor Mullen and buy if the stock drops back below \$25.

S&P 500 dips as oil drop tempers inflation woes

The S&P 500 ended lower on Monday as oil prices tumbled on optimism about a potential U.S.-Iran peace agreement, while Apple Inc. shares dipped ahead of the iPhone maker's quarterly report and investors awaited Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections. The TSX ended higher, getting a boost from materials stocks thanks to stronger gold prices.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields moved lower and crude oil prices fell as Iran indicated it was open to peace talks after eight months of war in the Middle East that have kept energy prices elevated and stoked inflation. U.S. crude oil futures settled 7.4 per cent lower at US\$96.46 a barrel. The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note in late afternoon trading was down 3.3 basis points at 4.896 per cent, its third daily decline in a row.

Apple closed down by 1.5 per cent ahead of its quarterly report. After the closing bell, Apple posted results that beat expectations, driven by early demand for its iPhone 18 Pro lineup and price increases that helped offset rising memory-chip costs. The shares were close to flat after the report.

The Dow finished higher on Monday, and early in the session, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained on the first day of trading in November.

In October, the Nasdaq fell 5.3 per cent for the month after a sell-off on Friday related to worries that massive spending on AI infrastructure is outpacing near-term cash generation.

Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Okla., warned that investors remain concerned about the pace of AI spending. “Companies have to realize there’s a limit to how much they spend and what it means in terms of enhanced shareholder value. At some point, there is no additional value-add, just expense,” he said.

The S&P 500 declined 0.51 per cent to end the session at 7,541.40 points. The Nasdaq dropped 1.07 per cent to 25,164.32 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.41 per cent to 51,983.98 points.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended up 181.06 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 35,801.09, recouping some of Friday's steep decline.

The price of gold rebounded from a one-year low hit in the previous session, rising 1.8 per cent, as the pullback in oil prices tempered inflation worries. The TSX materials group rose 2.3 per cent after tumbling 13.1 per cent in October.

Industrials added 2.5 per cent in Toronto. Financials were up 1 per cent, while the interest-rate sensitive real estate sector ended 2.6 per cent higher.

REUTERS, GLOBE STAFF

Attractively valued metals stocks that may not be on your radar

Seeking value in stocks exposed to metals

BRIAN DONOVAN | NAME | TICKER | MARKET CAP ($ MIL) | RECENT CLOSE ($) | STOCKCALC VAL ($) | DIFF (%) | DCF VALUE ($) | PRICE COMPS ($) | ABV ($) | ANALYST TARGET ($) | 1-YEAR RETURN (%) | DIVIDEND YIELD (%) | NGEx Minerals | NGEX-T | 4392.1 | 20.26 | 22.12 | 9.2 | -2.85 | 18.16 | 6.72 | 35.33 | -8.9 | 0 | Altius Minerals | ALS-T | 2895.4 | 49.25 | 45.88 | -6.8 | 22.08 | 41.49 | 27.37 | 68.79 | 32.7 | 0.9 | McEwen Mining | MUX-T | 1162.4 | 19.4 | 21.73 | 12.0 | -4.5 | 13.75 | 15.42 | 36.03 | -27.4 | 0 | Talon Metals | TLO-T | 1204.6 | 7.36 | 6.25 | -15.1 | -0.75 | 5.25 | 0.28 | 10.93 | 93.7 | 0 | Major Drilling Group Int'l | MDI-T | 1162.3 | 14.14 | 14.72 | 4.1 | 12.86 | 9.18 | 9.07 | 16.80 | 13.8 | 0 | Lithium Americas | LAC-T | 1030.8 | 2.83 | 5.65 | 99.6 | -7.06 | 12.26 | 5.54 | 6.90 | -63.9 | 0 | Northern Dynasty Minerals | NDM-T | 629.6 | 1.12 | 1.1 | -1.8 | -0.27 | 1.24 | 1.28 | 0.80 | -60.8 | 0 | Entree Resources | ETG-T | 535.3 | 2.56 | 2.5 | -2.3 | -0.34 | 1.42 | 0 | 3.25 | 8.0 | 0 | Platinum Gr Metals | PTM-T | 185.4 | 1.45 | 1.32 | -9.0 | -0.32 | 1.24 | 1.16 | 1.88 | -54.6 | 0 | Largo Inc. | LGO-T | 55.1 | 0.48 | 1.24 | 158.3 | -3.24 | 1.03 | 3.04 | 3.12 | -70.4 | 0 | Source: Stockcalc.com

NUMBER CRUNCHER

CBV and president of StockCalc, a Canadian fintech based in Miramichi, N.B.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

In doing a search through the StockCalc database, I filtered the list of stocks that fall into the "Other" metals and minerals (including other precious metals) category, which are listed on the TSX. That query produced 61 stocks out of a list of just under 800 total. Let's have a look at some of these stocks and see what we are getting for valuations.

THE SCREEN

We used StockCalc's screener to select the Top 10 listed "other" metals and minerals stocks by market capitalization on the TSX. The "other" category focuses on companies whose primary metals exposure isn't copper, gold or silver – although they can still produce or be involved with some of those metals on a non-core basis. We then used StockCalc's valuation models to calculate fundamental (or intrinsic) valuation for each stock to see if they are undervalued or overvalued compared with current price.

Here is an overview of the techniques used:

■ Discounted cash flow (DCF value) is a valuation technique in which cash-flow projections are discounted back to the present to calculate value per share;

A price comparables (price comps) technique values the company on the basis of ratios from selected comparable companies;

An adjusted book value (ABV) is calculated by multiplying book value per share by its 10-year average price-to-book ratio; If we have analyst coverage, we may include the consensus target price in our valuation.

MORE ABOUT STOCKCALC

StockCalc is a fundamental valuation platform with tools to calculate and report on value per share for thousands of public companies listed on major North American stock exchanges. StockCalc also contains numerous tools to understand what the stocks you are investing in are worth. Globe Unlimited subscribers can subscribe to StockCalc using the promo code Globe30, which offers a 30-day free trial and special pricing for the second month.